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Serious Sellers Podcast: Learn How To Sell On Amazon
#532 - $250K On TikTok Shop in 3 Weeks?!

Serious Sellers Podcast: Learn How To Sell On Amazon

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 3, 2024 46:08


Join us in this episode as we unfold the remarkable e-commerce tale of Josh and Jenna Coleman, a powerhouse couple who turned their online sales venture into a resounding success. They take us on a journey from their beginnings in marketing and finance to dominating Amazon and TikTok Shop, sharing the strategic decisions and personal pivots that propelled them into the limelight. Their story is a masterclass in leveraging life's twists – from raising kids to career transitions – to build a thriving business that resonates with the potential of passive income. Listen in as the conversation turns to the nitty-gritty of starting with side gigs and progressing to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Josh and Jenna provide valuable insights into using platforms like Helium 10 for market research and how they used their design acumen to create products that captivate both digital and physical markets. Discover how they utilized KDP as a testing ground for market interest, leading to a booming workbook series that soared in popularity, thanks to smart social media strategies. Finally, our chat takes a deeper look at the couple's viral breakthroughs and how they utilized TikTok Shop and Shopify to amplify their business. They share the behind-the-scenes of managing a small business through the highs of viral sales spikes and the challenges of inventory and listing protection. The duo also reflects on the profound impact that Amazon and TikTok Shop have had on their lives and the lives of influencers who have joined them on this journey. Tune in for a dose of inspiration and practical advice that could set you on your own path to e-commerce success.   In episode 532 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Josh, and Jenna discuss: 00:00 - Married Couple's E-Commerce Success Story 05:05 - Transitioning to E-Commerce  09:17 - Side Jobs to KDP and Amazon FBA 08:24 - Hooking With Software and Numbers 12:48 - Comparing Opportunities in FBA and KDP 17:40 - Transitioning to Full-Time E-commerce 20:53 - Viral Success on TikTok and Amazon 27:31 - Start Small Business With TikTok 31:50 - Learning in the Space 34:39 - Promoting Business With TikTok and Shopify 37:30 - Strategies for Promoting Products on TikTok 44:21 - The Importance of Branding in Strategy 45:19 - Amazon and TikTok's Impact on Lives ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got a married couple with an incredible story. In not even their first full year on Amazon, they've grossed over half a million dollars. And in not even their first full month on TikTok Shop, they've grossed over a quarter of a million dollars. And they're going to share how it's possible to set up a TikTok Shop account in only 10 minutes. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Are you browsing a Shopify, Walmart, Esty, Alibaba or Pinterest page and maybe you see a cool product that you want to get some more data on? Well, while you're on those pages, you can actually use the Helium 10 Chrome extension Demand Analyzer to get instant data about what's happening on Amazon for those keywords on these other websites. Or maybe you want to then follow up and get an actual supplier quote from a company on Alibaba.com in order to see if you can get this product produced. You can do that also with the Helium 10 Demand Analyzer. Both of these are part of the Helium 10 Chrome extension, which you can download for free at h10.me/extension. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. It's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. We've got a husband and wife dynamic, serious seller duo here for the first time on the show the double J crew, josh and Jenna. How's it going, guys? Josh: Good. Jenna: Pretty well Thanks for having us.  Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Awesome. Now where are you guys located? Jenna: We are right outside Philly. 0:01:45 - Bradley Sutton: Okay, so you're on the East Coast, all right. So you guys were born and raised, or are you transplants from somewhere else? Jenna: So well, I'm a transplant. He is born and raised out here. I'm originally from the Midwest, the suburbs of Chicago. Bradley Sutton: In West Philadelphia born and raised. Oh sorry, probably back. Josh: Yes, yeah, oh she could sing it with you the whole thing. Jenna: Oh, yes, I could, yeah. We met in college out here and I kind of fell in love with the East Coast so we knew we wanted to raise our kids out here. So yeah, then we ended up out here. Bradley Sutton: You're supposed to say you fell in love with him and then you fell in love with the East Coast. Jenna: Right, yes. Bradley Sutton: Okay, in that order there. Exactly what college did you guys meet? Jenna: We went to Nova Villanova. Bradley Sutton: Villanova Okay, yes, I knew one of my favorite Clippers was Kerry Kittles way back in the 90s. Jenna: Yeah, 85 here they won yeah. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so the reason I know him is funny. Here's just a really crazy story. You guys may or may not know. I used to be a Zumba fitness influencer and in my channel that I created on Zumba that had 30 million views. It was called CrazySockTV and I created that. It's kind of like a branding kind of thing. I wanted to be memorable so that people in memory is my brand, and just not to be some random person dancing Zumba, which was a million people. So what I would do is I would have a crazy like one sock on one leg and then one sock on an arm, and that was what I came up with. It was always a crazy sock, but where I originally got that idea was Kerry Kittles. He would just have one sock when he played with the Clippers, which is which is my team, and I'm like that is the most weirdest thing I've ever seen. I'm going to roll with that idea. And that went to tens of millions of Zumba video views and so, yeah, that's my Villanova tie right there. Anyways, all right. So you guys, what did each of you major in there? Jenna: My bachelor's was in marketing and he was finance. Math and finance yeah, I mean he took everything for fun math, he loves math. So like that, my fine classes were like astronomy and his were, I don't know, derivatives and anything he could with math. Bradley Sutton: What did you guys do after graduation then? Did you, either of you, enter into that world that you guys were studying? Jenna: We did. We did a little bit. So I did marketing for my dad's financial planning firm and then I decided I wanted to be a teacher. I got my master's of education, went down that route and then we were actually living in Chicago for the beginning of our first quarters. And then we had our twins and moved back out to the East coast and I definitely took a good break there for like the better part of a decade and didn't really jump back into anything until like until this. I mean not really fully into anything, until this. Bradley Sutton: And then, Josh, what were you doing all this, all this time? I'm assuming you were the income, then if she was taking a break, so what were you doing? Josh: Yep. All sorts of things in finance Consulting. Jenna: Yeah, so working too many hours a week Josh: Flying a hundred thousand miles a year, like domestically only, which you. You probably fly that in four trips, but around the world domestically, that's a harder target to hit. Bradley Sutton: So, yeah, this doesn't sound like an exciting job. So what? What was the thought process on, like how you guys ended up with e-commerce? Was it just like all right, I don't want to do this always? Or were you looking for a side hustle? Or how do you go from the finance and marketing world to and the stay at home you know world, to switch to e-commerce? Jenna: So I mean that was definitely part of it. The time constraints and I think the idea that there could be some passive component to e-commerce was interesting. But I really was. I mean, josh knows I would. I was admiring e-commerce for like the better part of a decade. I was that person that everything I looked at I was like, oh, I could create this, I can make it better, even with educational stuff and tools and resources. I was making my own and kind of like just admiring it from afar and saying, you know, when it's the right time, then then I'll go into it, cause we are not like the dip your toe in type of people. We are like the 50 foot cannonball jump ball in. It's not like we're just going to try, you know, like a product and see how it goes. When we I knew when we were going to go in it was going to be all in. So I was waiting for life to slow down and it was really like actually the craziest, the easiest time of our life and I kind of just had this like epiphany that life doesn't really slow down, no matter how old your kids get. So if I don't do it now, it's probably now or never. Jenna: I can remember I think it was like a month after we got out of the hospital with my son. So our oldest son has epilepsy and he had about a year of failed anti seizure meds and treatments and it was just in and out of the hospital and they eventually came up. So they have this all over the country but it's the medical ketogenic diet for epilepsy. So they put him on that and we had to go to the hospital and we had to learn all about it and I kind of had this moment of I was like this is more intense and exhausting than twins. This has been my dream forever. I'm like if I don't jump in now, I'm never going to do it. Bradley Sutton: Well, was there something that made you that's still not a natural thing to just like jump into, like, like? Did you get hit with an ad somewhere, or where you're searching how to make money at home? Or how did you land on Ecom? Jenna: So I definitely found a couple ads there, because there were. I did take a couple courses that were teaching you how you can sell on Amazon and I had already had ideas and I kind of thought selling an Amazon? I didn't understand the process of it. So I was like, all right, so I think I can figure this out. There's courses to do it. So I took the courses, I downloaded like a ton of podcasts and he knew I kind of like dug into this whole of like just learning and education and I didn't want to bring it to him until I was like I can do great. Yeah, you're like you're doing great, you're doing your own thing. Like I said, we're not like a dip your toe in type of person. I didn't want to bring it to him until I thought this is something he would like to. So I really just kind of like dug in on the courses and I already knew the things I wanted to create, but I didn't understand like the science, the research behind it and it's funny we were talking about this. I was like, okay, so I listened to your Serious Sellers Podcast before I could understand 10% of what you said and I remember like listening to one of your podcasts and a few others like it and I was like this is amazing, this part I don't understand creating design innovation. I understand the numbers. Bradley Sutton: We're here talking, by the way, about more or less 2019, 2020, 2021. Last year, fall of  2022. Jenna: Yeah, yeah. So I listened to one of your episodes and a couple others and I was like, oh, my goodness, josh would love this. There's software, there's research, there's numbers that can go into this. So basically I hooked him by showing him that kind of stuff. I was like, look, if you can do the product research and you can tell me the numbers and you can do this, I will design and create their products. And look, they have software like Helium 10, he was like lit up. He's like this is fantastic, I can play. I mean, he was playing around in it before we even had our first product like that. Yeah, like before we even really knew if we were going to do a product yet. Josh: And now I'm like now we're here. What happened yeah? Jenna: So I hooked him with that kind of stuff. We're very different, very different in terms of like, our interest and what we like, and I think it actually helps in this industry. So yeah, that's it. I knew I wanted to for a long time. I don't think he knew we wanted to until he saw that aspect of the business that I could kind of hook him in. Bradley Sutton: So at this time you still weren't working yourself. Only Josh was. Jenna: I've done a lot of things on the side, like I would just say side jobs and stuff. Like you know, I've done network marketing and coaching and stuff like that. Josh: Coaching sports yes. Jenna: Yeah. Bradley Sutton: What sport did you coach? Jenna: I coached volleyball. I played volleyball in college, so I just here whenever. I could camps and helped at schools and stuff. Bradley Sutton: But you had, you had the kind of bandwidth, but. But, but, josh, you know, you know traveling everything. If it was up to him it probably might not have gotten done because he was pretty busy then. So that's an important thing to know. Like, hey, maybe it's the husband, maybe it's a wife, but but you know you got to have somebody who's able to dedicate some time to this, or else you might never get started. So then you guys, you know, started dipping yourselves into Two courses and now the very first product that you launched, uh, are you still selling that product now? Jenna: Yeah, but well, I mean it's of our FBA product we have, yeah, we have. We launched our first ones for KDP books and then our first product we launched last summer. Bradley Sutton: Talk about that for a second. What made you go that route? Jenna: So KDP, I mean, well, it's inexpensive. And I already was creating designs and things like that and I knew that was something that we could do while we're learning, because we wanted to. When we wanted to launch products, we knew that we wanted to launch more than one at a time and we wanted to make sure we had the research into it and we knew they were going to take a while, especially, coming up to you know, the timing of the year that we were looking at sourcing products was a little tricky. Josh: It was January, right, yeah, it was a year ago, yeah a year ago was when we launched our first KDP book in February of last year and it was Really based on. She knew the audience that she wanted to serve, but we had to test the content and we felt like KDP was a good place to test the content of like a meal planner and fitness type Trackers and budget planner, and then on the education side, cursive workbooks and you know things of that nature. Because when you look at the you know audience that she wanted to serve, my Research coming out of it was trying to find you know products that interested or that, um, that Audience wanted at the time. And so that's why we used KDP is we got to kind of test content and then we also got to test PPC, play with it and learn it and in a in a real experimental way, instead of With an FBA product that was going to require a you know a large Upfront investment and inventory and all that kind of stuff and we had started that process. But it takes a while. Bradley Sutton: So, but basically you use a lot of the similar strategies, like using Helium 10 to see demand and, and that's how you like landed on what KDP thing you were going to uh, launch and how to optimize your listing things like that. at what point then Were you like hey, not a lot, I want to do physical products. Jenna: So some of our designs that went into the KDP books are actually used in our physical products. Um, we edited them, made them a little bit better. We were able to use some reviews. So, for example, we have a meal planner, fitness tracker, or I think we call that the advanced meal planner and fitness tracker in KDP, um, and then we were able to make some improvements on that to make it into one of our vegan leather planners, um, but yeah, so, like we, those designs took me A lot of time to focus on and creating those. So we just had to make some adjustments to make those doable and we were able to get samples and stuff as we put out that KDP book. We were getting samples because we knew we wanted to eventually make it in FBA. We knew that there was more money obviously in FBA than KDP. Bradley Sutton: Were you able to do things by going, you know, directly to somebody who actually physically produced this? That was not an option with KDP, like a certain kind of Cover or something like that that you just literally could not even do KDP Uh, what are some of those things? Jenna: the KDP books. You can only do paperback or hardcover. You can have limited size Um and, as you know, with FBA you can do anything you want, really. I mean, you can create any material, cover, um things in our meal planner, fitness tracker. One of the things that I wanted was that they could tear off their grocery list and take it with them. You can't have perforated pages in a KDP book, um, and that's also, I think, where you can get seen on KDP versus you're. You're shown everywhere on amazon right and isn't KDP, I believe it's just the books that you're shown in yeah, you, you're shown in. Josh: You're shown in search To an extent, but it's an ISPN Then identified a product, not an ASIN, not a traditional like ASIN Uh product. So, yeah, you're definitely Limited as to where you show up. 0:13:50 - Bradley Sutton: Do you use it kind of like as a like an incubator almost for some of your FBA, like if it really takes off with KDP, then that's what you maybe double down on and make a physical uh copy. Josh: I will. I will say yes, and our most successful product, which we launched in December, that that most recently, um, fortunately exploded on like TikTok and such, is really a culmination of like a case study in that it's a handwriting set of handwriting workbooks that have disappearing ink and such and Most of that content you know. She built over time and we released in A variety of different like KDP workbooks while she was. You know, we kind of in always in mind had man, it would be great to do this one thing. The keyword always looked great, there were so many things about it that we felt like we could improve and we were so excited about it. But we knew it would take a lot of time and KDP's content kind of feeling and seeing how things worked was really a huge part of the design over like a nine month period before we released those in December. Jenna: And we're still using our KDP designs into new things. We have our newest product coming out, the bible verse mapping that. We're working on getting those out by spring and they were in KDP and now we're able to get those and a linen cover. A different thing for spring, for FBA products. Bradley Sutton: What's your, what's your average Retail price on the KDP side? And then, of those, how much do you take home? Josh: well, our average, every one of our products on KDP is 999, except for the homeschool planner, which is 1499, and on the, the Products that are nine, that call it ten dollars. On the products that are ten dollars, we take home about $2 and 60 cents A sale, and then on the homeschool planner, we take home about $3 and 80 cents, 90 cents give or take. Bradley Sutton: And then are you doing PBC for this at all, or it's just all organic? Josh: Yeah, we do. I think our total PBC spend on KDP is about $15 a day maybe. So it's small. Obviously it's all relative, but um, but that 1500 a month is net of you know PBC charges specifically. So it's a pretty low a cost Process. As long as you don't get sucked into chasing physical products, you stay in your lane, recognize that you're a KDP product and not try to go after FBA products not that I ever tried that then you can. You can do fine. Bradley Sutton: It's separate log on for KDP and you're a seller central, because that that's kind of like a different. It's not seller central, I know, but how different is the interface for advertising? I know Shavali you know probably knows this but I've never done Advertising for KDP Is it very similar, like you know, you can do, you know, phrase match and Sponsored and campaigns. Josh: Almost an hour, Bradley Sutton: Okay. Okay, cool. Were you selling the entirety of 2023, or did you start later, not January? Josh: KDP. Our first one was February, and then our second one was like April, and then our first FBA product was July 1. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so not a full year of KDP, not a full year, obviously, of FBA. What would you say if you were to combine the gross sales of both on Amazon, only For your planners and things? What? What would you say? It was total at the end of the end of the year in the past year, Since well we haven't been out of here, but yeah okay, yeah, so total 2023? Josh: About 400,000. Bradley Sutton: Are you still doing your day job or did you at some point last year that go all in on the Ecom? Josh: It took about like eight days to realize that there's no chance I was gonna not be able to To like go all in into this. Jenna: it was too much fun. Yeah, you and, and the hours you worked, and the time you worked, I mean, I mean not to say that you don't right now, where it has, we're starting everything up, but uh, yeah, I mean we're trying to launch a good amount of stuff. Josh: It's a lot different being on a plane a hundred thousand Miles a year than it is being, you know, up late at night talking with manufacturers or something, but still in your own house. It's a little different. Bradley Sutton: Was this your first year? In a few years that you're, you didn't make your high status on your travel? Josh: I absolutely it was a second year, but it was the first year I haven't been on an airplane in like my entire life. Jenna: Really amazing yeah, when was.  I mean I guess, so yeah, no, we've really. Josh: Because after COVID we actually started driving Everyone like if we went somewhere, love it to the kids, like it and and frankly it's fun for the two of us. Jenna: And the things we like to do. I mean we love to go to the mountains and snowboard. They're all close enough here the ocean, the beach, all that stuff is driving distance from here, which, growing up in the Midwest, that's not possible. So I love that we can just get to anything within a couple hours by the way, it was great, great story. Josh: We're in the Midwest and after school and she's like, oh, we, you can snowboard here. And I was like, awesome, where? And we she's like I'll take you this place. And we're driving and the nav you know those old Tom Tom. Things right is like this is when we live in Chicago over after we got married two miles you're at your destination and I'm like Jen, I can see about 15 miles in any direction right now there is nowhere to. Actually I don't believe. I like kind of I want to believe you. Yeah, I was like this is like a sled. Jenna: We found a hill somewhere that we turn into is yeah, so yeah, we like the mountains out here. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, well, don't got much of that here exactly in my town when I live, few miles from the beach here in California. But all right now, at what point did you guys discover TikTok shop? Josh: one of your serious seller podcasts in the. In the fall you had on a create some, a creator who did a video, a viral video that went viral for, I think, one of Lizzie's products, but I forget exactly which one it was might have been the body suit One of them, but you had someone on that was explaining, kind of somehow some of the worked and it was super intriguing. And then we went to the meeting in New York where Lizzie spoke and Jenna drove home and you set it up in New York City and I set up the. I set up our TikTok shop in the car on the hot spot. Bradley Sutton: Well, what they're talking about, guys, by the way, is we have their helium-10 elite members and we have a quarterly in-person workshop for Helium 10 members and we did one in New York and we brought somebody Elizabeth, who's been on the podcast before talking about TikTok shop, and she kind of broke down exactly what she did, and I remember you guys at that it was like light bulbs were going off in your head as you guys were watching. We're like wait, wait a minute, we've got a perfect Kind of product that would do well on TikTok shop. So then you got home or he said on the way home, not even you weren't even home yet, you're already setting it up on the way home in the car, yeah, I feel like in the car, because the kids are with my great, with their, my parents. Jenna: They're great kids for a couple days, but you draw like literally on the drive. I mean, what is it? That's less than three hours from New York, oh yeah it's a couple hours. He was done by the time we got back. He's like we're set up, let's go. I was like are you kidding me? Bradley Sutton: Now, at what point there were you like oh man, we're on to something like what was your first kind of like viral day, or? Josh: Frankly, Christmas was our first viral day. On Christmas Day, you know, I had Alerts on, like sale alerts on TikTok, because we didn't get too many before that. So we had sales, but not compared to Amazon. And so our phone. I'm like it's Christmas, leave me alone, who is bothering me? And I was like not that many family and friends are trying to say Merry Christmas. And so it was sales. And we had no idea what was going on. And it was a you know video that was about 10 seconds long, that someone had posted, that had picked up and had, you know, half a million views that day and a million by the next, and the following day, sold us out of our meal planners. I was about 500 on TikTok and about 800 on Amazon so at that point. Bradley Sutton: Sold out in like two days. Josh: Yeah, it generated more Amazon Sales than TikTok shop, even though it was from TikTok shop for that first product. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, as well as our website, so you didn't have like a link. It was just like it got sold out and then people were just trying to search for it on Amazon, you know, to try and get it, and they found your product through there. Josh: Yep and our website, yeah, and we found where they found it was be banner ads, like sponsored display ads, because they recognized the Products or if they would search for something meal planner or fitness or whatever. Our banner ads had like a you know 6% a cost. I remember we're looking at them and I was like, oh, that's what. Like they didn't necessarily know what to search because I didn't really think about it at the time. We just had the title as Grace will buy design meal planner or fitness tracker or something, whereas all the conversions, PPC were happening from there. And that's when we kind of realized you know, there's something to this, to your point about your question about when did we realize like this was a thing, when we realized how well these markets could play off each other and help each other. That was when that day, Christmas in the day after, is when I was like oh yeah, oh wow, like this is, this is a thing. Jenna: I think you were pretty excited about it pretty early though, yeah. Josh: I was excited. Jenna: I'm the pessimist, I was the one that was like I don't know. I mean, we're still. We just had our second product go viral, even more so, and I'm still like I don't know if we should we get the inventory. Is it gonna repeat? Josh: Yeah, it probably won't work. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: So now the planners on Amazon. This is not, this wasn't your KDP, this is a physical one. So what's the retail price on these? On Amazon? Josh: $19.99 Bradley Sutton: $It was 19.99, and then so what? What kind of profit margin on Amazon? Josh: Actually before PPC about 50%. So they're 240 landed plus small stand. We we made sure that packaged their point seven, four inches thick so that we can fit in Small standard. So basically about a 50% or shade above 50% margin and then with PPC, with. PPC, like if you take launch and everything in the consideration. The first, you know Three, four months which was the end of last year, where you know we 20% net margins on, including launch. Bradley Sutton: So about 20%, probably more. You know if we're not considering launch in there now. I yeah. Now if, what kind of retail price did you have it on TikTok shop? Did you still keep it at 1999 or did you take advantage of how you can just add shipping and TikTok pays for it? Or at least they were before? Josh: So we did not do that where we lower the price, because so TikTok shop for Sellers who use seller shipping which is what we were doing, because we are fulfilling some of it from our Amazon inventory, for example, all of it from our Amazon inventory that if you spent $20 as a customer, they would pay for shipping, TikTok shop meaning so the the customer would get it for free for shipping and then TikTok shop would reimburse us and Basically, the $7.99 it's like for one item Quantity of one is what they would do. So we would make the product $20 and shipping $7.99 and as long as we do that, the customer doesn't pay shipping and we get the $20 and reimbursed for shipping at $7.99. So 27. Bradley Sutton: So on Amazon, let's say that you were taking home, you know, after PPC and stuff you know like, let's say, six bucks or something like that. You know maybe five, six dollars or so, which is which is pretty decent on Amazon. Not many people can say that. But then, for that same order, on TikTok shop, how much money were you taking due to TikTok, like subsidizing your, your fees and all this other stuff?  Josh: Yep. So basically, to break it down, so we would get the $20 Minus the 20% commission that went to that creator, right, so we would get $16 for the product Plus the $7.99 for the shipping reimbursement, so $23.99 that we would receive, and TikTok pays the influencer directly. We don't have to do all that accounting, thank goodness. So 2399 that we would receive, it's 240 landed and our MCF fee to like ship and deliver an item to a customer is $8 and change but eight, call it $8. So $23.99 in and Around $11 and 50 cents out, so double plus. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, double or more the profit margin for the exact same product on TikTok shop. Now what's this, Jenna? Are you doing some kind of Like? Are you the influencer for your own product to like? Are you doing like lives or videos or some? Or am I getting you guys Confused with somebody? Jenna: I mean I do it, I do it, um, it's you know, I really More so. I mean they had different promotions that they were running that you could get ad credits for doing lives. That's why I don't think I get a lot of traffic and that's really not, in my opinion, where we get a large amount of sales, the sales I mean especially with our group books. That's well, that was all because of videos and influencers. So it gave us ad credits, which was great, um, but personally I'm not. I do it for the business, but I'm not a fan of being in front of the camera any more than I need to. But I was all for, you know, starting up a small business. When they were like I think it was like $1500 in ad credits, I was like I'll do it, let's do it, you know that's what it was. Josh: No, you're right. During December, if you went live, you know a certain amount of time and Spent 1500, they would give you 1500 an ad credit. And so we basically did that, and the day the promotion ended, they deposited 15 like they were exactly as they Said it would be, and she was tortured every minute that she was live. Jenna: So I would never classify myself as an influencer. I that's what I love about take talk shop that you can use the professionals that that do that as your influencers. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So now you guys I mean technically, if you know Christmas was, was around. You know was around where you really started taking off. You know, by the time that we're recording this podcast, you know, maybe you, like you, can talk about your first full month of TikTok shop. What were the gross sales on that platform? Josh: Since, if you include Christmas in that time, there 250,000 dollars. Bradley Sutton: In one week in one, in one month, in one month in one month in one thirty 70-72 hour period. Josh: They were 180,000 dollars. Jenna: That was that group books viral video, which was crazy yeah and it's amazing to me still, because we had a few large influencers that were, like you know, half a million followers. That I'm like I was the optimist for those. I'm like this is gonna be the one, and they did great videos and the video that took off. That's what I like 9 million views, knowing I don't know, I mean she had, I think, just under 40,000 and which is still big, but it's not like the half million or, you know, near a million followers, that we had other people. So you just don't know and I mean the video was good. Bradley Sutton: So the fact that you guys did a 250 or quarter of a million, does that mean that your influencers took home like 50 grand themselves for doing videos, so that that influencers specifically. Josh: Generated, yeah, single mom she's like the nicest person and we were so happy because she sent a message. You know that the commission was like life-changing, she was ready to get to be done with this and it was 30,000 and change in commission income that she generated based on her post and that, just like that's again when further, it has furthered this point of like you don't have to be the influencer because you know Jenna can be Jenna and Talk to the influencers, which again we try to do like on it, like we write Cards to them when they make content, like all of those types of things, and then it's so much more natural and the creators love doing posts on Jenna's products because she can relate to them and she cares, like she genuinely cares, and it was so cool to see that from a couple of the moms that I've had really successful posts on our products, that you just sit there and you're like this is a great, great business model, that even though they're increasing TikTok shop, increasing their referral fees, no problem, worth every penny. Bradley Sutton: You know you guys have some hijackers on some. You must have be out of stock or something. You guys know about that. I'm just looking at your day, your story now. Josh: Yep all right, you guys need to take care of that. Bradley Sutton: do some tests we already those guys offers that, do you mind if I show people your product page here.? Josh: Yeah, all right, let me um they're the worst because the shipping is like weeks and weeks and weeks that we ordered it right. Yeah, it's killing. Bradley Sutton: I mean the fact you know that that's when you that, by the way, that that's when it's like you know, until you get it fixed, you know where you might want to like suppress your listing, where you take out the images and then nobody can sell on it. You know, so that you know your Every day that somebody has it active. You're like losing your, your keyword ranking, your conversion rate and stuff like that. So if you don't think you're gonna fix that right away, you know, try and get your listing suppressed somehow, you know taking out the image is doing something. Josh: I said that this is where you're always learning in this space because, yeah, these are problems that you didn't know would be problems. Inventory management didn't know that was a problem till all of a sudden it was a Problem. So it's been great to have resources and help from people like you know, Helium 10 folks and other folks in the space, which is Such a help because you're going through for the first time. Bradley Sutton: So then, going back to your main product, which is in stock here, this is the main one that you sell on TikTok as well, right, and the ones that that went viral before. Josh: It was the first one that went viral. It's not the largest selling of our products anymore, but it's the second, and it was the one that was here first. This product released in August yeah, august. Bradley Sutton: Did this originally start as KDP or this was a from scratch? Josh: Oh yeah, you may yep, no, we did a version of this via KDP, which, if yeah, Jenna's author page is like amazon.com/author/jennacoleman, and that's where KDP stuff is and there's a there's a 11. It's called like the advanced meal, the advanced weekly meal planner Yep, but yeah, we reached a PSR of like two and then it all went out of stock. Bradley Sutton: All right. So then this you know, and then this is, this is what you also have on your TikTok page, and so doing some cool numbers, all right. So so you, you showed me the other day like there is a for anybody who has a, an Amazon account and a Shopify account. They can literally start TikTok shop. I Within like what? 20 minutes, would you say, or less, or? Josh: Yeah, I mean we've had some people that have taken Time to like if they have a sole prop, like where they don't have a business in some ways, like where they don't have an EIN or some things. There's been some people. That has taken some time. But TikTok's due diligence on you as a company, the Shopify system, seems to Serve as enough validation for TikTok shop that they're good to go and you get set up pretty quick with a shop and Then an ad account on the business side. Then it pulls from their Amazon inventory. Bradley Sutton: Then it pulls from their Amazon inventory. So I, you know, I, you guys, don't have a way to share your screen, but maybe you can just verbally Walk through those steps. So somebody has their Amazon account and then do they need to have the Shopify account already tied to their Amazon through, like by with Prime? Josh: Yeah, so okay. So good question, but not by with Prime. For fulfilling on TikTok shop by with Prime can be used on your actual Shopify website, like if you have your website on Shopify but you don't actually need a website to do the TikTok Shopify Amazon integration as long as you have the program Shopify. There's two sides to it. There's the TikTok side and there is a native app. In other words, TikTok shop has built an app that sits on Shopify's Interface so you can download on Shopify the TikTok app that allows you to create your shop and Create your business center and ads manager. Right. So all from Shopify to TikTok shop so it can push To TikTok and then, if you have like a personal TikTok account, it Can link that to your store and convert it to a business account basically. Bradley Sutton: In Shopify. What? Where do they go and Shopify if they have their Shopify account? They got their Amazon account. What's the? If they're not tied together, how do you do? They need to get it from the Amazon app store, the Shopify app from the Amazon app store, to tie it to the Shopify account? Josh: In the Shopify app store, there is a TikTok app and an Amazon MCF app. They need both. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so you do it through Shopify instead of Amazon. We do it in the middle. Josh: Yeah, and then the Amazon MCF app is what pulls from Amazon and all they do really there is they have to sync up to skew right to make sure that the skew and Shopify matches the one in Amazon, which the app will say you're good, and then that your shipping map. So if you say standard shipping defaults to MCF standard, if you've ever done an MCF, the person has done an MCF order. Then it will say okay, when an order comes in and you fulfill it, it's gonna fulfill via Whichever MCF option, standard option. So that way TikTok shop syncs immediately to Shopify. Shopify pulls the inventory and ships it and then Shopify gives the tracking number back to TikTok shop Bradley Sutton: And then when you, when you, you know, set up your TikTok shop From your Shopify and if your Shopify is already pulling in your Amazon, you know Images and things like that, the Shopify Site, it publishes all your images and description and stuff to TikTok shop, right? Josh: Yep. Bradley Sutton: Wow. So, guys, this is not rocket science where you have to know coding and a bunch of crazy things in order to get up and running, but, at the same time, it's not something that, hey, you just turn it on and you make a quarter of a million dollars, you know, in a month. It requires you know it's heavily on influencers. So what's your guys' best suggestions of somebody's just setting up? They do everything you just said until now. They've got their Amazon store. Now they've got their Shopify set up. Now they set up their TikTok shop. It's pulling. It's all tied to Shopify and tied to Amazon. How do I get eyeballs in front of my product? Josh: The two biggest recommendations we would say is that. So I'll let her say on our account what we should have, because there are some things that you should have on your account when an influencer looks you up, it's kind of like having a website if they go to your shop and you don't have any posts or anything. So I'll let her cover that. But on the flip side, on the affiliate side, you know, you can go into the affiliate dashboard right inside TikTok shop and you have immediate, direct access to creators and that is really where you can do 50 at a time where you can reach out to. You can create a message, select a product that you want to offer them a commission to promote, and they'll receive your DM right in their affiliate dashboard that invites them to promote that product. And so being able to get in there and send 50 of those a day to reach out to folks that are relevant to at least your audience and be careful not just going after huge creators. You're able to see how each creator does. You're able to see their sales, their engagement, all that kind of stuff, and you can go and directly reach out and just use the hard work method instead of the blast or spend money just throwing money to be there, money to build your awareness. You can do manual reach outs, but then on our page. Jenna: So I would say I think in the beginning, no matter what, it's hard to get influencers to talk to you because you haven't had any product sales right. They can see how much they can see, so I think it's really important to focus on connecting with them and I think a lot of influencers, when they're sharing a product, they don't just want to know what it is and how much it is, they want to know the story behind it. So a lot of the ones that we connected with especially some of the bigger influencers where they have plenty of options of what to share they kind of want to know the story behind your product and a lot of people love to know when there is a small business owner behind it. Why did you create it? Who are you? What went into this? And that helps in connecting in the story. So a lot of them use that I've connected with the fact that I'm a homeschool parent and a lot of them are homeschool parents in terms of some of the educational stuff or other ones I've connected with. I'm a former public school teacher too and they connected the fact that we you know that we were both educators. Some of it is mom life and connecting with you know busy meal planning and just connecting in different ways. So if you're just honest about your story, sometimes it's the things that surprised me that we had connections on that. They were like, wow, that's really cool, I also have a kid, you know one with allergies on a specific diet that you know. I saw you, you know you created a meal planner or something and so different ways to connect the making of your products and sharing in those Like. Jenna: I try to do reels a little bit on that and sometimes that will help because I think when they're considering they go through and see some of your reels that you've created not just your products they don't just go to your storefront. I will notice they'll sometimes like my reels and my reels don't have many views. A lot of them have, like you know, like a hundred, a couple hundred, but the influencers were go and check to see, you know like, and sometimes I'll talk about why I made the product the way I did or the features of it. So I really tried to push on that in the beginning because I think that helped connect with influencers. But then once you do have a product that goes viral and they see that you, you know you have a business that could help them as well then they come to you but it doesn't start that way, then they come to you, right. So now it's different, which is nice, but I would say in the beginning, the pessimist in me, I was like, oh my goodness, how are we ever going to like get them to come to us? Or like we're a small business that haven't proven that we can, but it really does, yeah. It does change. Bradley Sutton: When you go into that portal you know there's probably a hundred thousand influencers, a million influencers, whatever, in there. How are you picking and choosing those 50 that you want to reach out to first? Jenna: Really the same way that I think they're choosing us Like. I try to find people that connect with our brand. So when they're talking about educational stuff or their kids or I see that they have an interest in in recipes and cooking and things like that we try to find ways that are natural connections. So that's part of it. Josh: Because you can search by interest. Yes, so in the affiliate dashboard you can search by interest. Jenna: Right and then and then you know that's the really cool part about it To have that background view into people that that are going to be sharing your products. You can like go see what they're all about on their page. So it doesn't take long. But you know we usually spend time checking out their page before we even message someone. Bradley Sutton: All right Now, before we get into you know some, some just quick hitting strategies from you guys. If people want to reach out to you, I mean, they can obviously see your, your brand, and I just showed it. You know, graceful by design. But if people want to reach out to you guys for more questions or help with either TikTok or KDP or any of your specialties, how can they find you guys on the interwebs out there? Josh: The interwebs. I would say the best place is, you know, jenna. jenna@gracefulbydesigncom. Jenna: I do check on graceful by design for TikTok or Instagram. It's at graceful by design LLC, but either one of those. I do check the messaging in there, but yeah, it is. Bradley Sutton: Let's go ahead and get into your,  SST 60 second tip or 60 second strategy. You know, maybe, maybe one each gives us any strategy that you think will be beneficial to our listeners. 0:42:51 - Josh: I'm going to do a quick strategy on folks who are newer or who are getting into, maybe wanting to get into the space, in case someone like that is watching. Um, cause, this has been, you know, a real thing for us over the past year from, you know, building this together, and I would say that the biggest thing in the e-com is that you have to remember is that cash flow timing and the business right, the real business aspects of any business, hold true in the Ecom right. So, cash flow timing, when you're thinking about getting into a business and you see, you know again some of the courses out there that just say you know, things are easy and things are this and you can make money quickly, and all those types of things, I just would say that, uh, from a cautionary perspective, that you know, remember, this is a business that costs money and when you sell more on something like Amazon or TikTok shop, you need more reserves that they hold and you have to spend more on inventory and so and so those. That's just like a fundamental business practice. That I wanted to make sure you know we said is that it's not a, you know, fairytale industry. It's a hard work. You know business, real business, and I feel like that gets blushed over a little bit with a lot of the things that are out there. So that that's just in general, a principle and uh, and then my less way, less than 60 second tip is that you know your. Your biggest strength still is your brand, and to build a strategy today without a brand, I think is just challenging, because then you can just be you. So when you're reaching out to influencers or you're designing product, you can really actually relate to it, in addition to it being good research and all that kind of stuff, because people know whether you care about what it is that you're selling or making. Bradley Sutton: Well, it's been really great to see your journey, you know, from just learning about TikTok shop at that conference. And then you know selling out and then, and then guys, they can hire me just out there. So I don't have any website or anything, but they're now my customers for my family running 3PLs Cause I have a warehouse here and I found out that they were, they were struggling with shipping. So I'm like, hey, let me take your planners here and let me have my family help you guys ship. So they're shipping. You know 20-30 of these planners all the time. So, like it's really cool to first hand see, see your growth and uh, and now you know you're putting a food on the table of that one influencer. Well, not, not now you're. You're employing my family as well. So, but yeah, you're changing lives here left and right. I'm sure you're changing lives with people who have listened to this episode learning about the potential uh on KDP um with uh TikTok shop as well. So we'll definitely want to, you know, reach back out to you guys next, uh, next year, and see how. You know, we just got with you on your first full month of TikTok shop. Let let's see what happens after a full year of Amazon and TikTok shop. You guys will be probably have some cool stories to share. So thank you so much for joining us.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots
thoughtbot's Incubator Program Mini Session 3: Episode 07: Knect with Josh Herzig-Marx

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 16, 2024 38:23


Josh Herzig-Marx, founder of Knect, discusses the latest developments in his startup journey since his last appearance on the show. He emphasizes the program's value in helping founders like himself refine ideas and strategies. He particularly notes the program's effectiveness in addressing challenges unique to startups, such as managing professional networks and dealing with the rapid growth of online presence. The conversation also delves into AI's technical aspects and potential applications and the practicalities and ethical considerations of using it in professional networking. Josh and Jordyn explore various AI use cases, distinguishing between beneficial applications and those they deem undesirable. Transcript: LINDSEY: We are back for our Incubator update with Josh Herzig-Marx and his startup, Knect. I'm Lindsey Christensen. I do marketing things at thoughtbot. We are also joined by Jordyn Bonds, who runs our incubator and does product strategy for thoughtbot. And today, we're going to be catching up with Josh and learn what's new since last we checked in. But before we get to that, we have an exciting incubator update: our application window has just reopened. JORDYN: Yes. LINDSEY: You could be the next Josh. JORDYN: You could. JOSH: Don't be me. You should join the incubator. [laughter] JORDYN: Go to thoughtbot.com/incubator and apply. It's just that easy. The application doesn't take long, even though it's in Typeform, and we have gotten some feedback, including from Josh, that it's challenging to plan your application efforts because, as you all probably know, Typeform just gives you one question at a time. So, sorry, maybe we'll update that. But it won't take you very long. It's a pretty brief application. And we are looking for pre-product folks, so you don't have to have a lot. Don't worry about what you do or don't have. Just apply. LINDSEY: Pre-product founder trying to figure out, is this problem worth solving? Who is it for? Jordyn and the team can help you out. thoughtbot.com/incubator. JOSH: And me. LINDSEY: And Josh. JOSH: And if, for some reason, you want to ask somebody about the program who isn't directly affiliated with thoughtbot, you should reach out to me. I'd be happy to talk about my experience. LINDSEY: You should. JOSH: I'd be happy to tell you what I think would be some reasons to join and some reasons that it might not be a good fit for you. And I'd be happy to chat about any of those things. It'd be my pleasure, in fact. LINDSEY: That is a great offer. JORDYN: It is a great offer. You all should take Josh up on that offer. He is an excellent sounding board and mentor. And additionally, if you get into the incubator, you'll just be in a Slack channel with Josh for the rest of time, inside of thoughtbot's Slack. So, that's another [crosstalk 02:05] JOSH: Statistically, there's a good chance you already are. [laughter] JORDYN: You mean in a slack with you. That's true. Josh is in a lot of Slacks, not [crosstalk 02:14]. LINDSEY: Yeah. Once you go through the incubator, you're family for life. JORDYN: You're family. You're here. You're with us. You can't get rid of us. LINDSEY: And you're able to hit us up with the questions, talk to the other founders, so that's another great benefit of participating. All right, but topic of the hour, Josh, hey, how are you? How you doing? JOSH: Lindsey, I am floating right now. We had our end of incubator session last official meeting. And we reviewed how we started, what we hope to accomplish, what we actually did accomplish, and next steps, and it feels really awesome. LINDSEY: It does. That's so great to hear. And can you, at the top here, maybe remind folks who haven't listened before, you know, what was that beginning point that you came in the incubator or the problem that you were looking to solve? JOSH: So, I had this Josh problem, which is that I am overwhelmed by the number of places that I am online and by the rapid increase in my professional network, professional social network, I guess you could say, but in my professional network, you know, see that comment a few minutes ago about how we're probably already in multiple Slacks together, whoever you happen to be online. Plus, if you're on LinkedIn, we're probably at least secondary connections on LinkedIn. Like, there's an awful lot of people, and it's growing really, really fast. And as somebody with a whopping case of ADD, which just feels like making an excuse, as somebody in, like, this modern world, I was feeling overwhelmed, and I felt like I was dropping the ball. And my problem was somebody must have a solution to this. I cannot be the only one. I could not find a solution myself. And I thought, well, maybe if there is no existing solution, maybe we should just go ahead and build it. And that was the genesis of my application to the thoughtbot incubator, which was that even though I've done this once before, I had never done this alone. I don't want to do this alone. And I thought that, you know, because of my experience with thoughtbot in the past and my understanding of, like, thoughtbot's unique organizational skills and capacities, this would be a particularly good fit for the thing that I wanted to figure out. And when I say figure it out, there was really four things I was hoping to get from this program. Let's see if I can remember them all in order. Number one, is this a Josh problem, or is this a broader problem affecting more people? Number two, this is, like, a ladder of problems, right? Like a cascading set. Number two thing I was trying to figure out: if this isn't just a Josh problem, is there at least one identifiable and addressable set of people who think about this problem in a similar way with whom I could engage? Number three, if there is such a group, are they willing, ready, and able to, like, spend money on solving this problem? And then number four, which I guess is kind of orthogonal to the other ones, it's kind of alongside, is this thing to solve even technically feasible, right? Because you can have this, like, amazing opportunity, but you just can't build it. And, you know, is this a thing that we could build or that I could get built within the resources that I might have? And I came in with some hypotheses, with some ideas. It's not like I had never done any research in this at all. But coming out of it, we have four pretty good answers. And I would not have been able to reach those answers with the same level of confidence, certainly not within eight weeks, if I hadn't gone through the incubator, and it's a really nice way to end the year. LINDSEY: With a bow on it. The last time we talked, you had narrowed in, I think, on your starting target market. And you had also recently introduced a prototype into the mix. How has the prototype evolved? JOSH: It's...and this is going to be no surprise to either of you or anybody who's listening. But, like, the difference between, like, talking about something in the abstract and actually having, like, a thing in your hand is night and day. So, the prototype actually evolved pretty rapidly. You know, it allowed us to try using it, like, to put on our own empathetic user analog hats and try it ourselves and be like, "Well, this doesn't quite make sense." This doesn't actually flow right. And it allowed us to show it to a lot of people. I'll say, we are, by far, our own strongest critics, which is good. Mostly, when we showed it to people, people are like, "This is amazing." And they would ask us, like, really specific, weird questions like, "Where's, you know, your about page? Could I see your privacy policy?" which is, like, a really, really good thing to hear. Because if the only thing...one way to interpret that is the only thing keeping them from maybe, like, diving in and using it right now, besides it doesn't actually exist as a product, is, like, some questions around privacy because it seems maybe too good to be true. Like, that's a pretty good buy sign. You know, we were expecting, like, "The screen makes no sense. Why are we swiping here? Where does this data come from? Is this really complete?" They're like, "No, I'm pretty much ready to go." So, that was good, helpful feedback, though we evolved it ourselves a lot internally. It's really nice having a thing. Do we use the term Pinocchio prototype or Pinocchio test [crosstalk 06:58]? LINDSEY: Yes, I did hear that. JOSH: Yeah, I like that. If this was like, you know, this wooden toy wanted to be a real boy, like, two weeks ago, it really, really wants...I don't know, Lindsey, we should, you know, get you in front of it. You're going to be like, "Why can't I use this today?" [laughter] JORDYN: That's definitely what we're hearing from people. JOSH: And my answer would be, "Well, you can't, but maybe in a couple of weeks." [laughs] JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. I will say I want to say for anyone listening in, though, that that was not, getting to what Josh just described where folks weren't really...they didn't have any hang-ups about the functionality or the value prop. They were basically just like, "What's your privacy policy? And when is it going to be ready for me to use?" It's not like the first draft of this prototype that was what we jumped to. I want to be clear. The first time we showed someone, there was this interesting problem, which is that we were still talking to the wrong people, somewhat. And the prototype hadn't evolved to be the slam dunk that it is now. So, at first, it was like, we'd have these kinds of muddled conversations where people were like, "Well, I don't really understand what this is supposed to be, and I'm not sure about that. And this seems interesting," but then their interpretation of what that thing was would be, like, wildly off from what it was intended to be. I just want to make it clear: this was work and effort. And the team did a really great job of iterating quickly based on, like, every time we talked to someone and showed it to them, we'd come back and say, "Here's what I heard." And it really pushed our thinking forward. Like Josh said, like, we are our toughest critics, so, like, every new version unlocked some new insights in ourselves about what it was we were actually driving toward. Really, just there's nothing like having a thing to look at and bang on to, like, clarify your thinking. LINDSEY: There's nothing like having a thing. Jordyn, you touched on you were talking to the wrong people, maybe. How has that exploration of the core market evolved? Is it still the startup enthusiasts? Are you even more narrow in that? What are the updates there as our chief market focus get everyone thinking about this all the time, officer? JORDYN: Yes. So, you know, startup enthusiasts is still the umbrella. What you're looking for with this is that you can guarantee pretty much every time you talk to someone in a segment or a sub-segment you will know how the conversation is going to go. And we've gotten there with two sub-segments of startup enthusiasts, which is repeat founders, key, key kind of nuance there. Founders, sure, but repeat founders really have this problem, for reasons we could talk about, and then chiefs of staff at startups, which is a relatively new role that's sort of emerged over the last sort of several years. But those folks are really the people that you ask them about this pain point, and they immediately are, like, yes. They use the same words to talk about the pain point. That's another really strong signal. When folks are using the same vocabulary, and they say the same sentences in the same order, and you start to feel a little bit creeped out, like, you're like, "Did you see these questions before I...? What? Did someone pay you to say that?" is, like, how you start to feel [laughs] [crosstalk 09:59] LINDSEY: Also, a marketer's dream. Oh my gosh, here comes the messaging, right? JORDYN: Exactly. LINDSEY: [inaudible 10:04] JORDYN: It feels like a cheat code because you just get to reflect their language back to them. You don't have to write copy. They wrote the copy. You just show them it, and they're like, yes. And everyone's like, "Yes," and it works. LINDSEY: Any thoughts to add to that, Josh? JOSH: It's really good. I would say the bummer or the good thing about this point is we're getting diminishing returns from testing everything other than the actual product, which is good that we got there in eight weeks. But we're not going to learn, you know, keep on adjusting the prototype and making little tweaks and more user research. But the truth is, we're not going to get anything substantial until we get this into some users' hands. JORDYN: Like you say, this is sort of bad news, but it's good news. JOSH: Right. JORDYN: It's how you know, right? When you get to the point where the thing is so clear, and the way to talk about it with folks is so clear that you're not learning as much anymore, diminishing returns is the right way to frame it. You really just need people to get in there and use it. That's the only way you're going to keep learning. That's the moment to build. Hey, everyone out there, don't build before that. That's when you build. And then you really build the smallest thing you can conceive of building, and then whatever that thing is that you've conceived of building that's very small, scope it back by 50% [laughs]. Do it. JOSH: And it's a little humbling as someone who considers himself a founder but who had reasonable success as a founder and who has had pretty good success as, like a very, very early-stage, you know, zero to one and 1 to 10 product leader, has done this a bunch of times and actually coaches people in doing this, and came in with, I'm not going to lie, a pretty good vision in my head for how this stuff was supposed to work together. And it's so much better now. Going through a process actually makes things better. This wasn't just, like, wasting time. Like, going through a process, a thoughtful process actually makes us much better. Like, the thing we're talking about building is much more likely to be successful than the thing I was originally thinking about building, right, Jordyn? JORDYN: Yes. I guess it bears sort of diving into that a little bit, which is, you know, for all the founders out there or folks with a product idea kicking around your head, you're apt to have a little bit of everything we've talked about already. You have an idea of the solution you want to build. You have an idea of who it's for. You have an idea of what their pain points are. And you might be sitting there thinking to yourself, I don't need to do eight weeks of discovery. I already know the answers to all of these questions. And it's possible Josh felt that way coming into the incubator, but doing the work, gathering the data, talking to a ton of people, what you can't understand before doing that is how much more confident and at ease you will feel once you have done it and how much clarity you'll have about what it is you need to build first because likely, you're sitting there with a vision in your head for this product that is fully featured, fully formed. It is the 18th month. We just went into a hidey hole and built a really complex thing, thing. Cool, don't throw that out. But you got to begin somewhere, and you got to begin somewhere meaningful and valuable. And it's really hard to know where to begin without this discovery, without focusing on a specific person, talking to as many of those folks as you can. And really, it sort of writes itself. It does feel easy. But you've got to set aside the time and the effort to do the research, market research, whatever we call this, customer discovery. And it thrills me to no end, Josh, to hear that that is how it felt for you, that you probably felt like you already knew the answer. But it just feels different, having talked to, I mean, how many people, 100-plus people? We were looking at the stats. JOSH: Well over 100. LINDSEY: Josh was talking to a bunch of people before he came to the incubator, and all the founders that we accept have been doing that. Like, we want to know that you've been doing that research. But then, I guess, coming into the incubator, you're continuing that process and maybe in a more structured or a differently structured way where the thoughtbot team is helping you, maybe zero in far deeper on the segment. Is that accurate to say? Just kind of the difference between, like, maybe some of the pre-research and then the thoughtbot-specific user interviews that happen. JOSH: Yeah. I think they were more focused. They're both more focused from the audience, but also more focused from if it's not just you doing it; it forces you to have a more clear, here's the questions we're asking, and here's what we're trying to learn, all these conversations. It's also really nice to have some diversity in who's asking the questions. As good or bad as I am at user research and user discovery, I am only one person. And having people with different backgrounds professionally, who live in different countries, who have different feelings about social media, basically, who are not me in a variety of really interesting ways, I think, made the entire process more interesting. Caro, who is our lead designer on the project, handed off basically the summary document of, like, everything we learned, and she pulled out, like, little snippets from the interviews. First of all, that is not something I would have done had it been just me, like, let's be very, very clear. This is an incredibly valuable document, particularly as we consider adding additional people onto this project to be able to, like, translate insights. But also, like, this is, like, summarized in a way that, like, takes some real expertise. And I would have walked away with vibes, and instead, we walked away with like, structured learning. LINDSEY: Awesome. So, the last time we checked in, also, you were very excited because you had just maybe started a technical spike and were starting to dig into the, okay, like, how technically feasible is this product? And I think, at that point, you all were looking at circling around this target market. Here are the main tools they use to communicate. What does it even look like to connect with those APIs? How possible is it? Can you give us an update on some of that work? JOSH: The way that I framed the question in the very beginning was, is this a science project, or is this going to be engineering? And, for the most part, the answer is, it's going to be engineering, right? Some are a little bit easier; some are a little bit harder. But it isn't, like, reinventing new stuff, with one exception, and that is connecting up with iMessages, which has been in the news a little bit. And I honestly just hope the ghost of Steve Jobs comes back and haunts, you know, the Apple headquarters at Cupertino because, come on, guys, interoperability is sort of the future, and you're ruining it for everybody. But other than that, I think we have a pretty clear path. I'd like to test out some of these. Like, you don't really know until you do it. I think that's kind of the next step of what we're doing is to, like, demonstrate that it is possible for a person to connect up a couple of different accounts. It is possible for us to extract data and turn that into information and insights in the kinds of ways we thought we could and then present that back in a meaningful way. I think that would be the next step for us to do. Mostly, everything seems feasible, except for iMessages. LINDSEY: I've also, I think, heard some whispers of artificial intelligence for Knect. Is that true? Have you all looked at, you know, what AI's role could be in the solution? And how does that research look? JORDYN: We assume it will be part of the mix. That said, I don't know how to frame it exactly. It's not like it's not an essential ingredient. I think the work with large language models and the democratization of that work recently is absolutely going to make this product way better than it would have otherwise been. But there are a lot of heuristics we've, like, been able to, you know, draw out and come up with that are, frankly, algorithmic, and they're not AI necessarily. Now, the line between big data plus an algorithm and AI in the popular lexicon, like, there's a big difference between those two things. But, like, as people talk about it, yeah, where does one end and the other begin? But we definitely will be making use of a lot of the newest technologies, and we've dabbled in them. I've dabbled in them. I know, Josh, you've been playing around with some of them, too, to the point where we're like, okay, yeah, we can make use of this stuff. It will be a valuable kind of tool in our toolkit, but it will not be the sole basis of value. I guess that's the sort of nuanced answer. But maybe Josh has a more bite-sized hype machine answer to this. Yeah, AI to the moon, right? JOSH: Um, no. My only answer would be more cynical. Would anybody rightfully start a company in 2023 without having AI in there someplace? Maybe I'll say something different. One of the things that we've wondered is, there's more than a handful of companies that are adjacent to what we're doing that are definitely looking at similar kinds of problems and that aren't building the solution that, clearly, some market is, like, desperate for. And these are not, like, wildly successful companies that have grown astronomically and changed the market. And, like, trying to figure out, like, why is that? And one of the reasons is...I sound like a tech bro, right? There has been a paradigm shift in the technology world, but there really has been. What do, you know, publicly available LLMs like, you know, OpenAI's ChatGPT, like, what have they done? They have taken a whole set of problems that were once really, really complicated and allowed you to do a reasonable job of solving them much more easily than you ever could before. And it takes some amount of imagination, to realize that, to realize that these things are more than just, I mean, every product I have on my computer has some kind of OpenAI ChatGPT-style thing in there, right? It's, like, 16 different variations on give me a prompt, and I'll write your essay for you, and they all kind of suck. But those aren't the really exciting uses that I've seen. It's the more subtle things. There's a company called Booklet, which tries to replace, like, noisy email lists or noisy communities to something more calm. And one of its features is it'll send you a summary of what's been going on in the community since, like, the last time you checked in. And it gives you, like, two paragraphs to read, and they're really chill and really informative, and they don't make you feel FOMO. They don't make you feel stressed up. Like, okay, stuff's happened in the community. This is really neat. And it's all powered by OpenAI's APIs. And it's really kind of magical. And, like, you have to have a slightly different perspective to imagine these kinds of magical moments. So, that's what I'm excited about. There's a set of things that we would have had to do with, like, terrible, complicated queries and, like, pattern matching, and freaking grep, or whatever old-school tools we would have had, you know, for doing things in the past. And now you just get to, like, shove text in one end, and say how you want the results structured and get the results back in the other end. And it doesn't have to be perfect, but that's okay. Like, we're talking about human relationships, which are inherently imperfect. So, I'm fine with this. And it's kind of exciting. But we'll see in, you know, if we end up continuing going down this path. Like, that's the goal of the next stage is to be, like, okay, what are the easy things which we can generate out of this? Is there an intersection between, like, easy and meaningful? And if there is, this is pretty exciting. JORDYN: Can I add something to that? Which is that the problem Knect is trying to solve and the way that we're trying to solve it, the way we've thought of solving it that's differentiated, lends itself really well to the current landscape of AI tools in that, and you were kind of getting at this, Josh, but I feel like it bears drilling into a little bit, in that what we are proposing here is not a set of deterministic things. We're not going to give you a to-do list. It's not, like, a linear...deterministic is really the right word. Like, there's a to-do list. There are things that make the cut. You got to go address them, et cetera. We're way more trying to approximate the way a slightly more put-together person with more time would approach nurturing their relationships, which is just to remember more of it more of the time. It doesn't mean we need to remember all of it every time. That's not the kind of task this is, which makes it a really good task for the place that AI is at right now. And I think where folks have failed in the past is that they've either tried to turn it into a deterministic set of tasks, which then just feels like another to-do list, another inbox in a series of to-do lists and inboxes that you have in your life that just make you feel guilty and inadequate. That doesn't seem fun to us. We don't think you need another one of those. Or other places we've seen this fall down, which is that it takes the current sort of state of AI and tries to actually do the deterministic thing for you, but it doesn't do a good enough job right now. But where we've kind of landed in the middle is that, again, what we're trying to solve for is solvable in a way more probabilistic way. Like, can we get more of this accomplished more easily for you? It's never going to, like, completely, you know, do the task in this perfect deterministic way. But it is going to make you feel more confident and more relaxed à la Booklet, it sounds like, how to do that for this particular problem, which is a different bar and one we think we can clear. And that really does provide value. People are really longing for this. LINDSEY: Jordyn and Josh, building on those descriptions of, like, kind of maybe bad AI use case, good AI use case, could you give some specific examples of, like, what that might look like for Knect, like, how AI could be used in a good way or maybe what you're trying to avoid, more specifically? JOSH: Yeah. First, I'm going to start with what I want to avoid, which is, there are tools out there, and these may be interesting to some people listening, and if so, go find them. Good luck. But there are tools out there that say things like, "Keep in touch with your network at scale." And will use AI to write a message which you can send out to people without you ever having to, like, review it. That seems like creepy, futuristic sort of, you know, there's, like, a Black Mirror episode about that. Like, the whole point of having, like, a professional network of people who you care about is actually interacting with them. And having some service, like, write some prompt, maybe in its own voice, maybe if it's really good in your voice to, like, let them know that you care about them, let them know that you're thinking about them is, like, that's just bad. I think that's bad. And we don't have any plans to do that kind of thing, even though most uses for AI in the products that I use are writing three or four paragraphs in response to, like, a prompt. So, certainly, that's the common use case. It's not very appealing to us, and, frankly, in the people we were talking to, that wasn't one of the things that anybody ever suggested. It's obvious, but as far as we can tell, uninteresting, right? Just because it's obvious and just because it's straightforward doesn't mean it's interesting. The things we're imagining, for example, is, talk about Jordyn. Jordyn and I have known each other since 2020, I think. And we have, like, a whole history of text messages going back and forth, which, by the way, we actually could integrate because we both have Android phones, you know, shout-out for Open Internet. It might be interesting to, you know, summarize some of that, like, I know Jordyn pretty well, but other people who I might have not talked with in a while, sure, you could present me with a whole timeline of our communication. But that isn't necessarily useful. I'll have to read every bit of it. Why not, like, take all that and summarize, here's things you guys talk about. Here's things that, like, prompted your past few conversations: job change, got laid off, started a company, got a cat. Whatever those topics happen to be like, share some of those things. Bring me up to speed a little bit faster without having to literally review every word that could have been going back multiple years. That's a pretty good use of it. If you think about the way that messages work, right? Like, my kids are now at the age where they have phones, and I can now text my kids during the day. I will just tell you, like, this is, like, an incredibly joyful thing for me to be able to send, like, stupid memes to my kids or, like, what's exactly the right emoji to, like, send to them or for them to send to me. If every one of these things were, like, pushed to some kind of timeline, and I'm like, "What's going on with my kids?" Like, that's just, like, going back and reading through, like, your WhatsApp thread, which is something that isn't interesting necessarily, at least not from, like, a professional perspective. And there's, like, thousands of these things. Like, why do I want, like, a record in my, like, database of people who I talk to that says, "OMG," or "K," or "lol," or those sorts of things? Like, that's, like, a phrase. It isn't a conversation. And we could use an LLM to go summarize what the conversation was all about, which is, by the way, a way more interesting thing to persist over time than, like, my daughter typing "JK, JK, JK," which I think is 15-year-old for laughing at me, but I'm not entirely sure. LINDSEY: [laughs] Okay, so as you are...you mentioned wrapping up, and you did your last meeting, and you've got your kind of takeaway docs. You know, one, I'm curious, like, if there's, for your last, you know, days, hours of the program, if there's any final morsels you're trying to get out of it, and then how that kind of leads you into, like, what's next. What are you planning? JOSH: Let's do another one of these things in two weeks. [laughter] LINDSEY: Oh, okay. JOSH: Yeah. I'm inviting myself back on your show. We have one more day of school then, like so many folks, we get in a plane or get in a car and go do some travel and try to disconnect a little bit from our professional networks. So, I'm consciously not trying to say what's going to happen next. I would love to have this conversation again, maybe in two weeks, in the new year, about what comes next. I don't know that I could have a meaningful one right now. JORDYN: I will say what we are trying to send Josh off with into his R&R is what's it going to take to get to a viable MVP, not merely viable, but actually viable? Given what we know, given all this, you know, work that we've done in the last eight weeks, we now have, you know, the ability to envision what version one of something might be. And so, making that kind of argument: here's why it is what we're imagining it to be; here's what it is; here's what it would take to build that thing, gives Josh a lot of stuff to think about in the meantime in terms of how to accomplish that. And the thing that will happen in two weeks is understanding a little bit more about, like, the actual, okay, here's the actual plan. But the ingredients are there, which is super valuable and is a thing we have done every time at the end of every incubator we've done. It's essentially a...it is that what's next plan and why, why that thing. What's the ultimate upside of pursuing this product, and what's the near-term upside? And what's it going to take to get there? Because that's often a thing that founders, especially for some founders, which Josh is not, but what they often can't get their heads around is there's this little feeling if you've got this big vision over here, and you've got, like, the set of things you could do tomorrow, really tasky things really, like, operational things, oh, I need to, like, set up a C Corp, but I need to...whatever those things are, right? What's in between? What's that near-term path that's going to directionally head in the direction of that big vision? It's, so far, always, what we have sent founders off with. LINDSEY: So, if you weren't here at the very beginning of our session, we mentioned that the applications are now open for session 1 of 2024. I'm curious, Josh, what kind of founders would you recommend for the thoughtbot incubator? What's the profile of someone you might send our way? JOSH: I'm going to say something, and I don't think I match that profile, which is interesting, and folks should think about that, what that means. But I would say that if I had to, like, pick a profile, having gone through this, I would say somebody with an idea, of course; ideally, it's one that they have some connection to. They have some personal passion for but, not just because it's an abstract idea but a personal passion that comes from their own experience. And it's really great for somebody who hasn't been inside of a tech company before, at least on the tech, half the business. Tech companies have three halves: one half is, you know, the product building side of bit of it or the tech half, which is engineers, and product designers, and product managers. And the other half of that is the go-to-market side, like sales, and marketing, and customer success. And the third half would be, like, operations like HR and finance. So, if you have experience in, like, the sales, or the marketing, or the customer success side, or the HR, or the finance, or corporate operations or that part of it, and, you know, you're familiar with tech coming from that perspective but maybe haven't been on the actually building stuff side of them before, this is a really, really good process. Because what does thoughtbot do? It does the building in tech side of things: designers, product managers, and especially engineers. And it has this, like, legacy and this history and expertise, therefore, with, like, the journeyman program where they help, like, level people up in those areas and now are applying this to founders. Because as the founder, you do need to develop some ability to converse around engineering and technical stuff. And you really, really, really, really need to get good at the discovery side, especially of, like, product design and product management. And those are the things you're going to get to do and you're going to get to do with people who are themselves really, really good at it. And that's awesome. The flip side is if you're, you know, a founder who is super attached to every bit of your vision, and you think you have the strategy all laid out and you're just looking for, like, warm bodies to build it, I mean, is it the insight team? What's the right level at thoughtbot? I forget the names of things, but, like, thoughtbot has, like, a startup program where you can give thoughtbot money, and they will build things for you. And they're also really, really good at that, but that's not the incubator program. The incubator program is probably a step earlier. So, I think it is worth thinking, are you at the I'm so confident of my vision; I'm so confident in my strategy that I just want to get this thing built, then maybe don't sign up for the Incubator. But if you're at the stage of I think this is a problem; I'm pretty sure this is a problem; I really want it to get solved; I have some vision, but I know it's going to change, then I think the incubator is really ideal, especially if you're looking to upskill yourself, too, because you're going to walk away with the ability to be conversant around the technology stuff. And you're going to walk away with a crap ton of experience with the discovery, qualitative discovery, like user interviews, quantitative discovery, like, you know, running ads, and landing pages, and all that stuff. Like, you're going to be really solid with that stuff after eight weeks because you will have done it. LINDSEY: Jordyn, any thoughts? JORDYN: I love all that. I think it's accurate. I would only say to those of you sitting out there who are thinking, I'm in that other camp; I'm very confident about what it is I want to build; I would ask you to do a little soul-searching as to whether that's actually true. Like, what evidence do you have? If you needed to stand up in court and defend your conclusions and your vision, could you? And I say that as the person who, as a first-time founder, was deluded in that way. I thought I knew exactly what I was doing and for whom and why. And, boy, howdy, could I have used a program like this to actually get me to sit down and, like, talk to people, listen to them, figure out what was valuable and what wasn't, what a valuable, you know, initial market offering was going to be like. Ah, I wish really, really badly that I'd had something like this because I was pretty deluded. I don't even know, like, what the right word is. I just didn't know what I didn't know. So, like the way you described it, Josh, I know Jordyn of 2017 would have been like, "That's me. I know this thing that I need to do. LINDSEY: [laughs] JORDYN: So, I don't need to apply to this program because I don't need to do any of that discovery work." But I was wrong [laughs]. I was absolutely wrong. I was wrong to the tune of, you know, two years and $150,000 of angel investment. So, consider, it is not idly that I say this to you, person sitting out there who feels very confident in your vision right now. Perhaps you have done all those things already; in that case, [inaudible 33:43] you don't need this. And you just need to [inaudible 33:46] with the thing you already know to be true. But ask yourself, how do you know what you know? LINDSEY: Yeah, even if you...we can help you build the thing. But we're probably, also, still going to push you on [laughs] some of those things we [crosstalk 34:01]. JORDYN: Yeah, we're still going to ask. We're going to ask to see the receipts. LINDSEY: Yeah [laughs]. JORDYN: And maybe you have the receipts, which is great, but we're still going to ask you for them, I guess, is my point. Every team at thoughtbot will ask you for the receipts, by the way, not just mine [laughs]. LINDSEY: The other interesting thing you touched on, Josh, was, I think, where we kind of started the incubator was with that target profile that you just described, which is, like, the less technical founder, and maybe even, like, a first-time founder. And then over time and seeing, like, applications, we broadened that as we saw, like, oh, you know, actually, also, technical founders and repeat founders do still need, like, help with this and can use guidance. So, we've expanded a bit, and maybe that is still, like, the person who gets the most value at the end of the day is the non-technical who hasn't really done this before. But yeah, we've kind of expanded to those other profiles as well. JOSH: There's a reason that repeat founders are no more successful on average than first-time founders, and it's something really important that Jordyn said, which is, you may think you've done all this, but we're going to ask you for the receipts. Just because you've done this before doesn't mean you're going to be good at it. Chances are, if you've done this before, it's mostly because you got really, really lucky; ask me how I know. So, it's nice to have. I mean, I described a profile, and I said that wasn't me. But I'll just tell you, as somebody who, like, spent his entire career, almost his entire career, in the tech side of tech companies, and I think I'm pretty good at it, I'm certainly not the worst at it, thinks I'm pretty good at it, it's still really nice to have a team backing you up in this early moment. It's really nice to have a team. JORDYN: Yeah, I will say another thing that we've heard from every founder we've worked with is just how much more real and actionable their idea feels when they have a team sitting there with them taking them seriously, which is another thing, you know, I really would have benefited from is, like, suddenly, when you've got three or more industry professionals sitting there in a Zoom call with you, like, okay, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? How do we know? The feeling of being taken seriously in that way and then having a bunch of people working full-time with you for eight weeks, they're in it with you; they're asking the questions; they're talking to people; they're coming back and saying, "I just had the most amazing conversation with someone. Here's what I learned," it just takes your project to a different level of reality. Like, we're humans. We're social beings. We create reality together. And when you're working alone, you know, through force of will, you can do a lot, but with a group, it really feels like you're creating something together. And, like Josh said, having those other brains with other experiences in other contexts percolating on your idea it's like bringing a team to bear on something. There's just nothing quite like it, and it's a huge value of the program. Like, we can give you the programming and, in fact, you can go run the programming. It is published in our handbook. The things that we do together you can go do, but it is a whole other matter to do them with a team. It just feels different. LINDSEY: Great. Well, I think that's where we're going to end today. I mean, Josh is leaving us hanging a little bit. So, we might need to...we're going to figure out a way to get your final thoughts, conclusions in a few weeks because I know everyone would love to hear what the plan is for Knect. Josh and Jordyn, as always, thank you so much. Any final thoughts or farewells from you today? JOSH: I've really enjoyed it. I'm going to miss these folks. Though, apparently, I get to hang out in a special Slack channel forever. LINDSEY: Yeah, you get to hang out. JOSH: Which is nice. LINDSEY: Exactly. You can't get rid of us just yet. JOSH: Good. I wouldn't want to. LINDSEY: All right. Thanks, y'all. And thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Special Guest: Josh Herzig-Marx .

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots
thoughtbot's Incubator Program Mini Season 3 - Episode 05: Knect with Josh Herzig-Marx

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2023 27:30


If you missed the first and second episodes with thoughtbot Incubator Program partcipant and founder Josh Herzig-Marks of Knect, you can listen to Josh's first episode (https://www.giantrobots.fm/incubators3e1josh) and his second (https://www.giantrobots.fm/s3e3incubatorjosh) to catch up. In the third interview with Josh, Lindsey Christensen, head of Marketing at thoughtbot, and Jordyn Bonds, head of the Incubator Program at thoughtbot, discuss the progress of Knect in the thoughtbot Incubator Program. Most of the conversation involves identifying and focusing on the right target audience. Initially, they considered startup enthusiasts, but after exploring other segments like journalists, they returned to startup enthusiasts with a more refined focus. Josh also talks about developing a prototype and its usefulness in getting feedback and refining the product concept. The technical feasibility of integrating various communication platforms into their solution is a significant focus. They examined different platforms like email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Telegram, and SMS to determine which integrations were essential for the minimum viable product. Looking forward, Josh outlines the next steps for the program, which include finalizing high-quality prototypes and making strategic decisions about the scale and funding of the project. Transcript: LINDSEY: Hi, everyone. JORDYN: Hi. LINDSEY: Thanks for tuning in and joining. We're going to be checking in on one of our incubator program participants today. If you haven't joined us before, thoughtbot runs a startup incubator, about an eight-week program for the early, early, early-stage company, idea, founder project to validate that business, find the market, and start thinking about how you build that thing. So my name is Lindsey Christensen. I head up Marketing here at thoughtbot. And today, I am joined by Jordyn Bonds, who heads up the incubator program at thoughtbot. And our guest of honor checking in once again, Josh Herzig-Marks, Founder of Knect, the company going through the program. Thanks for joining. JOSH: Super excited. I'm always excited. LINDSEY: How's it going? How is your founder sentiment this week? JOSH: This -- LINDSEY: Are you on a high? Are you on a low? JOSH: I don't think I'm on a typically high-high. I'm a pretty even-keeled, chill founder. I think it's appropriately enthusiastic but not excessively so, and definitely not at a low trough. LINDSEY: All right, even-keeled. We love to [crosstalk 01:19]. JOSH: Appropriately enthusiastic because we're doing really cool stuff. And this is a lot of fun. LINDSEY: Well, that's great. So, I mean, [inaudible 01:25] that you're working on and especially the last time I checked in with you in the really early stages, trying to find that target niche audience or invalidate, like, the problem with them. How is that going? How's that search for the people with the problem going? JOSH: Yeah. So just to, like, rewind the clock for the folks who maybe haven't seen every one of these, you know, there's a few things that I was trying to figure out to validate whether this problem that I saw was an opportunity for business. And, Jordyn, help me out if I forget some of these. So, number one, is this a Josh problem, or is this problem more broad? Question number two is, could we find an audience of people who are reachable, who share the problem, and who'd be willing to actually pay for this thing? And those little asterisks after pay, right? People pay for things with money but also with time or with reputation. Generally, we're thinking about money here, ultimately. But do they pay for this thing even in time? Would they be able to do that? And the reason we're looking for that kind of a more narrow audience is because you got to build for somebody in the very beginning. This isn't, like, we're limiting ourselves to a narrow audience forever, but we wanted a set of people who we could design this thing for, have prototypes, share it, and hopefully get some consistent feedback so we can build a thing which they would find useful and use that from there. That was two things. And the third thing: is this actually technically feasible? You know, the first time I was a founder, incidental to building our business, we built the world's fastest online transaction processing database that was processing, like, billions and billions of retail records in, like, the time it takes you to, like, click and drag and change the query that we're doing, which is really cool to say out loud, and it demoed really, really well. But that isn't actually a business. And what I wanted is part of validating if this idea, if this problem was an opportunity or something that wasn't a science experiment. And I'd love to talk a little bit more about what we've been doing over the past week, maybe a little later on in this. Because I think it's been a big week for the science experiment or not validation stage of this thing. So, two things we've also done over the past week and a half, two weeks since the last time we chatted, we have a prototype, which looks pretty good, which we can now use to show to people who we think are our core starting audience, our core starting market, and we actually have a core starting market. Both of these things are pretty exciting. I mean, I'm always excited. But we're doing it, like, we're doing the thing that we're supposed to be doing, and I like that. LINDSEY: That's really exciting. So, core starting market is happening. Do you want to talk about maybe how you got there? JOSH: One of the reasons why I was excited about doing this program is Jordyn, and I share the understanding of its importance. But when you're, like, actually the founder, it's really hard to see this, right? Jordyn is like the...I don't know quite how to describe it, but Jordyn is the person who, like, made sure we stayed focused on this part of the effort. And, like, it's a really key part of the thoughtbot incubator. And it's one of the reasons why I'm really appreciative of having gone through the program. JORDYN: So, Josh walked into the program with a problem that he had, which is frequently how products get made and companies get founded. Like, that's fine. It's a great starting place. And as he listed, his question was, is this a Josh problem, or is this a problem for more than just Josh? Because Josh isn't a market segment. Josh is an individual human [laughs]. And a lot of us have product ideas that we would love to have exist so that we can use them, but that doesn't make them good market opportunities. I may or may not be speaking from experience in that regard, ahem. Anyway, so part of the programming here was to figure this out. And it's great to start with, like, okay, well, if Josh is our primary user, who is Josh? Is there a market of Joshs, right? So, we actually started off talking to those folks. And, you know, we're human beings, and we tend to hang out with people like ourselves. And so, Josh knew a lot of people like Josh. One of those people that he knew was me. I am like Josh in regard to this pain point. I also had it. And then I was connected to a bunch of people who had this pain point. So, we broadly spoke to a lot of those folks at first. I don't know that we really had a persona name for this. I don't know, how would you frame this? JOSH: As you know, I only have poor pejorative names for people like us. JORDYN: [laughs] Pejorative? JOSH: There's, you know, a class of people who are at tech companies and startups, and sometimes they start their own companies, and sometimes they work at companies. And sometimes they do coaching. And sometimes they do a little bit of an investment. And sometimes they're on advisory boards. And, you know, when you kind of smoothly move from one thing to the next, sort of often doing several of these things all at the same time. And there's not a really good name for them, but they're kind of people, like I might go so far to say the three of us, and maybe a lot of people who work at thoughtbot and a lot of people we've all worked with in the past and, hopefully, a lot of the people who are listening to this conversation because they, too, could slip into the founding a company stage of this business. JORDYN: So, we've kind of loosely called those people, most recently, startup enthusiasts is our nickname, and there are a lot of folks under that umbrella. But as we talked to those people at this kind of high level, it was very broad. That maybe sounds fairly specific to some of you out there listening, but it's not specific, nearly specific enough to address with a product. So, we were talking. We were listening, getting people to talk to us, "Hey, tell us about how you keep in touch with folks. How does that go? What do you do? Have you ever built your own spreadsheet to keep track of people you know? Tell us about that." Broad questions. And we were learning things and hearing about trends. It wasn't coming into focus. We weren't hearing enough repeatable things. And we certainly weren't hearing about red, hot pain points. It was like a, "Yeah, this is kind of a problem sometimes, but not all the time. My system works more or less [inaudible 07:11]. Then we kind of found this range of personas. Some folks were just like, "I'm awesome at this. It's not a problem. I don't know what to tell you." Okay, well, clearly, that person doesn't need a product because they're feeling good. Great. At the other end of the spectrum, you have people who are just like, "I don't even know what you're talking about [laughs]. Like, this isn't [laughs]..." There were people who were like, "I know what you're talking about, but I'm good at it." There were people who were like, "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't care to ever do this." And then, there was this broad set of people in the middle who were like, "Yeah, I have a problem with this." But we were hearing a lot of different things. In the course of that, Rami, one of the folks on the team, ended up talking to a journalist. And that conversation was very interesting because it did seem like way more of a red, hot pain point with, like, something on the line. And we were like, oh, maybe we've been barking up the entire wrong tree and, like, startup enthusiasts aren't our people; journalists are our people. So, then we did a whole sprint with journalists and realized that journalists is a very broad umbrella [laughs]. There's a lot of different kinds of journalists in a lot of different kinds of contexts. And they have widely varying pain points, habits, needs, wants. We were like, okay, we're hearing some really interesting things in here, but they don't seem like early adopters because they are not the kind of people that just try an app who are just like, "Sure, new app, cool. I'll try that." Startup enthusiasts are people who just, like, try stuff. They're, like, on Product Hunt. They're friends with a bunch of founders, and those founders are, like, "Try this." And then they're like, "Sure, okay. Sure, I'll try it. I'll login." Login to anything once, right? Is kind of the attitude of this group of people, journalists not so much. And so, it felt like it was going to be a really hard thing to address those folks. But we learned a ton. And we really ended up mapping the emotional train in a lot of detail. And as a group, like, we came to a lot of alignment. There was a lot of, like, really good understanding, deeper understanding having gone on that journey. But where we ended up back was like, okay, startup enthusiasts really actually seem like [laughs] a place to start. And it feels like there's enough of them that they could create some kind of early adopter market. But now, with the information that we had, the new information we had, we were like, let us sub-segment this group of people. It's not everybody in that umbrella. Doing that whole journey enabled us to kind of come back to the question with renewed focus, but, like, conviction about how valuable it was going to be to do that, right? And sometimes that's what it takes. You kind of have to do the wrong thing for a second to appreciate doing the right thing, and that's totally fine. The fact that we were able to do that in, what, five weeks is, like, fine. JOSH: And I think the way that we found the sub-segment that made sense was actually pretty simple, right? Once we understood what are the dimensions that are actually important, we did a quick brainstorming session. This wasn't actually a very long process at the end of it, a quick brainstorming session. What are the different kinds of people who fall into this segment? And we just scored them on all the easy things you'd expect to score people on, namely: are they easy to find and easy for us to reach? Do they advertise this quality of theirs someplace publicly, like, perhaps on LinkedIn? And are they easy to find? Like, do we have enough of them inside of our network so we could, like, search for these kinds of folks? And as it turns out, we've already spoken to a lot of these kinds of folks as well. And primarily, we're talking to repeat founders and/or chiefs of staff at startups. JORDYN: If you are one of those people, please reach out to us. We'd like to talk to you. JOSH: We would love it. LINDSEY: Call to action. So, Josh, you mentioned one of the benefits of the program has been Jordyn's ability to kind of laser-focus on finding the target market. Jordyn, how do you do that? How do you keep the team coming back to that? Especially as sometimes it maybe doesn't take that long—sometimes it might feel like you're kind of circling around and around and still aren't finding anyone—and keeping folks motivated to do that or understanding, you know, when are we going to say, "This is it, you know, we're not finding someone"? JORDYN: I'll talk about how it worked in this case. And every team is different and is motivated by different things. And this process is a little different every time, so it's hard to make generalizations. But in this case, what was interesting is that after we did our journalist sprint and we were like, we do want to refocus on startup enthusiasts, but we need to understand a little bit better what we're doing, we actually prototyped a little bit given what we knew, which seems like a bad idea [laughs] on the face of it. It seems premature. The purpose of doing that, then, was to really take a different path to drawing out of each of us what was in our lines. That's, like, so much of the work of a team at this stage is, like, making sure that we're externalizing the things that we're thinking and the assumptions that we have. And it's strange. You would think you would just be like, "Hey, tell me what's in your mind?" But minds don't work that way. You can't just be like, "Hey, mind, what's up?" And then articulate it perfectly in a way that everybody in this group is going to know what you mean. So, prototyping actually drew a bunch of that stuff out. It really...I think that was the moment...I don't know, Josh, how you feel about it. We had been kind of in the doldrums because we did get to the end of that journalists' sprint. And we were like, what are we doing? What have we learned? And prototyping at that moment enabled us to...it was a different way of understanding what we had learned and what we were all now thinking. And it really drew a bunch of dynamics out that it was super helpful. JOSH: It brought some real sharpness to what we thought we'd be able to...the kind of value we thought we could deliver in the early versions of this thing, right? Fast forward two years, who knows? But it brought some sharpness to the kinds of problems that we thought we'd be able to fix and the kinds of problems we thought we couldn't solve. And that also clarified for us, certainly for me, why, oh, here's why this isn't really landing with the journalists, right? And here's why this isn't really landing with some other kinds of folks we were talking to. And -- JORDYN: Biz dev folks. We talked to a bunch of biz dev folks. It wasn't going to land with them, but yeah -- JOSH: They weren't at all excited about it, and then we can kind of understand why. One of the ways that I think about a prototype and I talk about this a lot, and I love doing this. Somebody called this a Pinocchio prototype, the wooden child who wants to be a real boy. Once we had a prototype, we could actually put it onto our actual phones. And I'm not sure how many other people did this on the team besides me but, like, I would carry my phone around with a prototype on it. And every time I thought I might use it, I would pull the damn thing out of my pocket and, like, tap away on the phone. It gave me, again, a very clear sense of the kinds of things I thought we were moving towards solving and the kinds of things that we weren't really solving. LINDSEY: Yeah, Josh, you mentioned there were some exciting developments in the past week. Is that around the prototype? JOSH: This is one. Having the prototype on there was good. It's also really nice to have this be part of a larger team. I was having a hard time. I had been playing with, like, our design team's paper prototype. I was having a hard time communicating what I was trying to do inside of my head. So, I built my own parallel prototype in Google Slides, which was exactly as awesome looking and as functional as everybody listening is imagining it must have been. If you would like your own copy of my Google Slides app development template, please reach out. I will share it [laughs]. But it let me think a little bit, again, the same thing, like, here's how these things fit together. And then it started moving really, really fast. Once we were all putting things down in a way that we could play with, and touch, and talk about in a concrete way, it felt like that part of things started to move really fast. And the quality of our conversations improved with people we were talking to as well. I would say that's half of the things that are really exciting. LINDSEY: Just to continue on the prototype for a second, Jordyn mentioned a major outcome of starting to use the prototype; well, I guess [inaudible 14:37] that you all as a team got better aligned around what you were envisioning for the solution. And then, it also helped you, again, kind of identify the true target market. Are there other things you're already learning from using the prototype and getting it in front of people? JOSH: Yeah, I think there are. By the way, this shouldn't be surprising. This is, like, the classic diverge-converge model that I know thoughtbot uses all the time with not just startup clients when you're building something new. One of the things which, you know, rewind the clock six and a half weeks ago to when we started this thing. I didn't realize how much intelligence would be required behind the scenes to make this thing actually sensible to the final users. And the more we show it to people, the more we realize that, like, intelligence to make things look simple is going to equal people actually using the damn thing. I think we started to see that ourselves in playing with it. But it's really important to have that be validated by actual potential users who aren't, like, in this shit themselves. JORDYN: I mean, immediately, you know, we were able to start showing the prototype to the folks that we were having interviews with, and there's just nothing better than that because they're not going to pull their punches with you. And we got a lot of great immediate sort of spicy feedback [laughs] from people, especially if you're showing them to people who are, like, startup people [laughs], they're just not going to be nice. And so, there was a lot of [crosstalk 15:59]. JOSH: They're like, "Have you considered making this suck less?" JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. "I wouldn't use this at all [laughs]." You're just like, "Okay, thanks." Tell me how you really feel [laughs]. But it's great. I mean, like, there's nothing better than that. Like, I would way rather that than a bunch of people trying to be polite. JOSH: And it also prompts feedback that we wouldn't necessarily have thought of, which is the idea of this. We [inaudible 16:20] thought of this on our own. Like the idea that sometimes you might want to not take an action when you don't really care about a person. But sometimes you really, like, dislike a person so much who you've been talking to you want to never see them again, right? Never show me this person again. It's a thing that we never would have come to, I think, if we hadn't, like, actually been showing the prototype to end users. LINDSEY: Okay, what is the second half of the exciting thing that happened in the past week? JOSH: This is very much a thoughtbot thing. thoughtbot is full of really talented engineers. And over the past couple of days, we've been able to bring a lot of those folks to bear on the question of like, is this thing technically feasible or not? Which was one of my big concerns. And it turns out, that was probably too large a question for the team that we started with. And to be able to, like, do this, like, little discovery spike with, you know, going beyond the three-and-a-half thoughtboter team that we had to some of your most talented, most experienced engineering leads, not forever, but just for, like, a short moment is kind of, for me, at least, like, a real taste of, like, the thoughtbot value is, you know, Jordyn gets to put out a call for assistance, you know, across the company, and people raise their hands and put real-time in. And, you know, we're able to do something in a couple of days that we probably couldn't have done because we have enough people. And, you know, all those, like, network effects of people coming together that could have taken us, you know, weeks or longer just kind of toiling on our own. LINDSEY: For those technical challenges, maybe you don't want to get into specifics, but in broad strokes, can you talk about what some of those considerations are? And maybe at this point, maybe it makes sense to also talk a little bit about, like, how the solution, how you're thinking about the evolution of what the solution is and provides. JOSH: I have an Android phone. I live in the world as a green bubble in a world of blue bubbles. My partner and I are in an interfaith relationship. She has an iPhone. I have an Android phone. And forever, people are accidentally trying to hit up my, like, iMessage account tied to my email address, and the things don't come through. And, all of a sudden, this company someplace in the U.S. figured out some way to, like, reverse engineer the Apple messages iMessages protocol, so I can put iMessages onto my Android phone. They built this thing. It's been, like, all over the tech news recently. This is the problem, if you're trying to bring together all of somebody's social network, is that there is no, like, handy-dandy API for iMessages. There is no handy-dandy API for regular SMS or RCS or any of those other variations of that. There is no handy-dandy API for WhatsApp, for Telegram, sort of ish, kind of maybe for Slack, not really for Discord. It remains to be seen how mature it is for LinkedIn. By the way, email works great, right? If we just build our entire lives off of email, we'd have none of these problems, but we can't. And we had some hypotheses about ways that we could make connecting these other accounts easier. And we just took, like, an awful lot of hands, right? More than two hands. It took more than two hands to figure out if these things were possibilities if those things turn out to be true. And the answer is if they are true, which we're still working to figure out, though it's looking better and better, this isn't a science experiment, right? And if it's not true, then step one is an awful lot of engineer hours to go do what those Beeper Mini folks did and reverse engineer a whole bunch of protocols and systems that were never intended to be open in the first place. JORDYN: I would like to say -- JOSH: Which is why we should all donate to EFF and promote an open internet so that startups like mine don't need to exist. JORDYN: To loop back to your earlier question, Lindsey, about how to keep the team focused on who something is for, this conversation seems like it's not about that. But, to me, this conversation is also about that because we have a long list of messaging platforms that we have heard from folks, like from interviewing them would be useful to have brought into a single place. This was one of the key pain points that Josh has that we heard from other people, which is, like, you connect with people across platforms, right? You might be connected to some on LinkedIn, but you're also emailing with them. Your email history with them is not a complete history of your life with them. None of your online stuff is going to be a complete history because sometimes you actually interact with people [laughs] in reality, which is still, at this moment, not being recorded all the time, but probably not for long. JOSH: As little as possible. JORDYN: [laughs] But still, even within the online world, you're communicating with people across platforms. Maybe you text with someone, maybe you message on LinkedIn, whatever. And having complete context for your relationship with them in a way that makes it really easy to kind of, like, boot up that context in order to reach out to them for some reason, like, maybe you haven't talked in six months, and you just want to remember, where did I leave this relationship? What's going on with this person, right? You're like, where was I talking to them? Oh, I was talking to them in these four places that don't have very good protocols for being brought into the same interface, right? So, like, the stuff is, like, all connected. But to get back to the who question, we have this list of places we'd heard from people, like, in the early interviews and places that Josh was trying to do this connect with people, et cetera. So, it's, like, Slack DMs, and it's email, and it's LinkedIn, whatever. But we also heard Telegram, and we also heard other things. If we don't sufficiently focus on a narrow enough group of people, we risk making the MVP way too big because it needs to connect with every one of these things. And we can't go to market with something that doesn't connect with 12 platforms or something, right? But because we're sufficiently focused, we could actually do the thing where we're like, okay, well, out of this list of platforms, what are, like, the top five? Where is the line? Where's the minimum viability here with what we can connect with that will actually bring value? And I also am an Android user living in an iPhone world. And Josh and I at least have enough awareness to be like, you know what? Maybe Android isn't necessary, even though we would love [laughs] for it to be there. Nine times out of 10, the people that look like us are using iPhones, right? So great, cool. Let's just do the thing. JOSH: Obligatory iPhone test device. JORDYN: Right. I have one, too, but I don't know where it is. So, like, the question of who really matters. Who, like, really helps you focus? If your answer to "Who?" is anybody with a smartphone, well, like, it's going to be really tough to build an actual MVP that's buildable. So, this question that Josh brought in to us, which is, like, "What's technically feasible here?" really intersects very directly with this question of who are we building for? Because you really want to be able to start somewhere. And, you know, if you have a sufficiently red, hot need and it's not, like, to time travel or something that is, like, probably impossible given the laws of our universe, you can find a way, right? And so, the question was, like, why don't we find that so that we can focus on whether it's worth finding a way? And then that intersection of who it's for, what their pain points are, and what's possible with what amount of effort. It all fits together. No single one of those pieces is sufficient for figuring out a path forward. LINDSEY: And are you taking the, you know, okay, we've gotten really good sight on these startup enthusiasts, and these are their top four communication methods; let's try to solve them? Is that the approach? JORDYN: More or less, yeah. Yes. It's like, can we interface with those top...I think for us, it's like a top five, maybe six. JOSH: Five or six. JORDYN: But, like, the first one on there is email, and that's not a problem. Like, we don't...that's fine. LinkedIn is also not a problem; one and two are email, and LinkedIn: good. We're cool with that. That's okay. JOSH: Because every individual has their own thing. So, you know, you may be talking about long tail services, you know, but for the person who uses Telegram as their, like, daily driver, which isn't most people in the U.S., but there's a lot of people abroad, not having Telegram means it isn't useful. And I think that's one of the things hard about this, right? This is a hard business potentially, or it's really easy. We have no idea yet. And that's part of what I find exciting about this is because over the next, you know, week or so, we'll find out how hard a business this is actually, or at least where are the technically difficult parts? LINDSEY: Great segue. What does the next week look like as we've got market niche, prototype, technical feasibility intersectioning, figuring those things out? What exciting things are on the horizon? What's next? JOSH: So, we have about two weeks left, and at the end of two weeks, we're going to end up with a set of high-quality prototypes, which, you know, are easy for any of us to have on our phones, and to flash around to rando strangers we meet at the grocery store because there's no better way to make friends than product testing. And we'll have a good sense of how big and complicated, and complicated in what ways might it be to build this thing. And then, it's time for Josh to make some decisions around, you know, the whole goal of this was to figure out, like, how big of an opportunity is this just to go and do that? What could growth look like? What could pricing look like? Where might the costs be? What would the cost be to build this? Is this, like, a side gig scale thing? Is it a small, you know, angel-funded startup thing? Is this, like, a VC-size thing? I really hope it's not a VC-size thing. And then to think about, you know, what are the resources that would be required to build it, and where might those resources come from? So, at the end of this, two weeks out from now, I think we'll have all the information, you know, that we need. And then, I know a whole bunch of people inside of thoughtbot who are in a great place to provide their own thoughts and advice and experience and feedback on this. And I'll take this to my personal board of directors, including my family, but also, you know, other experienced entrepreneurs and investors I know, and we'll talk through this. And we'll have to go make some decisions, which is a little scary and a little bit fun, but a nice way to kick off 2024. JORDYN: And a lot easier to do after this program. JOSH: We'll have some real information, right? [laughs] JORDYN: Yes. LINDSEY: That's the goal, right? JOSH: Yeah. LINDSEY: Of the incubator to get you in that spot where you can make educated decisions and get others up to speed really quickly with all that research. JOSH: That's right. LINDSEY: That's great. All right. So, you had a call to action earlier. What was that? Oh, if startup enthusiasts are listening, we want to chat with them and talk to them about the solution. JOSH: If you're a founder, if you're a multi-time founder and either done it a couple of times in the past or you're still doing it, reach out. If you are a startup chief of staff and you can define that role for yourself, please reach out. We'd love to talk to you there as well. If you would like a copy of Josh's free wireframing template for mobile apps, please reach out, and I will be happy to provide you that as well. LINDSEY: Amazing. Thank you once again, Josh and Jordyn, for joining and catching us up. It definitely was an exciting update. I can't wait to hear what happens in the final stretch. JOSH: Me too. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Jordyn Bonds and Josh Herzig-Marx .

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots
thoughtbot's Incubator Program Mini Season 3 - Episode 01: Knect with Josh Herzig-Marx

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 7, 2023 37:28


thoughtbot's Incubator Program is back for a third round! This episode introduces founder Josh Herzig-Marks of Knect, and he will be sharing his journey from freelance work to joining the program and what happens throughout! So far, he appreciates the deliberate communication practices required for practical remote work, despite remote work already being second nature to him, and he understands the importance of proactive and transparent communication in a team setting. One critical insight for Josh so far was the misconception surrounding the term "CRM" in personal relationship management. His moment involved mislabeling a survey, which led to confusion about the project's intent. As the Incubator Program progresses and continues to scale, Jordyn expresses excitement about involving more teams with different geographic focuses. The goal is to foster a collaborative environment within the thoughtbot Incubator Slack channel, encouraging past and present participants to share experiences and advice. We invite listeners who resonate with any of the challenges heard or have potential solutions to reach out! Our next Incubator episode will introduce our other Session 3 participants, Mike and Chris, founders of Goodz. Follow Josh Herzig-Marx on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaherzigmarx/) or X (https://twitter.com/herzigma). Visit his website at joshua.herzig-marx.com (https://joshua.herzig-marx.com/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: LINDSEY: My name is Lindsey Christensen, and I head up marketing for thoughtbot. For anyone listening or joining who isn't familiar with thoughtbot, we're a product design and development consultancy that helps you make great products and help make your team a success. One of the very cool ways we do that is with the thoughtbot Startup Incubator, which is a program that we launched this year and that Jordyn, who's with us today, has been heading up. What's up, Jordyn? And today, what we're going to be doing is catching up with one of the latest founders who's participating in the incubator and seeing what he's been up to since the kickoff over these last two weeks. JOSH: It's been two weeks. It's been two really fast weeks. LINDSEY: [laughs] Josh, could you give us a little introduction to yourself? JOSH: Sure. I'm Josh. Hi. I've been in tech product management for, like, 20-ish years, 15 or so of those were in head-of-product roles. And a bunch of those early on were my own startup, where I discovered I was a pretty mediocre founder but really liked this product leadership thing. I had a very lucky exit, which I leveraged into a series of first product manager, first head of product, first product leader roles at a series of early-stage companies across a ton of domains: B2B, B2C, FinTech, mobile, Revtech. And then, a little over a year ago, my partner and I got to do this thing we've been talking about for a while, which was we swapped who the primary parent was. We have two kids, two teens, 13 and 15, right now, so that's eighth grade and ninth grade. I wanted to take over primary parenting so that they could focus as much or as little on their career as they wanted to in the same way they had allowed me to do for the first 15-ish years of our kids being kids. And if I were a better person, I would have found some kind of job that allowed for work-life balance, but I'm not. I have a whopping case of ADD, which we'll probably come back to later on in this conversation. And the way that I knew I'd be able to actually fulfill my responsibility as a primary parent was by retiring from salaried work. So, I did that a little over a year ago, last summer. And kind of keep me busy and occupied in between 8:30 in the morning, you know, school drop off and 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon school pickup. And when I'm not doing shopping, and cooking, and lunches, and doctor's appointments, and dentist appointments, and orthodontist appointments, and play dates, and soccer practices, and basketball practices, and soccer games, and basketball games, and Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and all the other things that we do, I built a very small niche coaching mentorship and advisory practice around founders, solo product managers, and first-time heads of product. And that's pretty much up until about two weeks ago what I had been doing with myself. LINDSEY: That's a great update. I especially liked all the practices that you have to go to. [crosstalk 02:54] JOSH: I do like practices. We went to a co-ed soccer game for my middle school kid. And it was the first time that the boys' team and the girls' team ever played together, and they got totally clobbered by this other team. And what I loved about it at the end was the kids weren't bummed. They were like, "That was really fun." And, you know, for a lot of these kids, they've been friends since kindergarten. So, this is, like, nine years of being friends and playing recess soccer together. And they're not very good at soccer, but they just really love all playing together so much. And they just bring so much sportspersonship to the field. It was really a pleasure. LINDSEY: Okay. So, you're doing all this fun primary parenting and going to all the fun practices. You've got a coaching business that you're working on as well. But there was this idea, this idea that's needling. What brings you to us? JOSH: I think before it was an idea, it was a problem. And I knew this was a Josh problem. And the Josh problem was that I have a really big network, you know, built over the past, you know, more than 20 years of professional life. And, you know, one of the joke lines I have is that the solution to almost any business problem is found in talking to more people. I really value being able to, you know, call people up, message them, text them, email them, get together with them, ask them lots of questions, listen hard. And I try really hard to reciprocate, doing the same thing. I don't know what your professional network looks like, Lindsey or Jordyn, over the past, I don't know, couple years, decade, however long it's been, you know. But what used to be email and LinkedIn, maybe, and maybe getting together in some local meetups, has really spiraled what, to me, feels, again, whopping case of ADD, completely out of control, right? I have my LinkedIn network, which has not gone away, right? And now I'm a member of, I don't know, Jordyn, we share these a lot, a dozen different professional networking Slacks. Those are the ones that Jordyn and I share, probably far, far more than that, right? Product management ones, entrepreneurship ones, product marketing ones, engineering ones, tech company ones, ones geographically based for the Boston area, ones that are focused on things like climate change and climate tech. So, a ridiculous number of these. And as somebody with some experience and the privilege to have some free time, it feels kind of like, I don't know, an obligation sounds too grandiose, but it feels like a nice way that I can give back is by participating and trying to be helpful inside of these. So, that's happened. And Discord became a thing, you know, certainly, it had been a thing for gamers since before that. But since the beginning of the pandemic, Discord became a thing. I'm in, like, I don't know, a dozen different similar Discord groups. And I'm in WhatsApp communities, and I'm in Telegram communities. And in-person meetups have started to happen again. And I found myself kind of losing control. I was telling people, whether, you know, over the phone, or in Zoom calls, or direct messages, that I'd make connections to them, make intros, and it was getting increasingly hard to do that. I was forgetting about people, you know, like, it's hard to remember to stay in touch with all of your colleagues when you move on from past roles. And, you know, I would try to make connections to people to be like, okay, Lindsey, you know, you wanted to meet somebody else in marketing in the Boston area. And I remember that, like, six years ago, they worked at Rocket, and now they've moved on to something else. I can't remember what it's called. And, like, how do you, like, you know, page through your email and your Slack connections and your LinkedIn to find that person? And that was really hard, too. So, I have ADD. My family would say that I'm, like, moderately functional. So, how do I achieve that? By creating systems for myself. And I did all the things which other people have tried to do. I built myself, like spreadsheets and Notion databases. I have an awful lot of, like, Notion databases now powered by forms. I'm like, just put your information in, and it'll appear magically into my database where I try to, you know, push the work onto other people. And none of it was really working for me. And that was kind of the genesis of the idea and then trying to figure out, is this a Josh problem, or is this a broader problem? That's kind of how I got started. LINDSEY: Lots of people, lots of channels, not a lot of tracking or confusing tracking. And we chatted briefly before, you know, you were starting the program. And this really resonated for me. And I also ended up doing a user interview [chuckles] with the team about it. JOSH: Yeah [laughs]. LINDSEY: Because yeah, in my role, and moving from different companies or doing mentoring on the side, and being in investor communities and marketing communities, it gets overwhelming for sure. And I feel the pain. And I've had the embarrassing moments of not remembering how I know someone or a conversation we had, or someone I really respect asking me for an intro, and I'm like, I don't remember anything about how I know that person. JOSH: I mean, that was both gratifying and disappointing. Gratifying, like, oh, it's not just a Josh problem; we all struggle with this, and disappointing, right? And as I've had more of these conversations, just to realize, like, I know almost nobody who doesn't struggle with this. There's a few. There's a few outliers, a few weirdos, a few superheroes who are able to do this really well and who feel in control. And, like, literally, as they describe it, it sounds like...Jordyn, you're nodding, right? It sounds like a superpower as they're describing how they do this, how they kind of manage it. JORDYN: [laughs] JOSH: But for the most part, thank goodness it's not a Josh problem. The bummer is, nobody has, like, you know, the magic incantation, right? The spell or the secret or, like, the one weird trick, or the tool or, like, could I just give you money and solve this thing? And none of this really exists today. And that was kind of a bummer. I was hoping for, you know, better news that this was a solved problem. LINDSEY: [laughs] Yeah. Jordyn, heading over to you for a minute, Josh applied for the incubator with this problem that he was working on. We had a lot of great applications, I think, for this session. What made you think or you and the team land on Josh as one of our session three founders that would be a great fit for the programming? JORDYN: I'd say it was probably two factors; one is the stage. What's really tough was figuring out who's a good stage fit for us. So, like, what that means is you've identified a specific enough problem. You're not just, like, I want to solve world hunger or something, like, super broad. There's enough of a specific pain point or a problem that you're trying to solve that there's, like, we might conceivably make progress on it in eight weeks. But you're not so far along that you are basically like, "Hey, I've got the specs for an MVP. Can you just build it?" Which is, like, too late for us. And part of that is a discovery mindset of, "Hey, I've identified this pain point. I think other people have it. But I am very open to how we solve the problem or learning new things about it, learning that it is a bigger need in a market I've never thought about," like being open to the things we might learn together. So those things: stage fit, mindset fit. But, also, like, it is a problem that is addressable with software, right? thoughtbot's focus is software. Like, yes, we have worked on products that are not software products, but, like, our bread and butter is software. And my personal bread and butter professionally is software. So, is the problem on the table something that, you know, software is a big component in meeting the need? So, it's, you know, it's stage. So, I guess it's three things: stage, founder mindset, which is this combination of having conviction but being open-minded, a very weird [laughs] thing to find in a person. And then, you know, can we conceive of a way to address this with software without jumping to a solutionizing? That's sort of what we're looking for, and Josh checked all of those boxes. And I think, also, just had a problem that people really resonated [laughs] with, which is clear from [laughs] what Lindsey was saying and for me personally as well, I think I should [laughter] say. This is a problem I have. So, when Josh and I first talked about it, I was just like, yes, I would love to solve this problem. I also wish there was some spell, or incantation, or weird trick, or existing products, et cetera. JOSH: We might have spent an hour nerding out over all of the things that we've tried, yeah. JORDYN: The things that we've tried, emphasis on the nerding. JOSH: On the nerding part, yeah. JORDYN: Any of you listening [crosstalk 10:45] JOSH: Or what if we get sneakier connect Google Sheets to this, like, really weird web query and [laughs] -- JORDYN: [laughs] Exactly. And then giving up because it's totally unmaintainable or, like, [laughter] impossible, yeah. So... JOSH: Right. Oh, and it's all crap, too [laughs]. JORDYN: Right, right. So, if anyone out there listening is like, "Oh yeah, that's me," first of all, you're not alone. Second of all, please reach out to us. We would like to interview you [crosstalk 11:09] JOSH: Or, if anyone out there is like, "Oh, I have this thing solved," right? If you got the solution, please reach out to us. JORDYN: [laughs] Yes, also, please. JOSH: You can save us six more weeks of work [laughs]. JORDYN: If you know the solution, definitely tell us. Anyway, so to your question, though, Lindsey, that's how this [inaudible 11:23], and it just seemed like a great fit along those lines. LINDSEY: Yeah. So but, Josh, you mentioned...well, I think you kind of downplayed your founder history a little bit. But you've been a founder who had success, certainly a product team leader who has been very successful in the early-stage teams. What were you looking for from thoughtbot? Like, what attracted you to working with the thoughtbot team on your problem when you have all this kind of past experience already? JOSH: I think there's probably three parts to it; one is I know a bunch of people in the thoughtbot team pretty well. In past roles, I have actually hired thoughtbot; I think it was twice. And I've referred a bunch of your current and past clients as well. Like, I'm just generally a big thoughtbot fan. I think I've even used thoughtbot products long before I even knew, like, Chad or Jordyn, some of your old products from, like, you know, the early 2000s. So, we're going really OG here. So, I knew thoughtbot really well and think really highly of everybody who I've interacted with there. Number two is, I know, you say incubator, but, for me, the word that's really been resonating has been accelerator. It can be really slow the early, I don't know, weeks, months, years to go from an idea to, hey, this is really an opportunity. And I didn't want to spend weeks or years at this. I have a full-time job. It's, you know, taking care of the family. Like, that's what I wanted to be focused on. And if this was really an opportunity, I wanted to figure this out relatively quickly. And I love the fact that thoughtbot has this eight-week accelerating program. And the third one is I had this...and, you know, not every assumption I came in with was one that I'm going to leave the program with. But I came in with the assumption that a lot of the risk was technology risk. I had a rough idea. I was quickly discovering this wasn't just a Josh problem; this was a broader problem, right? There's plenty of challenges beyond that, but it's good to discover that your problem is broad. But is it something which can actually get built and built relatively straightforward? Jordyn here [inaudible 13:27] this all the time. You know, I don't like science project problems, right? And thoughtbot is really, really good at building software and partnering with somebody who could help to remove that kind of risk as a non-technical founder, as somebody with literally zero technical skills, I find that very, I don't know, comforting, exciting. LINDSEY: Okay, writes down in marketing notebook: "Accelerator resonating more than incubator." [laughs] JOSH: I wanted to get to the decision...incubator is a better word for it. But I personally wanted to get to that is this a good opportunity or a bad opportunity decision faster. LINDSEY: To quickly validate invalidate. JOSH: Right. I wanted this, like, I wanted to timebox this thing, and eight weeks is a nice chunk of time. LINDSEY: Love that, yeah. JORDYN: I want to just, like, flag here that, like, all of these words are very frustrating [laughter]. And we had a really hard time picking one. LINDSEY: I know [laughs]. JORDYN: And we really actually, like, in literal terms, I think that program is way more, like, founder bootcamp than anything, but thoughtbot can't run a bootcamp without people thinking it's a Rails bootcamp, right? JOSH: Yeah. LINDSEY: [laughs] JORDYN: Like, if we just said, "thoughtbot bootcamp," people would be like, oh, as a developer, I should go to this bootcamp, and thoughtbot will teach me how to be a better engineer, which would be totally reasonable from a brand standpoint, right? So, we were like, all right, not bootcamp. And then accelerator typically comes with investment dollars, in my experience as a founder, and we don't invest cash in the companies that we work with yet. So, that was off the list. And that just left incubator, which, eh, like, I don't disagree that it's not the best word, but, whatever, we lack a good one. JOSH: I'll tell you one thing. So, I'm involved with other things in this space. I'm based in Boston but for Raleigh's brand-new Founder Institute chapter, which I think is a great program. And I'm really proud of the, you know, first cohort of founders that are going to the program down there. And I love them. And I love their energy, and enthusiasm, and focus and that we at Founder Institute are providing them with value. I think we really are, or I wouldn't be participating. But I wanted people to work alongside me. And I think that's actually one of the things which is really unique about thoughtbot's program. This isn't, like, you know, a bunch of other founders with varying amounts of experience working alongside you. This is, like, actual people who do things: designers and software engineers, developers who are working alongside you and learning alongside you. But it makes it, I would say, less of a lonely process. This is one of the things I remember. When I founded a company, the one time I did this prior, I did it with my best friend, which is about as unlonely as you can possibly get. And it still is really, really lonely. Having this like, you know, team backing you up and a company backing up that team and organization is nice. LINDSEY: Thanks for sharing that about the loneliness factor. That kind of reminds me, Jordyn; I know in the last session, you were trying out the idea of, like, this founder emotion tracker. Has that made its way to session 3? JORDYN: Not really, mostly because both of the teams we're working with, two teams, by the way, not just Josh, have been founders before. And so, the emotional rollercoaster of, like, literally every day, you know, Monday, you feel like a million bucks because you have a really great idea, and you're really excited about it. And then, Tuesday, you talk to a bunch of people who add some complexity to the assumptions that you had [laughs] made on Monday. And then you start to feel like maybe this isn't a thing, oh no. And then, Wednesday, you learn about some, like, technical thing that you didn't realize was a stumbling block. And so, by the end of Wednesday, you're like, everything is doomed. I shouldn't even be doing this. I've just wasted everyone's time. But then the team wakes up on Thursday and is like, "Actually, there's an easy solution to this. And we've found a new group of people to talk to who have this problem in a really clear way." And then you feel like a million bucks again. And then you just cycle through it. Like, that cycle is something that Josh and our other founding team have actually felt before. And so, we haven't really been, like, leaning on the emotional roller coaster timeline as much just because it hasn't been as relevant. And that's kind of what's tough about the program we're running, which is that everybody comes to it with different assets in hand. I always think of that scene in The Princess Bride when they're outside the castle, and Westley is like, "What do we have? What are our assets?" It's like you arrive to this with different assets in hand. You might have already talked to 50 people, but you have no technical background. So, you don't know what on earth to do about the information that you've learned. Or, you know, maybe you do have a technical background. And so, you've done a bunch of solutionizing, but you haven't talked to a single person about [laughs] whether they have the problem you're trying to solve. Anyway, it really runs the gamut. And so, the programming is designed to help teams find focus and find market message fit. But what people roll up with is very different. In this case, we have a cohort, so to speak, that has some prior startup experience, especially as founders. And so, they know a little bit more about how every day is going to emotionally feel different. And that emotional rollercoaster workstream is on the roadmap. But we don't spend as much time with it as we did with Ashley and with Agnes before in the first two sessions because they were first-time founders and really didn't know how they should be feeling. And that, to me, is one of the many value adds, including what Josh mentioned, like just having a team diligently focused on your problem space full-time is a huge boost of momentum and confidence. Just, like, people thinking about the same thing you're thinking about with you and bringing their earnest efforts to solving the problem has been one of the main things people have found valuable about it, in addition to the acknowledgement that, like, you're going to have a lot of different emotions. And it doesn't mean anything necessarily. Like, your day-to-day emotion does not mean that you are a failure or that this is a bad idea or that you're a success, and this is a good idea [laughs]. Like, neither of those things is necessarily true. LINDSEY: So, let's chat a little bit about what has actually been happening since kickoff. So, two weeks ago, started. Jordyn, maybe I'll start with you. What has the first two weeks of programming looked like? JORDYN: We have been really heads down on interviewing. Josh rolled up having done a survey, which yielded a bunch of conversations already, conversations [inaudible 19:34]. So, we iterated on the scripts. You know, part of the efforts of the first couple of weeks are really geared toward having our team understand the things that Josh understands already. We need to kind of get on the same page. And so, we try to talk to as many people as we can because there's nothing...One of our theses here, beliefs, I don't know what the right word is, is that there's really nothing that drives momentum quite like team alignment, and there's nothing quite like talking to customers and hearing for yourself what their pain points are. That drives alignment. So, it's like, everyone's talking to people. I'm sure people out there have been on teams where it's like one person talks to customers, and they're translating to everybody else. "Here's what I'm hearing. So, this is what we need to build." And it's like if everybody has first-hand experience with the conversations, alignment and conviction sort of grows organically out of it. It's a lot less work to align if everybody's talking to people. So, it's always, like, the first order of business is, how do we talk to people so that we know the things you know to the level that you know them? So, we've been doing a ton of interviewing. And then, that's about driving alignment and understanding, but it's also ultimately about trying to drive focus. So, as we are talking to people and listening to them, we're really trying to listen for patterns and to map those to the market segments these people inhabit. So, like, every one of us has our own network that we're bringing to this effort, and so we start there. And we start where you are with what you have, right? I think that's, like, a Teddy Roosevelt quote: start where you are with what you have. Somebody said that. Anyway, so we all do that. But really, ultimately, we want to...building software is all about a repeatable problem that you can address with a one-size-fits-all [laughs] more or less product. What we're trying to find is, like, we're trying to listen for patterns and listen for pain points that are addressable and really focus in on a narrow niche or a situation context that we can address in some repeatable way. And I would say, at this moment, we've done a bunch of that interviewing. And we're now like, okay, we're feeling the need to focus, but we have not quite started that dive. I don't know, Josh, maybe you feel the same or different. JOSH: No, I think that's right on. I mean, you know, the first thing we all had to do was develop our own [inaudible 21:45] understanding of the problem and the potential user, right? It wasn't going to happen from me talking to people. It was going to happen from us talking to people. And then, the next step is to start to align that empathic understanding, which sounds like a thing that gets finished, but really, it's only a thing that gets started and never really ends. And then, you know, we got to be willing to make some bets, right? We got to figure out, you know, what is our hypothesis? You know, what do we think are the risky bits? And what are the things that differentiate this from being a problem? Where I think we have broad agreement across the entire team. And, literally, everybody we spoke to, the only people who don't think this is a problem are the ones who have some complicated, ridiculous system they built themselves, which they will acknowledge is not going to apply to anybody else. So, the problem is broad, right? But where exactly is the opportunity? Because at the end of the day, we're looking to build a business. LINDSEY: Josh, I saw your head nodding during the alignment discussion. How has it been aligning with the team around the problem you've been thinking so much about? JOSH: I don't know, Jordyn, how you feel about it. I've found it really fun. And it's been fun for a couple of reasons. I think the number one reason that I really like it is this is a really diverse team, right? So, Jordyn and I are in Boston and have; I would say, fairly similar tech company entrepreneurish sort of, you know, hand-wavy, miscellaneous tech people, startup folks background. We have somebody in Denmark, but she's Spanish. We have someone in maybe London right now, but he's Nigerian. And we have a member of our team in Saudi Arabia. That's a lot broader perspective. And I think that comes to play in, like, at least three different ways. They come with their own perspectives, and their own world experiences, and lived experiences, and values, and ways they talk about those things, right? Number one. They come with their own networks of people to talk to you for whom it's easy to reach. So, it's not just all hand-wavy, tech startupy folks like I'd be talking to. And, like, literally, my entire list is, like, oh, they're all people like me. Like it was really easy to get 60 people to want to talk to me because they're all people I've been talking to for a while, which is awesome and maybe a little bit uninteresting. But more than that, they all bring different language. Like, we've been struggling. Like, this is what we did. We spent what? Two hours of our hour and a half meeting this morning struggling with, like, are we having a difference, like, meaning or a difference of words? And it's not an efficient way to use your time, but it really is an effective way to use your time. Because, like, that struggle of trying to communicate what we're hearing and try to communicate what we're thinking and what we're feeling, I think, has led to a much better understanding of the problem and maybe even the opportunity than we would have had otherwise. I'm a big fan of struggle. JORDYN: Definitely. And I do feel like there's an element of this where you can never understand your customers' problems in too much detail. It's like every pass we do at this, we kind of have a deeper, more granular, nuanced sense of the problems. And just in that conversation this morning, we, like, took a problem that we had understood one way and, like, were able to break it down, like, okay, what are the actual pieces of this? Oh, there's, like, many pieces of it, right? Like you said, Josh, it feels inefficient, or sometimes it just feels like you walk out of a call and you're like, what was that about? And then only later do you find, you know, maybe when we are ideating, like, ways we might solve a problem, that conversation we had that felt really murky and, like, are we just arguing about semantics here? Are we arguing [laughs]...I don't know, like, however, you might frame that, like, actually becomes really important where you're like, oh, well, I'm very glad we took the time to break this problem down because now that we're trying to develop a solution, it becomes clear that there are many, little things we're trying to solve. And we can't solve them all at once. And so, it's great that we all have a fluent understanding of the details of that because it makes those conversations much faster so [inaudible 25:30]. JOSH: Can I say a nice thing about thoughtbot? I know this isn't, like, the, you know, [crosstalk 25:34] LINDSEY: Please. Please do. Welcome, Josh. Yeah, the floor is yours. JOSH: Let me say a nice thing about thoughtbot. The last time I did this, I did this with my best friend, Ben, a person I had literally known since I was six years old, maybe five, I don't know, since first grade. And we were entering a new space. This was, like, grocery marketing. And we talked to a crap ton of people, a lot of them doing things like going to grocery store headquarters and just talking to people and meeting people who are, like, manufacturers of a grocery product and going to trade shows with 60,000 grocers all in one giant room. Remember those days pre-COVID? We would, like, you know, take the samples with your left hand and shake with your right hand, and don't get those two things mixed up because there's a lot of people in the room with you. And we talked to easily 1,000 people, and we knew how to establish that, like, shared empathic understanding of the market and the problem really well because we were side by side. We were really well-practiced at having those conversations. And, you know, after the day of, you know, shaking hands, and meeting people, and introducing ourselves was done, we'd go back to the hotel room, shared, of course, because we were young entrepreneurs who couldn't afford to get nice hotel rooms. And we'd spend the next couple of hours, like, talking about it. We, like, talked to each other all the time. One nice thing about thoughtbot is you're really good at working remotely and working asynchronously. And if, you know, it had been up to me by myself to be like, okay, you know, Josh, you have this, like, remote team in different time zones with, you know, non-overlapping hours. How are you going to, like, work together to establish this common understanding, this common semantic model, this common syntax for talking about the problem, and the users, and the needs, and the opportunity? I'd be like, I don't know, right? And this is somebody who's, like, worked remotely for the past, I don't know, 5,6, 7 years, I mean, most of his job. But, like, still, that early bit is a thing, which, you know, I've seen a lot of thoughtbot practice and skill around. And it's not an easy skill to master. And it's one that you practiced organizationally. And that's really valuable. And I don't think I fully appreciated that until we got started. LINDSEY: Oh, thanks. Jordyn, any thoughts on that? Were you thinking about remote setup of the program, or at this point, it's just everything is remote? JORDYN: Working remotely can really deepen, in good ways, one's communication practices because it forces you to be intentional about communicating in a way that when you are co-located with people, you kind of don't have to because there's people in front of you when you talk to them. So, I agree, Josh, that thoughtbot does a good job of making that work, the work to communicate and stay on the same page, like, tangible, visible, whatever it is. That's also just something I've given a ton of thought to because I've been working remotely, like, as a primary orientation since 2010. And so, this is just, like, how I work. And it's very; I don't know, organic to my mind now that it's basically, like, if I'm doing something and I don't tell someone about it, it's like a tree falls in the forest, you know, if there's no one around to hear it. If I'm working on something and I don't tell anyone about it, it's like I didn't do anything. Communication is, like, 60% of the job. And the setpoint is, oh, I did something. Oh, I emailed someone. Maybe I should tell the team about this [laughs]. Just literally because you're not in a situation where I'm going to overhear a phone call that Josh is having because he's at the desk next to mine, or I'm going to, like, ambiently be aware that, like, Carol and Toby went into a conference room to talk about something. Like, while I maybe didn't consciously think about that, it's sort of in my periphery. Like, none of that is happening because we're not in the office together, right? We don't get to do the thing that you did with Ben, where we just talk about stuff because we're near each other. So, you really have to get into this practice of externalizing very proactively the things going on in your own mind with the team. And it's a challenge. It's work. It doesn't just happen effortlessly, right? But yeah, to say it's critical or to say it's a critical piece of how we approach the work is an understatement. I don't know, it's like, it is the work [laughs]. The making of the software, whatever, that's easy [laughs]. Communicating about making software that's hard [laughs]. So, I don't know, it's very heartening -- LINDSEY: Yeah, that makes sense. JORDYN: To hear, Josh, that you think that we do a good job of that. I think we're constantly trying to do a better job of it, frankly. I don't know if you can do [crosstalk 29:28] JOSH: That's probably why you do a good job. LINDSEY: So, I know a lot of the early weeks, days has been around alignment and doing a lot of these user interviews. Have there been any moments yet, Josh, any new, like, light bulbs for you or insights, or are we not quite there yet; it's more kind of setting the scene? JOSH: I'll share one really embarrassing one. LINDSEY: Oooh. JOSH: Which keeps on coming back to bite me. When I sent out the survey and, of course, I [inaudible 29:57] for everybody listening, basically, surveys are useless, except they're really nice lead generation tools for people who are willing to talk to you. But when we sent out the survey, at the top, it says something like, "Personal CRM survey." And I'm pretty sure that when I set up the calendar invite system, which is, by the way, for folks listening out there, like, you want to get your, like, operational side of this thing done before you start sending emails out because you're going to quickly, like, lose the ability to keep track of stuff. I think the meeting of it also, I said something like personal CRM survey. And it was, I don't know, sometime in the middle of the first week, maybe later on, when, like, I think we all realized on the team that, like, CRM is the wrong framing for this thing, right? Nobody likes CRMS [laughs]. CRMs are transactional. They're tools to sell something to somebody. You know, they are tools for, like, auditing your behavior if you're a salesperson to make sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. They're, like, on a cadence. Like, CRMs are tools for a world, which is not what most people aspire for their personal relationships to be. And I don't think we've quite settled on what this thing actually is. And maybe there isn't a thing yet, right? Maybe that's part of the challenge that we're having, like, this thing doesn't exist, but it's not a CRM. And three-quarters of the way through the interviews is when I asked people like, "So, what question should I have asked you?" They all said, "Well, you didn't ask me about personal CRMs at all." I'm like, "Okay, that's a good point [laughs]." So, there have been plenty of pivots inside of my head around this and the way that I think about this problem, and some of these things are still embarrassing and still kind of coming back to haunt me and maybe haunt the rest of the team as well. I don't know, Jordyn, what [crosstalk 31:27] LINDSEY: Honestly, I was hoping for something way more embarrassing, but [laughs] -- JOSH: Way more embarrassing. JORDYN: If that's your embarrassing...[laughs] LINDSEY: Yeah, you're doing great. You're doing great. JORDYN: You're doing great. JOSH: Okay, the number of video calls where I'm not wearing pants. [laughter] LINDSEY: Okay, onto the next question, Jordyn –- JOSH: Embarrassing or awkward, I don't know, yeah. [laughter] LINDSEY: Jordyn, you mentioned that Josh is not the only participant in this [crosstalk 31:52] JORDYN: Great question. LINDSEY: Tell me about, why not just Josh? What's going on? What are the developments there? JORDYN: Yeah, this is really exciting. So, we wanted to scale this program from the moment that we ran single companies [inaudible 32:08] to start because we wanted to learn as much as we could in a kind of intense, focused way from developing a process and seeing what's valuable about it. So, this was always kind of on our minds to do. And the way it worked out was just that there were two teams at thoughtbot ready and willing to serve. And we had, you know, anytime we [inaudible 32:28] the application window, we always kind of have a list of folks that we're excited about. We can't take all of them. But in this case, we had the two teams. And it also kind of fell in this nice way where we've got this team with a center of gravity, you know, GMT center of gravity, essentially. And then we have another team, which has more of a, like, U.S. center of gravity. And so, the timing kind of worked out. And yeah, I don't know, it wasn't anything more complex than that. It's just we'd always been on the lookout for how we could scale this effort––bring it to more folks. And this was the first opportunity where it appeared like it would work out. I mean, TBD if it's working out [laughs]. We can decide at the end [laughs]. But it's very exciting. It's fun. And we're really looking for ways to help these teams collaborate, you know, we'll see how. Everybody's in a Slack channel together inside of thoughtbot's Slack called thoughbot incubator. And our past participants are in there as well. And we're really trying to create an atmosphere where people can help each other, share tips, talk about what they're working on. There is actually some intersection between what Josh is working on and what the other team is working on, I think, just because, Josh, what you're working on applies [laughs] to a lot of people. I think it applies to these people, too. Anyway, that's [crosstalk 33:42] LINDSEY: It's fun to see the incubator Slack start to build out and folks talking to each other, and more thoughtboters are trickling in there. Because, Josh, you mentioned you've been a client before and a thoughtbot fan in the past. And now you can officially live in thoughtbot Slack, too, and hang out with us 24/7. JOSH: Still just a guest. LINDSEY: [laughs] JOSH: Only got my two channels. Can't DM you unless you're in one of those two channels. LINDSEY: One [crosstalk 34:11] JOSH: But yes, it is very exciting. This is better than snacks at your downtown Boston office. LINDSEY: Yeah, that's great. JOSH: I think I even added an emoji to Slack. I was pretty happy with that. LINDSEY: Oh, nice. We've got a good custom emoji library. JOSH: I mean, that's what we have for company culture, right? Is company emojis. LINDSEY: To kind of finish this out here, Josh or Jordyn, do you have any calls to action for our viewers or listeners, maybe interviews or survey participants or anything else? JORDYN: Well, certainly, if the pain point we described resonates for you [laughs], reach out. We would love to interview you. Or, like Josh said, if you actually have solved this problem [laughs] -- LINDSEY: Oh yeah, that was a good one. JORDYN: Please reach out [laughs]. That would be amazing. JOSH: But I actually meant that. So, like, hey, if you out there are a software developer, an entrepreneur, own a company that you think has really solved this, I would love to learn from that if you want to talk to us. If you are a person who struggles with this and feels like you've tried really hard to solve this, I'd love to hear from you as well. You know, did you search for a tool? Did you ask your friends? Did you try to build something yourself? Do you still use that thing you built yourself? Did you try one of those CRMs? [crosstalk 35:26] Did you try a personal CRM tool out there, right? Clay, Dex, Monica, folk, if those names resonate with you, like, I want to hear, right? I want to hear about people who feel like they're doing this thing really well or people who don't feel like they're doing as well as they should but who feel like they've put, like, real effort into it. LINDSEY: Great. Well, we're going to be catching up with Josh here every other week. JOSH: Great. LINDSEY: We'll have some updates on the thoughtbot blog. And in our alternating week, we're going to be catching up with the other founders going through the incubator. So, next week, we're going to chat with Mike and Chris. And y'all will get to meet them and hear a little bit about their journey and what's led them to validating their idea in the thoughtbot incubator as well. JOSH: And strong rec people to tune in for that one. They are extremely photogenic and very funny, and they talk slower than me, too, so a greater chance for people to understand what they're saying. So, all in all, definitely tune in for that. LINDSEY: That's a great promo. If you want to stay up to date with the incubator or are thinking about applying for the next session, I think will be in the new year, you can go to thoughtbot.com/incubator. And you can also sign up for email updates. And we can make sure to send you recordings of these interviews as well as the blog updates and then keep you up to date about when applications open and end. Jordyn and Josh, thank you so much for joining today and sharing what's been going on in the early days. It's really exciting to follow along. All right, have a great day. Thanks, everyone, for watching. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Jordyn Bonds and Josh Herzig-Marx .

Screaming in the Cloud
Getting Paid What You're Worth with Josh Doody

Screaming in the Cloud

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 6, 2023 44:10


Josh Doody, Owner of Fearless Salary Negotiation, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss how to successfully negotiate your salary, and why it's important to do so even in times of economic uncertainty. Corey and Josh chat about some of the hidden reasons why salary negotiation is critical to job seekers, and what goes into determining salary bands behind the scenes. Josh also reveals why he feels there's some stagnancy in the big tech job market, and why it's critical for job seekers to have a balanced view of the value that they provide to employers when negotiating salary. Josh also describes some of the unexpected ways salary negotiations can come up throughout the interview process, and how to best handle the discomfort of negotiation. About JoshJosh is a salary negotiation coach who works with senior software engineers and engineering managers to negotiate job offers with big tech companies. He also wrote Fearless Salary Negotiation: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Paid What You're Worth, and recently launched Salary Negotiation Mastery to help folks who aren't able to work with him 1-on-1.Links Referenced: Company website: https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshdoody LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshdoody/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Developers are responsible for more than ever these days. Not just the code they write, but also the containers and cloud infrastructure their apps run on. And probably the billing on top of that - which is neither here nor there. And a big part of that responsibility is app security — from code to cloud.That's where Snyk comes in. Snyk is a frictionless security platform that meets teams where they are, automating application security controls across their existing tools, workflows, and the AWS application stack — including seamless integrations with AWS CodePipeline, Amazon EKS, Amazon Inspector and several others.Deploy on AWS. Secure with Snyk. Learn more at snyk.co/scream. That's S-N-Y-K-dot-C-O/scream. And my thanks to them for sponsoring this ridiculous nonsense!Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I have a returning guest today who hasn't been on for a couple of years, at least. Josh Doody is the owner of fearlesssalarynegotiation.com and focuses on a problem that's near and dear to my heart from my previous life as an employee, salary negotiation, specifically emphasizing software engineers, if I have that right. Josh, thanks for joining me.Josh: Yeah. You have it exactly right. It's great to be here, and good to talk to you again, Corey.Corey: I used to be practiced at doing salary negotiations, which is a very roundabout way of saying I got fired a lot, so I got lots of practice at doing it. And I found that it was a very strange experience that was completely orthogonal to anything else that I did in the course of my day-to-day. Now, of course, I you know, negotiate AWS bills for a living among many other things, and do a lot of sales work, and yeah okay, now it's a lot more germane. But back in my engineering life, it was the one time I got to really negotiate that wasn't, you know, haggling with some vendor somewhere when I'm trying to buy a burrito, was salary negotiation, and I felt utterly unprepared for it.Josh: Yeah, I think most people feel that way and you summarized pretty well why that is. And that's, you know, let's say you have a really robust career, you're around for decades, you know, you're working in lots of companies, you might have, I don't know, let's say ten, a dozen job offers that you negotiate, you know, give or take. And that's not very many reps for doing something that's as consequential as, you know, negotiating your actual pay. Which, depending on how senior you are, could be literally negotiating, like, you know, multiple cars' worth of value per year that you're going to [laugh] that you're going to earn. But you don't get the reps, so most people just kind of—I think they kind of don't even think about it until they have to think about it until it's directly in front of them. And then they just kind of power through it, get it over with or even totally ignore it and just get back to the thing that they're doing in their career, which is why you show up to work.Corey: It feels, on some level, like it's one of those areas where people wind up thinking about it long after they really should have. These days, it feels like salary negotiation process, more or less should start when you start debating, huh, maybe I'll change jobs. Like, it feels like it's really that early, not when you have an offer sitting in your inbox that needs a response by the end of the week. Right, wrong, or am I just thinking about this in ridiculous ways?Josh: No, I think you're right. So, you can start thinking about it, you know, you get a job offer in your inbox and you can start thinking how do I negotiate this now, but you know, you're going to be in a less secure position to do a strong negotiation at that moment than you would have had you begun thinking about it when you mentioned, which is, like, you're actually thinking about changing jobs, or, you know, maybe you just got a cold call from a recruiter and they're at a company that you're kind of interested in working with. So, maybe I will talk to this recruiter instead of just blocking them or whatever. And so, the whole process can begin at that moment when they say, “Hey, you know, we have this opportunity that we think you might be interested in. What do you think?”And then, you know, early on, they'll even kind of officially start the negotiation, at least in my mind, where they'll say, “But before we really go too far on this, like, what are you hoping to make here? You know, what are your salary expectations if you come work here?” And you're kind of off to the races at that moment. But even if they don't say that out loud, that's something that you should be thinking about from the beginning, which is, you know, maybe most broadly, how do I position myself to get the best possible version of the job offer that they're willing to give and to leave myself the most latitude to improve that job offer to be the maximum that they can afford to pay me or the maximum that their budget allows or however you want to frame that. So, short answer, yeah, I think you're right that most people think about it as sort of an afterthought, either after they've already started a job and they go, “Huh, I wonder if that guy over there is making more than I am?” Or, you know, “Shoot. I think I moved too fast there. Maybe I should have done something a little bit better.” When they could think about it way earlier in the process than that.Corey: Since I was last on the job market, there have been some changes, at least here in California, that have had a somewhat significant impact, to my understanding. First, job salary changes need to be posted in job ads, which I think is great—and that's occurring in a number of different states—and also it is now against the law, in California—or at least against public policy—to ask what someone's current compensation is and your salary history and dive into that. Now, that's all well and good, but I also have been asked a number of questions that are not exactly… green, when it comes to being in the middle of an interview. And, “You're not legally allowed to ask me that question,” is that a heck of a pushback.Josh: Yeah, I think that I've had a couple conversations about this recently, but also over the past few years, especially on the—you know, you mentioned the two prongs of that idea: what's your current salary, what are you making now? And, you know, what is the salary that you expect to make? And so, kind of one by one, states are outlawing potential employers' ability to ask about what you're currently making. And then I've also heard some agitation lately that there might be some federal legislation that's coming down that might just kind of take that off the table. As you mentioned, recruiters, companies, organizations, however you want to model them are very clever, and so there are always ways, you know, even if they're indirect questions, you know, you don't ask them what they're currently making, but you ask them something that gives you some insight into what they currently might be thinking.Also, if you're in the big tech world—which you mentioned you negotiate AWS contracts—in the big tech world, they don't necessarily have to ask you what you're currently making if they know that you're an L4 software engineer at Google. They can probably approximate it pretty well. And of course, they know that because you're going to have to tell them, you know, with a resume or when you're interviewing, that's kind of how you get in the door. So, that's an interesting thing. But I still say, avoid that. Try to avoid giving him as much information as possible.And I think the most important thing with the current salary idea is, you just don't want to say it out loud. You want to make sure that they can't quite grab onto that because you make it too easy for them when they know what your current salary is to just do sort of a cost-plus version of offering you a job, which is, “Well, you're making this much now. We'll just add 10% to that,” and that's your new job offer, when you know, that's not how you level up quickly and in big ways.And then you mentioned the salary expectations. I do think it's great that a lot of job offers now will have a salary range in them. That's a question that I see a lot is, like, how do I know that I'm not going to waste 25 hours of my personal time and maybe a trip across the country for a job, where when they finally make the offer, it's just laughably low? And the answer is, you know, hopefully, they have something that you can grab onto in the actual job description that says, here's what the range looks like. But even then, you'll notice if you look carefully—I saw one yesterday, and I don't remember where I saw it, but it was like, “Yeah, our range of salary is, you know, 120k up to 290k, depending on geographic region.”And it's like… I mean, technically, that's a salary range, but they don't tell you what the regions are, how they map, and all that stuff. So, you're not getting a lot of information there; you're just getting sort of an approximate number. But it's still helpful to know that information. And it's also helpful to not disclose that information. If you have a number in mind that you're hoping for, it's not in your best interest to share that with the company.So, I think at least what you can do is look at the job description. If they have some kind of a range, take a look at it, see if it feels like, okay, this is something I can work with or if it's just, you know, there's no way that that would ever work for me and you can just pass on it and save yourself some time.Corey: For me, one of the things that always frustrated me was that at the start of looking into a job, there's always the big question that they ask that has been the socially acceptable paths at screwing you over, and the knowing how to answer that is important. But I still bungled it a number of times whenever I was out of practice, which is quite simply, “Okay, what is it that you expect to make in your next role? What are your compensation requirements?” And it feels like answering that at the beginning of the process just completely sets your course for how the rest of that process is going to go.Josh: It does and it's something that's very subtle and clever because most people will not perceive that to be a negotiation tactic when it is. And also you mentioned earlier in the context of, like, asking you what your current salary is that it can be perceived as sort of a gatekeeping question. Like you mentioned, you know, you're in the middle of an interview and somebody pops a question at you like, “What is your [laugh] what's your current salary?” And you're looking at an interviewer and you're thinking, “If I don't give him this information, then I'm saying no to an interviewer, and how's that going to go over?”This is the same kind of thing. When, you know, at any point in the process, they might ask you what your salary expectations are, it could be on the first screening call, it could be right before, they like to hold this till right before they make an offer where you go through the whole interview process and then right before they're going to extend an offer, they say, “Hey, you know, I'm going to go to the hiring committee and make a recommendation that we hire. But before I do that, you know, what are you hoping to make if we actually do extend an offer and I go talk to the comp team?” And it can feel like, well, gosh, I better tell them the answer to that question because they literally just said, basically, like, “I have an offer for you, but first, I need this information from you.” And it can feel really kind of daunting to say, “No, I'm not going to give you that.”So, the question is, you know, should you give them that and how? You shouldn't, as I mentioned earlier. Giving them salary expectations, I'll give kind of a brief summary of why it's not a good idea. I think a good way to reframe that question, you know, what are you what are you hoping to make if you join our team, is, you know, “Hey, you know, we have a giant company here. We've got tens of thousands of employees. We've got thousands of engineers that are at your level and doing your kind of work. We have salary surveys that we run once a quarter, or once a month, that are super expensive. We know what everybody else in the industry is doing. We know what the value of this role is to our company. We know how many other people are applying for this job. We know how many open seats we have. You don't know any of that stuff, but even though you don't know any of that stuff, why don't you take a wild guess what we would pay you to do this job at this company at this moment?”Corey: And then of course, we're going to use it against you later, when you wind up having what you view as a negotiation, like, “Ah, but you said at the beginning of the process that this would be sufficient.”Josh: Yeah. So, that's the problem, right? As you take that wild guess and you're going to do one of two things. It's basically 0% that you're going to hit the nail on the head in terms of you guessed the actual maximum compensation that they would pay you to do the job, it's very unlikely.Corey: You're either going to guess too high and then basically get yourself disqualified—Josh: Yeah.Corey: —you're going to get too low and leave money on the table, or you're going to get it exactly right, but you'll never know whether you got it exactly right or whether you guessed low.Josh: Right. Even if you do guess exactly right, you won't know that you did. And so, of course, if you guess low, like you said, you leave money on the table. And the really pernicious thing is, you could guess low and still feel great about the result and never know it or not find out until the next time you get a job, which is to say, you know, you say a number that's well below the bottom of the minimum that they could pay you and so you say, I don't know, to use round numbers, you say $100,000. And they go, “Great, how about 120?”And you say, “Wow, they must really like me. They're going to pay, I just said 100 and they said 120. That's amazing.” And really what's going on is they're looking at, you know, their internal pay structure and they're like, we can't pay less than 120, like, the pay structure starts at 120. So, we'll pay 120, which is the literal bottom that you could make.You feel like you got a huge win of a 20% bump, but the reality is, you're probably not anywhere near the middle of that pay range and you're way behind the eight ball already. And of course, you could overshoot. And the worst-case scenario is you overshoot so far that you basically disqualify yourself from the process early. So, it's like, if it's on that first screening call, and you say—Corey: And they view you as being fundamentally unserious, where it's a, okay, the compensation for this role is 100 to 130, for example—to use made-up numbers—and you come in asking for 340. It's… okay like, there's no point in even doing a counter and having a negotiation at this point. We are so far apart, that it doesn't work out that way.Josh: Right, which on the surface, seems like oh, well, I just saved a bunch of time. But in reality, what you may have done is sort of like knocked yourself out of the entire hiring funnel for them, when what could have happened is perhaps you could have as you interviewed, you could have aligned better with a more senior role that would have had a higher pay range that you would have been a better fit for, you could have changed their budget based on the way that you present in your interviews and what they perceive from you. And who knows, maybe you actually do get an offer that looks like 340 because they say, “Oh, wow, we had you leveled as a, you know, an L6 and really should be, like, at an L7. So, how about this, you know, this senior or principal or lead role over here that we've been trying to fill for six months, we now realize you might be a good fit for that role. Why don't you go talk to that hiring manager, and if we have to, we'll just put you into that hiring stream?” Instead of, you set a giant number and we got to kick you out because there's no room for you here.Corey: This is all well and good and we're talking about effectively cash comp and salaries, but so many companies these days seem to tie a fair part of their compensation to the equity portion of it. And because remember, everything's up and to the right. Always. The end. Until one day, it's very much not.And now we're taking a look and seeing that, for example, Amazon stock has largely been in the toilet for a couple of years. It's what, 50% off of what it was at the peak.Josh: Yeah.Corey: So it's, on some level, when you're negotiating comp, it feels like you're being asked to predict the future of how well the company does. And at these multibillion-dollar company scales, are you really going to be in a position personally to meaningfully impact the stock price? Like, well, not positively anyway. And it just feels like it's a bit of a shell game where if you can't spot the sucker, it's probably you. Because I wanted to be an engineer, not a stockbroker.Josh: Yeah, I mean, first of all, you're right, that no individual engineer is really going to be impacting the bottom line of Google.Corey: Unless I take the site down.Josh: Right. Well, I was just [laugh]—man, you beat me to the punch on that one. Yeah. So, there is a possibility that one engineer could have a dramatic impact, but not the kind that you would hope if [laugh] you're also tied to their stock price, right? So, there's a couple of ways that I think about this.One of them, you mentioned the Amazon stock going down. So, one thing that's really interesting about that is really what Amazon is doing is they're targeting a total annual compensation number with their stock. And so, they start with their current known stock value—I don't know if they're doing this now, but for many years, they were just kind of building in a year-over-year growth number of 10 to 15%. So, we're going to give you this much total comp and we're targeting 300k total comp per year. And if you kind of map it out based on the base salary and the equity that vests and the signup bonuses they give you in years one and two, then it looks like a pretty flat, like, 300k a year when you build in that stock growth.So, the magic question that I started talking to—and had a couple of internal recruiter friends, like, last year, mid-year last year when things were looking pretty bad, and the question that I don't think that they had an answer to at the time and now they have answered is, well, what do we do when the stock doesn't grow 10 to 15% and actually kind of collapses, like, takes a huge nosedive? And the answer is that Amazon is still targeting a total comp of 300k a year. And they go back and they say, “Well, here's some more RSUs at the current value to kind of makeup for that. Here's your new vesting schedule on these.” They essentially are giving refreshers, and here's the new vesting schedule.And so, at least in Amazon's case, they did kind of try to right the ship. But the reason is that something you alluded to, you're not really getting equity in the company because you impact the company; you're getting equity in the company because it's another way for them to kind of generate, quote-unquote, “Cash flow” of some kind or comp, that isn't, you know, dollars coming off the books. So, this is something I think that's kind of a TBD is, Amazon has now answered this, which is we're going to give him—because otherwise, they're going to have a mass exodus, right, like, if you thought you're going to make 300k a year and you're actually going to make 180k a year, that's a huge dropoff, and you're probably going to be looking elsewhere. So, they say, “Well, here's some more RSUs.”The question is, you know, what will other companies do? All of this is, you know, we're talking about public companies here. So, there's a big difference between, like, Amazon stock, Google stock, whatever—or GSUs, whatever you want to call them—and then private, pre-IPO equity, and all these different things. I see those as much more in the category of what you described, which is, you know, if you're getting stock options on, like, an early stage, you know, like, an early stage startup, right, they're raising, like, their first or second or third round, you are going to have maybe kind of a large impact on the trajectory of the company, but on the price of that you have almost no agency whatsoever because of all the options that they have for dilution and all that other stuff that can go on and whether you even have shares that are going to be liquid at some point and all that stuff. So, I see that as much more like, you've just got to look at the company, the cash that they're paying you, how you feel about that, how you feel about the mission of the company, and understand that you've got, you know, you've got some lotto tickets in that company and who knows, maybe it goes to the moon and you get to go along for the ride, but much less certain than, you know, like I said, like, an Amazon-type situation where they actually will give you even more RSUs if the stock tanks over the course of the year.Corey: What are you seeing these days in terms of the macroeconomic conditions as a result? Like, some wit on Twitter said that the correction in the market has identified the grim reality that there are more engineers making $600,000 a year than there are engineering problems that need $600,000 engineers to fix them. So, there's a certain, are people being overcompensated? Is there a correction in the market? Is that changing the world of salary negotiation and peoples' job mobility?Josh: I think—working backwards—yes, job mobility is affected right now. I mean, I've seen you know, even in my own business, there are just fewer people reaching out and saying, “Hey, I have an offer at a big tech company.” Which is, you know, all over the news, layoffs. First, it was hiring freezes, right? This is late last year, October last year-ish, Q3, Q4, last year. They kind of said, “Oh, we're going to hire—we're going to slow down for a little bit on this hiring.”And then it was layoffs. And so, the last several months have been layoff after a layoff, you know, 5% here, 10% there at lots of different companies. Paradoxically, a lot of those companies are still up into the right, if you're looking at their stock price, lately. And I think a lot of that is back to the first thing that you said, which is, you know, do we have more engineers that are kind of sitting around looking for problems to solve than there are problems to solve? And I think the answer was probably, yes.Certainly, the pandemic, interest rates where they were, and all these other kind of macro-economic things, which I won't opine on too much because I'm not super-educated on them, but I understand them well enough to understand that basically, it was a better investment for a big company to hire an engineer, than necessarily to try to find somewhere to invest that money because interest rates were so low, so it's hard to find a nice quote-unquote, “Risk-free” return on the investment, so they said, “Why not? We'll just hire some engineers and maybe we'll get a bigger ROI there. We'll try a bunch of different projects, we'll put a bunch of people and maybe we'll go to the moon.”Corey: A lot of speculative or strategic hiring—Josh: Yeah.Corey: —and then okay, then you have—something that companies do when they have extra money is they greenlit additional projects. And when things get tight, they wind up effectively removing some of those projects from the table. And what I think people misunderstand in many cases is that compensation of employees is always more expensive than the infrastructure they work on, with very rare exceptions. So, the AWS bill is always secondary to payroll expenses, and fixing AWS cost takes time, effort, and engineering work, whereas laying people off requires a couple of difficult conversations—that companies increasingly seem to be bungling—and that's the end.Josh: Yeah. I think you're right about that. I mean, payroll, it's an old saw in businesses is that payroll is the biggest expense, right? Like, it's very expensive to hire people. But it could be the kind of thing, like you said, “We'll just fire up a bunch of these projects. We've been thinking about them anyway. We can't really invest this money anywhere else for a good return, so we'll take some shots here.” Right?But then interest rates go up and oh, there are places that I can get a nice return on this investment of cash, so maybe, you know, some of these projects that aren't going so well, we're going to shut them down. We're going to lean up a little bit. We're going to increase our margins, reduce our payroll costs, and just kind of ride this economic turmoil out and see how it goes. And who knows, maybe they'll fire some of those projects up later. But yes, it's much easier to say we're laying off 10% of our workforce tomorrow than it is to make a lot of other changes, especially on the expenses side.That's one of the few expenses I think that a company has direct control over and can simply reduce if they choose to. And that's kind of where we are right now, I think. And so, you mentioned economic mobility or job mobility. It's definitely way down. And I think the reason is that, you know, I mean, if I'd been through layoffs at companies that I worked at before, right?It's a really uncomfortable feeling, where the person that was sitting next to you in the office next to you gets laid off and you're sitting there wondering, “Am I going to be next?” And the last thing that you're going to do is start kind of poking your head up and looking for jobs and making it known that you're shopping, or even go ask for a raise or something because you're just trying to keep your head down and maybe the scythe will pass over me [laugh], right? Maybe they're going to miss me in this next round of layoffs if I just keep my mouth shut and I keep typing away here on my keyboard. So, I think a lot of that is going on where people are, if they're still employed, they're happy to be there and they're just going to kind of hunker down. And then if they're not employed, there's not a lot of them, you know, especially if you're coming from big tech, you would want to go most of the time to another big tech company.Like, that's why you're there, a lot of people aspire to work for big tech, they want to be in that ecosystem. But if all the big tech companies are laying people off or freezing hiring, there's nowhere to go. And so, there's nowhere to move if they want to. They don't want to make it known that they're looking to move because they don't want to draw attention to themselves if they're still employed. And if they're unemployed, the options for them to go somewhere are slim, but they probably have a severance package that they're kind of going to milk for a little bit and see if things kind of warm up again and they can go find somewhere to move to. So, everything feels, in the big tech level, there's a lot of inertia right now. People are just kind of sitting back, and there's a lot of friction, and they're just kind of hanging back to see what happens.Corey: And also, at least from my somewhat naive perspective, it feels like when people do get offers and they have made the decision to move on, there's an increasing sense of they should be thankful for what they get and not rock the boat by asking for more. But I vehemently disagree, to be very clear on this. I think that negotiate for the best package you can get. Do it in good faith and be responsible about it, but money that is life-changing to you is a rounding error at best for a lot of these companies. You will always be more invested in this than the counterparty that you're negotiating against. But it just really throws me and on some level, makes me sad watching people take less than they could be getting.Josh: Yeah. I mean, I think that's just the nature of people who are spooked when the economy is doing weird stuff. And it's an understandable reaction to it, but I agree with you. Just yesterday—you know, I'm in a bunch of [laugh] a bunch of different developer Slacks. I don't know which one this was, but I was in a developer Slack—and somebody was saying exactly that.They're like, “Yeah, I got this offer, it seems pretty good. I don't know if I should bother negotiating it, you know? Like, I, I—shouldn't I just be, you know, pretty satisfied with this thing that I got?” And I wrote a long response, which was, the short version of it was basically, “No.” And the reason is, think about all the costs that the company has incurred just to get to the point where they made you an offer?It was expensive for them. Believe me, a lot of money has been spent. They've gotten all the way to the finish line with you. I mean, the number is at least in the thousands of dollars; it's probably in the tens of thousands of dollars, especially if they flew out for an onside or something. If you went through an interview loop, just do the math on, well, I talked to six people for about an hour apiece. That's six hours right there of really expensive time probably at, like [laugh], you know, senior manager and above pay rates.So, they put a lot of money into trying to fill this role. They want to fill the role, especially in this environment. If you're that deep in the process, they've got a role that they probably feel is pretty crucial to be filled. So, you've got a lot of reasons that you should be optimistic about the value that you're bringing to that role and I think it's a mistake to not see what the maximum value is that you can get in return for the work that you're going to provide for them. So, I do think that being scared is not the right response there, again because they've made a significant investment to get to the point of making an offer.And remember their fallback, right, if you negotiate with them and they don't want to give you any more, I have never seen—and I underline the word ‘never—I've never seen that a big tech company, somebody negotiates, and the big tech company says, “Nevermind. Get out of here.” Job offer went away. I've never seen it.Corey: I was about to ask that because I've heard about it at startups. And back in years when I was on Twitter a lot more than I am now, I periodically have people messaging me saying that this happened to them. What should they do? Do I want to put the company on blast and the rest? It's something I learned relatively early on in that process was before I go off half-cocked—which I'm thrilled to do—can I get a screenshot of that email exchange back and forth?Because it hasn't happened often, but once or twice, what I have clearly seen is that the company makes an offer in good faith and the person comes back with what they believe is the professional way to negotiate for more money and it is such a screaming red flag that is basically fists-of-ham-powered here that companies are like, “Oh, thank God. We just learned this giant red flag. We can get out of this super easy by rescinding the offer because of the negotiation, rather than asking them who they think they're speaking to like that.” And that is the way of getting out of it in those cases. I don't think that's particularly common, and as you say, I don't suspect that happens at big tech companies.Josh: I mean, it's not a good look, right? There was a period last year where a big tech company… [laugh] I don't know if this is privileged information or not, but they were actually resending offers, and it's because they had gotten out over their skis. They were hiring way ahead of where they should have been, and then of course, everything turned and they had to start reducing headcount. So, they did, and then they started actually res—Corey: I can think of at least three companies off the top of my head that would qualify for that story. A lot of it came, but no one made an announcement that we're rescinding offers, but it doesn't take much on Twitter when you start seeing wow, 15 people all popped up at the same time claiming that. I wonder if they're telling—Josh: Weird.Corey: —the truth, given they've never—Josh: It's a pattern.Corey: —interacted with each other?Josh: Yes.Corey: Yeah…Josh: So, without putting them on blast, obviously, the reason I'm not saying their names is I would be putting them on bla—it's not a good look, right? Nobody wants to know that they're in the interview process for a company who is known for rescinding offers. And so, you know it wasn't a decision they took lightly. And so, to your point, companies are not just going to willy-nilly start pulling back offers because that's really terrible PR. I mean, it's just not a good idea.So, it's either what you said, which is—and this is something, like when I say, “I've never seen it; underline the word never,” right, what I mean is I work with people one-on-one for a living; that's what I do. None of my clients have ever had a job offer rescinded from big tech company. That's not to say it hasn't happened for reasons like you mentioned.Corey: Yeah, I have to imagine that the emails you help them craft to respond to these things don't start off with, “Now, listen here, asshole…”Josh: Right.Corey: Like, I sort of get the sense that that's not quite the negotiating tone that you take, most days.Josh: [laugh]. No. There's no, like, you know, “I've CC'd my lawyer on this email… and blah, blah—” you know, that's not how I negotiate; it's not a good way to negotiate if you want to get good results and build rapport with people. So, in general, if you follow what I would call, like, kind of good negotiating practices—which is self-serving because I would say that I've created a lot of them for salary negotiations, right—and if you're following the best practices there, everybody's understanding that we're having a professional, business conversation among, you know, [unintelligible 00:26:52] professionals. We're trying to find the best result, that's good for everybody and we're going to get there.And so, as long as you're not—you know, you mentioned, you know [laugh], I say, you know, pounding your fist on the desk and making ultimatums and stuff, like, that's not how I negotiate; you can hear it in the way I talk. You're going to be fine. They're not going to be rescinding offers and therefore, you have pretty much carte blanche to, in good faith, negotiate with them to see if there's more room to negotiate. And how aggressive you're being and what you're asking for, these are all things that are dependent on the situation, right? There's some cases where asking for another half a million a year would be completely absurd; in some cases where it's totally appropriate [laugh] and it just depends on what your situation is.Corey: For some roles, if you just accept the offer as given, you will lose status in their eyes, on some level. For example, one of the challenges we've had with contract negotiation has been when we hire folks to work on negotiations. It's one of those, like, “Okay, do we want somebody who accepts the first offer or do we want someone who really fights us tooth and nail over every aspect of it?” And it's, on some level, it's an extension to the interviewing process there.Josh: Yeah.Corey: I don't know what the right answer is on that I mostly shrug and make that my business partner's problem.Josh: I think it's a good metric to see, especially in your business, like, you want to know not only, like, can they negotiate contracts and all this stuff, but you want to know, like, how savvy are they in terms of business? And I think, in general, a person who just accepts the first offer they get in business, I will not say that they are not savvy because I don't know that, but it's not a signal of savviness, I think, to just outright accept the first thing that comes your way in business, in general.Corey: Oh, when I wind up interviewing people in person and telling them about offers and whatnot, in years past, it was always a, would you like me to sign it right now? It's… to be honest, I'm actually starting to reconsider having given it to you at all because only someone who is deranged is going to sign a contract they haven't read, and we don't try to hire for that.Josh: Right. Yeah, I mean, that's just not—especially when your job is negotiating—you want to know that this person is running a number of filters when they're considering, you know, what is probably a kind of a life-altering decision for them, right? And so, one of those filters is, “Are the terms of this contract good for me? Is there anything dangerous in here?” And one of the filters is, “Am I being appropriately compensated for the value that I'm going to bring?” That's the big one that I focus on, right?And there's a number of those filters and I think—you know, when I'm coaching someone, the first thing that we always say when a job offer comes in is, “Hey, thanks for the offer. I appreciate it. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like”—Corey: Yeah, acknowledge receipt.Josh: Yeah, yeah, “Thank you. I got the offer. Thank you for that.” And also acknowledge it and be thankful. Like, you know, “Hey, I appreciate it.” Like, “We have now made a significant step forward in this whole process that we're going through. I appreciate what you've done to get us here. I appreciate the fact that you're giving me an offer. That demonstrates a lot of trust and all these things. And if you don't mind, I'd like to take a day or two to think it over.” And then the last thing is, “Would you mind sending me a bullet-point summary in email of the numbers that you said, so I make sure I don't mess them up?”Because you're trying to avoid the very unlikely chance that they said numbers and you heard different numbers and then you start negotiating based on the different numbers and everything just kind of go sideways. So, that's the first three things: “Thank you for the offer.” “Can I have a day or two?” “Would you send me a bullet-point summary?” It doesn't have to be formal; just bullet points is fine.Corey: Would always irked me—and I you tend to see this a lot more with early career folks, but there's also this is a common failure mode as well among people who have been in one job for a while where they have gotten completely rusty at doing the interview dance. And they tend to view jobs as being this benevolent gift bestowed upon them by the employer and they become falling over themselves, just thanking them for the opportunity and the rest. And no, no, no, no, no. A job is a mutual exchange of value. You are solving a problem that the company has, and in turn, they are bringing you in and giving you a not inconsiderable amount of money—presumably—to wind up solving that problem for them, you both come out better than you were independently. That is what a job is. Confusing the power dynamic for something else feels, to me at least, like it's the wrong way to view things.Josh: Yeah. I've always not liked even the meta sort of way that we talk about jobs as, like, jobs created, jobs destroyed, somebody gave me a job. I don't know when that term—I would be curious actually, to kind of know the etymology of that term, but like, when we started describing jobs is the thing that was given or taken or—and instead, what it is, is it's a verbal contract or written contract. It's like, “Hey, I'm going to do work for you because I bring value. You're going to pay me because I'm creating value and because it's valuable to you. And we're going to figure out, you know, what's the meet-in-the-middle number, basically, that makes us both feel good about that business transaction.”You as a company can't do what you're doing without people like me. And I as a person have found a good place to flex that particular muscle at your company. That's great for both of us. Let's figure out how, you know, we can both be happy with it. So, it's definitely not that, you know, nobody's really doing anybody favors there. You're both entering into a mutual exchange of value for business reasons.And of course, your business reasons are different than theirs, but that's what they are. So yeah, I like the way that you frame that and you think about it. And I do think it can be a little harmful for people to have that perspective, especially like if they're in a position where they're thinking, “Oh, I'm so thankful that this company is willing to give me this job.” You know, “They're gifting me with this job and they're creating this job for me.” That's actually not what's happening.Corey: Something that I want to talk about, just because I've gone through this process myself as an employee, who interviewed a lot, negotiated a lot, and got hired a lot. Then I started this place and I've been on the other side of the table. And it turns out that it's not that hard to be a human being when you're the hiring manager and making these decisions. And understand the fact that yeah, you may be hiring five people this month, but these people aren't accepting five job offers a month—you hope—and going through that entire process themselves. And extending grace is just not that hard.Like, one thing that we've done since day one here has always been to put our salary compensation for the job in the job posting so we don't waste anyone's time. Where, like, “Well, what do you want to make?” It's like, if someone walks in to buy a car, the salesperson doesn't say, “Well, how much do you want to pay for it?” It doesn't work that way. It's, “This is the thing we're offering. This is the compensation we can build here. We don't do equity, so there's no funny money stories.”And yeah, I know you'd like to make three times more. So, would we, but without growth, that doesn't become sustainable. So, let's talk about how to get there. And being a responsible, decent human being is not that hard in the hiring space, but no one tells those stories because it's more fun, and outrage goes around the internet three times while the truth is still putting its boots on, where the idea of these horrible companies with people who don't know what they're doing just completely kicking themselves.Josh: Yeah, you know, it's funny, I thought, two things kind of flashed in my mind while you were talking. And the first one was, you know, I was a hiring manager for a while. And a lot of the sort of philosophy that I built around, like, asking for raises and promotions, right? Like, I have a process for that that's different than negotiating job offers, but the way that I developed it was as a hiring manager, my employees would say, you know—in their one-on-one or something—like, “Hey, you know, I feel like, you know, here's what happened when I started the company. For these reasons, I feel like I'm like, way behind where I should be in pay. Can you help?”And so, the way that I kind of approached that was, yes, I want to help them, but I cannot really do that on my own. I need a lot of information that I don't have for them. So, what information do I need from them to have them help me help them to get them a raise or get them or promotion, right? And so, I started thinking about it from the manager side of, like, essentially, kind of like a compassionate approach to, like, I need you to give me information and I will do what I can for you. And that was like, my whole philosophy with that, which is, I think I agree with you, but I need you to kind of prove to me that you should be paid more. Not because I don't believe you, but because I can't get you more money if I can't make that case, and I'm not able to make that case on my own, right?And so, I think that there is room for hiring managers to be compassionate in terms of like you said, just putting numbers in a job description, just so the person knows, like, yeah, this seems like it's probably approximately for me. Or you know, like I said, as a hiring manager saying, “Hey listen, I need you to bring me these three things. If you bring me those three things, that'd be the information that I need to go to finance or to HR or whoever and see if we can get you a raise or get you a promotion.” And if we can't, then I'll figure out, like, what are the next steps for you to get there to do that thing. And I think that in general, that's just removing friction from, like, forward-moving business processes and that's a good way to go.I think for you, right, you're saving yourself time, by putting those numbers in the job description, you're saving your applicants time by putting the numbers in the job description, and you're also kind of setting the terms for, like, the conversation that you're going to have, in addition to the abilities that they're bringing, the skills that they're going to bring, the things they're going to do for your company, you're also saving time on what the pay is going to be, what the compensation is going to look like approximately for that role, so that you can say, “Are we having a conversation whose parameters are known to us and that we agree upon to start with? Yes? Okay, great. Let's keep talking.” Otherwise, no, and maybe they should go somewhere else or maybe you need to rework your job listings because nobody is [laugh] applying for that job, right?But it's all data. It's a feedback loop. And it can be done compassionately. It doesn't have to be this, kind of, aggressive, you know, Shark Tank-style, like, I'm going to beat you over the head with this thing and get my result that I want, regardless of how you feel about it or, you know, how it makes you feel as a person.Corey: One last thing that I want to comment on this is that I've done this a fair bit, but if I wound up finding myself on the job market, I would absolutely reach out to you for coaching on the salary piece of it, just because you are a dispassionate third-party who is very aware of what the current state of the market is, you have a bunch of different offerings these days that range from a bunch of free articles on your website all the way up to individualized personalized coaching. I have bullied friends of mine into becoming your clients with a, “If he doesn't justify his fee, I will pay it instead of you.”Josh: [laugh]. Thank you for that, by the way.Corey: Of course. And I've never had to do it because you know what you're doing and the results absolutely speak for themselves. But my question is, what are you doing these days that's between the everything free on a website if you read it and, individualized one-on-one coaching? Are there now points in between those two extremes?Josh: Yeah. I think you actually summarized the whole spectrum pretty well. I mean, I've made—since I started my business seven-and-a-half years ago, one of the primary things that I did to start was, I'm going to create as much free content as I can and make it publicly available, just so that people can find it. Because there's no way that I can talk to tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people one-on-one. And so, that's there on fearlesssalarynegotiation.com.The other end is my one-on-one coaching which I developed because, frankly, people were reaching out and saying, “Hey, will you coach me through this?” And I said, “Sure.” And I developed that business. And then in between is, I created a program… three or four months ago, I launched it. It's called Salary Negotiation Mastery, but it is essentially me sitting down late last year with an instructional designer and asking the question, how can I teach the methodology I use in my one-on-one coaching to people who can't afford to hire me or just aren't inclined to hire a consultant to help them do something? And how can I teach that to them in a way that they can execute it on their own to get a good result, or possibly, you know, they're just at an income bracket right now where it doesn't make sense for them to hire me?And so, that's kind of the middle ground there is it's a coaching program, but it's wrapped in a do-it-yourself thing, where you have, you know, worksheets and workbooks and things that you can use to do it yourself using exactly the methodology, even the templates and things that I use with my clients. And the only thing, of course, that you're missing is my brain, but I've put as much of that as I can into the program as possible. So, that's the spectrum is: free articles, Salary Negotiation Mastery in the middle, and then the top tier offering that I have is, like you said, one-on-one bespoke coaching, where I work with somebody one-on-one. And I don't do a lot of that, just because it requires a lot of time and I like to give a ton of focus to everybody that I work with.Corey: Which makes sense because it also feels like it's a very time-sensitive issue as well. Like with AWS bill, great people want it fixed now, but then procurement can slow things down. But that's okay; there's another bill coming next month. Job offers, speaking as a hiring manager, if you accept the job, terrific, that's great. If you don't. Then okay, that's unfortunate, but it happens. But either way, let us know so we can either continue speaking to other people or begin planning for you to show up. So, it feels like there's very much a strong sense of urgency around the entirety of what you do.Josh: Yeah, especially for the coaching. And the whole offering for my coaching offering is really designed to make sure that I have enough bandwidth available for someone to call me. I mean, literally, as we're in this recording right now, I could have gotten an application in the email that would say, “Hey, I have a job offer in hand from Google. It's for this much money, it's for this level, can you help?”Corey: “And they're on the other line. Please respond immediately.”Josh: Yes. And their recruiter is pressuring me for an answer. They want to get back to the hiring manager. And so, I need to be able to respond quickly, get back to that person, have an intro call, get to know them, see if I can help in their situation, kickoff, you know, this afternoon or tomorrow morning, get a counteroffer over in the next 24 to 36 hours, that kind of thing. And so, in order to do that, I've got to build an offering that allows me to have enough bandwidth and, kind of, agency over my schedule so that I can just sort of jump in immediately into the middle of a process that's ongoing and help the person get the best result possible.So, I enjoy that to be honest with you. I like, kind of, being called on in emergency situations like that. It's really good. But of course, I had to structure the offering so that it facilitates it so that I'm not, you know, already booked on the phone eight hours a day and unable to even look at my email until tomorrow or something because it just wouldn't work.Corey: Yeah. There's something to be said for being able to take a vacation.Josh: Yes. Which takes some planning, but can be done [laugh]. And it means I just have to turn off the application sometimes [laugh].Corey: Glad to see things are still going well for you. You started your business a few months before I started mine and it's great to see that we're both still failing to go out of business every month.Josh: [laugh]. That's how I see it, too. I'm still here. Now, what [laugh]? That's every month on the first when I do the books.Corey: [laugh]. I hear you. I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me. If people want to learn more—and if they're changing jobs, they absolutely should—where should they go to find out?Josh: fearlesssalarynegotiation.com is the first place to go. I'm also on Twitter. I don't tweet a lot kind of actively, I probably should do better on that, but I'm at @joshdoody on Twitter and I'm very responsive on there. So, you could ping me on there or, you know, connect with me on LinkedIn if you wanted to; I'm also joshdoody there. But fearlesssalarynegotiation.com is the best place to go, especially if you're kind of in a time crunch. Everything is just right there for you to jump in and kind of grab, you know, the free resource that you might need or apply to work with me as a coaching client.Corey: Oh, the template emails are glorious.Josh: Yes. Those are one of my favorite things on the site. They don't look like other emails that people write, and something I take a lot of pride in is communicating well and creating good email templates that help a lot of people.Corey: Oh, in TextExpander, for a decade now, I've had a fill-in-the-blanks templated resignation letter, which it turns out, most people don't have. But I don't need it much these days, but it is useful to wind up giving to people from time to time. Like, “So, how do I tell my boss to take this job and shove it?” It's like—Josh: Well—Corey: —life is long and the industry is small. Go vent to your friends over beers. But there's very little upside and huge potential downside, so write the formal thing. Here you go. And it turns out that it's sort of cathartic, just filling that out. And it's like, oh, that's what this [unintelligible 00:42:05]. And it often helps people step back from the ledge sometimes. Or pushes them right off, depending.Josh: I think that's a useful service.Corey: But yeah, the [unintelligible 00:42:11] template emails are way better than mine.Josh: [laugh]. Well thanks, I appreciate it. It means a lot to me.Corey: [laugh]. Josh Doody the owner of fearlesssalarynegotiation.com. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry comment and be sure to include your salary expectations.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

Scouting The Refs Podcast
Making the Cut for the Stanley Cup Final

Scouting The Refs Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 31, 2023 22:27


Take a moment to catch your breath before the Stanley Cup Final, with referee Kelly Sutherland mic'd up, the referees and linesmen working the Cup Final, the first female on-ice official enters the IIHF Hall of Fame, ECHL refs have an easy night, and the CHL looks at three major rule changes for the 2023-24 season -- all around penalties and power plays! More on these topics, including video clips and rule breakdowns, at scoutingtherefs.com Visit www.scoutingtherefs.com and follow @scoutingtherefs and @toddlewissports on Twitter and Instagram. Email us your questions - heyref@scoutingtherefs.com Call the RefLine at 585-484-REFS!   Episode Transcript #166 Scouting the Refs is an unscripted audio podcast, designed to be heard. It's a whole lot more interesting to listen to the audio, but we're happy to provide a transcription below. This transcript has been generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain textual or typographical errors.  Full transcript: https://scoutingtherefs.com/2023/06/40183/scouting-the-refs-podcast-166-making-the-cut-for-the-cup-final/   Todd: So I know we're all excited about the Stanley Cup final beginning and finally getting underway, Florida Panthers and the Vegas Golden Knights, but you know Josh? I'm thinking I want to start planning now. What we're going to be doing in the next few weeks when there's no games to watch, because no matter how much I prepare mentally at this point in time in the season, I always suffer from withdrawals after the Cup final is completed and the trophy is handed out. Josh: It's such a challenge, right? We go from the first round where you've got multiple games every night and just there's something going on everywhere at every hour. And the NHL even figured out scheduling this year, so with the games spread out, we could watch a lot of the action. And then it dwindles down a little bit more and now we've had this break of days without hockey, at least at the NHL level, and now the most we'll have is a game every other night. It's starting to feel real, Todd. It's starting to slip away a little bit. The hockey season is leaving us. Todd: It is and that's the hard part. I know the theory is that you start big and that it seems as though like you're kind of being weaned off the drug but it doesn't really work that way. You still suffer from the the withdrawals when it's gone.  Josh: And, you know, the warm temps outside don't exactly help you. The weather's warm. You want to be outdoors doing things, especially with these games on the weekend. You're out and about it's it's hot outside. You've got shorts and a t-shirt on, and then you come back in to watch some ice hockey. Yeah, I I love the length of the season. I love that we have all these games, but when you start to get into June, especially the middle of June, it it feels like maybe we've gone too far. Todd: You know, we'll, we'll get through it. We always do. And there will be the anticipation before long of the new season. This is the Scouting the Refs Podcast. Please make sure you follow us on the social channels. Josh, of course can be found @scoutingtherefs on Twitter and Instagram, you'll get me at @toddlewissports on Twitter and Instagram as well. Coming up on this week's episode: Kelly Sutherland mic'd up, who made the cut, a Hall of Fame career, and new rules the NHL should be considering. I am very excited to discuss this topic, Josh. Josh: New rules are always interesting, sometimes they have unintended consequences, so you never know how it will play out, but it will be interesting to see. Todd: Okay, so let's get to some of the other stuff before we talk about the potential for for new rules. Four-star review for the video of the Western Conference Series game One. You hear from players, you hear from coaches, but most importantly you hear referee Kelly Sutherland at work out on the ice. We've seen these  videos pop up semi regularly. They provide great insight into what is happening on the ice during the games, and conveniently enough, the bad words are taken out for you. That's why it takes a couple of days to get them out. So Kelly Sutherland, as you've perhaps seen before in some of these videos, is one of the most vocal referees out on the ice. He's explaining to players what he sees after a play. He's telling goaltenders that he's watching for the goalie interference. He's explaining to coaches what is happening out on this. It's it's as if he is a coach out on the ice at times. I think it's a great job that he does. Josh: Absolutely. It's one of the reasons that when they've had the player polls in the past that Sutherland scores so highly as one of the league's top officials. It's not only about positioning and judgment and comportment and all of the things that go in from an officiating standpoint. But from the players point of view, here's a guy who's actually helping you understand where the line is, and he's giving you advance notice before he's calling the penalty. And as a player, that's what you wanna have. You want to know where you stand and and when you're getting too far over the line. And that's what Sutherland does. I think one of his greatest strengths is the communication side of thing of warning guys and when they're getting too close and putting pressure in the crease. Or when it's a potential interference call and things he's seeing out there, so he tries to set that up front and then stick with that standard the whole game. And it's great when you have the mic'd up videos, because then we get to hear some of that dynamic and you see what goes into it before a penalty's actually called. Because he might have been chatting about it for the whole first period, halfway through the second period and a guy keeps at it and now all of a sudden he's blowing the whistle because he's warned him and he's had that conversation and it's one of his strengths. And it's really interesting to hear the types of things that go on. But you're right, Todd, it's almost like he's the second coach out there advising these guys. So he's not just enforcing the rules, but he's he's warning them he's giving them a heads up. He's reminding them of where the line is and when they've gone to far, that's when he has to send them off to the box. Todd: I I love it too. It's not just after the play that he's explaining calls, but as you mentioned, when two players are tied up, he's telling one like, okay, let him go. You gotta let him go now otherwise. You get the interference call and it's just like I don't want to penalize you, but I'm going to have to pretty soon. Josh: Yeah. And it's great in this video, you can hear a nice exchange he has with Keegan Kolesar about a hit that happened and there was a cross checking why he didn't call it and Kolesar's great, super polite there. Just thanking him for it. ‘I appreciate it' is what he says afterwards. So you might not always agree with it, but just giving that explanation and. Letting the guy understand why the call was or wasn't made in a certain situation is immensely helpful. But I don't know if you noticed, Todd, in the clip one of the coaches is on there saying, ‘Nice chat, Kelly.' We don't actually get the content of that conversation. So I don't know if it was something they wanted to keep quiet, or if there were just too many four letter words to include it. Todd: Yeah, that that sometimes the editing can be a little bit tricky on those. Again, I think it provides great insight and good job, I believe for putting those out even if it's 3-4 days after because of all the all the approval that has to go through. So with this video and hearing Kelly Sutherland at work, it is not surprising that he was one of the referees named to work in the Stanley Cup. Final he'll be joined by Steve Kozari, Wes McCauley – no surprise there, Dan O'Rourke, and Chris Rooney. The linesmen are Steve Barton, Scott Cherrey, Brad Kovachik, Kiel Murchison, and Jonny Murray. Congratulations to all for reaching the final. There's no real surprises with any of these names, is there? Josh: No, everybody's been here before, so I can't say that any of them come as a total shock. You've got tons of veteran experience there, McCauley, Sutherland both working their 10th Stanley Cup Final, Rooney with six. Even Johnny Murray, with six. So everybody's been here plenty of times. They all know what it's like, what the pressure entails, what the big games mean. It was not a shock.   I was hoping that some of the younger guys might have made it. We saw Jean Hebert make the Cup Final last year, thought he might have a shot at returning this year, but he and Trevor Hanson, looking to make his Cup Final debut, both left off of the rosters. I thought either one of them could have made it, but who do you cut in their place? This is such a a challenge here. Figuring it out. So you think of – from an NHL standpoint – everything that goes into it and it's your full season, it's your mid season grade, it's your season end evaluation and then it's what you've done each round in the playoffs. So all of that leading up to it and I I think you know, we see and expect who's going to make it. And I I'd say these are like you said, Todd, no surprises here on these crews. Todd: Now, as you explained nicely in a piece on the scoutingtherefs.com website, the final works a little bit differently in that there's not specifically a backup referee at each event and the whole procedure of pairing guys together works a little bit differently as well. Josh: It's interesting to see because all season long we get this rotation of refs. Everybody works the next game with a different partner, typically because of travel, maybe they'll have a back-to-back together, but you're typically working each game with an entirely different crew. Through the first few rounds of the playoffs, that changes a bit because we do see ref pairings and linesman pairings, and often we see that quartet move together through some games. We definitely saw in the conference final where Kelly Sutherland's crew, the same four of them, worked together each game. Once you get to the Stanley Cup Final, they throw everybody back in the hat and basically draw numbers again. So you've got an odd number of referees, which means we're no longer having that pairing; we're having a rotation where the first two guys will work game one, the second two guys will work game two and then they'll start to mix it up after that because of the odd number. So your partner being a standard guy and and maybe at some of them that you've worked together the entire postseason up until now, now you're gonna get a new partner every night. So back to how the regular season works with the rotation. Obviously you're hoping these are your top officials. These are the best of the best. These guys have been consistent throughout the postseason, so it shouldn't matter, but it definitely shakes things up a little bit, so it'll be interesting to see how those tendencies translate when we see a guy where maybe two guys have worked together the entire postseason and now they get to work with different partners in the Stanley Cup Final. Todd: One other note on the referees who are and are not working the Cup Final, and you and I were exchanging messages during this game. But for those that say there is no accountability for officials, yes, there is, because there was one particular game with the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes, where not one, but two goals were overturned on offside challenges and those two linesmen are not working in the Stanley Cup Final. Now, they were so close. It was microscopic that they were offside plays, but this is the price that they're paying. Josh: Yeah,  and we don't know. For sure if that happened to be the reason or the straw that broke the camel's back, or if there are other contributing factors here in making that decision. But, certainly, it's one of those things that you look at from an officiating management standpoint when you have guys that are frequently involved in coaches challenge or you have referees that maybe are calling major penalties, that they're downgrading after review, maybe it makes you question their judgment a little bit. I'm not saying it's right or wrong and and like you said, these are really close plays, so I'm not even going to point fingers at the officials or or find fault in how it worked out, but certainly the optics of having a call that had to be overturned on such a public stage and in such a critical juncture in a key moment for a goal to be scored or not, you can't help but think that that did put the spotlight on them a little bit more and may have influenced Stephen Walkom's decision. Todd: A couple of non-NHL notes that we should mention as well. Congratulations to Sandra Dombrowski, who now goes by Sandra Frye. She has become the first female on ice official inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame. Congratulations Sandra on a great international hockey career.  Josh: Yeah. Very nice to see that honor there. The class of 2023 was inducted. We have lots of players from all over the place and another official making it in. And there's very few in the IIHF Hall of Fame. Only eight now, with Dombrowski's edition and mostly European, we don't have an American or even a Canadian official that are yet in the IIHF Hall of Fame, so there's there's still boundaries to hit there, but nice to see Dombrowski get in. She broke plenty of boundaries coming in and making her way up. Even as a hockey player, when she was younger, she couldn't find a team to play with as a woman, so she founded her own and it went from there and she was involved in a lot of firsts. The first unofficial women's game at the World Championship and then the first woman referee of a Women's World gold medal game. So nice to see her recognized for all the contributions to hockey, both as a player as an official and then coming off the ice, working as a supervisor and then part of the IIHF officiating committee. So she's given a lot to hockey and nice to see them reciprocate and and give the honor of putting her into the IIHF Hall of Fame. Todd: So the first North American referee that could go in potentially maybe a few years down the road, you know if that was Wes McCauley, I got to think that the acceptance speech is going to be out of this world because they they let them do that at the presentation, don't they? Josh: They do and they did, and Dombrowski gave a great speech. It was wonderful to hear from her and you could tell how much this meant to her; how much hockey means to her. So it was a great honor, but I just picture Wes being most comfortable with just want to give that speech with the mic on, at center ice in full uniform. Todd: Five for fighting! Josh: We've got an induction! Todd: Perfect. Love it. Okay, also non-NHL-related. Congratulations to the Florida Everblades for their win over the Newfoundland Growlers. They win the Eastern Conference final in the ECHL. They'll move on to play Idaho in the final. That series also opens up on Saturday, June the 3rd. Congrats to the Blades who are going for back-to-back titles. It is the second time these two teams have met. In 2004, it was the Idaho Steelheads that prevailed . It was an interesting game summary in this one. It was a double overtime game as I mentioned, but barely a whistle blown for a penalty. Josh: Yeah, quiet one for the officials, which is —  It's funny, we joked last week on the podcast about how things tighten up and saying that when you get into game six or game seven, we see fewer and fewer penalties and things really tighten up and I think it's on both sides, right? I think it's on the officials. Maybe I don't wanna say pocketing the whistles, cause that becomes a a negative, but maybe calling that standard tightly and making sure everybody knows where it is. But we also see it on the players trying to be on their best behavior because they don't want to be the person sitting in the box that's responsible for a power play goal against, especially when goals are so critical. But this one, Todd, referee Sam Heideman and Alex Normandin called a clean game effectively because they didn't hand out any power plays. They had some penalties. We had a holding minor that was accompanied by a diving penalty, so that washes out; we have no man advantage there. Only one other penalty in the game. And you can thank the linesman for it because it was a bench minor for too many men on the ice. Todd: Now those of us that are familiar with the ECHL and have, you know, seen a few games, is this a first? Josh: It's a relatively well behaved game for these guys. Nice to see how well-mannered both clubs were. I got to watch part of the game didn't see the whole thing, but you know it's one of those things where you don't want to be the guy who messes it up. You're trying to keep it clean. You don't wanna get whistled for anything. You're kind of playing a little more careful, a little, a little safe there, especially in a game that spent a lot of the time tied. I mean from the second period on, the whole third period, the whole first over time, you've got a tie game there. So you definitely don't want to be the guy who puts your team shorthanded. Todd: I'll just end by saying go Blades. That's my hometown team. Okay, now we talked about some potential rule changes that are going to take place. They are taking place in the Champions League in Europe and I think that there's some some of these –  in fact, I like all of them – that could and should be considered by the National Hockey League. Okay, so let's go through them one at a time. First, being minor penalties dealt with the same as a major penalty in that a team that has caused a minor penalty will remain shorthanded, even if the opposing team scores a goal, so you're serving the full two. Josh: Yeah, not a radical change here. This is one of those ‘everything old is new again' kind of moments because this is how it was in the National Hockey League up until 1956. You sat for the whole 2 minutes; you served your time. If they scored once, twice, three times, however many they score in that 2 minutes, you're staying in the box. So I think the Champions League is looking to boost goal scoring here and they also say that they want to make sure punishments are consistent. So yeah, you did the crime you will do the time, no matter how many goals get scored during your sentence. Todd: I don't think that's an unreasonable thing. I know that we had an exceptional power play this year with the Edmonton Oilers, but it still was, what? Just over 30%. So it's unlikely that you're going to score two or three or four goals, but maybe that helps as a deterrent. Josh:  It could because those penalties become a bit more valuable. And right now you're looking at it as you're either short handed for two minutes or you've given up a goal and then you're back to even strength. Now you're definitely going to be shorthanded for the whole 2 minutes, and you aren't capped at just giving up one shorthanded goal, so it does put a little premium on those penalties, which hopefully doesn't put more pressure on the refs when it comes to not wanting to decide the game or factor into the game. You need to call it the same way, it's just that the each penalty call becomes a bit more impactful, potentially. Todd: Okay, also with a delayed penalty, a minor penalty will be served even if a goal is scored while a delayed penalty is pending. Josh: Yep, and I'm good with this one. This is one of those interesting situations where many of the leagues wipe out the goals on delayed penalties. NCAA College Hockey in the US actually has this rule currently where a goal scored on the delayed penalty does not wash out the penalty. If you score on the delayed call, you still get a power play afterwards and the player still serves his time, which now under this other rule will also be a full 2 minute power play coming out of that. Todd: Right. Josh: It's it's pretty interesting at the NHL level and others that penalty just disappears. It never happened. The the guy doesn't have two minutes associated with any infraction. He doesn't serve any time in the box; the entire penalty isn't even recorded.  At the USA Hockey level, it is recorded but not served. So I think it's interesting. I mean, I've rallied before in the past to say they should consider at least booking the guy for the two minutes and making him sit in the box even if you don't give the team a man advantage, but I think this is the most honest way to do it. The delayed penalty isn't a power play. It's an opportunity where the other team can't touch the puck, so it it definitely comes to a benefit to the attacking team. They get to pull the goaltender, they get to maintain possession. So there there's definitely a benefit there, but I've always been amazed that it offsets the power play there. And again I think this is just try to keep balance and keep scoring down, but now you're going to see more scoring because not only will you score on the delayed penalty… or if you do, you'll still get a 2 minute power play. Todd: I like it. I think it's a a good idea and the other one that's being implemented by the Champions League is that a short handed goal erases a current minor penalty. If the team shorthanded scores, then their minor penalty will come to an end. I'm okay with this. I guess it's a bit of a ‘get out of jail' free card. Well, even more of a bonus than that, but I think it will encourage teams to maybe try stuff on the penalty kill. Josh: This is the most radical of them, right? Because everything up until now has been ‘Delayed penalty? You're still going to serve the time', ‘Other team scores? You're still gonna serve the time.' Well, your own team scores. Now you get out of jail free — so you worded it properly, Todd, I think that's exactly what it is. And this one's not looking at the change from a punishment standpoint. This is purely around goal scoring because you're you're hoping that you can get that team to stretch things out a little bit and think offensively, which could open scoring the other way and make those short handed teams a little less defensively conscious because now they want to score. They want to get that time back, especially if it's late in the game, you're trailing, you don't wanna wait out the whole 2 minutes. If you can get this goal, you can get back to even strength. So I think it's an interesting move. I think it's definitely the most radical of the ones that are coming in here and the one I'm curious to see what types of changes that makes to how teams approach being shorthanded and and what the power plays look like. And remember with those other changes, you will be shorthanded the entire time, so you've got that two minutes you can be scored on multiple times unless you do this to end your short handed situation by scoring a shorthanded goal.  The combination of these three makes it really interesting. I feel like it's gonna take some time for teams and coaches to adapt to what the strategy is here and how best to take advantage of this and and how to work it properly. So I'm glad the Champions Hockey League is putting these in place, since these are ones that we've talked about at the North American hockey level and it's the right place to test it. It's this the specialty league. They have limited scope, limited teams, 24 teams this year coming in from all over Europe. So because of the way they're set up, I think it's a great proving ground to see how are these going to work when we first put them in place and then by the end of the season, is it still doing what we thought it would? Or have we seen things change dramatically?  And you know what they then they take a break, they can change it for next year, but at least this is the right place where you can actually try that and see how it plays out before you implement it at a larger scale or at the AHL, ECHL, NHL level. Todd: I have one more that's been suggested, I think by a few people, but I think would be an interesting to be part of this experiment as well. If the team that has is getting the penalty has a choice between being on the man advantage for two minutes or taking a penalty shot. Josh: That's an interesting one. You know, we've, we've seen that come up before in discussions on especially late in game situations. Should it be a power play? Should it be a penalty shot? Todd: Right. Josh:  In the past you look at penalty shot, success rate versus power play success rate and it's not that far off. I mean we've we've seen maybe the penalty shots are a little bit higher, but statistically speaking it's not a huge difference where you see a big swing there, I think it'd be interesting to give teams that option, especially when you've got the full 2 minutes because now. Do you want 2 minutes on the power play where you can score multiple times, or do you want one shot at a breakaway? In this situation, you know if you're trailing in the game, maybe that 2 minutes is valuable and you you'd rather have the penalty shot. Or maybe the opposite is true and you just wanna kill time off the clock and you'd rather have the two-minute power play. I think that'd be an interesting strategy driver there, too, Todd, on how do you approach it because now you've got a power play that could result in multiple goals, or you get to take the penalty shot, which is only one – uses no time on the clock – but do you think your team has a better chance on the penalty shot than on the power play? Interesting dynamic there. Another one where I think it takes time. You you'd have to put that in and coaches would figure out how best to make it work for their team. You know, if you're the Edmonton Oilers this past season, you're taking the power play every time. Some teams with limited success or with a really strong breakaway scoring player there, you might want to take the penalty shot and I think that it just changes things up from a strategy standpoint. Todd: Now you mentioned the downfall.  Coaches ruin everything.   Thanks for listening… or reading. Please like, share, and subscribe to the Scouting the Refs Podcast wherever you get your podcasts:  

MegaPixx Media
When To Get Out Of The Way | Culture Hack | Calgary Business

MegaPixx Media

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 30, 2023 5:55


Tangent's main purpose is to engineer success, enrich lives and improve the world through strategic innovation. Guest Josh Abbott from Tangent talks about how they do just that by letting their employees shine. To quote Josh “It's up to leadership and management to set the table for your employees to be successful.” How does that approach keep their employees engaged? Tangent sets their employees up for success by removing obstacles and distractions that would keep their employees from doing their best work. For more details follow along as Adam and Josh chat. Click the stamps below to enjoy our discussion and insights on: 00:00 Intro 00:11 Welcome Josh 01:03 What is Engagement 02:45 What are the Obstacles 04:24 What the Future Holds 05:42 Be on the Show A bit about our Guest Josh is a Partner at Tangent Design Engineering with 15 years of experience in managing product development. He values close collaboration with customers; always with the mindset to create and execute successful commercialization strategies that achieve both product and business success. You can connect with Josh on LinkedIn at Josh Abbott | LinkedIn To learn more about Tangent Design Engineering go to https://www.tangentservices.com/ #employeeengagement #innovation #leadership #corporateculture #culturehack #connection #purpose #teamwork #success To be our Next Guest on The Culture Hack at YYC Business please follow this link https://form.123formbuilder.com/6233829/form About Adam and Culture Hack Adam's alternate title at ENTA Solutions is The Culture Ninja. His passion is helping small businesses excel by creating an engaging company culture. Adam's goal is to help your team achieve clarity of purpose and wholeheartedly commit to your company's values and vision. Connect with Adam on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-kolozetti Website: https://yyccalgarybusiness.ca/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@megapixxmedia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calgarysbusiness/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/calgarysbusiness/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yyccalgarybusiness/ TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@yycbusiness/ Filmed and edited by ENTA Solutions https://www.entasolutions.org The views and opinions expressed in the video are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of MegaPixxMedia Ltd and their Affiliates Any content provided by our bloggers or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything. This video is for entertainment only.

Footnoting History
The Papal Fleet

Footnoting History

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 14, 2023 23:44 Transcription Available


(Josh) It's POPE NAVY time! When Church leaders gathered at the Council of Vienne in 1311, King Henry II of Cyprus promised Pope Clement V a fleet of ships which would have the purpose of enforcing trade embargoes the papacy had enacted. These trade embargoes aimed to prevent Latin Christians from engaging in trade with Muslims and certain non-Latin Christians. While not built until later in the fourteenth century, the papal fleet appeared in many crusade proposals in the first few decades of that century. Come sail the heretical sea on this voyage of Footnoting History.

The Gravel Ride.  A cycling podcast
Josh Poertner - Silca

The Gravel Ride. A cycling podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 12, 2022 102:09


In this week's episode, Randall has Josh Poertner on to talk aerodynamics. In a wide-ranging conversation, the two touch upon Josh's time as Technical Director at Zipp, involvement in the development of computational models for rotating wheels, early collaboration with Cervelo founders Phil White and Gerard Vroomen, founding and leadership of the product brand Silca and The Marginal Gains Podcast, and ongoing consulting work with elite athletes and teams. Silca Website  Marginal Gains Podcast Episode Sponsor: Logos Components  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Silca - Josh Poertner [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week on the show, I'm handing the microphone back to my co-host Randall Jacobs. Who's got Josh Portner, the CEO of Silka on the shout out a wide range in conversation about the sport and high performance. Many of you may be familiar with the storied Silka brand. It's been around for close to a hundred years. But josh took over back in 2013 with a mission of merging the highest quality materials and craftsmanship with cutting edge design and manufacturing When you visit the Silca website, you notice a tagline, the pursuit of perfection, never settling, always improving. And I think that embodies how Josh approaches the sport. . So I'm excited to pass you over to Randall to dig into this conversation. Before we jump in i want to thank this week sponsor logos components Yeah, I've been itching to get back on a set of six 50 B wheels, and I've been waiting for my logo's components, wheels to arrive. They literally just arrived last night and I'm super stoked. But yet disappointed because I have to go away for the weekend and I won't be able to actually ride them until sometime next week. I chose the Atara six 50 B model. As you know, I'm sort of big on the big tires, big fun philosophy. So I've been eager on my unicorn, which I've been riding on a 700 SEASET for a while now. To get into the six 50 bees again and see what a six 50 by 50 combined with that rock shock fork is going to yield for me on the trails here in Marin. You guys may remember. Me sitting down with Randall, talking about what makes a great gravel wheel set and everything that went into these logos component wheels. I encourage you to go back to that conversation because whether or not the logo's wheel set is for you or not. I think Randall does an excellent job of teasing out. All the various considerations. You should be having when considering buying a gravel wheelset, It is no small expense when getting into a carbon wheel set, but the team at logos has endeavored with their direct consumer model. Uh, to make it as affordable as possible and make them as durable and high performing as anything out there on the market. I written wheels designed by Randall for the last three years. So I'm super excited. To see his latest vision come to fruition. With these new wheels and I'll have them underneath me soon enough. I encourage you to check them out@logoscomponents.com. Randall's also an active member of the ridership community. So if you have questions for him, feel free to join us over there at the ridership and connect with other riders. I seen people paying that their wheels have arrived so you can get some real, real people answering your questions. About whether they're enjoying the wheelset and how they perform, et cetera. And I'll have more on this in future additions. At this point. I'm going to hand the microphone over to Randall. And i hope you enjoy this conversation with josh [00:03:30] Randall: Josh Portner, thank you for joining us on the podcast. This is a conversation I've been looking forward to for quite some time. Some deep bike nerdy is probably about to ensue, so, uh, let's dive, let's hope. Dive right into it. [00:03:43] Josh: Well, thank you for having me. Always, always up for some deep bike. Nerdy. I like that. [00:03:49] Randall: So a number of our listeners will already know who you are, but just give folks a high level summary of what you do now. [00:03:55] Josh: Oh gosh. So I own Silca, um, or I own Arrow Mind, which, uh, owns the Silca brand and trademark, um, and, and all that that entails. And then we also have a, uh, we own Marginal Gains, which is a podcast and a YouTube channel. And, um, Yeah, our goal is to, a mind works with a lot of pro riders, pro teams, world tour teams. Um, you know, we do everything, Excuse me. We do everything from, you know, performance consulting, uh, modeling, uh, you know, setting up our record attempts for people or, or helping them design our record attempts. Um, you know, we do tire pressure work with pros. We do equipment choices for teams. We think some of the most interesting stuff we do, um, is around where like, uh, teams or national federations don't trust the equipment they're getting from somebody. And they'll come to us and say, you know, the, you know, bike brand X says that this does this, and our writers don't think so. Can you tell us what's true? And. We'll find a way to make that happen. So we, we've had some pretty interesting ones of those with, uh, particularly around the Olympics with the national federations. You know, no, nobody wants to have another Under Armor speeds skating suit, uh, situation, , right? Where all the, all the athletes think something is true and therefore it becomes true and, and nobody knows. And so, um, you know, so we do a lot of that. Arrow mind does that, essentially. And so that's a lot of the performance work I was doing in my old world. I was technical director at ZIP for almost 15 years. Um, and, and then Silca is the product arm of the company. Uh, that's probably how, you know, most people know us. You know, we make pumps and tools and, and, but we also make a lot of crazy things that people look at me and go, Oh, where the hell did that come from? Well, that probably came from some project or another. We did it in the Arrow Mind side of the business, Um mm-hmm. . So that's how we've gotten into sealants and lubricants and 3D printing and, and all sorts of other craziness. Right? That's sort of how the one flows into the other. And then, you know, Marginal Gains is a podcast and, and YouTube channel where we talk about it all and, and we, we typically with a, a team or a company have like a two year. Secrecy period on a technology. And then after that we can do something with it and, and talk about it and tell the story. So, you know, it's always, it's always fun to go through those periods where like, Oh, thank God we can talk about that now, . Cause you know, we're talking about it internally all the time. And, and you're like, Oh, can we put that in the podcast? I don't know. So, so that, that's what I do now. We, I, I play with bikes basically. [00:06:34] Randall: Very, very cool. And, um, when you talk about the consulting work you do, is this kind of full stack performance consulting, is it very a focused, is it all technical sides, including say, like bearing drag or, or things like this? Is it, um, obviously positioning falls into Arrow Nutrition. Like where, where do you, ooh, where does your domain physiology start? [00:06:57] Josh: And I draw the line at physiology, you know, there's a whole, there, there are people who are, are like my equivalent in that world. And, and my God, I can never even dream to. You know, clean their shoes. So, um, no, you, you need someone to talk physiology, you know, And I'll, I'll pull my phone out and we'll call Allen Li or somebody, you know, Yeah. With a bunch of contacts. But, uh, you know, Alan's one of my favorite go-tos for things like that and be like, Oh dude, I've been over my head help . You know, [00:07:21] Randall: he, he's, um, he's actually been on the pod before, but Craig interviewed him, so I might bring him on in the future to do, you know, my, my more kind of nerdy type of interview. Alan's great. Yeah, no, [00:07:31] Josh: he's, he's a lovely guy. He's a lovely guy. And, and I just love, I mean, he, you know, like I find myself pretty quickly sometimes getting into places where people's eyes just glaze over, like, what the hell is this guy talking about? And, you know, I love that Alan can do that to me in about 30 seconds, you know, we're talking about the stuff that he does. You're like, Oh, whoa, shit, way over my head way. I, I didn't even recognize the last four words that you used in that sentence, . And, uh, so it's, it's awesome to be able to be surrounded by people with that. But no, you know, we. The stuff that they come to us for. I mean, you know, when I left sip and started soak, of course everybody and their brother, you know, came and said, Oh, design us a wheel. I'm like, well, like I can't do that for a couple years. But also I'm kind of just done with that, you know, like I've lived that life. I, you know, it, it was fun. But, you know, we, we continually updated wheels for 15 years, but it, it really is kinda like doing the same thing over and over again, you know? And, and so it just wasn't fun for me. So, you know, they'll come and say, um, you know, help us design this cockpit, or we, we do a lot of, with our, our in-house, uh, 3D titanium printing, we do a lot of custom cockpits for, uh, teams, riders, things like that. You know, where we laser scan the rider, get the position, lock that down to the wind tunnel, design the part, 3D print it, um, you know, stuff like that, that, that's really exciting. We, we'd get a lot of, you know what, um, You know, help us optimize for this time trial at the tour or the Olympics or whatever, where, you know, what tires should we run and we can, we have systems and tools and, and spreadsheets and a million other things that we can, um, Yeah. Help, help them determine. And then a lot of times we, you know, we get companies coming to us, um, really just wanting to know, like, you know, if, like, which of their sponsor products should they use and when should they go off sponsor? You know, you'll see that a lot at like, the tour where, excuse me. Um, you know, like they, they ride the sponsor correct product, you know, 98% of the time, and then they're gonna sneak it in here or there when it's really critical. So, you know, what, what are those really critical points? And then, you know, if, if they're gonna risk getting in trouble or outright get in trouble, like it needs to be worth it, right? And so they might come to us with like, okay, you know, we need. I need a time trial tire for this rider for this day. You know, what should we do? And, and we'll help him with that. But yeah, you know, if you, if you were a, a brand, uh, or a world tour team there, or approach our athlete that wanted to go to the win tunnel, you know, you might pay us to come along. Um, a lot of what I do too is kind of fun is just act as like a fly on the wall in these team to sponsor interactions. You know, I think I was probably at half a dozen wind tunnel tests last year where I really had pretty much nothing to contribute other than being the neutral third party in the room, um mm-hmm. you know, so that everybody was comfortable that everybody was. Comfortable . [00:10:26] Randall: Well, I would imagine there's a mix of the, uh, the political, if you're talking about, you know, what should be using our own sponsors gear versus slipping something else in all the way to, um, balancing the competing goals of say, like comfort and pure power output on the bike versus aerodynamics. Um, if you're talking about a time trial position. Yeah. [00:10:47] Josh: Oh yeah, for sure. And, and I think even down to, you know, and I think as much as we love to talk science and testing and, and try to be as scientific as possible, I mean, this stuff is really, it's emotionally hard. It's politically hard. It's, you know, companies will bring new equipment in, they're with their engineers. I mean, those guys and girls want that stuff to work so bad. And you know, sometimes you just see things coming out where, Oh yeah, that's clearly faster. And you're like, Well, actually, the way I would interpret that is it's probably about. The same, um, or mm-hmm. , you know, let's, let's rerun that test or, um, you know, it's always, I don't know, it, it, they, they like, people like to get themselves in these loops where, you know, Oh, we did this and it's 10 seconds faster and it's that, And I feel like back in the, you know, when I was with zip, we did this a lot during the Lance Armstrong area and he was writing our disc and, and we were coming in as consultants for the first probably five tours or whatever. And um, you know, every wind tunnel test you'd get to the end and they would have this chart that's like, we just made him 90 seconds faster. And it's like, look guys, that. There is no 90 seconds faster. I mean, you know? Mm-hmm. like, like that is not gonna happen. You know, you, you just did a whole bunch of stuff that's not sustainable that he can't hold his head like that. Mm-hmm. that helmet tails gonna come off the back, you know, I mean, cuz he, people do things like, Oh, oh, the helmet tail moved, rerun. You're like, Yep guys, when you ride in the real world, like the tail's gonna move. Like you don't, you know, people like to, they select data, um, without even realize they're selecting data. And so, you know, it is, it's just good always to have a third party in the room. Um, you know, it's kinda like funny story, you know, back to, you know, my zip days, how Firecrest came about, you know, Firecrest was literally the name of the prototype that, that kind of blew all of our minds. And the reason the prototypes had weird bird names was that we had to double blind them across engineers because you just didn't want anybody. Kind of, you know, having an effect on their product, right? I mean, we all, you know, we all fall in love with our children, right? . And, and in this world, like you, you can't love your children. Um, and you have to be willing to kill them when they're not good. And, um, you know, we would do this double blind thing where we would like assign them all a number and then we would assign bird name, these bird names a number, and then we would randomize it and then they would get all put up. And then nobody really knew whose idea was what, when you were in the tunnel. Um, that's necessary, right? Cause you're, you know, you can be your own worst enemy at that stuff. I think we've, you know, we've all been guilty of that a time or two in our lives. But, uh, you see it all the time, particularly in these performance, um, improvement coaching type things where, you know, people just wanna will something into existence even when it's not. Yeah. [00:13:38] Randall: Well, and I can see, um, you know, the marketing oftentimes has it much more, uh, presented, much more like a, you know, this is just, it's physics. It's more, it's more exact, it's more, um, it's more controlled. And, um, there are competing variables, particularly when you have, you know, a monkey in the middle. You have to, this, this, you know, this animal needs to be comfortable. This animal needs to be fueled, This animal needs to be able to control this machine through a varied environment. And that varied environment may be varying in real time if weather changes or things like this. Um, and so there's just all these competing interests. And so when you see, you know, I often laugh at like, You add up all the different arrow benefits that, you know, different companies claim for components and you should be doing. Right. Right. You know, you might be looking at, um, uh, relativistic effects potentially at some of the speeds you'd be able to achieve. Uh, Jen, just like how, how many watts can be saved. Totally. Being a little bit facetious there. [00:14:37] Josh: Yeah. No, no, it's totally true. I mean, and I still have this photo somewhere, I think I even showed it a couple years ago on social media. But as this, this really great photo that I love that ended up, um, on the wall at the Texas A and Wind tunnel, but it's me with next to Lance Armstrong, um, in the, what became the Nike Swift spin suit, um, that had been flown down there from, you know, Seattle. And it's, uh, oh God, the guy in from his book college or whatever he calls him, and then a guy from Nike, so it's the four of us. And I'm kind of standing there like doing, you know, like pointing at something on his back and it, like, a college student took it for the school newspaper and then they had him autograph it and it ended up on the wall. And so like, Oh, that's me. You know, it's kind of funny. But, but the real story there was that suit, you know, they were paying like 3000 bucks a meter for this suit. They'd been putting it on a mannequin in the tunnel. I mean, it was gonna save three minutes per 40 k. And you're just sitting like going, guys, like, I, I mean, just quick doing the math, like three minutes for Lance Armstrong, you know, like the guys already, That's not possible. And, and of course we get it. We put it on him. Um, the whole thing, you know, it, it's, it's cool, it's fancy, it was very red and it does nothing. I mean, it literally, we were, and the Nike people are there and they're like, Oh, that's not possible. It, it can't do nothing like whole. Let's run it again. Okay. Now get 'em out of it. Put 'em in the normal suit. Run that one. You're like, it, it just doesn't do anything. And, and they just kept going. Well run it again. Well do this. Let's, let's close pin it up. Let's tighten it. Let's, do, you know, I mean, I bet we, we lost two hours trying to make that stupid thing look like it would do anything. You know, And again, it's, it's just people being people and we've all done it. But [00:16:21] Randall: I hear like something of stages, of, stages of grief. Like, you have your baby and like first it's denial, and then you, then you have bargaining. Yeah. Yes. Put so much into this. Yeah, that's exactly, [00:16:32] Josh: that is exactly what it is. And, and you know, the, the crazy reality with that one was, you know, three months later at the tour, they launched it anyway, and they said it saved three minutes and he , you know mm-hmm. . And we, we. It, you know, I just had to laugh. I mean, I remember, you know him, you know, winning whatever one of the time, trials by like a minute and like going, No. So Nike's essentially saying he would've lost that time trial by two minutes had it not been, had he not been wearing that suit. Come on guys. Um, yeah. [00:17:00] Randall: Well, and I think that, that maybe that's, um, you know, headline number one from this interview is don't believe everything you read, especially if it's coming from a party, has a financial interest in it. [00:17:10] Josh: That is true. That is true. Yeah. I, I, I tell don't, don't even believe yourself. Right? I mean, truly like you, you are a bad, um, a bad predictor of things and, and you're a bad feeler of things and nobody wants to admit that. Um, but it's just true. You know, that's, I've been preaching that gospel for, for years. But, you know, I mean, 90, I, I would say 90% of the things you. That you feel when you're on your bike. Total, total crap. Um, and, and we know that cuz we, we've done blind testing with riders. I mean, like unbelievable world class rider. And if you blind them to what they're actually riding, they can't tell you almost any Yeah. Um, you know, all that perception, but still, but the stories away, the [00:17:56] Randall: stories we tell ourselves are powerful. There is a strong placebo effect. Oh, for sure. Uh, for sure. But it has to be acknowledged that that is the placebo. And if you actually had those beliefs about things that had genuine benefits, you would get both, You would get the actual [00:18:11] Josh: benefits. Yes. The, the most powerful thing in the world is a placebo that actually works. Right. , where you get, it's like a, it's a double whammy benefit. Um, and so yeah. That, that's where, you know, I mean, in a nutshell that's a lot of what, you know, I've made my career doing right, is trying to help, help sway people towards the, the, the placebos that, that actually do have a, a, a benefit for them. [00:18:34] Randall: So this has the conversation going in a slightly different direction than I was anticipating, which I'm really enjoying. So I've been, I've been diving into this lecture series from this guy Robert Sapolsky at Stanford. It's on, um, the, uh, uh, behavioral biology, and it's looking at all the different ways in which studies go wrong. And so there's like, you know, beliefs about something, uh, for a long period of time, you know, eminence, people in the field, uh, promulgate these, you know, these ideas. And then it's shown that, you know, the study was, was not, uh, taken, uh, done properly or what have you. And so I'm curious, let's dive more into things that go wrong in the study of aerodynamics and, um, maybe kind of the edge of, say, human performance where interfaces with aerodynamics [00:19:17] Josh: Hmm, ooh. Interest. So, I mean, a, a good. I would say career defining for me, example of that was, um, you know, we, from like 2009 to 2012, we were really all in on developing, uh, CFD for the, for bicycle wheels. And it, it just wasn't working right. Everybody was talking about it and showing papers, and, but I mean, it just, the reality was like the CFD just never looked like the wind tunnel. The curve shapes were different. The data was, we're, we're talking It [00:19:47] Randall: wasn't mid, mid [00:19:48] Josh: nineties, right? Oh, no, Mid, mid late two thousands. Yeah. Like mid, late, late [00:19:53] Randall: thousands. Okay. Yeah. And you're not using, you're having to develop something ground up or you're having to, uh, adapt something from Desso or, or one of these bigger [00:20:02] Josh: vendors. Yeah, So I think the question at the time was, you know, how do you, how do you really properly model the spinning wheel in, in flow that's also translating, right? And you look at. You know, all the CFD stuff with aircraft, um, you know, there's no rotational flow, you know, and then you look at, there's special models that people have built to look at, like, um, turbine jet, turbine engine combustion or whatever. But those are incredibly unique. And they're also, you know, there's RO flow rotating, but in a different access and Yeah. [00:20:36] Randall: The F1 guys perpendicular access. [00:20:38] Josh: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so, and then you got the F1 guys who weren't really modeling, um, they were modeling the rotation of the wheels, but they were doing it by modeling a rotational component at the surface of the tire. So you were, you weren't essentially like spinning the wheel, you were just saying, Oh, there's a induced rotation a about this surface. Um, which has been in the, the solvers forever. So [00:21:02] Randall: in interesting, this is taught because the, those wheels are traveling so quickly, especially the top of the wheel. If you're doing 200 miles an hour, the top of the tire is traveling at 400. And so you're having sign significant turbulence at that interface, right? Well, [00:21:15] Josh: and you, you have like Magnus effect, right? You're actually getting pressure differential top to bottom, um, you know, from , the direction of the wheel spinning. And so, you know, we, we could do stuff like that pretty accurately, right? You know, you could look at the, you know, a rotating baseball and, and predict the direction that's gonna curve. I mean, things like that were possible. But, you know, every single, and, you know, my God, I used to get, I still do occasionally, but I, I used to probably get 20 PhD papers a year from kids all over the world. Um, you know, Oh, what do you think of my paper on, you know, CFD of bicycle wheel? And we're like, Oh, it's beautiful pictures, but your data's crap. Um, . And it just wasn't figured out. And, and in 2009, I, I met a guy, Matt, uh, Godo, who's a triathlete, but he also worked for a company called FieldView. And they had built all of the CFD automation for, uh, Red Bull F one, um, and probably half the F1 grid, but his, his big account was Red Bull. Um, and he, I met him at Interbike and he had a paper that he was working on. He said, I think, I think I might have figured this out, but I really need to be able to like, Like, build a wind tunnel in the computer and then look at it so we can directly compare them back and forth. And, and so we, we did that. We published a paper at the a I a, which was at MIT that year, and it went over really well and people liked it. And we published another paper the next year, um, at, at the a i A conference. And that went well. And then we got this big grant, like an $80,000 grant from Intel, um, to really tackle this problem. Cause the, the head technologist at Intel at the time was a guy, uh, Bill Fry Rise, and one, one of the coolest guys I ever met. Um, you know, the kind of guy who, whose resume just has like a five year period that says like Los Alamos , like, [00:23:01] Randall: okay, you're cool. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Not, not allowed to talk about it. What do you do? Yes. Uh, yes, exactly. . But, [00:23:08] Josh: uh, but he was a cyclist and he was some senior, somebody at Intel. And, and, um, And they, they gave us this money and we, we, we really went hard at this and we ended up developing a, essentially all of the little nuance details. Uh, we did it in star ccm. We post processed it in field view. I think we processed it on like a thousand cores, which for 2010 was, you know, a lot. Right. [00:23:33] Randall: Um, and these are, these are, um, CPUs and not GPUs for that era. Right. A lot of the stuff of that era GPUs now, right? [00:23:40] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. I remember we, yeah, I mean, that was the beginning of, uh, that was the beginning of the cloud. It was pretty cool, like 2008, 2009, people were still traveling. I remember at one point in that process there was discussion that like, we might have to travel, um, to, Oh God, what is it? The, the university over there in Illinois had a huge, had like a 1200 core machine and they're like, Okay, we, we might have to go there and, and buy, you know, two days of time. And then as that was happening, cloud. Kind of the beginnings of cloud was there. And I remember we, we met a guy who had a cloud thing, and they had just been bought by Dell. And, uh, we were at a conference and he's like, Oh, no, you know, with our, our thing, What was that called? But, uh, with our thing, you, you can just do it like up in the ether. We're like, Whoa. You had never heard of that before. Yeah. Um, it was just exciting times and, and, uh, but, but we, you know, had this great team. We pulled it together. I mean, that's really where Firecrest came from, right? It was, it was largely designed using, um, Hundreds of iterations of capes predicted to be fast, uh, using this cfd. And, and ultimately we won. We, we became like, I think the first non university and non-governmental group to ever win a, uh, uh, innovation excellence award from the Supercomputing Society. So it was pretty cool. Salt Lake City's like this huge super computing conference and you know, it's like darpa, this and university of that. And it was like these four guys from this bike brand and, you know, was, uh, it was a pretty cool experience. But, but in that, so that's like a huge tangent. No, [00:25:17] Randall: no, this is, this is great. And, and just to take a, uh, stop for a second, CFD computational Fluid Dynamics software that is used to model complex multi-variate systems where there's second order effects and, you know, fluids and, and things like this. So anyone who's not, uh, who's not with us on that, like complicated software for complicated system models, in your [00:25:39] Josh: ideal world, it's like a wind tunnel on your laptop, right? In the, in the George Jetson's version of things. It, it's the wind tunnel on the laptop. And in the reality of things, it's kind of more like, eh, it's about as good as guessing most of the time. But, but, but sometimes it's really good at finding certain really specific things. So I won't, uh, I won't knock it too hard, but why the thing I wanna [00:25:59] Randall: dive in a little bit [00:26:00] Josh: here. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. Well, let me, so let me finish the, the thing that we discovered in this process that was super cool. Um, was that once we had all of these transient, we were solving for all these transients, um, and we really started looking at not just like the, you know, the, the side force or the yaw force or you think of um, you know, the whole thing with like wheels and handling, right? This all came out of this project cuz you could, you could predict the steering torque on the wheel, which, you know, none of the balances being used to test wheels at the time even had torque sensing, right? You had drag side force and lift, but none of them had the rotational components in there. And so that for us at first was like, oh shit, we've never thought about torque cuz we weren't measuring it. Right? It's sort of one of those, yeah, like you've biased your study all along, but then the big one was looking at the predicted, um, data and there were all of these, uh, harmonic effects. and we kind of looked at each other and we're like, Oh my God, every wind tunnel you've ever been in, Right? The first thing everybody discusses is, you know, what's the, what's the, the time across which you're taking the data and at what frequency? And then you're averaging that data, right? Cuz we're all after a data point. And you could look at the tunnel data and the CFD data, and when you pulled them out of their point form into their wave form, essentially you could see the harmonics kind of lined up, the frequencies match when, oh shit, we've been averaging out a really important piece of data for 30 years. You know, this harmonic thing is big. Like what's your, [00:27:39] Randall: your standard? So it's operating on a, it's operating on a frequency that is smaller than the sample rate. Or how [00:27:46] Josh: was it essentially? Essentially we were just idiots and we were just, we were just time averaging the all of that out. Right. I mean, it's, you know, if you need to Okay. Any wind tunnel you, you went to in the world and be like, Oh, well, we'll take, we here, we take data for 30 seconds at, you know, whatever, a hundred hertz, 60 hertz, 120, or whatever it is, and then we'll, we'll take an average. Oh, okay. That, that's fine. Got it. You're averaging out in there is real, um, uh, like amplitude changes, uh, largely due to vortex shedding is, as it turns out with bicycle wheels. But a lot of that high frequency handling stuff, particularly as wheels get deep, um, , sorry, I'm in, uh, I'm in our studio, which is off of our kitchen and somebody's lunchbox just, just leapt off of the top of the [00:28:34] Randall: refrigerator. Um, yeah, sometimes I'll have a niece or nephew come in screaming, so No worries. Yeah. So, but, [00:28:39] Josh: uh, but no, we, we realized there, there was a, a. About a factor of five difference in amplitude between wheels in terms of that, those oscillating effects. Right. Which typically it's just, it's generally vortex shedding. And the CFD can predict that really well, right? Where your little pressure builds up, sheds off, sets off a counter rotation that sheds off. Um, but as a, as a cyclist, you, you feel that as the wheel, you know, kind of oscillating left to right. Um, and we, and let's, let's for 20 years, you know, [00:29:12] Randall: Yeah. So you're just taking the, the lump, you know, 30 seconds averaged out data and saying, Okay, it gives you this amount of benefit and you're not seeing those. Um, I mean, really what we're talking about is, uh, you know, instability that may. Or, you know, otherwise result in, in control issues on the bike. And I want to take a moment to just like, define some terms, uh, because not, you know, many of our listeners are not overly technical. Um, but uh, I think some of these concepts are easy enough to get your head around, like, so, you know, describe at a very high level you're talking about vs. So, you know, maybe describe lader flow and flow attachments and vortices sheddings. How, how does this, how does this, uh, how can you understand this without a, a technical background? [00:29:59] Josh: Oh, those are awesome questions. Okay. So Lader LaMer flow is kind of what you. What the, the world wants you to think of in the wind tunnel. You see the wind tunnel picture and they've got like the, the 10 lines of smoke and they're all kind of flowing together cleanly and beautifully. That's, that's meant to, to evoke lam or flow, right. That if you were to drop a, a smoke or a particle in there, that they would all flow in lamini, you know, like sheets of paper. Um, yeah. Uh, so, so [00:30:29] Randall: it's going in a straight line. Smooth, [00:30:31] Josh: controlled, Predictable, yeah. Flow. And it, it follows the contours of the thing that it's flowing against. So, [00:30:38] Randall: so kinda like water flowing down a river sort of thing. It's not perfectly laminate, but it's all going roughly in the same direction. And there's not a lot of water [00:30:46] Josh: in a pipe disturbance, you know, would be in a pipe better example, presumably pretty laminate, right? And then you start to add stuff, you know, water in the river. Now you're, you're, you know, you've got a rock and now all of a sudden there's a disturbance and it starts to swirl. Um, and so you, you get into, you know, more complicated types of flow. I, I think the, the big ones, you know, for us to think about are, you know, most, so most drag that we deal with comes from, um, uh, pressure related things. So you either have like the, the high pressure on the front of the rider, right? The wind that you're pushing into this when you stick your hand out the car window, right? The mm-hmm. the air you feel hitting your hand, you know, that's, uh, that's a pressure drag, uh, in the positive direction. And then you have the flow, the vacuum in the back. Yeah. The flow will detach off of the object and that'll create a vacuum behind. And so that's a suction drag, um mm-hmm. . And then when you have something like vortex shedding, it's when, uh, the, the. Description I ever have for vortex sheddings. If you've ever driven an old car with, uh, like the metal antenna on the hood, you know, at some speed on the highway, that antenna starts vibrating, oscillating sideways, which is like the last thing on earth you think it would do, right? Like your brain's like, well, it should just keep bending backwards with speed. Mm-hmm. , why is it going sideways? Well, that's that you get this thing where you have a little, uh, a little curl of flow will kind of detach more on one side than the other, and that creates a side force. Mm-hmm. . But in doing so, the suction that that has now left behind will pull a similar vortex from the opposite side. Mm-hmm. . And that creates an opposite side force. And so you get these, see an oscillation, you get these oscillations and uh, you know, that's, it's huge in architecture and mm-hmm. , it, it's why you see so many of those super tall buildings or kind of have pyramid shapes or might have some sort of like, feature that spirals down them to, to kind of break that up. I, I live [00:32:46] Randall: in Boston. We actually have, um, a skyscraper here that was flexing so much, the windows were popping out. This is, you know, decades ago. And, you know, it's still, you know, they have this like funnel of air that's going through there and just the nature of the shape of it and how air gets funneled in, it was causing enough torsion to, um, you know, cause window de bonding. Um, so yeah. That's crazy. Uh, so then, you know, think applying this to the bike and particularly a wheel, um, you know, this is the biggest effect is, is presumably your front wheel where you're having this oscillation, this shift in pressure from one side to the other at a very high, high level, um, that's causing instability. It's making it so that you may lose control of the bike. It's not predictable. [00:33:34] Josh: Yeah. Correct. Correct. And, and the, the other thing we learned through CFD that it was doing, which is not obvious until you think about it, but so you think of the. So you might have, say it that the trailing edge of the front half of the rim, you're, you, you set up a little vortex shedding situation. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so you've got a little side force, but it's kind of at the, the trailing edge of the rim there. Right? So it's got a little bit of leverage on your steering, but the other thing that's happening is that alternating attachment and detachment of flow, um, changing the side force, but you're a side force at an angle. So there's a lift component, right? Which is how the drag is being reduced. And as that happens, what, what's also now changing is what we call like the center of pressure. And the center of pressure. You think of like the wheel from the side, like, like the sum, the aggregate of all the, the arrow forces on that has a center point about which it's balanced. It's kinda like a center of mass. Um, you know, so it's, it'd be center of pressure. Well, that center of pressure when you have. Shedding happening somewhere that's now moving forwards and backwards and very [00:34:40] Randall: rapidly [00:34:41] Josh: as well. Potentially, Yeah. Rather rapidly. I mean, and, and when you really look, look in on it, it, the frequency actually can be quite close to, um, the, uh, speed wobble frequency, right? Which is somewhere in that like three to four hertz range. Uh, which also happens to be really close to the frequency of human, uh, shivering, which is kind of cool's why you're more likely to, to speed wobble when you're really cold. Um, [00:35:05] Randall: and not everyone just push will have experienced speed wobble. But if, you know, if this is basically your, you, you hit a certain resonant frequency of, of the frame based on the frames geometry, uh, the head tube angle, the what are the factors that go into that, [00:35:20] Josh: Uh, it's top tube stiffness is big and so, yeah. Yeah. And it's actually this speed wobble's. Interesting. It's. It starts as a residency issue, but it's really a, it's a hop bifurcation and, um, a hop B. Okay. And so, yeah. And so what you have in a hop, uh, bifurcation is you essentially have two st two stability, um, would be the best way to think of it. And you are jumping from the one to the other. And so like, right up until that, so the [00:35:48] Randall: system wants to be in one state or the other, but not in the middle [00:35:51] Josh: and there's no middle. Right. And, and what's, what's so cool, like, like early in, um, uh, early in covid, you know, we were all talking about this, you know, what is it the are not value, the, you know, like if it's above or below one. And when you, you line that out that are not, when are not crosses one, it's a hop bifurcation that looks just like the speed wobble, bifurcation, I mean the graph. It's amazing how like, cool those things, you know, mathematically you're like, Oh yeah, that's exactly the same as this. It's just here, it's in a, you know, you get the exact same graph if you're looking at, um, Uh, wing flutter in an aircraft, uh, in the wing tunnel. Mm-hmm. , similar bifurcation problem, but yeah. So you, you, you have essentially two states and the system can get tripped from one end into the other. And in the one the bike is stable and wants to go straight, and in the other it wants to oscillate because each oscillation mm-hmm. is setting up the, the counter oscillation. Um, and so like, it, it's, you know, in resonance it's more of like a runaway you, you think of like the, how that's tradition. Yeah. It amplifi forcing. Yeah. It, it just keeps growing and growing and growing. Um, and in this one it just, it, it, it's not growing and growing, but it just trips you into this spot where like it's really bad. Um mm-hmm. and it will just shake the crap outta you at the front end. And um, and in fact motorcycles quite [00:37:07] Randall: scary. The high performance motorcycles will sometimes have a steering damper for this very reason. Um, because you'll, yeah, you'll get these speed wobbles. And so the damper is essentially making it so there's some exponentially increasing resistance. Um, I, I know you know this, I'm explaining it for our, our audience just in, you know, cause again, I wanna keep bringing it back down to earth, but, you know, having just like your, your suspension, you don't just have a a just a spring, you have some sort of damping circuit so it doesn't feel like a pogo stick. Um, which is a related effect. Um, but, uh, very cool. And are not for our listeners as well. [00:37:47] Josh: Funny. I hadn't thought about that. I haven't thought about that in like two years as we were talking like, Oh, I remember now. That was, uh, yeah. Yeah, that was, uh, But what or not was the, um, Oh shit. It was the. The contagion ratio or whatever, like how, how many people, each person would transmit to mm-hmm. And so if it's, which makes sense, right? If every person's gonna transmit it to 1.1, it grows. If you're gonna transmit it to 0.8, it, it dies. Um, [00:38:12] Randall: so the analogy here is that, that the increasing amplitude of that, you know, those pressure differentials, sending it to the, the system to one state or the other and causing that increasing oscillation, Is that a exactly correct characterization? [00:38:26] Josh: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like you, you can take it right up to a line, um, and you don't have a problem. And then as soon as you cross the line, you're in a different state. Mm-hmm. . And, and that's where I think, you know, speed wobble for those of you who've experienced it or chase tried chasing it on a bicycle, um, you can solve it sometimes with like, the stupidest stuff. Um, you know, one of the, the common ones is to just put a little bit of like, um, like, like a heavier bar tape or a little bit of lead weight in like your, um, Uh, your plugs. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . You can oftentimes change it with a tire pressure or a different tire cuz you can add just enough damping at the contact patch. Um, that it just pushes it up high. You know, if, if, cause typically what people will find is like, Oh, it's, I'm totally fine. Then I hit, you know, 38.5 miles an hour and all hell breaks loose. Well. Mm-hmm. , you change the mass at the top of the system a little bit and maybe you've now pushed that point out to 45 miles an. but if you never go 45 miles an hour, you've affected, that's not a problem. Right? Yeah, yeah. Like, oh yeah, I [00:39:28] Randall: fixed it. I think another example that people may have experienced too is like, uh, sometimes you'll have an issue with your car that, you know, won't notice except that certain speeds and it's because of those speeds. There is some, you know, oscillation that's happening. If it's a tire and balance or something in your drive train or the like. Um, you know, I've, I once had a vehicle that was really good up to 60 and then like 60, 61, it was problematic and then it would smooth out a bit after that and it was just like this wobbling effect that would balance out beyond that, that speed. Um, alright, so then bringing things back down to earth. Um, this is delightful by the way. I, I could do this all day, . Um, and I, I hadn't quite appreciated. Um, the, the basic r and d and like basic science and tool building that you were involved in. Uh, so. That's, its its own topic. That's probably not one for, for a podcast of this particular [00:40:22] Josh: def. Yeah. I, I will say on that, I think that's the part that I think never, you know, the marketing never really tells that side of the story cuz it's just too complicated. Yeah. But if you're, if you're out there and you're, you're into this stuff, like that's the fun stuff. Like, I love launching product and, and the product itself. But like, that crazy journey to get there is usually like, that's where all the fun is happening. And, and, and typically cuz we're, you know, you're doing it wrong, like 90% of the time you're like, you know, it's just can be months or years of like, we suck, you know, this doesn't work, we're getting our sasses kicked. And then you, you know, if you persevere long enough, you will come out the other end and it's like, wow, we, we needed all that stuff. Like, we needed to get our heads handed to us over and over again, or we never would've figured this stuff out. Um, Yeah. I really, really enjoy that part of, um, of, of technology development or whatever you wanna call it. [00:41:16] Randall: Yeah. Basic, like real basic r and d right down to building the tools that you need to do the r and d you want to do, um, Right. . Yeah. Very cool. And obviously like the compute power and the, the algorithms available and, you know, the switch to GPUs and all these other things that have, um, changed since you were developing that make it such that today's models are both vastly more powerful and still yet trivial in complexity relative to the system itself. [00:41:44] Josh: Yeah, totally. [00:41:46] Randall: Yeah. Um, well let's dive into some more practical topics. So let's talk about like, alright, so a lot of our listeners we're the Gravel Ride podcast, right? So thinking about that particular experience, um, what should, what are, what is worth, um, a gravel rider thinking about. Uh, with relation to arrow. Uh, so things that can be done that will improve aerodynamics, but then not take away from the ride experience that a lot of riders are after, particularly when they're going to grab, you know, they wanna be comfortable, they wanna have a good time, they wanna have good control over a variety of different terrain and so on. So what are the arrow? Um, and, and they don't wanna look silly, so they might not be, want wanting to wear a skin suit or something like that. Not that it looks silly, but, but you know, a more, a more serious enthusiast type of rider. Uh, what are the Yeah, what are the things to think about? [00:42:36] Josh: Oh, gosh. That's, that's a good question. Um, I mean, I think it really depends on, on what. Th the particular rider, you know, is after, I mean, are you, are you racing? Do you wanna go fast? Do you wanna not get dropped? Mm-hmm. , um, you know, do you need to carry stuff? I mean, I would say one of, one of the big ones that I, I just see and, and you know, we, we make a ton of stuff in our company and one of, one of them being bags. And, you know, we're constantly accused of not making bags that are big enough. And so I've been on this mission for a couple years of like, you know, what is in there, , Like Really? Mm-hmm. what's in there. Yeah. And it is amazing to me just how much crap people are carrying. You know, you, you open some of these monster seat bags, it's like, man, just because you bought it doesn't mean you need to fill it or use it. Um, you know, it, and, and absolutely there's, there's like time and place for it. But, um, you know, I. Some of the stuff like that, like, Oh, okay. You've, you know, do you, you show up on the local gravel right here and you know, people look like they're, they're almost like bike packing, like mm-hmm. , you just don't need, you know, it, it's a 40 mile loop, you know, that starts and ends at a bike shop. Like, you, you don't need to bring a bike [00:43:49] Randall: shop with you. Well, you, you need your coffee grinder, you need your, your mini stove and you need your neuro press. Yeah, Yeah. Um, different experience. You know, let's assume that we're going after like a performance rider who's, um, like doing, doing, you know, a hundred, uh, a hundred mile events than they're, they're training for it and they wanna squeeze out more performance, um, out of their existing setup. Or they're considering, you know, what bike to get, what wheels to get, what, um, how to set it up, even considering bike fit. Yeah. Or, you know, clip on arrow bars and the, like, what are the different things that people can do and what are the compromises and so on. [00:44:24] Josh: Yeah. I mean, the, I, I think certainly for gravel. The one clear cut, no compromise. Better all around product that I can just always recommend is like a, an arrow top drop bar. I mean, it is amazing how much faster those things are than round section bars. I mean, any really, you know, like pro vibe or the zip fuca or whatever, you know, there's, I think every company makes one. It's that big, you know. Oh, it's hu I mean it like wind tunnel speeds. It's a flattop bar can be like 28 to 30 watts. I mean, it's nuts. Yeah. Cause you're, you're replacing round covered in tape with something that's like pretty thin and shaped Well, sure. Or it can be massive, but, but the, [00:45:05] Randall: I didn't, cuz the cross sectional areas is not that big compared to, you know, the rider and the, the rest of the bike and so on. Some [00:45:12] Josh: No, it's, it's, well and in gravel it has the double effect of being, you know, shaped or ized in the direction that is also gonna add compliance, right? Yeah, yeah. And, and comfort. And so you, you know, it's one of the few products I can really look at and go, okay, that thing is more arrow and more comfortable and has more service area for your right. I mean, better all around. Um, that's a pretty easy one to, to go with. And, and similarly, you know, if you've, you've got the money. I mean some of these, the, the integrated cockpit solutions that are out there are even faster, right? Cause it's just even less. Stuff in the wind. Um, so let's talk you, let's [00:45:48] Randall: talk about that. That's big, a big serviceability compromise and, and you know, fit can be a concern with that too cause it's harder to swap components and so on. How much of that is coming from, um, simply not having the cables running into the down tube? Like, can you get the vast majority of those benefits with cables coming out from, say, underneath the bar? If they're tucked in on the bar or even coming out from the bar and dropping underneath the stem into the, the headset from there? [00:46:14] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. My, my rule of thumb for cables that I always use cuz it's so memorable is, um, You know, Greg Lamond versus Fon in the 89 tour time. Mm-hmm. , So 2020 kilometer time trial. Um, the eight second gap, there was more or less equivalent to Fons ponytail, Right. As we, we loved to joke about a cyclist, but was also the equivalent of one number two pencil length worth of cable housing. So, and [00:46:46] Randall: this is, and this is true even if the cable housing is say, in front of the head tube, so it's going to be disturbed by the head tube anyways, cuz you're getting the drag off of it. Be, you see what I mean? Like, so I, I'm trying to hone my understanding of the [00:46:59] Josh: Yeah. I mean, you think, Yeah. So I, I would think, uh, good way to put that would be that, Yeah. Putting, putting a slow. Crappy thing in front of a smooth thing, you're, you're still getting the drag of the slow, crappy thing. Yep. Um, and you may actually be worsening the flow, um, on the arrow thing. So Yeah. Got it. Absolutely. Still, you still have that effect. Um, you know it, and it's hard to say, you know, in some cases, you know, it's, it's close enough or it's just in like the goldilock zone where it's a good distance away where you're like, Ooh, we can kind of make them disappear. And they become, you know, uh, a almost like the cable isn't there, but that's not typically what we see. And typically, you know, you, you throw a bike in the wind tunnel with that and then you rip the cables out and you run it again and you're, every time it's like, Oh shit. Big difference. Difference. You've, in [00:47:50] Randall: terms of watts, like a few watts here, like, so, so the handlebar is the big one, you said as much as 30 watts at wind tunnel speeds, which granted gravel riders generally are, are, we're [00:48:00] Josh: not going that miles an hour. But you, Yeah, you we're out for a long time. Yeah, but you are out there for a long time, so you don't have the speed. But yeah, you, you definitely have the, the, the potential time saving. So, yeah, I, you know, hidden cables. I agree with you. Total pain in the ass. And, you know, my God, I've spent a career working on world tour bikes and, and you know, Ironman, world champion bikes and things like that. And I, I feel everybody's pain, you know, people are always like, Why is the industry doing this to us? Like, like, Well, cuz you want it and cuz it works. I mean there's no, like, it, it's a pain in the ass, but it works. Mm-hmm. . So anywhere you can get rid of cable. get rid of cables, um, you know, skin suit. I have to say not everybody loves it, but man, it can be a huge, huge difference. Uh, I mean, you look at, you know, we were just out at lead, uh, Leadville and Steamboat, and you know, all the top. Guys at Leadville and skin suits now, cuz it, it makes that big of a difference. Um, arrow bars can be huge and, you know, I think that's, that's one I I think everybody's got their own sort of flavor that they like. But, you know, to me, like for gravel, a stubby, a stubby bar that has functional pads mm-hmm. , um, really can be worth it just because it's a different hand position and it, it's enough that it, it's effectively changing your, kind of, your whole torso position and it, it, it's just giving you a, a break all around. Right. It's different pressure points in your shammy for the time that you're using it. It's different, you know, muscles in your back. Um, I think there's a good, this is the, the extent of my physi physiological knowledge, but I, I think it's good to, to mix things up. Um, like that. I, I know a lot of people have kind of gone to these super. Narrow, stubby, I don't even know what you call 'em. Like semia bars that Yeah, [00:49:46] Randall: mini arrow bars. [00:49:48] Josh: Nowhere to put your, nowhere to rest your weight. And, and it just feels like everybody I know using those is constantly complaining about their wrists, you know? Um, and so I, I, again, not a physical, but the change [00:50:00] Randall: in the change in frontal area, um, is that just an unmitigated benefit or are there circumstances where you can reduce frontal area and, you know, have a negative result within the realm of, you know, changing a Roger's position? [00:50:16] Josh: Yeah, you know, a lot of it depends on your, your baseline and, and how good you are. Positionally, I think, you know, when, you know, we do a lot of position training with top athletes and you know, the. The best place you can be that's not an arrow bar is on the hoods with level forearms. Mm-hmm. , right? Like that's the, and and ideally with relatively narrow bars, [00:50:37] Randall: so, and perpendicular upper arms as well, presumably, [00:50:40] Josh: or give or take. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it is, it's, you're gonna roughly get there depending on what the rest of the position looks like and, you know, obviously different body shapes and whatnot. But yeah, I mean, you think horizontal forearms are keeping that pretty much out of the wind. Mm-hmm. , Um, and, and they are also keeping it, it's just hard to hold that position, um, with, in a way that you're also still opening your chest. Because, you know, you were really trying to keep air from getting blocked up under the chest. And when you get a rider doing that, they just always kind of form, which I say always, I'm sure there's some counterexamples out there, but they, they almost always, um, kind of adjust their back and their shoulders in a way that they kind of turtle their head a little bit. You know, the head comes down and you're just kind of now pushing more air up over the body and less down into it. Um, but from there, arrow bars are almost always an improvement, right? Cuz you're narrowing the arms, um, you know, you're tightening things up even further and now you're pushing more flow around the sides, um, and less into the chest and less into the hips. And there's some physiological things. You know, people, you know, wide hips, big hands, certain shoulders, certain back shapes, right? That's why we go to the tunnel, you know, it's, it. 90% of the time, you could look at somebody and go, Oh, do this, this, and that, but man, 10% of the time it looks good and you run it and you're like, That's not good, We can just find a different solution. Um, [00:52:10] Randall: yeah. So air bars are huge. Another thing that we're starting to see is, uh, so BMC has their new cas uh, uh, line. They went with a super narrow, uh, handlebar, so narrow at the hoods, and then, you know, flare at the bottom. Uh, that seems like another thing that again, is, Well, I mean, on the one hand, yeah, you're getting narrower, but on the other hand, you're also closing up the chest and maybe, you know, you're not getting as much oxygen, like air turnover or something. Or like, are there issues where I, so [00:52:38] Josh: I, I have been beating the narrow handlebar drum for 25 years. Um, you know, I am yet to actually see or be told by a real physiologist that that whole. Oxygen lung thing that we were all told as juniors is true, is an issue. Um, yeah, I I've just, yeah, we've just never, I mean that, that I know of and I'm sure somebody out there will say, Oh, here's a paper. But, you know, I, I know whenever we've studied it, looked at it, we've looked at it with athletes, I mean, look at what's happening at the world tour. A lot of that is, you know, we've been beating that drum. I'm starting to see that for years, and people are doing it and they're winning. Um, so, you know, and I wonder [00:53:17] Randall: why aren't we seeing it with extreme flare as well, like a compound flare at least, so that you can still keep a, you know, a reasonably vertical lever position because then you could go even narrower and have, um, still have the leverage for the descending and so on. Is that a [00:53:32] Josh: tradition thing? Yeah, I, yeah, I think some of it's that. I think some of it is just, you know, how far do you really wanna push the uci? Um, [00:53:42] Randall: you know, oh, the UCI cares about the flare in your bars. [00:53:46] Josh: Oh, they will. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I think there are actually rules putting some limits on that, but yeah, at some point it's gonna look funny enough that you're gonna draw attention and they're gonna go, Wait a minute. Um, and, and you know, we've, we've [00:53:58] Randall: seen them, I've got a 28 centimeter wide bar with huge flares on there, and I've got specially made levers that come off of it so that I can actually still touch them from the job. [00:54:07] Josh: We have seen it with, I, I can't remember the name of that bar, but I think it's out of Belgium or something. But it's got like, you know, uh, 180 millimeters of reach, um, super narrow with long, and you can kind of lay your forearms. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember seeing that and they quickly were like, Nope, that's out. Um, so I, you know, I think we just, people are, people are cautious. I think the, the setups that are working now, um, are very largely built around that, uh, three T track bar. I can't remember what it's called, but, uh, I know. You know, it's got that kind of cool like wing, like gulling shape to it, but it's super narrow, arrow tops, um, relatively vertical, uh, drops. But, but that's a bar that the ucis allowed for years, right? And so I think that as a, you know, when, when conversations are happening behind closed doors, that's the kind of thing of like, Oh, well this looks enough like that, that if they call us out, we, we go in there and be like, Well, it looks a whole lot like this thing that you've allowed for 20 years. Um, you know, we, we have tons of those conversations. Yeah. So, so I, you know, I, I think, but I, I will say, I, I think too, that's where, um, you know, a lot of people might look at the pro tour and things that they're writing. Oh, well if this worked, they'd use it. You know? I mean, that was what people told us when we were building zip in the early days. Well, if they worked, the Pro Pros would ride it. I'm like, Yeah, but they. They don't know what they're, they don't believe in aerodynamics. You know, they, the pros, they don't riding [00:55:34] Randall: super skinny tires at super high pressures cuz they felt faster for a long time, even though, you know, at least, well, you know this better than than I do. I mean, the data has been saying for quite some time that it's more efficient. Never mind the accumulated fatigue that you get when your body's just being, you know, rattled at, you know, high frequency over the course of many hours. [00:55:56] Josh: Yeah, yeah. No, it's, you know, that I would say they're quite often the last, at least as a group to change. Right. But you, you are seeing it now. I mean the, you know, and, and, and you know, the team like Nios hiring a guy, hiring Dan Bigham to come in and, you know, you, you are seeing some changes, right? Uh, that when teams are bringing full-time people like that in, um, we are gonna start moving the needle there, but it's still a delicate dance with the. With the UCI and, and all the sport governing bodies, right? Nobody, You hear it all the time. Nobody wants a repeat of the whole fna. Uh, I don't follow swimming, but I was the technical, uh, committee director for cycling at the World Federation of Sporting Good Industries. And, uh, at the time when FNA Band banned all of the super tight, uh, swimming suits, and it was just a cluster, right? I mean, they just came out and said, Nope, you've pushed it too far. We're done. And if the whole industry was sideways with like, we've invested millions of dollars in this and the records are breaking, and people wanted and on and on and on, and they just said, Nope, you're done. And, uh, I think it took them five years to under undo all that damage. You know, I mean, you just wanna [00:57:11] Randall: something parallel with running too with, uh, carbon fiber insoles and like what is, what is allowed in terms of the amount of spring that can be delivered and so on. Um, Yeah, I, I see, I see them showing up on my local run. And, um, I might have to get a set just to keep up with the people I used to beat, to keep up with [00:57:29] Josh: It's totally true. [00:57:31] Randall: Uh, that's, I mean, that's, that's, to some degree, that's the nature of the game. And that's why in, in significant part, that's why the gear is as good as it is right now is because, you know, people are looking for, as you would say, those marginal gains. Um, yeah. Um, I wanna dive in. So, uh, I want to put, bring in a few, uh, listener questions. Uh, so we posted in the ridership that you were gonna be coming on, and so we had some folks asking questions there. Probably the biggest one that came up was, um, talking about, you know, we've, uh, Craig and I brought up the rule of 1 0 5 or 5% on the podcast before, but, you know, citing, citing it, it's not a deep understanding, uh, at all. So tell us about how that emerged in. How it applies. Um, you know, particularly in the gravel scene where you're looking at tires that are much bigger. Um, and I mentioned, uh, earlier that, you know, specialized as a video for their reval wheels where they're running a a 42 mill tire on i, I think a 35 or less external rim, and they're claiming some arrow benefit. Does that seem plausible? Is there, uh, given, given, given what you have seen in the wind tunnel and in your modeling? [00:58:41] Josh: Yeah. Um, yeah, it's totally plausible and I guess, we'll, we'll start with rule of one. Oh, so rule 1 0 5 was really, you know, I, I realized pretty early in my career that you had to come up with sort of rules of thumb for things or nobody would listen to you Mm-hmm. and, you know, spent two years traveling Europe trying to sell Arrow. Sell World Tour or pro tour at the time, uh, directors and team owners on aerodynamics and you know, I mean literally got thrown out of every single team, team over there. Uh, I mean, it was just, we just got laughed out of the room. Just imagine [00:59:20] Randall: any of those team directors could have just adopted it at that time and had this huge advantage and didn't, [00:59:26] Josh: uh, that was, I mean, I always said, you know, Uli at srm, thank God, you know, he was developing his thing. And when I walked in to pitch Reese, um, he was alrea

The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast
Engaging Experience Design through Technology

The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2022 29:21


Josh Goldblum, Founder and CEO, Blue Cadet (Philadelphia, PA and New York City, NY) Josh Goldblum is Founder and CEO at Blue Cadet, an experience design studio with around 30 employees in Philadelphia and 15 in New York.  Twenty-odd years ago, Josh worked in-house at the Smithsonian Institution, producing digital products and integrating technology into physical environments. Unfulfilled because big projects only came around every few years, Josh left and freelanced for a number of museums, doing single-touch Flash design and development. As his on-man Blue Cadet operation became a growing team, projects expanded to encompass touch tables, touch walls, and projection; technology evolved and became increasingly more sophisticated; and the organization's internal systems had to be more formalized to meet the needs of the larger business. Today's experience technology is far more powerful, interesting, and relevant than that in the past. Flash has been replaced by Real Engine, Unity, and JavaScript. The Blue Cadet studio continues to design large-touch surfaces and build immersive experiences but now works with augmented reality, haptics (touch-related communication), and using technology and digital products to make cultural content in physical spaces more immersive, engaging, and “magical.”  Although much of the firm's work is for museums, it has recently expanded to provide these immersive services for executive briefing centers and such brands as Nike and Google. Josh says it's important that the studio creates a “content experience that's not just decorative, but actually tells a story that feels true to the space.” In working with clients, Josh finds it helpful to carve out a little paid research at the beginning of a project to prepare an ideation spread where the studio can research client needs and present ideas. At the end of this initial period, the client can either work with Blue Cadet or take the ideas Blue Cadet developed and work with another studio. Josh says, “It's better to carve off a little space to redirect (the project) than to get into that death march of implementing something that's just not going to be that great.” That time upfront also helps Blue Cadet discover what it is that a client really wants, whether they can provide what the client wants, whether they want to do the project, and whether the parties can develop a solid working relationship. Josh participated in a panel session discussion of Trends and Challenges for Experiential Culture at the 2022 South by Southwest Interactive Festival. He says he is most active on LinkedIn, where he shares a lot of concept prototype material. ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined live today at South by Southwest Interactive Festival by Josh Goldblum, Founder and CEO at Blue Cadet based in Philadelphia and New York. Welcome to the podcast, Josh. JOSH: Thanks for having me. ROB: Excellent to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us about Blue Cadet and what is your superpower? What is your calling card? What do people come to you for? JOSH: Blue Cadet is an experience design studio. Most of us are based in Philadelphia. There's about 30 in Philadelphia, another 15 up in New York, and then actually, when I say “us” based in Philadelphia, we just moved out to LA. So my family moved to LA. We're the only ones out there. We're mostly known for experience design in the cultural space, and also really a lot of technology in physical space. Twenty-odd years ago, I was inhouse at Smithsonian doing digital product work, but also integrated technology into physical environments. So we've been in that experience design space, figuring out how you marry technology into public spaces, how you take cultural content and make it interesting. That's what we've been doing, and we do it across physical space; we also do it across digital products.  ROB: Got it. It rings of museums or themed places, but I can also imagine a building that wants to have something and not just be a hollow shell. What does a typical space look like for you? JOSH: We do a lot of work in the museum space, like the traditional museum space. All the big museums are generally our clients. We've worked with a lot of them. Everything from like science centers to history museums to art museums. We did a Van Gogh projected experience with the Art Institute of Chicago way before they were doing all these projections. ROB: All the immersive experiences. JOSH: Yeah, we've been doing that for a long time. But then recently we've been moving more into brand work. We've been doing some work with Nike, which has been really exciting. We've done work with Google. trying to take a lot of that museum flair, which is an obsession with content and making sure that what we're saying is true, and trying to figure out what's interesting about a brand and giving it that treatment where you're elevating the personalities, elevating the science. You're making something that's smart but also engaging. ROB: Where are they doing those things? JOSH: These are executive briefing centers, sometimes. These are museums or brands. Some of these are online. And then we started doing a little bit of work for real estate companies, just trying to – it's not for me. [laughs] Just to activate some of their public spaces as well. Again, trying to bring in content experience that's not just decorative, but actually tells a story that feels true to the space. ROB: When I think about this space, I start off thinking about the sleepy old kiosk that became a touchscreen and the keyboard is broken. Did it start there and proceed from there? JOSH: Yeah, I would say when we started out – Blue Cadet was my freelance handle. I was at the Smithsonian; I did a pretty cool project there that got a lot of attention. The Smithsonian being what it is, they only had big projects every few years. I was getting kind of bored, so I left and I started going around museum to museum. I was essentially picking up jobs doing Flash design and development. When we first started out, it was a lot of those single touchscreens and those things that were kind of cheap. No one was going to lose their job if we really screwed up. But we overdelivered. We did really great stuff, and we grew on the backs of those reputations and then started doing touch tables and touch walls and projection mapping. These days, we still do a lot of large touch surfaces and things like that, but a lot more thinking about the technologies that are more interesting or relevant. Now we're doing a lot more with AR, things that are haptics, camera vision. Also just trying to figure out how to make an environment more engaging and magical. ROB: Some of the advantage, even, of the march of technology is that probably some of those early Flash things you were doing were still rather expensive and still took a big commitment. I think some of this has allowed the technology to come down into simpler spaces. My team's done really simple electron-based kiosks with a little bit of sound, a little bit of animation, and it makes it more available to more places. JOSH: Yeah. It's interesting because Flash was an amazing tool. Flash really allowed you to do a lot of very, very cool things. When Steve Jobs killed Flash, essentially – which he pretty much singlehandedly did – there was actually a little bit of a lull in experience design where the tools had to catch up. But now you see things like Real Engine, Unity – but even what you can do with JavaScript. You can do everything that you used to be able to do in Flash now to the nth degree. And it's much better. Flash probably should've died. ROB: How often does as client come to you with an idea of what they want? How often do they come to you with a topic – “Here's this topic, here's what we want to show people; surprise us”? Or is it more “We have an idea and a direction”? Do you know how much space you're dealing with? It seems like there's a lot of variables in there. JOSH: A lot of times if we're dealing with a museum client, they might have a big exhibit or something like that. Or even a brand, they have their stories, they know what they want to convey, they have the space. But then they come to us and they're like, “How do we tell the story? How do we do this?” A lot of times even if they come in with very, very fully baked ideas, we'll roll it way back into strategy and be like, let's create a little bit of space to figure out what you can do with contemporary technology, with contemporary tools. What can you do to make sure that content or experience really shines in a way that's not been done in the same way with different content six months before? ROB: It sounds like it's really a consultative opportunity, right? To show them – maybe they start somewhere, but sometimes they don't know what they don't know, in a very good way. You have a broader span of the industry. That's why they come to you. You bring some extra ideas to the plate. JOSH: Yeah. And usually what we do – we've been doing these things called ideation spreads. Sometimes someone will come to us with a pretty big budget and we'll be like “Hey, instead of having to sign the SOW for this real big thing, give us 10% of it and give us three weeks, and let us do a bunch of sprints where we reconceptualize it and see if we land in a better place.”  Sometimes it's better, particularly if you get a brief that you're like, “This is not going to end well. This is not something we want to be working on for the next six months.” It's better to carve off a little space to redirect it than to get into that death march of implementing something that's just not going to be that great. ROB: Right. Do you ever engage in that competitive sales process where you're competing over the big pie and you take the little pie? Does that happen? JOSH: Absolutely. I would say particularly as we were earning our market position and earning our reputation, we weren't always the safe choice. We were always known for doing the creative thing and for doing something cool and new, but there were a lot of people who had done it a million times. And it was riskier for them to work with us. So that was a great way. We'd come in and do these ideation spreads and say, “Look, you don't have to trust us with this giant thing. Bring us in here and let's see if we can set the vision. You're not even obligated to work with us after that.” ROB: Right, “You own the work, go ahead and take it.” I think every creative firm benefits when they find ways essentially to get paid for discovery instead of trying to do all this guesswork upfront. But there's always the tension between “How much are we spending on this?” versus “How likely are we to get the work?” Nobody wants to be in that tension. So, the 10% strategy there makes a lot of sense. JOSH: Also, I'd much rather do that than do spec on RFPs. You don't know anything about the client and really what they want. You don't really know what the problem set is. So if you're doing spec on an RFP, you're really just shooting in the dark. Whereas if you carve out a little bit of space where you can actually collaborate with a client, you usually come up with better creative; you're actually solving the problem. But then also, you get to build that relationship and the rapport, and that's usually what carries you forward. Or you sit there and you're like, “Okay, there's not great relationship or rapport here.” ROB: You can dodge a bullet. JOSH: Yeah, you can be like, “Okay, you really did want that thing. God love ya, go on with it.” ROB: We talked a little bit about the origin story, about you going around to museums. When did you realize it was a thing and you said, “You know what, this is my job now”? What was the inflection point? JOSH: For a while, Blue Cadet was just my freelance handle. I was living in D.C. because I was still at the Smithsonian and I was picking up odd jobs. It was fun. I enjoyed it. The projects I'd get weren't huge budgets, but I was actually making way more money than I was at the Smithsonian. But I finally got a project – a couple friends and I got this grant to do an interactive documentary, like a Flash-based documentary on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This was something where we came up with the idea, we went to a foundation, and we were like “Hey, can you pay us some money to put this thing together?” The timeline was such, the budget was such that I kind of had to hire a team. We had videographers, we had professional sound people. We were basically following this high school class – it was the only high school class to reopen after Hurricane Katrina. We were down there basically weeks after the hurricane. It was decimated. But when I was on that project – it was called Yearbook 2006 – I was like, oh man, if I bring in other people, it works way better. I was still doing the stuff that was too expensive to outsource, but I outsourced some other things and it ended up being really successful. It became really popular. I was like, okay, I want to start a studio. So that was the first point where I wanted to do a studio. Then that same team, we got another project the year after that for the Pulitzer Center and we ended up winning a News and Documentary Emmy, which was a pretty big deal at the time. We beat Wolf Blitzer or something. That put us on the map, and that snowballed to where we started getting a lot of work, and I was able to start building the team from there. ROB: It seems like something in that documentary space – of all the things you can fractionalize and take some people, do a project, get done with it, it seems like something in that video space, people are kind of used to it. That's the drill; that's what you do. You film something, then you move on to the next thing. JOSH: Yeah. Basically what happened was I was living in D.C. but I was from Philadelphia; I was turning 30. I was like, okay, I'm getting to an age where maybe I'm ready to settle down a little bit. I didn't really want to settle down in D.C. So I moved up to Philly and I made my first hire. It was someone straight out of college. She actually still works for me, 15 years later. ROB: Wow. JOSH: But that was the thing. We were hiring junior people and training them up, and then we grew very linearly, 20% year over year. There were weird inflection points along the way, but yeah, that's how we got to where we are now. ROB: What's a weird inflection point? JOSH: As you're growing a studio, there are always these different points where the wheels get real shaky and the systems that were working fine in this phase don't really work as well in the next phase. There's a point where you have to get really professional about bill pay, about HR, benefits. You just have to start layering in a lot of systems at various points. And those are the points where you start getting more professional and you start having to have an org chart. You can't just have a bunch of super creative people scrambling around all over the place. ROB: How have you digested that change? Is it something that comes well to you? Is there somebody, or many people, maybe a role that's been integral to making the jumps? JOSH: Yeah, my partner Troy. We both worked as new media specialists at the Smithsonian. He was like my sixth hire or something like that at Blue Cadet. He was living in Denver quite happily, and I sort of dragged him across country to move to Philadelphia and start things. But I love Troy. I'm one of these people who can talk a really good game and I can set a vision or get really excited about the idea and what this thing can be. Troy's the kind of guy who can sit down and actually make it happen. He can actually do it. So, he's invaluable. Over the years, we've been very selective. I spend a lot of time recruiting the people that I want into the team. Very few people necessarily applied to Blue Cadet, particularly at the leadership level. I always sought out people that I thought would really fit into the studio and scale out our capabilities. ROB: That's a great opportunity, because those strategic roles are also the ones where you could actually justify bringing a recruiter to, which you can't always do in the services world. But to find those people and recruit them in . . . . JOSH: I never used a recruiter. Where you find the best people is just like here at SXSW, you're meeting people. Or you meet clients. One of the people I recruited to Blue Cadet, who actually left to take over digital at the Obama Library, was client side, and she left midway through the project and everyone was like, “Oh my God, this place is going to fall apart without her. She is so instrumental to the studio.” This was a studio I was working with, and I was like, “That sucks; the project's going to go sideways.” But then I was like, “I'm going to poach her at some point. I'm going to get her on my team.” And she was fantastic. So, I'm always looking for people that I'm like, “Wow, that person's way smarter than me or better that me at these things.” ROB: That's excellent, especially when you know the capabilities you don't quite need yet, or you don't need another person in that capability yet, and you can keep your head on the swivel, keep the mental library going of who's next. It's a fun journey to have that wish list and then fulfill on it. JOSH: Yeah. ROB: So, you're here and you have a session coming up. It is “Trends and Challenges for Experiential Culture.” What are you looking for people to get out of that? JOSH: Obviously, I've been speaking about experience design for a very, very long time. I was talking about how things were getting completely disrupted with physical space pre-pandemic. I was talking about Meow Wolf and Museum of Ice Cream and the changing face of retail and also some of the things that were happening with museums, and this was like 2018-2019. I was like, man, stuff's really going to change. I saw the trends, I saw this stuff happening. And then obviously the pandemic has accelerated everything. Who knows where the chips are going to fall, but one of the things we're seeing is a lot of people wanting to get back into physical space. Places like SXSW are now filling up again. People want to be around each other. But what are the spaces that bring out the best in us? How could those spaces operate to create better connections between people? That's the sort of thing we're really interested in. And then also, how do you discard the old stuff that doesn't work anymore? Honestly, I love museums but I also kind of hate them. Also, I know for my kids, they're not dying to go to the old-fashioned museum and read a bunch of wall labels. They're really interested in culture because they're my children, our children, but they want to consume it differently. And I want to make sure that they're consuming culture in a way that feels good to them, that's enjoyable and interesting to them. ROB: What do you think they're going to want? Where is it headed? JOSH: It's so funny; my kids like Roblox, they like all those things. I've taken them to a million museums. I've taken my son to Epcot and Disney and all the different – sometimes the things they like are the cheesy, colorful, fun Museum of Ice Cream rip-offs. But also, they would eat candy all day if I let them do that, too. So, it's figuring out, okay, what are the things that have a personality, that are fun, that are interesting, that are enjoyable, but also are not just mind-numbing or consumptive? ROB: Right. Even some of the newish stuff – I'm sure you'll see a lot of it around here at SXSW; there's different activations. There's some integration of different assets, even into the little doodles activation over here that's NFTs plus an actual physical space. How do you think about the difference between using a technology for the sake of the technology and using it because it's actually right for the environment? JOSH: I actually really like the doodles space. I thought they did a really nice job. I think part of it is a lot of times I talk to these museums and I'm like, “You should be looking more to that marketing. You should be taking a lot more inspiration from them,” because they move really fast, they put these things together really quick, they're not super, super precious, they don't expect it to be up in 5 years, let alone 10 years, let alone 2 weeks, and they're able to take more risks. Because it's sort of a one-and-done, they don't have to make sure that it feels the same 10 years from now. Obviously, that marketing is a very different business model than a museum, but I think there are things that can be borrowed. And personally, I think even that doodles exhibit – there were a lot of nods to themed entertainment. There was a lot of stenography, there was a lot of sculptural pieces. There were some really nice light applications of technology. I thought it was really successful. I would like to see museums looking more like that. ROB: Got it. I think there's times when we've probably all seen AR for AR's sake, VR for VR's sake. How do you filter “This is a good place for VR, this is not”? Or “It could be done this way but not that one”? JOSH: I used to take a much harder line on this in the past. Honestly, some of these things, you look at some of these AR experiences and you're like, what's the point? It's not doing anything except demonstrating the technology. It's like, okay, if you've never seen AR, awesome. That's really awesome. But if you have seen AR, you don't care. Same with some of these projection experiences. It's like, if you're never been in a giant room filled with Christie projectors, it's really exciting to be at the Van Gogh and see all this stuff. But then you go back and it's the same thing, but with Klimt or Picasso or Monet; it's like, “I've seen it.” So, I think part of it is I'm actually okay with technology for technology's sake where it serves a spectacle, where you've never seen it before. It makes people excited and engaged. I think where it gets old is where it's already been done before. You're not even doing that. You're just being lazy. The thing I always look at, too, is either you've got to really, really be serving that content in a way that's compelling and really getting people into it – and sometimes that is spectacle. Spectacle gets people excited. It gets them interested. But if you fail at the spectacle and then you don't provide the content, it's just a wasted experience. ROB: It seems like you're very adjacent to not only event marketing, but also perhaps even to entertainment, theme park, that kind of thing. How do you decide where you go and where you don't go in those markets, and where you compete and where you choose to stay in your lane? JOSH: It's funny; I used to be very selective about the types of clients I would take on. I was like, “I'm not working with brands. I'm working with museums and nonprofits and higher ed. That's my tribe.” The thing I realized is sometimes your tribe is not aligned to a sector. It's really just a way of being. There are people at Nike that have way, way more in common with me and how I see technology, how I see content, how I see culture than people at some of these museums. Some of the people in these museums are very, very retrograde, and they're like, “No, we need a clean white room with a painting and 7,000 words of text. Bring your seven-year-old in here and they're going to read my dissertation.” I have less in common with them than somebody who's at a brand, whether it's a technology brand or materials brand or someone selling shoes, that wants to tell this story in an interesting way or find something interesting to elevate out of it. ROB: The brands change, too. That's part of it. Once you're in the game for a while, the brands change. The legend of what Nike is has shifted several times at different inflection points. Shoe Dogs, one moment in time. I interned once upon a time at Chick-fil-A's headquarters. Chick-fil-A's museum was a little room with a trophy case and a fake vault, and they've expanded what that experience is. So, I think the brands change too, and who they are and what they need might be different from the thing you used to react to. JOSH: Yeah, 100%. Often it's just who's there and who's championing the brand, who wants to tell that story, and how they want to tell it. The thing is, there's so many projects at Nike that Blue Cadet should have no part in, but the projects we are working with them are very Blue Cadet-like projects. There's a lot of interesting content, stories. We did one for the LeBron James Innovation Center. It's all about how they use data to inform how they work with athletes, and that's really cool. That's really exciting and something that my team is very, very well-positioned to execute on. ROB: Your session also ties into trends a lot. What's next? What's something you think you're going to end up doing soon at Blue Cadet that you haven't done before? JOSH: I've actually been spending a lot of time looking at Web3 and NFTs and things like that. I think beyond the hype, there's something really interesting stuff there. I think there's something very interesting about digital ownership. I think there's something very interesting about bringing things from the physical world in the digital world, bringing things from the digital world into the physical world. I think NFTs help with that. I think there's some really exciting things happening there. Personally, I think it's a really exciting time to be in experience design because frankly, COVID screwed everything up. Everyone's rethinking things. Like, “Do I shake someone's hand? Do I give them a hug? Do I wear a mask here, do I not wear a mask here?” All the social norms, the way we behaved in physical spaces, have changed. So, now's a really interesting time to direct some innovation and say, okay, now that we're rethinking this, let's put some design thinking to it and figure out how to make these spaces better. ROB: Right. Some people shut everything down for two years, some people built nothing for two years, some people rebuilt everything during those two years. Some stuff was pulled forward, some stuff is waiting in the wings. It's very lumpy. JOSH: Yeah, absolutely. I think what'll be really interesting is we don't really know. We've all been in this one state and now we're entering into another, hopefully, and we're not quite sure how the chips will fall. We don't know what the new behaviors are going to be. It'd be really interesting to see, as you revisit the conference that you went to for 10 years or the restaurant you used to go to every week, as you start going back into those things, does it feel the same? Does it still work the same way? Does it still affect you the same way? I don't know. Does it feel great to go back to a movie theater? Maybe, maybe not. ROB: I haven't tried yet. JOSH: Honestly, I was one of those people like “Ah screw it, I don't need it.” Then I took my kids to see the new Spider-Man and I was like, wait a second. This is actually really nice. It was actually quite enjoyable. ROB: It was probably fairly uncrowded too, which helps. [laughs] JOSH: It was pretty uncrowded, yeah. [laughs] ROB: For me, same thing. We have kids, so me not going to the movies is more about me having kids and not going to the movies as much as I did when we were just a couple with time on our hands and it's like “It's Tuesday, what do we do? Let's go see a movie and get home at 11:00. Fine.” Different seasons. JOSH: Yeah. ROB: Are there any sort of behaviors that were adopted experientially during COVID that you think are going to stick? There's interesting things – I think about some escape rooms did versions of escape rooms where they would do it for you over Zoom. And they're still doing it I guess, but I don't know. Are there weird things that people did that you think might stick around? JOSH: I mean, I think remote work is not going anywhere. ROB: You're betting on it. JOSH: Yeah, I'm living in California and my studio is entirely on the East Coast. We started hiring people out of market, which we never did before. We have people who moved into the Hudson River Valley or out in the Poconos, moving away from the city, away from our offices. And it hasn't been affecting the work. So, I think that's going to be really interesting. I think also how we're thinking about the studios themselves – we have this beautiful, beautiful office in Philadelphia and New York with lots of desks, but we're like, do we all need these desks if we're not going to be there every day? Can we optimize this for prototyping spaces? We build a lot of things in physical space, lots of hardware in the office. We need that. That's part of our process. But it's like, do we need all these desks? ROB: Do you find you're still pulling people together to actually get hands on with the experience? You can do a lot of the design in your own place, but there's a point where it still has to get physical and maybe that's a good time to convene the team anyhow to build rapport? JOSH: Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, I love it. It's great to bring people together in physical space. But when there's a reason. Let's bring them in physical space to prototype, but we don't have to bring them into shared space just for another meeting. That's not worth it. [laughs] That stuff can go to Zoom. ROB: Josh, all very interesting stuff. When people want to connect with you and with Blue Cadet, where should they go to find you? JOSH: I'm probably most active on LinkedIn. Just look me up on LinkedIn. I actually spend a lot of time sharing a lot of prototypes. ROB: I was going to say, you probably share some cool stuff. JOSH: I share some really cool stuff. I at one point realized that the Blue Cadet internal Slack where we're just sharing prototypes and process stuff was way more interesting than anything I was sharing on social media, so I was like, I'm just going to share that stuff. The Blue Cadet Slack is way more interesting than any social feed I follow. So, I share the stuff I'm allowed to share off that. ROB: That turns out to be great marketing on LinkedIn, too. Some stuff people won't connect with, some stuff probably goes to the moon, and then people are like, “Who did that?” “Blue Cadet did that.” “Hey, I need that.” I don't know if it's scalable, but it also doesn't have to. I don't know how many days a week you're LinkedIn posting, but it's one or two or three days a week. JOSH: Yeah. The LinkedIn posts I'm putting up are early prototypes. They're super messy. It's a lot of cardboard and projection and things taped together. But usually then there's some really interesting technology in there, and I feel like it's an easier way to see how this actually gets made. ROB: Excellent. Josh, thank you so much for meeting up, for coming on the podcast. JOSH: Absolutely. ROB: Wish you the best on your talk in a couple of days as well. JOSH: Hope you make it out there. It'd be great. ROB: Thanks so much. JOSH: Thanks for having me. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Category First
A Very Short list For A**-Kicking CMOs

Category First

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2022 9:58


In this episode… In this episode, we'll uncover the essential steps you should take as a startup's new CMO to successfully define your category, from setting your goals to launch day. We call it a short list for ass-kicking CMOs. Here's a quote from Josh: “It's going to take herculean focus to drive the outcomes you're looking for. That's where the Very Short List for Ass-Kicking CMOs comes in. Print it out and put it on your desk where you'll always see it. It's not just a list, it's a constant reminder that the best way to make new friends is to create and dominate your category.” What Should A Startup's New CMO Do?  #1: Set your goals. Note that these goals sit outside the category you're creating because they are more foundational than category. If your company decided to change categories entirely, these three goals would still exist.  #2: Know the customer. There's nothing like becoming your company's foremost expert on the customer. It will give you credibility and authority inside your company. #3: Define your category. If your new startup dreams of transforming their industry then they are, by definition, aspiring category creators. Most startups sort of back into category creation. But in order to work, Product, Sales, HR/People—everyone—must believe the mission to create and lead a new market category is the CEO's highest priority. #4: Tell the world. Now it's time to redirect marketing and company efforts so they are in line with your category POV and growth goals. We call it a Category Launch. It consists of two areas of work: Inside the company and out in the world.  Of course the details of your specific Ass-Kicking List may vary, but the broad strokes apply to everyone: Set your goals. Know the customer. Define your category. Tell the world. Want to Learn More? Sign up for our newsletter at goldfront.com/categoryfirst, and see our category design and brand work at goldfront.com. And if you'd like help creating and owning your category, let's chat. Just head over to our website and click Contact.

The Marketing Secrets Show
How To Build A Great Team…The Right Way

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 10, 2022 17:01


The skill set for building an effective team is WAY different than the skills needed for marketing and sales. For one, you have to learn how to become a true LEADER. So the two key questions to ask yourself are 1. Who do you have to become to lead a great team? And 2. What are the critical strategies you need to implement to get your team onboard to follow your vision? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everyone? This is Russell, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today's episode, we're going to be talking about building a team. How do you do it? What are the pitfalls? What are the pros, the cons? And some of the things that I learned along the way. Hopefully this'll help you as you're building out your team to be able to do whatever it is you're trying to do in your life. Whatever your mission, whatever your goal, whatever the business you're trying to build. I hope that this episode will help you as you're thinking through it, to help you to build the team that's going to get you to the finish line. So with that said, I'm going to cue up the theme song. We come back, you have a chance to listen in on a cool interview, talking about how to build your team. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast, I'm here today with Josh Forti and we've been having fun today. The last two episodes- Josh Forti: We have. Russell: We recorded went longer, but- Josh: It's been fun. Russell: I think they've been fun. So today will be a little bit shorter episode, but it's something that, again, Josh brings things that I don't ever really typically talk about. So it's been fun to talk about some of the stuff like I think about, but I've never really verbally shared. So do you want to set up what we were talking about today? Josh: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so very specifically here, I want to focus for you specifically. The question is, well, leadership and team building, what are some of the biggest shifts around building a team and becoming a leader? Because as someone who built a team myself that failed miserably, it wasn't that we hated each other, but it's just like, it was chaos. When you're trying to manage like six or seven different people and they're all like contracting everywhere. And now I'm like kind of going back and rebuilding. And I'm building it right and I have full-time people that we're bringing in and going. And it's like, man, the skillset of making money, the skillset of being a marketer is way so totally different- Russell: Yeah. Josh: Than building a team. And even being like the attractive character and building a following, like building a following is a completely different skillset than it is of growing a team and being a leader and things like that. And so I guess like two part is number one, who did you have to become? And like, secondly, what are like some of the hacks, tips, or I know you like secrets. So what are some of the secrets that you use to build a team and really like sell them on the vision and like really make sure that they were thriving in that role? Russell: Cool. So I want to just second what you said, building a team is way different than all the other things. And I've struggled over the years. I have an amazing team, as you guys know, if you've seen everything. And I wouldn't say most of it's because of my own doing, I'll talk about some of the stuff I've learned along the way. But it's a different skillset. And I think making money is an easier skill, I think creating a movement of people that are following you is different. I always tell people, like I'm such a good leader and communicator to like my tribe and I'm not as good to my internal team. It's interesting. And so a couple things that I'll share again, I don't have this perfect. And if you ask people on my team, like Russell's not perfect at this because I'm not. But I'll share some of the things I've learned because I'm always trying to figure this out and trying to get better at it. One of the biggest lessons I had and I did a podcast on this probably two or three years ago. Was this realization that I had to make a transition. Because I was always like the All Star. Like if you look at basketball, like I was the All Star, like I was really good. I could write copy, I could build a funnel, I could drive traffic, I could sell from stage, I could do all the different things. And so I was like, Michael Jordan out there and I'd be on stage, I'd be doing, I'd be dunking and slamming and three points. And like just amazing and people would tell me how great I was and I loved it. And then I start building a team. And so I started building a team, but the problem is that as I was building a team, I still thought I was Michael Jordan. So I'd build the team and I'd be in there, all of a sudden, I'd have the person writing copy and they'd be going up with the ball, about to do the layup. And I'm like, "Ah, I could actually do it better." So I grab the ball from my own teammate and rip it out of their hands and I'd go dunk it like, "Ah." And I would get everyone cheering for me again. Or someone would be coming down ... I'm trying to get these analogies working. But basically what's happening is that I was the All Star and- Josh: That one worked. That analogy worked. Russell: That one did work? Okay, good. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I was trying to bring in other All Stars. But the problem is I'd bring these All Stars in and then as they were trying to perform, I'd be like, "I can do it better." And I would take the ball from them because I want to be the All Star. And I had this realization, like for me to actually build a team, I cannot continue to be the All Star. And this is hard- Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: For achievers like us, especially for someone like me. Like I was the achiever, I had done all the roles because I had built the company by myself initially. It was me doing all the roles, so I learned all the roles, I got good at all the roles. And so as I started trying to like bring on these different All Stars, it was tough. It's kind of like if you watch the All Star game or like the dream team. Like all of a sudden you got like the best players on a team and usually they're not the best playing with each other because they're all the All Stars, they all want a ball hog and it gets really, really difficult. And so I had to make this realization, like if I'm going to be successful growing a team and getting click funnels from hundred million to a billion dollars, like I can't continue to be the All Star. I have to retire and I have to become the coach. That's a hard transition. Because now you're coming back and like you're successful, not now by your skillset, but you're successful by like cultivating other people's skillsets. And that's a different skillset to have, by the way. Like it's way harder. For me, it's always been easier for me to go and like to do the thing. Like I'm finding it now with I'm coaching my kids wrestling. And I'm watching my kids, I'm watching the team and like, man, I was such a good athlete. I'd go out there, I'd kill myself, I'd work so hard and I was an amazing athlete. But it's way harder for me to coach other athletes because I can't give them desire, I can't give them these different things. And so that was difficult. And so that's the first thing to realize is that if you're going to start growing a team, you have to be willing to like take your Jersey off and say, "I'm no longer the All Star, I am now the coach. And I've got new people." And that's been the hardest thing for me and I still struggle with that, I still like jump back in. I'm like, "Ah." But that's the key, if you want to get a good group people around you. Because otherwise if you're the one that's taking the ball from him, from the other people on the team, the All Stars are going to leave you. Like they're not going to stick around, they want to be the All Star too, they want the recognition, they want to be doing the thing. So that's the first big shift that you got to have. Any questions on that before I go to kind of- Josh: No, no. Super good. Yeah, you're good. Russell: Okay. So the second thing is you have to be good at hiring All Stars. I remember when we first started building ClickFunnels, Todd read an article or something and he was talking about ... in the article was like, there's A players, B players, C player, there's different levels. But what people don't understand, it's not like A players, like 100% and B players like 50%. Like the article said the difference between an A player and a B player is like 2200% difference. So it's like a B player, you can have like one A player going to give you the output of like 50 or 100 or how many B players. And so what most of us try to do, is try to come in and say, "Okay, I don't want to spend as much money getting the right person. So I'm going to find somebody who's cheaper. Maybe they're not going to be an A player, but they'll be a B player, but I can afford them." And that's like this mindset that most people have. I see it all the time, I see it in Facebook groups, in ClickFunnels Facebook group, like, how do I get a cheap funnel builder? Like, that's the problem, you're looking for a B player. Or you find an A player, you get 2200 times better thing. And so it's been interesting because we launched ClickFunnels the first time, like I had a couple A players, which is why it grew. We had a couple All Stars, we had some like Todd Dickerson. You guys know our team, like we had A players who were able to go and intergrow. But then from there, we had to hire whoever we could afford. Right now we're building ClickFunnels 2.0 and we're in a unique spot where it's like, we don't have to just hire who we can afford. Like let's hire the best. And so we're going out there trying to figure out who are the A players in each regard. And it's crazy because I look at the team that's building ClickFunnels 2.0, it's a small team. What they're accomplishing is amazing, but they're all A players. When we started like looking at rolling out Click Funnels 2.0 and our marketing team, we started trying to bring in A players and they're expensive. And so a lot of times the questions like, well, I don't have any money. How do I recruit the A players? Well, I recruited Todd and I was broke. A players aren't necessarily looking for money today. The A players are people who are looking for money in the future. They're the ones who are like, "I want to be part of a team. I want to build something cool, something I believe in. And I want to be able to get paid insane amounts of money over here. And I'm willing to give up that for this over here." The right people will be willing to do that. So as I come back, if I was to like be building my team over from scratch right now. There's number one, again, taking off the All Star, say I'm going to be the coach. And number two is like, if I'm going to be the coach and I'm out there building the team, like I'm going to try to build the dream team. And to do that, I've got to sell them on the vision of why this is cool and like where it's going to go, and what's the opportunity for them. Because just like you're trying to sell your customers on the opportunity of like funnels are the opportunity or whatever. It's like, you're selling your dreams team, like this is the opportunity. Like if you join the team, you're going to get paid nothing right now or very little right now. But this is how we're going to structure things so that it'll be worth it for you over here. And the right people will hear that because that's what they're looking for. Someday when I retire from this whole, whatever I'm doing. If I was ever getting a job again, it's not going to be based on money, I could care less about money. Someone's going to sell me someday on the vision. In fact, I just saw Sean Wayland just hired the dude who started Tapout- Josh: Yeah, I saw that. Russell: And like how powerful is that? The Tapout dude does not need Sean's money. He sold his company for insane amounts of money. But I'm sure Sean's like, "Hey dude, here's the opportunity. You help me do this thing and flip it like, this is what's possible for you." And now he's got literally like there's no better person that Sean could have hired to run that company- Josh: Yeah, I know. Russell: Than this dude. Josh: When I saw that one, I was like, "Oh my Gosh." Russell: It's brilliant. So for all of us, we got to start linking more strategically. Not like, who can I afford for this role? It's like, who is the person that's going to be getting a million bucks a year in five years from now in this role? And how do I sell them on the opportunity? How do I create an opportunity where they can grow and they can monetize? Where they can make this kind of money. And that's how you recruit the right people into your world, who are going to help you to actually have success. And so those are the things ... because you get a good A player, you don't have to be really good at managing, you don't have to be really good at micro- Josh: Yeah. Russell: All those kind things. Like you get the right people in place, they're going to do the things and it makes you look like the All Star, the coach of the year that you are. Because you built the right team. Building the team- Josh: Yeah. Russell: Is more valuable than all the other pieces, I believe. Josh: Yeah. Like getting the right people is more important. The systems, the process, like those are all important. But like if you have B players on the team, it's like you're going to get a mediocre result. Russell: Yeah. And then- Josh: Yeah. Russell: And B player, you're going to be one in charge if you know the process. We brought Todd and I didn't have to like sit down with Todd and like, "Okay, how are we going to manage the projects? How are we going to do this?" Like Todd came in, he's like, "All right, I got it." And he just ran and he was able to run and like, all right, he's done. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Like we just brought in this guy named Kevin Richards, who we brought him in into like be the CMO of ClickFunnels. And Kevin had worked for a whole bunch of really big companies doing this. And it's crazy because like he came in and we gave him the reins, he started running. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is way better than I was running." Like there's structures, organization. Because he's done it before, over and over and over again. He's going to come in and plug in and just do it. And I'm watching it right now, I'm like- Josh: Yeah. Russell: "Man, like he's an A player who I could hire." In fact, I have over the last decade, a whole bunch of B players to do this role and no one's been able to hit it. And it's been me being involved so much. Where now it's like literally the first two weeks I was like all nervous because I want to make sure that everything's perfect. And finally like gave him the reins and I stepped back and it's like, "Whoa, this is so much better than when I was running it." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And it's easier and less stressed on me and he's loving it and it's just powerful. So those are the key. Josh: Okay. Couple rapid fire questions here, so that we make time. Number one, have you ever run into challenges or how have you dealt with communication differences inside of a team? Because one of the things that I've noticed is like, I just thought everybody would communicate like I was if we're all part of a team. I'm like the most expressive person, like when I talk. Like I use emojis and exclamation points and like if I'm texting, if I'm going like my voice or whatever. And like someone on my team is like, "Okay." I'm like, "Ah, are you mad? Do you understand? Like what do you mean, okay?" Do you have systems in place? Or do you typically go and just try to like find people to do that? Or is that something you just learn? Because I'm sure like, Melanie, I mean she was with you for how long? Right before Shelia, I'm sure she had a very unique communication style and I'm sure your next assistant is probably not the same as her. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Right. So like how have you learned like how to deal with that? Russell: Yeah. A couple things. One is like personality profiling is huge. In fact, we're working on a whole project right now and that'll probably be a book and a membership side, bunch of stuff, all based on personality profiling. Because that's how you understand like what motivates people? How do they speak? How do they not speak? How do they understand? Because again, Melanie and Jenny are very different people. But I'm able to work with both of them because I understood their personality types, I understood like, what are the things that would light Melanie up? What are the things that'd get Jenny excited to work? And vice versa. Like, if you look at Melanie was a very high S, so very faithful. And so like she would like die for you to be able to get something done. Jenny on their hand has very low S, almost no S. And so for her, it's like, man, if she gets bored, she's gone. So I got to make sure that she's got 8,000 projects and she's juggling them all. The more things she's having, the more successful she's going to be. Similar to me. And so I give her tons of projects and she thrives that she's able to juggle all these things. Whereas if I treat her like I taught Melanie, she would've been here for a week and a half, like, I'm out, like this is horrible. So understanding those kind of things. Like DISC profile's big, Meyers Briggs is big. Those are my two favorites. I'm trying to learn to master all the other ones, but those ones help a ton when you're hiring and all also when you're managing people. Josh: Yeah. Russell: The other thing is, this is one that helped me. Actually, Julie Story actually was one that taught it to me initially. And I don't remember all the things, but there's these different hats. There's like a black hat and a green hat and a red hat and yellow hat and all these things like that. So I'm a very green hat person, so are you. Put on the green hat and it's like creative ideas and we're flowing. I'm like, we get so excited about sharing stuff. And there's people who have like a black hats, they're the ones who always like ... they look at what could go wrong. What about this? And what about this? Josh: They take away all the fun. Oh my God. Russell: Yeah. Josh: They ruin it. Russell: And then like the white hats. So there's all these different hats. The ones I really remember is like green and black because I'm green hat. And like, Jamie Smith's a good example of a black hat. I love Jamie, one of my favorite humans in the world. But when we would do meetings together, I literally wanted jump over the table and strangle him. Because I'm like, "I did, I did, I did." And he's like, "Well, you think about this? You think about this? Think about this?" And like you're sucking the life out of me. Josh: Yeah. Russell: My wife's a very black hat person, as well. I'm like, "We should take the kids and like fly around the world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Like just brainstorming things that are probably never going to happen. She's like, "What about this, this, this?" And so we started learning like based on this ... this is something that Julie brought that was really powerful. It was like, "Hey, we're in now in a green hat phase. Well, Russell's going to green hat, we're talking about ideas. No one's allowed to black hat this at all. Let's just share ideas." So then everyone's just sharing ideas and like, we have a chance to be excited and creative and get these things out there. And after it's like all the creative steps out, it's like, "Okay, now let's put a black hat on, now it's black hat this." And now we can all look at it objectively you're like, "Okay, we're going to black hat this and go through the black hat things." And then we put on a different colored hat and go through those things. Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: And we go through different hats, but they're separately, they're not all happening at the same time. Because if it happens at the same time, it destroys my creativity and excitement and energy. I want to like strangle the person. But like, man, I need those people. I need Jamie to look at this and be like, "Here's 40 ways why this isn't going to work." Like, oh crap, I didn't think about that, that or that. We stack the different hats as opposed to doing them all at the same time and making us all want to kill each other. And that has been- Josh: That's so helpful. Russell: Huge for us. Like for me, it's huge. I always tell people like when I start brainstorming, like, "Okay, green hat time, no negative, no what ifs. Let's go." And then we just do that. And you see like the black hat people are like twitching and they're like, don't worry, you're going to get your shot, but not yet. Until everything's out and it's like, "Okay, black hat's on. What do you guys got?" And then they can go do their thing. Josh: You need some anxiety medication over there. Russell: Yeah. We can do a whole, like two day training on that, too. Because it's such a powerful thing. But conceptually, it's breaking those things in that way. Josh: All right, Russell. Well, in your other life, we'll just have an entire podcast where all we do is just do deep dives all day long. But in this life, we have to stick with constraints of where we're at. So anyway, thank you for sharing that. Super, super helpful. I appreciate it. Russell: No worries. Thank you, Josh. Appreciate you guys. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode. As you guys are building your teams, remember the principles we talked about. You've got to become the coach, you've got to attract A players, you got to put them in the right spots, figure out ways to make it profitable for them in the long term, figure out personality types, you can serve them the right way. Black hat, green hat, red hats. We should do an episode on just on all hat ... I have to go back to remember all the other colored hats. But anyway- Josh: All right, our next- Russell: There you go. Josh: Go around, I'll be like you have homework for this. Russell: Russell, prepare for this and we'll go. Josh: Prepare for this one. That'd be awesome. Russell: That'd be awesome. Thanks everyone for listening. Thank you, Josh. And we'll see you guys on the next episode.

The Marketing Secrets Show
Money Mindset Secrets…

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2022 37:50


Did you know this may be holding you back from success in your business? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to Marketing Secrets podcast. One of the questions I get asked a lot about, and I don't spend a lot of time talking about it, is actually money and mindset around money, and how that works, and things that can help you to make more money, things that hold you back from making money. They have nothing to do with your skill set, it just has everything to do with the conversations, the beliefs, the things inside of your mind. This interview with Josh Forti, it was really fun and hopefully you enjoy it. Hopefully it'll help you if you do have money blocks, to help you get unstuck. If you don't think you have money blocks, you probably do. And this hopefully, interview, will make you very aware of those things, and help you to find those things and knock them out in your life. That said, we'll keep the theme song, and when we come back, listen in on this interview with me and Josh Forti. What's up everybody? Welcome back The Marketing Secrets podcast. I'm here today again with Josh Forti, and we're having so much fun today. We just recorded one episode and now we're going deep into episode number two, which we're going to be talking about mindset as it relates to things that are very specific to you guys as entrepreneurs. I'll Josh talk more about this as he's going to be queuing up the question, but hope you guys enjoy this episode as well. Josh Forti: All right, man. First off, we got to talk about your shirt. I feel like there's got to be a story behind this. Guys, for those of you that are listening on audio, let me just explain real quick. It is a skull and crossbones, but it's not just a skull and crossbones. It's got bunny ears on the skull. It's got little waves off to the side. What does it say on the sleeve? Russell: It says, "Psycho bunny." Josh: Psycho bunny. Russell: This is actually a really cool brand called Psycho Bunny, and I bought a couple of their things. I'm like, "This is a cool brand." And then I was shopping with Bart Miller in Vegas, and they have a Psycho Bunny shop. I went in there- Josh: Oh dang! Russell: And they had shirts and jackets and suit jackets that have the Psycho Bunny inside. It's just a fun, cool brand, and I really like it. Psycho Bunny. Josh: Okay. There's no grand, huge story behind how you got it. You just liked it. Russell: I should buy the company because it'd be really cool. Anyway, nope. Nothing. Josh: Guys, when you're a funnel hacker and when you decide to take over the world and create empires, you can randomly decide on a podcast that you're just going to ... "I should buy the company." That's not a normal thing that most people get to say, but it's super dope. Russell: This could be a fun episode in the future because as we acquired two big companies last year and I'm learning about this and having more fun with it, there are some cool ... For most of us, we look at a company, like, "There's no way I could buy that company," but then like Tai Lopez who just bought RadioShack and he bought Pier 1 Imports and all these companies… Josh: Dress Barn. Yeah. Russell: Now, I bought a couple companies and I'm like, oh, my gosh, there's actually a really cool strategy where it doesn't technically cost you any money if you do it correctly. We bought Dan Kennedy's company for a steal. We've launched the first thing. Now we made our money back. And now moving forward, everything I do with Dan Kennedy's company is pure, unadulterated profit to the bottom line. And that's exciting because ... All of a sudden it's like, you can actually buy companies when you understand the core principles of what we do. Anyway, that's a topic for another day, but it's kind of a fun one. Josh: So much fun stuff. Topic for another day. We'll do many episodes. Now is not the time. We're going to dive into what I think goes really well with our last episode. Last episode we talked about goal setting and setting things up, and that last bit of it was around identity and beliefs and values and rules and things like that. I want to talk about mindset here, and specifically the mindset ... There's a couple core key areas, because what's interesting is a lot of times we think mindset is we have to train our minds to think a certain way, or we have to overcome false beliefs about bad things. Like, "I'll never be successful" or "I'll never be this." But it goes both ways, because often times we can have fear of success. We can have fear that, oh, my gosh, what happens if I actually achieve that goal? There's so many different things around that, that we could dive into, but I want to kick off with this one specifically around mindset around money. I do want to talk about not just money, failure, doing the impossible, things like that, but I want to start with money because I feel like money is one of these things that we all have some form of weird relationship with it. Very few people grew up in a home where their parents and everybody around them had a healthy relationship with money, because most people ... I would say 90 plus percent of the people that I've met do not have a healthy relationship with money. They don't understand it. They don't understand what it represents, how it works, any of the things with it. For you, I want you to take us back because one of things, and I've kind of told you this at the beginning, a lot of people in the ClickFunnels world, like Russell. I was talking to Brad Gibb the other day. Shout out to Brad. He's awesome. He's like, "Russell has come and he's taken these handcuffs off of us, to where now we just can print money." It's ridiculous. It's kind of a cheat code. When we talk about it to all of our friends, we go around and we're like, "Yeah, we just kind of make money on the Internet." They're like, "How do you do that?" We're like, "We don't know. We just do what Russell says and it just works." Russell: It's a magic trick! Josh: It just shows up. It's amazing. We've kind of unshackled the making of money, if we follow what it is, but keeping money. But our thoughts around money, our beliefs around money, how we perceive and value money, how we think money is going to change us. All of these different other things around money, those things are now new problems that a lot of us are running into, or have not yet applied the things that you've told us to do because of those beliefs. I think both of those are true. I've seen so many people ... I made not a ton, ton of money, but certainly 10 times more money than I'd ever made in my life when I first got started, and blew it all because of my poor, very unhealthy, almost toxic relationship with money. Take us back, what are the money shifts or the beliefs around money, specifically in mindset, that you had to go through. I'm just going to kind of leave that open ended and see where you take it. Russell: The first thing I think that would be useful for everyone is for everyone to actually, honestly sit down and look at their relationship with money and understand it ... It's funny because if you would ask Russell 15 years ago Russell if this was actually a real thing, I'd be like, "No, this is stupid. Just make money. It's easy." But I had a friend who I worked with, man, probably 12, 13 years ago on a project and he was someone who is super charismatic, super dynamic, super talented person. When he was younger, he used his talents and his gifts and he made a whole bunch of money really, really fast. Crazy, crazy money. Money that doesn't make any sense. When he got that money, he started doing stupid things with it. He got into drugs and alcohol and all the problems that are associated with when you make too much money too fast as a kid, and almost destroyed his life. He almost died. He almost lost his family and his marriage. All these things happened. He lost all the money, which was probably a blessing. And then he refixed his life. And then he got back to the spot where he's like, "I want to make money again." I watched him for probably 10 years of his life, where he would do all the right things, he would get close to making a bunch of money and then he would literally subconsciously destroy everything he had built, and it kept happening. At first I was so confused by it. I'm like, "You were so close. How do you keep messing this up? I don't understand it." Then he told me a story. He didn't know this subconsciously but we had a conversation one night where he told me a story. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Subconsciously, you are linking the destruction of your family, your health and all these things to making money, because that's what happened the very first time. Now every time you get close to it, your whole subconscious mind is like, no, and starts making you do stupid things to destroy yourself from actually having success." I've seen ... Now, it's been a decade of me watching this. And as much as I love this person, I keep seeing him. He's so talented, so many gifts, and keeps not having any success because of this thing that happened in his youth. His is an extreme example, but this is happening to all of us. You think about when you were growing up, what are the things that your parents said about money? What are the things that you heard at church about money? What are the things you heard in different spots? There are so many things that have been ingrained in our head that we don't even know consciously. And also, we start having success in whatever. We start making money or we start getting close to making money, and all these warning signals are popping off in your head, like, don't get money because of this because you'll become a bad person and you're going to fall away from God. You're going to be doing this. You're going to be the bad person. You look at TV. Myron Golden is the first one that ever pointed this out to me. You look at every movie, every superhero movie, for the most part, the bad guy is the rich billionaire who is this horrible person. This is ingrained in our heads that money is going to make us evil. Those things are real, and even if you don't think that they're affecting you, they probably are. Josh: And then you don't consciously believe it. Subconsciously they control you. Russell: Yeah, it's affecting you. I've seen this in my own journey. When I first started making money, I thought everyone was going to be excited. I was like, "This is so cool." I was so excited to teach everybody else. I started making money. I start teaching people and try to show my friends and my family and what happened. The response I got was not what I thought it was going to be. It was not like, "This is amazing-" Josh: At all. Russell: "Let's try it." Instead it was weird, especially for my wife. My wife struggled with it even more so than me because I've had success in parts of my life in the past where ... In wrestling, I was a state champ, I was an all-American. I hit these different things, but there was this weird side of success you aren't expecting where the people around you who you think are going to be celebrating with you, they don't. In fact, I remember my mom when I bought my dream house ... My house is ... You've been to my house. Josh: Your house is insane. It's so awesome. Russell: It's like the coolest thing in the world. When I was growing up, I wanted an insane house. I remember I was finally at a spot where I could buy this house. In the reality, I didn't pay it off immediately. I could've just paid cash for it. I didn't. But within two years I think I paid it off, which was a big deal for me. But I remember when I was buying my house, I remember a comment my mom said. She was like, "You don't want to buy a house like this because then you're going to be one of those rich people up on the hill." I was like, "What does that mean, mom?" She was like, "They're the ones that are always looking down at everybody else." I'm like, "What?" All of a sudden I was scared to tell my mom about my success because my mom viewed the rich people as this thing over here. And then other people. It was this weird thing where all of a sudden it makes you want to shrink down, it makes you want to hide because you're like, "I don't want people judging me because of this thing." For all of you guys, for all of us, there's these things that may happen, where comments are made, when people we love and respect were to all of a sudden to ... The side of success that you think is going to happen doesn't. Especially in money. I think money is a big one because it's such a thing. Josh: Yeah. I also think that because of the stories that we're told by everybody else, like you're saying, subconsciously it's ingrained in our society, what money is and how it works, nobody understands it. Taylor Welch ... You know Taylor, right? Taylor Welch? Russell: Yep. Josh: He's the one ... He and I have become ... I don't want to say good friends, but certainly friends over the past little bit. He was actually the very first person I ever interviewed on my podcast. Russell: Very cool. Josh: He got me into money. He was like, "Study money. Because once you understand how it works, it'll completely change your perspective of it." I always joke around with my mom. I'm like, "Money's not real. It's all fake." In America specifically, the U.S. dollar is not real. It's all fake and it's all made up. She always pushes back. She's like, "It's not fake because I can guy groceries with it." I'm like, "That right there, that shows that I have a different relationship ..." And side note, I freaking love my mom. My mom and I have an amazing relationship. But my mom and I have a completely different fundamental relationship with money. That was a very interesting learning lesson for me. When you change your relationship with money, when you change how it works, when you understand it differently and when you change your relationship with it, it also becomes not hard to get or keep, because now you're not needy of it. Your relationship changes with it. I always think about ... Take it back to dating. I'm not even going to say the book because I don't want people to go ... It's not a great book, but I was reading a clip out of this book one time and the guy in it goes, "Money and ..." Let's say, relationship. Money and girls are kind of the same thing. Those are not the words he used, but money and girls are the same way. If you're desperate and needy of it, you'll never have it. But if you don't care, it'll come abundantly. That was a very interesting shift for me as well. Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you but that was very interesting. Russell: It's key. As I studied Tony Robbins, the biggest thing I learned ... One of the biggest things. I shouldn't say the biggest, but is just becoming aware of things. I think the first step for of any us is being aware of how this is actually affecting you. For a lot of us, at whatever level you're at, the reason you're not at the next level is because there's some belief around it that's keeping you from there. It's interesting, I remember when I had the goal, when I hit a million dollars in a year, I didn't hit it three years in a row. Every year I was within $50,000. Like, $75,000. How am I not hitting this? It was like, I had these weird beliefs around that thing. As soon as I broke it, I was like, this is easy. Going from million to 10 million was next. Getting to two, three, five, eight million was easy, but then 10 million was this gap where I was stuck. It's beliefs. What's easy? What's hard? A couple things ... Again, this is one of those topics. I've never taught this before so I don't have the, here's the Russell three step framework. Things have happened in my life that I became aware of this for myself. One of them was, I had a coach ... I've had her a couple times throughout my life. She's awesome. One of my favorite coaches of all time. Her name is Tara Williams. Tara ... It was interesting because I always thought ... Again, especially people who are religious, there's always this belief of is money going to make me evil? You hear these things on the side. I definitely had this subconscious fear around that. If I get too much money, I'm going to forget God. I'm going to forget my family. All these things couple happen. Because they do. They happen to so many people. We see it. I had that fear behind it. I remember, especially when I bought my house, I was like, I bought this house and it's crazy. Anyway, Tara was at our house, actually, doing a coaching session with my wife and I. It was an interesting thing. But she said a couple things in that meeting that had a big impact on me. One of the things was ... She asked my wife this specifically. "Do you think this is bad that he bought this house?" My wife is like, "Yeah." She has so much guilt associated with it, because she's like ... It was interesting because Tara brought back, "Because you guys have money, talk about things you've done. Last year you gave a million dollars to OUR. Last year you did this. Last year you did this. How many people have you helped? How many entrepreneurs have you empowered? How many jobs have you created?" We started going through this whole thing, and it was like, all these things you're doing has been creating wealth for you. You have this wealth. You can just give it away and you guys do give a lot away, but is it bad for you now to enjoy some of it, to buy a house? Still she was like, "I don't know. Is it bad or not?" She's like, "Now you have this house, what have you guys done with this house?" I was like, "We have our kids here and we have our family here. We bring people here. We're able to serve people at a different level because we have these things." All of a sudden it was like, oh, my gosh, this isn't a bad thing. I remember hearing Richard Branson, somebody asked him ... Who was it? It was another one of those moments for me that opened my mind. But someone asked Branson, "Do you feel guilty that you're not down at the soup kitchen helping feed these people?" Branson's response was so powerful. He said, "The people of the soup kitchen who are feeding people, that's amazing. We're so grateful for them. They're giving their time and their effort. It's powerful. I'm not going to go to the soup kitchen and feed people soup, but I can give the soup kitchen $50,000, and that's going to feed 10,000 people. It's different service but it's still service, and this is able to help even more people." I started thinking about that. Man, these tools that we create, like wealth and the things that we have can be so much more impactful if we use it correctly. It's not a bad thing. It's just understanding these are tools that we have. Anyway ... Josh: It's interesting you say that and phrase it that way because that was one of the things, actually, Brad Gibb, he's a very good friend of mine as well, and we talk a lot. And he's taught me probably more about money as far as investing how it works and how to use it and things like that, probably more than anybody else. Very, very smart. One of the things that he said is money is not all the same. He's like, "You can have a million dollars over here and a million dollars over here and one of them be used for good and to multiply and to be productive, and one of them be used just to indulge and be gluttonous and to be greedy. Is money good or bad? It's not good, it's not bad. It is. It is a tool for exchange. How you go and use it will determine whether or not it's good or bad for you in your own life." When he put it that way, I was like, if I have my money and I'm investing and I'm multiplying it and it's creating freedom and then I'm using that to be able to go out and give back, all of a sudden money is now good. It makes me be able to do my job better. But if I'm just going and I make a million dollars and I go to Vegas and I put 100 grand on black, cool. Maybe once in your lifetime. But that is not a good thing anymore. Now it's taking away from your gift. It can either be an amplifier or it can be something that takes away. That was a really, really big shift for me. It was like, how am I using it? Russell: It's powerful. Again, it just comes down to there's so many subconscious things that are weird about it. Next thing I want to talk about for entrepreneurs too ... And this is a trap with money that I got caught into for almost 15 years. When I stared my business, I remember I started making some money. I figured out what my wife and I needed to live. I think at the time it was $8,000 a month that was giving us the most amazing lifestyle ever. We set it up where our paycheck was eight grand a month and that's what was coming from the company. And everything else in the company I kept reinvesting back into the company. For a while that's important. That's where we're going to grow, where we're going to expand it. I look at my business for the next decade at least, maybe longer, I never pulled anything else out. It only kept getting reinvested, reinvested. And eventually ... Some of you guys heard my story. 10, 12 years ago we had this big crash where everything got shut down and we lost everything. And the thing that sucked is when it all was said and done, I had nothing. We never pulled money out. We never invested. We never did anything. It was all being reinvested back into the business. I got my guarantee, we had our certainty, eight grand a month coming in consistently every single time, but then nothing happened. I remember when we launched after that happened and everything crashed and we were rebuilding back up, during that time we had no money so everything is being reinvested back into the business because we had no business at that point. We started figuring this out. That's where I met Todd. We launched Click Funnels. When we launched Click Funnels, I instantly went back to my same pattern. Like, cool, all the money goes back into Click Funnels. That's how we're going to do this thing. Todd was like, "Dude, just so you understand, I did not build this thing to just have a good paycheck and let this thing keep growing. This is not worth it for me unless we pull money out." I remember I was like ... I had so much fear and I was like, "No. We can't do this." This is one of Todd and I's first and probably only real things where he was just like, "It's not worth it to me unless this is producing money that's being put over here for my family, for my church, for my faith, all the things I want to be doing." Again, we fought back and forth for a couple of months. The very first time we had some profit. I was like, "What do I do with this profit? Put it back in the business." Todd was like, "No, we need to pull it out of the business," and we fought back and forth. Finally, we figured out a way to make us both happy where we figured ... At the time, we need three months of money in reserve. Worst case scenario, that's there. But then after that's over, all of the money, 100% of the money needs to be pulled out and given to the owners. Otherwise we're going to be like you were, Russell, 15 years in and you've got nothing to show for it. All the stress, all the effort, all the energy, and nothing to show for it. That's how we set things up. I remember it was so scary for me. In fact, when we started pulling out and distributing out the profits every single month, I kept mine in there for two years. I didn't touch a penny of it because I'm like ... It's in my separate account. It's over there. What was crazy, though, is that all of a sudden this thing that I was doing started actually producing wealth for me, which took the stress down. I started seeing this thing happening, and all of a sudden it started giving me options where I had no options ahead of time. I think for a lot of entrepreneurs it's like, we have this thing ... It's funny because I see even big people like Gary Vee talk about this, like, "I don't care about money. I dump all my money back in. I'm just building this brand." I'm like, I thought that was the thing for a while too, but it's not. If the business is not producing wealth for the owners, what's the point of it? Eventually you got a job and that's it. It needs to be doing something or else it's not serving you, and therefore, it's not a gift. Josh: Was that the thing, though, helping you overcome that? Was it just doing it? Is that what helped you overcome it? Russell: Yeah, Todd forced me. If it wasn't for Todd, I would still be pulling out eight grand a month and that would be where I would be living. 100%. Todd forced me to do it and it stressed me out. I was so scared. For two years I didn't touch the money and all of a sudden it was like, oh, my gosh, there's this money here. Now I have the ability to ... This thing I had created, this value I was trying to put into the world was paying us back, and now we could ... Now we had all sorts of options. Especially when you're really pushing and you're working hard and you're grinding on something, if aren't seeing some tangible value back from it, it's not serving you. It's just taking from you. Again, this was my personal money, one of my personal issues I struggled with. This may or may not be that, but I would say for all of you guys, looking at this as you are creating a business and creating wealth, you need to be pulling things out. What you do with it is up to you. Like you talked about, use it for good, evil. You can give it to charity. You can do whatever. But if the business is just paying for itself, the business will continue to eat up all your money. It will. You leave money it, it's going to continue to eat it up and it'll disappear as fast as it can possibly happen. But if you start pulling it out and it's over here and it's different, man, it becomes more efficient. It becomes more effective. Everything becomes better because of that. Josh: It's funny, because my thing ... I had that same struggle except I wasn't even paying myself. I was literally just, what are my bills for the month, the bare minimum, and then that was it. And then I met my now wife and I started thinking about finances and she wanted stuff. I was like, but also the business. It was kind of like this thing. Katie came along and was like, "Josh ..." The very first ... She didn't give me a lot of tactical things. It was very mindset-focused. I remember one of the biggest tactical things that she gave me out of the very few that she did, she was like, "You need to pay yourself a paycheck, and that paycheck needs to not only be enough to cover all of your expenses, but it needs to in excess." When I started to put away multiple thousand dollars a month into savings or into being able to invest outside of the company, it changed my whole entire perspective. Weirdly enough, magically, the business made more money. It was like, made it every month. It was like, we're entrepreneurs. We figure out problems. Our brain programs for it. And then I started looking at it as myself as an expense. I was like, I'm a line item on the books. Just like I pay a contractor, that's me. All of a sudden, the business made enough money to cover that. But before that, it didn't. It was crazy. Russell: It's interesting because when you start seeing the results ... I've talked about this before. If you look at my Disc profile, there's the D-I-S-C, and then there's your values. My number one value is ROI. If I can't see the ROI of a situation, it makes it harder for me to do it. I was in business for a decade and a half and the ROI I was getting was good. I was like, "I'm helping people and having success, and it's fun to see the success stories." That was the ROI I was getting, and it was good. It kept me going. But man, I look at the last seven years of Click Funnel, it was like the pressure and the stress and all of the type of things. If it wasn't for the ROI, it took this pressure, but here's the ROI of it, I wouldn't have been able to do it. As soon as I started seeing the ROI and the ROI gets bigger and bigger and bigger, all of a sudden it's like, this becomes fun again and you get excited. How do I make the ROI ... For me, it's all about the ROI, the return on investment, any situation is the key. If you don't have the ROI, it gets hard. It's hard to be creative. It's hard to come up with the next idea, the next thing, and the stress and the pressure that comes. What's the return on investment for the effort you're putting into it? But if you see the ROI and you start amplifying it, then it becomes a more fun game. That's where you start growing from a million to a 10 to 100 and beyond because it's like, I see this game. I'm playing it. I'm getting the return on investment. But I never saw that before because the only return on investment I was getting was this one thing, and those things they feel good, but it's hard to keep score with the feel goods. You got to have a scoreboard to see, like, oh, my gosh, I'm winning. Can I win even more? What's it going to look like? And now it gives you options and opportunities… Josh: You mean you're telling me that all the stress and pressure isn't worth $8,000 a month? Russell: You know, I could get ... I was like ... Nowadays with all of the inflation, I can work at McDonald's for eight grand a month, I think. It's crazy. Josh: Man. Russell: But back then- Josh: That's crazy. Russell: That was the ... Anyway, it's crazy. Josh: You can buy Bitcoin and keep up with inflation. Bitcoin, the savior of money. One more. I kind of want to dive ... I wasn't going to make this a money episode, because that's kind of where it's been. When did you make the shift ... One of the big problems with entrepreneurs, talking maybe a little bit more established entrepreneur, is once they're making money ... I was talking with Brad about this and he was talking about in the inner circle. He was in there ... Or in Category Kings, right? The guy's like, "What's the main problem that you solve?" Brad was like, "So interesting. We thought we could answer that question." Then he asked us it and we try to do it, and it was like, dang, what is the main problem that we solve? What he said is one of the things that they came down to was entrepreneurs know that if they have money, it should be doing more. But they don't know what to do with it. This is something that you probably are an amplified example of this, because you're really, really good at making money. You don't even need to think about what your money should be doing because you can just go make more of it. Once again, that because you've unshackled us. It's like, "All right, want a new car? Go build a funnel. You want a palace? Go build a funnel. Want to take a vacation? Launch a funnel. Just do a funnel and you print money." For you, when did that shift happen for you when you actually started paying attention to, I can't just leave my money in an account right now? I can't just buy cars and houses because those don't make me ... You have houses, you've got the cars, you've got everything you've ever wanted and you still have money left over, so when did you make that shift of, my money needs to be doing more, and how did you solve that problem? Russell: Interesting. This is one that's been more recently solved for me, actually, which is fascinating. For a long I was just hoarding it. Just hoarding it, keeping it here. Then Brad and Ryan ... You have to invest it. I'm like, "I don't want to do that." They forced me to do ... I give them a bunch of money every year and they do whatever they do with it, and that's awesome. I'm like, "Okay, cool. Something is happening." But then the money kept adding up. I remember one day I was like, "I'm in a weird spot where I could buy almost anything I want. What do I want? I'm going to go and spend some money." I remember going to eBay and I was like, "I'm going to buy anything I want." I was searching for stuff, and I spent four hours on eBay when all of a sudden I spent three grand. I was like, "That's it. I got everything I wanted." I was like, "Oh, crap, now what do I do with it?" It was interesting, because for me, it was like ... Again, this is something ... It's been a recent development. I can't remember if it was this podcast or the one I talked about it, I was like, I didn't know what to do with this. Yeah, I could invest in real estate, but that wasn't inspiring to me. I have money in crypto, but that's not inspiring. What's the things that's going to inspire me to want to do more? Again, it's ROI for me. What's going to give me the ROI of now I got to create more money so I can do this thing? So I have a lot of things. Again, we give money to charity. All those things are good and they get me excited. But I was like, what would be the thing that, for me, would amplify? When we bought Dan Kennedy's company, it was the first time I felt it. I bought his thing. We reorganized it, cleaned it up, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm able to take these things that were so precious to me and I can bring them back to the world, and I can monetize them. I can actually make money off of this thing." I got really excited. I told you I started buying old books. I started investing in Napoleon Hill books and Charles Haanel and Orison Swett Marden and Samuel Smiles and all these people, the founding fathers of personal development and business and all these kinds of things. I've literally spent a small fortune ... I've spent a lot of money in the last couple months on these old, old books, because now it's like, I'm not investing in real estate that's over here. I'm investing in these things I don't care about. Now it's like I'm investing in something that I can take and that I can turn this into more money, and I can turn it into help. I can serve my entrepreneurs. I can do more things with it. For me, that's what's been stimulating for me. That was the investment of ... It was like, I can dump it back into things, but it was like something that's meaningful to me. For some people, crypto is meaningful. For some people it's NFT. Finding the thing that's not just like, I'm investing to invest, but what's the thing that you're passionate about it where it becomes more than just ... For me, that's what I'm geeking out on. You know this, next door I'm building a 20,000 square foot library to house all these books, to build an event center, to build all these kind of things because this is what I feel like my life's mission is. I'm curating all these ideas and I'm bringing them back to people in the simple new form to help these ideas and these concepts live on. For me, that's double fulfilling because it'll make me money, but it's also something that can serve the people I've been called to serve as well. Again, buying Kennedy's company, I'm serving these people, but I'm also making money, which gives me the ability to serve more people. It's kind of fun. Josh: What was the shift, though? For a while you didn't do that, right? Russell: For a while I just sat there. I didn't know what it was. Josh: Who or what got you to the point where you're like, "Okay, I've got to go figure this out"? Yes, this is what you ended up doing with it, but I think a lot of people, there's got to be that thing that's like, "This is when I realized I got to figure out ..." Or some people just let it sit their whole life, I guess. You know what I'm saying? Russell: I heard stories about ... I don't know how true ... But like Scottie Pippen or Mike Tyson, he made half a billion dollars and he's broke. I was like, I don't want to be that dude who made a half a billion dollars and is broke right now. I need to figure out ... I always joke with Brad and Ryan when we were writing their webinar page initially, I was like ... On 30 Rock, there's that scene where Liz Lemon is talking to Alec Baldwin and he's like, "I need that thing that rich people do where they turn money into more money." He's like, "Investing?" He's like, "Yeah. I want to do that." For me, it was like, I've got money here. I need to figure out how to turn money into more money, that's not just me doing the whole thing. How do we amplify what we're doing? How do we have that exponential growth? That was kind of the thing that got me into it. Again, initially it was doing the things that weren't exciting. I'd invested money in real estate and I hated that, so I had Brad and Ryan, I invested money with them. That was cool. It was passive. It wasn't passionate. I was trying to figure out what's the thing that I'm going to be passionate about, where now it becomes part of a game. Now I can see the ROI on this thing. I invested $40,000 this weekend on old books, how do I turn that into $400,000 or four million or 40 million? Can I do that? Now begins ... Now it's fun. Some people, real estate is that game. I got friends who own 100 houses, or 200 houses, and that's the game that they love. I look at Tai Lopez and he's buying these businesses. That's the game that he loves. What's the game you're going to love, the investing game you're going to love? There's a million ways to invest, but when you find one that you love, then it becomes ... Now it becomes a fun part of the game. I think it's understanding first off you need to do it, otherwise you're going to ... You mentioned this ... I can't remember if it was before we started recording, but people who have won Two Comma Club and they got nothing, or Two Comma Club X and they're broke. Entrepreneurs are good at generating money, but there's this other part that you got to learn how to invest it correctly. Otherwise, you're going to pull a Tyson or a Pippen and be broke in a couple of years from now. Yeah, I got 3 Two Comma Club awards on the wall, but I'm trying to figure out how to feed my family this weekend, and that's now where you want to be… Josh: That's so crazy that's a reality for people. It really, really is. I think that's one of the things that I am very, very thankful to have learned relatively early on, is ... Russell: They're two different skill sets. Making money- Josh: They are. Russell: And keeping money are not the same thing. Josh: Yeah. Russell: They are completely different skill sets. In fact, typically, the people who are good at making money are the worst at managing it. Josh: Keeping it. Russell: It's like yin and yang. Understanding that if you're good at making it, you find people around you, like Brad and Ryan, I was like, "Here's money. Do that thing you do because I don't want to mess it up." Josh: Yeah. Russell: In fact, it's funny, before I invested money with Brad and Ryan, I invested it in two different deals. I was like, "This is the greatest thing in the world." Both of them, literally both of them turned out to Ponzi schemes. I got to write off multiple of millions of dollars last year because I gave money to ideas that were so good that me as the entrepreneur was like, "This is genius. This is the greatest thing in the world." Ponzi scheme. I got sold on the thing. It's funny, one of my friends just sold his business for eight figures and he messages me. He was like, "All right. I want to ask your opinion. Where should I put this money?" I was like, "Dude, do not ask me. If I think it's a good idea, it's going to be a Ponzi scheme. Find someone who, that's their life, is that, like Brad and Ryan. Go give your money to them," or find something like I'm doing now with the books and stuff, where it's like now. This is something that fits into my skill set. I think it was ... What's the old dude who invests all the money? Warren Buffett, that said only invest in things you understand. It's like, I understand how to turn old information into money. I'm investing in information and intellectual property because I can turn that into more money, and so that becomes something I can invest in, because I understand the game. I don't understand- Josh: So interesting. Russell: This, but I do understand this, therefore, I will invest in the thing I understand because I can turn this into more money. Josh: That makes sense. Side note on Warren Buffett, you know 80% of his wealth or something like that came off of nine trades? Russell: Really? Josh: Nine investments that he made, it produced 80% of his wealth or something like that. Isn't that insane? Russell: That is fascinating. Josh: That's why when ... I read the quote from him, it was in the context of this quote. It was like, Warren Buffett is like, everyone thinks they have to make a bunch of good decisions. He was like, "I try to make three good decisions a year." I was like, "Oh, my gosh. What the heck?" And then I found out that 80% of his wealth came from ... It was eight or nine trades or something, or investments, and I was like, "All right. I guess that makes sense, then, if you only need to make ..." Anyway, last question, rapid fire question on money. Is there anything that you could do, if you could go back and change something about what you've done or your handling with money, is there anything that you would change, and if so, what's the biggest thing that would be? Russell: Good question. I think I would've started ... Number one, I would've started pulling money out of my business faster. Number two, I would've had a plan for what I would do with that money. I wish I would've said, "I'm going to pull out ... After three months of thing, pull out all the profit, I'm going to put 25% in real estate, 25% in crypto, 25% in something else, and just have that happening in the background, I'd be a much wealthier man today." It took me a long, long time before I did that. Todd forced me to start putting money into crypto, which was one of the greatest gifts ever for me. Brad and Ryan are now forcing me to put money over here. It's like taking that and putting it in spots where again, it's not going to be 100%. I'm going to fall for two Ponzi schemes a year probably, but if I can get one of them to win and three of them to fail, or whatever that is, that's the big thing. I always thought that I will start pulling money out when blah. When I hit Two Comma Club, when I hit a million. The problem is that win never comes. You got to structure from day number one. When money comes in, boom. Profits come out. This happens here. I pay myself first. From the money I pay myself, 10% is going to go for me to go do stupid things, 25% is going to go into real estate or Bitcoin or stocks or whatever. And dividing that stuff up so it's happening at a small level, because when that happens, I wasted a decade and a half before any kind of investments happening. Can you imagine if I had 15 years of the stuff I was doing, turning into something? I missed out on so much of that, that I wish I would've done. Josh: You just got to make sure that you have a small percentage there, which is dedicated to losing bets and Bitcoin to Josh. If you have that, then we're good. For the rest of your life, you're going to be losing bets, so that's how that's going to work. Guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode with money. I'll let you sign it off, but this was awesome. We get to hear Russell Brunson talk about money, which is something that, you make a ton of it, but you don't really talk about it, which is awesome. Thanks for sharing a little bit more. Russell: Thank you. I apologize I don't have a framework for this yet, but this gets me thinking, man, if I could figure out something for entrepreneurs, this is the next thing to do, so then I'll talk more about it as I figure things out. But it's fascinating. I remember I bought a Dan Kennedy course on wealth creation, and it was fascinating because I'd heard Dan talk about building businesses and all that sort of stuff, but it was the first time he ever talked about wealth. Again, same thing. Fascinating. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I never thought about that side of the coin because most entrepreneurs don't talk about it, or don't think about it. I think it's important for us to think and talk and do more with it because again, 15 years of never investing anything, man, it would've been nice. I'd be in a different spot right now than I am today, for sure. Thank you, Josh, for hanging out and talking about money. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, let us know if you want more about money and wealth and these kind of things. Let us know and we'll go deeper on topics. Just take a screen shot of this on your phone, post it, and tag me and write your #1 question you want to hear, and maybe we'll talk about it on the next podcast. Thanks again. Thank you, Josh, and I will see you guys soon.

Banished by Booksmart Studios
The Bother With Baby

Banished by Booksmart Studios

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2021 20:07


Broadway-bound songsmith Frank Loesser wrote “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as a call-and-response duet for he and his wife to perform at parties. Several years later, the tune made its way into a movie and soon took the Christmas canon by storm. But is it a “rapey” relic of a bygone era that should be buried permanently in the winter snow? Amna Khalid investigates.Happy New Year! In the warm and generous spirit of the holidays, we’re offering 30% off a subscription to Booksmart Studios until the end of the year. You’ll get extra written content and access to bonus segments and written transcripts like this one. More importantly, you’ll be championing all the work we do here. Become a member of Booksmart Studios today. Thank you for your support.* TRANSCRIPT *MAN: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Do we have any more requests?WOMAN: Baby, It's Cold Outside!MAN: I think we can make that happen. Who wants to take the duet?AMNA KHALID: In the new Netflix rom-com Love Hard, Josh volunteers to sing a duet with his girlfriend — his pretend girlfriend, actually — Natalie:JOSH: Natalie and I got this one, Dad.KHALID: The two are out caroling with his family in snowy Lake Placid.NATALIE: Over my cold, dead, lifeless body. I am not singing that — that is like the sexual assault theme song.KHALID: Natalie refuses at first to sing that Christmas song, because, you know, it's that song — the one in which a man is possibly pressuring a woman into spending the night. But Josh has an idea.JOSH: Look, this is what we’re gonna do, okay? You just do your part. I will change my lyrics so the song doesn't sound so, uh, rapey. NATALIE: Fine, let's just get this over with.JOSH: Dad, hit it. 🎶NATALIE: I really can’t stayJOSH: No problem, there’s the doorNATALIE: I’ve got to go awayJOSH: I hear you, say no moreNATALIE: This evening has beenJOSH: Totally consensualNATALIE: So very niceJOSH: I hope you get home safe tonightKHALID: It's become fashionable in recent years to alter the lyrics of Baby, It's Cold Outside to make them less “rapey,” as the character Josh put it. Others have pushed back, however. The song, they claim, is about a desirous woman battling not the unwanted advances of her date but the unsolicited judgment of society.🎶LYNN GARLAND: I really can't stayFRANK LOESSER: But Baby, it's cold outsideGARLAND: I've got to go awayLOESSER: But Baby, it's cold outsideGARLAND: This evening has been —LOESSER: Been hoping that you'd drop inGARLAND: So very niceLOESSER: I'll hold your hands, they're just like iceKHALID: I'm Amna Khalid. On this episode of Banished, The Bother with Baby.CHRIS WILLMAN: The song was written in 1944 as a song that Frank Loesser and his wife originally sang at a housewarming party.KHALID: Chris Willman is a longtime music journalist, currently at Variety.WILLMAN: Kind of like, the night’s about to end, we’re about to kick you out, and here’s a song about whether to stay or whether to go.KHALID: Wow, I would have loved to be at that party.WILLMAN: Oh, yeah. And apparently they performed it over a period of years to the point that, when it was licensed for a film in 1949, Frank Loesser’s wife resented it. She may have been joking, but she was resentful that it was no longer their private thing because they were such a hit on the party circuit with it.KHALID: The song existed in private for five years, sung only by Loesser and his wife Lynn Garland. The two made one of the very first recordings of the song, which we’re listening to now. 🎶LOESSER: Baby, make my conscious your guideGARLAND: I really can't stay LOESSER: Oh, Baby, don't hold outGARLAND AND LOESSER: Ah but it's cold outsideLOESSER/GARLAND in the clearKHALID: Baby was evocative of the holidays, it was redolent of cigarettes and booze and, yes, it was sexually suggestive.GARLAND: And it was our song.KHALID: That’s Lynn Garland from the documentary Heart and Soul: The Life and Music of Frank Loesser:GARLAND: And we became the most desired guests at parties from coast to coast. And we never failed to slam.KHALID: Garland recalled once that, "Parties were built around our being the closing act.”🎶LOESSER: I thrill when you touch my handGARLAND: But don't you see? LOESSER: How can you do this thing to me?KHALID: It was merely the opening act, however, for the song itself. Baby was such a sensation at private gatherings that Loesser worked it into his score for the 1949 movie Neptune's Daughter. This would be the first time anyone heard the song outside of someone’s living room.WILLMAN: And when it went public in 1949 it kind of exploded. Immediately, people started covering it. My favorite version of the song, by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting. I think that was the biggest hit anyone had with it that year.🎶WHITING: I really can't stayMERCER:  But Baby, it's cold outsideWHITING: I've got to go awayMERCER: But Baby, it's cold outsideWHITING: This evening has beenMERCER: Been hoping that you'd drop inWHITING: So very niceMERCER: I'll hold your hands, they're just like iceKHALID: No fewer than 10 separate recordings were made in 1949 alone. Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Doris Day, Dinah Shore. They all put their stamp on the song, but the version you’re probably most familiar with is the one that Chris Willman prefers. The one you hear on adult contemporary radio stations every December, when they switch over to an all holiday format. The classic recording by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting.🎶WHITING: To break the spell MERCER: I'll take your hat, your hairs looks swellWHITING: I ought to say no, no, no sir MERCER: Mind if I move in closer?WILLMAN: I like it partly because it sounds like 1949. It really puts you in that era where these people are really playing out these roles. I think when people do modern versions it sounds kind of ridiculous because you don’t really buy it, that they have to go through this dance. It’s coming through the same radio where we hear all these incredibly sexually — not just suggestive but explicit songs — and so it’s hard to hear modern singers and still have that sense of reserve and that there are these restrictions on what they have to go through. And for some reason the sexual heat seems more intensified to me when it sounds like it’s happening in that era. Johnny Mercer sounds horny when he’s doing it.KHALID: Yeah!WILLMAN: And Margaret Whiting too. And then, you know, when you hear Willie Nelson and Norah Jones doing it, it’s just not the same.KHALID: And that’s precisely the question for many modern listeners of the song. It may be apparent that Mercer feels the “sexual heat” — but what about Margaret Whiting? Is she feeling it too? That all depends on how you choose to interpret the lyrics, or, in the case of Neptune’s Daughter, what you choose to see on the screen.🎶ESTHER WILLIAMS: I really can't stayRICARDO MONTALBAN: Baby, it's cold outsideWILLIAMS: I've got to go awayMONTALBAN: But Baby, it's cold outsideKHALID: In the 1949 movie, Ricardo Montalban repeatedly tugs at the arm of Esther Williams. He pulls her gently back onto the couch and even removes her hat and stole when she puts them on to leave. To 21st century sensibilities, this pas de deux can seem more predatory than playful. But that's not likely the way that audiences viewed it 70 plus years ago, when Baby won best original song at the 22nd Academy Awards.COLE PORTER: The winner is Frank Loser for “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” (Applause)KHALID: That was Cole Porter presenting Loesser with his one and only Oscar, for a song that stumbled from parlor to parlor on the party circuit, into the motion pictures and onto your Spotify holiday playlist. Or maybe you’ve deleted it from the playlist. Because it’s that song. Chris Willman.WILLMAN: And I never imagined it being controversial, in my naïvete. And then I remember going to an Aimee Mann Christmas show, sometime in the early 2000s I think. And she was having a dialogue onstage with a comedian, and they started talking about quote/unquote rapey the song was and why doesn’t anybody notice that — comically taking off on some of the more sort of, possibly predatorial aspects that people might pick up on in the song. And then all of a sudden in the late 2000s, this becomes a serious topic of debate. And that kind of shocked me, how seriously people were taking the idea that the song was quote-unquote “rapey.”REPORTER: A Bay-area radio station has now yanked the song from its airwaves.REPORTER: Well you won’t be hearing it on WDOK in Cleveland. The radio station’s decided to pull the song from their playlist.WOMAN: You know, it’s a sweet, flirty, fun holiday song.REPORTER: Is it a song about Christmas or creepy behavior? That’s the debate that has led radio station KOIT to ban a popular holiday tune from the airwaves.REPORTER: And you know what? It’s giving people yet another thing to disagree about.WILLMAN: Really in the late 2000s was when it reached peak controversy with radio stations suddenly banning it. The CBC said they were taking it off the air in Canada. There were stations in San Francisco and Denver and somewhere else that said we’re getting rid of the song. But certainly there were lots of serious essays being written too, from a feminist perspective, about how times have changed, people need to recognize that the song celebrates sexual coersion. And then there was the backlash to the backlash from people like me, saying: No, this song is not what you think it is or what you’ve come to believe it is. It’s actually very feminist, very sex-positive to use kind of a corny term.KHALID: According to Chris Willman and other fans of the song, it’s a mistake to interpret the song as if it were written today. Not only is that ahistorical, it’s simply incorrect. Simply put, the song doesn’t mean what many think it means.WILLMAN: People who read it as a date rape song would seize on things like What’s in this drink? As if the guy had placed a drug in her drink. Which is a very contemporary reading because nobody was talking about date rape drugs in 1949, and the, you know, real interpretation of the lyric is that it’s just a strong drink. But reading further into it, she’s trying to pass off the excuse for her own sexual desire onto these things like, “It must be the alcohol affecting me.” But she is the one saying maybe just a cigarette more or maybe half a drink more. It’s really about her putting up every excuse she can think of for why people might not think it was right that she spent the night. You know, one of the key lines to me is I ought to say no, no, no. She’s not saying I want to say no, no, no. It’s I ought to. Just in that word choice alone I think you understand where the song is coming from circa 1949, those expectations of society.🎶ELLA FITZGERALD: I really can't stayLOUIS JORDAN: But Baby, it's cold outsideFITZGERALD: I got to go awayJORDAN: But Baby, it's cold outsideKHALID: In the mid-1940s, the idea that a woman would desire casual sex was taboo. For her to say as much explicity would be deemed “prurient” by network censors, and so Loesser had no choice but to employ subtext. 🎶FITZGERALD: And father will be pacing the floorJORDAN: Listen to the fireplace roarKHALID: In the version you’re listening to now, also recorded in 1949, you hear Ella Fitzgerald chafing at the double standard, when her reputation as a Lady would be ruined if word got out that she stayed the night. Meanwhile, Louis Jordan is free to plead his case for a one-night stand.🎶BETTY CARTER: I really can't stay RAY CHARLES: Betty, it's cold outsideKHALID: Loesser uses musical counterpoint to underscore that Baby is more conversation than conquest. It’s a technique you may recall from his opening number to Guys and Dolls — but his mastery of it is evident in the brilliant 1961 recording of Baby by Ray Charles and Betty Carter. Here Carter emerges from the stifling hypocrisy of the 1950s onto the cusp of a more liberated decade. Both Charles and Carter are softly stepping onto each others’ toes as they negotiate their roles and desires.🎶CHARLES: Beautiful, please don’t hurry.CARTER: Well, maybe just a half a drink moreCHARLES: Why don’t you put some records on while I pour CARTER: The neighbors might thinkCHARLES: Betty, it’s bad out there CARTER: Say, what’s in this drink? CHARLES: No cabs to be had out thereKHALID: Carter is perhaps weary of having to pretend and — without her friends and family fretting and finger-wagging — might make known her own sexual appetite. That’s what Lady Gaga did when she and Joseph Gordon-Levitt gender swapped the parts back in 2013 on the Muppets Holiday Spectacular:🎶GORDON-LEVITT: I really can't stay GAGA:  But Baby, it's cold outsideGORDON-LEVITT: I've got to go away GAGA: But Baby, it's cold outsideGORDON-LEVITT: This evening has been GAGA: Been hoping that you'd drop inGORDON-LEVITT: So very nice GAGA: I'll hold your hands, they're just like iceKHALID: But Gaga wasn’t the first woman to bare her libido in the song.WILLMAN: The woman who helped popularize the song, Zooey Deschanel in Elf, she’s part of a duo called She & Him. They introduced it into their repertoire when they made a Christmas album (and they’re doing a tour this year) where they did a role reversal on the song. I think that’s alright. I mean, there’s a tradition of doing a role reversal with the song that goes back to the original movie, Neptune’s Daughter, where first you see Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams doing it the way you know it. And then there’s a more comedic reprise where Red Skelton and I believe Betty Garrett do it and she’s virtually attacking him to the point that it almost seems really predatorial in that regard.🎶SKELTON: I really can't stay GARRETT:  But Baby it's cold outsideSKELTON: I've got to go away GARRETT: But Baby it's cold outsideSKELTON: This evening has been GARRETT: Been hoping that you'd drop inSKELTON: So very nice GARRETT: I'll hold your hands, they're just like iceWILLMAN: But then to hear Zooey Deschanel say that the only way they could do the song on their Christmas tour was to do the role reversal … made me kind of sad.KHALID: For those who find Baby creepy, a role reversal, it turns out, is not the only way to perform the song. I said at the beginning that it’s become fashionable in recent years to simply rewrite the song. In 2016, Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski performed their updated lyrics on the Minnesota radio station The Current.🎶LIZA: I really can't stayLEMANSKI: Baby I'm fine with thatLIZA: I've got to go away LEMANSKI: Baby I'm cool with thatLIZA: This evening has been LEMANSKI: Been hoping that you get home safeLIZA: So very nice LEMANSKI: I'm glad you had a real good timeLIZA: My mother will start to worry LEMANSKI: Call her so she knows you are comingLIZA: Father will be pacing the floor LEMANSKI: Better get your car a-hummingLIZA: So really I'd better scurry LEMANSKI: Take your time.LIZA: Should I use the front or back door?LEMANSKI: Which one are you pulling towards more?KHALID: The video of this performance has been viewed well over a million times on YouTube alone. And that romantic comedy Love Hard — the one in which Josh changes the lyrics to make them less “rapey” — that’s been showing up on lists of the year’s best Christmas movies.🎶NATALIE: Or maybe just a half a drink more.JOSH: Slow down, that’s quite a pour. NATALIE: The neighbors might think JOSH: Just my old friend Troy NATALIE: Say what's in this drink? JOSH: It’s just Lemon La CroixNATALIE: I wish I knew how JOSH: To take a hint? NATALIE: To break the spell JOSH: Do you know how to spell farewell? NATALIE: I ought to say no, no, no. JOSH: I’ll call you an Uber, they’re close. NATALIE: At least I can say I tried. JOSH: I feel like you’re not trying at all. NATALIE: I really can’t stay.JOSH: Well, maybe just go out. NATALIE: But Baby, it’s cold outside. JOSH: But Baby, just go outside. KHALID: Some of these rewritten versions are admittedly clever and funny, but I confessed to Chris Willman that the controversy took me quite by surprise.KHALID: And in part, I should say, it’s because of where I come from. You know, I come from Pakistan and I’ve grown up with Bollywood films — Bollywood films of the 70s and 80s — and, in that time period, any kind of explicit reference to sex or a sexual encounter or desire was, of course, not considered socially acceptable. Hence all these songs in Bollywood films. That’s their purpose, it’s to be suggestive. And this trope of one of them saying stay — usually the guy — and the girl saying No I must go because look at what the world will say if I stay is so commonplace in Bollywood. Have we gone to the other extreme where we’ve lost the sense of what constitutes romance and by overemphasizing the need for explicit consent and reading everything through that lens?WILLMAN: Well it’s funny, that comes up when people have done rewritten lyrics, where they’re emphasizing consent. And I think initially that was done  satirically, like at every turn the guy is saying, Well, yeah, maybe you should go … Get outta here, I’ll … sure, I’ll call Uber. And I thought that was a funny take on it, but then you see people seriously rewriting it. And first off the song is hilarious. Let’s just say that. It’s a comedic song. And when you’re gonna take the comedy out of it, along with the dance of seduction or agreement or whatever is happening and say, Would you sign this contract please? There’s not much of a song at that point. You know, it’s such a masterpiece, really, of songwriting — the way the rhyme scheme happens between the two different parts simultaneously back and forth, you know it’s very sophisticated as a duet. To take all that away and say that nothing is important about the rhymes, or the themes or the general tone of the song is really to lose the point.🎶“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (1949) in DanishWILLMAN: You know, it holds such a unique place in the Christmas canon, even though it’s not a Christmas song, because it is flirty and racy and you just hear so much Christmas music that is not really about romance. Or if it is, it's extremely schmaltzy. To hear two people come on who are suddenly expressing real feelings in these very funny and literate lyrics, there’s nothing else on the radio like it. There’s nothing that funny or that sexy in the Christmas music canon, and so even the people that think they should be offended by it can’t bring themselves to get rid of it.KHALID: And that’s perhaps the song’s single greatest contradiction. Why hold onto it at all if we have to censor it? And yet there it is, year after year. More than 450 covers of the song and counting. Role reversals and rewrites and translations, including this Danish language recording that is among the very oldest, from 1949.If you liked what you heard today, help us spread the word and support our work at Booksmart Studios. Become a paying subscriber and you will get access to full interviews, bonus segments, written columns and more.Don’t forget to rate what you've heard here today on whichever platform you listen on and leave a comment so we know what you think. Our success here at Booksmart depends as much on you as on us.Banished is produced by Matthew Schwartz and Mike Vuolo. And I, as always, am Amna Khalid.CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this piece, the singer of the duet with Ray Charles was misidentified as Betty Page. The actual singer was Betty Carter. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit banished.substack.com/subscribe

The Marketing Secrets Show
Biohacks, Energy, and Weirdness with Josh Forti, Part 3

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 20, 2021 25:38


Russell and Josh reveal the 2 biggest biohack, supplements, diets, brain food, focus & marketing. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody? This is Russell, welcome back to Marketing Secrets podcast. Today's episode we are going to get into a little bit of some biohacks and some things, diet, energy, supplements, what we do to be able to have our brains stronger so we can be better entrepreneurs. This was a really fun conversation, I think you're going to love it. You're going to see some of the weirdness happening in my brain, what I do, why I do it. And hopefully it gives you guys a place to start when you start looking at how do you change your health to be able to have more success in business. So hopefully you enjoy this conversation. Also, at the end of it, Josh pitches his new podcast, which is coming out here in a couple weeks, couple months. And I think I'm episode number one, so I'm sitting down with him for a two hour conversation here in the near future. Make sure you get on the waiting list for his podcast it is JoshForti.com/coming soon. And again, he'll do a little pitch for it at the end. But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation about biohacking, supplements, health, and how it relates to you as an entrepreneur. Welcome back everyone to the Marketing Secrets podcast. We're about to move into the third topic, I don't know what it is, but I'm pumped to find out. So what's the third topic? Let's go. Josh Forti: All right, Russell, so here's the ding. You're this dude who you've got this super, super successful company, but anybody that has followed you that knows you a little bit, right? All the newbies out there might not. But you're a wrestler and you to be successful in all areas of life, which is really cool, it's one of the reasons I follow you is because you're not just... I'm going to throw rocks to Grant Cardone here, Grant we love you, but also all you care about is money. So get a life. All right? But anyway, so you have more of this complete picture, this more complete thing that you're trying to go through and do. And so for me, one of the things that I've been focusing on a lot, and it's always interesting because whatever I focus on, I share on social media. And then when I share it on social media, people start giving me ideas back, and half the time it's really great ideas, and then half the time people just hate me for no reason. They're like, you're so dumb. I'm like, oh my gosh. Okay. But anyway, for me, right now, one of the things I've been really focused on is health and fitness. Right? And I remember, I don't know, it was a year ago or whenever it was that you were freaking out about bone broth. Right? And you were like bone broth is going to be the greatest thing. Oh my God. Or whatever it is, it's going to be so cool. And it's going to help me cure cancer and not get it or whatever. And I'm like, you're so weird, dude. I don't even understand. Because I wasn't in it, right? I didn't understand it. And then I got married and my wife is a yoga instructor and so she's super, super fit. And now I'm at this point in my life where I'm like, man, my brain feels foggy a lot of days and I want it to be clear. And I'm like, oh crap, there's Russell over there talking about bone broth that one time, he was talking about brain health and all these different things. I'm like, I got to go figure this all out now. And so I hired the Shockley's. Do you know the Shockley's by the way? Kelly and Jay Shockley? They've been in Steve's MasterMind and stuff for a while. They're students of mine now, they're awesome. They live here and they do total body mastery. And it's basically, they come in, they take 15 different blood samples and hair analysis, urinalysis, all this stuff. And they go and test every single different level of your body, and they basically tell you if you're going to die or not. It's pretty great. And so I went and did that and I geeked out and came back and I'm like, there's so much here. And so I'm curious, and I think a lot of people that are, they reach a certain phase in their journey of entrepreneurship and marketing where they're like, okay, I've made some money now. So now I'm not worried about if I'm going to be able to pay the bills or pay off the credit card. And now I've got some money in the bank. And so now they start thinking about more important things. And one of the biggest things that comes up is their health, right? It's, how do I take care of my brain? How do I take care of my body? How am I going to make sure there's longevity? How do I make better decisions? Anybody that's ever studied personal development knows your brain is like this, it takes 80% of the energy in your body every day. It's like something stupid. Right? So I guess let's start with, how do you go and figure out what you're going to focus on? And what's your routine for health? What are the areas that you focus on and how did you figure out that those were the areas you should be focused on? Russell: Yeah. Great questions. It's funny because I think everyone goes through cycles where, remember I used to make fun of the people who were like me. I'll call them hippies. Like, "Oh they're such hippies." And now I'm like, "Dude, I love the hippies, they got all the good stuff. I love these people." You know? But yeah, I think the biggest thing is... It was tough for me because I was a wrestler my whole life, so I always consider myself an athlete. I thought I was in good shape. I thought... And I was. I thought I understood nutrition, I did not. I wish I could go back and compete knowing now what I know now. And so it was weird, I got done with wrestling and then my wife got pregnant with twins, literally during my last wrestling term, she was on fertility. But I wrestled in my last tournament and we found out a week later we're pregnant of twins. And then we were excited, and I wasn't wrestling or competing or working out. She was eating for three. I was eating for three or four as well. And I gained I think about, my senior year I wrestled 165. When I came back to go wrestle the next year after I graduated with the new team, I was so big, they made me wrestle the heavy weights. So I'd gained probably conservatively 60 to probably almost 80 pounds while my wife was pregnant. Josh: Oh my gosh. Russell: And then one day she had twins and lost 60 pounds overnight and I had 80 pounds on Russell. But it's weird because you don't see it. I didn't see it. I remember going back to wrestle at Boise State, and I walked through the door and Ben Cherrington, who's actually Gaethje's wrestling coach, I walked in and Cherrington is like, "Dude, your face is so fat." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "What happened to you?" I'm like, "I don't know what you're talking about." I couldn't see it. You know? And it was just weird. And anyway, so for the next seven or eight years I was in business and I didn't think about it. I was like, I had so much energy here and focus there, I didn't think about it. And eight years into my business is the very first time I remember feeling, I think I was on stage or something. And I used to wear a tie, and the tie wouldn't fit around my neck anymore. It was all this stuff and I was just like, oh, I just felt crappy. And finally I was like, okay, I have to figure this out. So I hired a trainer, got on a plan, and in seven or eight months I went from, I don't know, whatever, 26, 28% body fat down to 12% body fat. And that was cool and I felt better by myself. But the thing that I noticed the most was that I could get more done during the day. And that's when I was like, oh my God, health actually matters, not just... Like for me, if you look at my disc profile, my number one value is economics. So if I don't see the ROI of something, I won't do it, which is why I sucked at school. That's why I suck at a lot of things is because if I don't see an ROI, I would rather die than do the thing. And all of a sudden I saw the ROI of health, I was like, okay. I was like, by shifting my health, I was able to get two to three times more stuff done every single day. ROI of that is I'm getting three years worth of work done every year, which means I'm going to crush everybody else. Therefore, I'm going to go deep on this. And so that was the thing that sold me on it was just, I saw the ROI and then I became obsessed. And so I'll take you through my journey because there's different levels of things I've learned. And again, I could probably someday will write a 5,000 page book on this because it excites me. But there's the things that are the big lever, like the big levers had the biggest impact. So I'll talk about those. Josh: Yeah. Russell: The first one I understood- Josh: Can I just say a quick side note? Russell: Yeah. Josh: I love how you're coughing as we're talking about health. LOL. That's funny. Russell: I know the one time I've been sick in a decade and it's right now. Yeah it's weird, I have a stuffy noses and a... Anyway, I'm in a season of my life where there's not much sleep because my kids are wrestling. And so I leave every day at 2:30 to go to wrestling practice, and then they're cutting weight at night, and then there's tournaments, and I still got to do all the stuff I got to do. So I'm up every morning earlier than normal. Josh: It's like you're busy Russell. Geez. Russell: Yeah. It's a lot, so my health is suffering a little bit right now, which is why I am spending more time on health stuff right now because I'm losing sleep so I got to make up for it in other places. By the way, sleep though is the number one performance drug you can do. In fact, it's interesting if you study all the biohackers, the two or three biggest things is sleeping more and more sunlight, like going outside with your shirt off, getting natural vitamin D, those help more than almost any biohack you can dream, any supplement, anything. It's sleep and sunlight are the two biggest biohacks. And so, anyway, we should all spend more time outside and we should sleep more. But those are hard sometimes where, nowadays we're not sleeping and we're in an office, so those are the things. So okay, I'll step back. So the first big thing I noticed when I started the health journey back now, it's been probably 14, 15 years ago now... Maybe not that long, maybe 10 years. Anyway, whatever it was, is I went through different diets. Right? So I did a bodybuilding high protein diet, which had lower carbs. I also went through the ketogenic diet because I spent a lot of time with Pruvit when the keto movement was starting, helping them launch that. So I was trying to understand, and I went to through that. But the biggest thing I started learning is how carbs affected my brain. If I eat carbs, it made me tired, faster. You know after post Thanksgiving dinner, you eat and then all of a sudden you can't keep your eyes open. People say, it's the tryptophan in Turkey, I don't believe that, it's the mashed potatoes. Josh: I don't believe that either. I just found out this Thanksgiving that apparently Turkey makes you sleepy. I'm like, that is not the case. It is just food in general. I eat any amount of food that much, I'm sleepy. Russell: Yeah, well it's not just food, it's the carbs. The carbs make your brain tired, at least for me. And so I started realizing that, I was like, I don't want to not eat carbs because the carbs have a very important role. I did the whole keto thing for a long time where I just only ate fats, and that I don't think is right either. So your body needs all the things, but I time my day based on those things now because I know that when I introduce carbs, I'm going to be tired. So I don't introduce carbs early in the day. I don't typically eat breakfast, when I'm eating lunch it's usually high fats and high proteins. And then when I do carbs it's at night, when I do actually want my body to start falling asleep. And so if you notice, like if you look at my eating cycles, I'm still eating the same things most people are eating, but I'm eating them in different orders. Right? Like my lunch, if I'm ordering lunch today off Uber Eats, it's going to be a poke bowl and it's going to come with no bass. So no rice, no nothing, but I'm going to have fish, I'm going to have five different fish in there. Right? Because the fish has high protein plus high fat content, which affects your brain. So I'm going to eat that fish, that's going to be my brain food. But I'm not eating carbs because I don't want carbs yet. I need carbs in my diet, I need it in my body, but I don't want it until I want my body to naturally fall asleep anyway. Right? So dinner time, usually I'll be lower on carbs and as it gets closer to bedtime, then I'll go and have my rice or whatever my carbs are going to be. And because I'm like, okay, I want my brain to shut down anyway. It's like, that's when I'll introduce those things into my diet. And so for me, it's like the timing of food has been really, really big because I would normally, back in the day I eat breakfast, I have cereal for breakfast or something and I'm wrecked for the day. Or I would skip breakfast, I eat lunch and then lunch I'd go order something and it'd be a sandwich. Right? And I eat the sandwich and all the bread and I'd lose the last half of the day. So I'm very, very sensitive on how I'm timing, where I'm introducing the carbs in the day so that I can keep my focus as much as possible during the windows where I need my brain sharp and fast and ready. So that's the first phase of it for me, that's been the big thing, because that brain fog is the worst. You're like- Josh: Is the worst. Russell: I need to be... And you can cover it with caffeine. And so you kind of have it, but it's not the same. You don't have the same sharpness when you have the brain fog and caffeine. It's like going into a bathroom where it stinks and they spray Poo Pourri. It's like, now it smells like Poo Pourri flavored poop. You know what I mean? They're both there. Josh: Right, right. Russell: It's like, it's not actually clean in here. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. Do you use Nootropics or anything at all? Joe Rogan has that Alpha... Or I don't know if it's his, but he does that Alpha BRAIN or whatever. I use that and that... I mean, I don't use it all the time, but whenever I need to be focused, because I usually take Adderall and- Russell: The hardcore stuff. Josh: Don't take Adderall people. It's the best ever, but it is straight up... Alex Sharfin did something on it one time. And once I learned what was in Adderall, I was like, "Oh, all right. So if I take that long term, I'm basically on crystal meth basically." I mean, not, but it's like the same thing. So Adderall's great, but it's not a long term sustainable thing. So I did Alpha BRAIN and stuff, which is much healthier. Do you use anything like that? Russell: Yeah. So there's a range in this stuff, because a lot my friends are the hardcore biohackers, and there's a range. And there's, for me there's a cutoff line of where I feel comfortable. And most of my friends go way beyond that cutoff line, where I don't feel comfortable. So it's tough, you get in the Nootropic world, I feel like you got to have your, this is as far as I'll go, because if you're not careful, I have friends who pushed it all the way to the spot where there's stuff that I think they're crazy for because man, you mess up your brain you are screwed. You know what I mean? And it's not worth sometimes the increasing of, oh I'm going to get more focus here. But there's a potential of damage. So yeah. So Alpha BRAIN's great, Alpha BRAIN's definitely on the left hand side of, I can take this stuff, I feel comfortable. I love ketones, I'm still a big ketones' believer. I'm trying to think off the top of my head. There's different ones that are good. Right? For me, when you start getting into the racetams, there's a whole family of race, that's where I start freaking out. For me, my cutoff line is right before that and I don't go there because the racetams stuff and then after that, then there's the more hardcore stuff and there's microdosing on things, then there's like- Josh: Psychedelics. Yeah. Russell: Crazier and crazier, and I do not cross that line because my brain, I'd rather have... People that want the last 10% from these crazy things is not worth the potential death. Josh: But is that also a religious thing for you? Or is that? Russell: For sure. Josh: Yeah, okay. Russell: 100% religious. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Definitely religious belief, but even more so, for me it's... I don't know. I've had so many friends who... And I don't want to get political on all the different drugs and things like that. I could, if people want to, but- Josh: You can come on my show, we'll talk about it there. Russell: But honestly, I have so many friends who smoke weed because it makes them more creative. I've had friends who the brain shuts off because of it. So the potential, I might be more creative, but I could lose my brain, is not worth any amount of, that's a risk I will not ever take. Alcohol is the same thing. People are like, oh, I do this because it relaxes me. But I've seen the opposite side of that. It's like, I don't know. Yeah, I have my line, I think everyone should have a line. But there are some really good Nootropics out- Josh: I want to talk to you about that more. We'll do it on my show, because I'm super curious to know your thoughts on that too, because I smoke weed sometimes too. Russell: That's why you want to bring me on that. You're from Colorado, I know. I'm not against it- Josh: Yeah, it's legal here people. Russell: I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole, no matter what of positive benefits might be on one side. So there's that. Josh: We can talk about that more at another time. But anyway, back to the- Russell: So the Nootropics stuff, so that's good. But supplementation as a whole, I used to just go and randomly buy every supplement that had a good sales pitch, because I'm a good sales guy and I love getting sold. I remember Anthony DiClementi came to my house one time and he saw my supplements and he was like, "You're taking everything, which is good." But also he's like, "There's crossover because a lot of supplements, they want a marketing pitch, they'll put 12 things in it." And all of a sudden I'm taking 30 pills and all 30 of them have this crossover, and all of a sudden I'm taking unhealthy levels of whatever this ingredient, because there's a little bit in 40 different things. Right? And so I started getting more strategic. In fact, Braven, who spoke at Funnel Hacking Live, his dad has been doing these really cool things. I'm trying to figure out, he's coming out next week actually to do some more work with me. But I'm trying to figure out how to help turn that into a business that I can introduce to entrepreneurs, but basically comes and tests your blood. And basically your blood testing is like, Hey, instead of just randomly taking stuff because you think so, it's like, here's where your markers are at, and then they create custom supplements based on that. They get all these- Josh: That's literally what the Shockley's did for me. That's 100%. I have this whole long list, like this long of every single different level of every nutrient in my body. It's crazy. Russell: Those are really powerful because then you're not just guessing and you can get in trouble when you're guessing. I've seen people who've had issues because they've shotgun approached it, which I've done for years in the past. And so I'm a big believer in that now, where you're taking stuff, and so to make sure you're optimized is a big thing. And one of the fascinating things, I've heard people talk a lot about gut health in the past, but I didn't understand gut health until I did this because he was showing me that the amount of fats and proteins I'm taking aren't being digested enough based on my blood levels. And he's like, the biggest thing that I need to do is start focusing more on my gut. And so I didn't really know what that meant, so this has been a big, huge thing for me now that has had a huge impact, is understanding gut health and how to do things like that. So a couple things. Number one, I have this on my desk here in my house, this is... What are these things called? These are the digestive enzymes. Right? These are actually Braven's, if you go to GainesinBulk.com you can buy them, but these are the digestive enzymes. So before I eat anything now, I pound a handful of digestive enzymes, just consistently, because it helps you digest your food. If you've got lactose intolerance, if you've got, which I do, I'm lactose intolerant on some things, it helps your body digest those things so you don't have the same issues. You have less gash, you have less bloating, less annoyance when you eat. So I pound these before every single meal. That's my first tier is digestive enzymes, I'm sold on those. I carry a little pouch to me when I travel, every I go, and before I eat anything, I pound enzymes, and that's been a big gut health thing. Number two is, every society outside of America, they eat fermented food with every meal, but Americans don't. So in Germany they eat Sauerkraut, in China it's kimchi, there's different things like that. And so that was a big thing, he's like, "Your proteins aren't being digested because you don't have anything fermented in your stomach at any given time." And so now I buy a jar of Sauerkraut and every night at dinner, when I'm eating my bigger meal, I eat Sauerkraut with the meal because it's getting those things in there. And I used to hate Sauerkraut, there's some really good ones actually nowadays that are insanely good. So I eat Sauerkraut a lot. Kombucha, I used to make fun of that. And some kombucha scared me, because they're really high alcohol content, but- Josh: Oh really? I didn't know that. Russell: Yeah. So for me it's like, but there's some kombucha, the kombucha, however you say it, they'll actually pull the alcohol content out of it. There's some that taste like, I don't have it right here, but there's these ones, there's a whole company. There's a company that made kombucha's that taste like Coke and Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. And it literally tastes exactly like Coke and Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew, and it's kombucha. Josh: No way. Russell: Insanely good. So those are- Josh: Okay, you got to send me a link to that. I got to try that. Russell: Yeah, they're awesome. And then this is my new obsession, it's called Alive, GTs puts it out, and it's a mushroom Root Beer and it's got reishi, chaga, and turkey tail. I drink two of these a day, they deliver to my house from Whole Foods. I am obsessed, these are my favorite thing in the world. And it's all gut health stuff. So it's figuring those things out. The first tier of gut health is digestive enzymes, the second is fermented food while you're eating, then third is adding in kombucha's and things like that, it just helps your body break down stuff, digest it, and it gets... Because I don't know about you, but for years I'd eat stuff and I'd just get digested and bloated and then you don't feel good. You don't want to do things. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And now I don't have those problems like I used to. And that's been a huge... Anyway, so those are some of the tiers of things. Like for me, it's timing my food, taking supplements, like Nootropics and things to a certain level to help increase your mind. Josh: Right. Russell: And then the gut stuff is, your gut and your mind. There's studies I've read, I don't know how, I don't understand it all, but they say when you're an embryo your brain and your gut are connected, and then they separate and there's this brain gut thing. And so when your gut's not doing well, it affects your brain and vice versa. So it's like those two organs are the ones to really focus on the most. Josh: Yeah. My mom was big, so my sister, when she was, oh gosh, I think it was five years old, had epilepsy. Like seizures every eight minutes, like full out seizures, completely. And we took her to the number one child epilepsy doctor in the whole world that was over in the Cleveland Clinic. And they like looked at my parents and were like, "We have no idea what's wrong with your daughter. She's just going to have seizures for the rest of her life." And my mom went on this whole thing and cured her through diet. And that's when she discovered the whole gut thing and everything like that. And so ever since then, my mom's... I always tell my mom, I'm like, "Mom I love you to absolute death, obviously when you die it's going to be the worst thing ever." And I'm like, "One of the biggest things I'm going to miss when you're gone is whenever I have a problem, whenever I'm sick, whenever I don't feel well, whatever, I just call my mom." And I'm like, "Mom, what do I do?" And she knows, and it's always the natural thing. I haven't been to the doctor in probably 10 years because anything that's wrong, I just call her so- Russell: Natural is good. Josh: Yeah. She's all about that. Russell: Natural stuff is fascinating. Like again, I used to make fun of people and say they're hippies, but man, I got a Natural Path here in town I go to. Before Funnel Hacking Live I was like, I can't get COVID. And so he came in and hooked me up to IVs and things and all these. It's crazy. They do muscle testing, what things your body needs. I don't know. Again, all this stuff I used to think was like crazy, woo-woo, weird stuff. And the more I get into it, the more I'm just like, man, this stuff's amazing. I think everyone should find a Natural Path, find something that's good. As a first line of defense it's preventative, but also when you do get sick, looking at those options, because they don't wreak havoc on your body like some of the... And there's a time and a place for all those things, right? There's time to play- Josh: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Russell: You need traditional medicine, but man, there's this non-traditional side that's based off of thousands of years of people doing this stuff that is amazing. And it's looked down upon here in America unfortunately, I think it's gaining more and more popularity. But man, it's fascinating and important to, I think for all of us to understand and to be willing to look at. Josh: Yeah, for sure. Well, I appreciate you sharing more about that. I'm sure that you could talk about that for a long time. Last question on that and then we can wrap it up here. What are the things that you just absolutely stay away from in your diet? I mean, obviously for you, there's some faith elements in there too, so feel free to talk about that. We already talked about hard drugs and things like that, but diet related. Do you drink soda? Or are there certain things that you absolutely stay away from and you just don't do for health reasons? Russell: Yeah. So really decide, as a Mormon, it's alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea, those are just chopped off. And then anything worse than that obviously like- Josh: And tea? Russell: Yeah. I think- Josh: I didn't know tea was- Russell: We can have green teas, but not like the... Or something. I don't know. I don't even know. Josh: I don't like tea, but that's super interesting. I didn't realize tea. I knew alcohol, tobacco and coffee. Russell: Yeah. Then on the other side, then it's like, as I was trying to master and understand really diet and stuff, when all is said done calories... And again, I'm friends with all the health influencers, so I see the wars online, calories versus that and all that stuff. But calories do matter, but the type of calories matter as well, right? You can lose weight on a Twinkie diet, if you're eating 1500 calories a day of Twinkie, but you're got to feel like crap. Right? So I'm very conscious of that, so I do not drink soda, for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is if I'm going to waste calories on something, I am not going to drink a soda, I'm going to eat ice cream. Right? I'm all for- Josh: Right. Russell: It, but I would never waste it on something like that because I feel like you're just drinking pure. So I'm not perfect, I'll go off on binges and eat stuff I want, but I would never drink pop, like I just don't. I would rather spend my calories somewhere else. Josh: It's soda Russell, it's soda. Russell: Soda. Yeah. In Utah, we called it Pop. But yeah, I think in the rest of the world it's soda. Anyway, so I don't do those kind of things. Josh: It is soda, Pop's not a thing. Russell: I'm also thinking, I'll go somewhere and there's a dessert, so I'm like, oh. And I'll try something and I'll take the first bite, and I judge, is this worth the calories? And if it's, yes, then I'll go pound the rest of it. If it's not I'll throw it away. Right? Like for example, cookie dough. If my wife brings home a tub of cookie dough or something, I eat it. And its worth the calories, I don't care what it is, that's so good I will eat that and I'll deal with the consequences later. Right? But then I'll eat something like a Pop Tart, and it's like, oh, this is not worth the calories. The soda or whatever, not worth the calories. Have you had those Mochi ice creams before? Josh: Mm-mm (negative). Russell: Oh my gosh, they're Chinese things. Anyway, they're the most amazing, I'll eat 4,000 calories of that because it's worth it. It's worth any extra effort I have to have because it's that good. And so for me, it's just like, I judge everything, is this worth the calories? If not, I just throw it away and I won't eat it. I won't put in my mouth. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. You ruined me with Crumbl Cookie. Russell: Oh yeah, those are worth the calories. Josh: Dude. Freaking, you're the one that I saw it on your Instagram story, you opened it up and you're like, "These are the most amazing things ever." I was like, what are those? And I looked it up and there's one five minutes from my house. And so now we go there all the time and I'm like, they're so good. Right? Russell: They're worth the calories. Josh: And people don't get it until you have one. And you're just like, oh. So we try to limit our consumption of that. But you're the one that got me on that and now we're... I hate you and I love you at the same time for them because they're so good. Russell: Yeah. I'll judge that. So let's say I need to eat something, it's like is it Crumbl Cookies or Subway? I would not eat it subway because it's not worth the calories for this nasty bread and all these things. You know? But I will definitely sacrifice it for a Crumbl Cookie. So anyway, that's my Litmus test. I don't think most biohackers would live by that model but for me, it's like, I eat pretty much the same thing 99% of the time. But when I'm going to mess up, I want to mess up with the best stuff and not stuff like, oh, I ate that thing and now I feel like, that wasn't even good, why did I do that? I want to make sure I'm doubling down and if I'm going to mess up, then I'm going deep on something that's worth it. Josh: Yep. Yep. All right. Well thank you for sharing Russell, I appreciate it. This was, I think it was a good batch of three episodes for us. Knock it out. Russell: That awesome. Hope you guys enjoyed this. If you like conversations like this, that aren't necessarily marketing related, but based on all the other weird stuff going on in my head, and Josh's head, let us know and we'll do more of these. And thanks man for doing this, I appreciate it. And we'll see you guys on the next episode of the Marketing Secrets podcast.

The Marketing Secrets Show
The MOST Important Part of the Funnel (I Guarantee it's NOT What You Think!)

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2021 31:22


What is the future of funnels...? With meta-verse coming, what should we be focused on now!? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. I'm back with my co-host Josh Forti. How you doing, man? Josh Forti: I'm doing awesome, man. How are you? Russell: Doing so good. We just recorded a new episode for you guys. This one's all about funnels and I think it went in a different direction you thought it was going to go, didn't it? Josh: Yeah, it did, a little bit. It was super good. Russell: …because the question was like, "What is the next funnel? What's the thing?" And it wasn't a funnel thing, it was something different. So, I think this is an episode you guys can enjoy. Josh: It's tough. Russell: It's been so exciting for me, I literally woke up at 5:00 AM every morning this week because I'm geeking out on the thing that you're going to learn about. And hopefully, it'll help you guys with all your funnels, no matter if you're running a webinar funnel, or a book funnel, or a challenge funnel, or whatever, doesn't really matter. This principle, you can overlay on top of all of them and it'll make them all better. So, that said, should we queue up the theme song? Josh: Let's do it. Russell: Let's go. Josh: Now we got to move into.. I want to move into funnels, dude. This is a topic that continued to come up. So kind of a back story. When we're preparing for this episode, guys like, Russell hit me up and was like, "Do you want to do a podcast together?" And I was like, "Yeah, what do you want to do it on?" He's like, "I don't know, find something." And I'm like, "oh, all right." And so- Russell: "You tell me." Josh: I do what I all always do and I go to the community and I'm like, if the community tells me... I loved Poland's presentation at Funnel Hacking Live it's like, "Ask, go ask your community. What did they tell you?" And so, that's what we did. I went to my Facebook group and I went on my Instagram and luckily, I have a pretty engaged following that will give us lots of feedback back. And this theme that kept coming up was funnels. And obviously, this is your world. But it was interesting because I've been talking with several different higher level people that are like, "How are all the funnels, they made tens of millions of dollars or whatever?" And it's like, "This funnel's not really working anymore. This funnel's kind of working here. This type of funnel is working." And so there's like, I feel like we're in this phase of funnels are almost evolving, where it used to be that you could run an ad to a webinar and sell a 9.97 product, and make a million bucks, and high profit margins, and you can make it work. But I was talking to Dan Henry the other day and he's like, "Dude, I can't even make that work anymore." And he's like, "And I'm brilliant at ads." And like Sam Ovens, I was talking to him the other day- Russell: Dan Henry, "I know everything." I love Dan. Josh: And Sam Ovens was like, "Man, we're probably going to shut down our front-end $2,000 program and we're going to transition up and evolve the way we do funnels." And so, funnels are the thing, obviously. They're going to be around forever, they've been around forever, you popularized them. But I want to go and take this into two parts and see where this goes. But number one, what is the foundation of funnels? What are the things that like... it doesn't matter how it's executed, the funnel itself, this is the thing that works. Because I think a lot of people get confused that... Whenever I talk to a lot of my students that are building funnels, they're like, "Should I do this type or this?" And I'm like, "The core essence of funnels doesn't change," so what are the core essence of funnels? And then two, what is the future of what that looks like rolled out with technology? Because I mean, I know it's not here yet and one of the things we'll talk about, but- Russell: Metaverse. Josh: We got Metaverse. And my wife was like, "Oh my gosh, ask Russell. If I want to be able to walk into Metaverse and Russell's going to be right there being like, "'Hey, do you want to buy my funnel cake,' click this button and you go into a portal. Instead of another page, you enter a new world that is Russell's world, that'd be so cool." But let's start with the foundation of funnels. When someone is building a funnel, when they're looking at it, what are the core pieces that they're actually looking at? Take us back to the foundation of that because I think a lot of people miss that or forget. Russell: Yeah. So, I'll take you back in history back in time so back to my beginning. Think what example I have sitting here on my desk that I can show you. So, the core, the thing you have to understand why funnels are essential, and why they'll always be here, comes back to my favorite Dan Kennedy quote of all time which is, "Whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins." This is the foundation but... Everything else you have understand- Josh: Like 7,000 speakers at Funnel Hacking Live all said that. Russell: Yeah, because it's the thing. In fact, you'll see, if you look at the... And maybe we'll get into this. My next move, what's happening next year for me? I'm looking at this, all ties into that as well. Why did I buy Dan Kennedy's company? Why am I doing these things? And I'll show you it's literally to solve that exact same question. So, when I got started 20 years ago, people didn't have offers yet they just had a product. So, you would be... Just say a book, like, "Okay, here's my book," and I would just sell a product, and that was what I was selling. And it worked for a long time and then guess what? Everyone else is like, "Oh, dude's making money with this product, I can make a product," they make the same product. Now you got 10 people selling a product that's similar. And so, then it's harder to compete because now you're no longer a unique thing, you are a commodity. And anytime you're a commodity, the person with the lowest price always wins. So, as soon as everyone's doing it, you got to drop at the bottom and then you lose your margin and then life sucks because if you don't profit what's the point of what we're doing? So, there's the first phase. So, then the next phase is like, "Okay, well I got a product, everyone's got the same product but how do I turn this from a product into an offer?" That was the first evolution. It's like, "Hey, when you buy my book, you also get my book, but you're also going to get my video course, my audio course, and then my checklist and my..." And all of a sudden you make something truly unique again where it's like, not just a product, but this is my offer that's specific, unique to me, that nobody else has. So that was the next evolution. And we got really good then in making offers that were sexy. It's like, "Oh yeah, everyone's selling this, but mine, if you get mine, you also da da, da, da, these other things." Right? And that's where this whole offer development started happening. In my mind, probably 15 years ago is when this became the thing that we all focused on. And whoever had the best offer was going to win because ads didn't ship that much. It was just like you're competing so now you're competing with six different people or 10 different people. So because that, Google ads AdWords cost went up, because there's 20 people bidding on the same keyword versus just you, initially. Now you're coming in, you make a better offer. Then you get the lion share people buy from you because your offer is the best. That was kind the next phase. And then of course the market evolves. Everyone gets smart. Everyone starts making good offers. Now it's like, maybe they're unique offers, but they're all good offers. Now it's like the market's getting fragmented up again. And so this is where the evolution now of funnels started happening where... And it was before. We didn't have one click up-sales back in the day. But the first thing was like: you buy my potato gun DVD, fill in your credit card, you buy it. The next page, you're like, "Do you want the potato gun kit? Cool. Get your credit card back out and fill it out again." And they'd fill out all the credit card again. Josh: Dang. Russell: But even with that, there's no one-click up-sales, man, like 15, 20, 30% people would buy the second thing. And all of a sudden, I'm selling a potato gun DVD, but I'm making 200 bucks on the back of the kit and nobody else selling potato gun DVDs was doing. I could outspend them all. So even though costs me more per click, I was able to get all the clicks because I made way more money than anybody else. So I was able to dominate the market. And that was kind of the next phase. And what's interesting is that depending on the market you're in, depends on where this is. For example, I'm in a fun phase where I wanted some side projects. So I'm launching a couple supplement companies. The first supplement company launched is called Zooma Juice. It's a green drink company. And some of you guys know, I actually worked with Drew Canole and his team back in the day on Organifi, and helped them launch that when it first came out seven years ago, and helped him build an actual funnel. And what's interesting is because of that... The green drink market is sophisticated. I went and funnel hacked, probably, 30 green drink offers before we built Zooma Juice. And all of them have pretty advanced funnels. Everyone's doing the best practices pretty well. Second company that we are starting, I acquired a bone broth company. And so I took... Got bone broth company and went funnel hacked every bone broth offer. And that market's new. Nobody had a funnel, not one. They have an offer, they have a product, that's it. And I'm like, "I'm walking into virgin funnel territory." We'll be the biggest bone broth company on the planet in like 30 days? Because there's nobody who understands any of what we're talking about. We'll outspend everybody 10 to 1 because we understand the funnel structure. So depending on what market you're in, some markets haven't even evolved to the funnels yet. Some have, that's exciting. If they have, it's like, "Cool. We got... We can funnel hack. We get good ideas of what's working." If it hasn't like, "Man, you can bring all the stuff we know into these markets and just dominate and destroy them all." It was funny, as we were buying, I was funnel hacking the bone broth offers, I was like, "There's literally not single upsell, order form bump, email sequence. Like nothing." I was just like, "This is like, oh, embarrassing. Almost too easy." That was next phase though. And then to your point, initially it was like... In fact, I remember 10 pre-click funnels. Almost every funnel was the same. It was a video sales letter order button order form upsell one, upsell two, down-sell, down-sell. Thank you, basically. That was what a funnel was. In fact, if you look at, before we launched ClickFunnels, the first T and C event, Ryan Dice and Perry, and they had this whole team event talk about, "Here's the funnel." And they had a funnel and there's only one. And it was just like, "This is the five steps of every funnel." And it fits. It was like trip wire. They had these five steps like trip wire, profit maximizer, and they five or six... They had a name for each page. And it was like, "This is the funnel." And in reality, that was the funnel. There weren't funnels. It was like, "This is a funnel. This is kind of the one." And at the time when I was writing The Dot Com Seekers book and we had been playing with different ones, but there wasn't a lot of this thing out there. Was just kind of like, for the most part, there was a funnel. After ClickFunnels came out and it gave people the ability to create things fast and start innovating, creating ideas, that. And then I was like writing all my ideas in the book and people are doing stuff. It started evolving quickly. Last seven years have evolved where now there's been like a million different funnel things come out, from webinar funnels, auto webinar funnels, high funnels, low ticket funnels, trip wires, SLOs VSLs, challenges, paid challenges, free challenges, challenges to a webinar challenges to high tickets, a webinar to high ticket. There's a billion variations that come from that which probably gets people overwhelming. And so this os what I want to tell them because, this kind of comes back to your first questions, what is it? The reality is, it's going to be shocking for most of you guys, what funnel type you use doesn't really matter. They all work. The thing that matters is the offer. You still have to make the sexiest offer. That's still the most important. We acquired Dan Kennedy's company and we're doing this merger. And like I've spent I podcast episode this morning driving to the office. I've been up every single morning at 5:00 AM because I'm so excited. Because we have a fun, we picked a funnel on structure, we have all of products. I spend a week every morning at 5:00 AM, from 5:00 till like 7:30, when my kids are getting up, in there writing the page for the copy and the offer, and then tweaking and tweaking. That's the thing. The sexiness of the offer that gets people in is the key. So I can get them in, I can use this to get them in a webinar, in a challenge, in a free plus shipping. It doesn't matter. It's like the offer is the thing that puts people in a momentum. And the thing that I'm selling, I could sell it in the webinar. I could sell it in the challenge. I like there's I could sell in all the different funnels. It would fit in all of them. I'm picking the one that I'm using because I think it's going to go... For like the launch campaign, it the one that'll probably get sells the fastest, but it'll work in all of them. And So it's understanding that, it's still coming to the core fundamentals. The funnel structure is the sales process. All of them will work. You just got to figure out better way to sell. Like that's the harder thing that people are missing. Josh: All right. So let's talk... I want to dive into that offer. When you say specifically here... Because I think, and this is just from coaching with a lot of people, the questions that I get asked when I talk about this type of stuff. You talk about the offers, the sexy thing, but how does the offer affect getting somebody to opt in? How does the offer affect my ad? How does the offer affect the training? I don't show my offer until the end after the whole thing. So how does that affect every other step of the funnel? Russell: Okay, great question. So if I can see one here. Right, sorry. I had all the examples here a second ago. Oh, well. I'll just tell you the story. So when Dan Kennedy started his newsletter, in the Dan Kennedy company, the newsletter's the foundation of everything. And we could do a whole podcast episode just on psychology of the original GKIC, when Bill Glazer was running it with Dan. But the newsletter- Josh: Sounds like a sexy topic. Russell: Yeah. It'd be really fun, actually. I love... In fact, it's funny because I spent so much time with Bill Glazer geeking out about. I knew their business really well. And when that they sold it the very first time people bought it and didn't understand the business. And I saw within weeks of them destroying the foundation, I was like, "You guys literally don't know what you bought. You should have asked some questions before you wrote a check that big anyway." But the core is the newsletter. And so I had a chance to go back in the archives. I literally... they gave me, "Here's Google drive. Everything's ever been created." So I'm like, "This is... It's insane." for nerdy Russell, everything Dan's ever said is in this drive. And most of it, no one's ever seen before, so I'm freaking out. But the newsletter started back in like 1995 ish. I was like 15 years old when it started and it was just a newsletter. That's all it was right. It's like a product. That's how they sold it. And from '95 till I think I was probably 23, 24. So, 2004, 2005 ish was when Bill Glazer bought out the company from Dan and kind of ran it, and then they launched it. Instead of a newsletter, they launched it as an offer. And the offer at the time... I still remember the day it happened because I got like 400 emails from my Yanik Silver and all the different gurus at the time. They all started emailing about this Dan Kennedy offer. And it was called the most incredible free gift ever. And in fact, internally in the company called the MIFGE offer, M-I-F-G-E, the most incredible free gift ever. And what it was, it was like, "Hey, when you sign up for magnetic marketing net letter, what you're going to get is you're going to get..." I think it's like, "$639.93 for the money making material from Dan Kennedy himself." So it was like, "We'll give you all this cool stuff when you sign up for the newsletter." And it was the bribe. It's kind of like, if you guys remember back in the day, sports illustrator. It's really hard to sell sports illustrated issues. So what they would do is they would have TV commercials were like, "Here's sports illustrator, 12 issues year about the best sports. When you sign up today, we're going to give you..." And then they had their version of the most incredible free gift offer. It was this huge football clock and the sports illustrator swimsuit issue. That was the MIFGE offer for sports illustrator. And so Dan had their... They had their MIFGE offer, and they went from having five or 600 subscribers at that time to... Bill built it up to over, I don't know, 10, 15, 20. I don't know how big it got it as peak, but 10,000 plus members. And it was because they took a newsletter and they made it an offer. And that's how they launched initially. And so the MIFGE is how they did it. Now, fast forward to Russell gets access to all this stuff. I'm like, "This is amazing." So I'm trying to sit... I sat down Monday morning. No, sorry. It was last Saturday. Saturday. I wanted to write... I didn't want to do all the pages in the offer. So I have some of my team do the upsells and down-sells. I was like, "The landing page, this is mine." I want to write because I want to make sure I get the offer right and everything. Because this is... everything hinges on this. The landing page is broken, nothing works. And so I went and I funnel hacked. I every newsletter, sales letter, I could find throughout time. I just went deep in my archives, way back machine. People I knew who publishing newsletters, looked at every variation of theirs for the last 10 years. I totally geeked out like Russell does. Funnel hacking. I want to understand how people are structuring their newsletter offers. Gore's got a ton of them. So I'm looking at tons of them and everyone I looked at, I come back to like the Dan Kennedy one I'm like this offers just not sexy. More like $630 of money making information sounded cool in 2003. But today, it's like every opt-in, people are giving a thousand dollars worth of free crap. It wasn't that sexy- Josh: Right. Inflation, baby. Oh my word. Russell: Yeah. And then I'm like, "Now my funnel nerds are going to go and they're going to sign for this newsletter, and they're going to get this newsletter from Dan. He's talking about direct mail and faxing. And they're going to be confused and they're going to cancel." I have this weird opportunity. I was like, "This is just not the right thing." And I was like, "How do I make this sexy excited? How do I get myself excited to email about it?" And then Dan's email. I got to get affiliates on board and other people. How do I make this sexy so that I can create the noise? So that when there's an ad, there's a good enough hook in the ad that people are going to click? Because if the ads like, "Old marketing, grumpy marketing genius is going to give you 300 or $639 money making material for free when you join this newsletter," no one's going to click on that. The hook sucks now. It was good in 2003, horrible in 2021. And so I'm like sitting there and I spent three hours just going to yourself. And I was like, no matter how I tried, the offer just didn't feel right. And I explain to other knight, I was like, "I know I wouldn't click and I know I wouldn't buy it. And I don't want to even email my list tell them about it because it's not that exciting. How do I structure this in a way that's going to be really exciting?" And so that the problem. This is where I got stuck at. Right. And then, after about three hours of it is when I had the light bulb, I was like, "Oh my gosh." So all of the current Dan Kennedy customers, they love Dan. They're obsessed with them. And actually, this is a fascinating step. You'll appreciate this. Have you read a thousand true fans? Josh: Yeah. I love that book. Russell: It was crazy. So Dan's company was sold initially like 10 years ago, from Bill Glazer sold it. In the last 10 years, they haven't bought a single ad. So that's the attrition of the company, that's been happening. And I'm acquiring it like, "Oh, let's buy some ads." But what's crazy is 10 years since they bought the last ad, there are almost, to a T, it's like 990 something active paid subscribers still on a newsletter a decade later, without any ads at all. A thousand true fans. Is that crazy? Josh: That's insane. Russell: Really? Josh: And you're one of those true fans because you bought the whole company. Russell: Yeah. I thought that was a fascinating side note. So anyway, that's crazy. Like Dan's people love Dan. They love him talking. If they want Dan, but they need funnels. And I'm like, I don't want to come and be the guy who acquires the company and just starts emailing his own offer. I need them to.. I need to indoctrinate them to want it. So it's like, they're going to read Dan's newsletter and how do I bridge that to ClickFunnels? And I'm like, my funnel nerds are going to read his newsletter and be like, "I don't understand. This isn't..." They need it. They don't know they want it yet. If I can indoctrinate them for a while, they'll be like, "Oh my gosh, I get this," but it's going to take a while for them to really respect it enough that they'll get it. I was the same way. First time I heard Kennedy, I was like, "This guy's old, boring, and doesn't relate to what I'm talking about." And after I went deep in, I was like, "Oh my gosh, everything he says is literal. He's handing gold nuggets out." And I was just like, I didn't notice them. Now I'm like, "Oh my gosh." And so I was like, "I need this bridge." And some people know, when I first joined the Kennedy world, we actually launched my first print newsletter right afterwards. It was called The Dot Com Seekers Journal. It morphed from The Dot Com Seekers Journal to eventually call it, The Dot Com Seekers Labs. And then it became a Funnel Report and then it became Funnel University. So I actually ran a print newsletter for 14 years. We shut it down two years ago, but 14 years I ran a print newsletter. Josh: Yeah. I remember when you shut it down actually. Russell: Yeah. And I loved it, but I just, anyway... There's reasons like the person who was publishing it, she had a baby and she retired and all these things. I was just like, "Ah. I'm, I'm focusing ClickFunnels. Don't even worry about this right now." So we shut it down. But I loved that part of it. And I was like, what if I create an offer where the concept, the story, the hook of this whole entire thing is like, "Russell bought Dan company and they're coming together to give you two things like the best foundational direct response in the world. Plus the best in the marketing, the cutting edge, the new things are happening. So you can have both sides. So you understand the foundation you need to be able to survive Facebook slapping you and all these things happening and media shifting and changing. But you also have like what's working today so you can capitalize on things in real time." What if we took those two worlds together? The baby. And so instead of just being like, "You're signing for the new, from the Dan Kennedy newsletter," what if it was like, "Dan Kennedy, Russell Brunson?" Two different newsletters. You get two newsletters for the price of one. I was like, "That's the offer. That's the hook. That's what gets affiliates excited, to get ads excited, everything gets excited around this offer." And then, every mornings at 5:00 in this morning, or 5:00 AM every morning this week, I woke up and I'm writing copy for this page of like, "Okay, here's the hook. They're coming in. And there's Dan and there's Russell." How these things are coming together. And the story behind that, how it worked and then the offer instead of just like, "Here's $697 worth of free stuff," it's like, "you get two newsletters. You get the best direct response, best of Russell, every two weeks." So you get one in the mail and then 14 days later, you get the next one. And you're getting both of these. You get the old and the new but you only pay one price. You get both for the price of one. And then you get all Dan's bonus, all Russell's bonuses. Now becomes this like insane offer where, now, it's like, "I'm excited to mail my list." We bought Dan's company, you get all my best stuff in this to get, and it's this combination. And then affiliates will be excited. It just... And maybe the hook bombs, I don't know. But it gave me the energy, just like, "Okay, now, this is exciting and sexy." And so I can turn that into webinar where it's just like, "Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson coming together to literally blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever." Like, "Opt in here to find our webinar," and people would opt in because the story, the hook is exciting or I can do a challenge like, "The seven day challenge. Me and Dan are going to go through how to destroy your business and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And in the end, I'm selling a newsletter or it could be a VSL telling the story with a newsletter or could be... all of them work. The book is the secrets of story. Josh: Well, what it sounds like... Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds like you just created this story about the offer. And now that you know what the offer is, and there's a reason that that came together and like, "That's what it is," now, you understand the story behind that. I'm trying to think of it like an analogy. For example, Disney world. That offer is so good. You're literally going into a different world that pretty much sells itself once you put it out there. And so once you have the story, once you have that idea around what the offer does and how it's unique and how it's it's own unique thing, then you can just take that and then it fills the rest of the funnel. Because everybody wants that thing because now the offer itself is so good. And I think one of the problems that I had, man, for so long is, I was trying to convince people that they wanted my thing be... Or convince people that they had this problem, and then that they wanted this thing, and then I would make them an offer on it. And they wouldn't get to... they wouldn't even know about the offer, or what the offer did, or like anything about it, until like forced or like right before the offer. And they'd be like, "And then I've got this offer? Boo." And because of that, there was no story around it. There's no congruency with it. And so then it was like, "Oh, I didn't even know. That's what I was here for." And then I would like try to sell them something and it wouldn't sell. And I feel like that's the problem that got solved right there, is like first you created the offer and the story around the offer and you made it sexy. And then that made everything else on the funnel super, super easy, because you were just pointing them back to that. Russell: Everything, the funnel plus all the ads. Because now the ads are fun. "Why Dan Kennedy came out of retirement? Dan Kennedy almost died. What's he doing today?" All a sudden, all these hooks that tie into that. "Why did Dan Kennedy partner with the owner ClickFunnels? Why did... Is it true that ClickFunnels was built off the back of all Dan Kennedy principles?" There's so many stories I can tell now that are hooks. That'll grab his people in or my people in or... And then the landing page. And then... It creates everything. And the people that the best in the world of this, and they also make the most money, is Agora. The good Gora publishing. They're selling newsletters. That's all they sell. Right. But every single time they have these insane stories like Porter Stan's got... I think maybe not still, but for like a decade and a half, the highest of all the Agora divisions. I think he'll do like 1.5 or 2 billion dollars a year. Like these are big divisions. Porter's letter one. And, the story was like, "The railroad across America." And it was talking about like, "The original railroad, how it happened and all the people made money along the way. And this is the next railroad that's being built. It's the digital highway and all this stuff." And that offer was selling a newsletter. But it's the story behind it that became this thing that built a billion dollar company. And they're good. They're so good at figuring out the story, those kind of things. And I think sometimes we're like, "Hey, I've created a course in the passed. You should create a course too. I made money. It's going to be awesome." And then like, "You should buy my course creating software or whatever." Like, "That's not the thing." We're so bad at telling stories. We brag about our result. We tell them making the same result and that's it. It's like, no, that's not the key. It's the story. It's the entry. It's the... We want to be entertained. We want to be courted. We want to be... that's the game we're playing in marketing. And so when you figure that out... The offer is actually sexy. And then why is that sexy? The sexiness is not just, "You get a bunch of crap." The sexiness is the story about like how this was created. Josh: Literally what it does that. Russell: That's the fascinating part. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Catherine Jones. One of her favorite things is, "When your stories become their stories, then your solutions become their solutions." and that's literally what this is. If you can tell them a story where they like it and they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing," then, go and do it. So for example, Harry Potter world. The story, it... My wife freaking loves Harry Potter world. I mean, that was her thing. When we went down to Funnel Hacking Live, it was like, we were going to take a half a day just to go to Harry Potter world. So we showed up and then it was like, "Hey." Miles is like, "Dude, the buss is leaving for Harry Potter world." There wasn't much convincing that has to be done. The story is, "Oh my gosh, Harry Potter world's amazing. It's Harry Potter. I want it" She wanted that thing because of the story that was leading up to it. There was no, "What's Harry Potter world? Is it any good? What's this?" It's like, "No, it's Harry Potter world." And you're like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, I want it." That's like the story with that. So that's super, super interesting. So where do you see the future of funnels going? Because obviously there's a lot of changes coming with ClickFunnels and ClickFunnels 2.0, which, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Gusting. Gusting hits me up. Probably... Dude, he probably hits me up once a week and is like, "Hey, guess what? ClickFunnel 2.0 is awesome. And you don't have it." And I'm like, "I heard you. Stop." Russell: He actually built out the magnetic marketing funnel hub right now for me, which is cool. Josh: So, yeah. So anyway, but what's the next evolution? And we don't have really have too much to talk about metaverse and where that goes. But we're entering this new world. I mean, the world is changing very, very, very rapidly. COVID is one of those things that we thought the internet was a big deal, and internet marketing was a big deal, pre-COVID, and then we watch zoom blow up by like 3000% or something like that. And they ruin zoom for us. But anyway, so where are things going that people should be paying attention to and going actually studying and understanding about the future of funnels? Because one of the things that I've been really, really focused on and we're kind of getting dialed in, is community funnels, Specifically, I think for me, one of the things that I've noticed is that it's very, very... It's getting increasingly harder to sell things unless you have a community that's tied with it. And so like for me, one of the things we're focusing on is how do we build funnels inside of our community where our community actually becomes part of the funnel? Which is kind of a cool concept. What do you see as those future things of where funnels are headed, where the big opportunities are going to be? What's the next add to webinar to a 9 97 course? You know what I'm saying? What's the future? Where we're heading? Russell: I hate to make it sound simple, but if I come back to the fundamentals we talked about the beginning of this call. Like Dan Kennedy, whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins. So you look at it through that lens. Went from a product, to an offer, to a funnel. And now with the funnel, I have more ways to make money. And then, from there, the next evolution was like from funnel to value ladder. Right now, it's like, I have a break even funnel and move people up a value ladder and that's how I may lose money or break even on my book funnel, but then my webinar funnel's going to make money or vice versa. Right? Josh: Right. Russell: That was the next phase. And I think, for me, where I'm playing because I'm trying to play for the next 10 years. How do I win this game? We're doing well. I want to.. How do I get a point where, Shopify, or Salesforce is like, "I want to write you a check for 20 billion because you're such annoyance." The way I'm going to do that, for me, is... and it comes back to why did I acquire Magnet Marketing? Why did I buy Brad Callin's company? Why am I doing this? Because I'm not looking at breakeven funnels anymore. Breakeven funnels, awesome. I'm going one chair back or I'm building breakeven businesses. So magnetic marketing, the only gold magnetic is to break even. The entire company, the value ladder, the coaching, the everything. So every penny made side of magnetic marketing be dumped back into ads, want 100% of the profits dump back into ads. So this company's blowing up. And I get now all these things dumped into my value ladder for ClickFunnels. Like that's it. Voomly doing 40 million a year? Why do we acquire that company? Tons of lead flow. Now, right now there's... it was 10 million dollars a year net profit. All that money now is being dumped directly into lead flow as a breakeven business, to acquire customers for ClickFunnel. So I think it's going deeper. It's looking past... from product to offer, to funnel, to value ladder, to how do I buy or acquire or create something where the only goal of this entire business is just get customers for free that can put into here. And I thing, for me, that's the next level is just like that thought. Josh: You just blew my mind, dude. Holy cow. You're creating an ecosystem, but in a very specific way. It's interesting, as you just told that out, just, "First, it was this. Then, it was this." The thing before it didn't change. That's still part of it. Russell: It's both the same. Yeah. Josh: Right. But it's kind of that next evolution, that next piece of where that comes out. That's fascinating. I think a lot of people need to just really rewind that, go listen to that clip again and let your brain sit on that. Russell: That's how I'm playing the game. Yes. Hopefully I'm four step ahead everyone else, but I'm all for showing that with you guys. And so I just... Again, for everyone to start thinking that, because it's going to get harder. It's going to get more expensive. It's going to get more... We've seen that this year. Ad costs have gone up. It's not going to get cheap. It's not going to bounce back down and be cheaper. It's going to keep doing that. The people who only had a product back in the day are out of business. People only had an offer back in day, they're out of business. People don't have a funnel are out of a business. People don't have a value ladder out of a business. So it's just thinking ahead of that. Metaverse or whatever next step is, doesn't really matter. It's the principle still is the same for me. For 20 years, whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins. Josh: Wins. Russell: How do I do that in a way that serves the customers, brings them in and then... I'll end on this, because it back to what you said. And I did a podcast on this. It's in the facts I got from Dan Kennedy. After the company sold last time, he was super mad at the company that had jacked up his brand and his legacy and stuff. And so like he sent this 25 page facts, like all the things to do to fix it. And there's one paragraph where he said, "There's difference between why customers come in and why they stay." He said, "People think they're the same things." He's like, "No, no, they're different." Why they come in is because they see the hook of like, "Ooh, the scene." They come in from that. They stay for something different. And you have to understand that. So like I had my inner circle meeting, right. Everyone paid 50 grand to be in the room. We had a hundred entrepreneurs in the room and I told them. I said like, "Well, you guys all because you want to learn funnels from Russell." But I'm like, "The reason why you came is not why you were going to stay here. The reason I get sick year, after year, after year is because of the community." That's it. That's why I sat in Dan Kennedy rooms for six years of my life is because the community built and I wanted to be around these people. I came for Dan stuck for the community. And I think that you start understanding that, that's how you get these people to come in on a front end, but they stay and they buy over and over and they stay on continuity. They stick because it's like.. They come in from a hook, but they stay for the something different. And so really understanding that and then weaving everything you're doing like you're doing now with the community funnels, which is perfect. Josh: That's amazing. That's amazing. All right. Well I think that's a good ending point for that topic. Russell: There's episode number two of our hangout today, which was amazing.

The Marketing Secrets Show
What's the ACTUAL ROI from Podcasting (Answer Will SHOCK You!)

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2021 30:46


With everything we have to do... does podcasting really make sense? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. We've got three special episodes for you. The first one, well, actually all three of them are with my guest host, Josh Forti. We're going to be breaking down some cool things. The first episode... What happened in the first episode? It was really good. Josh Forti: Yeah. We talked all about podcasting, why podcasting is important. Russell: Yeah, podcasting. So episode number one, we learned about podcasting, why we do it, how we do it, the reasons behind it, and a whole bunch of other things. If you haven't been doing a podcast yet, it's going to sell you on why you need to do one. If you have done one, it's going to show you guys why and how to amplify it, and why it's so important and how to find your best buyers from it. I hope you guys enjoy this episode. We'll cue up the theme song, and we'll be right back. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Like I said today, the next actually couple episodes, I've got a guest host with me, which I'm pumped for. We actually did two podcasts. Well, technically, they were podcasts episodes for your podcast, right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I ripped them off for my podcast because they turned out so good. One is after the Atlas Shrugged book, Josh Forti flew out, and we did... How long? We went for... Josh: It was three and three and a half hours. Yeah. Russell: Three hours. Yeah. Josh: Three and a half hours, yeah. Russell: Going deep into Atlas Shrugged, which was really fascinating. I actually just reread it recently, so if you want to do Round Two, we should totally do that. And then, after I read Atwood and the devil book, I freaked out, and then Josh flew out and we did one there. So you guys who have been listening to the podcast are familiar with him and his voice. But I asked him, I love doing the podcast, but sometimes I fall behind, and my brother who does our podcast settings, "Russell, any episode today?" I'm like, "Huh." I don't even know what to think. I want someone to help come up with ideas so it's not just me. And so Josh went out to the community, asked a bunch of questions and the next couple episodes are going to be some fun conversations. So I'm pumped, man. And thank you for doing this. I know this you're doing this pro bono to hang out and just to help me out, so I appreciate that. And I'm excited to find out what people want to know about. Josh: Yeah, for sure. I love podcasting. That's my life. If I could do one thing, it would just be, have a show that we just talk all the time. So this is fun for me. It's like asking you to come hang out and geek out about funnels. So I'm super excited, though. It's going to be super cool, and dive in further, and pick your brain, and open up a new world that I don't think a lot of people get to see. Russell: Yeah. It's interesting, because I feel that when it's me doing my own podcast, I pick a topic, I go into it. But it's fun when... Yesterday I had a chance to speak at a virtual event thing, and I did my thing and in the end people ask questions. It just opens up a different side that you don't normally do. And so I don't do a lot of Q&A stuff. So I'm excited to... Josh: Yeah. It's interesting. Russell: And maybe this is the only time we do this. Maybe it's a huge train wreck, and this is the only time it happens. Or maybe it becomes a thing. We'll find out. Josh: We'll try to make it not a train wreck. We'll try. We'll do our very best. I think one of the big things though that I want to start with and kick this whole thing off is why you spend so much time with podcasting. Because here's the thing, man. You're rich. We all know it. You don't have to do this. You have this company that you could. We all learned at funnel hacking live, you turned down a billion dollar offer, so clearly you're not doing this for the money. And you've got a company. You've got a team. You've got all these resources. You could spend money on ads. You could do whatever it is that you want. Yet, somehow you are calling me up and are like, "Dude, I need to do podcasts." And to somebody who gets it, and I get it. I have a podcast. I dedicate time when it doesn't make sense. I put money into a podcast that doesn't make sense. On paper, I get and I understand content and putting it out there, and I've never been at your level either. I don't think a lot of people understand. Why do you do it, dude? Why a podcast? And why are you investing so much of the time that you have now, which is limited, I'm sure? There's a lot of people trying for your attention. Why a podcast? And why is that such a core, fundamental piece that you actually spend so much time on, when you clearly don't have to? Russell: I could probably, in fact, I'll probably give you four or five reasons, because there's not just one reason. There's a lot of them. And I actually, I remember when podcasting started. I was at at Armand Morin's BigSeminar, and someone was on stage, Paul Collier was on stage. He's like, "There's this thing coming. It's going to be the greatest thing in the world. It's called podcasting. And you're going to put these things in your ears and listen to people talk." I remember, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. No one will ever listen to that." I just didn't get it. He's like, "No, this is the future." And I remember because I was my roommate at the time was Josh Anderson, some of you may know Josh, and Josh went and bought every podcast domain he could think of. And I was like, "You're dumb. That's never going to happen." But I do remember, "Well, if I ever did a podcast, I'd call it the Marketing In Your Car Podcast, because when I drive my car, I could record it. And I remember thinking that. And I remember I bought, at the time, Marketing In Your Car, and I did nothing with it for, I don't know, eight or nine years. I just had it. In fact, I even paid someone to write an intro song for it. So if you ever go back to the first episodes, the first hundred-something episodes, there was this really... At the time it was so cool, and now it's corny, but there was this theme song that some guy wrote for me. And I had it for five years, this theme song, and I never used it because I was like, "I don't get podcasting." Then in my business life, we had grown up my company at the time. We had a hundred employees. And then, the long story you guys have heard before, is the company crashed. Everything fell around, and it went from a 20,000 square foot office to 2000 square foot office. I felt like an idiot. I was embarrassed. My status was at an all time low. I was weird. And for some reason in that season of my life, I had this impression, "You need to start podcasting and talk about marketing." And I was convinced at this time I was the worst marketer in the world, because I had just crashed my entire empire. I'm an idiot. I didn't want to, but I felt this impression like now it's time to start a podcast. So I literally, from the ashes of my business, started this podcast, and I had at that time a four or five minute drive to the office. Okay, I can be consistent with this. It's going to happen all the time. I'm going to do it. So I got my phone out, I clicked record, and I would literally just drive to my office and I would just talk about what we were trying to figure out. "All right. Today, we're going in the office and working on this new offer, and this is what we're thinking and da, da, da." And then the next steps were, "Oh, we launched the offer and it worked." Or it didn't work. So we tried this. It was just me documenting. It's funny. I heard Vaynerchuk talk about, "Document your journey." And I didn't know. That wasn't a thing at the time, but that's literally what I started doing. And it was nice, because it was something that was so easy. It was easy to be consistent with. I think if I would have had to do a podcast where, for me, if I had a studio and a microphone, all those things, I probably wouldn't have done it because I wouldn't have gotten enough momentum to stick with it. But it was easy. And at first the way we set it up, we couldn't track stats, so we had no idea if anyone was listening, which was a huge benefit. Because had I known how few people were listening, I probably wouldn't have kept doing it. But I just kept doing it and doing it, not really knowing what kind of return was going to happen. It's funny now. I had someone, about a year ago, go through and start from the very beginning and listen all the episodes. I was trying to get some notes and trying to remember. And it was cool, because they started coming back, reporting. He's like, "Did you know on this day you talked about why you thought anyone who wanted to build a company over 10 million dollars in sales was a moron? You should never try to grow company that big. And then over here you talked about, you're never going to hire an employee again." All my thoughts at the time, which have morphed and shifted obviously. But it's this cool thing where I have this record now of this journey from the ashes to ClickFunnels and beyond. So it's been very special for me. Josh: Okay. Sorry. I want to continue down that path, I want to interject right there. The reason I started a podcast is because, literally, you told me to. You didn't physically be like, "Josh, start a podcast." But all your books, all your content, you're like, "Publish, publish, publish, publish, publish." And I'm like, "Okay." And so it started on Facebook. It started on Facebook Live, and then it grew. And then my friend Daxy, he is like, "Dude, turn it into a podcast. Way more people would listen." All right. So I have, I don't know, four or five hundred episodes now on my podcast that I have done with you and all these different interviews or whatever. But what I tell people is, and this is true in all areas of my life, I'm so blatantly honest on my podcast. I don't filter or mince my words at all. Shocking. Russell: You're filtered on Facebook and Instagram, you're telling me? Josh: Just a little bit. But what's interesting is one of the things that you pointed out there was you have this document. You have this record of exactly where you were at at the time. And so for me, one of the things... And this is bigger than just podcasting. When you're just blatantly honest with yourself and where things are at, and you just turn on the microphone and you just talk, you actually can go back and you can watch your progress. And you can see. Oh man, when I was 26 years old, when this happened, this is what I thought about life, or this is what I thought about this particular topic, or this is what I was learning here. When I'm building a funnel or I'm building something that I knew I worked on in the past and I talked about it, I can literally go back, and I can remember the struggles. And I think it was you. It might have been. It might have not been you. It might have been Gary. I think it was you, though. You were like, "Imagine if Jeff Bezos would've documented every single day or every single week building Amazon." How much people would pay for that. That would be so epically cool. That's what it's like. So I totally understand what you're talking about there. I feel like people are embarrassed to start, they're embarrassed where they're at now. And so they don't want to put it out there. I'll never forget Liz Benny. Obviously, you know Liz. She's amazing. I had her on my podcast. This is probably a year and a half ago. And she's like, "Josh, I've watched you grow so much." And I'm like, "Really?" She's like, "Oh yeah." I'm like, "How do you know?" She's like, "Because I listen to your podcast." And it was like, "Oh, this is a long term thing." It was at that moment that I realized it. Russell: Uh huh. For sure. It's interesting because, if I haven't publicly talked much about this yet, but I've been acquiring old books. I just bought this whole, literally, library of Napoleon Hill books and stuff. And it's been so fascinating because I'm reading through and these are the records of these people and their beliefs and their thoughts. I've got old magazines from early 1900s, late 1800s. I'm reading. I found articles from Thomas Edison, who were in the publishing these. I'm reading this stuff and it's so cool. And one thing, this is Russell guilt. In the Mormon church one thing they always talk about is, you need to keep a journal, so that way your posterity has this thing. And I've never been good at keeping a journal. And what I started realizing as I'm going through all the Napoleon Hill stuff, I'm so grateful that they wrote these things down and they have this journal. And I started from that guilt again. And all of a sudden I was like, "Wait a minute. I don't have a journal, but I've been podcasting now for seven years." This is my record. This is, when I'm dead, my kids or my grandkids or my posterity or people, whoever it is. This is how they're going to learn about me and figure out who I was. And hopefully I shortcut them some trial and error. Here's the journey I went on, but here's what I figured out. I can help them. I think all of us are always talking about wanting to leave an impact. I think my podcast episodes, I'm hoping these are my journals. These are my records. This is like what I just bought from Napoleon Hill. I'm hoping that this becomes something for the future generations that they can build their businesses off and their ideas and their plans. Because my podcast is... It's a marketing podcast, but I don't talk about marketing most of the time. I talk about my family and my kids, and I'm learning, and my personal development and all the things. Marketing is just the hook I got people in, but it's my life record. It's my journal, which is cool too. Josh: Yeah, that is super cool. It's funny. Quick side note, we have to shut down this indifferent theory, because Apple.... Russell: Just spell it different. Josh: Yeah. Believe me. We've tried some things. I'm not trying to push against the biggest company in the world. So anyway, we have a new name. I'm not going to say it yet, but it's coming. But anyway, in the last just couple weeks, I've had to pause doing podcasts. And it's weird because what you said right there is, "I don't keep a journal." But I know that I do keep a journal via that exact same thing. And it was weird. I went to my wife literally two days ago. And I was like, "I need you to, to help me create a system for the short term to be able to document my thoughts because right now I'm not doing it. And I have so many things that we're going through right now." So I totally get that. But I feel like there's got to be more than that. There's got to be another reason besides just the documentation process for the podcast for you. Russell: For sure. That's the first thing. Again, I got four or five that run in my head, so I don't know what the order they'll come out in. But the next one is eventually I wrote a book. And people were like, "These books are so good. How do you know all these stories?" And for me, I have an idea, and the idea percolates in my head for a minute, and I got to tell someone. So usually first person I tell is usually the podcast. I'm thinking about this thing and I talk about it. And so I tell the story the first time. The first time it may not even be that fleshed out. Then I get to the office and I see Dave over there. Dave's excited. I'm like, "Dave, check this out." And I tell it to him again. And then I tell someone else. And then I'm doing an interview and I say it again. And I tell the story four or five, six times, and I get better and better at telling the story. And then when I'm at a seminar and I'm on stage and I'm talking. I have no idea which direction I'm going. All of a sudden, this thing will pop up my head. I've told that story six times three months ago, and it appears. I remember Tony Robbins told me this. He said, "When I go on stage, I have a plan, but the plan, it never goes to plan. I start talking." And then he's like, "These downloads just come from God or from the universe, and they just show up." And for me, as I started podcasting and telling these stories over and over and over again, that's exactly what happens now. When I need something, I'm in a situation, I'm coaching someone, I talking, I'm on an event or a stage or something. I need something often that just, it appears when I need it. And I think it's because I didn't just think about it and forget about it. I think about it. I tell it on a story. It's published. I tell someone else. And then when I write a book, I've told the story 400 times. I know the best way to tell the story now. I've seen what people laugh at, what they don't laugh at, how to do it the right way. In fact, it's interesting, my next book is a personal development book. I've struggled with that one, because I don't have a personal development podcast. And I haven't tested these stories, these principles or these theories. I've been stuck, as you know. I sent you the rough draft eight months ago, and I haven't written a word since then. Part of it is I haven't had a chance to flesh these things out. So it gives me idea to flush out my ideas is another one of them. Another one that's interesting... I don't know the exact stats, but I read it somewhere. I think I talked about on Traffic Secrets.I put it in there. But conceptually, they talked about people who are podcast listeners versus the rest of humanity. And I'm going to tell you about the stat, and I'll tell you how the practical application of that stat, which is really fascinating. So the stat was something like the average person who listens to the radio makes, I don't know, $60,000 a year. And whereas the average podcast listener makes $120,000 a year. So the people you are getting and acquiring, they are people with more spending power. They're more affluent people that are the kind of people who are trying to develop their brain, their minds, things like that. They're more likely to buy a course or software or a Mastermind or things like that, because they're the kind of people who aren't just listening to the radio to numb themselves. They're listening to audio to grow. That's the fascinating thing that you're getting a better caliber customer who are listening. Number two, you are getting them in their most intimate moments. When do you listen to a podcast? It's when I'm working out and I'm by myself and it's me and them, and I have their full attention. I'm not listening to a podcast where I'm writing an email or texting someone. Or I'm in the car driving. I'm getting access to their brains and their minds in their most intimate moments. But it's just me and them. Even video. Josh: It's not even like that on YouTube either. Russell: Yeah. I'll watch a YouTube video while I'm cooking dinner, while I'm doing five other things. Josh: That's super interesting. Russell: I don't listen to podcasts with my kids in the room, because they're going to ask me a question. They're going to mess it up. It's when I'm separate and it's just me and them and that's it. I have a different level of intimacy with the podcast people that I'm listening to. So the higher quality customers, better level of intimacy, and then the practical application. The first time I really got this, it was after I launched my Inner Circle the very first time. And again, it was funny, because I always told everybody I never money on my podcast. I'm doing this podcast, I'm not making any money from it… And as I did it for four or five years, and I launched my first version of my first version of my Inner Circle, and we had a point where we had about 33 people in it paying 25 grand. And I remember at one of the events, somebody asked, "How did you guys bump into Russell?" And all of them were like, "Oh, I saw something, but then I got on this podcast, and I listened to him every single day while I was working out for six months. And he kept talking about this Inner Circle and talking about this thing. He's going to get all these things." And it was fascinating. Almost everyone in the room, they didn't hear about my podcast. Podcast isn't good for lead gen. It's never. Josh: Yeah. It's horrible for lead gen. Russell: You can't just buy ads and blow up your podcast. But people find out about you. They plug in to your podcast. And the people who make that transition from, "I saw a book." "I saw an ad." "I saw something." And they make that transition where they actually get the phone out, subscribe, and then plug you in. Those become your best customers, your highest buyers. They're the best. And so the practical application is yes, by doing this podcast, I'm taking... And I talk about this in Expert Secrets. And actually my Inner Circle meeting last month, we talked a lot about this. We talked about creating a new opportunity versus an improvement offer. And for the most part you want to create new opportunities. That's what gets people in the door. And I told everyone, your value ladder should be this new opportunity. There's opportunity stacking. The back of the value ladder, there's one section that's saved for people with ambition. New opportunity is all about getting people who have a desire to come in. But people with ambition, and the percentage of your audience is small. The percentage of people who have true ambition, it might be 15 to 20%, maybe. Josh: Yeah. Russell: But those are your most ambition. I told them my Master, I didn't sell you guys new opportunity. Do you want to come to Boise and talk to other entrepreneurs? Or are you going to get better and stronger and smarter, all the ER words? You guys are the ones at the top of the value ladder. You are ambitious. So I'm not selling you new opportunity. I'm selling you guys improvement. And it's the hardest thing to sell, but it's what one tier of your audience wants. I feel like same thing, the people who are listening to your podcasts, these are the people who want improvement. These are the ambitious ones. They're not the tire kickers. And so it's the best way to convert people in their highest ticket backing things as well. Josh: Yeah. And I also think, one thing that's very important to point out, I think here, is the style slash type of podcast that you particularly create. Because I've studied a lot of different podcasts. Joe Rogan obviously is a big inspiration of mine when it just comes to creating content or whatever. But what's interesting is that the type of content that a Joe Rogan creates, or that even a Logan Paul or any of the bigger mainstream podcasts, oftentimes it's much more for entertainment. And Joe Rogan, I think, maybe is the blend between the two. But a lot of podcasts, they're not specifically for solving a very specific problem. And so what I always say about specifically the type of podcast that you create, you or Steve or whatever, your type of podcast is horrible for lead generation, but is amazing for lead education. It's because once they're in there, you have that. And what's interesting is one of the times that I listened to your podcast most... I'm going to let you guess. I'm sure you're not going to get it. But what do you think one of the times I listened to your podcast most? Russell: When you're driving somewhere in your car. Josh: That's a time. Yeah. But it's when I'm in pain. When I have a specific pain around my funnel, I will literally go, "Russell has this podcast. He's got all these episodes. I bet you he's talked about it." And so I'll literally go on my phone and I'll keyword search for different things. And I'll specifically go. There was one time I was listening to, it was something about a webinar or something, and you were talking about how you wrote your headlines and basically how you came up with your framework for it. And I remember you did that one time. And so I was struggling with it, and so I literally searched it and I did it. And so the type of podcast that you create, in my head there's two different ones. There's one for entertainment. And then there's one for education. And you create one specifically for education. And when you do that, that's the type of podcast or that's the type of content that literally goes and educates your member. And when you have that, a hundred percent, my top buyers, anybody that gives me top dollar for my stuff, they all listen to my podcast or have been on my podcast and I'll pull something out of it. They're always the ones that pay the most money. For sure. Russell: For sure. It's interesting too. And there's, as you said, a lot of formats. When I did mine, I did a short form for a couple reasons. Number one is it was my drive to the office, so that's how it started. But number two, I love Joe Rogan and I probably listen to one of his entire podcast ever. Josh: Oh my gosh. I probably listen to a hundred of them at least. Russell: And I get overwhelmed, because each one's four hours long and there's all these different people. Everyone keeps talking recently about the Jewel one. "It's the greatest thing in the world. You've got to listen to it." Four hours. I could get a whole audio book, the entire book done in four hours. Is that worth the investment? I don't ever want to dive into it, because it's so big. Whereas mine, again, someone's in the car and only got a 10 minute commute. Boom. Throw it in. They get an episode. And then what happens is they get hooked, and then they'll listen for four hours. So it's different though, because if Joe Rogan's were broken up into even 20 minute blocks, I would probably listen to all of them. Josh: YouTube Joe Rogan clips. It's Joe Rogan experience clips. And it's literally 20 minute episodes. Russell: Oh cool. Josh: So if you ever want to. Russell: That's probably what I would do. And I think it's interesting. And then also another nice thing about short form is people come in, they listen to one... And I get this all the time. People are like, "I got your podcast, listened to three or four episodes, and I loved it. So I started at the very beginning and I binge-listened to all of them." It happens all the time as well. Whereas Joe Rogan, you're not going to binge-listen because that's 65 years worth of content you're going to go through. Mine, they're short. I'm going to go to the beginning. And they start and they binge listen. And then they've gone through your journey with you. And by the time they show up, they know everything that you've ever said. And they're so much easier to work with if they've got that stuff. I think everyone needs... It's one of the things where you're not going to see a big return or not initially. But over time, if you're consistent with it, it's the best thing. And then obviously, I don't use my platform for this, but you do and I think it's brilliant. It gives you access to all these people. Whereas the interviewing people, you get access to people you can't otherwise. Josh: Doors open that you literally can't even understand simply because you're like, "Hey, I have a podcast and hey, I've got these couple other cool players on here. You want to come?" Alex Hormozi is coming on my podcast. I literally reached out to him, "I have a podcast." And a hundred percent, I'm going to admit something to you right now. I was like, "Hey, I had a podcast, and Russell's been on a couple times. You want to come on?" He's like, "I love Russell. Of course I'll come on your show." Russell: That's awesome. Josh: Crazy big doors that get open simply because you have a platform to be able to allow someone to use their voice as well. Russell: I remember, before Tony and I were super close, we met a couple times and stuff, but I remember he was doing some launch. I remember Lewis Howes and him did a big interview. And three or four people they interview sound so annoying. Why is Tony hanging out with these people and not me? And now all of a sudden, I had the ahas. "Lewis Howes has got a big podcast. Oh my gosh. Okay, I need to be able to offer my platform to him to get in that door and really build that relationship." And that's one of the powers of it too. You have a platform, now you've got ability to access people you can't otherwise. As you know. Josh: All right. Two rapid fire questions here really quick. Because I want to move on to the next topic to keep us on track. But number one, what's the Joe Rogan episode that you listened to all the way through? Do you remember which one it was? Russell: Oh, I do know. Yeah. And I actually hate that I listened this one. It was the Gary Vee one. Josh: Oh. Yeah. Russell: And the reason why I listened, because I want to be on Joe Rogan's podcast someday. And I want to see what Gary talked about because... As you know, Gary and I have a... He probably has idea who I am. Josh: You have a light beef. Russell: We've got an interesting relationship. He's not my... Anyway. I've got to make sure I'm the next internet marketer who actually does a better job. Josh: Okay. Two things on that. One, anybody listening, I'm going to do this, so don't take it, but I'll beat you to it. If you ever can get Russell Brunson on Joe Rogan, that's a great Dream 100 gift right there. That would be amazing. Secondly, I've listened to so many episode of Joe Rogan. One of my favorite ones is actually with Kanye. I know everyone thinks Kanye's an idiot. But if you can, that's five hours. It's insane. It's one of the most intense episodes I've ever listened to. But one that is a must-listen to, seriously one of the best podcast episodes ever done is his first interview with Elon Musk. If you ever get the chance, just sit down and listen to it. It's three or three and a half hours, but understanding that dude's mind, Elon Musk, you will not regret that three hours of your life. It was a fantastic episode. So that's the one. Russell: Very cool. Josh: Okay. Last thing here before we move on, are there any other points that we didn't cover about why someone should have a podcast? Wrap up, make your closing arguments around why somebody should go setup a podcast. Russell: The last one I'll say, and I quote Nathan Barry, actually, in Traffic Secrets. And I'll probably mess up the quote, but it was interesting. He talked about how... I think the title of the blog post I share is, You Got to Publish Long Enough to Get Noticed. And he talks about how for most of us there's so much content out nowadays. There's all these things. It's hard to know what's going to be good. 5,000 podcasts launched today. How many Netflix episodes, all sorts stuff. He says most of us find out about a good show at Season Two or Season Three, because of this, we waited to see, our friends talked about it. All of sudden it gets a breaking point where everyone's talking about it, and then you become this overnight success. It's interesting. He said you have to publish long enough to get noticed. And I think that's the biggest thing to understand. Especially most people who are getting started and they're so scared. "I'm going to look like an idiot." "They're all going to make fun of me." "I'm just a beginner." Blah, blah. All these different excuses. The good news is, at the very beginning, no one's listening. Josh: No one's listening. Russell: It doesn't matter. Just do it. This is your chance to actually find your voice and learn how to speak and tell stories, and all those things. No one's listening. And if you keep doing it, I tell people all the time, if you publish consistently for a year, that doesn't mean once a month for a year, daily for a year, or three, four times, five times a week consistently for year. Two things will happen. Number one, you'll find your voice. Number two, your audience will have a chance and have enough time to actually find you. And so it's going out there and just setting it up, the ROI. And I'm a big ROI. You look at my DiSC profile, my number one value is ROI. If I can't see the return on investment on something, it's hard for me to do. It's why I struggled in school. It's why I struggle in awkward conversations. Because I'm like, "What's the point of this?" I don't get it. Podcasting was hard, because I didn't know what the ROI was. And luckily again, I didn't see the stats for three years. Josh: Is that how long it was? It was three years? Russell: Yeah, before we figured out how to get the stats on it. Josh: That's crazy. Russell: But because of that, because I didn't know what the ROI was, and I was just hoping and praying with faith that it would be good. Now I see the ROI. Now it's important. Now I do it twice a week. Regardless, it happens in the queue, in the can because it's that important. Josh: If your number one thing is ROI and you figured out the podcast is worth it, guys, there's your selling point. Go start a podcast already. Russell: Got a podcast. Let's go. Josh: Honestly, it's amazing. And it's so much fun too. You learn so much about yourself. And I think the one thing I'll say about podcasting is you've got to really find your own unique style. I was listening to, I know you know Alex Becker, but Alex Becker is probably one of the biggest influencers in crypto right now. Just insane. One of my friends who got his NFT, and he's up a quarter million bucks in three months. Just insane stuff. One of the things that he said is right now in the industry, everybody is trying to become an influencer. And so he says, "I see all these people trying to model exactly what it is that I do." And he's like, "I have no problem with you guys doing that because I get it." At the beginning, you don't know your voice yet or whatever, but he's like, "You'll never be me." And I won't use the language that he used. But he's basically like, "There's only one me, so eventually model me, do whatever you need to do. But eventually go find your voice. Go find your own thing, because that's why people are going to watch you. I'm going to make sure that you're irrelevant if you try to model me long term." And so it's giving you that permission to model somebody at the beginning, but then, people are not going to listen to you if they can go listen to somebody else that has the exact same style. So it allows you to really be yourself when you give yourself permission to just try different things. And at the beginning, like you said, no one's listening. Russell: Yeah. It's funny talking about modeling. I talked about this yesterday on a call I was on. It's fascinating because people, they're trying to copy or model somebody because they're trying to get those people to attract the right audience. And Myron said, "You don't attract who you want, you attract who you are." And so if you're trying to be someone else, you're not going to... Because you want those customers. It's going to be weird. I remember when we launched ClickFunnels, I was trying to be like all the other internet marketing guys, because I thought I was competing against Ryan and Perry and Traffic & Conversion. So I was trying to be more corporatey businessy, like they were. Wait a minute. That's not me. I'm not going to wear a shirt and tie on stage. I'm not going to wear a suit jacket. I'm going to wear my t-shirts and jeans. And I'm going to talk about my family and God and wrestling and things I'm excited by. And I don't care about agency, not that I don't care agency, but I don't care about... I'm going to speak to the entrepreneur, because that's who I want. Wherein Ryan and Perry, literally, one of their Traffic & Conversions were, "This is less for the entrepreneur, more for your teams and your staff." It's crazy now because you look at the... I thought we were in the same market, but as soon as I leaned into who Russell was, it's separated. And it's not that one's better or worse. They're different, but if you go to Funnel Hacking Live, it's my people. You're in the audience. Most of these people here are Christians, who are athletes, who've got kids, who are entrepreneurs, who are not doing this for the money, but doing it because they want to change the world. That's the overwhelming percentage of our audience. Not everyone. But as a whole we attract who we are. So lean into that, because otherwise you're going to attract people you don't like, and you're going to hate your life, and you're going to hate your business, you're going to hate your customers. But you put yourself out there, the people who do not resonate with you will leave on their own. You don't have to kick them out. They're be like, "Russell's annoying." I get people all the time, if I mention God on a podcast or anything, they're like, "If you're talking about God, I'm out." Sweet. All right. Bye. I'm good with that. I know people are like, "I don't believe in God, but I respect that you lean into it." They're cool too. But the people who are offended leave and the people who stick are the ones you want to hang out with anyway, because you attract who you are and not who you want to bring in. Josh: And I can talk about that topic super long, but I want to keep moving on the next piece here. Russell: That's it for the first episode then. Here with Josh on the Market Secrets Podcast. We're going to transition to the next one on the next episode.

On Boards Podcast
30. Family businesses: the most successful, long-lasting and impactful businesses in the world

On Boards Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 15, 2021 46:26


Rob and Josh are each co-founders of BanyanGlobal Family Business Advisors which advises family owners on business, finance, ownership, philanthropy, and a wide range of other issues.  They are each leaders in the field of family-owned business.  They recently co-authored the Harvard Business School publication: “Family Business Handbook: How to Build and Sustain a Successful, Enduring Enterprise.” Thanks for listening! We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here. Links Why the 21st Century Will Belong To Family Businesses Build a Family Business that Lasts Order the HBR Family Business Handbook Quotes   Family Business Myths/Facts   Myth: Family businesses don't really matter.   Fact: “About 90% of all businesses in the United States are family owned and they account for about 50% of all employment.”   Myth: Family businesses don't last, after three generations, they're doomed to fail.   Fact: “Family businesses last longer on average than other forms of ownership. Some of the longest lasting and most successful businesses in the world are family businesses. Why don't Americans know that?”   Joe: Josh, why do you think that the myth that family businesses are less successful, that they never get beyond the third generation, why does that persist?   Josh: It's a great scare tactic, I think you keep hearing it is because people want to tell you, "You're doomed to fail and therefore you need my help to be able to overcome it."   Myth: Family businesses are rife with conflicts - family members are fighting and suing each other and just can't possibly get along   Fact:  “Most family businesses struggle not from having too much conflict, but from too little conflict, because it's really hard to raise some of these issues about fairness and compensation and all the things that come in as being part of a family business.”   Rob: It's strange, but the celebrity or the business celebrities, when I went to business school, Jack Welch, and he was making a brand for himself. Now, it's Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook or Elon Musk at Tesla. They seek the publicity. I would say most all of the family business that we know the owners, they shy away from publicity. They don't want to be the face of their family business. They actually know the downside that can come with that. Josh: Most family businesses are private companies and the word "private" is there for a reason, that they don't want to be public. They see advantages in being below the radar. I was visiting a family business recently in a state out west and I drive up to the headquarters and I was like, "That can't be it. We must have the address wrong. That can't possibly be the headquarters of a billion dollar company." And of course, it was. “One of the amazing things about family businesses is that they can break the rules in a way and practice business in a way that is fundamentally different than other companies.”   “Family business owners can, if they choose, own it for their whole lifetime and maybe set it up for their next generation. It's the difference between maybe renting an apartment or even being in an Airbnb overnight - you're day trading versus owning a home that you're hoping to bequeath to your children.”   Unlike other companies,  family businesses actually talk about longevity. How often do you hear companies outside of the world of family businesses talking about how many generations do you last? Do we put like a second or third generation as if that's just a low number, but then you have to multiply it by 20 or 30 years and you realize that a third-generation family business has probably been around for a hundred years. Josh:  People say: "Oh, most family businesses don't make it for a hundred years and therefore they're doomed to fail." I'm like, "No, no, most businesses last for under a year, maybe five years." Joe: Their success is actually used as a way of talking about their failure when it's not really a failure at all.   What we find in family businesses is that core decisions are really made at the owner level in family businesses, not like publicly-traded companies. If you don't like what's going on at GM, you sell GM and you're out and it wasn't really hard to sell. With a family business you're in. So, you're going to work really hard to make the owner decisions the right decisions.   The rights that come with that ownership are profound, the ability to influence the company in ways that are positive and negative are fundamental and learning how to effectively step into that role as owners is essence of the work that we do and the essence of the book that we set out to write.   If you're working in a family business or if you're on the board of a family business and you don't understand the owner strategy, like what trade-offs they're making, you're going to be very surprised by the decisions that are coming your way.   Leadership Transition If you've been in this position of leading a family business for decades, maybe your entire adult life, you're not just going to quit that and play golf. In most cases, you need some place to land, some place to go to…. to give that up, it's super scary.  It's psychologically very challenging for some people.   Joe: One of the things we talked about earlier … for the person that's been running the family business it is not just a job. It is his or her identity because they're really living their job. I think that provides a perspective of why it's so hard to let go.   Rob: That's a great point.  It is their narrative and maybe it's been their narrative since they were five years old, is that they wanted to be the controlling owner or CEO of their family business, and their narrative probably never got to that final few chapters about how they're going to relinquish control over time.   Some do it, and some do it with such aplomb, it's really quite amazing. We're trying to learn from those people about what it is that gets them to the other side of that transition.   Getting to the next generation, the hardest thing often is the current generation! It's like letting go of the reins and really talking. We have some clients who it's fairly easy for, but they're the exception.     “One of the hardest things to get right in a family business is family employment. One of the things that causes the most conflict in a family businesses is who gets a job, who gets paid how much, who gets promoted, who gets the CEO spot. And it's really hard to navigate those issues.”   “Once your (family) business gets to a certain size, the value you get from the right independent directors is almost always going to be worth the time and investment that you make into them.”     Big Ideas/Thoughts   The kinds of things that family businesses are able to do in terms of investing in their employees, investing in their communities that they believe and see paying off in their company, they would never be able to do them if they had to focus on quarterly earnings.   It's so interesting, when CFOs come into family businesses from public companies or from private equity, they have to be retrained, just retrained about what the priorities of the family owners are.     Managing Expectations Another one of the things that people say about family businesses is that families grow faster than businesses, so therefore a family business is doomed to fail because at some point the size of the family will outstrip the ability of the business to support it. That's where expectations come into play because that's a choice.  Should family members actually expect to live off the business or do you expect them to find other ways and treat the dividends they get as a nice bonus to buy something, to buy a new car, or maybe if it's a great year, to get a new house, but not to treat it as sort of like the foundation of the family living on.   The Wall Street Journal is a great example of expectation driving decisions. The family (that owned the WSJ) lived off of a very profitable business, a growing family over time. And then as the digital age came in and disrupted newspapers, it was no longer as profitable anymore. And so the family was in a position where they either had to drastically cut their lifestyle or drastically cut the reinvestment in the business, putting them almost in a no-win position that Rupert Murdoch took advantage of and made an offer that they really felt like they didn't have a choice, but to accept.   Dividend policy and debt are two of the things that families have to grapple with, and that often leads to their demise.   Regarding debt: You go to business school, and they'd say, "Oh, look at all of the great benefits of leverage. You can get a much higher return on equity. Interest payments are tax deductible." So,  you come out of business school saying, "Lever up, baby." and there are also these LBOs going on.   You go into the world of family business, and it's so, so different. Many of our large clients effectively have zero debt. And in fact, we had one client, it was in the agricultural business, and they had zero debt and they had two full years of operating expenses on their balance sheet. And we're like, "This is not what we learned at business school."       Family Business Goals   From an ownership perspective, there are three main things you might want. You could want to grow the value of the business - let's go from a million to ten million to a billion and so on. You might want to do that just because you want to be richer, or maybe you want to influence the world and you see your business as a platform to do that.   The second thing you might want as an owner is liquidity, and here we mean taking money out of the business. So, you might want to do that because you want to lead a nice lifestyle, or you want to give it away to charity. Or you want to have something that is yours and not belonging to your entire family.   And the third thing you might want is control, and control is sort of like you have it until you give it up. So, if you take on an equity partner, you are giving up some level of control. If you take on outside debt, you're giving up control because now someone else is in the room with you and has some influence over your decisions.   The most common path to building a successful family business is the mixture of growth and control. If you look at the largest family businesses in the world, most of them have been built in exactly the same way, which is that they make a dollar, and they reinvest 99 cents. They give themselves enough money to pay the bills and they put 99 cents right back into the business. They do that over and over and over again until they've built something very significant.   The growth and control is at the expense of liquidity.     Owners Room/Importance of Owner Decisions In family businesses on top of the boardroom sits the “owner room” and here there are very few decisions, but this is about the longevity of the firm.  What's being traded in this room isn't the competency that's traded in a management room or the wisdom in a boardroom. It's actually power and influence. It's the power that if 51% of the voting shareholders do it this way, that's where it's going to go. But it's also the influence that if you stick it to your sister and she goes to her dad, oh, it may come back to haunt you somewhere else.   So what part of what we say is the owner room needs to have both the vote, the 51% we talked about, but really important to have the voice. Sometimes it's okay to be out voted if you had a voice in the matter and people have taken seriously what you have to say.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots
399: thoughtbot Boost with Joshua Clayton

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2021 39:57


Chad interviews Managing Director at thoughtbot, Joshua Clayton, about what a Managing Director at thoughtbot does, what makes Boost at thoughtbot different than other teams, and the belief in integrated teams of designers and developers company-wide. Empathize with Your Customer by Josh Clayton (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/empathize-with-your-customer) thoughtbot Boost (https://thoughtbot.com/boost) Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/) Follow Josh on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadclayton/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/joshuaclayton) Check out Josh's website (https://joshuaclayton.me/) Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is The Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Josh Clayton, Managing Director of the thoughtbot Boost team. Hey, I know that company. Welcome, Josh. JOSH: Hey, Chad. How are you? CHAD: All right. I'm back to the show I think. I didn't get a chance to look up the last episode you're in, but it was probably hundreds of episodes ago now. JOSH: Yeah, it's got to have been a while. CHAD: [laughs] Speaking of a while, you recently…now time is all messed up for me, but I know that you have been at thoughtbot for a long time. How long has it been? JOSH: It was 12 years in August. CHAD: It's been a wonderful 12 years, Josh. JOSH: I agree. I agree. CHAD: [laughs] JOSH: It's been fun. CHAD: So in that time, you have had a few different roles. But you've been a Managing Director for a while now. JOSH: Yeah, I think that's...let's see. It was seven and a half years for the Boston team. And then it's 10 and a half months with Boost. CHAD: So your background is as a developer. And you, like a lot of people who have a background as developers at thoughtbot, myself included, still do development on a fairly regular basis. What does the Managing Director job at thoughtbot actually do? JOSH: What don't we do [laughter] is maybe a better question. Effectively, we're running that team's business. So it involves some amount of software consulting. It involves software sales. It involves managing the profitability of the team. There are marketing functions, and, I don't know, anything and everything, hiring-related things. We opened up and recently filled our Development Director position, which was open for a couple of months over the summer. We've just opened up a Design Director position. So it's everything. [laughs] It's everything it feels like. CHAD: At the beginning of this year, we did an episode about the changes that we had made at thoughtbot to reorganize the teams around rather than geographic studios around the types of work that we would do on that team. And that's how the Boost team was created. So in that episode, we gave people an overview. But I'd love to hear in your own words, what makes Boost at thoughtbot different than the other teams, and what do you focus on? JOSH: So what makes Boost different? I think one of the drivers, one of the motivators, is to embed alongside existing product teams, engineering, and design teams, and help them get better, help them grow as well as ship features and fix bugs. So I think that the way that I position it is if there's an existing product that's deployed, people are using it day in and day out. Hopefully, it's been battle-tested. There are probably some funky areas of the code. Those are the codebases that we're operating in. It might be a team of two people; it might be a team of 200 people. But there is an existing product and an existing team. They're looking for our support to help make it better. CHAD: One of the things I love about Boost and the changes that we've made, especially relative to Boost, is that at thoughtbot, we really believe in integrated teams of designers and developers. And a big part of what we've always done has been to be a complete product design and development team that brings new products to market, big and small. And because we were one of the first consulting companies in the world to switch to Ruby on Rails and because of that deep experience with Rails, and scaling, and working on existing products, we had a significant number of customers who engaged us for development for that expertise, and to help them scale, and grow, and hire, and implement best practices or solve problems that they were having in their existing codebase or on their existing team. And even though that was a significant part of our business, it was always something that seemed that we maybe even didn't really want to be doing it, or it was on the periphery of our marketing and positioning. And I was super excited when we officially created this team because it allowed us to acknowledge that this was a significant part of what we do, a significant part of our revenue, and to have a team of people that opted into doing this kind of work who would not only love the kind of work but want to even grow it and do more of it. And we haven't really had that for this kind of work. We've had individuals wanting to do it but not at an organizational level in an organization that supports it. That was more of a statement than a question, but reaction? JOSH: [laughs] I think you're spot on. It's always been interesting to me to hear that it's...obviously, at thoughtbot, we have been building MVPs and working with a lot of different types of companies over the years and helping them launch products. But I think that the type of work that I and, ideally, obviously, other people on the Boost team enjoy working on is existing platforms and working alongside existing teams. We talk about legacy systems, and I think they get a bad rap. And it's like, no, it's battle-tested. CHAD: [chuckles] JOSH: The business has proven its viability. It is still around years later. Conway's law applies in all of the stuff. Again, there are gnarly aspects of the code. But I think that's what the folks on the Boost team enjoy being challenged by is problems where these things are larger systems. They've been around for a while, and they do get pretty gnarly. CHAD: I think one of the things that held us back in the past is that it is a skill set, and it's an experience. And you are going to be on an MVP project where you're doing design and development, going from concept to launching of a new idea, usually in a matter of weeks, working directly with a founder or a team of co-founders. And then you rotate on to this significantly larger project with maybe an engineering team of tens or dozens or hundreds of other developers on it. It's a very different skill set, and you have very different challenges in that environment. And when you're constantly switching between those different kinds of projects, you can't necessarily get better at it. And that's one of the other things that I think is helping us be more successful. JOSH: I remember one of the teammates had joined the kick-off call with me at the Boost inception that very first meeting. And it was Joël. And Joël had asked pretty straightforwardly, "What is the expectation in terms of project rotations?" Because I think historically across the company, we'd aimed to do two to four-month engagements before we'd rotate folks. And I told him point-blank it's going to be six months to a year probably. And I don't think it necessarily shocked him or other folks on the team. But I think when you're going into existing codebases and working alongside existing teams, there is inherently politics at play and complexities at play where it might take you being a new developer on a team six weeks, maybe longer before you actually feel comfortable and confident navigating the codebase and knowing where you can have and make an impact. And so, I think some of the shifts there have been particularly interesting to watch the types of consulting conversations that we have within the team just because it is a different beast, I think than building and launching products. CHAD: So let's get into a little bit of detail about the kinds of projects we're doing in Boost to the extent that we can give specific examples and maybe more importantly and relevant to the audience, what are the things that we see? What are the common challenges that we see as products grow and evolve, as teams grow and evolve? What do you think one of the most common challenges that people have is? JOSH: As teams grow and evolve, I think a lot of teams run into onboarding issues and general knowledge sharing. I think when you start a small team, and you're two, three, maybe five engineers, it's pretty easy for everyone to keep probably the entirety or the majority of that domain in their head at any one time. As you work to scale a team...there's a client of ours right now where they're effectively doubling every...I don't know what the time period is, but they're growing very, very rapidly. And the feedback that some of our team have provided to them is it's really hard, and there are very much knowledge silos. And they're working through, okay? How do we tease this out? How do we share this context so that you don't have a couple of folks that are effectively blocking every single other member of the team? And so that's one of the core areas that hangs up our team and other teams. [chuckles] Our clients bring us on, and a lot of times, it's like we're rip-roaring and ready to go. And it's like, I need information from a bunch of people, and the processes aren't in place such that we can be as effective as we would want to be given the nature of work that we're doing. CHAD: I think that's a straightforward problem, and it's a good example...I don't want to make this an hour-long thoughtbot commercial. But I'll just point blank say one of the reasons why sometimes working with us is positive for clients is it's really easy to have a certain pain around your onboarding process or company, even just simple things like how long it takes to get a new person a computer or to ramp them up on their existing team. If you're just hiring an employee, it's easy to ignore the cost of that. JOSH: Yes. CHAD: But when you're bringing on thoughtbot and we have a specific start date, and it's a certain cost, and those kinds of things, it can really expose the pain that is already happening but was just being ignored and provide the impetus to actually fix the problem. JOSH: One of the things that we try to set out to do on the first day for any project is to open up a pull request to the codebase, whether it's an improvement to the onboarding like the README for the repository or whatever it might be. Ideally, we are finding ways to contribute on day one. And sometimes, that's frankly not realistic for individual contributors doing it from their own machines. But oftentimes, we'll know that going in. And as we onboard new folks and things like that, we'll say, okay, well, day one is going to be your pair programming over Tuple or some other tool so that you are able to engage and interact with a team and work on the code, even if there's still a bit of a lag between GitHub access and everything else that's the base of onboarding steps. CHAD: So another common one that people bring us on to help with is scaling challenges in terms of the actual product itself, maybe that's performance or other scaling challenges. I'm working on a project now where that was how we first got involved. The service was failing, and it was only getting worse under the increasing scale. So, what are some tips that you have for how to effectively solve some of those problems while not bringing everything else that you need to accomplish to a screeching halt? JOSH: At the end of the day, you can't fix something that you don't know is broken. Or you might have a hunch in terms of, oh, I know this page or this set of pages are slow. I think so much of what we see is teams come in, and they're like, "We don't have New Relic setup." We don't have an instrumentation setup. So they can't measure anything. And so it's like, I know this page takes three or four seconds to paint, but I don't know why. And I don't know how to fix it. It's like, okay, well, the first thing that we need to do is set up some amount of performance monitoring and application tracking just to get a sense of what that's like. There is a potential customer who had reached out back in January of this year. So this was weeks into Boost's inception. And they said, "Listen, we've got some performance-related issues. We don't really know what to do, but we know the application is really, really slow on these couple of pages." It's like, "Are you using New Relic, or Scout, or anything like that?" They're like, "No." It's like, okay, that's the first thing that you need to do. And they came back about a month ago and were like, okay, "Here's the access to all of this data. Now we're ready to go," and it's like, "Yes!" They probably didn't need to wait for that long. But it really speaks to that in order to address some of the performance-related stuff; we need to have some sense of what is going on and where. I know Steph over on The Bike Shed Podcast had talked to Nate Berkopec. And she had floated one of the questions I had had. And he basically schooled me on that podcast and reiterated it really is ultimately about measuring so much of what we're doing. CHAD: Yeah. One of the things, especially for teams that are having a problem but feel like they don't know what to do it's tough when it's actually the case. But the reality is a lot of times; there's actually very low-hanging fruit that it's just no one has the time or experience to actually identify that. And putting some monitoring in place combined with actually taking the time to look through it, especially if it's the first time you ever hit scaling problems...There's either a missing database in that index or some N+1 queries, and fortunately, once you identify that kind of problem, it's usually fairly quick to fix as well. It's a different thing when there's maybe fundamental architecture things that are causing your app to have scaling problems. But it's very unlikely that those are the first problems you're ever experiencing. The first problems you're ever going to experience if your app is running slow are going to be things happening at the database level or missing an index or something like that. And it's very unlikely that significant architecture changes need to be put in place in order to fix the first scaling problems that any product usually has. JOSH: That wasn't the type, or at least I think when we got brought on, and you were working on your most recent clients, we were well beyond...maybe we weren't, maybe I'm misrepresenting or misremembering, but it feels like we were well beyond some of the low hanging fruit. CHAD: Yeah, there was a batch of low-hanging fruit. One of the things if you're working on a product that is scaling super rapidly, what can happen is that the low-hanging fruit masks the other problems that are happening there because it all happened too quickly, all at the same time. And that was the case on this project. So it went from having hundreds of people using it to millions of people using it in the span of a month. And so there was low-hanging fruit. But removing the low-hanging fruit didn't make the app suddenly work again; it just made it so that we could look at the metrics and say, "Okay, those things are no longer the problem." The real problems are not being masked now. We now can identify the architectural changes that need to be put into place in order to operate at the scale. JOSH: Yeah, it's the low-hanging fruit when the orchard is on fire. [laughter] That is true. CHAD: Right. So you got to peel back like an onion. And this is the case with I think a lot of...whether it be a technical challenge or a team challenge. You can't always come in and very quickly solve the root problem. You might not even know what the root problem is. You just have to start solving the problem that is obvious in front of you and learning more. And then you solve that one, and then you expose the next one, and you expose the next one. And even when you can identify the root problem, you'll be like, this is the problem, and everyone agrees it's the problem. It still might be too hard to actually fix that problem. It might be an organizational or a systemic problem. And instead, you say, "Okay, we have to iteratively solve that problem." And you start peeling back those layers to get to the point where you've positioned yourself to solve that core problem. And I think we face that a lot, particularly as external consultants. We're coming in, and we can't just be the bull in the china shop. Because we haven't built the trust with everyone necessary to make the changes, or we don't know enough to know what the changes need to be. JOSH: Right. And I think the people aspect of all of these things in my opinion...and I should caveat this with I've been writing software professionally for almost 20 years. The people, in my opinion, are always the harder aspects to any engagement. It's very rare that we go into a technical project where it's like we literally cannot figure out a technical solution to this thing. We can usually figure it out. And it might take weeks or months to implement, especially as it spans multiple systems. But more often than not, it's really navigating the people and the relationships and building that trust like you had mentioned that is really what will help dictate success within that project. CHAD: I have a line that I use fairly often, and it's that I really believe very few, if any, developers sit down and are like, I'm going to write a bad solution today, or I'm going to write bad code today. That's not what people are doing. I think the majority of people genuinely try within their entire capacity to do a good job. And so that means that when I'm coming into a situation where there are problems, or things are messy, or there were bad decisions or bad code written, it can't be chalked up to like, oh, that was a bad developer, or that was a bad choice that was made. There was usually some people or organizational problem that caused that to happen in the first place. And merely fixing the bad code is not going to be what we should focus our time on. We probably need to do that. But if we don't fix the reason for that problem in the first place, it's just going to happen again. A really popular example of this is when we get approached to do a Rails upgrade on a very significant product that is very behind with Rails. First of all, it's very expensive to do that on a very significant project if there's no test coverage. People could hire us to spend and spend a lot of money just getting to the next Rails version. But if they do that and don't solve the reason why they were so behind with Rails and have no test coverage and all that stuff, along the way, it will have been wasted effort because in a year or in two years, it will be back to the way that it was before. And that's one example that's very technical. But that kind of stuff happens all the time, even with squishy things [laughs] like the structure of a team or something like that. So if you could give advice to people that are struggling with a particular problem, what would you tell them? And let's maybe make it a little bit more concrete. Like, one thing that can happen is as teams grow, like you said, not everyone can know everything. And so it starts breaking down into pods; maybe is one way to organize the team. And then you've gone into a bunch of individual teams working on discrete features. And that's happening fairly quickly. What are some ways to manage that change and manage that growth while maintaining continuity and making it go well? JOSH: I think a lot of it depends on the goals from the technical leadership in terms of areas of ownership. That'd be the first part that I would dive into, I think. We work with clients where they segregate front-end from back-end development. And that allows the teams to focus on React and TypeScript versus Ruby or Go or whatever their back end is written in. But if the goal is to share that knowledge, I think you've got options in terms of lunch and learn and shared code review and team demos and things like that. There are other ways to spread that information across the team so that everybody still has maybe not intimate knowledge of the code that's being written on a day to day basis, but they're at least aware of those patterns and practices and what each of the individual pods is may be responsible for and is delivering. So you have that team cohesion across more of the functional space, on the engineering side or on the product design side. CHAD: One thing that I think I would also add is that a lot of times, people take for granted how better developers will do their job if they understand the reason or the business drivers behind what they're working on. And it's really easy for people to take that for granted because it's like, there's a ticket to the ticket. It says what to do on the ticket. [laughs] JOSH: I have a blog post about this, actually. CHAD: [laughs] Okay, great. We'll put that in the show notes. But if someone doesn't understand the reason behind that, it's not going to go the way that you're expecting frequently. It's not as straightforward. JOSH: Yeah. You're left guessing what the underlying customer need is. And if you're guessing about the motivations, I don't want to say not in absolutes, but you're likely not going to address all of those core needs and implement an effective solution. I think in the blog post that I had written, ultimately, it was advocating for getting engineers to participate in customer interviews and really understand, like, how are people using the product that I am implementing features for? Because without that exposure, without seeing those pain points, oftentimes, it's okay, you've got a product designer or a product manager who's putting together this list of things to do. And if it's treated as a checklist or oh, I need to go implement XYZ without understanding why that needs to be done in the first place, what is the pain point? What is the customer-facing? How are they feeling as they're going through the product? Without that context and without that empathy, the solution is going to be...it might functionally work. But will it be a good user experience? Will it be a good customer experience? It's a little bit more shaky, I think. CHAD: Yeah. And in a fast-moving, fast-growing startup where everyone has a lot to do, if you're experiencing this kind of problem, it might manifest to you as stories get caught up at the beginning stages of when a developer is supposed to be working on them. And you find yourself having calls about what something is even supposed to be or supposed to do. And as the person who originated that ticket or originated that idea, you might have the feeling like, I can't believe we're having this conversation. Like, we don't have time to educate you about all the reasons why this is important and just please just do what we've said on the ticket. That is a natural reaction to that thing. And so my advice would be if you're feeling that, if your team is feeling that or something similar, there's probably something small you can do. It might not even be having developers participate in discovery or interviews or anything. It might be as simple as just making sure that on the ticket you say why it's important. If your ticket is a checklist of things to change or do, making sure that the reason why is communicated there will go a long way to having the person pick up that ticket, get the context necessary to understand, and make good decisions as they work on it. JOSH: Yeah, I remember the switch to the jobs to be done format. And I remember just being like, oh, [laughs] this makes a lot more sense because we can understand the context and the why. What is driving it? What is the problem there rather than what is the solution? And I think that shift in mindset does go a long way, like you said. CHAD: I think one of the ideas behind a well-functioning team is we talk about this idea of collaboration which is you feel like you're doing your best work, that things are moving quickly, and you're enjoying the people you're working with, and you're building upon each other's ideas, and you're making things better as a team. And I was recently talking to someone else, a candidate for VP of Engineering at one of our clients, and they were talking about flow, the idea of flow. And it wasn't a way that I had articulated it previously, but it's certainly another way of thinking about and a good way of thinking about it, especially when it comes to what is the role of a VP of engineering? Or what is the role of a CTO at a small company? Or what is the role of a development team or a product team in general? And one way to think about that is to work to maintain a flow state. And when we think about the processes that we have in terms of retrospectives where every week we gather, and we identify things that could be better, and we come up with action items, a lot of the things that drive what could be better or what we want to try to do differently are all identifying the things that take us out of the flow state and trying to fix that problem so that items flow from beginning to end smoothly, that they go from concept to production smoothly as quickly as possible, and that individual people know where the next item to take is that it's ready so they're not blocked as they begin it. And they're able to get that to staging, and get a pull request out, and get that reviewed quickly, get it to staging, get that reviewed quickly, and then deploy it to production. And in theory, even do a continuous deployment so that that whole flow is automated as much as possible. So this idea of flow resonated with me. Has it resonated with you? JOSH: Yeah, I agree. I remember seeing the comparisons people saying, okay, you're not actually looking for an engineer's passion necessarily. What you're looking for...and I come back to the hiring side of things because I'm doing that right now. But rather than looking to assess passion, it's assessing capacity and ability to get into a flow state more quickly. And obviously, so much of that is dependent on the team, and the communication style, the management style, and things like that. But flow is very much...I think once you get into that and you know how to get into that like you said, every waking moment is spent trying to optimize how do I get into this space? Because when you're in that space, when you're flowing, be it from an IC level or above, there's nothing quite like it. It's just this calm state of just everything feels like it's firing all the time perfectly, and it's good. And I think trying to make those spaces available for the rest of the team to get into that state and maintain that state makes a lot of sense. I remember years and years and years ago, there was the focus on maker versus manager time. And we talk about anchoring manager time either at the start of the end day or around lunchtime or whatever is a logical time for a break. The idea is to maintain that flow state for as long as possible so that nothing else eats into that. Because you do an hour of writing software, and then you've got a 30-minute one-on-one with a teammate. And then you go, and you run for another hour, hour and a half, and then it's another half an hour meeting. It's like you're being sucked away. It is really hard to get into that zone and then stay there. So I think there's been a focus on it for a while. And I'm really glad that there's now a name and a thing that we can point to. CHAD: I don't want to lead people astray about what Boost is. There's a big important part of Boost, which may not be immediately obvious to people, and that is design. I may have insinuated that design wasn't part of Boost before when we were talking about it, but it is. And it's designed on existing products and existing teams which is a different need than going from concept to launch of a new idea. JOSH: So we had done some work with The New England Journal of Medicine. And their team, a very small team, internal team, had basically designed an application. And they ran into a number of accessibility and usability issues. They continued to hear feedback from a lot of folks saying, "This is not effective for what we're looking to do." And they'd engaged us in a couple of different times basically to rip apart and re-architect some of the application hierarchy and the usability side of things. It's been really interesting to see okay, well, within the design side of operating within existing products, it's often lended or leaned more towards doing some amount of a design audit and usability audit, talking to customers. And less around we're going to start from scratch and more what are some of these iterative improvements that we can make to make the product more accessible, easier to understand, easier to navigate, easier to use within what is, again, these very large platforms sometimes? CHAD: I know one common request we get is we're thinking about implementing a design system or introducing a design system with the first version of the product. And we're having this growing pain around introducing new features. Is a design system the right thing to do there? That's a request we sometimes get. JOSH: Yeah. And I think a lot of it at the end of the day, what we're looking to assess is what are the knowns? How much do we know about the application, about the interface? We talk about on the software development side of things avoiding premature abstraction, and I think the same thing is true about design systems. Like, if we're going through a product, maybe it's a wizard, and apart from forms, the pages are individualized, and there's not really any common patterns. It's like, okay, well, maybe now it doesn't make sense. But when you've got an application that spans hundreds of pages, there are going to be patterns across the different pages in terms of application hierarchy and componentization and things like that. And the work that we're oftentimes brought in to do is let's assess what's there, figure out what are the common patterns here. And it's almost like refactoring and teasing things apart to where we get slight...it's a reduction in code use or rather an increase in code reuse because we're removing some of the idiosyncrasies that maybe were not teased apart into some component-based system. And that's fun work. [chuckles] It's really interesting. You get things like React when you're doing client-side rendering. And within the Rails side of things, there's a big push for the GitHub ViewComponent. RubyGem is another example. It's both ways to introduce these layers of abstraction that allow more of the engineering team to take on more of the application development, not because design isn't necessary, but they're then empowered to reuse these logical set of components. And so it amplifies the dev work, but it also amplifies the design work because the entire team is now leaning on that pre-baked work. It enables designers to shift focus and priorities to okay; what are new components? What are different ways to position this or present this information? And also, for our designers, it frees up their time to talk even more to customers, to people using the system. CHAD: Well, I guess we'd be remiss if we didn't do a more blatant plug. You mentioned it earlier, but we do have an opening for Design Director on the Boost team. JOSH: We do. CHAD: So who would be a good fit for that role? JOSH: That's a great question. I think a couple of the things that we're really focusing on for this role is someone who has done the work, so to speak, at an IC level for a lot of the work that we're doing right now with customers. And so we ask point-blank on the application sheet, have you worked in HTML and CSS? Have you facilitated design exercises like design sprints? Have you facilitated user interviews? Because so much of what we're seeing from a vision and a strategy perspective is we need to take and leverage these tools in the skill sets that our teams are looking to hone in on, and we want to take it a lot further. I think there's a big opportunity there. So I think it's less around years of experience. I wouldn't say you need to have 15 years of management experience or having been a director in order to apply for the role. But it's someone that can empathize with the team and has some opinions and some thoughts in terms of okay, what is design? What is not only visual design but product design accessibility? What does that look like in the next 5 to 10 years? Those are the people that I would love to see apply. CHAD: If someone's interested, where's the best place for them to do that? JOSH: thoughtbot.com/jobs. And the listing is there. CHAD: So what's next for Boost, Josh? What do you have your sights set on as we wrap up 2021 and head into the next year? JOSH: Oh boy. A lot of where the focus has been on this year is continuing to double down on Rails as the technology stack and get our feet wet, not that our feet aren't wet, [chuckles] continue to invest on the front end with React. I think for 2022, I think the big focus...we've run in the past some pretty successful custom trainings workshops for engineering teams. I think one that we had done earlier was late last year into early this year. We ran about 120 or so of their engineers through a custom RSpec course. So we worked with their engineering managers and some of their teams and got a sense of okay; given this codebase and given the skill sets of this 100-plus person engineering team, where should we focus? And we put together a two-day RSpec workshop. We administered over; I think, five or six weeks. We did it virtually. And the reception from that was incredible. They ended up bringing us back on. We're getting ready to start another round of consulting work where we're embedding alongside their teams. So I see that as a huge opportunity for Boost coming into next year. And then I think one of the things that we've been pushing for is reducing some of the billing time from folks in leadership positions so that they're in a better position to support their designers and developers. And I'm really excited about the progress that we've made thus far. And I'm excited to continue carrying that into next year. CHAD: Awesome. Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. JOSH: Thank you. CHAD: Part of this new season, Season 11 of the podcast, for the next few episodes, I'm going to be talking to each of the managing directors at thoughtbot about their teams, about the different kinds of work we do on those teams, and the challenges, and what phases are clients in those different stages of the product lifecycle. So you can subscribe to the show and find notes for this episode and all the other episodes at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter @cpytel. Josh, if folks want to get in touch with you or follow along with you, what are the best places for them to do that? JOSH: Definitely Twitter. My handle is @joshuaclayton, all one word. CHAD: Awesome. Thanks again. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Special Guest: Joshua Clayton.

The Built Different Podcast with Zach Clinton
The Built Different Podcast-Episode 38-Josh Barrick

The Built Different Podcast with Zach Clinton

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 12, 2021 45:16


Description: In the wake of a tragic car accident, Josh Barrick was faced with a decision to desperately cling to his faith in God, or let unforgiveness destroy him. Choosing to forgive the drunk driver allowed Josh and his family to step into the fullness of everything God has for them. On today's episode of the Built Different Podcast, Josh helps listeners learn how they too can trust God through their own tragedies and come out stronger on the other side. Quotes: 12:41 Josh: “It's not our nature to want to surrender; it's our nature to want to hold on to our own life. 12:52: Josh “God wants us to let go and sometimes we can't do that until we are literally run over…”13:53 Jen quote: “I am thankful that God chose us, knowing that we wouldn't turn our back on Him. Rather than a family who doesn't know Him and would reject Him forever.” 14:21 Josh: “Have you ever thought maybe God is choosing you?14:24 Josh: “Maybe He has given you this task and wants to grow you into a person that only this tragedy can bring out.” 16:18 Josh: “The first first step of practically surrendering in any situation is forgiveness.”18:32 Josh: “In order to use it, we have to praise Him for it.”20:22 Josh: “You forgive for your own freedom.”21:03 Josh: “The first thing I had to do was stop calling the man who hit us, ‘the drunk driver' and start calling him by name. Because that man is a human being and I had to realize I'm 3 decisions away from being in his shoes.”27:03 Josh: “The only reason that you're built different is because of the Spirit that's living inside of you.” 28:00 Josh: “The only thing that's getting in the way of your freedom, peace, overflowing love...joy.. is you.”28:48 Josh: “You have to surrender to the Spirit in order to walk in it.” Links: MLK quote “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it's a permanent attitude.”Ephesians 4: 31-32John 10:10

FounderQuest
There Ain't No Business Like No Business

FounderQuest

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2021 26:49


Show notes:Links:Bold Badgers NFTMantis scooterRidwellWrite for HoneybadgerTranscript:*note - this is an unedited automatically generated transcript with about 80% accuracy*Josh: So we really are we doing this, uh, super quick. Do we need to like speed up our voices? ArtificiallyBen: The chipmonk episode.Starr: There you go. No, we should just, we should slow them down. So it'll um, we can just record  a  minute episode and then we'll take  minutes to listen to it.Josh: Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's what we've been doing all along. That's our life hack is it takes us  minutes to record these episodes and you listened to them in  minutes.Starr: Yeah. So that's the, um, so I'll fill in our listeners. We, um, we miss our normal recording day on Friday, and so we're making it up on a Monday, which means like we're jam packed in with a bunch of other stuff. Um, so this may be a little  shorter than usual and I'm sorry. I know you just have to have all of us all the time and we're just giving it all we can right now.Josh: Yeah, it'll be just as off topic though. So, um,Starr: I would thank God.Ben: Yeah. Speaking, speaking of off topic, I have, I have a public service announcement to make. As, as you know, I've been getting more into the electric vehicles scene, uh, personal mobility, micro mobility, all that kind of fun stuff. And I, you know, a few months ago bought an electric scooter.  It's a mantis for those who are curious, who are in the know, uh, and I've been really enjoying that, like riding back and forth to work and goofing off and that sort of thing. But the thing that's, the public service announcement is, uh, wear a helmet. If you're going to ride one of these pillars. I just, this past week saw two different people riding on scooters, similar to mine, like higher powered scooters, mixing it up with traffic, like on  mile per hour roads and not wearing a helmet. And I just thought that is insane.  Like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe, yeah, you should definitely wear a helmet if you're going to ride electric scooter at  miles an hour, just saying that's my PSA.Josh: I did go for, I went for a, my first ride on an EBI bike, um, last week and I must confess I did not wear a helmet. And, uh, I have to say it was, you know, it was kind of fun. Like, you know, little dangerous,  there was no traffic. Like there was very little traffic, so in my defense.Ben: Okay. That's a plus. Do you remember what kind of bike your Rover's like a super ? Like one of those modelsJosh: I have, I have a very bad memory for names of things and I was told, but, uh, no, I don't know, but actually I was, it was with, uh, it was the bike of, uh, Mike Perrin, who is a friend of the show and creator of sidekick. So I'm  sure he will, uh, hopefully listen to this and, and let us know. And then we can fill everyone in the next week. MaybeBen: I think, I think he has a super . It's a, and that's a pretty sweet,Josh: It's like the super it's like one of the fastest ones on the market, he said, yeah, cool. Or something like that.Ben: I'm going to have to get down to Mike's house and borrow some of his bikes. AndJosh: It was a lot of fun. I'd never, I'd never done that before. And I, I get the appeal now.Ben: Yeah. So when, when I got my scooter, Mike was like, I don't  know, scooters. They're kind of, uh, I don't exactly what he tweeted, but he's like, yeah, they're kind of sketchy because they're not very stable and stuff and he's right. They are integrated stable compared to the bikes, but it's still a lot of fun. So I just wear a full face helmet to counteract the wobbliness. Yeah.Starr: Did y'all know I have a, an electric bike? No, it's called a Peloton.Josh: You were so smug with that one.Starr: It's the perfect bike for me because it doesn't move. Um, it's like all the, got all the nice things about the bike, like the workout, but you don't go anywhere. You don't have to Dodge any traffic. Uh, don't have to wear a helmet screen.Josh: Yeah. Those sound, those do sound seriously though. Those, those, uh, look pretty, pretty nice.Ben: Yeah. I have, I have a low-tech Peloton. It's just a trainer. I brought my bike on.Josh: Is your bike on it? Yeah. Yeah. But I like, I don't know the what, from what I've heard of the Peloton  , uh, those they've got all the bells and whistles right star.Starr: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, really it's um, it's not so much about the actual bike for me. It is, as it is about having some like super enthusiastic person, like, um, playing really good music and just being like, you've got this, you were born for greatness and just like saying stuff like that at me. Um, while I'm like trying to, you know, read them a little bit,Josh: You say that, but like, you know, like I, I try to, you know, give that experience  to Katelyn, for instance, my wife and she just like, she hates like, she's like get, get out of here.Starr: I think, I think it's easier. I think it's a little easier when there's not like an actual person there, you know, Just hire a social exerciseBen: That started out live, get, you know, the, uh, the motivational speaker guy lives in a, down by the river. I'm just, I'm just thinking about Chris Farley,  like standing by your exercise bike. You can do it. You've got this.Josh: If we could get a, yeah. If we could get that, um, on the Peloton, I would subscribe like if he was one of the trainers, I mean, like, you know,Ben: So just bring him back from the dead, have him record some such the Peloton and then, yeah, that'd be awesome. I miss Chris Farley.Starr: So Ida likes to ride the Peloton too, that she's not big enough for it. Um, but she  is a, her, her feet can touch the pedals. Um, but they can't reach all the way down. So she's kinda like kicks the pedal down and then catches it on the way back up. And so she asked me to put on a little video so she can do it to the music too. Yeah. Oh, I need to give an update about my, um, about the printing press. I know everybody's like waited, waiting the press breath about thatJosh: Date. I thought, yeah. I didn't know. There was news so, well, IStarr: Mean, the news  is I have given up on it. I went down to Tacoma. I went down to see it and it worked and everything, and I just really got a sense for like how big and heavy it was going to be. And, um, then I started, I measured it and I started actually trying to figure out how I would get it into my building. Um, because like, it's just, my, my office is  in the backyard. It's, uh, it's, we're having our backyard redone soon, but right now it's just all bumpy and lumpy. And so it's like trying to like roll this thing. I would have to construct like a, a path out of plywood. I'd have to build a ramp up to my, um, the doorway, um, then to actually get it into the location where it's going to be. I would have to completely like dismantle all my shelving and, um, then like re assemble it once I had put the thing in place.  And so if I ever wanted to move it again, I'd have to like completely take down all my shelving. I was just like, this is too much. Like, this is, um, like I can't, I can't justify this on it. Like I'm, I'm waking up early in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep. Cause I'm like, how the hell am I going to like move this thing? It's like, no, that's not a good hobby for me right now.Ben: That's too bad. Have you looked into typewriters?Starr: I mean, quite the same thingJosh: I would get into typewriters  though. Just like aside,Starr: I am looking into smaller, into a smaller press. They have smaller like desktop ones that are a couple of hundred pounds. Um, not, not like a thousand and looking into that sad,Ben: sad to hear it didn't work out, but I let's get pictures of that in any one. If you get a small one, that'd be kind of fun.Starr: Yeah. I just have to, I, uh, I almost saw him this weekend, but somebody swooped in before me. And so now I'm just going to have to wait like six  months until another one pops up. Cause like it's, they're not very, there's not a very liquid market. It's not like in a, I guess, I guess there is a liquid market, I guess, I guess they just kind of get snapped, snatched up and then like, there's just not any of them. Yeah.Josh: Do you still get to like, do you have to do like type setting and stuff?Starr: Yeah. You do like, um, there's a couple ways to do it. Like you can do it the old school way where you have like the lead type and you like, um, you know, put it letter by letter and do like a composing  stick and do all that. Um, I probably wouldn't do that just because I'm not sure I have the time and patience. Um, so there's a, an updated way to do it where, um, you can, um, you know, send a PDF off and they'll make a, uh, a plate for you and it's plastic and then you just use that. So, um, yeah. And you can make them yourself too. It's just, you know, takes more equipment and more, you know, you know how I'm work and stuff.Josh: Maybe you could get like a specialized, d printer to like printer plates for you.Starr: Cool. Do you use like, uh, um, people to use like a, a Glowforge like a laser cutter cool. Or laser engraver?Josh: That's a, that's a fun hobby. That sounds, that sounds like fun.Starr: Oh yeah. Oh, I went down the rabbit hole of reading all about laser engravers too. Like there's like this cheap one from China that you can get for like  bucks. And then like,  it's apparently got good internals, but like, you really have to soup it up. And so like that's some people's whole personality is they just do that.Josh: Nice before we get off the topic of a paper and things that interface with paper. Um, I like ordered something off of Amazon that I was like, I don't know why I was like this excited about it arriving. Like maybe I'm just like extreme, like my, you know, I'm extremely  bored and needed something to look forward to. But like Amazon basics, paper, shreds, shredder, sharpening, and lubricate, lubricant sheets. And I get all, I'm not going to say that again. I hope you like got that. Um, I did not know that this existed though. Cause like I have like a paper shredder. It's like a cheap, you know, a cheap one, but like I never, like, I never oil it cause don't like just, I don't know how, okay. Like just the thought of like getting a, like a bottle  of oil or something and like trying to like dump it.Josh: Like I just, I don't know. So I like was like trying to figure out like, how do you oil these things? And it turns out they make sheets of paper that had the oil like in them and you just run them through the shredder. I didn't know. Like maybe everyone knows this. I did not know this was a thing. And uh, I mean it's like the perfect, it's like the perfect, uh, lubricant solution for your shredder because, um, you just, you know, it's like shredding a piece of paper, which is fun in and of itself.  Like who doesn't like shredding paper. So pro tip, you don't needStarr: Waiting. How do they work? Um,Josh: My shredder might be too far gone from the lack of oiling, but I'm going to like, wait and see. Oh no, we'll wait and see. Luckily I did get the cheap one. So now that I'm like an expert on shredder maintenance, um, my next shredder maybe I'll even upgrade or something.Starr: I actually, um, I bought an Amazon basic shredder. That  is, uh, it's a, it's a fairly big one, um, for home use, but it's, it's uh, Amazon basics and it's actually really good.Ben: That is a cross cut. Cause that's the key feature right there.Starr: I, I think the cross cuts. Yeah. SeeBen: Mine. Mine's a cheapo one that just does stripsJosh: And that's, I mean that's the strips. Yeah.Ben: Gotta have the crossover.Starr: Yeah. They can always go in the strips back together.Josh: Yeah.Ben: I was a little disturbed to find out  though. My, my local trash and recycling facility, uh, our city requests that you not put shredded paper in the recycle, uh, I don't know why they can't handle the recycle shredded paper, but yeah. So if, if all the stuff that I shred, it has to go in the trash, which seems kind of wrong, you know, it's like it's paper cause then recycle. Right. ButJosh: That's because I'm pretty sure recycling is a big scam and none of it actually works. Like you think it does because like Kaylin, like  Katelyn knows all about recycling and I am constantly trying to like be a good person and recycle things and she's like, no, that's not recyclable. Like you can't like, that's going to actually like, that's going to like make the recycling people mad because like they have to sort through this and like, you know, take it out before they can actually like repurpose. So yeah, it seems like there's very, uh, relatively little that is actually recyclable. At least in my experience. So farStarr: We subscribed to an additional recycling service,  um, read well. And uh, yeah. So they like, you can't recycle, um, just a normal city was like, when you can't put like plastic bags or any sort of like plastic film stuff. Right. So like they take that and um, like they'll take, uh, like fabric stuff, like clothes, um, and like batteries and light. And then they have like a rotating category where um, like once every three months or whatever, it's like, you can put your old  electronic devices in there and they'll like, you know, have those recycled and whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty nice.Josh: Yeah. Cause I'm everything I hear lately about like just normal recycling, just as depressing. Like it's like, I don't know. I hear like, you know, half the recycling isn't even like being taken care of taken,Starr: You know, like they're like shippingJosh: It to other countries or burying it in landfills anyways. It just it's like, yeah, it's kind of sad. It doesn't make me want to recycle.Ben: Cool.  Let's see. Maybe, maybe my municipality then is forward-looking because they know there's going to put in the landfill. So there's just saving a step, right? Yeah. Just put it in the trash. Cause we're going to put out the trash anyway. Right?Josh: Yeah. And thenBen: They actually did that for a styrofoam. We used to have a regular styrofoam collection event. Like every month you could go down to city hall and you could dump your old styrofoam and they would take care of it. And then like, you know what, we just can't even cost effectively handle styrofoam anymore. So don't even, it's not even worth driving down to the city  hall to drop it off. Just put it in your trash. It's like, oh, that's so sad.Starr: Well, the, the rebel also does styrofoam. Like it's um, that's cool. It's it's not included in the base like price, but they give you a big bag and they're like, okay, whenever you're done with filling up this giant bag, like it'll cost, I don't know, five or $ to recycle it.Josh: Okay. Well we got to remember put it in the show notes cause I'm going to look at it too. Okay. Sure. I mean, it does seem like I'd rather the city, like if the city like  legitimately can't handle it and they're just like secretly like just trashing it anyway. It's like, it's better just to acknowledge the problem so that a real solution, hopefully it can, you know, like maybe like something like this, like people can start to, you know, pay extra for it or, or whatever. But like, it just seems like ignore, like just pretending, like just, just so everyone can feel good. Like, you know, just keep the people, you know, let them feel like they're recycling when they're not, does  not seem like a solution that's going to like solve any problems.Ben: But you know, what's, what's free to recycle the bits that you send to Honeybadger. We recycle those things all day long. You send us those, those API bits and they get efficiently recycled right away.Starr: I thought y'all were going to recycle those into NFTs.Josh: Oh yes. We don't. Don't uh, can'tBen: Spill the beans yet. Yeah. LikeJosh: Tell everyone our new business strategy. I think already I put that on Twitter already that we're pivoting into crypto and Airtraq and it's going to be a side business. Yes.Starr: It might confuse people. There's already like a Honeybadger coin or something out there.Josh: Yeah. And there's also like multiple Badger NFTs by the way. SoBen: Yeah, just a little delight.Josh: That was like a brave badgers. Brave badgers on Salada. I think there's one.Ben: Yeah. Put that in the show notes. Make sure people check it out.  Not officially endorsed by Honeybadger, but still cool. IStarr: Think we should put out our own line of pugs.Josh: Yes. Yeah. I mean like I'm surprised pugs. Aren't like, so someone's rolling an NFT for pugs, to be honest.Starr: I wasn't making it come back. I hear.Ben: Yeah. If we're going to, if we're going to go retro, like let's go all the way. Retro let's skip the whole collectible cards and stuff and go straight to playing cards. Right. I'll play for the two cards with  different batteries on them. Yeah.Starr: I thought you were going to say to me,  light bulbs or something.Josh: Absolutely. I've been, I'm curious. Have you learned anything about, uh, crypto or NFTs lately?Ben: You know, no, I haven't really, I I've been, I've been watching people in my Twitter feed and it's, it's funny, there's this, there's this arc that I see, like their first tweet is like, what is this crypto stuff? And then their next tweet is like, this crypto stuff is crazy. And then a little bit later, there's another tweet. It's like, I'm going to look into this crypto set because I want to understand it. And then a little bit later there's like,  Hey, check out this NFC I just bought. And then a little bit later, their final tweet is like, here, come join this, this core community and get into my mint.Josh: And, and they have a new Twitter avatar that has like laser eyes.Ben: Yeah. It's kinda, it's crazy. So, so I've like, I've seen this again and again and again, I'm like, okay, I'm not, I'm afraid. I don't wanna investigate the Nazis becauseStarr: So R oh, I'm going to get, I'm going to get, I'm going to get so much hate over this, but our, um, our  NFTs just like, um, MLM for like tech rose.Ben: Yes, totally. They areJosh: Essentially,Starr: That's like, I've got, I've like, I'll just tell my I'm essentially. I've got my sensory over here. My essential oils.Josh: Yeah. Well spring as well. I mean like, technically I think you probably could code a MLM on Ethereum, so I'm sure it's already been done, but maybe that, you know, maybe, maybe we should just go for it. Just go full a  full billing. There you go.Starr: That's it. Everybody you heard it. We're going full villain now.Josh: Crypto villain. Yeah. I I've checked it out as well. A little bit. Um, I bought a, uh, an FTE on Solano just to see. And, um, actually I did not follow the pattern that you, uh, that you described Ben:, but I also did not let myself do this publicly, which I think is a big key. Like you people know,  like you can create anonymous identities on the internet. Um, it's still possible. And then you can go explore, you know, like NFTs or whatever, and you don't have to like have laser eyes on your main Twitter profile. Um, but you know, I went and looked at it and uh, I'm still, I'm like still learning. I'm like, you know, I'm trying to update my, you have the whole crypto scene is a little bit, you know, a little bit dated. Like I  checked it out, like after Bitcoin got, you know, it was starting to get popular and stuff, read some white papers, but I think it's, I mean, it's, you know, it's not going away regardless, so it's good to keep your view current at least. But, um, I am not, uh, you know, bought into, I have an eight in as the kids say,Ben: Well, I mean, back to the two lips, I think I'll just wait until the crash happens. Right. And then I'll have a bias of nice to have thoseJosh: Do that. Yeah. That's the, that's the cycle. I mean, you know, it's going to happen. That happens like in every, every, it seems like every new application of blockchain that, you know, comes out that goes through the same, like boom and bust cycle, um, and then levels out to, uh, you know, fairly regular boom and bust cycle.Ben: I mean, you know, confessional here, but I'm actually a laggard when it comes to tech stuff.  Like I'm pretty late on the adoption curve for a lot of things. Like, you know, my car is pretty old, my TV's kind of old, you know, I'm not really sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's just kinda, it's kinda weird. I'm in the tech world, but like, I don't really jump in on things like that. I'll just wait,Starr: That's pretty normal. Right. There's like, um, I don't know. There's I saw some, I forget where I saw somebody say it was like, there's two types of tech people. One has the newest of everything all the time. And the other one is like still working on like a,  a   PC.Josh: Yeah. Whatever.Starr: Yeah. I don't know about y'all, but like, I don't really know a lot of like tech people who have like, um, like voice assistance in their home.Josh: Yeah. I like that as much as like the consumer more than just regular consumers. Yeah.Ben: That's because we know it's like I write software. I know how bad it is.Josh: Yeah.  Yeah. That's why I don't like having them. So I don't trust, I don't trust software, but I don't know, like the block, the whole blockchain thing. Like, I, I, you know, I kind of get the, like the future application argument, like there's something here. Like I think it is like that idea of having like very easy, like making contracts easier, for instance, or giving software,  the ability, like making it easier to write applications that are built on like contracts or, or even like financial applications. Like the whole idea of like, like code being able to hold its own its own actual currency or money. Um, because it's like, you know, it's just bits. Like that is interesting. Like, I don't know, you know, I'm not enough of a futurist to be able to like see the future where, you know, that's like ubiquitous, but like it is, I can see that aspect of it. It's interesting. But like the whole, like, yeah.  I'm not like collecting a bunch of, uh, NFTs in the meantime.Ben: Yeah. I think smart contracts. The idea is interesting. I think, you know, the stuff that's being loosely called web three, I think that's kind of stuff is interesting, but the, but the whole I'm going to buy a smart contract thing that represents a JPEG and then I'm gonna hold on to it and it's going to be worth a million bucks. That part of it doesn't really appeal to me. Like, yeah, I guess I'm just not yet.Josh: Well, you're also not  an art. You're not like an art collector either. I would assume that's true. I don't think you have a house full of priceless art. I would, that would be my guess. I mean, I don't want to like, yeah, like over assume, but I mean, like, I think that's the kind of person that this would, this definitely like appeals more to like the collector and, uh, I'm, I'm also not a collector. So, um,Ben: Um, I do have one, I do have one piece of art in my house, so I'm not a complete,  you know, Rube, but, uh, but yeah, I am not, I'm not a collector. Yeah.Starr: I think the big, um, like, like I'm thinking about how like Bitcoin and stuff has been around and, you know, blockchain has been around for over a decade at this point. Right. Um, and like still now, like, you know, it looks a lot, I don't know, to me, just from the outside, it looks very similar to what it did back then.  It's like, it's like, um, a bunch of people, very excited about it and what it means, and this kind of like vague way, um, that like seems like, you know, it'll pan out in the future, but we're not quite sure how yet. And like, I'm wondering if the big, um, I'm wondering if the thing that like blockchain is actually successful at is in, um, being very like evocative to  a certain type of person, um, making a certain type of, you know, developer or a tech person, like feel a certain way. Like I wonder if that's the main success of blockchain, because that seems to be like, mostly what I'm seeing is like a bunch of people, you know, excited a bunch of people. Um, I don't know, like, like wanting to discuss the future of things and you know, being smart about it. And it's like, I wonder if that, um, that process is the whole reason that it stuck around. I don't  know.Ben: It's good, good point.Josh: There's definitely some interesting stuff out there. Um, and some very, I mean, like, I think it's undeniable that there are some very people that have thought all this stuff up, like yeah. But yeah, I don't know. You're right. It's, it's been around a lot. Like the, it seems like the adoption curve as much longer on this one. If, if it is going to be the, you know, the next big thing, I don't know. It does. I don't know. It'll be interesting.  But I figured in the meantime, like keeping, keeping an eye on, let's just try to learn more about it. But, um, I'm not really the, I try to avoid situations where I just like dive in and become a like true believer. So I'm, I'm learning from afar.Ben: I'll just go buy some GME. That'll go to fix.Starr: I dunno. I'm just going to go for  AMC, myself. Like the movies, like the movies have been around forever.Ben: Well, confession time I actually bought some AMC. Oh yeah. When the whole GME thing was going crazy and AMC got part of it. I went and bought some AMC. Cause I'm like, you know what, thinking about it. It's like, I wasn't really interested in the main stock thing, but I was thinking, okay, pandemics going to go away some point, right. People are gonna get back out and they're going to go to movies again. Right. It's going to be, and I'm actually, I think I'm doing pretty good on the whole AMC purchase.  We'll see how it goes. Pandemic didn't end yet, but I can still close the fingers.Josh: I mean, as a futurist, I do expect more things to become MIMA fide. So if you can like predict those trends, then go, you know, get in early because, uh, everything's going to be a meme on the blockchain. Eventually.Ben: That's a good thing. Our business is based on a meme now. We're, we're, we're totally with it.Josh: Yeah. All right. We're finally with it on the whole meme thing.Starr: Well, as the present test, I think you should just enjoy it while you can.Josh: You mean all the mains or I don'tStarr: Really know. I just want to get, it seemed like a pithy thing to sayBen: It's apropos. Yeah. Yeah.Josh: Well, we discussed like, no, like I think we, I think we actually discussed like nothing  related to the business this time and that is, you know, that's moving forward.Ben: This is our Seinfeld episode, the episode aboutJosh: Speed. Oh, speaking of Seinfeld, we finished the last, the final episode of Seinfeld, um, that like a couple nights ago. And it like, cause we've been like Kayla and I have been like going through it, like for like years at this point, like just slowly, like, cause it's not every night you want to watch Seinfeld.  Like it's, it's gotta be like a Seinfeld night. So we finally, like, we didn't realize we were like at the end. Um, and it was kind of a, it was a little bittersweet moment kind of likeStarr: At the end of real Seinfeld when it aired. So, and you just heard that green day song starts swelling. It's something I'm predictive of your life. I know. So enjoy it while you can enjoy it while you can.Starr: You've been listening to founder quest. If you want to give us a review, go to wherever you do that and do that. I don't know. I've never been given a podcast or review, to be honest. I don't know how you do it. Um, so I may just be sending you out to nowhere. Um, and yeah, if you're interested in writing for us, we are usually looking for authors and stuff for a blog. Um, check out  honeybadger.io forward slash blog and look for the right press link and learn all about, you know, all about that. And we will see you next week. See ya. See ya. Bye.

FounderQuest
Our Ops Are Smooth Like A Jar Of Skippy

FounderQuest

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 3, 2021 36:27


Show Notes:Links:MicromortNoblesse obligeJosh's dotfilesGitHub Code SpacesFull Transcript:Ben:Yeah. I've been holding out for the new MacBook Pros. The M1 is pretty tempting, but I want whatever comes next. I want the 16-inch new hotness that's apparently supposed to be launching in November, but I've been waiting for it so patiently for so long now.Josh:Will they have the M2?Ben:Yeah, either or that or M1X. People are kind of unsure what the odds are.Starr:Why do they do that? Why did they make an M1 if they can't make an M2? Why do they have to keep... You just started, people. You can just have a normal naming scheme that just increments. Why not?Josh:M1.1?Ben:That would be awesome.Starr:Oh, Lord.Josh:Yeah, it would.Ben:M1A, Beachfront Avenue.Starr:So last week we did an Ask Me Anything on Indie Hackers, and that was a lot of fun.Josh:It was a lot of fun.Starr:I don't know. One of the most interesting questions on there was some guy was just like, "Are you rich?" I started thinking about it. I was like, "I literally have no idea." It reminded me of when I used to live in New York briefly in the '90s or, no, the early '00s. There was a Village Voice article in which they found... They started out with somebody not making very much money, and they're like, "Hey, what is rich to you?" Then that person described that. Then they went and found a person who had that level of income and stuff and they asked them, and it just kept going up long past the point where... Basically, nobody ever was like, "Yeah, I'm rich."Josh:Yeah. At the end, they're like, "Jeff Bezos, what is rich? What is rich to you?"Starr:Yeah.Josh:He's like, "Own your own star system."Starr:So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm doing pretty good for myself because I went to fill up my car with gas the other day and I just didn't even look at the price. The other day, I wanted to snack, so I just got a whole bag of cashews, and I was just chowing down on those. I didn't need to save that. I could always get another bag of cashews.Ben:Cashews are my arch nemesis, man. I can't pass up the cashews. As far as the nut kingdom, man, they are my weakness.Starr:I know. It's the subtle sweetness.Ben:It's so good. The buttery goodness.Starr:Yeah, the smoothness of the texture, the subtle sweetness, it's all there.Ben:That and pistachios. I could die eating cashews and pistachios.Josh:There you go. I like pistachios.Ben:Speaking of being rich, did you see Patrick McKenzie's tweet about noblesse oblige?Josh:No. Tell me.Ben:Yeah, we'll have to link it up in the show notes. But, basically, the idea is when you reach a certain level of richness, I guess, when you feel kind of rich, you should be super generous, right? So noblesse oblige is the notion that nobility should act nobly. If you have been entrusted with this respect of the community and you're a noble, then you ought to act a certain way. You got to act like a noble, right? You should be respectful and et cetera. So Patio was applying this to modern day, and he's like, "Well, we should bring this back," like if you're a well-paid software developer living in the United States of America, you go and you purchase something, let's say a coffee, that has basically zero impact on your budget, right? You don't notice that $10 or whatever that you're spending. Then just normalize giving a 100% tip because you will hardly feel it, but the person you're giving it to, that'll just make their day, right? So doing things like that. I was like, "Oh, that's"-Josh:Being generous.Ben:Yeah, it's being generous. Yeah. So I like that idea.Josh:That's cool.Ben:So-Starr:So it's okay to be rich as long as you're not a rich asshole.Ben:Exactly. Exactly. That's a good way to bring it forward there, Starr.Starr:There you go. I don't know. Yeah. I think there's some historical... I don't know. The phrase noblesse oblige kind of grates at me a little bit in a way that I can't quite articulate in this moment, but I'll think about that, and I will get back with you.Josh:Wait. Are you saying you don't identify as part of the nobility?Starr:No.Ben:I mean, I think there's a lot of things from the regency period that we should bring back, like governesses, because who wants to send your child to school in the middle of a COVID pandemic? So just bring the teacher home, right?Starr:Yeah. That's pretty sexist. Why does it have to be gendered? Anyway.Ben:Okay, it could be a governor, but you might get a little misunderstanding. All of a sudden, you've got Jay Inslee showing up on your doorstep, "I heard you wanted me to come teach your kids."Josh:I don't know. I'll just take an algorithm in the home to teach my kids, just entrust them to it.Starr:Yeah. Oh, speaking of bringing things back, I told y'all, but I'll tell our podcast listeners. On Sunday, I'm driving to Tacoma to go to somebody's basement and look at a 100-year old printing press to possibly transport to Seattle and put in my office for no good reason that I can think of. It just seems to be something that I'm doing.Josh:Do you like that none of us actually asked you what you were intending to do with it? I was like, "Yeah, just let me know when you need to move it. I'm there." I just assumed you were going to do something cool with it, but ... Yeah.Starr:I appreciate that. I appreciate the support. I'm going to make little zines or something. I don't know.Josh:Yeah. If I get a lifetime subscription to your zine-Starr:Okay, awesome.Josh:... that would be payment.Starr:Done. Done.Josh:Cool.Ben:Yeah, sign me up, too. I'll be there.Starr:Well, I appreciate that.Ben:I mean, who could resist that invitation, right, because you get to... If you get to help with moving that thing, you get to see it, you get to touch it and play with it, but you don't have to keep it. It's somebody else's problem when you're done with the day, so sounds great to me.Starr:There you go. Well, I mean, if you read the forums about these things, this is one of the smaller ones, so people are just like, "Ah, no big deal. No big deal. It's okay." But I was happy to hear that there's no stairs involved.Ben:That is the deal-breaker. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But it-Ben:If you ever get the friend helping you to move their piano, you always ask, "Okay, how many flights of steps," right?Starr:Yeah. Oh, I just thought of something I could do with it. I could make us all nice business card to hand out to nobody.Ben:Because we're not going anywhere.Josh:I just think of my last six attempts at having business cards. They're all still sitting in my closet, all six boxes of-Starr:I know. People look at you like, "What, really, a business card? What?"Josh:Yeah, like all six generations.Starr:Yeah.Ben:I hand out one or two per year. Yeah, just random people and like, "Hey, here's my phone number." It's an easy way to give it to somebody.Josh:Just people on the street?Ben:Exactly. Like a decent fellow, "Here you go." Thank you.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's like, "I've got 1000 of these. I got to justify the cost somehow."Josh:We got to move these.Starr:We could start invoicing our customers by snail mail. I could print a really nice letterhead.Ben:I think we have a few customers who would be delighted to receive a paper invoice from us because then they would have an excuse to not pay us for 90 days.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Isn't owning a printing press like owning a truck, though? Once people know you have it, everyone wants to borrow it.Starr:It's going to be pretty hard to borrow for a 1000-pound piece of iron.Josh:Well, they're going to want to come over and hang out in your basement and do their printing. This is the Pacific Northwest, like-Starr:It's their manifestos.Josh:Yeah. They got to print their manifestos, lists of demands.Starr:They don't want the establishment at Kinko's to be able to see.Josh:Right.Ben:I don't know. It's got to put you on a special kind of watch list, though, if you have a printing press in your home, right? All of a sudden, some people are really interested in what you're up to.Josh:It's like a legacy watch list.Ben:I'm just flashing back to, yeah, in the 1800s when cities, towns would get all-Starr:There you go.Josh:Well, yeah, because they're like-Ben:The mob would come out and burn down the printing press building and stuff.Josh:If you wanted to be a propagandist back then, you had to buy a printing press and then you get put on a watch list. That just never went away. They're still looking for those people. They just don't find as many of them these days.Starr:Yeah. It's so inefficient. It's not the super efficient way of getting the word out, though, I hear, unless you want to be one of those people handing out leaflets on the side of the road.Josh:Well, you could paper windshields in parking lots.Starr:Oh, there you go. Yeah.Josh:Yeah, that's how they used to do it.Starr:No, look at my beautifully hand-crafted leaflet that you're going to throw in the gutter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I think you just settled on what your next adventure's going to be after Honeybadger. You're ready to put this business aside and focus on printing up flyers for your local missing cat.Starr:There you go. There you go. Band flyers, that's big business.Josh:But you could get into fancy paper. That's a whole thing up here. It's pretty cool, actually.Starr:Yeah. I don't know. Really, I was like, "Oh, it'd be cool to have a big thing to tinker with." I'm learning about myself that I like having just a big physical project going on, and I'm pretty... Like, I built this backyard office, and that took up two years of my time. Ever since then, I don't have a big physical thing to work on, so I'm thinking this might fill that niche, that niche, sorry. I read a thing that's like don't say niche, Americans. Niche.Ben:I don't know, Starr. Maybe you should think of the children and then think about 50 years from now when you're dead and Ida's cleaning out the house and she's all like, "Why is there this printing press?"Starr:Oh, there you go.Josh:Have to move it.Starr:They'll just sell it with the house.Ben:There you go.Starr:Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is, is that it is wider than the doorway, so I would either have to dissemble it partially or take out the door. I put the door in, so I know how to take it out, so there is a good chance the door's coming out because I have less chance of messing something up if I do that one. But we'll see.Ben:Echo that.Starr:Well, thank you.Josh:You should've put one of those roll-up doors in there.Starr:I should've, yeah.Josh:Those are cool.Starr:What was I thinking?Josh:You really did not plan ahead for this.Starr:Yeah. I mean, walls are really only a couple of thin pieces of plywood, and you can just saw through it.Josh:Just a small refactor.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that would-Josh:Did y'all see that someone listened to every episode of this podcast in a row?Starr:I know. I feel so bad. I feel so bad for them.Josh:Speaking of-Starr:We're sorry. We're so sorry.Ben:I was feeling admiration. I'm like, "Wow, that's impressive," like the endurance of it.Starr:I just think we would've made different decisions.Ben:I don't know. But not-Josh:Maybe it's pretty good. I haven't gone back and gone through it all and never will, but-Ben:Well, I mean, not only did they say they listened to every episode, but then they were eager for more. They were like, "When are you getting done with your break?" So I guess-Starr:There you go.Ben:... that net it was positive, but-Josh:We must not be too repetitive.Ben:Must not.Starr:Stockholm syndrome.Josh:We're sorry.Ben:Well...Starr:I'm sorry. I don't have anything informative to add, so I'm just going to be shit-posting this whole episode.Ben:Well, I've had an amazing week since we last chatted. I kept reflecting on how I couldn't remember anything that I did over the past whatever months. Well, this past week, I can remember a whole bunch of things that I did. I've been crazy busy and getting a bunch of little things knocked out. But today, today was the capstone of the week because I rolled over our main Redis cluster that we use for all of our jobs, all of the incoming notices and whatevers. Yeah, rolled over to a new Redis cluster with zero downtime, no dropped data, nobody even noticed. It was just smooth as-Starr:Oh my God.Josh:I saw that.Starr:Awesome.Ben:It's going pretty good.Starr:Just like butter?Ben:Just like butter.Starr:They slid right out of that old Redis instance and just into this new... Is it an AWS-managed type thing?Ben:Yeah, both of them were. They all went on the new one, but... Yeah.Josh:It's, what, ElastiCache?Ben:Yep. Smooth like a new jar of Skippy.Josh:I saw that you put that in our ops channel or something.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, that's the topic in our ops channel.Josh:So it's the subject or the topic, yeah. We're making ops run, yeah, like a jar of Skippy.Starr:Why isn't that our tagline for our whole business?Ben:I mean, we can change it.Starr:I don't know why that's making me crack up so much, but it is.Josh:Skippy's good stuff.Starr:Oh my gosh.Josh:Although we-Ben:Actually-Josh:... usually go for the Costco natural brand these days.Ben:Well, we go for the Trader Joe's all-natural brand that you have to actually mix every time you use it. I prefer crunchy over creamy, so, actually, my peanut butter's not that smooth, but... You know.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's okay. But, yeah, I love our natural peanut butter, except for the whole churning thing, but you can live with that.Starr:We're more of a Nutella family.Ben:Ooh, I do love a Nutella.Josh:Ooh, Nutella.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's good stuff.Josh:We made pancakes the other day, and I was putting Nutella on pancakes. I did this thing, like I made this... We have one of those griddles, like an electric griddle, and so I made this super long rectangular pancake, and then I spread Nutella on the entire thing, and then I rolled it so that you have this-Starr:You know what it's called, Josh.Josh:What is it called?Starr:That's called a crepe.Josh:So it's a crepe, but it's made out of a pancake.Starr:It's a Texas crepe.Ben:Texas crepe.Josh:Yeah, a Texas-Starr:A Texas crepe.Ben:Yes.Josh:Is it really a Texas crepe because that's... Yeah, so, I-Starr:Oh, no, I just made that up.Ben:That sounds perfect, yeah.Josh:Well, it is now.Ben:Yeah, it is now.Josh:It is now, and I highly recommend it. It's pretty amazing.Ben:Throw some Skippy on there and, man, now it's a... That's awesome.Josh:Peanut butter's also good on pancakes.Starr:That's why people listen to us, for our insights about business.Ben:Yeah, there was this one time, speaking of pancakes and peanut butter...Josh:How did we get on pancakes? Like, oh, yeah, ops.Ben:This one time, I went over to dinner at some person's house, and I didn't know what dinner was going to be, but we got there and it was breakfast for dinner, which I personally love. That's one of my favorites.Starr:I knew that about you.Ben:So they're like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Hope you don't think it's weird, but we're having breakfast for dinner." I'm like, "No, no, I love it." So eggs and bacon and waffles, and so I'm getting my waffle and I'm like, "Do you have some peanut butter," and they're like, "Oh my goodness, we thought you would think that was way too weird, and so we didn't have the peanut butter." They whipped it out from in the counter. It's like, "Oh, shew, now we can have our peanut butter, too." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, peanut butter on waffles, yeah."Josh:Everyone had their hidden peanut butter.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that's how you level up a friendship.Ben:There you go. So, yeah, the week was good. The week was good. Bugs got fixed, things got deployed, and, yeah, just a whole-Josh:Yeah, you had a bunch of PRs and stuff for little things, too, which-Ben:Yeah. And got some practice with the whole delegating thing, got Shava doing some stuff, too. So, yeah, just all-around super productive week.Josh:Nice. I got Java to run in a Docker container, so my week's going pretty good.Ben:And that took you all week?Starr:What do those words mean? I don't...Josh:Yeah.Starr:Was your audio cutting out? I don't know. I just heard a bunch of things I don't understand.Josh:Well, for your own sake, don't ask me to explain it.Starr:Yeah, it's like better not looked at.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Why would you subject yourself to that sort of torture, Josh?Josh:Oh, well, because running Java on an M1 Mac is even worse.Starr:Oh my Lord.Josh:Well, actually, running it, period. But, yeah, like just our Java package. I mean, I've spent half this podcast ranting about our packaging, so I don't need to get too deep into it. But every time I release this thing, it's like it just doesn't work because I've forgotten my... I've changed my system, and Java and Maven package repository are just like that. So I figure if I can make some sort of reproduceable development environment using Docker, then in two years everything will just be smooth as a jar of Skippy.Ben:Skippy. Yeah, yeah.Starr:Well, I had a chance to-Josh:I reckon.Starr:I had a chance to dig into some numbers, which is one of my favorite things to do, and so... I don't know. There was this question that was just bothering me, which was... Well, let me just back up. So we've had some success, as you guys know, in the past year. We've almost doubled our rate of new user sign-ups, not new user sign-ups, like conversion to paid users. We've doubled our paid user conversion numbers, rate, whatever you call it. And so, obviously, revenue from users has gone up as well, but since we are a... Our plans are basically broken down by error rates, right? So what happens when people upgrade is they get too many errors for their plan. It says, "Hey, you should upgrade if you want to keep sending us errors," and they do.Starr:I had this weird situation where it's like I wasn't sure... In our system, revenue from users was coming just from whatever plan they picked when they signed up, and so I was wondering, "Well, what if they sign up, and then a week later they upgrade? That's going to be counted under upgrade revenue instead of new user revenue," which, really, it really kind of should be. So I got to digging, and I found that it doesn't really make that big of a difference. Some people do upgrade pretty quickly after converting, but they don't... It's not really enough to really change things.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Then, also, just sort of offhand, I took a little sneak peek. I've been running this experiment to see if lowering our error quota for our basic, our free plan, it would increase conversions. So I took a little sneak peek at the data. It's too soon to know for sure, but so far the conversion rate, I think, is going to end up being higher, which is what I would expect, so that's good, and-Josh:Nice.Starr:Yeah. And when we're done, I'm going to look at sign-ups just to make sure that they are still in line.Ben:Yeah. Anecdotally, I've seen a smaller window from trial to paid conversion. Well, not trial, but freemium to paid conversion. I've seen people who are signing up, getting on the basic plan, and then within some short time period they're actually going to a team plan.Josh:Oh, that's good to know.Ben:That's happening more often than it was, so... Yeah. So that's-Josh:Cool.Ben:I'm just saying the same thing Starr said but without real data.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, we need a little bit more time to see how things pan out, too, because it's... One thing I figured out that I will share with our readers, our readers, I'm used to doing the blog posts, I'll share with our listeners that I figured out that you really have to pay attention to, on free plans especially, is comparing conversion rates between time periods. So if you make a change and then you wait for a month of data to come in and you're like, "Okay, let's look at the conversion rate for the past month after the change with the conversion rate for the time period before the change," that is really an apples to oranges comparison because on the one hand you've had people who have maybe had a year to upgrade versus people who've had a month to upgrade. So you have to be really careful to make it apples to apples, right, where you only compare... If you have a month worth of users on one side, you compare it to a month worth of users on the other side, and you only count the conversions that happened in that time period.Josh:Makes sense.Starr:Yeah. So, anyway, that's just my little freebie data analysis thing for our listeners.Josh:We should have Starr's weekly data science tip.Starr:Starr's data corner.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Love it.Josh:Yeah. We could move the podcast to segments. We've never done segments. We could introduce segments if we need to spice things up on FounderQuest.Ben:Yeah. Totally. Well, speaking of spicing things up, I had a brilliant idea this morning.Starr:Oh, I want to hear it.Ben:Yeah. So one of the things that I keep an eye on is how much we spend on hosting because that's a good chunk of our expenses. We always want to make more money, and one way to make more money is to have fewer expenses. So I had this brilliant idea on how to cut expenses. We can chop our AWS bill in half by just not running everything redundant.Starr:There you go.Josh:Brilliant.Starr:Would you say the AWS is the sixth Honeybadger employee?Ben:Yeah, pretty much.Josh:Yes. That's a good way to put it, actually.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Well, in the early days, before we were paying ourselves a full salary, I remember we budgeted 25% for Starr, 25% for Ben, 25% for Josh, and 25% for hosting.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't think we ever exceeded the 25%, which is good. That would be a bit high. So, yeah, AWS is like our sixth employee.Starr:Yeah, it's funny because do we even have other expenses?Josh:No.Ben:I mean, salaries is definitely the biggest one, and our health insurance is not cheap either.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Advertising.Starr:I was thinking like marketing, advertising. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Advertising and marketing, that's the next one.Starr:That's the next 25%.Josh:Can we make AWS our seventh and eighth employee, too?Ben:Eventually may. Yeah, I did some... Oh. Oh. So I told you my great success that I had this morning. Well, your comment just now about AWS made me think about the one failure, just amazingly huge failure that I had also this week, migrating a bunch of data from Redis to DynomoDB. So we have this situation where it's one of those seemed like a good idea at the time kind of thing where we're doing a bunch of counting of people and individuals that hit errors, and we're counting that in Redis. I'm like, "Okay, great," because Redis has this INCRBY and it's easy and it's atomic and, boom, you're done, and I just never paid much attention to it until a few weeks ago, and I was like, "Yo, you know what? That's actually a lot of data in there, and we're keeping that forever, and so it's probably better to put it someplace that's not Redis." So I'm like, "Ah, I know. I'll do DynamoDB because it has an increment thing and...Josh:Yeah.Ben:So I put a table together, and I wrote a migration script, and I migrated a bunch of data. It took two days. It's great. Everything is beautiful. Had buckets of data inside DynomiteDB, and then I went to go query it, and I'm like, "Oh, I can't query it that way because I don't have the right index." Well, that sucks. All right. So you can't create a local index on DynomiteDB without recreating the table. I'm like, "Okay, well, that sucks. I just lost two days worth of data migration but oh well." So dump the table, recreated it with the index, and started redoing the data migration, and I'm like, "Yeah, it might take two days, no problem." So I check on it every half-day or so, and it's not going to be getting done after two days. Three days go by, and I'm checking the work backlog, and I was like, "It's just flat."Ben:Turns out because of that local index, now Dynamo can't really write fast enough because the way they do the partition throttling and stuff because we have some customers who have huge chunks of data. So their partitions are too big for Dynamo to write very quickly. Hot partition keys is the problem. So I just gave up. I'm like, "All right, fine." Drop the table again, recreated it, and now we're just double writing so that, eventually, given six months from now or so, it'll be there and I can replace that thing in Redis.Josh:Nice.Ben:So this is my life, the ups and the downs. So, yeah.Josh:And just waiting six months.Ben:And just waiting six months.Josh:Yeah. That's funny, but that is kind of a pattern in the business. In some cases, we need to just wait for the data to populate itself, and we just have to basically wait our retention period because data tends to turnover and then we can drop the old database or whatever.Ben:Yeah. Yep. But, luckily, nobody noticed my big fail, so it's all good. It didn't impact the customers.Josh:I didn't notice.Ben:So, yeah, busy weekend.Starr:I noticed, but I didn't say anything because I wanted to be nice.Ben:Thank you, Starr. Appreciate that.Starr:Yeah, I [inaudible].Josh:Starr was over there just quietly shaking her head.Ben:Just judging. Just judge-Starr:No, sorry.Ben:So, Josh, I'm going to get back to this Java thing because I'm curious. I remember, I don't know, a year ago or something, we're kind of like, "Maybe we should just not when it comes to Java anymore." So I'm curious what prompted this renewed activity to do a new release.Josh:Well, I don't know. I figured... I don't know. Didn't we say we were just not going to do any releases?Ben:Yeah, it just-Josh:It's not high on my list of development. We're not spending a bunch adding stuff to it, but there are dependency updates that have been getting merged in. I merged the Dependabot PRs and stuff. There's something else. There might be some small PR or something that someone submitted that was sitting there on release, and I just can't handle just unreleased code sitting on the pane. So it's just one of those things that's been sitting on my backlog halfway down the list just gnawing at me every week, so I figured I'd dive in and at least get some sort of quick release, relatively quick release process down so we can just continue to release dependency updates and stuff, like if there's a security update or something, so...Ben:Yeah.Josh:Some people still do use it, so I want to make sure they're secure.Ben:Make sure they're happy. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But, yeah, that's a good point. We are not treating all platforms as equal because we just don't have the resource, so we need to focus on the stuff that actually is making us money.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, it's tough when very few of our customers are actually using that for it to get a whole lot of priority.Josh:That said, we have already put a lot into it, so as far as I know, it works well for the people that have used it.Starr:So are y'all encouraging our customers to do more Java?Josh:Yes, switch to Java. Then switch to SentryBen:Ride a wave.Josh:... or something.Ben:So I've been contemplating this new laptop showing up, right, whenever Apple finally releases it and I get to get my hot little hands on it. I've been thinking, well, the one big downside to getting a new laptop is getting back to a place where you can actually work again, right, getting all your things set up. Some people are smart, like Josh, that have this DOT file, this repo, on GitHub, and they can just clone that, and they're off to the races. I'm not that smart. I always have to hand-craft my config every time I get a new machine. But I'm thinking-Josh:Oh. Take the time.Ben:So, yeah, I'm not looking forward to that part, but GitHub has released Codespaces, and so now I'm thinking, "Ooh, I wonder if I could get all our repos updated so that I could just work totally in the cloud and just not even have a development set-up on my machine." Probably not, but it's a fun little fantasy.Josh:Well, then you could have any little... You could work on your iPad.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't even need a laptop. Then I could save the company money. That's brilliant, Josh.Josh:Yeah. You could work at the library.Starr:Yeah. It's like, "So your main ops guy, I see he's primarily working from a five-year-old iPad."Ben:At a library.Starr:In a library.Josh:An iMac.Starr:When he gets paged, he has to run to the nearest Starbucks and get that wifi.Josh:Yeah. I got to say, having your DOT files all ready to go and all that is pretty good. Also, I've got my Brewfile, too, so all of my Homebrew stuff is automated in that.Ben:Well, that's clever. I never even thought of that.Josh:It does make it very quick to bootstrap a new machine.Ben:Yeah. Maybe I should take this as initiative to actually put my stuff into DOT files repo and get to that point.Josh:Careful, though, because you might... I've had four computers between your current one and now, so you might end up switching more often because it's easier to do it.Ben:Appreciate that warning. That's good.Josh:Yeah. Speaking of the M1s, I love the M1 MacBook Air that I have. But the battery has been... I don't know what happened, but the battery was fantastic, I don't know, first few months. Ever since then, it's been kind of like it hasn't been lasting. I've been surprised at how fast it's draining, and I go and look at, whatever, the battery health stuff, and it says that health is down to 86% and the condition says it's fair, which does not make me feel warm and fuzzy.Josh:It has 50 cycles, so I think it might be defective, and that sucks because otherwise this machine is maybe one of the best Macs I've had. I guess... Yeah. I've had a few compatibility issues with the architecture, but it's not too bad. I mean, I'm not a Java developer at least, so...Ben:Yeah, I think you need to take that in for a service because that is way soon for that kind of degradation.Josh:Yeah. I might need to do something.Ben:That's a bummer.Josh:Yeah. I don't know. I might have to ship it in because I think our local Portland Apple Store is shuttered currently.Ben:All those protests?Josh:Yeah. It's got eight fences around it and stuff. Downtown Portland's a little rough these days.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Well, I mean, you can always take the trip out to Seattle.Josh:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or there's other... I forget. There's an Apple Store that's not too far outside of Portland. It's where I bought this, so I could take it down there.Starr:Yeah. I'm sad now because I bought my second MacBook from that store in Portland.Josh:Yeah? It's a good store.Ben:Speaking of you coming out to Seattle, I was thinking the other day that maybe we should do a company-wide get-together sometime soon. Be fun to see everybody again in-person.Josh:It would be. Now that we're all vaxxed, we're all super vaxxed. I don't know that Starr is even down for that, though. I'm just looking at Starr.Starr:I don't know. Like, I-Josh:You don't look like you're too stoked on that idea.Starr:I don't know. I'm just-Josh:What with Delta lurking.Starr:The problem is, Josh, is that you have not been reading nursing Twitter.Josh:Uh-huh (affirmative).Starr:So I don't know. Yeah, it's doable. Currently, I think the CDC just released a thing that said vaccine efficiency of preventing COVID infections... It's very good still at preventing bad, I don't know, disease, health problems, whatever, keeping people out of the hospital. It's very good at that. With Delta, it's about 65% effective at preventing infections, and so if you get infected, you can transmit it to other people.Josh:Right.Starr:Yeah. So it's not impossible. It's just like we're just back to this fricking calculus where every possible social interaction you just have to run it through your spreadsheet and your risk analysis and... Ugh.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's like, "Are you worthy of the hassle? No. Sorry, can't make it."Starr:Yeah. Yeah. It's like, "Okay, so what's the probability that meeting with you is going to send my child to the hospital? Okay, that's low enough. Sure."Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's just such a weird world.Josh:Wouldn't it be funny if when you get into your car in the morning, it reads out the probability of you dying in a car accident?Starr:Oh, yeah. Do you know about millimorts?Josh:No.Starr:Oh, you should go Google millimorts. A millimort is a one in a million chance that you will die, and so there's tables and stuff that you can find online that have different activities and what the number of millimorts is about them. So you can compare, and you can be like, "Okay, so going skydiving has this many millimorts as driving so many miles in a motorcycle."Josh:That's awesome. Okay, we have to link this in the show notes because I want to remember to look this up-Starr:Okay. I'll go find it.Josh:... so that I can depress people.Starr:I think there was a New York Times article, too.Ben:Yeah, I totally have to see this because I just signed up for a motorcycle training course and I'm going to get my endorsements so that I know exactly what kind of risks... Though that's probably part of the course, where they try to scare you out of actually getting your endorsement. They probably...Josh:By the way, I'm really glad my morbid humor or my morbid joke landed because for a minute there-Starr:Oh, I'm sorry, it's a micromort.Josh:Oh, a micromort. Okay.Starr:I was like, "Isn't milli 1000?"Josh:Minimort, like-Starr:Milli is 1000.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, that grated at me. I know. My old chemistry teachers are just giving me an F right now.Ben:Yeah, I got to see that.Josh:Well, I'm sure you'll be all right, Ben. I mean, the risk of a motorcycle is much higher than a car, but you just can't think about that all the time because the fun... I'm sure the fun is much...Ben:[inaudible].Josh:It's worth it.Ben:It's worth every hazard. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. The risk is worth the reward.Ben:Yesterday, I just hit 250 miles on the odometer on my scooter, so loving that. It's a lot of fun.Josh:That's cool.Starr:That's a lot of miles for a scooter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:I guess you just love to scoot.Ben:I love to scoot. Well, there you go, Starr. There's our happy ending after that slight dip there.Starr:That slight delay into reality.Josh:I like the dark humor. I don't know. It's always a gamble, though, with depending on... Yeah. But I think, Starr, you're always down to get dark.Starr:Oh, yeah. I'm down with the darkness. All right. Well, should we wrap it up?Ben:Let's wrap it.Starr:Okay. This has been a very witchy episode of FounderQuest, so if you liked it, go give us a review and... Yeah, if not, just keep listening to us. Make it a hate listen. You got to have a couple of those in your line-up. 

FounderQuest
Live From The Indie Hackers' Backstage

FounderQuest

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 27, 2021 18:37


Show notes:Links:Snohomish Centennial trailIndie Hackers AMAIntro CRMFull transcript:Starr:All right. Welcome back. Welcome back, everybody. So we took a little break. We're going to have her hot vax summer, but that-Josh:Hot vax summer.Starr:It turns out that was the mirage. It turns out that was a mirage.Josh:Well, it did reach 112 degrees in Portland. So it was hot.Starr:There you go. Yeah. The summer never existed. It was just an illusion caused by our overwhelming thirst for lots of things.Josh:Mirage.Ben:Well, there were a couple of weeks there that I thought, "Yeah. This is going to work out. And then Delta.Starr:Yeah. It was a couple of nice weeks, wouldn't it?Ben:Yeah. It was. It was.Starr:Except for the panic about, "Oh, crap. I need to learn how to deal with people again."Josh:Wouldn't it be wonderful when we can just look back on those two weeks and just remember those last good two weeks?Ben:Yeah. Went 112 in Portland. That's pretty bad. It got to 116 in my garage.Starr:Yeah.Ben:It's pretty warm.Josh:Yeah. That's like melt some things if you're not careful.Ben:I did not know this until well, at the beginning of the pandemic, that there was actually a special class of freezer called the garage freezer because at the beginning of the pandemic I wanted to have a freezer in my garage. I'm like, "Okay. I'm just going to go to Home Depot and buy a freezer." Oh, no, no, no, no. You can't just buy a freezer to put in your garage. You have to have a garage freezer to put it in your garage. So we have a garage freezer and even with 116 in the garage, the stuff stayed frozen. So I guess it actually works.Josh:Nice. Yeah. My freezer survived as well.Starr:I mean, not having a garage freezer in your garage is almost as bad as wearing white after labor day, or is it before labor day? I forget.Josh:I don't know. I never wear white.Starr:I just don't wear white.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah.Starr:Stains too easily.Josh:I just always dress like I'm going to a funeral.Starr:All right. So today's going to be a little bit of a short episode. So we should probably get to the content.Ben:I thought we were already in the content.Starr:I know our reader.Josh:Yeah. It might be short. I don't know.Starr:Oh, we are?Josh:Our podcasts tend to have a mind of their own.Ben:That's true.Starr:Well, that's true. But we've got this Ask Me Anything schedule.Josh:Oh, yeah.Starr:20 minutes from now.Josh:Well, the great thing about asynchronous ask me anything is that they're asynchronous so you can post them even while you're on a podcast and answer the questions whenever you want.Starr:Yeah. Maybe you can, but my brain does not work that way.Josh:Oh, I've got it all queued up.Starr:I've got a one track mind.Josh:It's just a button press. We're locked and loaded.Starr:Oh, you're like Kramer. You've got the button.Josh:No. I'm ready to go.Starr:Sell sell sell!Josh:So yeah. At 10:30, we're recording this podcast. It's 10:08 right now. Pacific. And we're going to be doing an ask me anything AMA on the indie hackers forums.Starr:Yes. And it's a last minute affair as of 20 minutes ago. I didn't have an indie hackers invite code. We're running around scrambling.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. Ben wanted to try a new podcast recording software, and I'm just like, "No. I can't handle this amount of change in my life right now."Josh:We need to title this episode, live from the indie hackers backstage, by the way.Josh:[crosstalk]Starr:Oh, yeah. I don't know if you like a live album.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Okay.Josh:We're doing it live.Starr:Well, so Ben suggested, when you talk about one work thing and one vacation thing we did. And I guess, I'll start because I didn't actually have a vacation. I just got sick a lot, which I didn't get COVID, but there was some sort of bug that was going around and I got it and I was out for a couple of weeks. And so I guess that was my vacation. I don't know. I just played a lot of Diablo III.Josh:That's cool.Starr:Yeah.Ben:We got our worst vacations in Diablo III.Josh:Yeah. We got away for a few days. We went to this lake up north of Spokane in Washington and just five nights or something. But on the trip there, we're looking at our friends who were already up there, sent us the fire map of Washington. And we are traveling, literally our destination is in the middle of six fires.Starr:Oh no.Josh:We're like, "Should we be turning around?" I don't know. But it turned out all right. We breathe too much smoke the first couple of days, but it cleared up and-Starr:Yeah. After the first couple of days you hardly notice it.Josh:I only got a minor headache.Starr:Your nerves just die. The nerves in your lungs.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's okay. We have good health insurance.Josh:I'm an ex smoker. So I'll just tack it on, it's just like adding a couple of days.Ben:It's like getting that upgrade package when you're buying a $30,000 car. And it's like, "What's another thousand dollars?Josh:Yeah. I've already got the risk.Ben:Yeah. I stayed closer to home. I read a bunch of books and I got out for a nice bike ride, went to the Snohomish Centennial trail. So it starts in Snohomish and it goes up through Arlington and it's rails to trail conversion. So there used to be railroad tracks there, but now it's a paved trail. And the thing that's neat though, they have a bunch of trail heads and a few of them have the recreations of the old train stations. So it's like, you can act like you're getting on board that train and actually getting on-Josh:Oh, that's nice. Really nice.Ben:Yeah.Josh:That's cool.Ben:That's a lot of fun. Let's see, a work thing that I did. It's a blur.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I probably migrated something somewhere at some point. And back-filled something-Josh:You were busy.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. You did a lot.Ben:Yeah. I can't remember what I did.Starr:Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things, right? We're working with that sales consultancy, what is it? Intro CRM people?Ben:Yeah. Did do that.Starr:Have you done some outreach? You got some replies even?Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It's been kind of a mixed bag. So I've gotten some replies, but also the outbound stuff has not really been all that productive. So I'm questioning my life choices at this point.Starr:Have you had any overt hostility though?Ben:No overt hostility.Starr:Oh, you're not pushing hard enough then. You want your OH metric to be at least 10%. At least 10%, you want death threats.Ben:I will take that under advisement.Starr:Okay. That's how you know you're really-Josh:Really selling it.Starr:Yeah. I would say coffee's for closers, but you don't drink coffee. So there you go. Oh, cool. On my end, I don't know. We published our first batch of Honeybadger intelligence reports and I don't know. Loyal listeners might remember from last time, I mean, if you don't remember how loyal are you and how much should I even trust you, but yeah. You might remember that we were working on these things. Basically, they are quarterly reports for a certain programming language where if you kind of need to keep an eye on, I don't know. Front-end JavaScript, but you don't want to just inhale the feed of news that's constantly coming out, you can just look at this beautiful quarterly report. And we are publishing them quarterly now on our blog. And the first batch went out three weeks late, maybe a month late, I don't know. I didn't give myself enough time to get them ready for publication. And then I got sick for two weeks and just could barely crawl to the computer. So I'm sorry. I'll do better next time.Josh:If that's you're going to say, if you don't want to inhale the whatever weekly newsfeed, you can inhale it once a month or once a quarter. Just all.Starr:Well, no. We're not just collating everything together.Starr:[crosstalk].Starr:We're concatenating together.Josh:It's like a curation of curation.Starr:Yeah. We're not just a pending three months worth of Hacker News together. We're going in and applying some real intelligence to it. We have real domain experts.Josh:Editorial.Starr:Curating.Josh:Occasionally?Starr:Yes. Providing you the choicest morsels.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:Hand crafted morsels of information.Starr:Yeah. Maybe I should be doing these outreach emails.Ben:Yeah. I think so.Ben:I've got the wrong person writing this stuff.Starr:Yeah. They'd be like, "Are these people even professionals?"Josh:Well, that should be obvious from our website.Starr:Yes.Josh:I'll let you decide which way that goes.Ben:Wow. I've been sitting here while you're talking, thinking, what did I do? I'm like, "This is not good. If I can't remember doing anything useful for the past three months, that's probably a sign that I'm doing the wrong things."Starr:I mean, it could just be, you did a lot, Ben. I can remember things you've done. Can we got set up in a new compliance automated thing?Ben:Oh, yeah. Then the compliance-Starr:Yeah. An automated compliance thing. So you don't have to juggle all that stuff manually.Ben:Yeah. We got our SOC 2 type two report done. So we're legit now. We're officially doing the things that we said we would do.Starr:We're enterprise.Ben:Yeah. Full on enterprise.Josh:That's amazing.Ben:Yeah. And it wasn't a particularly painful process. I mean, it wasn't pleasant, but yeah. We survived.Starr:My favorite part of that was that, so as part of this automated security, your automated SOC 2 compliance stuff, all of the employees I guess, have to do mandatory security training once a year now. And it's this automated quiz where you have to read something and then it asks you questions. So it was a really weird big business moment, where I just felt, okay. I'm watching this training video. It should have 50s music in the background of it. And I hate to admit that I got stuck on the first question for 10 minutes. For 10 minutes. Because it was an easy question, but it was one of those things where it's like, "What's the correct answer? Choose one or more." And the correct answer was all of them. But for some reason, I had selected them all with my keyboard and that wasn't good enough. I had to click on them to show I really meant it because hackers generally use keyboards. So they're not really trustworthy devices.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Starr it was like a JavaScript bug.Starr:So eventually, I literally tried every combination. Eventually, I was just like, "Okay. I'm just going to try the first one again," and it worked. So there you are. There you are.Ben:I can't believe you're giving away the answers to our security questions on the podcast. That's a breach of security.Starr:Yeah. I mean, I think our security questions have some security vulnerabilities if, you can manually brute force them. You have four binary options. That's what? Four factorial combinations? You can knock that out in an hour.Ben:Starr is hacking the mainframe.Starr:I am hacking the planet.Josh:That's how Starr passed the security test.Starr:Yeah. That's also how I got such a great score on the SAT, by the way. You just take it, I don't know. 128 factorial times and then you just brute force it.Josh:Nice. How long did that take you?Starr:I don't know. I still haven't graduated from high school.Josh:I sort of graduated from high school.Starr:Well, you can tell you've been away for a while. Because I just have all this bullshit that I've saved up for you all, and it's just all coming out now.Ben:So I was surprised to learn. I don't know why this surprised me, but it surprised me nonetheless, when we had our all hands meeting recently that we have three Honeybadger employees that have children starting kindergarten this year.Starr:Oh, my God. Yes.Ben:That's pretty wild.Starr:It's pretty terrifying. It's pretty terrifying. I'm glad that I live in Seattle. You guys don't. Josh and Kevin don't, but I mean, you all live in fairly reasonable places where governors aren't banning masks in school.Josh:Yeah.Ben:As they themselves are going to get advanced treatments for their COVID infections. Yeah.Starr:Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's okay. We love you Texas. We just don't love your governor.Ben:Speaking of Texas. So this random tidbit I saw the other day, Austin, Texas of course, you know the housing market has been crazy. As far as prices go over the past several months, people have been overbidding regularly on how to just be able to-Josh:Oh, I read that.Josh:A hundred grand?Ben:Yeah. So Austin, Texas.Josh:That's what I'm asking.Ben:A hundred grand over asking price. So you have a $400,000 list price, but you actually got to pay $500,000 to get the house. That's crazy.Starr:That is wild.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. I had to drop off my car at the mechanic to get its normal service and I was walking by, and this was this morning and there's this kind of older condo building. It's not great looking or anything. And it's two bedroom condo, 900 square feet is now selling for the same price that I bought my single-family house with big yard and everything three blocks away. And that was five or six years ago? Six years ago?Ben:Crazy stuff.Starr:It's bizarre. Totally. I don't know. It's the sort of thing like it feels kind of gross even. Just because I was able to scrape together a down payment for a house, suddenly I get, I don't know. A hundred grand a year extra just in appreciation.Josh:You just hit a jackpot.Starr:Yeah. But it's just like, okay. I literally did nothing to deserve that. And meanwhile, people who could use that or I mean, I could use it, but I'm not in dire straits. I don't know. It's just like, "Wow, this whole system is just kind of backwards and weird."Ben:Yeah. It's to the point I'm getting unsolicited offers to buy my house, right?Starr:Oh, me too.Ben:I'm getting these letters in the mail like, "Hi, I'm Bob and my wife is Alice and we'd like to buy your house." And I'm like looking at the letters, "Is this is really an automated thing or do they really write this by the hand?"Starr:I've had people call me on the phone, in person.Ben:They called you?Starr:Yeah. They called me. Three houses on my block have been demolished in the past two months, three older houses, one of them was just really messed up. But two of them were these small houses on big lots. And essentially what happened is a developer bought almost every house on the opposite side of the street from me and is now basically filling up the lots with as many units as they can. So I think they're going to end up with like 18 units out of these five or six houses, which is fine. I guess. I don't mind density and everything, but it's just so wild because it's like, "Oh, it finally caught up with us." Because for a long time we were just over the edge where things were nice, we were just one block over from the nice stuff. And it finally caught up with us. So we're going to have to move now because we're not fancy enough for the neighborhood anymore.Josh:Yeah. Just cash out.Ben:Yeah. Move to Kansas.Starr:Yeah. I mean, that's the problem though. It's like, "Okay. Great." I get all this appreciation, but if I ever want to get a new house, it's like, "Okay. I've got to pay those new prices."Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah. We've looked at that too, or you could sell and rent for a few years and see if anything happens. That would probably be a gamble.Starr:That would be a really bad gamble I think. I mean, I don't know.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Considering no markets decline anymore.Starr:I mean, they, they could decline, but you're trying to time it.Josh:Time the housing the market?Starr:Yeah.Starr:Maybe it'll decline, but yeah.Ben:This got me thinking, real estate agents, they want you to trade up, right? You buy your starter house and then you buy your bigger house and then eventually you downsize again because hey, why not have another transaction that a real estate agent can take a commission on, right? And it just got me thinking, why don't we have that for businesses? Why can't you trade up your business, right?Josh:Like trade it?Ben:Yeah. It's like, "Honeybadger, that's a nice little business. Why don't you trade it on up to a bigger business?Starr:So we sell Honeybadger and then by a larger business.Ben:Right. Right. Like that. Rolled into a down payment for a bigger business, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:I'm not sure if you're very good at that.Josh:I love it.Starr:I don't know.Ben:Maybe this is a new marketing thing we can try. We can figure out new business models.Josh:Because we're getting trade-in program like the private equity firms.Ben:You're slapping the top of your business. You can fit so many customers in here.Josh:Might be our best bit yet.Ben:Well, I guess, we better get ready for our ask me anything session. Got a crack the knuckles and get ready to type.Starr:Crack the old knuckles.Josh:Almost time.Starr:All right. Okay. I will sign us off. All right. So this has been FounderQuest back from hot vax summer, back from vacation or being sick or whatever we call it these days. If you want to give us a review on Apple podcasts, whatever they call it, go for it. If you want to look up this AMA we're about to do on Indie Hackers, we recommend that and yeah. Otherwise, just stay cool, stay safe, and we will see you next week.Ben:Catch you later.Josh:See you.Starr:Bye.

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.

FounderQuest
Does Thinking Still Count As Working?

FounderQuest

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2021 36:35


Show notes:Links:Write for usMaybeJosh Pigford Flu dataFull transcript:Ben:And today we don't have Starr, because Starr is on vacation this week, fireside chat.Josh:I will be on vacation next week, and the week after.Ben:Nice.Josh:I don't know if you saw, I extended my vacation.Ben:I didn't see this.Josh:Yeah. So, surprise!Ben:Two weeks back to back. That's a record.Josh:Yeah. I decided I'm feeling it and I don't think a week is going to be enough. So just thought I'd go for it.Ben:Yeah, I get that. I get that. It's funny, I was looking... We started this vacation calendar, recently, since we are looking at transitioning away from Basecamp, where our vacation calendar was, we are now putting a vacation calendar in Google calendar, because we use G Suite for all of our stuff. And I set up this vacation calendar, and I noticed that Starr put one on there, and then Josh put on a vacation and then Kevin put on a vacation. And then, Ben Findley, just week after week after week, it's like everybody's taking a vacation. I was like, all right, so I put myself on vacation.Josh:Yeah, you got to put yourself in there. Yeah.Ben:I did. Yeah. I added myself yesterday, for the week after Ben Findley's vacation.Josh:I don't know if you went and... I went in and just put a bunch of vacations for the rest of the year for-Ben:I saw that.Josh:... myself. Yeah.Ben:That's awesome.Josh:I mean, they might change, but I figured, if I at least put them in there, that'll force me to think about it and decide. Because that's been an ongoing problem, I always wait too long and then, finally, take the vacation when I just desperately need it, and I want to avoid that cycle, like we're supposed to be. This is supposed to be sustainable.Ben:This is a calm company. It means, lots of vacations.Josh:Yeah. We should be calm if we're running a calm company.Ben:I like that idea of putting on these dates tentatively and just planning on it. I might try that.Josh:Yeah. You should just plan them out. Also, yeah, I put our traditionally long winter vacation on there too, which I think is currently the last two weeks of December and the first week of January, which we can always move that around or sometimes we do the Hack week or whatever.Ben:Yeah. I've come to cherish that tradition. I like having that-Josh:It's nice.Ben:Knowing that's going to be downtime. You know?Josh:Yeah.Ben:I mean-Josh:I like the first week of the year off is kind of... there's something about that, where you don't have to go back to work the day after New Year's or whatever. That feels really nice.Ben:I mean, in reality, we're still on call. So if something broke, were going to work, but, yeah, it is nice not having that expectation of showing up and doing actual productive stuff.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. It's the low bandwidth mode.Ben:Yeah. It's also this past winter when we did that, I used that to just experiment with some stuff, work-related stuff like Elasticsearch and whatever, so that's kind of fun. It's a tinkering... even if we don't do an official Hack Week, it's still a good time to do some tinkering and get some of those creative juices going.Josh:Read some books on computer science or something like that, get excited about it again.Ben:Well, going through the SOC 2 compliance thing, the type two for the first time audit, one of the things that I came across that was new was this continuing education tracking thing. So the auditor wants evidence that we're actually doing continuing education for our employees. We always do conferences and stuff, but 2020 was a bad year for conferences, and we've never really tracked continuing education. We just like, "Yeah, let's do this conference," or whatever, and it's kind of ad hoc. And now it's like, "Oh, we need to track this, it's a good idea to plan something." So yeah, digging out those old computer science books or taking a course or doing a conference. Got to do it.Josh:Which is, well, you got to do it, but it's also, to me, that's one of my favorite things to do. I really like learning, so even in my spare time, that's what I like to do.Ben:Same.Josh:So I realized even with, yeah, my perfect workweek is a couple of hours maximum a day of doing the day-to-day things that you have to do, and then spend the rest of the day reading or learning something or working on improving your skills.Ben:Yep. Yeah. I to-Josh:That's what makes me happy.Ben:I don't try to do that every day, I like the idea, but I try to do that on Fridays. Friday to me is like the decompression day, I'm cruising into the weekend now. And so I try to put aside all the normal stuff and just something kind of interesting. Before we got on this morning, I was playing with some Docker stuff, not that we use Docker, but maybe we will someday, and just fiddling with it. You know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I think it's kind of fun.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. I like that.Ben:Until we get one of those customer requests that come in, I'm like, "Oh, I have to do some actual work now." And so, love our customers, but sometimes they can be kind of inconvenient, legitimate complaints about things need to be fixed.Josh:Or when there's an ops emergency, and so I drop everything and fix it. You had some of that going on this week. I know.Ben:But with both you and Starr got to experience those ops emergencies. It was actually a funny, so Starr, is on vacation, but the Starr was still on call for part of that time.Josh:The first night. Yeah. Because she had scheduled me to take over, was it yesterday? Whatever day it was-Ben:But in the morning.Josh:... but it was the night before. Yeah. It was like-Ben:Yeah, so I imagine in the future she might schedule you to swap a bit earlier, but-Josh:Yeah. I feel bad, because she said that, I guess, they had to get up early for a road trip and it's like 2:00 AM or something, or actually it was like 4:00 AM, I think, by the time the alerts died down.Ben:Yeah. The bad part was that there wasn't really anything to do. There was this spike in memory usage on our Redis Cluster, but it resolved itself, but only after sending some alerts saying, "Hey, somebody better pay attention to this," because that's a critical part of our infrastructure.Josh:Well, I mean, that's happened to me a few times. I mean, that's usually my on-call experience to be honest, and if it's worse than that, there's a good chance I'm waking you up anyways. But I mean, that's part of... You have a system well-architected, at least to the point, where if there is something, it does usually resolve itself, but still you need someone to sit up with it and babysit it until it does, just to make sure. And I mean, it would be totally unfair that you're the one who builds the system and also has to babysit it all the time, so our on call schedule is like a babysitter rotation.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned that, because I was looking at this vacation schedule, it's like, "Oh, when should I take vacation?" So I went and looked at the PagerDuty rotation to try and schedule my vacation away from my rotation on PagerDuty, so I didn't have to swap. And PagerDuty has changed their UI a little bit since the last time I looked at it, and I logged in and it's like, "When are you on call next?" And it says, "You're always on call." Because I'm the-Josh:Because you're level one.Ben:I'm the backup schedule. Yeah.Josh:I know, and that's a problem. I've been thinking about that, so you're not the only one worried about that, but, yeah.Ben:It was just kind of funny. I mean, it hasn't been a quality of life issue for a long time, because we've had so few problems, but still I am that backup. If it goes, what is it, more than half an hour or something, then I get woken up. But it was just kind of funny to see, you're always on call.Josh:Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'd say that's the major downside of our business is just the nature of that. And also just the nature of expertise. I feel like when I leave, it's much harder on the team, solving a lot of the customer support issues that come up related to our libraries and things. And I mean, that's part of the reason we've wanted to bring more people in the business, but then you end up with more people in the business, and then you're tied to a management role that you can't leave too. So there's trade-offs there.Ben:Yes. It's the struggle of all the bootstrap SaaS operators that are small like us, how do I get time away when I'm the solo founder? Or maybe it just two co-founders, how do we take a break? Justin has talked about this with their customer support for Transistor. They felt like they were always just having to stay on top of that, and they could never take a break. And so, they hired someone to help out with that. And having Kevin around has really helped spread the rotation out, and he's taken up a lot of the ops stuff and gotten familiar with it. So-Josh:Yeah. He's taken an interest in it, which is good.Ben:Yeah. It's been great for me.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. It's a hard problem to solve, because, I mean, yeah, you could add people, but then you got to pay those people, and so your profitability takes a hit, so it's a balance.Josh:Yeah. And I mean, I think, I don't know about you, I prefer to stay small. I don't think... I've moved past the idea of I want to have a company with tons of employees or whatever. I think that actually would make... I wouldn't be as happy with that situation, probably, as with our current situation, with a few employees and small team. We probably spend a lot more time trying to solve these problems than larger companies do, because they just throw people at it. But yeah, I feel like-Ben:That just introduces a different set of problems, right?Josh:It does.Ben:You really just have to pick which set of problems you want. Do you want to be tied to the business? Or do you want to deal with the layers of management and the people problems that come with not being tied, personally, to the business?Josh:Yeah. So, yeah-Ben:Yeah.Josh:I don't know, over time though, I think I tend towards wanting to spend less time on the business or at least, when I say, on the business, I mean, less time on those things that I just have to be doing and don't want to be doing. I want to try to always be doing the things I want to be doing. And yeah. I mean, I know just general management stuff does not fall into that bucket of what I want to be doing.Ben:It's not your dream in life to be a manager.Josh:Nope. It's not even my dream in life to be traveling the world 200 days a year or something, and preaching the gospel or something.Ben:Yeah. I've thought about that recently too. Looking at companies that get really big, whether they take a bunch of money or not regardless, but they turn into tens and then hundreds of employees. And I think about what would that be to be a CEO of that kind of company? And I'm just like, I just don't know that I would really enjoy that. There would be a certain set of excitement, yes, no doubt, about having that kind of business.Ben:I can think of right now about Tobi at Shopify, because I remember when Tobi started at Shopify, and watch that grow. And just thinking about, it's got to be pretty fun and in some ways to be Tobi, to be on top of this organization and doing these cool things and seeing the impact that you're making. And they've gone public, there's a whole lot of cool stuff there, but there's also a lot of annoying stuff there. That come along with those cool things. And it's like, ah, I think I'm happy where I am. I don't think I need to be the CEO of Shopify or something that size to have that fulfillment in my career right now.Josh:Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that you find new ways to guard your time and it just becomes even more, that's why no one can reach the CEO, usually. But, I mean, it's all... Yeah. It just puts you in an even more critical position. The pressure and responsibility must still be pretty, it just must be massive. But-Ben:It must be.Josh:Yeah. I guess, I don't really know, because I've never been in that position. I'm just guessing.Ben:Right, right. And life phases might change somethings and maybe when the kids are grown and gone, maybe you'll feel like, ah, I want a new challenge, something bigger. I think you see that a lot with founders, like us, who build something, sell it. And they're like, "Huh, let me try a bigger swing. Let me try..." Like Josh is doing right now, he did it did Baremetrics, he sold that, and now he's building out Maybe, and I think he's definitely thinking bigger scope kind of stuff.Josh:It looks like it. Yeah.Ben:Or you can just go buy a ranch somewhere and just chill, right?Josh:Right. Well, I think it's kind of... I mean, yeah, those aren't unsimilar to me. I mean, I think the big point is or the major thing is, if you're financially set and you can, again, do whatever you want to do, then, yeah, go do it. But again, even, say, if we sold the business and didn't have to work another day in our lives, we could just go buy that ranch and just kick back on it. If I decided to go and start another company, I wouldn't want to start a company that is going to demand my time and involvement, like most companies do.Josh:I'd probably try to go start another Honeybadger or something, maybe, you could go larger scale, but something that solves for those problems. Yeah, and I don't know what that looks like, but I feel like some companies of the future are kind of like... The ones that GitLab, that take a more open source approach. I don't know exactly what being in charge of GitLab is like, but I'm sure it's not a walk in the park either, but experimenting with new ways to spread responsibility around. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. And maybe the answer is, that's a scenario where you do have to take a bunch of money, so you can get those employees to make that lift, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. I think if we sold Honeybadger and we did something new, I think it has to be different in some dimension or otherwise, why did you sell?Josh:Yeah. It would have to be.Ben:And so maybe it's a different audience. Maybe it's a different size. Maybe it's venture backed versus doing it from scratch. I think it would have to be different in some significant way for it to be interesting enough to actually do versus just spending the rest of my retirement tinkering or whatever.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. I guess, getting to that critical point with employees is the thing that's hard, going from what we have, which is kind of like where we're so small that we have things we have to still be here for, but we can just disconnect whenever we want to, for the most part, like take a week off if we want to, and just do customer support or be on call. But jumping from that to the point where, say, you have 50 employees or something and you're the CEO, and you can just be like, "Okay, everyone, I'm going to be gone for a week, carry on." Which I think you can do when you have other people managing people.Josh:But in between that, there's a very... it's like if you're growing out your hair, there's that weird, you know, the annoying stage where your hair, just like you hate it. And it's like, it just doesn't work. And you're... Yeah, it just seems like that exists when you're trying to grow a business where it's hard with 10 people, all 10 of those people are looking to you for leadership on a regular basis. And you're still connected to the major centers of the business.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I hadn't really thought of it that way, and that makes total sense to me. There's those growing pains that you would get going from one phase to another.Josh:And I guess, I'm not sure, having been doing what we're doing as long as we have, I'm not convinced that I want to go through that pain that I know is there to get to that stage where I know that we probably would be in another... we'd be back in the position where we could probably have more freedom, or hire a CEO then to just run the business, which people do.Ben:Well, I mean, I wonder, so two thoughts that I have. I wonder, if you're a venture back startup, if you start from scratch with a bunch of money in the war chest, do you avoid some of those growing pains? Because you can just, right out of the gate, hire a bunch of people, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:So I wonder that, and then the follow on-Josh:Good thought.Ben:Yeah, I have no idea. And the follow on thought is, well, like in our situation, we've been around for a long time, we have profitable business, we're great, what if we take on an investment now, and then that gives us that money to hire a bunch of people? To help you accelerate through that growing pain phase, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:If you had one or two people here and there that's painful, but if you add 10 or 20 people, I don't know, maybe that's a different kind of pain, but maybe it's a better kind of pain. Because it's like ripping the band-aid off, because you did all done at once.Josh:Yeah. No, that's a good point. Yeah. That's something that I hadn't factored in, in that line of thinking. So, yeah, I think he could be right, that that is a common use of funding and capital investment and all that.Ben:Yeah. I would be open to that idea, if we had figured out the sales machine. If we could say, "Oh, we can deploy X amount of people, and we know that X amount of revenue would come in, because we'd be doing these Y activities."Josh:Totally.Ben:But we haven't quite got there yet. We have a really strong inbound, but we don't really have an outbound or we don't have a process even for dealing with inbound sales, because everything right now is hands-off, right?Josh:It's not scalable. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're doing this to ourselves, to some extent, just in our own lack of knowledge or experience in those areas, but that's part of the learning process. So-Ben:Yeah, you're right.Josh:... we are... I think it's smart though, to be focusing on those areas now, to open up those possibilities in the future. So that if we change our minds and realize that we could scale the business to a point where we can, again, have the same thing that we have now only potentially better because we don't have those, even the small responsibilities, that drag us back in, on a regular basis.Ben:Yeah, yeah. We're still choosing to grow slow and to keep it pretty calm, keep that calm company.Josh:Yeah. That's the point of calm-Ben:Right. If we take it big chunk of money, we could hire the VP of Marketing, the VP of sales, the VP of engineering, right? And then we could-Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:... presumably step back once we got these people set on the, here's the goal, now get it, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:But, yeah, that would be a less calm company, for sure.Josh:Yeah.Ben:At least for a while.Josh:Yep. And even if that's to the extent that that's possible, yeah, I don't know, I mean, you still have to build the idea of the calm company into that business. Otherwise, you'll just end up with 30 to 50 people that are chaotic and-Ben:Right. Yeah.Josh:... calling you all the time or emailing you. Yeah. So I guess I'll revise my statement, it's like, I'm not willing to grind it out to get to the next level. If that's what it comes down to, I'm happy, let's just stay where we are for... I'm fine, we run the business as an asset and try to build the lifestyle aspect of it more than anything else. But if we can find a way to scale the business and then maybe invest in it so that we can accelerate the jump, or a hair faster, so to speak.Ben:I like that.Josh:I'm terrible at metaphors. I feel like this one might actually be working, but Starr's the metaphor person. So I feel like I'm really on... I'm going to risky position right now.Ben:Better stop while you're ahead, right?Josh:Yeah.Josh:No more metaphors for the rest of the day.Ben:I think that the hair growth thing works, just have to take care of not to offend all of our bald listeners, you know?Josh:Right. Yeah. So I went to a Starbucks this week and did some work inside of it-Ben:Whoa.Josh:... without a mask.Ben:Wow. That's brave.Josh:I still did the distancing stuff just because it seems smart. I wasn't hugging everyone, but, yeah, they've got it all posted, it's like, if you're vaccinated, the mask is optional. Plus I was drinking a beverage, so... But yeah, I had a Zoom session at the Starbucks, and it was a novel experience.Ben:Very nice. Yeah. I went to a Target this week for the first time in a long time, and yeah, I just put my mask on out of habit. It's like, get out of the car, put the mask on, go in the store, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:And I'm walking around and I don't know, maybe a quarter of the people there didn't have masks, it's like, oh yeah, it's not required anymore, really. I'm vaccinated. I'm like, huh, cool. And I'll just get a long my way, but it's like, I have to get used to this new reality of not having to wear a mask.Josh:That not everyone... Yeah. Although I still suspect that a large portion of the people that are going to take them off or aren't going to wear them are the people that were always not wearing them.Ben:Yeah. Although I will say, if I were still doing mass transit every day, like I used to do, I would definitely be still wearing a mask, if it was any time cold or flu season-Josh:Oh yeah.Ben:I'm not going back to that prehistoric animal way of not covering myself during germy season.Josh:Well, there's that flu statistics that I guess have been coming in from the CDC, since the season is coming to an end 2020, 2021 or whatever, and it seems the whole social distancing. Masking situation, hand-washing really drastically improved that situation. I don't know, I forget what the numbers were, but it was ridiculous.Ben:Yeah, it's dropped like 99% or something crazy.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Something like that.Ben:It's nuts.Josh:Which is-Ben:It's awesome.Josh:... wild. Give it a little time for the data to get worked out, I guess, because just seems prudent. But I mean, either way, it seems like it's a massive thing.Ben:Yeah. I would definitely need to normalize mask wearing during germs, no doubt.Josh:Yeah. Yep. I'm cool with never getting sick again.Ben:Totally. Well, and on that note, this fall kids will actually be going to school, and it'll be an exciting adventure. All those, snot nosed punks running around getting each other sick again.Josh:Yeah. That'll be the real test. That's just going to knock us out. Yeah. Yeah. My daughter's, Tatum's starting kindergarten in the fall.Ben:Wow.Josh:And that'll be her... We did preschool at home. So yeah, that's going to be wild.Ben:First school experience, huh?Josh:Yes.Ben:Yeah, that's-Josh:I'm entering a new stage. I feel like, a new phase.Ben:Yeah. It's bittersweet. You're like, oh, that's so exciting. And it's like, oh.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, yeah. I remember those days with fondness.Josh:What's also going to be weird, because it's going to force me to start interacting with other parents in the community, which I think that's my biggest thing right now is like, oh, no, I-Ben:You better watch out, next thing you know, you'll be the president of the PTSA. You'll be organizing bake sales, and-Josh:Yeah, we're definitely going to be the... I think we'll be the weird parents, in our area, anyway.Ben:It's funny. I've noticed this, this arc, your first kid goes into kindergarten and you're so into PTA and PTSA. You're like, "I'm going to take care of all the things. I'm going to volunteer in the classroom." And you're really engaged and involved and it's so good. And then over time you start to back off a bit. It's like, "Oh, I don't really need to do all the things, there are other people that help," you know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:And then by the time they get to the tail end and they get close to graduation from high school, you're just like, "I don't even care what they're doing anymore. Educate yourself, kid. You figure it out."Josh:Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean I had to basically educate myself, so you can.Ben:Yeah, yeah. Totally. It's funny seeing the new wave of parents come in every year to the PTA, and then all of a sudden they go out, again, as the new wave comes in.Josh:And you having been there for a while, that sounds kind of like, oh no metaphors. Like if you go to a gym regularly and every New Year's, like the first two weeks of January, that's what it sounds to me.Ben:Yep. Yeah. Totally. Yeah.Josh:Because everyone comes in and is just super dedicated, and then over the next couple of weeks, it's just, they all filter out again and you're back to the same 10 people in the afternoon or whatever.Ben:Right. Yeah. And all the regulars get annoyed because of it. They're like, "Oh, all these people crammed in one place."Josh:Yeah. All this exuberance is just... Yeah.Ben:Yeah. So gym, that's a open question for me right now. So I still have a gym membership. I haven't canceled it, but I haven't been since the beginning of the pandemic. And even though I'm a 100% vaccinated, and I'm feeling invincible, still, the gym is one place I'm like, I don't know. I still feel kind of uncomfortable at that. Still trying to decide whether or not I'm going to keep that membership, because I really enjoy going, but I don't know, I don't really want to wear a mask while I'm exercising, that just sucks.Josh:Yeah, that was mine too, I just didn't... Yeah.Ben:Yeah. And wiping down everything, I'm not a super sweaty person, so I'm not the kind of person that really needs to wipe down the equipment as soon as I'm done with it, because it's like, I just touch it. I didn't have a bath on it. And so I'm just... I don't know. I don't even know if they have a kitchen cleaning procedure that you have to do now, because, again, I haven't been to the gym, but I don't know. It's tough.Josh:I haven't been to the gym, because I got my home gym in 2019, the end of 2019, and so it's been that long. But I do sweat and I was used to just wiping down the equipment in between, it's not that bad. Especially if you... you can even carry a towel with you if you want, but most gyms have the whatever clothes-Ben:Yeah. Wipes.Josh:... and spray bottles and stuff. It's not the end of the world, but the mask thing, yeah, the idea of working out in a mask does not appeal to me. Even though it could be a plus for some people, like the people that are training for high altitudes and stuff. Some people wear the mask on the treadmills and I'm sure those people are like, "Sweet, that's just extra challenge."Ben:Right, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:So I'm still doing the home stuff and it's just not as-Josh:You should-Ben:... awesome.Josh:... give it a try.Ben:Yeah. I guess I should. I should call them and say, "Hey, what's the deal down there?"Josh:I mean, I figure from what has been reported, the vaccines are very effective.Ben:Yeah, totally.Josh:And I mean, I understand the hesitancy, give it some time, obviously, that's prudent, the wait and see approach is completely valid. But after that, I mean, if you're immune, you're immune. So at some point you have to start-Ben:Living again.Josh:Yeah. Getting back out there, putting yourself back out there. But I mean, it's not a bad thing to be cautious, so I understand.Ben:Yeah. Just get back in the habit, I guess.Josh:Yeah. And I mean, to be fair, I'm also not at the gym with a bunch of people spitting in my face. So just to be clear, I'm giving this advice from my bunker.Ben:Yeah. You've got the sweet home gym set up. I'm jealous.Josh:Yeah. Actually, I've reduced my routine a little bit lately, and I've actually been doing more yoga and flexibility things, because I always go really hard with the weightlifting, and I'm not getting any younger. And so injuries are more frequent, and so I've been doing two days, two days a week right now just to keep up the major lifts and stuff, but kind of taking a little bit of a break.Ben:Have you done any of the Apple Fitness stuff?Josh:Yeah, I did one of the yoga sessions on it, when I was just... because I did yoga last year, when I had some injury stuff, and it was good, and I should have just kept doing it. And so, that's why I tried when I first started getting back into it this year, and it was really good. It was a little intense though for a beginner like me. So I've been doing this more beginner training, learning the actual postures and stuff. But then my plan is just to use the Apple Fitness stuff after that, because they seem like they have a lot of good just general-Ben:Yeah. I really like the Apple Fitness stuff. I've done some of the yoga. I didn't do the 30 minute stuff. I did the 10 minutes stuff, because I'm a super beginner, and so I did the really easy yoga, which was great for me. And I've done their high intensity stuff, which was pretty good. I'm not really an aerobics kind of person. I run and I ride, I figure I get enough aerobics that way. But when it was raining and cold and stuff, I just did the high intensity stuff, and that was pretty cool. I really liked that. And I've done their cycling, which is okay, but it's geared, at least the ones that I did, were geared towards being on a indoor cycling machine where you can adjust the intensity easily and stuff.Ben:I'm not, I'm on my own bike on a trainer, where the wheel is propped up and it's on that little roller. And so a lot of the instructions in the thing were, "Okay, let's dial up the resistance." And it's like, "Well, okay, I don't have that good of a setup here. I can't just dial up the resistance." So I had to alter it a bit, but it was still nice.Josh:You got to get your weighted boots on.Ben:I mean, but they do have trainers like mine that actually do have remote control, and so you can do that, but I don't have one. But anyway, I really enjoyed them. The fitness things are cool, and they're set into 30, 20, 10 minute intervals. And so you can like, "Oh, what kind of workout do I want today?" Yeah, I really like it.Josh:Yeah. I like the high intensity stuff for cardio a lot. And otherwise , yeah, I don't know, I could get into running, I think, but I really like walking, so I'll go for super long walks. But again, time is sometimes a factor that... sometimes I'll even just go for the afternoon and just start walking and end up back home at dinner time or something like that. I like that, but I've never been like going out too much. I've gone through a few running phases, but it never really stuck. So I like the high intensity stuff, because as far as I understand, it gives you some of the same benefits without having to run for an hour or something.Ben:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I too love long walks.Josh:Yep. I think that's a great way to spend some of your just general workweek. That's the good alternative to sitting and grinding away at the desk-Ben:No doubt.Josh:... for eight hours a day or whatever. This morning I was wrestling with my kids and stuff. And I was picking them up individually and lifting them up and then throwing them on the bed. And then I was like, "Okay, now I have to go, I have to go back to work." And they're like, "No, no. We just, we want one more." So I was like, "Okay, I've got one more." So I picked them both up, one in each arm. And I do, basically, a lateral raise with them. And as I do this, I don't know what they weigh, but Tatum's over 50 pounds, and of course they're unbalanced, but my entire upper body, just like... I hadn't done any stretching or anything, so my entire upper body just cracks all over, and Caitlin, she's like, "Are you okay?" Apparently it was like, she was concerned for me. So, yeah, I realize, man, it's not the good old days anymore.Ben:You're getting up there in years.Josh:Not that out there, but at the age where you start to notice these things, right?Ben:Yeah.Josh:But I'm not past the point of trying.Ben:So did you do anything this week? I didn't do a whole lot actually. Well, I mean, I did responding to those urgent issues-Josh:Like working, you mean?Ben:Yeah.Josh:I did not get a whole lot of work done this week no. Yeah, no, you're good. I figure, yeah, I mean, again, yeah, I'm ready for a break, so I've been trying my best, but-Ben:You're coasting into that vacation.Josh:Yeah, it's been a struggle.Ben:That's awesome.Josh:But I mean, I think, we need to learn not to feel bad about that. Having a "unproductive" week. And I mean, if I'm... Yeah, honestly, I did things this week, it just wasn't as much work things. Dealt with things at home, read some books, that sort of stuff, that's still being productive, right?Ben:Totally. Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.I thought a lot about our project that we mentioned last week on the podcast about working together with Kevin on, I had spent a fair amount of time thinking about that. And that's one of the things that you can do on those long walks, it can still be working.Josh:Thinking.Ben:Thinking.Josh:Yeah, thinking is totally work.Ben:Thinking is totally work, so I did a lot of thinking this week, and responding to urgent stuff, but also, nearly, nearly done on the compliance thing. I think I have 11 out of 150 evidence requests left to complete. So-Josh:Wow.Ben:... yeah, it's almost there. Next week, I'll be actually talking to the auditors and-Josh:Awesome.Ben:Yeah. It's almost done. That's nice.Josh:And you've got ideas for making it easier next year.Ben:Yep. Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:So, yeah, just plugging away.Josh:So I guess we're cruising.Ben:Yeah, no worries. Well, I guess we can wrap it.Josh:Yeah, wrap it.Ben:They're getting a good one. This has been FounderQuest. We're still coming at you mostly every week, and we really enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, hope you give us a review at iTunes or wherever you can review podcasts, because I never do that, so I have no idea. But if you're into that, please do, and, yeah, check out Honeybadger, of course, because we love having more customers. And I guess we'll see y'all next time.Josh:Catch you later.

FounderQuest
Will Working Together Ruin Our Anarchist Workflow?

FounderQuest

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2021 39:09


Show notes:Links:TwistHook RelayBen Orenstein TupleWrite for HoneybadgerFull transcript:Starr:So Ben is joining us today from his car. It's bringing back fun memories. I recorded, I think the voiceover for our very first demo video in my car.Ben:Oh yeah? Nice. So as you may recall, I have a two story building that I lease one of the rooms, and the downstairs is a wine tasting room. Well with the pandemic, the company that had the wine tasting room, they closed shop. They stopped leasing, because who's going to go to a wine tasting room during a pandemic, right? Well they're leasing the space to a new tenant that's going to take that space. Apparently hey, we're getting back, things are reopening, let's taste wine again, but the new tenant wants to have a new door put in. So I got to the office today and they're like, "Yeah, we're putting in a new door." And then I'm like, "Cool." Didn't even think much of it. But then a few minutes later, there's all this drilling going on. I'm like, "Oh, I think probably the car is a better place to record today."Josh:Well at least you'll have some new friends soon.Ben:True, true.Starr:Yeah. Well I'm glad you made it, at least. And so what's up? I missed a week of the podcast and you guys invested our entire Honeybadger savings account into Bitcoin.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And I'm not sure that was the most prudent investment decision, y'all. I just wanted to say that.Ben:Yeah, the timing could have been better.Josh:Yeah, we really pulled a Roam Research on that one.Starr:Oh yeah. What do you mean by that?Josh:They invest in Bitcoin, apparently.Starr:Oh, they do? Okay.Ben:Of course they do.Starr:Of course. It's just a dip. You're supposed to buy the dips, Josh. It's just what, like a 30% dip? 40% dip?Josh:I wasn't watching it, but I read that it had recovered pretty quickly too.Starr:Oh. I have no idea. I didn't even follow it.Josh:As it does.Starr:I don't even follow it.Josh:Yeah. I just read random people's opinions.Starr:There you go.Josh:I forget where we left it last week, but I just wanted to state for record that I think I mentioned I made some accidental money in Bitcoin back when I was learning about block chain technology, but I have not bought any Bitcoin since, nor do I intend to, and I do not really view it as an investment asset.Starr:This is not investment advice.Josh:I just need to state my opinions for the future so I can look back on them with regret. If I don't say what I actually think, I'm never going to have anything to regret.Starr:There you go.Josh:I'm just going to commit.Starr:So you've decided to die on this no intrinsic value hill.Josh:Right. I'll let you know if I change my mind.Starr:Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah, I don't really check. Last week y'all did the interview with Mike, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah, it was a good conversation.Starr:Yeah. I don't really pay attention to it, except occasionally I'll look at the chart. It's the same with GameStop. Occasionally I'll look at the GameStop chart and then just see what wild stuff people are saying about it. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, GameStop was hovering at about 150 for a while, but now it's up to like 170-ish, 180. Something like that. Yeah. I peek at it every now... it's on my watch list when I log into my brokerage account, so I just see it. I'm like, "Oh, okay. Cool." And then I move on and check out my real actual stock portfolio.Starr:Oh yeah, yeah. I'm not going to buy it. It's like a TV show for me.Ben:Yeah, totally.Josh:Yeah. To be fair, I really don't have much of an opinion either way. I still don't understand it, so I don't know. I just feel like I probably shouldn't be buying it.Starr:That's really good advice. I don't understand anything though, so what am I supposed to do, Josh? Huh? Huh?Josh:Yeah.Ben:Just buy the index fund.Starr:Yeah. I don't even understand that.Josh:I don't understand that either though, if you really think about it.Ben:That's actually, there was a good thread or so on Twitter. I don't know if it was this week or last week, but basically the idea was if you feel really confident in your own ability, in your own business, given that, you're probably spending most of your time in that business, right? We spend most of our creative time in Honeybadger because that's where we feel the most potential is. So you're investing basically all of your personal capital in this one business. How do you diversify that risk? Or do you diversify the risk? Do you double down? Maybe do you take investment to diversify, and so you buy out? Let someone do a secondary and so you take some cash off the table? If you did that, then where would you put the money? Do you just go, "Okay, I'm going to go buy Bitcoin. I'm going to go buy an index fund," or whatever. And if you do that, is that a better use of your money than having just kept the equity and just plowing more time into your business? Right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's an interesting thought exercise. It's like, "Hm." The whole investment mindset of your business is interesting to me.Josh:Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting. I think I saw that conversation, or maybe I saw a similar conversation where they were talking about even just 401Ks and for founders who are already fairly... have at least made it in whatever sense that means. Is it the best financial move to keep maxing out your 401K versus investing in your ability to generate revenue in your business?Starr:So a little bit of real talk here. If you are a founder who's made it, maxing out your 401K isn't really a blip on your financial radar.Josh:It's not a big... yeah. That was kind of the same thought I had. It's not like you're putting 50% of your income into it.Starr:Yeah. What is it, like 20 grand? Something like that?Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's a good chunk of change, but still. It's not like...Josh:Yeah. I don't know.Starr:Yeah, that's interesting. I think I'm just going to go all in on Pogs. I think they're due for a comeback. I think that's going to be how I diversify.Josh:But I think it's probably a good move to invest in yourself if you have the ability to build businesses. That definitely seems like a good investment, in any case. Probably still have a 401K. I tend to do everything, except Bitcoin.Ben:A 401K is a nice backstop. Just keep stocking money away, and later it will be there, hopefully. But in the meantime, really, really spend your time and your energy on making your business even more profitable. Speaking of making your business more profitable, so this past week or two weeks, I've been working on our SOC 2 type two audit, so I'm doing the evidence collection.Starr:Oh yeah?Ben:So that in this case means I take a bunch of screenshots of settings, like the AWS console and G-suite console to show yeah, we have users, and yes, we have login restrictions, et cetera. All the 150 different things that you're supposed to check off the list when you do the audit. And as I've been going through this process taking all these screenshots, honestly it's getting a bit tedious, and it's surprisingly time consuming. And so I'm like, "You know, there are services for this sort of thing. Let me check them out." And so in the past three days, I've had conversations with Vanta, Secureframe, and Drata. These are three providers that what they do is they provide almost SOC 2 in a box. Basically they help you connect all of your systems and get the evidence that you need for an auditor in a more automated fashion. So for example, they'll plug into your AWS account and they'll pull out information about your security groups, your application firewall, your AIM, all the access permissions, all that kind of stuff, and pack that up into a nice little format that the auditor can then look at and like, "Yeah, they're good on all these different requirements." So you don't have to take screenshots of security groups.Ben:And I hadn't really looked at them before because I was like, "I don't know if I just want to spend that kind of money," but actually sitting back and looking at it, looking at the time that I'm spending on this and the amount of time I'm paying our auditors to audit all these screenshots that I'm taking, actually I think it would be cheaper to go with one of these services, because your audit is a bit more streamlined because the auditor knows how that data is going to come in and it's an easy format to digest, et cetera. But the thing is that after having gone through some of the sales pitches from these vendors, I'm thinking I really wish I would have started with these back the first time, because I think it would have been much easier just from the get go. So I think I've been doing the SOC compliance on hard mode, unfortunately, but lessons learned.Starr:With my experience, that just seems to be how projects are. You do it one time and you don't really know what you're doing, and you just push your way through it, and then eventually you figure out how to do it better and easier and all that. Because when something is new to you, you don't know what you can safely ignore. You know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Well plus you're pumping up the value of FounderQuest.Starr:Oh, that's true. We got a lot of content out of that.Ben:That's true.Starr:At least $100 worth.Josh:That's useful knowledge. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, so I think the short version is if you are interested in doing SOC2 compliance and you have no idea what you're doing, talk to these vendors first and maybe just start with them. They will help you, because they have customer success people like SaaS does. They have people on staff who are there to help you have success with their product. And if you don't get compliant, then you're going to stop using their product, so they're going to help you try and get there. And it's still pricey. It's still going to be five figures a year, but it will definitely save you some time and maybe even save you some money.Josh:Nice.Ben:Yeah. So next year, our audit should just be smooth as silk.Starr:Just butter.Josh:Love it.Starr:So if we-Josh:What are you going to do with all that extra free time?Ben:I made an executive decision.Starr:Oh really? What's that?Ben:Yes. The executive decision is we're going to have more teamwork at Honeybadger.Starr:That's ironic.Josh:Instead of what? What we have now, which is anarchy?Ben:We pretty much do have anarchy, I think. We are coordinated, we do make our plans, and we do have things we want to get done, but yeah, we are very independent at Honeybadger. We work independently. You might even say we're kind of siloed. We go off in the corner and do our own thing for most of the time. And I was chatting with Kevin about this, and I think we're going to try an experiment. So I think we're going to try to actually work together.Starr:Kevin is our developer.Starr:Yeah, so you all are going to be developing features together. Are you going to pair program? Are you going to use Tuple?Ben:Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there.Starr:Are you going to mob program?Ben:Pair programming, that's maybe too advanced for us, I think. Maybe actually we'll chat in Slack a little bit here and there and maybe have a Zoom call.Josh:Yeah, so you're talking about you're both going to work on the same project at the same time.Ben:Right. Right.Josh:Mostly independently, but coordinating.Ben:Right. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think that still can fit into our anarchy model.Starr:Yeah. It still seems a little bit independent.Josh:It's more like mutual aid or something.Starr:There you go. We should make a conference talk about mutual aid development.Josh:Right.Starr:That would go over well.Ben:Using NATO as a model for your development process. Yeah, so we'll see how it goes. I'm looking forward to it. I think I've been feeling a little lonely. I don't know if it's the right word, but maybe just off doing my own thing. I was like, "Oh, I think it will be nice to have some collaboration, some coordination." Maybe we'll even get to a level of synergies.Starr:Synergies.Starr:That's a blast from the past.Josh:Yeah, I think it's a good idea.Ben:Yeah, so more to come on that. We'll keep you posted. It's a bigger project. May not have results for a couple months. Don't really want to spill the beans on what it is right now. Competitive information. Don't want to leak it to all of our competitors.Starr:I like that. I like that. It's going to keep people on the hook for the next episodes.Josh:Totally.Ben:But yeah. That was my week.Josh:Yeah. Well my week, I took some time off, had some family stuff going on, so I was not very productive this week, but what I did work on was I've been working on this little guide for Hook Relay. I'd love to get the marketing machine, the fly wheel going on that at least, so we can be moving that along with everything else. And so yeah, working on some content and such.Starr:What is Hook Relay?Josh:Well you tell us what Hook Relay is, Ben. It's your baby.Ben:It's my baby. Yeah. So Hook Relay is a tool for managing web hooks. So you can record web hooks as they go out. In our case, to Honeybadger, we send a lot of web hooks, and so we built Hook Relay to help track all that web hook action. So we logged as pay loads that can go and diagnose issues that are happening, or maybe replay them as necessary, and of course it also handles inbound web hooks. So if you were handling, let's say, a post pay load request from GitHub about some activity that happens in your GitHub account, you handle that web hook and we can give you a place to store that, and then you can replay that, send it, forward it onto somewhere if you want, or just store it.Josh:Yeah. I think one of my favorite things about Hook Relay is just the visibility that it gives us into what's happening with the hooks, because otherwise we never had a dashboard. I guess we could have built one internally to see what the activity was and what's failing, what's actually... what requests are... because you're connecting to thousands of different people's random domain URLs, basically. It's really nice even for debugging and things like troubleshooting to be able to see what's going on, in addition to all the other cool things that it gives you out of the box.Starr:So you might say it's even like turnkey reliability and visibility for web hooks. For all your web hook needs.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, we modeled it on Stripes web hooks because we loved-Starr:I'm holding up a box up. I'm holding the TurboLinks box up and gesturing at it with my hand.Ben:Vanna White style.Josh:We should do our own channel, do our own infomercials.Ben:Yeah, I really wanted experience of Stripe. If you set up web hooks in Stripe, you can go and you can see all the web hooks they've sent you. You can see the pay loads, you can see whether they were successfully delivered or not, and I wanted that experience for our own web hooks, and also I thought it would be cool if developers could just have that without having to build the infrastructure. And so if you're building an app that send a bunch of web hooks on behalf of your customers, well now you can give your customers visibility into that web hook activity without having to build that tracking yourself.Josh:Yeah. That's pretty cool. So basically this content guide I'm working on is how to build web hooks into your application, including all the reliability and stuff that Hook Relay gives you for free. And the idea is that if that's what you're doing and you just want to save some time, Hook Relay will be a large chunk of that. You've just got to sign up. So I think it will be useful to everyone, even if they don't become a customer. If you're going to build your own back end and handle all the retries, build dashboards, and all that. But if you want it all turnkey, then Hook Relay is a big chunk of that work just done of you.Starr:So is this live? So can people go and sign up now?Ben:Yeah.Josh:Hook Relay, yes. It is.Josh:Hookrelay.dev.Ben:Yeah. In fact, we have enough customers now that it's actually paying for itself.Starr:What?Ben:Yes. So sweet.Josh:It's wild. That's wild.Starr:That's amazing.Ben:So Josh, is your guide going to have... are you going to dive deep into the architecture of here's how you build a whole web hook system, and so we're going to show you all the stuff behind the curtain so you can build your own? And then, "Oh, by the way, if you want it just done for you, here it is." Or are you going to just keep it more high level?Josh:I'm starting more high level. Yeah, I was planning on it being more high level. More like a high level architecture thing, or specification. Like these are the parts that you'll need to build, but you're going to have to solve some things, because it's not going to be specific to one system. It's not going to be like, "This is how you build web hooks for Ruby and Sidekick, or if you're going serverless." It will have suggestions on stacks or technologies to use for the back end, for instance, but yeah. I was thinking of leaving that to the user to figure out, but just showing the things you need to think about that a lot of people don't think about until they encounter the problems that might arise, like retrying and all the error handling that you add later, and validation for security reasons and things.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Starr:This is giving me flashbacks to a whole two or three year process after we first launched.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It was just like, "Oh, crap. There's an edge case here that we didn't think of because we're not used to doing web hooks at this scale." And that just went on for like three years.Josh:Yeah. And it's nice having the two products because Hook Relay came out of Honeybadger and it's basically part of our web hook system. This is basically just documenting Honeybadger's web hook system for other people who might want to replicate that or whatever.Ben:Totally. I think that will be cool. A great piece of content, a great piece of SEO juice. And if you did decide to go deep into the technical side, like if you explain the entire infrastructure that we're building, that would actually be kind of cool too because you could maintain your technical documentation for the system internally and use it as a piece of content for marketing.Josh:That could be cool. Yeah. That's not a bad idea. Yeah, I was thinking just because I want to get something out there. I'm thinking it will help with both, having a resource for people who are already on the site to see this is basically how you will implement this. It's kind of like an implementation guide, really. But then also SEO. It should help get us in more search results.Ben:Yeah.Josh:And I also want to credit Ben Orenstein and and Tuple. They have a great pair programming guide which was an inspiration for this idea. I just really liked the format that they used, and I just think it's a great idea if you have a product that's highly targeted or focused on one specific thing and doing it really well. I think it's maybe even a great alternative to a blog, for instance. You can get some of the same benefits of having a blog, but without actually having to create a blog with a lot of different variety of topics and things.Ben:Speaking of the blog, I was talking to Harris, our sales guru, about our blog strategy, and I said, "Yeah, it's basically like a flypaper strategy. We want it to attract developers that come and see the content and they love it and they're like, 'Oh, let me check out this Honeybadger thing.'" Not particularly novel, but I like the flypaper idea.Starr:That's a good metaphor. And also for a long time, I poo-pooed SEO because in my mind, SEO was very scammy. I don't know. I learned about SEO in the days of link farming and all that, and I just didn't want to be involved in that. So I'm just like, "We're just going to put out good content and that will be enough." And it is, yes, but also I've looked at some metrics since then that make it clear that the majority of good things that happen because of our blog actually are people entering through search queries. That really outweighs people sharing articles and doing stuff like that, which I guess is obvious that it would be that way, but my own bias against search just made me not see that for a while. So maybe trying to pick some possible low hanging fruit. We've tried to make our site search engine friendly, but we having really done any explicit SEO type activities.Josh:Yeah. I went through recently through our documentation and just tweaked just small things on a bunch of pages, like headlines and some of the meta tags and stuff, but mostly headlines and content on page was what I was focusing on. And I wasn't using any particular tool to measure before and after results, but it does seem like it bumped us up in some of the results for people searching for more general terms like Ruby error tracking, for example, which are typically pretty competitive terms. But I think we rank pretty well for some of those terms these days. I think we've been around enough and we're one of the options that come up. So it does seem like if you already target the terms, it actually does what they say it does, which is good to know. You've just got to pay attention to it.Ben:So the moral of story is there is some value in SEO.Starr:I guess so.Josh:Yeah. Well and I think documentation sites. Your documentation, I think it's a great place to optimize SEO because a lot of times, especially for those... maybe not for the long tail searches. A blog is great for that, like what you were talking about with the flypaper, Ben. But for people who are actually searching for what you do, I think a lot of times documentation pops up first in a lot of cases when I'm searching for things, so don't overlook it like we did.Starr:Yeah. Well this week, I guess the main thing I did was I got our authors lined up for the next quarter of intelligence briefings. So if you haven't been playing along at home, we're having some intelligence briefings created. Basically everything that's going on in a certain language community for the quarter, and this grew out of Josh's need because he's basically in charge of our client libraries. And we have libraries in a variety of languages, so keeping up with those languages and what's going on is a real pain in the ass, so we were going to make these guides originally for him, but then also we were like, "This would be really great content to publish."Starr:And I've already got this system with authors who want to write about programming languages, and so let's see if we can make some authors make these summaries. And so far, yeah, I'm pretty happy. We had four or five of them created, and we're not publishing them because they were for a previous quarter, and this is just a trial run to see if the results are okay, and I think they were. I think the results were pretty good. We go some feedback from you two, and I updated my process and updated the template that all the authors are using, and so we should be getting round two done. I'm setting the deadline a week after the end of the quarter. My hope is if they get them to me then, then I'll have a week to get them up on our blog or wherever, and then they won't be too out of date by the time people see them.Josh:Yeah. That's cool. I'm excited to see the next batch. My favorite thing from the reports were the ones where they wrote some original content summarizing things or sections or whatever. That was super useful because there's a little bit of a story element to it that's specific to the quarter or whatever that you don't really get from just... if you just aggregate everything, all the weekly newsletters and what happened on Reddit and what happened on Twitter. If you just dump that all in a document, it's a bit of overload, so it's nice to have the summary the story of what the community was interested in.Starr:Oh yeah. Definitely.Josh:Here are some articles that they talked about.Starr:That's the whole idea, is to have somebody who knows the community explain to you what's going on, as opposed to... if I wanted a bunch of links, I could just write a little script to scrape links from places.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And it wouldn't be very useful. What's useful is having people who know the environment being like, "Hey, this is what's going on. This is why it's important." And yeah, so that's going to be something I guess I need to look for explicitly when I get this round of things of reports back.Josh:Start calling them secret agents or something instead of authors.Starr:Oh yeah.Josh:Or detectives.Starr:Operatives. Yeah. Assets.Josh:As our detective service investigators.Ben:I think having that analysis of why this news is important or why these things are important that they've collected is really handy, because the links are great. Like you said, I could just write a script to collect them, but having someone with that context in the community saying, "Okay, and it's important because, and this is why you should pay attention," I think that's really helpful to someone who's maybe not as deep into that every day.Starr:Oh yeah.Josh:Yeah. And also knowing what to surface, because there was one report that it really seemed to just dump every single link or article that was discussed or was in a newsletter or whatever, and I think it's more helpful if it's on a quarterly level, if you know what is actually the important things that you really want to know about.Starr:Yeah, that's true. I just made a note for myself to go back and explicitly just mention that to people, because I realized I didn't put it in the instructions anywhere. I put like, "Here's where a description of the content goes," but I didn't really put what I want inside that description, I realized.Josh:Yeah.Starr:So I'm going to do that.Ben:We're iterating in real time here.Starr:Oh yeah, yeah. This is where the work gets done.Josh:Yeah. Well and pretty soon, we'll have hopefully some good examples that we can show future authors, or detectives, or whatever we're calling them.Starr:Oh, definitely. Definitely. I'm going to call them authors because they're already in the blog system as authors and it just seems like-Josh:Agents?Starr:I don't know. I've got to be able to talk to these people with a straight face.Ben:You could call them research specialists, but then you might have to pay them more.Starr:There you go.Josh:Research. Yeah. Yeah.Starr:I don't know. I think I'm paying pretty well. Honestly, I think I'm paying pretty well for looking at... I don't know. How many weeks is a quarter? 12? 12 weeks of newsletters and just telling me what's going on. I think I'm paying pretty well.Josh:Yeah. You don't need to talk to them with a straight face though. You need to talk to them with sunglasses on, smoking a cigarette in a diner.Starr:Oh that's right. Yeah.Josh:Or a dive bar somewhere.Starr:Those people aren't smiling. Those people aren't smiling. Oh, that's right. I can do that. I just realized that it's two weeks since my second vaccine, so I'm ready to go out and recruit secret agents.Josh:Ready to party.Starr:Yeah. I'm very anxious talking with people in public now, but that's not a topic for this conversation.Josh:Yeah. We'll ease back into it.Starr:Oh yeah. Yeah, we're going to have dinner with my sister in law on Saturday, and I'm just like, "Okay Starr, you can do this. You can do this."Josh:Cool.Starr:Yeah, and I guess the other thing that we did this week is we are doing a trial run of Twist as a replacement for Basecamp messages, the message board on Basecamp. And yeah, so basically the long and short of it is the whole Basecamp BS just left a bad taste in my mouth in particular. I think you all's a little bit, or maybe you're neutral. I don't care. That sounded really harsh.Ben:You can be honest with us. We can take it.Starr:No, I didn't mean to sound that harsh. I just mean I'm not trying to put my opinions onto you, is what I'm saying. I just felt gross using Basecamp. Also if I'm being honest, I never really enjoyed Basecamp as a product. It's got a couple things that just really rubbed me the wrong way.Josh:We were having some vague conversations in the past. We have posed do we really want to keep this part of what we're using Basecamp for? And we were already using a subset of it, so yeah. It wasn't totally out of the blue.Starr:Yeah. And we were using maybe 20% of Basecamp, just the message boards feature.Josh:And the check ins, which apparently we all disliked.Starr:And the check ins, which nobody liked but we all kept using for some reason. Ben is like, "Can I turn off the check ins?" And I'm like, "I thought you were the only reason we were doing the check ins, it's because I thought you liked them."Ben:I think I was the only reason we were doing the check ins.Josh:It's because... yeah.Ben:Yeah, because I remember when I started it I was like, "Yeah, I really don't know what's going on," because back to that siloed, independent, off in the corner thing, I was like, "It would be nice to know what people are doing." But yeah, lately I've been like, "This is just a drag." So I'm like, "Would anybody be upset if this went away?" And everyone is like, "Please take it away."Josh:Everyone is just passively aggressively answering them.Ben:Everyone hated it.Josh:It wasn't that bad, but-Ben:I get it.Josh:Kevin used them too, but yeah.Ben:So I finally gave everyone permission to tell me that it was not okay, and now we no longer do it.Starr:There you go. And we're just like, "While we're at it, just ditch Basecamp." So yeah, so we've been trying a new system called Twist. Twist is, essential it's... I don't know, it's like threaded discussions. I figured this out on my own. I'm very proud of myself. So you have lots of threads, and you twist them together to make yarn or something or some sort of textile, so I bet you that's why it's called Twist.Josh:Beautiful sweater.Starr:Yeah. A beautiful sweater. The tapestry that is Honeybadger. And so far, I've really been enjoying it. I find the UI to be a lot better. There was one bug that we found that I reported, so hopefully that will get fixed. It doesn't really bother me that much. Yeah, it's amazing sometimes how the UI of an application can just be like, "Oh, ah. I'm having to parse less information just to do my task."Josh:It's much nicer.Starr:Yeah.Ben:It does feel like a lot less friction for our use case.Josh:Yeah. Well we talked about that, just the structure. The way that you structure conversation and organization things in a management tool like that makes a big difference. In Basecamp, we would create Basecamps for whatever. They call them Basecamps, right? They're the projects.Starr:They're like projects. I don't know.Josh:We'd create different ones, different projects for each project, but then there's five of us, so we'd basically just add everyone to every single project that is in there. But all the conversation is siloed off in each project, and with Twist, it's just much more of a fluid... it uses what, like channels? But yeah, it just seems like it's all together. It's kind of like a combination of Slack and a threaded message board or something, to me.Starr:Yeah, or like Slack and email or something.Josh:Slack and email. Yeah. It's a nice combo.Starr:Yeah. It has inbox, which I like, where it shows you any unread messages, and so you can just easily just go and scan through them, and it's all in the same page. It's a single page application, so you don't have to click out to a completely new page and then come back to the inbox and do all that. Basecamp had a similar feature, but it's like a timeline and it had a line down the middle of the screen and then branches coming off of either side of it. And for some reason, I started using the inbox in Twist and it was just like, "Oh, this is so much better." For some reason I think having things on different sides of the screen just doubled the amount of background processing my brain had to do to put it all together. And yeah, so I don't know. I do like it. Also, it's got mark down. It's got mark down.Josh:The mark down editor is so nice. It reminds me a lot of just using GitHub, the editor on GitHub, with the mark down mode and preview. And you can drag and drop images into the... I don't know if you knew that, into the mark down editor, like you can on GitHub, and it automatically inserts the image tag and uploads it for you.Starr:Yeah, it's all really slick. So I don't know. I imagine in maybe another... I've got vacation next week, so maybe after that we'll get together and compare notes. But I don't know, it seems like people like it so far.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, it's been good. It's interesting-Josh:If I had to decide today, it's a keeper for me.Ben:Yeah, I would go ahead and switch.Starr:Oh yeah, me too.Ben:It's interesting to me, you alluded to this, Starr, as you were talking about comparing it to your products and how they approach... it's interesting to me the UI, even if it's the same kind of functionality, how much different takes on the user experience can make a different experience for the user. How it just feels different. Like, "Oh yeah, it's basically doing the same thing, but it just feels better for whatever. My mentality or our business." Fill in the blank there, but I thought about that many times. Honeybadger versus competitors. It's like, "Yeah, they're doing basically the same thing, but we do have differences in how we approach the UI and different use patterns that we think are more emphasized by our UI versus the others." And sometimes it's just a matter of personal preference. It's like, "Oh, this just feels better to me." One night I tried Python before I tried Ruby, and Python is like, "Oh, that's interesting," but then Ruby really clicked my brain. It's like, "Oh, it just feels better." And I'm sure other people have the opposite experience, but I don't know. It's weird to me and fun to think about the human part of these products. Josh:Yeah. And it's surprising, the strong opinions that people pick up just based on those experience things when they're basically the same, if they're doing the same thing. Some people, they either love it or hate it based on that.Starr:Yeah, that's true. Maybe it all goes back to whatever business apps you used in childhood. It's just whatever your mom made you for lunch, you're always going to love that.Josh:Yeah. It's like a nurture thing, nature versus nurture. You were exposed to these apps when you were young, and so it's just what you're drawn to.Starr:Yeah. I remember putting my little friend's contact details into Lotus Notes.Josh:Right. I had to program Lotus Notes.Ben:I got my first dev job because I knew Lotus Notes.Starr:Oh, nice.Josh:Lotus Notes was an important precedent at the time, I think.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It was the bomb. You could do some pretty serious stuff.Starr:Yeah. I kept having these jobs that weren't technically dev jobs, but ended up being dev jobs just because I knew how to write V basic macros for Excel. I'm sure a lot of people had that experience.Josh:The thing I remember doing in Lotus Notes was setting it up to ingest email from the outside world into whatever, the system. And thinking about it now, that project I've done over and over and over since then.Starr:It's Basecamp.Josh:And I'm still doing that project.Starr:It's Basecamp all over again. Oh no.Ben:If only there was a service that took in emails for you, and then you could just bring them into your app data.Josh:Yeah. I bet in 20 years, we'll be writing programs to accept email.Ben:Process emails, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. When is this stuff going away? Technology changes all the time. When is email going away? They've been killing it for years. It's like fricking Rasputin. When is it going away?Ben:It's the cockroach of protocols.Starr:There you go.Josh:After the singularity, they'll still have to have a way to import it directly into your consciousness, and yeah, I don't know.Starr:Yeah. I hope the spam filtering is really good then.Starr:All right, well it was great talking with y'all.Ben:Likewise.Starr:Yeah. So this has been FounderQuest. Go to the Apple podcast and review us if you want. If you're interested in writing for us, we are always looking for fresh, new talent. Young authors looking to make their mark on the world of technical blog posts for SAS companies. And yeah, just go to our blog and look for the write for us page. I don't currently have any openings, but who knows? People flake out. So if you're interested in writing these reports for us too, get in touch. These quarterly intelligence briefings, if you want to be an agent for our intelligence service. All right, so I'll see y'all later.

FounderQuest
Understanding Bitcoin From a Developer's Perspective

FounderQuest

Play Episode Listen Later May 21, 2021 50:53


Show notes:Links:Mike MondragonCRDTShip of TheseusExceptional CreaturesShiba Inu Full Transcript:Ben:I'm just gonna dive on in there. I'm so eager. I'm so excited. It's actually weird because Starr is the one that typically starts us off. Josh:Yeah. I thought we were just going to start with our just general banter, and then not introduce the guest until 30 minutes later.Ben:By the way.Josh:It is also our tradition.Ben:Yeah. Well we're getting better at this thing.Josh:Where we say, "Oh, by the way, if Starr doesn't sound like Starr..."Ben:Right, yes. Today Starr doesn't sound like Starr because today's star is Mike Mondragon instead. Welcome Mike.Josh:Hey Mike.Mike:Hey.Ben:Mike is a long time friend of the show, and friend of the founders. Actually, Mike, how long have we known each other? It's been at least 10, maybe 15 years?Mike:Probably 2007 Seattle RB.Ben:Okay.Josh:Yeah. I was going to say you two have known each other much longer than I've even known Ben.Ben:Yeah.Josh:So you go back.Ben:Way back.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Because I think Ben and I met in 2009.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Or something.Mike:Okay.Ben:Yeah, Mike and I have been hanging out for a long time.Mike:Yeah.Ben:We've known each other through many, many different jobs, and contracts, and so on. It's been awesome.Josh:Yeah, Mike, I feel like I've heard your name since... Yeah, for the last, at least, 10 years just working with Ben. You've always been in the background. And we've realized this is the first time we've actually met face to face, which is crazy. But it's great to... Yeah.Mike:Yeah.Josh:... have a face to put with the little... What is it, a cat avatar? Is a cat in your avatar? You've had that avatar for a really long time I feel like.Mike:Yeah, that's Wallace.Josh:Okay.Mike:So I'm Mond on GitHub and Twitter, and that cat avatar is our tuxedo cat, Wallace. And he is geriatric now. Hopefully he'll live another year. And if you remember in that era of Ruby, all of the Japanese Rubyists had cat icons. And so that was... I don't know. That's why Wallace is my icon.Josh:Yeah. Nice.Ben:So, so do Wallace and Goripav know each other?Mike:No, no, they don't. They're like best friends, right? They had to have met at Seattle RB.Ben:Yeah. Internet friends.Mike:Internet friends, yeah.Ben:Yeah. So, Mike is old school Ruby, way back, way back, yeah. But the other funny thing about the old Rubyists, all those Japanese Rubyists, I remember from RubyConf Denver... Was that 2007? Somewhere around there. I remember going to that and there were mats and a bunch of friends were sitting up at the front, and they all had these miniature laptops. I've never seen laptops so small. I don't know what they were, nine inch screens or something crazy.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I was like, "How do you even type on that thing?" But it's a thing. So I guess... I don't know. I haven't been to Japan.Mike:There are laptops that you could only get in Japan and they flash them with some sort of Linux probably.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Okay. I wonder how long it took them to compile C on there.Mike:Yeah. So, about the orbit with the founders. So, I think I'd put it in my notes that I... And I consider myself a sliver of a Honeybadger in that I did have a conversation with Ben about joining the company. And then in 2017, I did do a little contracting with you guys, which is ironic in that... So we're probably going to talk about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. So the Bitcoin protocol is, essentially, on a four-year timer. And in 2017 was the last time that we were building up to, I guess, an explosive end to that cycle. And I had just been working at Salesforce at Desk.com, And I left because of Bitcoin. And then this year, four years later, I, again, just left Salesforce, but I just left from Heroku. And I didn't leave so much because of Bitcoin, I just got a better opportunity, and I'm a principal engineer at Okta, and I'm in the developer experience working on SDKs, primarily, the Golang SDK.Mike:So I think one of the things that they were happy about was that I had experience carrying the pager, and knowing what that's like, and they wanted to have an experienced engineer that would have empathy for the engineers to main the SDK. So I'm really excited to be here, because I'm not going to be carrying the pager, and it is the fun programming. What I imagine, listening to the founders, about the kind of fun programming that you guys get to do, working with different languages and whatnot. So, obviously right now, I'm starting out with Golang. We don't have a Ruby SDK, because OmniAuth provider is the thing that most people use. But, there's also PHP, and some Java, so I'm just looking forward to being able to do a bunch of different languages.Josh:Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. We don't know anything about SDK teams, Honeybadger. But yeah, it sounds like we have very similar jobs at the moment. So that's cool. We'll have to trade tips at some point. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I'm excited that you're there, because I'm definitely going to hit you up on the SAML stuff, because SAML's a pain in the tuchus yeah, I'm sure you'll have some insights from your time there.Mike:Well, that was how I was even open-minded to talking to Okta, was the recruiter had contacted me and I think actually it was the recruiter... I don't know the structure of how this works, but a lot of companies have a prospecting recruiter. And I think that a veteran oriented prospecting recruiter contacted me. And so being a veteran, I'll usually entertain those cold calls. And so then when I was at Desk, I wrote... So Desk was a big Rails monolith. I wrote a microservice to break some of the SSO off of the monolith itself. And in writing the API documentation that was on desk.com, I actually used Okta as one of the examples as a SSO identity provider using SAML. So yeah, I have had a little bit of experience from the outside of Okta with SAML. And so maybe I'll have more experience here to answer your questions.Ben:Yeah. We'll have to have you back and we can just do a whole hour on that. It's a fun world.Josh:After we do an hour on SDKs.Ben:Yeah, and your code that you wrote for us still lives on in Honeybadger.Josh:Yeah. Was it the webpack? That was some of the work, right?Ben:Some of it, yeah.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:And some GitHub integration work.Josh:And the integrations, yeah.Mike:Yeah, well if I remember correctly with the GitHub integration, I did do some GitHub integration, and it tickled your enthusiasm, Ben, and then I think you went in and like refactored that a little bit.Ben:Well, if you have a monolith like Redo that's been around for as long as ours has, things don't... It's like, what was that Theseus' ship, it's goes around the world but you replace things as it goes, and it's never the same app, right?Mike:Yeah, that's the thing, we had discussed this in the prelude around just software engineering in general and how hard it is to maintain a monolith, especially as a company grows and as developers come rolling into a project, you get all of these... Over time you get engineers with different goals, different techniques, different styles of touching your code base, to the point that it becomes very hard to maintain a project. And I think, I don't know if we're going to talk about Heroku at all, but I think that Heroku suffers from a little bit of that, where there's very few original Heroku that are involved in the runtime at least. And I just came from being on the runtime in the control plane. And, definitely, the code base there is... There's maybe one or two people that are still around that have touched that code base from the beginning.Ben:Yeah, let's dive into that, because that's fascinating to me. I know that there's been chatter on Twitter recently that people feel that Heroku is stagnated. That they haven't really brought a lot of innovative stuff to market recently. I remember, actually a funny story, I'm going to tell it myself. I can't remember what year this was, it were way... I don't know, I don't know, early 2000s. I was sitting as part of a focus group, and I can't reveal a lot of information because secrecy and stuff. But anyway, I was part of this focus group and I was asked as part of this group, what as a developer working on Ruby applications and Rails applications, what I thought about this new thing called Heroku. And had it explained to me, "Oh, you just get push", and "Blah, blah, blah", and I poo-pooed the idea. I was like, "Nah, I'm not interested", because I already know how to deploy stuff. I've got Mongrel, I got a DVS.Josh:Say Mongrel.Ben:I know how to use SEP, why do I need this? Like Math, never going to catch on. And so don't follow me for investing advice.Mike:Yeah, totally.Josh:I got my Linodes.Mike:Yeah. Or even back then, I wrote all of my own chef, so I got my own recipes I can-Ben:Right, exactly.Mike:... bare metal at will.Ben:Exactly. So, what do you think, you've been at Heroku, you've seen this process of people having to maintain this code base over a long period of time. What are some tips for people who might be a little earlier on the process? Looking down the road, what do you suggest people think about for having a more maintainable application?Mike:That's interesting. I really think that there is not one size fits all, and actually some of the things that are specific to Heroku, and actually to desk.com when I was there previously, that some of the issues actually stem from Salesforce culture and the way that Salesforce manages its businesses. And so, I guess the thing that I've always liked about Rails, specifically, is that the conventions that are used in Rails, you can drop an experienced Rails developer pretty much into any Rails app and they're going to know the basic conventions. And that saves you so much time to ramping up and bringing your experience into a project. Whereas when you get into bespoke software, then you run into well what were the architectural design patterns 10 years ago compared to now? How much drift has there been in libraries and the language, depending.Mike:And so that is... I don't... That's a very hard question to nail down in a specific way. I would just say in spit balling this, conventions are very important, I would say. So as long as you have a conventions using a framework, then I think that you'll get to go a long ways. However, if you start to use a framework, then you get the everything is a nail and I'm going to use my hammer framework on that. Which is its own thing that I've seen in Ruby, where if you start a project with Rails, I don't think everybody realizes this, but you are essentially going to be doing a type of software development that is in the mindset of Basecamp, right? And if you have an app that is not quite like Basecamp, and then you start to try to extending Rails to do something different, then you're going to start running into issues. And I think that... It makes me sad when I hear people talk poorly about Rails, because oftentimes people are just pushing it into a direction that it's not built to do. Whether they're, like in the old days, like monkey-patching libraries, or whatnot.Ben:Yeah, I think we saw that with the rise of Elixir and Phoenix, right? José just got frustrated with wanting to do some real time stuff. And that really wasn't the wheelhouse for Rails, right? And so he went and built Elixir and Phoenix, and built on top of that. And that became a better hammer for that particular nail than Rails, right? So now if you come into a new project and you're like, "Well, I'm going to do a lot of highly concurrent stuff", well, okay, maybe Rails isn't the best solution. Maybe you should go look at Elixir and Phoenix instead.Mike:Yeah. Yeah. So, with Heroku, I just want to say that it was so awesome to work at Heroku, and the day that I got a job offer to work there, it was like... I still, if I'm having a bad day, I still think about that, and the... I've never used hard drugs, but I would think that somebody that was cocaine high, that's probably what I was feeling when I got the offer from Heroku. I started using Heroku in 2009, and it has a story within our community, it's highly respected. And so I just want to say that I still think very highly of Heroku, and if I was to be doing just a throwaway project, and I just want to write some code and do git push main, or git push Heroku main, then I would definitely do that.Mike:And we were... And I'm not very experienced with the other kinds of competitors right now. I think, like you pointed him out, is it Vercel and Render?Ben:Render. Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Yeah. So I can't really speak to them. I can really just speak to Heroku and some of the very specific things that go on there. I think one of the issues that Heroku suffers from is not the technology itself, but just the Salesforce environment. Because at Salesforce, everything eventually has to be blue, right? And so, Heroku, I don't think they ever could really figure out the right thing to do with Heroku. As well as, the other thing about enterprise software is that if I'm selling Salesforce service cloud or whatever, I'm selling, essentially, I'm selling seats of software licenses. And there's no big margin in selling Compute, because if I'm buying Compute, I expect to be using that.Mike:And so, as a salesperson, I'm not incented to sell Heroku that much because there's just not margins for me in the incentive structure that they have at sales within Salesforce. So I think that's the biggest thing that Heroku has going against it, is that it's living in a Salesforce environment. And as, I guess, a owner of Salesforce being that I have Salesforce stock, I would hope that they would maximize their profits and actually sell Heroku. Who knows, maybe a bunch of developers get together and actually buy the brand and spin that off. That would be the best thing, because I think that Salesforce would probably realize a lot more value out of Heroku just by doing that, even if there's some sort of profit sharing, and then not have to deal with all the other things.Ben:Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. The thing about billing, and then selling per user, versus the compute- That's definitely a different world. It's a totally different mindset. And I think Josh that we have now been given a directive step. We should acquire Heroku as part of Honeybadger.Josh:I was going to say, maybe we can acquire it with all of our Doge profits in five or 10 years from now.Mike:Well, yeah. Somebody spin a Heroku coin, a ERC20 token on Ethereum and get everybody to dump their Ethereum into this token.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Get that pot of money together. And then that is the Heroku Foundation. Yeah, exactly.Josh:Okay, yeah.Mike:The Heroku Foundation that buys the Heroku brand. I know that we're laughing about it, but actually this is what is possible today. And, I was telling Ben... Well, let me just say a couple of things about the FounderQuest and how it relates to me, is I've been listening to FounderQuest from the first episode, and I'm an only child, and I like to listen to podcasts. So I'll be on my afternoon walk, and I'll be hearing you guys talk, and I'm having this conversation along with you guys listening to the podcasts.Mike:And so, I think, in January, you guys were talking about, or maybe Ben was talking about, $30,000 Bitcoin, and you guys just had your yucks and laughs about it. And it actually made me think critically about this, because I've been involved with Bitcoin since about 2012, and it's like, "Do I have a tinfoil hat on?" Or what do I think? And so, I'm not joking about this, listening to you guys actually has helped me concretely come up with how I feel about this. And first off, I think, I'm bullish on technology. And this is the first epiphany that I had, is all of us have had a career close to Linux, close to Ruby, building backend services, close to virtualization and orchestration. Fortunately, that's been my interest, and fortunately that's been where our industry has gone. And so, when Bitcoin came out, as technologists, all you ever hear, if you don't know anything about Bitcoin, you just hear currency. And you're thinking internet money, you're not thinking about this as a technologist.Mike:And so that was the thing. I wish that Bitcoin had been talked about as a platform, or a framework.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:And not even called it coin. Because that confuses the issue-Josh:The whole coin thing, just... Yeah.Mike:Yeah, totally. And mining the metaphors-Josh:That alone.Mike:... just totally throws everything off. Because we are talking, we're laughing about it, but this is really possible today. We could come up with a Foundation to buy Heroku with a cryptocurrency, and it would... Yeah. So that's one thing that Ben helped me realize in my thinking around Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And I think I'm just bullish on technology. And so to me, again, across our career, there's been so much change. And why would we look at Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies any differently than any other kind of technology? Even a hundred dollar bill with all the holograms on it, that is a kind of financial technology. And so we're just talking about a digital technology, we're not talking about coins I guess.Josh:That's the appeal, a lot of the Altcoins, right? They give everyone a way to invest in those companies, whereas before you would have to... Whatever, be an accredited investor or something to be able to get involved. Is that part of the appeal? I'm probably showing what I know about crypto, which is very little, but I'm excited to... Yeah, maybe you can...Mike:Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like these projects are... I'm not a VC, and I'm not an insider, but from what I can see from afar, in Silicon Valley there's a close group of people that have access to all of these ideas. And there's Angel clubs, and VC clubs, and whatnot, that are funding these startups. And to me, I feel like these crypto projects are the same kind of thing, except for they're just available to the public. And so, I think if I was speaking to another technologist that was interested in cryptocurrencies, is you probably need to get your hands on some of the technology in order to get experience with it.Mike:And so if that means you figure out how to maybe mine some coin on your laptop, or whatever, or you actually pay for it, you should at least have some in your possession, and at least learn about the custodial part of it. Also, there's different software libraries now to actually do programming against it, and platforms, I believe. So that'd be another way to at least tickle your curiosity, is by actually touching the technology and not thinking about the value. So yeah.Ben:Yeah. That, to me, that's one of the most interesting things about the whole coin thing. My younger son is really interested in the crypto space, in the coin and in the other parts of a distributed ledger, and what does that mean, and how does that work? And before I heard about NFTs, he was talking about NFTs. And so it's really interesting to me to see this coming from him. Just yesterday, we had a conversation about CRDTs, right? Because we're talking about how do you merge transactions that are happening in distributed fashion? Right? I was like, "Oh yeah", and it's so weird to have my teenage sons' world colliding with my world in this way.Josh:Yeah.Ben:But it's a lot of fun. And I've got to say, Mike, I got to give you back some credit, talking about the whole coin thing. As you've heard, we're pretty coin skeptical here at Honeybadger, the Founders, but you made a comment in our pre-show conversation. And maybe you didn't make this explicitly, but maybe it's just a way that I heard it. But I think... Well what I heard was, and maybe you actually said this, was basically think about this like an index fund, right? You put dollar cost to averaging, right? You put some money into coin, you put a little bit, it's not going to be your whole portfolio, right? But you don't treat it like a gamble, and you just treat it like an investment, like you would other things that may appreciate in value. And of course you may not.Ben:And so, as a result, I decided, "Okay, I can do that. I can put a little bit of my portfolio into coins". So just this week, and this is the funny part, just this week-Josh:I'm just finding this out now, by the way.Ben:Yeah, yeah. Josh is like... I told my wife about this last night and she was like, "What's Josh going to say?" "Like, I don't know". So anyway, just this week I put a little bit of money into Bitcoin and Ethereum. And that was... When did Elon do his thing about Bitcoin? Was that Thursday morning?Josh:Oh yeah.Ben:I bought, two hours before Elon did his thing, and Bitcoin lost 15% of its value.Mike:That's awesome.Ben:I'm like, "It's okay. It's okay, I'm just putting-Josh:Yeah, you don't sell, it doesn't matter.Mike:What was your emotion? What was your emotion?Ben:Yeah, totally. Yeah. In fact, my first buy, I used Coinbase. And Coinbase was like, "Oh, do you want to do this periodically?" I'm like, "Yes, I do. Every month". Boom.Mike:Oh.Ben:I went ahead and set that up like so, yeah.Mike:Oh, I did not know you could do that.Ben:I'm in it to win it, man.Mike:You should get a hardware wallet. That's the next thing, is you need to learn how to handle your own custody, so-Josh:Right, yeah. You got to... Yeah.Mike:Not leave it on the exchange. Interesting.Josh:Get those hard drives.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. Ben's a veteran indexer though. So you can handle some dips. Some volatility.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Josh:I actually, I did make some money off of Bitcoin back in the day, and probably if I would've just held onto it, I would've made a lot more, of course.Mike:Same.Josh:So I accidentally... Back, I don't know when this was, it was maybe five years ago or something, when Bitcoin was going through one of its first early hype cycles, and I was like, "I'll check it". I was learning about it, of course. And so I went and bought some and I think I ran a blockchain Elixir app that someone made, to see how the transactions work and stuff. Read some books on Bitcoin. But I bought some Bitcoin, I can't remember how much, but just left it. I think this was after Coinbase had launched, I'm pretty sure I bought it through Coinbase. But yeah, I just left it, and then that was when it was in the first huge push of Bitcoin where it went up to 20,000 or something. And I remembered that I had it, and I went and looked and oh yeah, I made five grand or something. I put hardly anything into it initially. So I forget what I actually bought with that money. I just sold it and it's like cool, free money.Mike:So you just sold it this year? Or you sold it...Josh:No, I sold it back-Mike:In 17?Josh:I think I sold it at 20... Yeah, this would have been at 17 that I actually sold it, probably.Mike:Did you report it on your taxes, your capital gains?Josh:I did, yes. Yeah, I did.Ben:That's the benefit of having an accountant, because your accountant reminds you, "You know what? You did have some Bitcoin transactions, you should probably look at those".Josh:Can I say on here that I actually put some of it through a Bitcoin tumbler though, just to see how those work?Mike:Yeah, I mean...Josh:And that was a very small amount of money, but I didn't actually report that on my taxes. Because I think I actually forgot where it was or something.Ben:You'll have to explain what a Bitcoin tumbler is.Josh:So a Bitcoin tumbler... Well, I'll try, and then maybe Mike might explain it better, but a Bitcoin tumbler is basically how you anonymize your Bitcoin transaction. If you have some Bitcoin and you want to buy some drugs on the dark web or something, you go and you send your Bitcoin to this tumbler, and then it distributes it to a bunch of random Bitcoin addresses that it gives you. And then you have those addresses, and they're anonymized, because they've been sent through a bunch of peoples' wallets, or something like that.Mike:Yep. That's basically it.Ben:So it's basically money laundering.Josh:Yeah, it's laundering.Mike:Yeah. But if your privacy... I mean, okay-Josh:Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Because part of the appeal of Bitcoin is some people are just like, "Oh yeah, good money, credit card transactions are so... The governments are recording them and stuff, the NSA probably has a database of them". So Bitcoin is anonymous, but it's not. It's not anonymous. And yeah. So that's why people do this, right?Mike:Yeah. Well that, to me, that's if you want to... So the value of Bitcoin, if you want to get bullish on the value of Bitcoin, the traditional outlook is yeah, the silk road was going on and there's all this illegal stuff going on. Therefore it must be bad. But actually, to me, that's the thing, you know it's good if there's illicit stuff going on, because what's the number one currency that's used right now for illicit transactions? It's dirty US dollar bills. And if you're a drug dealer in central South America, you are collecting, dollar bills United States. You're paying some sort of transport probably at 10, 15% cost to get those dollars back to wherever you're going to hold them. And so, if you're using Bitcoin, you're probably not going to pay that fee. So, to me, it's like okay, that actually proves, at least in my mind, that there is value. That it's being used, right?Josh:Yeah. And you also, you don't want to see... Some people are fanatics about cash going away, even just because as more people move to digital transactions, whether it's just through, whatever, traditional networks, or through crypto. People are using less and less cash. And I feel like, whatever... Like Richard Stallman, he pays for everything in cash though, because he thinks that cash is going to go away someday. And that's a problem for privacy, because you do want a way to pay for things in private in some cases.Mike:Yep. I agree.Josh:Yeah.Ben:My only real beef with Bitcoin, well, aside from the whole requiring power plants just to do a transaction, is that there is Badger coin. This company that is named Honeybadger, it's all about Bitcoin. And they have these ATM's in Canada, and we constantly get support requests from people.Mike:Oh really?Josh:Is this the reason that we've been so down on cryptocurrencies in the past?Ben:I think so.Josh:Because ever since the beginning, since people started making coins, Badger coin came out and then it's been our primary exposure to be honest.Ben:It has been, yeah.Josh:Throughout the past... I don't know how many years it's been. Has it been six-Ben:Yeah, six-Josh:... to eight years?Ben:Yeah, something like that. It's been nuts.Josh:I'd say.Mike:You should send them an invoice, and they actually-Ben:Yeah, so what happens is they had these kiosks where you can buy Bitcoin, right? You put your real money in, and you get your fake money out, right? And the name on the top of the kiosk is Honeybadger. So, someone puts in some money, real money, and they don't get their fake money, then all of a sudden they're upset, right?Mike:Yeah.Ben:And so they... For whatever reason, it doesn't go through, right, I don't know how this works, I've never bought Bitcoin at a kiosk. But so, they're like, "Okay, Honeybadger". And so they Google Honeybadger, and the first result for Honeybadger is us. And so they're like, "Oh, here's a phone number I can call". And they call us. And they're like, "Where's my Bitcoin?" That's like, "Uh, I really can't help you with that".Josh:They do.Ben:"You stole my Bitcoin". It's like, "No, that's not us".Josh:Something just occurred to me. I wonder how many of them are just confused over the fact that Bitcoin transactions can take a while to arrive now, right? It's not always instantaneous, where it used to be a lot faster, but now I know that it can take a while to clear. So I wonder how many of those people are emailing us in the span... Maybe that's why they eventually always go away and we don't hear from them again. Maybe it's not that they're getting help, but it's just that their Bitcoins are arriving. Yeah. I have a feeling that there's some sort of... I'm guessing these are mostly regular normies using, and interacting with this very highly technical product and experience, and even if you're walking up to a kiosk, but there's still a highly technical aspect of it that, like you said Mike, people are thinking coin, they're thinking... The way this maps to their brain is it's like dollar bills. So they're looking at it like an ATM. Yep.Mike:Yeah. When it comes to cryptocurrency and the technology, I don't want to have to think about custody, or any of that other kinds of stuff. It'll be successful when it just is happening, I'm not thinking about it. They're already... In some... I don't know all of the different mobile devices, but I do carry out an iPhone. And so, the wallet on iPhone is pretty seamless now, right? And so I'm not thinking about how that technology is working. I had to associate an Amex with it originally, right? But once I've done that, then all I do is click my button to pay. And there you go. And so I do think that the cryptocurrency technology has a long way to go towards that, because if normal people, the non nerds, have to think about it, then it's not going to be useful. Because in the end-Josh:Yeah.Mike:... humans use tools, right? And so, whatever the tool is, they're going to use it especially if it's easy and it makes their life easier.Ben:So what I really want to know, Mike, is what are your feelings about Dogecoin? Are you bullish on Doge?Mike:Well, I'll answer that, but I wanted to come back to the bit about the NFT, and just talking about the possibilities with technology. And I think that you guys could profit from this.Ben:I like where it's going.Mike:You'll have to do some more research. But I think what you could do... See, I love the origin story of Honeybadger. And maybe not everybody knows about the Honeybadger meme from what is... When was this, two thousand...Ben:2012? 2011?Mike:Yeah, okay. So not everybody... Yeah, bot everybody knows about the meme. I guess, just go Google-Ben:I can link it in the show notes.Josh:It's long dead. This meme is long dead.Mike:Is it? Well it's still awesome. I still love it.Josh:It is.Mike:So, there's so many facets of this that I love. The first one is that... Can I name names on competitors-Ben:Of course.Mike:... in the origins? Okay. So the first one was is that Airbrake, an exception reporting service, was doing a poor job with their customer service. And you guys were like, "We're working on this project, we need exception reporting. It's not working". It's like, "Well, can we just take their library, and build our own backend?" Right? And to me, that is beautiful. And in thinking about this episode, in Heroku, the same opportunity lies for an aspiring developer out there where you could just take the Heroku CLI and point it at your own false backend until you figure out all of the API calls that happen. And I don't know, you have that backed by Kubernetes, or whatever orchestration framework is...Mike:There is the possibility that you could do the same Honeybadger story with Airbrake SDK, as there is with the Heroku CLI. So that's the first thing I love about the Honeybadger story, and the fact the name goes along with the fact that Airbrake had poor customer support, and you guys just were like, "F it, we're going to build our own exception reporting service". Now, in the modern context with NFTs is... I have old man experience with the NFTs in that GIFs, or GIFs, and JPEGs, this is BS that people are gouging for profit. However, the technology of the NFT... This is the thing that I think is beautiful, is that... And I'm not sure which of the NFTs does this, but there is the possibility that you could be the originator of a digital object, and then you sell that digital object. And then as that digital object is traded, then you, as the, I guess, the original creator, you can get a percentage of the sales for the lifetime of that digital asset.Ben:Yeah.Mike:And, I'm not sure which of the NFTs allows that, but that is one of the things, that's one of the value propositions in NFT. So what I was thinking is if you guys did an NFT on the shaw of the original Honeybadger Ruby SDK check-in, that this could be the thing that you guys have an experiment with, is you have real skin in the game, you're playing with the technology and see if that works. And, let me know if you do that, because I might try to buy it. So, we'll see.Josh:Well, we've already got a buyer, why wouldn't we?Mike:Yeah, so..Ben:Indeed, yeah.Josh:See I was thinking maybe you could own various errors or something in Honeybadger.Mike:Yeah, I mean... Whatever digital signature you want to... Whatever you want to sign, and then assign value to.Josh:Yeah, we could NFT our Exceptional Creatures.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Have you seen that, Mike? Have you seen that project?Mike:Yep, yep.Josh:Okay.Mike:I'm well aware of that. Yep.Ben:Yeah. I'm thinking what about open source maintainers, right? Let's say you have this project and someone really wants a particular feature, right? Or they're really happy about a particular feature that you've already done, right? You can sell them that shaw, that commit, that put it into name, right?Mike:Yeah, totally.Ben:You are the proud owner of this feature. Thank you.Mike:Yeah, totally. Yeah, I was hoping that I would come with some ideas. I hope someday in the future that I run into somebody and it's like, "Oh, we heard that podcasts were where ideas were free ideas that were worth a lot of money were thrown about. And I did this project, and now I'm retired. Thank you, Mike". Honeybadgers.Josh:Wait, so Ben are you saying that, so as a committer, so say I commit something to Rails, submit a PR, so then I own that PR once it's merged and it would be like I could sell that then to someone? Is that along the lines of what you're saying?Ben:No, I'm thinking the owner of the project. So, if you commit something to Rails, and you're really excited about it, and you for some reason want to have a trophy of that commit-Josh:Right.Ben:... on a plaque on the wall, right? Then the Rails core group could sell you that token.Josh:Okay. Gotcha.Ben:That trophy, that certificate, like, "Yep. This is your thing. Commissioned by..." It's like naming a star, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:You buy the rights to a star, and it's fake stuff, right? We're naming stars. But that's the same idea.Josh:Yeah. So you could use that same idea to incentivize open-source contribution. So if you make the PR to Rails and it gets merged, you get this NFT for the PR merge, which you could then actually profit for if it was... Say it was, I don't know, turbo links or something, whatever. Years later, when it's a huge thing and everyone in Rails is using it, maybe Mike's going to come along and be like, "Hey, I'll buy... I want to own the PR for turbo links".Ben:Right.Josh:Yeah. And of course then, you, as the owner, would also profit from any sale between parties later on too. You'd get that little percentage.Mike:Yeah. Well, so when somebody comes up with committer coin, just remember me, I want to airdrop of some committer coin.Josh:We have a name. We've got a name for it. Commit coin.Ben:I've got a new weekend project ahead of me.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Cool. Well, that helps me understand NFTs.Ben:Yeah, I really like the idea of being able to sell ownership rights to a digital asset. That I think a good idea. I don't know that the current implementation that we see on the news is a great implementation of that idea. Buying the rights for a copy of a JPEG, it feels kind of sketchy to me. But maybe there's some sort of, I don't know, PDF document that has some sort of value for some reason. And you can give that, sell that to someone. And to me, it's not so much about the profit, or the transaction, it's the ownership. You can say I am the owner of this thing. Yeah, there can be copies all over the place, but I'm the person that has the ownership, quote unquote, of this thing.Josh:Yeah, yeah. But then you've got to define value Ben. What is value? Okay, so, what makes a PDF more valuable than a JPEG?Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Bring this back to Dogecoin, and value propositions, and whatnot. What is valuable? When you're talking about the value of a JPEG, this reminded me of a conversation I was having with my son. He's 10 years old and he wanted some money to buy, I don't know what it was, and old man voice came out of me and it's like, "That's BS. I don't think that's valuable". And he looked at me and he was like, "It's valuable to me". And it's like, "Oh, you just put a dagger in my heart. I'm killing your dream". And one person's value may not be another person's value. So, on the Dogecoin, that's interesting. Dogecoin is very interesting to me, because I feel like I'm in a quantum state with a Dogecoin where it is a joke, but at the same time it apparently it has value.Mike:And I don't know where I stand on that threshold. I know how to trade Dogecoin. And I know the behavior of Dogecoin, and the behaviors, from a trading standpoint, has changed substantially in the last six months. Before it was a pump and dump kind of thing. Well, actually, you know what? When Dogecoin was first created, its purpose was highlighted by the community. People in podcast land don't realize this, but I'm wearing a 2017 Dogecoin shirt from when the Dogecoin community sponsored the number 98 NASCAR. And the thing of the community was like, "Oh, we have all this money, and we're just being altruistic and we're giving it away". And so they were exercising their belief with this currency, right?Mike:And from then, till now, there was a bit of a cycle to Dogecoin where you could, if you acquired Dogecoin for say under a hundred Satoshis, this is the Dogecoin BTC pair, that was actually a good buy. Just wait for the next pump when somebody does something, and Dogecoin goes over 200, or 300 Satoshis, and then you dump it. And that's basically what I did on this in the last six months. I had a small bag of Dogecoin waiting for the next pump and dump. And I actually did that, but it kept on getting pumped, and then it would stabilize. And then now we're at the point where apparently Elon Musk and Mark Cuban are saying that there's value to it.Mike:And to me, I actually put a lot of credence to that, because these are two public persons that they cannot... If they're pumping things in the public domain, then they have risk, right? And so you can't be those two people, and be pumping, and not run the risk of the FTC of the United States government coming in and saying, "Hey, why were you doing this?" So there's the, I guess for me, a small bit of a guarantee that maybe there is something to Dogecoin.Josh:Yeah. See, the way I think, when you first started you were saying it is a joke, but you're in this dual state, and my initial or immediate thought was it is a joke, but this is the internet, and the internet loves to make silly things real.Mike:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Especially these days.Ben:Yeah. It's pretty funny for all those people that made a bunch of money on GameStop, right? Yeah.Mike:Yeah. Well that's the thing, is in Dogecoin, Doge is, of itself, from a meme from the same time period as Honeybadger, right? The Iba Shinu doggie, right? So, the other thing I don't understand, or the thing that I understand but I don't know how to quantify it for myself, is that, to me... So there's no pre-mine on Dogecoin. There's no one person that owns a lot of Dogecoin from the beginning. Whereas if we're talking about Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, the founder, or one of the founders of Ethereum, they pre-mined Ethereum, and there's a ton of Ethereum that's owned by the founders. Whereas you compare that to, say, Litecoin, Charlie Lee cloned Bitcoin and created Litecoin. He sold all of his Litecoin. I believed in him when he said he's sold it all. He's a software engineer, just like us. He was Director of Engineering at Coinbase.Mike:He doesn't seem like he's wearing tinfoil hat out there, doing conspiracies. So when he says that he sold his coin in 2017, all of his Litecoin, I totally believe that. Yet today, he is the chairperson of the Litecoin foundation. And so, to me... I actually do have, I placed some value in the benevolence of Litecoin and Dogecoin, because there's not any one person that actually controls it. I guess Charlie Lee, he probably has a stronger voice than most. But he doesn't control the levers.Josh:Not financially.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Yeah. And so then with Dogecoin... So Dogecoin, it'll be awesome if it gets above a dollar, but the structure of Dogecoin will be such as they cannot maintain that.Josh:Right.Mike:Because it's an inflation-Josh:There's no cap, right?Mike:Right.Josh:Yeah.Mike:It's inflation. And so, I don't know the number, I think it's a million Dogecoin are minted every day. So, 10 years from now, if Dogecoin is worth a dollar still, then that means Bitcoin will be worth a lot more than that. So I guess that'd be awesome if Dogecoin stays a dollar. However, the point I'm trying to make is actually there is value in having an inflationary currency, especially if we're talking about living in the structure of our current financial... The way that our current financial markets work, where there is an inflation.Mike:And so if I want to be transacting with a digital currency, I don't want to have to be, say, like having an Argentina kind of moment where my one Dogecoin is worth $5 American today, and then maybe only $3 American a week from now. So to me, I think there is value in Dogecoin in that it's inflationary, and that it will not be as susceptible to speculation bubbles as other currencies. And so, I don't know if that answers your questions on the value of Dogecoin, but those are a couple of reasons why I think that Dogecoin is valuable. Now, am I going to be holding a big bag of Dogecoin in 2022? Probably not. Just to be honest.Ben:We're all about honesty at Honeybadger. I love the episodes where we have to have a disclaimer, this is not financial advice. Please consult competent professionals before investing, et cetera, et cetera. Mike, it has been a delight to have you with us. We appreciate your counterbalance to our coin pessimism that we have amongst the Honeybadger fan base.Josh:Yeah, I think we needed this.Ben:Yeah.Josh:We really needed this.Ben:We really did.Josh:So thank you.Ben:It's been good.Mike:Yeah. Oh, I got one more idea out there. Hopefully, somebody can run with this, is I've been trying to get motivated to do some experimentation with the Bitcoin lightning network. We didn't really talk about these a layer two solutions for scaling, but I think that there is a lot of potential in coming up with an interesting project that lays within the Litecoin* network, it has its value in and of itself, but there's a secondary value of being a note on the Litecoin* network where if there's transactions going through your node, let's say, I don't know how you'd instrument this, but let's say that Honeybadger actually was... That you guys were taking your payments across your own lightning node, then all of the transactions that are going across the lightning network, you're getting a small fee, right? So I think that there's the possibility of a micropayments kind of play there, like for instance, paying by the exception. I mean, literally-*Editor's note from Mike - "in my excitement talking about the Lighting Network I slipped and said Litecoin a couple of times between Lightning Network. Lightning Network is a layer 2 protocol that is primarily intended for scaling Bitcoin and that was what I meant. However, Lightning can be implemented to run on top of Litecoin and Ethereum."Josh:That has come up that has come up in the past, I think at one point.Mike:You can't do micro payments on a credit card.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Right? But you can do micropayments on lightening network. And I'm not selling you guys on this, but I'm saying that there's going to be some nerd out there that it's like, "Oh my God micropayments are here, I can do micropayments on lighting network". And then they're going to do well on that product, but then they're also going to do well on the commission that they're earning on payments going through their node.Josh:This could be used for usage base software as a service billing model.Ben:Totally. And then you get the skim off the top, just like a good affiliate does.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it. All right. All right, Mike, we're going to have to do some scheming together. Well, any final words, any parting words besides go by all the Dogecoin that you can?Mike:Yeah. Don't put all your money into the cryptocurrencies. Yeah.Josh:Seems like good advice.Ben:Be smart

FounderQuest
Kicking The Tires On Basecamp Alternatives

FounderQuest

Play Episode Listen Later May 14, 2021 38:23


Show notes:Links:Threads.comBlueyVogmaskTwistIt’s a Southern ThingIf I had a front porchFull transcript:Josh:How y'all doing?Ben:I'm doing.Starr:Yeah, about the same.Ben:I've been riding my scooter to work all week.Starr:Oh, how's that?Ben:It's a lot of fun. Got a little electric kick scooter and top speed about 25 miles per hour. I was concerned about it being able to get up the hill that I have to go back up on my way home. It does drag a bit on that hill. I only got a single motor. Guess I should have gone with the dual motor. Otherwise it's fun. It's nice to be out in nature, I guess, air quotes, because you're still on the road and you're still a victim of cars and stuff. Being able to see the sun coming up over the hills and down to the valley and while you're just feeling the wind on your face, it's all good.Josh:It sounds nice.Ben:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, sounds awesome. I don't know. It seems terrifying to me, but I'm sure it's a lot of fun.Ben:It helped that I have done a lot of bike riding on roads for the past several years, so I'm already comfortable with the idea of mixing it up with cars and weaving in and out of traffic and realizing that people aren't going to see me and things like that. I think if I had just gone from driving a car straight to riding a scooter in the bike lane, that would be a little more terrifying.Starr:Yeah, that makes sense.Josh:Next you're going to have to upgrade to one of the electric skateboards or a Onewheel or something, just remove the handle bars.Ben:Right, right, right. Get one of those Onewheel things.Josh:This is leading up to-Ben:Totally.Starr:We're just working up to hoverboards. I mean I commute to my backyard office, so maybe I should get a zip-line or something from the main house.Ben:I like that, yeah.Starr:... then I could be extreme.Josh:We want a zip-line at our place out into the forest.Starr:That would be fun.Ben:You could do a zip-line from your deck to the sandbox, send the kids out to play.Josh:The kids would love it. Well, I was thinking more for myself though. Screw the kids. They don't need a zip-line.Starr:There you go. That's actually not a bad idea. We're going to get-Josh:That would be cool though.Starr:... a deck in the fall.Josh:Oh, nice.Starr:I had thought it would be fun to put a fireman pole on one side or something so kids could slide down it. It's raised up a little bit but not that much. It's like a kid's sliding size.Ben:That would be totally awesome. That would-Josh:We have been loving our new deck that we have had for a month and a half or something now. It's a new deck. If you have a really old, rickety deck, a new one is a big upgrade. Also ours is a little bit larger, too, so it's like a bigger house almost.Starr:Oh, that's great. We don't even have a deck it's just like a little stairway.Josh:I think you're going to like it, Starr.Starr:I think so, too. I know, deck life. It's going to be covered. I was just like-Josh:It's just the small things.Starr:I know. All I want is to be able to go out on a nice evening or something and sit and drink a cup of tea and be outside.Ben:And think about all-Josh:I was going to say, where do you drink the sweet tea in the summer if you don't have a front porch?Starr:Yeah, that's the main problem with houses up here in the Northwest is there's not real front porches. We have one that's like a weird nod at a front porch. It's like somebody maybe had seen a front porch once when they were... They were like, "Oh, maybe I'll try and do that from memory," without really knowing what it's supposed to be like.Josh:Some of the ones in Portland have them, but they're boxed in usually, and they're the older houses-Josh:... like the old Craftsmans or whatever.Starr:The stately grand dames.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:Well, here in Kirkland we're destroying all those old houses and putting in-Starr:Thank God.Ben:... townhouses.Josh:Hell, yeah.Ben:I drove by one this morning. This morning was the first morning since I got my scooter that I actually didn't ride the scooter because it was raining and the ground was wet. I was like, "Ah, I don't want to deal with that this morning." So I just drove. I drove past this house that... Well, yesterday it was a house. Today, it's a pile of sticks because they sold the lot, and they're going to split it into probably, I don't know, four lots and put in some townhouses. It's always a sad thing, but people got to have a place to live.Starr:Yeah, it's a shame. They tore down a house on my block, too, except it was a condemned house. It looked like a gingerbread fairy house that you'd find on just a random stroll in the woods where you'd go inside and you'd find just a delicious meal laid out on the table just waiting for you. So I'm a little sad it's gone just for, I guess, the storytelling aspects, the mythology of it. I guess it's probably best not to just have a condemned structure hanging out.Josh:I still do feel like Ida's is missing out with your telling of that story. I feel a little sad for you all.Starr:I know. I know.Ben:You're totally missing the threat possibility there. Like, "Don't misbehave or I'll send you over to the gingerbread house."Starr:Oh my god, yeah. Yeah, lots of great ways to traumatize my child.Ben:Speaking of traumatizing children, I was going through Twitter the other day, and the Washington State Department of Health had a tweet. I don't remember what the tweet was, but they had a GIF embedded in it. It was Stimpy from Ren & Stimpy as a scene from the show. I was like, "That's from the Department of Health? My generation is now in charge."Starr:With the Twitter account at least.Ben:We're now putting in-Josh:Yeah, exactly.Ben:That was the weirdest... It's like, "I'm an adult." That was a weird, weird experience.Josh:It is kind of strange when the people in charge start looking more and more like you until you realize they're just like-Ben:They're just little kids, just like I am.Josh:Then you wonder why the hell they're in charge.Starr:I'm getting like Paul Ryan listening to a Rage Against the Machine vibe from this.Josh:That's what I'd be playing if I was in charge of the Department of Health's-Starr:There we go.Josh:... Twitter account.Starr:I think this week has all been a little bit... I don't know. We're all maybe a little bit having a hard time focusing. I know I have a little bit just. It seems like that happens every spring as soon as the weather gets nice and it stops being nice, then it gets nice and it stops being nice. You're waiting by the door with your kayak. You just got to get the jump on it before everybody else gets to the lake.Josh:Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Also allergies have been kicking in lately.Starr:Oh my god, yeah.Josh:I was really on top of it this year, but then I ran out of my Zyrtec or whatever. It was on the list to replenish the supply or whatever, but I procrastinated and missed a few days. That's a huge mistake.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:That was this week. Now I switched to Claritin, so we'll see how... That's the big news of my week.Starr:Oh my gosh. I'm getting vaccinated later today, my second dose.Josh:Nice.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Congrats.Starr:I think I'm still going to keep wearing the KN95 respirators outside, though, just for the allergies.Josh:It's probably a good call.Ben:I was helping a neighbor with some yard work and doing a bunch of weeding and had the weed whacker out, and there's just dirt flying everywhere. I'm like, "Man, I should really wear a mask." Like, how ironic. I've got like, I don't know, a thousand masks in my house, and I'm not wearing one as I'm doing all this dusty stuff.Josh:That's a good thing to do.Starr:Oh, this is reminding me, I need to stock up before fire season.Ben:A few years ago when we had the really bad fire season, we got some Vogmasks. This was before the world knew that you were supposed to wear masks. Vogmasks are fantastic. They're a fabric mask that have the filtering stuff on the inside and highly recommend. I'll put a link in the show notes.Starr:Cool.Ben:Good stuff. When the pandemic hit, of course, they were out of stock immediately because everybody and their brother wanted one, but they've been back in stock. They're nice masks. They're really nice.Starr:Well, one thing that we have been doing is casually just checking out alternatives to Basecamp for our internal company's message board. I don't know. I feel like we're just perusing the alternatives. Honestly, it's been a little bit difficult finding just a system out there that's just a simple thread and message board without a million complex adjustments for running a forum that has thousands of people. Somebody on Twitter yesterday recommended Threads. I don't know. I think we're currently evaluating that one but no decisions yet.Josh:Is that like Twitter threads? You just-Starr:Oh, yeah, just Twitter threads.Josh:We do all of our communicating but just public threads.Starr:No, we're just going to use Twitter stories. We're just going to take some pics of ourselves in different-Josh:If we're trying to go to the opposite direction of Basecamp, we could just... Well, I guess this is like Basecamp, just do all of our communication via thought leadership.Starr:There you go.Ben:What if we did all of internal communication via TikTok?Starr:Okay, I'm getting this. I'm on board with this. We're just going to be influencers. Whoever's the most influential is going to-Josh:You know what? If our employees don't like it, too bad. You're getting a Twitter account, and it's getting verified.Starr:Yeah, they can interpret our really random TikTok video and try and figure out what it means. That's how they'll discover our disapproval.Ben:On the Basecamp thing, though, it was interesting as I was looking at it this week and realizing that the only thing that we use in Basecamp is messages along with the files. We sometimes attach files to our messages.Josh:Or email forwards.Ben:Yeah, occasionally we do an email forward. But we don't-Starr:Usually we do calendars, but we also have Google calendar.Ben:And Slack.Josh:And Notion.Ben:And notion. So we don't do to-dos. We don't do hill charts. We don't really use the project management side of the project management software that we're using. As I was looking at alternatives this week, I looked at monday.com and ClickUp and, I don't know, a few different ones. They're all these project management things. It's like, well, we don't really manage projects. We do that via chat or via a Zoom call every once in a while or via Notion. We don't use a project management tool for that. So it's like, yeah, all we really need are threads, conversations.Starr:It's the sort of thing where you could just do it in email, but it's nice having that archival ability, the ability to go back and check things out and not have it dependent on, "Oh, maybe I deleted that message by accident or whatever."Josh:Well, you could do it in Slack, but then you end up with the weird history aspect of it, and you'd have to have some sort of... You have to create a channel for it with the rules so it doesn't end up being just a chat. You have to say, "The rule of this channel is every message is a thread or a post or whatever."Starr:You kind of have to do it manually.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I did look at Twist. That was pretty cool, pretty close, but it also has chat. It's like, "well, I don't want a second chat since we already use Slack." We're not going to ditch Slack.Starr:Basecamp has chat, too.Ben:Right, and we don't use that. I guess you could use Twist. Twist is pretty nice.Starr:I think we need threaded messages, we need everything to be archived, and we need some way to see what people have been writing on lately, see what the latest activity is. That's basically it. I don't even use notifications. I get them, but I don't really... Usually by the time I see them... That's not my process. I don't look at my notifications and be like, "Oh, I'd better check this out." I check out the messages at a set set time basically.Ben:Then, like you said, the forum software, like the discourse, and it's just way, way too much. It's like, "Yeah, we get it." We just need a message board. We don't need all the dials and knobs. It's totally a dials and knobs application. I saw it in the settings, and I was like, "Whoa, okay. I'm just going to back away slowly."Starr:It could be fun, I don't know, if we want to be passive aggressive, we could shadow ban people. We could just do all sorts of fun things.Ben:But I suppose we don't have the hard requirements supporting BBCode.Starr:Isn't that a negative requirement? Supporting BBCode, I think that's a detriment. But we do have a chance to maybe, I don't know, maybe... One thing that I've always really... This really annoyed me about Basecamp is that it doesn't support Markdown, and everything we use supports Markdown, so everything I have is in Markdown. So if I write something in my personal notes, it's going to be in Markdown. If I want to transfer that to Basecamp, I got to manually format it, which is just like, "What am I? What is this? Who do you think I am?"Josh:That's my number one gripe with Basecamp, like the editor, is just a WYSIWYG editor that... I constantly... even just when I'm writing and I want to make a list and I just type a dash like I normally... in most things these days, and it just doesn't do anything in Basecamp. Then I remember, "Oh, I have to get my mouse and click on the bullet." It's a huge hassle.Ben:I can imagine your quality of life being dramatically affected by that.Josh:Yeah.Starr:You know we're developers when we're complaining about things like that.Josh:This is why I'm wearing wrist braces.Starr:Or dual wrist braces.Ben:I totally get what you're saying. I want to be able to type star, space, stuff, stuff, stuff and I get a list. Yeah, totally.Starr:It looks like threads.com, it does support Markdown, which is nice. I don't know. I haven't really played around with it a ton. Some aspects of its design, I'm not super happy. I wish the column widths were a little wider and stuff, but also I don't like certain aspects of Basecamp's design. So it's kind of a toss up for me.Ben:I did an export of our Basecamp content, and I got to say their export is fantastic. They give you an HTML page that links to a bunch of other pages per topic or project or team, whatever they call it, and the files are there. It's really well done. So I think if anyone's looking for inspiration on doing exports in their app, they should totally look at Basecamp. They nailed it. It's actually usable. You get this zip file. You open it up and bam, you can just browse through all your stuff.Starr:That's pretty great. I guess I should declare, I think maybe I started this casual looking for alternatives just because I've seen a lot of stuff online about people are angry at Basecamp. It's like, I'm not really angry at them. Well, this isn't really the point. I'm sad and disappointed in them. But also a lot of the reason why I think they have had our business and they had my business, I've stored personal stuff in a personal Basecamp account, it's just because they're trustworthy. That feeling of trustworthiness has gone down a few pegs for me.Starr:Also, I just kind of felt gross logging in there. If you haven't been keeping up with this, part of the deal is they were making fun of people's names and stuff. I don't know. Are they making fun of my name? I've got a weird name. Are they going through my stuff making fun of it? I know they have access to pretty much everything that I put into Basecamp. I don't know. Even if they're not doing that now, are they going to do that in the future? Because it seems like they're going in that direction. I don't know. It seems like they're shutting down people trying to hold them internally accountable for that sort of thing. I don't know. It's just like a gross feeling. I'm just sad about the whole thing.Josh:I personally I kind of doubt that that's like... I got the feeling that the list was more of an artifact from the past, and it had stuck around for too long. I didn't get the feeling that they're condoning that sort of activity really, but I get what you're saying. Also for me, a big factor of it, it's not even just that I'm mad at them or something, they did lose 30% of their company, and they're supporting two products now, one of which is a major infrastructure product but basically is like email. So they have operation overhead and stuff. They did just lose 30% of their company including their, what, head of strategy but basically head of product. So I just wonder, where is the product going from here? It was already, I felt, a little bit stagnating. I don't know. I think they've been working on the next version of it is what I heard. I don't know. It just seems like there are questions about just the stability from that nature, too.Ben:I'm probably in a third place from you two and I probably care the least. I'm like, "Eh, it's a message board. They can make fun of my name." Okay. I had that happen when I was 10. People do that. It's like, "Oh, get on." I have a hard time getting up the energy to care, I guess.Starr:Don't mistake me. I'm not like up in arms about it. This is more like a passive viewing. It's like, "Oh, I got to go on Basecamp and check my things. Uh, I just feel kind of crummy about it." This is-Ben:It's one of those friction things in your life you just don't need. Yeah, absolutely.Starr:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Absolutely.Starr:I'm like, this is a message board. Like, should I be having to deal with this just to go check some messages? It's ridiculous.Josh:I think all of us are really just talking these are passing thoughts we have using the product in light of the drama of the past few weeks.Starr:If we end up staying on it, I'm not going to be super upset. I'll probably get over it. I don't know. It just seems like it might be nice to try something different especially if we can get that sweet Markdown.Ben:I've been surprised that there are so few products that are just about this one use case of the simple messages. I expected there to be tons of things to try and no.Starr:Of course, in our company Notion, there's now a design document-Ben:Of course.Starr:... for a simple-Josh:Because we're going to build our own.Ben:We're going to build our own, of course. What does any good tech team do when they're frustrated with the 20 solutions on the market? They build solution number 21.Starr:Of course.Ben:Maybe we'll build that. The code name for that project is Budgie. I named it Budgie because I went to do the Google search, I'm like, "What's a communicative type of animal? What's a social animal?" I can't remember the search I did, but the first thing that got turned up was like, the most social birds. I don't know. So there's this list of birds, and budgie was the number one bird. So I'm like, "Okay, cool." Then I was like, "Well, what kind of domains are available?" Because of course when you start a project, you have to buy the domain. Before you do anything else, you got to buy that domain. Surprisingly, and perhaps not surprisingly in retrospect, every variant of budgie is taken, of course, budgie.com but also budgie.app and budgieapp.com. I'm like, "Wow. How many...?" And they're all for sale. None of them are actual products. They're all parked, and they're for sale. I'm like, so a bunch of people have had this idea about what's a social animal. I guess budgies are really popular for pets, and so they're looking for the ad opportunities with people looking for, "How do I take care of my budgie?" Anyway, just kind of a diversion.Starr:That's interesting. The first thing that pops into mind when I heard that... I like the name. It's a cute name. There's this really good Australian kids' cartoon called Bluey, and there's an episode where they find a little budgie that's injured, and it dies. So the kids have to come to terms with that. I don't know. It's just like, "Little budgie died."Josh:Bluey is one of the best cartoons ever, by the way.Starr:Yeah, Bluey. Oh, I'm glad you like it, too.Josh:It's so good.Starr:It's super good. It's super good. Basically the whole cartoon is just these kids... They're dogs but they're kids. They're just making up games to play with each other. How it works is the kids watching the show see it and that makes them want to play that game, too. So it's just not dumb TV. It gets them doing stuff outside of the TV, which is kind of nice.Josh:That's a really good analysis of the show. I hadn't thought about that aspect of it, but come to think of it, my kids totally imitate them.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:Climbing all over us.Starr:I now have to play every game in that show, and I've got to know them by name and what the rules are.Josh:One of the things we like about it is just they really got the sibling dynamic down. It is like our kids to a tee. It's pretty funny. Now that I think about it, maybe it's like our kids have now become the characters in the show.Ben:It's a good thing I watch the Simpsons.Josh:Oh, no. Actually we do watch the Simpsons.Starr:Is the Simpsons still on?Josh:It's on Disney+.Starr:Oh my gosh.Ben:Yeah, it is still a thing.Josh:They're still making it, too, right?Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.Starr:Wow. I don't know. I don't even know about that.Josh:We don't watch much of the Simpsons with them yet, a three and four-year-old.Josh:I don't know if I'm quite ready for a couple little Bart and Lisas.Ben:You put that off as long as you can. Well, I actually did a little bit of work this week. I was working on something, I don't know what. I noticed one of the tests was running kind of long like it was just stuck. I don't usually watch tests. I don't usually run the tests actually. I just let our CICB run the tests. I don't even worry about it. But this morning for some reason, I don't know, I was working on something, and I happened to be running the tests. I noticed one of the tests was just stuck. Like, that's weird. So I did a little investigation.Ben:It turns out that a number of our tests do some domain name server resolution because, for webhooks, when someone puts in their webhook, we want to verify that the destination is not like a private thing. They're not trying to fetch our EC2 credentials and stuff like that. So it does some checks like, is this is a private IP address? Does this domain name actually resolve, blah, blah, blah? Also for our uptime checks. Obviously, people are putting in domains for that, too. It turns out that, I don't know, maybe it was my machine, maybe it was the internet being dumb, whatever, but the domain name resolution was what was holding up the test. This happens, as you can imagine, in a variety of ways in our tests. This one test that I was running, which was only, I don't know, seven or eight tests, it was taking a minute or two minutes to run. Then I fixed this so that it stopped doing the domain name resolution, and it took two seconds.Josh:Wow.Ben:So a slight improvement to our test suite there. A quality of life improvement.Josh:Did you benchmark overall? Because that's got to be a huge improvement if it's doing that everywhere.Ben:Well, it's not doing that everywhere. I did do a push, so I have to go and check and see what GitHub... see if it dropped that time.Josh:Well, it might have been whatever was wrong with your DNS resolution in the first place that was causing it to be extra slow. Would it be faster if DNS was fast?Ben:Yeah, it could have been. I actually did some tests on my laptop at the time. I'm like, "Is my DNS resolution slow?" No.Josh:So it's-Ben:The test... I don't know what the deal was.Josh:It was just resolving a bunch of actual URLs in the test.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah, that's bad. So nice work. You reminded me that I did some work this week, too.Ben:OhJosh:Very important work, I must say. I added a yak to our Slack bot to where-Josh:... if you mention the word "yak" when you're interacting with the Slack bot now it will return... You should do it in Slack, just whatever Badger bot. Say Badger bot yak me, it-Starr:Okay, I'm doing it.Josh:Okay, do it.Starr:Oh, sorry. It was the wrong channel. Hold on.Josh:You got to do it in general, I think.Starr:Come on Badger bot. Oh my god. It's a little text space yak.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Awesome.Josh:This came about because earlier this week I was just passively mentioning in chat that I'm just yak shaving. My entire life is yak shaving. That just got us talking about, why don't we have some representation of that in our chat, in our Slack? Obviously, I had to stop everything I was doing and build that right away. Of course, there were some escaping issues that came up as a result of that, so obviously I had to deploy a few hot fixes.Ben:The whole episode amuses me. I love it. I would do exactly the same thing. But also what amuses me is that we already have, as part of Slack, GIPHY, and you could just dump a picture of a yak in there. But you're like, "No, that's good enough. I must have an ASCII yak.Josh:It's got to be an ASCII yak, yeah.Ben:This is great. I love technology.Josh:I kind of miss Hubot where it would just automatically... if you just mention it. Maybe I should change our Slack bot so that it does that. So if you say "yak," a wild yak appears. By the way, that's what the text at the bottom of the ASCII yak says, a wild yak appears. I just wish it would pop up if someone just mentions it in a chat, like if they're talking about it just because-Josh:It's listening to everything, right?Starr:That would be fine.Ben:We used to have Hubot, and every time you said "ship," it would show the ship-Josh:The ship, the squirrel. But I definitely would like... annoying at times, but overall I'd say it was worth it.Ben:Totally worth it.Starr:Yeah, definitely. I do remember sometimes where things were on fire, and it's just popping up funny GIFs, and it's like, "Not now. Not now Hubot, not now.Ben:Sit in the corner. Should have had that command. Like, "Go away for a while."Josh:Or just make it a separate... Maybe we should just make this a separate bot that you don't have to have any ops channel. Maybe this'll be our next product.Starr:Oh, there you go. It's like when you mention yak, it turns into an Oregon trail-type hunting scene, and you have to shoot the very slow pixel at it.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). I do love this aspect of our business of being... I assume it's like a side effect of being small. I don't know. I'm sure large teams also do this, I didn't spend a day on this, but spend a day just doing something completely useless. I like that we can do that-Ben:Yes, it is.Josh:... and the total lack of responsibility, to be honest.Starr:Is there a total lack of responsibility? I don't know. I don't know.Ben:I think you could argue that there is a total lack of responsibility.Josh:Maybe relatively.Starr:Maybe.Josh:I think we're speaking relatively.Starr:Relatively? Well, there's responsibility to customers. I don't know. Do they count? Nah.Ben:Speaking of being a small company, just because of a recent acquisition of one of our competitors, I had gone to look at what some of our other competitors, what status they were, and I was just blown away with how many employees our competitors have. It's really amazing.Starr:What are they doing with all those people? Are they paying...? Do they have a professional volleyball team or something?Josh:Not in the past year.Starr:Well, they play over Zoom.Josh:It's a professional pong league now.Starr:There you go.Ben:We have five employees. The competitor that has the closest number of employees comes in at a hefty 71. Then the largest number that I found was 147 employees. That's impressive.Josh:With the competitor, the first one that you mentioned with the 70 something employees, and I assume over $100 million in funding, were they the ones that were recently bragging on Twitter about how much more usage they have than everyone else?Ben:I don't know because I don't remember seeing that bragging.Josh:They were. It was kind of funny. Yeah, you would probably be the major player.Starr:That's something I definitely learned throughout the course of running this business is that a company that has tens or, I don't know, hundreds of, did you say $100 million, that's a lot-Josh:It's a lot.Starr:... of funding can do more work than three people even if those three people are very, very good. It's-Ben:That's right.Starr:They can do more work, and that's all right. We're just going to have our little garden patch over here. It doesn't matter if ConAgra is a mile down the road. They can do their thing. We can do our thing.Ben:As long as they don't let their seeds blow into our farmland, right?Starr:Oh, yeah, definitely. Let me just ask you a question. When it comes to buying your strawberries for your traditional summer strawberry shortcake, are you going to go to that wonderfully, just delightful artisanal farm down the road, or are you just going to slide over to ConAgra and, I don't know, get some of their strawberry-shaped objects?Ben:I got to say, I love roadside fruit stands. Those are the best. When cherry season happens here in Washington, going and grabbing a whole mess of cherries from some random person that's propped on the side of a road, I mean it's awesome.Starr:My favorite ones are the ones have no... if you stop and think about it... I used to live in Arkansas. One time I was walking by and there was this roadside fruit stand just with oranges. It was like, "Hold up. Hold up. Oranges don't grow in Arkansas. What is this?" I don't know if he just went to Costco and just got a bunch of oranges or maybe he did the Cannonball Run from Florida straight up-Josh:Road trip.Starr:... and was selling oranges all the way up. There was some explaining to do.Ben:I didn't realize until I was saying it, but it really does sound ridiculous that you're going to go and get some fruit items from some random person on the side of the road. But I love roadside fruit stands. They're great.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:I don't know. In this day and age probably, yeah.Josh:Maybe things should be more like that. Maybe that would solve some problems.Ben:Well, coming back to the front porch thing, do you know that country song, If the World Had a Front Porch?"Starr:No, I don't.Ben:Definitely have to link it up in the show notes. It's all about if the world had a front porch like we did back then, then things would be different. People would be more friendly. We'd be chatting with our neighbors. Things would just be overall good.Starr:Yeah, totally.Josh:We'd all know each other.Starr:Is that true? Is that true?Ben:I got to say, I grew up in the Deep South. I did not have a front porch and none of my friends had a front porch because we all lived in the same neighborhood and all the houses were the same, but we were all still pretty friendly-Starr:Oh, there you go.Ben:... even though we didn't have front porches.Starr:Well, I had a front porch and people were assholes, so I think the correlation between front porches and nice people is weak.Ben:The song If I had a front porchJosh:.Isn't it more like a metaphor? I don't know.Starr:You could say the internet's the world's front porch and look how great that's worked out.Josh:If you just build a front porch-Starr:I'm sure it's a nice song. I don't mean to make fun of the song. I'm sure it's a good song.Josh:You build a front porch that the entire population of the world could fit on, just see how that goes. That's what we-Starr:It's like, "Oh, shit. We deforested the Amazon to get the wood for this."Ben:We should name our little message board product Front Porch.Starr:Front porch, ah, that's nice. You could have add-ons to that. Like for upgrades, you could get the rocking chair or the whittling knife.Ben:Yeah, and the sweet tea-Starr:The sweet tea, yeah.Ben:... or the mint julep.Starr:Can I ask you a question? Was sweet tea a thing when you were a kid?Ben:Yes.Starr:Do people refer to it as like, "Oo, sweet tea," as a saying?Ben:No.Starr:Okay, that-Ben:They'd just refer to is as tea.Starr:Okay, thank you.Ben:There was no other tea. It was just that.Josh:But it was sweet.Ben:Yeah, it was sweet, of course.Starr:Yeah, of course. It's-Ben:That's the only tea that existed. None of this Earl Grey hot business, no, no, no.Starr:I just noticed, I don't know, around 2007 everybody started talking about sweet tea. It's like, "What? What's this?" Ben:Yeah, totally. It's a Southern Thing, on YouTube, their channel, is pretty funny. They go into the sweet tea thing quite a bit. If you want some additional context, do some research on that whole aspect. You can go and watch that YouTube channel. I'll have to link it up in the show notes.Starr:Yeah, I'll check that out. Well, would you gentlemen like to wrap it up? I think I've got to start... I'm going to be Southern here. I'm fixing to get ready to think about going to my vaccine appointment.Ben:Jeet yet? You know that joke? Have you heard that?Starr:I haven't heard that joke. What?Ben:It's like, oh man, two southern guys, one's like, "Jeet yet?"Starr:Ah, did you eat yet? Okay, yeah.Ben:"No. Y'want to?"Starr:I haven't been back in a while.Josh:Did you eat yet?Starr:I haven't been back in a while.Ben:Oh, good times. Sometimes I miss the South but not during the summer.Starr:One of my favorite words, I think it might be a local Arkansas word, is tump. It's a verb, tump. It's the action of tipping something over and dumping out its contents. The perfect use case is a wheelbarrow. Like, you tump out the wheelbarrow. I'm sorry. Tump out the wheelbarrow.Ben:Totally.Josh:I am learning so much on this episode, by the way-Starr:There you go.Josh:... about the South.Josh:It's great. I'm learning more about-Josh:This is your second vaccine appointment, right?Starr:Yeah, it's the second one.Josh:Second and final. Well, for now.Starr:So I'm ready for it to hit me. I'm like, "Bring the storm.Josh:Yes, it hit me.Starr:Bring it on."Josh:Mine was like a 48-hour ordeal, but back to normal now. I feel great.Starr:That's good. You got your super powers.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Well, good luck with that.Starr:Thank you. Maybe one day we'll be able to have a conclave in person again, although I might need the support of a therapist or something because just like... I mean I like y'all, but I don't know if I'm over the droplets yet.Ben:You can still wear masks.Starr:Okay, that's good. Thank God, okay. All right, I will talk to y'all later.

The Marketing Secrets Show
"Outwitting The Devil" with Josh Forti - Part 3 of 3

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2021 20:48


Here is the exciting final part of this special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh talk quite a bit about the new book Russell is currently working on! The new book will be the first (of possibly many) personal development book that Russell has written. We also get to hear why Russell loves to write books and why he thinks everyone should write one. So listen in to the final part of Russell and Josh’s “Outwitting The Devil” interview. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody. This Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the third and final episode from the Outwitting The Devil interview with Josh Forti. Hopefully you enjoyed the first two episodes. If you missed any of them, go back and listen to episode one, two and this is part three of three. In this one, Josh started asking me questions about my new books. Why I was so excited about Outwitting The Devil, by how I'm using this? Why I'm writing my fourth book and a bunch of other really cool things. So I hope you enjoy it. And you've enjoyed this interview series, please let me know, let Josh know. The best way to do that is take a picture of any of these on your phone, post them on your social media and tag me and him and let us know what you thought about the episodes. Thanks again, you guys. I appreciate you all for listening with that said, let's queue up the exciting conclusion of the Josh Forti, Russell Brunson Outwitting The Devil Podcast interview. Josh Forti: Okay. I want to do this because we're talking about all these amazing books and I don't know, this is probably like two, three weeks ago. Maybe it's a little bit longer that. You start hinting on Instagram about this book. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh. There's another book? What could it possibly be?" And then last week I'm out here and you started telling me about it and what it is. Russell: Showing you the deal. Josh: It's not a marketing book. It's the next piece and it's your first ever... And I don't want to spoil it for them. I'm going to say it's like your first ever take at personal development. Talk to us about this book. When's it coming out? How did this come about and the details of that, because I'm super, super excited for it. Russell: I think it was my only, hopefully. But I said that about Dot Com Secrets too. Josh: I don't believe that at all. There's going to be a trilogy for... Russell you're going to be writing books till you die dude. Russell: I don't know. Writing is so painful but this one, again, it's me coming back. We launched Traffic Secrets. The world goes chaotic and I have more time and I'm trying to just occupy my mind. Josh: Which by the way, how perfect time. My heart was completely broken when you had to cancel the Traffic Secrets event because I was supposed to speak to there. I was like, "No." But how perfect of a timing was Traffic Secrets when- Russell: There are pros and cons of it. It was really good from a selling book standpoint. It was really hard for making New York times bestseller list, which we actually hit, which I'm still freaked out about. It was tough because Amazon wasn't shipping books. Things weren't shipped, all sorts of chaos. They said books weren't essential and so like it was hard to hit lists because you'd sell 10,000 copies of books in a week but Amazon was waiting two, three, four weeks to ship them because it wasn't... The way that the lists work is, how many did you sell in retail outlets? How many do you sell on USA today? All the things. And so when you have the big push, but then some books aren't being counted four or five weeks later because Amazon doesn't consider them essential. They're not sure when they can glut. Normally it takes 10,000 books or something to hit a bestseller list. We hit over 100,000 to be able to do it. It was way harder, way more stressful, but we got it. But it was easier to sell because I had more time. Anyway, a lot of pros with that. Plus it was crazy because in the beginning of the book I talked about there's a storm coming and then literally it was like, we're in the middle it. You should give this book right now... Josh: Literally right now. Russell: I think I'm similar to you. I think a lot of people in our community where it's just like, my mind is always spinning. I can't stop. Josh: I cannot shut it off ever. Russell: It's like there's got to be something I got to be thinking about. And again, it was harder me to find stuff for me to geek out on inside of marketing and business. It was just hard to find the next... I don't know. Every level you get to, it's harder to find the next level. I'm sure there's time where Michael Jordan's like, "I can't find people to push me anymore." Where do you go? And it's just like- Josh: Yeah. Like Tom Brady in the NFL just completely dominating every team that's out there. Yeah. That's right. Russell: Anyway. So not that I'm that level or anything. Josh: Right. Right. Right. Russell: For me it gets harder and harder- Josh: Likewise. Russell: To find things. I have to dig so hard to find the gold. And so I started just looking again at some of these things. And that's when I stumble on this book and just like, every page is gold and it's like I'm lit up again. I'm on fire. Again, I talked about earlier, for me one of my highest values is ROI. What's my return on my investment. So I'm learning these things. I'm growing myself personally, but I'm feeling empty because I'm not sharing them. So it's like, "What's the platform?" That's why I'm like, "Everyone go read this." I need to have this conversation with somebody. So having Dave reading it, everybody can get to read it I'm trying to read so I can get this conversations. Then when you're like, "Hey, do you want to talk about a podcast?" I said, "Yes." You forged some of this stuff because it's in me and if I can't contribute, it seems like I'm wasting it. And so there was this, there was other things. And I started looking more and more. Right now I've got five kids. Three of my kids are teenagers now and teenagers have been way harder than I ever thought or expected. It's weird. Kids are really fulfilling, but man teenagers have been just... It's different for me. I'm feeling like I have to grow to understand myself, but to also understand them. And what I envisioned my kids as teenagers are going to be what it is, has been so much different. I think for me, at times it got me depression, sadness and these things. And I was like, "I shouldn't be depressed this time in my kid's life. This is the greatest time I could be with them but I got to shift my mind." So it was me trying to do some work on myself, to fix myself. Not fix myself, but to get myself in a spot where I could enjoy the season. And then number two is how do I serve them now at this point? Because I envisioned the way I was going to serve my kids was when my dad did. Where I was like, he drove me to wrestling practice and we traveled the world, we worked out super hard because that's what I needed and I assumed that that's what my kids are going to need and it's not. That's not what they want. They want almost the opposite of those things. I'm like, "But I have these gifts. These skills I can give you." They are like, "I don't want them." I'm like, "I can help you start a business." Like, "We don't care." I get them value money because they've always had it. It's like all these things. Every gift that I have, it's like all my unique abilities I want to give my kids, they don't want it. So I'm learning this thing of well, instead of me trying to give my kids these things that I think that were so valuable to me. It's like, I have to sit back and understand what's actually valuable to them, which is so much harder and I'm learning this process. And so as I'm going through this lens of trying to learn these things, understand them, trying to figure them out for myself and I'm stumbling upon things like this and other things. It just got to a point where I was like, "I need to write this book first off for myself." If anyone who's done it, there's this weird thing as you start reading, you start seeing connections. You don't see any other spot. I feel like God opens up insights to you. They're just magical. Like I remember- Josh: When you start writing. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah 100%. Russell: You have to get deep in a topic, you have studied all these things to figure things out. And I remember the first time I really understood this is, after I finished Traffic Secrets, I wanted to reedit DotCom and an Expert Secrets to publish the trilogy. So I went back. I remember reading those books and I was like, "Where did this stuff come from?" I was like, "This is good crap. I don't remember saying this or thinking that." I couldn't remember and- Josh: Interesting. Russell: It's the weirdest thing going back and fighting things. Somehow that was given to me because that was not something that I just intuitively knew. And I feel like for me, I wanted to start the book journey because I'm searching for these answers. The premise of the book is not, "I have all the answers, let me give them to you." I'm in the season where I'm going through it again and let me share through I'm learning on this journey because I'm learning some amazing things. And as I'm sharing as I'm writing them, again these insights keep popping in and it's fascinating. So I'll be doing something, I'll be doing something and I have a doodle. I'm like, "Oh my gosh." I run to Dave I'm like, "Look at this." He's like, "What am I explaining?" He's like, "I never saw it before." New to that. It showed up when I'm in this intense time. And so it's been fun as I'm writing it because these insights are coming at a speed that they don't normally come in. Josh: And I think also- Russell: It's really funny. Josh: I think... Hold that train of thought. I want you to keep going on that. But I've noticed that as well, when it comes to reading books. Reading a book and then applying the book, those are two very different things. I have read Expert Secrets, Dotcom Secrets, Traffic Secrets. And I'm going through, I've not read the hardcover of Expert Secrets. I've only read the soft cover. So right now I'm going through and yes, two nights ago I started it and it's- Russell: You started the hardcover? Josh: Yeah. I'm going through, I'm listening to it and I'm reading it and I'm taking notes- Russell: Get the hardcovers. They're way better than softcovers. Josh: So I'm going through all this stuff. For the last four or five, six months, all I've been doing, I have no front end products of my own. I'm not building anything. All I'm doing is working with big campaigns on the backend. It's like full out stuff. We're doing stuff with cash phones. All these stuff is up and I'm going through and actually inboxed you. I was like, "Dude. People say they've read this book but they haven't." They've read the words, but it's totally different when you actually experience it. And you're watching where it all fits in and you start to see how it all clicks together. So that broke from the reverse angle of when you're writing it and trying to put it on in together is what you're talking about here. Russell: Yes. It's super fascinating. So it's been fun. I'm excited. So my goal, I'm trying to get it done by summer for it to be a launch in March. So if you published traditionally, this publishing schedule is really, really long. So if you are going to read it in March, I'd have to have it done by June. Josh: If we want to read in March of next year, you have to have it done by June this year. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Dang. Russell: So that's where I'm at. So I'm also with the first section of the book and there's four sections. Back then this month I spent the section number one and then that's where I'm at. Josh: Do we get to know what it's called? Do you have a title yet? Russell: I do. I don't want to show a title yet because I don't want someone going and- Josh: Oh, that's true. Russell: "You guys all suck." And buys those domains up and they start like SEOing me and beating me and all that stuff. But it's going to be cool. It's a study of two things. So I'll give you this part. This is the subtitle. So subtitle, something Tony Robbins talks a lot about, but it's the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. These two things. How do achievers achieve? And then how do you actually get fulfilled? Because it's fascinating. I think- Josh: Interesting. Russell: I see my own life. I achieve something thinking that, "When I achieve this thing, I'm going to be fulfilled and happy and everything." And you achieve the thing and you're like, "I'm not happy." And you figure that achievement and fulfillment, they don't work hand in hand. It's a science of achievement, which that's why science achieves more scrutiny. It's like, "Here's a step-by-step process to get this result." I want to be state champion wrestler here's a step by step process. Boom, got it. I want to be a known American step-by-step process. Got it. I want to start a business, step-by-step. Science. It's not thinking, you just follow a process and you get it. So for me, achievements always come easy. Anything I ever want in my life I've achieved it because there's a science. I figured out. Fulfillment's art, it's different. It's not follow these steps and you become fulfilled. The yin yang of these two things. And it's so fascinating. I've been going deeper into it and seeing the pattern appear over and over and over again, all these different things. And how do you apply it to your life? And there's so many cool things in this book that don't necessarily talk about science of achievement and fulfillment but they're all in here. The patterns in here over and over and over again. So it's pulling it from all these sources and showing it to everybody, that's what the book's going to do and then how to weave it all into aspects of your life anyway. So that's- Josh: One of the things and I'm sure you'll talk about it, but will be the balance of those two things. Because it's early on in my very young career of being 27 years old, but it was all about achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve. And there's always my mom's voice in the back of my head, it's like, "Things won't make you happy." "I know mom." Russell: Yes they will. Josh: Yeah. Yes they will. And then you get there. There have been moments in my life where right now in this moment I am completely fulfilled or I'm completely content and it's just like, I don't know what could make my life better. And it's not when I achieved anything, it's not when I did anything. But in that moment, whenever I take a step back and think about that moment, I have very little drive to go achieve anything more. And there's that balance of how do I stay fulfilled and content while also being driven to go achieve. Because for me and this is something I'd wrestled with and talked to Katie about it. And I'm like, "It's either one or the other. I can't be..." And she's like, "There's always another option. There's never black and white." And so balancing the two of those and understanding that. Like you said, they don't go hand in hand. They're separate things, I think it's really important and something that I'm trying to figure out and learn. Russell: So I got frustrated about all the times I achieve something and I'm so frustrated, why do I not feel how I thought I was going to feel and leads to depression or frustration or whatever. But when you start separating these are two different things I can achieve and I want to achieve, but how do I get fulfilled in the journey or separately from it and you start anyway. It's been fascinating and learning so many cool things and it's going to be fun to start sharing with everybody. I'm going to probably start in my podcasts, start dropping more and more things then getting deeper and deeper. More of the thoughts are going be flushed out. That's the weird thing about writing a book too, is initially I'm like, "Here's what I'm going to write." I write an outline of what the book is going to be and I write chapter number one. I was like, "Now this outline makes sense. You write that one" Chapter two. And so it's like, it's this rebuild, rebuild, rebuild. And by the time it's done, hopefully we'll find out. It'll be the perfect thing that's like, here's the frameworks you need. And for example, this whole concept here, there's a chapter that's going to be taking the frameworks from this book and this is going to be the chapter walking people through this concept of faith and fear. This doodle is a rough draft. I just tell you I sent this to you today. I'm like, "This is not the perfect doodle. I saw it. I'm not going to post it down below yet because this is partially done." It's going to be perfect by the time the book's done. I'm still thinking through and trying to get it right. And making it a simple form where I can understand it and hopefully it makes it easy for people to apply. But anyway, it's pretty cool. I think everyone should read a book. I think everybody listening should set that as a goal because when you do, just the act of writing the book will change your board. And I think anyone will understand. And when somebody asks, "What are you doing?" You're like, "I'm writing a book." Josh: That sounds very cool. Russell: There's no much cooler than that. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Okay. I know you have a hard cutoff, so I want to be respectful of that here. So I want to end with one question here and that is specifically about reading books. It's interesting. I'm pretty involved in the ClickFunnels world. Those are my people as well too. And so those are the people that follow me and that I interact with and I talk to a lot and it's always interesting when I talk to people about reading versus action. And some people have this... I feel like there's weird thought that if you're a reader, you're not an action taker, which I'm like, "That's not true. That's not how that works." But anyway, for you, if you are early on in your career, early on in you journey of building your business and your funnels and putting everything together. Do you recommend? Going back and thinking of your life, were you a big reader early on? Did you do a lot of reading or were you more action taking and looking back, would you recommend people read more, take more action? What's that balance? Because it's very easy. I know for me, I'm making time to read and then that's all I want to do. I'm like, "This is amazing." And then I'll take action. And so what's that Balance there? And what do you recommend as far as reading versus action? Russell: It's tough because some people read just because you get fulfillment or like there's- Josh: There's a good feeling that comes with reading. Russell: Comes with reading. Josh: For sure. Russell: So- Josh: It's a fake sense of accomplishment. Russell: Yes. So this is my belief. I remember when I first got started, I was reading a lot, I was listening, I was going to seminars. I remember at first it always frustrated because I was learning all this stuff and I was getting it but I had nowhere to use it and I was trying to use it all. That's why I think I launched... I can't remember. A couple of funnels by measure. It was like a 106, 116 or something funnels I launched before ClickFunnels. And that's because every idea that came to me, I was like, "I have to create something." I create this and I create this. I was creating funnel and funnel and coaching program. I joined Dan Kennedy's mastermind and they talked about, "You should have mastermind groups." So at the event I launched a mastermind group. I'm like, "You should have phone sales." We started phone sales and "You should be doing seminars." We launched a seminar. Every idea that came, I launched it. But man, I got a point where I was drowning. Because we had 8,000 things we're doing and nothing really worked. And I remember always feeling guilty because these ideas are coming to me. I'm thinking, "These are gifts from God. These are inspiration. I need to have these things." And it wasn't until... I don't remember when. But somewhere down the line, I realized that, "I don't actually have to take all these different things and do them, but I can understand them." Because I enjoy learning, understanding. So I would take them into my mind and literally put them on a shelf. I remember there's this Dan Kennedy on how to do high ticket, air exclusive program. So when we were listening to it, there's talking about franchise and this. All of a sudden, this is amazing. So I was taking it because I enjoyed the learning of it. And then I was like, "I'm not doing this right now." I'm so stretched thin, but I enjoyed the learning. So I'm flying an airplane, listening to this audio book or whatever. If I'm going to put it over here, I'm just categorizing and I put it over here in my brain. Like, "Hey. If I ever wanted to go back and do that, I know where it's at or at least put over here." So I started learning because I enjoyed learning but I didn't have to implement everything. And I've put things in these different spots. At the same time I had a very clear vision. This is definitive purpose. I had a vision. So I'm trying to execute on something I'm trying to do. So as I'm learning, when something came that crossed my mind I was like, "That's the next step. I could grab it and plug it in and I could use it." If it didn't. I'm like, "That's awesome. Put it right here. Someday I'm going to use that in future." And I talked to… James Friel and I talked about because he has a Trello board. He calls his shiny penny Trello board where anytime you have a great idea- Josh: Yeah. I have one of those. Russell: Instead of trying to implement, he puts it on his Trello boards. Keeps your ideas. I think for most entrepreneurs, every idea is like your baby, like "This is the greatest idea of all time." Josh: Yeah. I have a Trello board called Josh's brain. Russell: Oh awesome. This pre Trello because I remember getting a note card. I had three by five note cards and when I had the ideas, I put them in there, I put them there. And somebody I'm going to come back to this and I get ideas and put them there. I kept putting them there either in a note card or somewhere else. And it's crazy. And I fast forward. Man, I think it's 19 or 20 years, I'm doing this now. So whatever it is. Almost two decades. And it's really cool because when I coach people now and this is my inner circle so I have people in here I'm coaching and someone would appear on stage and they're stuck with a problem and they're frustrated. They're like, "I don't want to do this thing." And all of a sudden out of the back of my mind pops up this thing and it comes into my- Josh: Exactly. Russell: I have this thing. I'm like, "Oh my gosh. Where did that come from?" It's because I learned it. Because I read this book here, I saw this thing over here and all these things. And so I think a lot of times we have to understand that learning is fun. So enjoy it. Don't be like, "I'm not going to read because..." Reading is awesome. Read, learn, do those things, but also understand, what is your mission? Stephen Larson talked about this two funnel hiking lives ago. He called it just-in-time learning. It seems like if you are going to read the book you need... I agree with that except for this is a better pastime than watching movies. So let's read, let's study. But having your path, this is my goal, this is where I'm going to go. If you join my coaching program, we're going to talk about what's the first funnel. That's what we focus on. Don't do anything else, just focus on that. You can learn other things, but categorize them or wait until you're ready. And then as you get pieces right. I need that, I need that and figure out the next steps. I think that's how I would do the yin yang of both of those. Because I'm the same way. I'm learning so many things or study things or I find things are awesome that I'm not going to use but someday there'll be someone I come upon that that nugget is going to be the thing that unlocks something for them and they're going to super grateful. So, anyway. Josh: All right. Well man, thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. This is so much fun. We could talk for hours, but we do have to wrap it up there. We've got a little something to get to, so thank you man. I appreciate it. Russell: No worries. And hopefully all you guys, two things I want to say. Number one, I'd highly recommend reading this book and read through the lens of this. The first time I didn't know where I was going. So I was all over the place and just freaking out. But look at the lens of Faith and Fear of, I don't want to be a drifter. I want to be somebody spiritually, mentally, and physically free. Look at that and start looking at everything he talks about from this lens and just look at it as protections of you that will be there to get to the spot where you're learn 2% or how to keep yourself from becoming a drifter or if you are drifter shift yourself back. And looking at this, because it's this guide book of all the ways that the devil uses to shift you around. And when you're aware of it, man, it makes it so much more powerful. Josh: And- Russell: This is huge. Josh: The thing that I would say we didn't have time to get to it, but I would say too is understand that it's not... If you're religious, understand that there's probably going to be some things that the devil is like, "You don't need God, you don't need me." Some of the things that are going to be in there, like Russell said, 97% is good, 3% is bad. Don't let that prevent you from understanding the value and the power that's in this book because there is so much good stuff in this. And any single time that I've ever had success at anything when I look back, it follows very closely to the principles that were taught here, so anyway. Russell: That's awesome. And then wait until next March to buy my book. Josh: And I will be the number one affiliate. So hopefully you all can be number two, three, four. That's cool. That's going to be super, super cool. So Russell, thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. Love to do it again for The Book of Mormon or something like that and all right. All right guys, that's it. Russell: Thanks everyone. Josh: As always, hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different because those of us who think different are going to be the ones who change the world. I love you all. See you soon. Russell: Bye everybody. Josh: See you.

The Marketing Secrets Show
"Outwitting The Devil" with Josh Forti - Part 2 of 3

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later May 3, 2021 29:10


Welcome to the second part of a special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh talk about their biggest “take-aways” from the book. Russell talks about a difficult time when Clickfunnels was down and instead of choosing fear and running from the problem, he chose to have faith in his business and fight to make it better. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed the first part of my interview with Josh Forti, on Outwitting the Devil. This episode, I'm excited, because we're going to go a little bit deeper. We're going to start talking about some of my stories, and practical applications of how I was able to use this in my past. This story I tell, I wasn't expecting to tell this. I didn't know where he was going to go with the interview questions. We got a little emotional, but I think it was good. So I'm excited to share it with you. I'm a little nervous, but a little excited at the same time. So with that said, we're going to cue up the theme song. When we come back you can listen to episode number two, from the Josh Forti interview, about Outwitting the Devil. Josh Forti: I had a very definitive takeaway from the book. You could read a million times, and keep getting gold nuggets, but what was the thing that stuck out to you, that was the most powerful of it? That caused you to literally go on Instagram, be like, "Yo, everybody read this book right now." Russell: Everyone's in different spots, so I think it's good to read this book for everyone to kind of see where you fit. Anyway, maybe I have a distorted view of myself, but I feel like I'm somebody who acts in definitive purpose. I feel like I act in faith, most of the times. So, I feel like I'm on the side. So the thing that was so powerful for me, if you look in the middle of my thing, there's two columns here, was he started saying, he asked, he's like, "When someone uses definitive purpose, does that mean they're free from you?" He's like, "No." He's like, "As soon as they're using definitive purpose." And he's like, "These are the tools I use to try to get them to become drifters." And I started looking at the list of things he uses to get them to become drifters. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I see those patterns in my life. I see the things that are pulling me to that side as well." And it became this warning for me of like, "Okay, these are the things to protect yourself from." Because, we're not free, it's not like, I do good things therefore I'm to be good forever. It's like, no, the entire time he's trying to get you to the other side. And so for me, it was interesting. You can see some of these ones I list up here, like the temptations he uses to get someone who is free, to become a drifter. So number one, was flattery. And it was interesting, he said that the way he uses flattery, is in women, he uses vanity, and in men, he uses egotism. And I've seen that so many times in my own personal life, where with your ego and you start reading your own bio, you drink your own Kool-Aid, and you're like, "I'm amazing." And as soon as you do that, it starts shifting you from this state of freedom, to drifters. And I've seen... I've got personal friends who have let ego destroy their families, destroy their businesses, destroy their lives. And I always have fear of that, and I see myself slipping into that often. It's definitely a temptation, it's one of the things for me, that pulls me in, I'm trying to be careful of. It's funny, people always tell me, like, "I feel like you're one of the few guys in the industry that doesn't have a big ego." I'm like, "I have a huge ego." I try to be aware of it. I'm grateful for my wife. One of my buddies told me, he's like, "It wasn't for Colette." He's like, "You'd have the biggest head in the world." She's the one that keeps me focused. Josh: I feel like that's Leo with me too, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Russell: But I think it was interesting for man, for egotism, and women, he said vanity, which is interesting too. So those are two things there. Next was failure, and he talked about failure from both sides. He said that failure can be something that actually serves you, because you fail, you see what's wrong and you read adjust, but some people go through failure, and then they slip to like, "Okay, this didn't work," and they're out. And you see that a lot. Josh: Well, and that's even here, it's learning from adversity. That's one of the key things, how do you use failure? If you're going to be a drifter, you're going to be like, "Failure. Ew yuck. I'm never going to do it again." versus a successful person. Russell: You see people all the time that fail, are like, "Oh, I tried the thing, and it didn't actually work." It's like, "Okay. It worked for 800 other people, but it didn't work for you. Maybe it was you, maybe the approach was..." It's so interesting where it's like, if... It comes back to, if you've read Jocko's book. Josh: What's Jocko's book? Extreme Ownership. Yeah. Russell: That's the thing, the failure happens, and it's like, "Oh, I going to blame it on them." Boom. Instantly you're a drifter. But if you're like, "It was me, I did it wrong. What am I going to change?" The extreme ownership, that's the shift from failure. Whereas you take extreme ownership, boom, you're staying over here, but, if you don't... And I have a problem all the time. I think something that's happened to my team, or whatever, and I want to point the finger, and it's like, "But I'm the leader of the team." But it's so much easier to point out, than point back in. And so for me, that was the one. Again, another one I noticed, when I had my failures, did I point out or in? Because if I point out, I'm slipping into drifting. Propaganda, bribes, food, sex, all these different things he was using. The food one was interesting, he was talking about, he's like, "When men and women become rich, and they have all these things, I get them through food, when they start eating and get gluttonous. And all of sudden their body gets not healthy, and then it's harder to move." And I'm sure you felt that, when you're not eating healthy, your mind gets cloudy, and all these things, it's very easy to become a drifter. And so, it's just all these tools he's using to try to get you to shift from one another. Those things were... In my time in my life right now, where I was just like, "Okay, cool. I've got walls, I can start protecting myself up. I can become more aware of it." When you're aware of something, it's so much easier to fight it, as opposed to when… Josh: Yeah. And when you're successful too, everything's convenient. And that's one of the things that he brought up in the book too. I noticed in my life, I was thinking back to when I first started, I was like, "Man, I was sleeping on my buddy's couch." For three months, and I worked my butt off, and everything like that. I'm like, "Why do I lack that drive sometimes?" Like, "Why don't I have that anymore?" It's like, "Because life is convenient." Because if I sleep until eight o'clock, or if I don't perform today, my life doesn't change at all. But back then, it did. And so when things become convenient, it's super easy to come back into that drifter mode. Russell: Yeah. A hundred percent. And that's one of the hardest thing. I think, at least for me, when I was growing up, I always thought there's a point where you made it. In fact, I remember this one time, my business was doing well at the time, we had a bunch of employees. I remember hiring this guy to come consult me on something, and he came out, and he's looking at all this stuff. And he's like, "So tell me, when was he felt like... When did you know you made it?" And I was like, "Oh, I..." I'm still freaking out. I don't feel like I made it. And I think, in my life, I always thought there's going to be a point where I'm like, "I made it, or figured the thing out." Or whatever, but I never got there. I feel like the second I do, that's when it's going to start... That's the thing. And so, I think being more aware of that, just like, this is a constant thing and that's okay, but, it's a constant between God and Satan, there's this constant... Every moment is like, each of them are fighting for. It's like, if you give up here, then you slip back over to there. You can't just... There's no neutral ground. Josh: So, I just want to talk about that, because I think one of the biggest... Well, the number one thing, like you said, of a non drifter, is the definitive purpose. And I have noticed that in my life, even recently... Over the past year, year and a half, I've been working with Katie Richardson, you know that, just really getting clear on what the next steps of things are. And my definitive purpose, if you will, when I first started my entrepreneurship journey, was this, "I just don't want to be poor anymore." I go like, "My definitive purpose is to not worry about money, and to get out of debt, and just be free. Then be able to make decisions or whatever." And then I got there, and then there was this next definitive purpose. And they were incremental, almost goals, but not like this overwhelming definitive purpose. And so, going through the process of that, of course, with my brother dying, and that whole shattering of everything. Like for you, you've built ClickFunnels, you have a wildly successful company and people look up to you, and are like, "Oh my gosh, Russell, you're on top of the world. You're amazing. You've made it." At now, you've just said, "Hey, I don't feel like I've made it yet. I still feel like I have a long way to go." How do you... A, has your purpose changed since you started, compared to where you're at now? And B, how do you continue to remind yourself of that purpose? Or how do you find that purpose? When you could do nothing for the rest of your life, and be totally fine. How do you find purpose in that? Russell: I'd be a drifter at that point. Josh: Right, you wouldn't be a drifter. I can just see Russell sitting on the beach. No, actually, I can't even imagine what that would look like, for Russell on the beach for long periods of time. But, what would that look like for you? Or, how do you find that purpose? Russell: So, you asked about if my purpose has changed. So I would say, in my mind, it's two things. There's the people that I've been called to serve has not changed, I feel like I've been called to serve entrepreneurs. Those are my people, those are the people that I'm here... And so for me, it's like, what are all the ways I can help them? So, initially it was like, "Do seminars, write books." That was the first thing, and then it's like, "Oh, we're going to build software." And then it's like, "Oh, we're doing events." And, we kept adding these things on. And so, that was the thing. And so my purpose was like, what are all the things I can do to help an entrepreneur to be more successful? That's my vision. That's my mission. That's my thing. And I feel like now that, again, after I finished the three books, I was like, I feel like that, again, that the trilogy, that's what people need. And then we have Funnel Hacking Live, that's amazing. We have these things in place, all the things there are... they're there. And I think there's things, where there's big updates, we have to company click funnels. There're other things we do to make things better, but for me, it's like, there's not a lot more, again, it's not like I'm going to come out with some magic funnel, I'm like, "God, it changes everything again." Like, it's there. Right? So for me, it's like, "Okay, I'm still called to serve these people. What's the next level of success? What's the next thing I need to do?" And for me, I started looking, like what were the things that I struggled with? And so much of it was not... It was like, I didn't have the tools, I didn't have the information, which is why the last two decades has been focused on that. But, the next thing was like, I had to become someone different, who did I have to become to be successful? I look at so many entrepreneurs who are coming into my world, these people that I'm called to serve, and giving them funnels. Man, they don't believe in themselves, they have horrible identities. They're choosing fear over faith, every single time, and they're not having success. And so, for me, it's like, "Hey, I still have the same people." So-called same.. served the same people. But, what am I... What's the next thing I need to help them with? And if you just look at my book trilogy, the first one was dotcom secrets. It's like, "They need to understand funnels." That was the book. And it was like, "Hey, now I understand funnels." And now everyone's like, "I'm building funnels." But then their funnels weren't working, they weren't converting. And I'm like, "Oh, they don't know how to tell stories, right copy, or..." So, Expert Secrets, I'm like, "Expert Secrets." It's like, "Okay, now they understand that." And I thought I was done. And then I'm like, "Okay. Some people have these funnels that have really good copy, but Facebook shut down their account and they're screwed, or they have no traffic, or whatever." And I'm like, "Oh, my people in the traffic." So, I'm getting traffic, and that was Traffic Secrets book. And so for me, the last year, year and a half, especially, as you know, we've been in this insane environment of insanity… Josh: How do you even describe it? Russell: And I'm watching these people I've been called to serve, melting down, choosing fear in every single direction, over, and over, and over, and over again. I'm seen people who don't have an identity, they don't have beliefs, they don't have rules, they don't have values. And I have all these things they need to actually have the structure, to implement. It is what we talked about. And that's why I started geeking back to this personal moments, and partially because it's for myself, because I'm trying to protect myself and strengthen myself. But for me, Hill doesn't really go deep on anything. If you look at my disc profile, one of my things is I have very, very high... my highest value is ROI. If I don't see return on investment on something, I can't do. That's why I struggled in school, that's why I struggled with so many things. That's why when I started trying to read scriptures again, I struggled with it, until I started a podcast, because now there's return on my investment. I'm going to learn this thing, but I'm going to give it to somebody else. And there's my return on investment, now I can do it, and I feel fulfilled by it. Josh: Which by the way, I'm going to plug, podcast number three is going to be about that. Russell: And the same thing here. So, I started going back through, started reading these things. And for a while it was tough, because I'm reading these things, and for me it's like, what's the return on investment? It's good for me, but, ah, I've been called to serve. It's not just... Again, I talk about this in the new book, we'll talk about it a minute. But in Expert Secrets I talk about growth and contribution. I love growth, because good for me, but I thrive on the contribution. It's me sharing that gets me excited. So I was going through these things, and that's when, probably three or four months ago, is when I was like, "Hey, I'm learning all these principles, these things, I'm doodling all this stuff." I need to have something I'm putting it towards, or else I'm not going to be able to continue the momentum I need to keep doing this, and keep figuring out these things. And so, that's why I started, as you know, on my fourth book, which is not a marketing book. Josh: Yeah. I want to talk about that. Okay. I really do want to go there. However, there's one question I want to ask you first, I want to pull back another layer of Russell, that people... I don't know. Maybe, you've told this story before. I don't know. I don't even know what the story is, I'm about to ask you. So, my number one takeaway from the book, was how much fear controls people. That was my number one thing. And, for me, and this has come through a tremendous amount of mental work, and tremendous amount of personal identity work, over the course of the past 12 to 16 months, of just tears and just facing my own fears and insecurities, and bringing them to light and working through. But, there's not a whole lot of things I'm afraid of. There're very few things where I'm looking at them, I'm like, "Oh my gosh." I just do me, and whatever. Like criticism, it doesn't really bother me, or whatever. But, there's certain instances that come up where I'm like, "Ooh, I'm afraid of failure in that specific scenario, for that specific thing." And I'd be curious to know, for you, as you built ClickFunnels, I'm sure there were moments of fear. And I'm sure there were moments, when this side of things started to creep in, but you worked through that. And so, I'd be curious to know, what was one of the biggest times when you were building ClickFunnels, that you were afraid? And how did you work through that? What's that story? Russell: Oh man. Josh: Because I feel like we hear the marketing version of it. Russell: The highlight reels. Josh: We do, right? And they serve a very specific purpose. And I always laugh when people want to criticize, like, "Russell only tells this part of the story, or whatever" I'm like, "Do you understand why he's doing that?" Like, "Do you understand it's fitting into... It's at Funnel Hacking Live, or it's at this, or whatever." I'm like, "There's a purpose for that." It's not like he's trying to do that, but I want to know the other side of it. I want to know the behind the scenes of, what was that moment where you're like, "This is not worth it. I'm going to shut it all down. Or I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able..." I don't know what the story is. Russell: Yeah, definitely for me, the part that was the hardest, it was the first year of ClickFunnels, we just launched it. And I remember, because when Todd built it he told me, he was like... And in my head, I thought we're going to get 10,000 members month one, that was in my head. And Todd was like, "Okay, well, just so you know, as soon it past 10,000 members, the way I coded it, it's going to have to be different." And I was like, "I don't know that means, but I'm going to get 10,000 members. Right?" So we go and launch it, we don't get 10,000 members, kind of depressed, but we started pursuing this thing, start working towards it. And within about a year we got 10,000 members. And during that time, ClickFunnels started doing weird things, where it would just go down for five minutes, and be back, like, "What just happened?" And like, "Oh, some blah, blah, blah, techie thing happened." And yeah, so they fixed it, like, "Hey, good." And then it goes down, this time it's down 15 minutes, and 15 minutes down.... It's funny, because one minute I'm everyone's hero, they're like, "We love you, Russell. You made our lives so much easier making money." I'm getting the messages, and just feeling the ego, and all the things they're just like... This is amazing. And then it goes down, and I want you to understand, when ClickFunnels would go down, it wasn't like, "Hey, man, it's down." It was like, "I want to kill you." Like, "You owe me $2,000 in ads for my 15 minute window that it's down." Like, "I'm going to sue you." Like death threats, I went from the hero of the day, to, "I want to kill you." And messages coming in are like... And I'm getting things, and Todd's not getting them, because no one knows... He's kind of behind the scenes, and I'm just like, you want to kill me? They're that angry? They want to sue me, they want all these things. And then, publicly posting everywhere, how horrible and how bad.... And the second someone slips, everyone wants to jump up and start throwing daggers at them, it's insane. I seen it happen to so many people. I have friends who I've seen it happen to recently, where it's like, everyone loves until they do something, and then it's just like everyone wants to pounce on- Josh: And half the time, it's not even their fault. Russell: It's crazy, if that's happening. And so, it's happening, we get back up, and then, "Is this is going to work good?" Like, "Yeah, fine." I'm like, "Okay. It's going to be good." So then we plan on that, and then again, it would go good for two, three weeks, then something happened, and it just kept happening. And the longer we go, more members happened, it would more often, it would happen longer. And, it was just horrible. Because I remember one time I was speaking at a Dan... GKC event. And I'm in the hotel room, we just got there, Dave and I were there, we're getting everything ready. And it goes down, we're down for like 30 minutes. I'm freaking out. I'm supposed to be on stage in 30 minutes, or like an hour or something, and it's down, and I messaging and I remember voxing Todd, I'm like, "Hey, it's down again." He messaged back all nice like, "Oh yeah." Like anyways, he was just like, he's like, "Oh yeah, it's down again. We'll work on it." So I messaged back, I was like, "This is happening a lot. Are you sure we're okay? You seem a little nice and calm, you okay?" It's funny, because Todd's super respectful, he doesn't ever swear around me or anything. And he messaged back, and I've never heard Todd scared before. And he messaged back, and he was... I won't repeat what he said, but it was just like, what he said and how he said it, was just like, we're screwed. He said it four or five times in a row, and then he ended. And I was just like- Josh: And you're about to go on stage? Russell: Yeah, and I was like… Josh: Oh my gosh. Russell: And I was just freaking out. I'm like, "I'm about to go on stage, and try and convinced all this audience that I've got the greatest thing in the world. And my partner who built it, is freaking out, and doesn't know how to stabilize this thing. And he's..." I remember just being sick to my stomach, scared, all these fears, all the anxiety, all the inadequacy, all those things. And I remember I'm just freaking out, and then we got it back up, and then Dave's like, "Hey, you're on in like 10 minutes." I'm like, "Oh." So, I do my things, run downstairs and then come on stage. And I was just in my head, and my mind, and my body just freaking out. And, do the presentation, I know the presentation, even if I'm scared, it's going to come out pretty similar, it converted well, people bought it, everyone's excited. I remember afterwards, it was weird, this is one of those weird things, I don't even know who it was. If you're listening, she messaged me, some dude lingered afterwards and he's like, "Um, you okay?" I'm like, "Yeah. Fine. How's it going?" And he's like a chiropractor, but like a “woo-woo” one, were they do energy stuff. And he's like, "Can I adjust you?" And I'm like, "That's weird." He's like, "No, I don't really do normal adjusting, it's this other weird kind." And I was like, "I don't know what's happening. This guy is creeping me." But for some reason, like, "Sure. Whatever." So he takes me in this other room, he starts doing adjusting, he's doing the muscle testing, and all sorts of stuff on me, which I- Josh: Just some random dude? Russell: Yeah. I'd never had that happen before, he was attending the event, so he was there. Josh: Right. Russell: And it was weird, because he starts... He's just like, "You have all this tension here, here, all these things." And he's trying to figure out why. And so, eventually, and again, some people think that that's crazy. You think that's crazy? Nowadays, I don't know, Because- Josh: No. I don't think it's crazy. Russell: Anyway. It's interesting. But, he's doing this muscle testing, and he muscle tests, and he's like, "The thing that you're experiencing right now inside your body, is a reflection of something that happened." I can't remember, it was like 3.6 years ago, or something like that. He's like, "What happened three and a half ago?" "I have no idea." I couldn't remember. And all of a sudden I was like, "Oh my gosh, that was the last time my company collapsed." And we had to... We didn't go through bankruptcy, but had to fire almost a hundred people. We had to shut everything down. It was all this stuff. And he's like, "Your body's experiencing the same things right now, that you experienced at that moment. And that's this tension and these things." Josh: Oh my gosh. Russell: It was crazy. And he did all this stuff to try to release it, and everything. But also I realized, it's like, oh my gosh. My biggest thing is, I built this thing up, people think I'm a hero again, right now. And I remember what happened three and a half years ago, when I lost everything and how much pain, and how much... All these things, the poverty I got, the criticism I got, the ill health I got, the loss of love I got, friends, family, coworkers walking out on me. I wanted to die. I'm over the edge. All my greatest fears came back in that moment, and I'm in this spot, and I don't know how to fix it, because I can't code. I go to college and learn how to code? I don't what to do. Josh: That's the worst, oh man. Russell: The next week… Josh: It's out of your hands. Russell: We're flying to London, to speak in London. They invited my family to come to me. So, my wife and kids were all flying in London, and I told parts of this story before, but we're in the air, everything's good. The kids are having so much fun, they're flying. And we land, we get to London, and there's... In your phones, the chips don't work, so you have to- Josh: Yeah. You got to swap them. Russell: So we're driving around, and finally get our chips in there, and as soon as it does, all of a sudden, my phone was just like... And I don't know what it is, so I'm looking, and there's text messages, there's instant messages, there's voxers, there's all these things, hundreds, I'm not exaggerating, people are like, "A hundred's, probably like 10." No, hundreds and hundreds on every platform, where people sending me death threats, sending me they want to kill me, send me the hate me, send me I'm screwing them over, sending me all that... just this stuff, and I'm looking at my phone, and I'm just like, "I don't even know what happen." So I'm finally trying to get Todd, I got ahold of him, and he's like, "Yeah, we're down. We've been down for four or five hours." He's like, "If we're able to get it back up." And all I remember him saying, if, and not when, and I was just like- Josh: And you're in London. Russell: With my family. Josh: About to speak. Russell: And so, I don't even know. I went back to the hotel room, and we had two hotels conjoining for the kids. I was like, "Hey, I'm going to go in this room for a minute." And I shut the door, and I'm just like, I don't know what to do. We're down. I don't know if we're getting it back up. So, to speak the next day to talk about click funnels. And it was one of the things where I was just in so much fear, I wanted to hide. I just wanted to not say anything. I just wanted to be quiet. Josh: Yeah. Especially as an introvert. Russell: Yeah. Especially and introvert who's got literally hundreds of people telling me how much they hate me. And, I don't know want to do. And this one of those moments where it's just like, the fear and the faith, I wanted to go to fear. That sounds so nice, just to hide and... But I was like, I can't, because this is my life. This is all this stuff we've worked for, for so long. And, in that moment I had impression of, you should go live on Facebook. I'm like, "I don't want to live on Facebook." They're like, "You have to. You have to tell people what's happening." I was like, "What kind of CEO, in the middle of this crash, gets online and like, Hey, our company's down." And put on the happy face, like, "It's okay, because... let me blame the servers." I had a million people I could blame, because it was... Josh: It's not your fault Russell. It's never your fault, right? Russell: So, finally, I was like, "All right." So I just, I told the kids, "I'm going to be on in 15 minutes." So I clicked go, and all of a sudden I'm live. And of course, because it's live, everybody pops in, because they're trying to figure out... Because they all want to kill me. Like, "Russell's here, this is our time." And first it popped up, you start seeing the comments, like, "You're effing killed... You killed my business." Like all these things, and just like, "You owe me, how much money." Like all these things, and I'm just like, "Okay." And instead of doing what I wanted to do, which was blame, point to other people. I was like, "I'm pissed." And I was like, "This is not okay." Like, "My business is down, your business is down. You trusted me. You trusted us. We are not doing this right. This is not acceptable." I'm not like... And I tried my best. In fact, the video's still live, it's on... If you go to my Facebook page, and go to videos and scroll down to year one of click funnels, the video's still live there. Josh: That's crazy. Russell: And, basically I just tried… Josh: Somebody go find it and post in the comments. Seriously. I'd love to see it. Russell: Yeah. And I just posted it, I can't remember if I posted in the ClickFunnels group, or maybe it was in my... Anyway, I remember I found a little while ago to look at it again, I remember watching it, I was just like, "Whoa, that sucked." But I did my best, try to take that. Definitive purposes, this is not okay, this is what we're trying to do. I'm just going to take faith. And it was crazy, because I remember we posted that, while Todd and the team was working their butts off. And luckily through so many miracles, they got everything back up. We had a backup from right, for a hit. We didn't lose anything, other than the eight hours we were down. And we expected the next day that half our members would cancel, everything's going to be gone. And it was crazy how by taking the action of faith, people came in, and instead of being upset, they're like, "You know what, thank you. Thank you for not hiding. Thank you for telling us you're upset. Thank you for understanding this is not acceptable, and not trying to be like, oh, thanks for taking responsibility. And over the next week, we didn't see any... It wasn't like, signups and cancellation, we watched those two numbers all the time, it wasn't a big drop. It was just like... It didn't change. And, after that we made changes, we figured things out, we got things solid and looking stable. And that was the last time we went down for more than a little blip here or there. But that was probably the biggest thing, and I remember just being... Anyway. Josh: That's crazy. Well, I think, that comes back to having a definitive purpose, because you had a goal, you were all in. Because, without that, you throw in the towel, and you say this isn't worth it. If you are not crystal, crystal clear, or at least very, very emotionally attached to that outcome, or to that goal of that definitive purpose of where you're at, you should shut everything down there, and you walk. That's crazy. I've never heard that story before. Russell: I'm sweating reliving it. Thanks for that. Josh: No problem. I'm sure the audience loved it though. Russell: Anyway, it was a scary, scary time in between those two things happening back to back. And like I said, and then we started working towards it, and man, Todd and Ryan, and all the people on our team who went and who figured out the problems, and solidified things, and brought in the right people. It's crazy, because people with click funnels are like, "You should know how to not go down." It's like, "You don't understand. At that point, we went from a bunch of entrepreneurs trying to make something, to like, at that point we were like the 300th most visited website in the world." And there's not many people on this planet who know how to handle the database architecture behind that. We didn't know how to do it, and so we're trying to find people. We literally hired people who, they're charging 10 grand an hour to do database administration. So, you hire them, like, "Okay, here's 20 grand. You get two hours to look." So they log in and look around, like, "Here's all the mistakes." And then they go back, and go try to fix them. Then like, "Hey, here's another 10 grand, another hour." Like that's the people who like ran eBay and Amazon. Those are people you have to hire to come and look at these problems, because they're not problems that most people deal with. And if you think about it, we tell you we have 120,000 members, that's true. That's 120,000 people's websites, most of them more than one, most of them 10, 20, 50, a hundred. There's... I don't know, quarter million, half a million websites running all on our servers. No one knows that stuff. Josh: Brad, how many do we have? How many? Brad's over here they already probably got 50, just there. No, we'll run it through. Russell: These are problems, not normal problems most people know how to solve. We don't know how to solve them. So it's like, "How do we do that?" Every level there's new level of stress and problems, and things that they keep coming up, that you just... If you don't have that definitive purpose, and that dream, and that vision, that thing, there's so many things pulling you off the path. There's a million things trying to pull you to become a drifter, from flattery, to failure, to propaganda, bribes, to... All these things are trying to do that, the world's stacked against you. In fact, according the book, 98% of people are there. Josh: Yeah 98%. That's crazy. Russell: So, first off, it comes back to, if you want to shift yourself back, the very first thing is, come back to very first questions, like, "Am I doing this decision based on faith or fear?" That's the transition point, it's not like, "Okay I got to fix all this crap. And I got to..." No, it's like, come back to the very beginning, and if you start shifting your decision making process, to like, "I'm scared." You can still be scared, you still have fear. I still have fear all the time, I'm sure you do too. I'm like, "Do I do that?" But, you don't act in fear, you act in faith. Like, "Okay, I could lose everything, I could be criticized. I could, I could, I could..." But, this is my definitive purpose, this is my vision, this is where I have to go. Therefore, I will act in faith, regardless of these things that they happen. I have to be okay with the worst case scenario. I have to be okay, that if I screw up people are going criticize me, or else I'm not going to be able to move forward in faith. And that's the conundrum. That's where you have to get thick skin, and be okay with these things. And I think for me, I've tried it, I spend time consciously thinking about each of these. Like you talked about death, you don't fear death, for me, for a big part of my life I did fear death. And there's parts of me... I'm thinking about it today, if I was to die, I wouldn't be scared of death, I'd be scared of my kids not having a dad. But, the thing, the belief that I have, and the new book goes deep into these kinds of things, that I'm real excited to share. But, my belief about death, we have to have beliefs, and values, and rules around all these kind of things. But my belief about death is, I strongly, strongly, strongly believe that none of us will live on this planet one second longer or shorter than God wants us to. I believe that to my core soul. So, because I'm okay with that... Because, it's not like all of a sudden accidentally I'm going to catch something and I'm going to die, and then God's like, "Oh crap, I missed that one." That's not going to happen. There's plans, there's purpose, there's things that are happening, and I have that as a belief. Maybe it's not true, but it's my belief. Therefore, because I believe that, I'm not scared of death. If it happens, that sucks, and be horrible for my kids, but, again, it's part of the plan, therefore I'm not afraid of death, because of that. Josh: Yeah. And I had never really even thought about death, until my brother obviously passed away. Russell: You came face to face with it… Josh: Yeah. Like, "Holy cow. Freak accident, helicopter crash, over in Kenya." It's like, "What the heck?" And, I flew around the world trying to figure out what I believe, and what I thought. And the conclusion, I don't know if it's a conclusion, but the belief that I have about death, is I'm like, "All right, when I die, that's when my life starts." I'm like, "Okay, cool." Like I'm, this is what I say? It's a whisper in the wind, like it's a flash in the pan. Life is, we're here, and we're given these choices. And God's like, "All right, here, you got your 80 or 90 years on life. And you get a choice, you can either choose to accept me, or reject me." And then eternity starts, or doesn't start, it always is. For me, I'm like, "Sweet." And coupled with, or partnered with, what you said of like, "I don't think God makes mistakes." So if I die, even if it's a dumb, stupid decision that I made that led to that, it's not like God didn't factor in my stupidity. And so, because I know that, it's confidence. Yeah.

The Marketing Secrets Show
"Outwitting The Devil" with Josh Forti - Part 1 of 3

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 28, 2021 27:25


Welcome to the first part of a special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh start talking about the book “Outwitting The Devil” by Napoleon Hill. They discuss some of the background of how this book was published, and then go into detail about the premise and the lessons that it teaches. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. So I told you guys a couple episodes ago, I told you about one of my new favorite books, which is Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. I told you a little bit about the book and why you should read it. I told you I was doing a podcast interview with Josh Forti where he was going to ask me a bunch of questions about the book. We did that and it was really, really fun, and so I'm going to actually... I want to stream that interview to you guys over the next three episodes here on the podcast, and it's fun. The interview went way different than I thought it was going to go, and so I think you're going to enjoy it. The first part we talked about the book and the story behind it, and the breaking down the doodle and explanation, and the difference between faith and fear, some of the basic stuff. The second episode, we start talking about my biggest takeaways from the book and why personal development is important, and then Josh start asking questions about a time in my life when I used faith over fear and stuff like that. The story that came out, most people probably haven't heard this about ClickFunnels crashing and a bunch of other stuff, and so that episode two is going to be really fun for you guys. I'm excited, and episode number three is about my next book, so that was what the interview was about. It was really fun. It was a little over an hour long, and so we decided to break it up into three episodes for you guys, and so that's the game plan. So this is episode one of The Outwitting the Devil interview with Josh Forti, one of three. So when the theme song comes back, we'll cue that up. You'll have a chance to listen to the first one. Make sure you listen to all three episodes over the next week or so because I think you're going to enjoy it. The first one is really cool because you understanding why I'm so excited about this book, the biggest takeaways, but then some practical application, episode two and then episode three, we'll talk about the new book, why, what we're talking about, and a bunch of other cool stuff. So I'm excited. With that said, we’ll queue up the theme song. When we come back we'll jump into the first part of my interview with Josh Forti. Josh Forti: What's up, everybody! Russell: We're back. We're back. Josh: We are back. Russell: Four months, we're back. Josh: We're back. We're back guys. What is up? Welcome back to another episode of Think Different Theory, I'm going to claim this one, episode of Think Different Theory. Russell: And I'll probably also use it on the Marketing Secrets podcast; we'll use it for both. Josh: That's perfect, a dual episode. Guys. We are back. We were supposed to do this last week, but Russell's- Russell: Circumstances didn't allow it. Josh: Yeah. Russell was in a bad mood. So we have to do this, but guys, welcome back today. I'm really, really excited because we are discussing- Russell: One of my new favorite books. Josh: One of your new favorite books, Outwitting the Devil, which you recommended to everybody, the whole world, what? Like three months ago, four months ago. Something like that. Russell: Yeah. I'm shocked when people read it. If you haven't yet, go buy it on Amazon. There's two versions. I got to share this real quick. He'll share that while I'll tell you guys about this. Josh: Perfect. Russell: There's two versions of it. This one's got Sharon Lechter's notes, one doesn't. I'd get the one with Sharon Lechter's notes and oh, I talk to the camera here. Hey, what's up camera. And also you get the audio book. It's awesome. Because in an audio book, you can actually hear the two voices and one voice is the devil. One's Napoleon Hill. And it's amazing. Should I tell the story about the books? Josh: Okay. So actually I want to do that. I actually want to do this because how I want to open this up is, I want to take it back. Kind of take a step back because you've built Clickfunnels and now I feel like you've gone into kind of this new stage. You start reading a bunch of books and then you like geek out on Atlas Shrugged, and then you geek out on the next thing now we're at this book. So back us up, how did you find this book? Where did it come about? And then let's dive into it because I feel like context is important. Russell: Yeah. So, man, a lot of things. So obviously those who've read any of my books. I feel like I'm done. I wrote all the marketing books, I'm out of secrets. That's it. Trilogy is done. Work is finished. It's over. Josh: Guys, we're done with Russell forever. Russell: But then for me it's like, I don't know. I think in any area of life there's a point where you get mastery and it gets harder and harder to find new things. So there's all these incremental things, but there's not a whole bunch of new stuff I can discover, like oh my gosh, ah, freak out. Josh: Right, something about marketing you've never seen before. Russell: Yeah, so it's harder. And so for me, I'm a learner. I'm always pursuing education ideas and things. And so I started just kind of re geeking out on personal development stuff just because I miss it. I'm trying to think about things in my life. And so I was going through a bunch of different things and rereading a bunch of books I read back a decade ago, like Think and Grow Rich. Which by the way, that's kind of ... This Is the first edition printed Think and Grow Rich. Russell: Josh knows I'm kind of a geek with old books. You guys will see why more in about 18 months from now. We're doing some cool things, but this is first edition Think and Grow Rich. Think and Grow Rich was written by Napoleon Hill in 1937. It's the most, outside of the Bible, it's the highest personal development book ever sold. And it's really, really good. And so I was reading that again and then people kept tell me about this other book. And there's a lot of books. Right here, this is Think and Grow Rich, this is the Laws of Success. I'm trying to acquire a first edition Laws of Success, which is, I was telling you it's insane, expensive. Josh: It's crazy expensive. But Russell's over here, geeking out on all the books. Russell: I love old books. Josh: Actually a side note on that guys, the very first time ... So this is back at, I think it was the first or second offer. I can't remember mind lab mind, the big one. Offer mind you spoke at it and you were coming off stage. And I walked out and it was you and Dave and I like ran up to you as you were getting on the elevator. Do you remember this? Russell: Yes I do. Josh: And remember I was like Russell. And I didn't know you hardly at all this time. We kind of knew, basically, we had had some interactions. I was like, I'm trying to dream 100 you, what's a good gift? And you're like old books. Ding, the elevator door shuts. You're on the elevator, I'm off the elevator. And I was like, all right, that's all I have to go on. Russell: And you sent me some amazing old books. Josh: Yeah. Russell: So, very very cool. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Yeah. And so I just, again, I'm kind of going back through and I'm relearning from Tony again and from other people and stuff like that. But then this book keeps coming up and for some reason the title didn't grab me. I was like, Outwitting the Devil, it sounds stupid. I didn't want to read it. It never even crossed my mind as a book I was going to read. It's not something that I would really care about. And then one day I downloaded it on Audible. I download almost all the books I buy physical copies of- Josh: A hundred percent. Russell: I do it Audible too just in case. And I'm one of those kind of people that when I'm in a mood for something, that's why when I travel, it drives my wife crazy. I'll bring a backpack with like 40 books. I don't know what mood I'm going to be in. Russell: And she's like, why don't you bring a Kindle? I'm like, because like paper and I wanted to be able to hold it and see where the bookmarks at. Josh: Yeah, yeah. Russell: And the same thing is true with Audible. So I just download all the Audible just in case. And so one day I was working out, I was trying, anyway. This is a longer story, but I was trying to buy success.com at the time, it ended up falling through. I didn't get it. But Napoleon Hill was actually one of the original, he wrote for success in 1980. In fact, hold, this is kind of cool. This is Napoleon Hill's, he started a magazine. He actually talks about it in Outwitting The Devil. So he started a magazine called Hill's Golden Rule. This is one of the original, this one is from 1919. But anyway, he was also an author in the original Success Magazines back in 1800, I have a whole bunch of copies, actually 1800's and Napoleon Hill's articles in Success Magazine. Josh: Dang, that's so cool. Oh my gosh. Russell: So I had just gotten some of these things. And then one morning I was working out and I was looking at my playlist and Outwitting the Devil popped up. And for some reason I was like, all right. So I clicked it and it start talking about this magazine, talked about Hills Golden Rule, talked about Success Magazine, which I was trying to acquire the time and all these things. I was just like, oh my gosh. And so the very beginning he tells the story, he's kind of telling the story, I don't really know what I was going to go. He's telling this story about his life. And then all of a sudden transitions to this conversation is happening with the devil. Russell: And as you know, you've read it. Josh: It's so good. Russell: It's just like, I started getting like, oh my gosh. Why did nobody tell me about this before this is ... Let me put in perspective, I've read a lot of personal development books. I love Think and Grow Rich. This is so much better than Think and Grow Rich. Josh: It is, I agree with that. Russell: And, do you want me to tell the story behind or do you want to tell? What's the... Josh: Full behind... Russell: Just what the book is, where it came from. This is an amazing story. Josh: I just want to pass it over to you because I have questions about it. So I want to kind of hear things from your perspective here on this thing. I think a lot of people do as well. It's funny though, because when you put this on, gosh, I kind of picked up reading halfway through last year. I made a public declaration when I graduated from high school, I literally, I bought a pickup truck. Russell: I don't read anymore. Josh: And I put down the tailgate, I got up there, I stood up, I held my arms there and I literally yelled audibly out loud. I will never read another book ever again, outside of the Bible. Literally I was so done with reading my mom made us do all this reading in high school. Right. I was like, I'm so done. And thankfully that's not the case. Russell: Do you know what that reminds me of? I got done wrestling my senior year in college and after my last match. I've publicly said I will never run again. And then I gained 60 pounds, now I run. Josh: And now you run. Yeah. Russell: We had a similar experience. We were like- Josh: We'll never do that again. But six months into last year I started picking up reading more or whatever. And actually I've been averaging three books a month this year, which is freaking awesome. But, I'm halfway through. I can't remember what book it was. I see on your Instagram story. And you're like, everybody read this book. Russell: Every chapter, it was like, oh my gosh. Josh: Right. So I immediately go and buy it. And as soon as I finished the next book, I read the whole thing. And I think I read it in two sittings, right? Like the whole day I was like, oh my gosh, this is so good. So I do. I want you to kind of break it down for those people out there that don't know what it is. It is a story of Napoleon Hill interviewing the devil essentially. So I have a lot of questions just after you kind of explain the context of it all, but why don't you just kind of give people some context around what that is. Russell: By the way I spent last little while trying to take the entire book and put it into a framework like I do. So that's what this is back here, we'll talk about this. And some of the things… Josh: We have this here too. Russell: That hopefully serve as a framework for you guys. If you decided to read, here's some stuff to help. But, okay. Russell: So there's the story. So Think and Grow Rich was published in 1937, the next year. And if you've read Think and Grow Rich, there's times in here where he's like having conversations, people would pass away. People died, he's thinking about them and having these, in his head, these conversations that they come into the book. So it's pretty cool. So in 1937, 1938 he writes the manuscript for Outwitting the Devil. Josh: Yep. Russell: And so it's a year later. And the premise of this is literally, he talks about, I don't know if this is a little interview or if this was a physical, just something in my head, but this is the conversation I had with the devil. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And it's less of just an interview, but more like he's putting the devil on trial. He's on trial and he's like, you have to answer my questions. These are my questions. Josh: And the during this time, the devil, I can't remember how he explained it in the book, but the devil is forced to have to tell the truth 100% of the time. So any question that he asked him, he cannot lie. He has to be able to tell the truth. And that's one of the questions in there is he even says, it doesn't matter if you're religious or not. It doesn't matter whether you think it's a metaphor or whether you think he actually sat down and interviewed the devil. No matter what it was, the principles still reign true. Which is why I love the book. And you basically take that element out of it. Don't let that belief get in your way, still read the book. So, yeah. And 1938 is when he wrote the book, but didn't get published in 1938. Russell: Yeah. So imagine, this is one of the coolest stories ever. So 1938, he writes the book and in the book, he actually talks about the devil's like, if you ever publish this, it'll destroy your life, it will destroy your family it will destroy everything, because all the people fighting against this are going to destroy you. And so he finishes this book a year after Think and Grow Rich, has the manuscript. And he's so scared. He never actually publishes it. So he ends up dying. I think in '78, I believe. He passes away. His wife, second person gets the manuscript. She reads it. And she's like, I'm not publishing this. Josh: Yeah. Russell: She refuses to publish it. Later, she passes away. Napoleon Hill foundation gets the book. It gets to them, they read it and they're like, oh my gosh, this is probably the best thing he's ever written. Russell: And then they actually contacted, this is cool. I talked to Sharon Lechter last week. So I called Sharon Lechter. She's right here. Says- Josh: No way. That's awesome. Russell: Right here. Sharon Lechter. So she was probably the fourth person to ever read the manuscript. They sent it to her, what do you think we should do with this. So she says she got it. She sat down and she was reading it. And she's like, this is one of the greatest things ever published. If you don't know Sharon Lechter. She was the one who helped with all of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books. She was the CEO of the company for a long time. She helped build the biggest financial education company on the planet. And now she's coming over here to this mission and she takes his book and she's the one who takes it, gets the manuscript ready for print. Inside of here's got her notes, which is kind of cool. Her notes taking it from, it was published back in, the last big crash what were the two- Josh: Eight, yeah. Russell: 2008. So she's sharing things in here and how they relate back then, which is kind of cool. But anyway, so she published it. Josh: And it's in the audio book as well, she kind of goes through and comments. Russell: She jumps in. Josh: There's a devil's voice. And then there's Napoleon Hill's voice. And then there's her kind of commenting, which is actually kind of cool through the thing. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah. Russell: It is kind of cool to make it natural or make it kind of tied to the time. But I think even nowadays, a decade later, whatever, it's even more- Josh: Well. Russell: Applicable. Josh: And that's, what's crazy is you read the book and if you didn't know that it was written back in 1938, you'd be like, oh, he's totally talking about right now. Russell: Yeah. Josh: You have no clue he's talking about- Russell: Because some of the references he's talking about Hitler and Mussolini. All of these people and we're like, okay, well, the dictators nowadays are different, but that was who- Josh: Right. Russell: The things that were happening. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Right then in time. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. And just the craziness of fear and economic turmoil and depression. I'm like, huh. Sounds like where we're at now. So anyway. Russell: So that's, the cool story about it. It's just this book that this manuscript has been lost for generations from literally the best personal development author of our time. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And to bring it back. I was just visualizing myself as Sharon Lechter reading that original. Can you imagine just reading the manuscript and be- Josh: Being the first part of the third or fourth person to ever read it? Russell: So insanely cool. So anyway, that's kind of the backstory and then you get into it and it's fascinating. So that's the story behind the book. Josh: That's why you guys have to read it, how cool is that? Yeah, it's super, super cool. And kind of what I'd love to do, I want you to go through, because I think this is important. For the sake of time, I mean, we could probably talk for four or five or six hours on this book. But for the sake of time, the time constraints, I think this summarizes the book super well. Josh: And so I'd love to go through the book. I'd love to see your interpretation of the framework and kind of explain it. And then, it's funny because whenever I go through personal development books, you see everything through the world of funnels and marketing and things like that. I cannot read a personal development book without looking at whether or not the fundamental principles of it are true or what they align with. Right. So they align with Christianity or Atheism or whatnot. So I have questions about, because I'm a huge fan of the book. You're a huge fan of the book. Right. But there's some certain things in here that he talks about that I have questions that I'd love to know your opinion on. So I think if we go through and kind of talk through the overall context of the book here and then kind of pivot towards that towards the end, I think that would be awesome. Russell: Well, one thing to just kind of address that before we get too deep into it. Because I know a lot of people have this fear of reading, anything of what if I don't believe it. Well, I'm not this belief therefore, I can't. And I'm such a big believer in there's truth in most things, I think there's truth in all things. And I can read something and be like, oh my gosh, 97% of this, I believe spot on. 3% I don't really agree with, but I can still appreciate the 97% and love it and enjoy it and be grateful for it. In fact, I do the same thing in my personal relationships, I can talk to somebody I don't agree 100% with. And I still like them afterwards, which is something I think our world needs to learn how to do better. But. Josh: Yeah, even if you lose Bitcoin bets. Russell: Hey, now. Let’s talk about frameworks… That's 3% of him I can’t stand right now. Anyway, okay. So the way my mind works, when I read it ... So I read the book first time and I was just in this whirlwind of, oh my gosh, there's so many things. And I was re listening today as I was working out, trying to ... This is a framework, but there's so many levels and layers and things go deeper and deeper and deeper. So the first time I listened to it, I was just kind of overwhelmed because there's so much good stuff. Russell: And the second time I was going through it, I was like, okay, if I was trying to doodle this to explain to somebody what's the overarching- Josh: Yeah, what's the promise of the book? Russell: The framework. Josh: Yeah. Russell: That's just kind of the way if you've read any of my books, that's how my brain works. I read like 30 books and from there I'm like, okay, this is what I think they're saying. So this is kind of the premise. I'll walk up to the board and kind of show you guys this. But the basic concept is all of us, me, you, anybody. Right. We have a decision comes to us and we've got two choices every single time. And that's kind of where this whole thing starts from. So should I go over there? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. You take my mic too. Russell: Okay, I'm taking mic. So I know you guys can't see this perfectly and this is going to be the words they're all small, so I'll kind of talk through it and hopefully that'll work. So here's me or you. And this is us and we have decisions come to us. They come to us. Am I audio right here? Can you hear it? Cool. So we have decisions all the time. So the biggest thing is, if something comes to us, we can make decisions based on one or two things. Right. We're either making decision based on faith or based on fear. That's it, those are the two things. And obviously, especially in the last year, we've noticed, I think that this has been amplified. Where do most of us make our decisions? I think the way you'll find is that people traditionally make their decisions one way or the other. Russell: Either they make all their decisions towards fear, or all of them towards faith. And so that's something start thinking about personally yourself, as I start thinking about when I'm making decisions, am I doing them through fear or through faith? And I feel like people, not a hundred percent, I think you tend to favor one of these. And it's important because when you start understanding Satan, how the devil is using these as tools, it starts helping you think, I got to start making my decisions differently or else I'm doing what he wants. So I'm going to start on the fear side. So his initial goal is to get people to make decisions based on fear. If he can get that, you become what he calls the drifter. So drift or somebody who's drifting through life- Josh: I'm going to stop you really quick. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Really quick. I'm just going to take my mic back really quick. I think one of the things I want to just cover here really quick, is kind of the premise of how this, even before we dive into this, how this came about. Because in the book, basically Napoleon Hill asks the devil. He's like, Hey, listen, I want to understand what you, as the devil are doing to try to control people. Because in the book, one of the things that he claims, and I guess you have it up here, the 98%. Is that the devil controls 98% of people on the earth by getting them to do drifting, which we'll talk about here in a second. Right? And so the whole premise of this book is basically Napoleon Hill is interviewing the devil and getting the devil to explain how the laws of the universe work and basically how the devil is using those laws of the universe to pull people towards him. And then he also draws contrast of that, of how God uses them to draw people towards God. And so it's basically understanding the laws of success, the laws of the universe, how they work and it's, what is it? The secrets of freedom and success. So if you understand he's asking questions with the specific intention of trying to figure out how the world works, how the devil is using those, and then how we can use those things to ultimately have success if we can figure out how they work. Is that? Russell: Perfect. Josh: Good. Yeah. Russell: Cool. Thank you for adding that. That was awesome pre-frame and I think that ... Hope that works. When you understand that it's like, that is this that's the war we're in every single day, right? I mean, it's every movie. Right and wrong, good and evil. Right? That's the fight. Right? And so the devil here is showing, this is my playbook. This is how I get people to come to my side. And so his side, he calls them drifters. Drifters, people who are drifting through life. They're not ambitious, not doing anything. There's kind of there. And when you're a drifter, he controls you. And he said, 98% of the population he controls by getting them to drift. The first thing does that by initially, decision comes, you act in faith or act in fear. If you act in fear, you are moving down towards being a drifter, okay. Now he starts going through what are the most effective ... Ugh, so good. So many good things. But so he said, how does he get people to act towards fear? So he's like, these are my six tools. I have six tools. Off camera: Are we good on volume? Russell: Is the volume good? Do I need to yell louder? Okay. These are the six tools, the most effective tools I use. I have to get people to act towards. So the first one is poverty. If you can get them to fear poverty, oh, if I do the thing I might could be poor. Then I'm going to be fearful instead of having faith. And, I don't care if I'm poor, I'm going to go for it. Right. So he gets people to fear through poverty. Through criticism. How many of you guys have had a decision to make, and you have fear. Oh, what if people criticize me? That's one of his tools, right? Health. Ah, I don't know if I can do that. Because I'm not healthy enough. Loss of love, old age and death. So those are the six most effective fears that the devil uses that get you to take fear over faith. And he said of those six, the two most powerful are poverty and death. He can get you to be scared of, I'm going to lose all my money. I'm going to be broke. Or, oh, if I do that, I might die. Or, I might not... Those things. Those are the two most powerful tools. So that was really fascinating for me. I look to that because I have so many times in my life when I have decisions, I am scared of criticism or I'm scared of loss of love or whatever those things might be, right. Entrepreneurship. How many times you trying to gamble everything. If you're scared of poverty, right? Then it's like, ah. In fact, I have entrepreneurs all the time. This is a conversation I have way more often than you would think where they're coming to me. And they built the business to a certain point and they're stuck and they're so scared. And the thing that I always had to come back to them, what's the worst case scenario? Because there's a spot where they're so fearful. They can't act and they can't make decisions. They can't do anything. And they just are frozen and they start shrinking right there. You see them going from people who have the presence to be able to take action. Do things. These people are stuck and frozen. And I literally, my conversation I have over and over and over again, it's like, well, what's the worst case scenario. Because if you're not okay with the worst case scenario with poverty, with death, these things. If you're not okay with those, there's no way you're going to have faith to move forward. You have to break yourself of the worst case scenario. And so I see this in my own life. I see it in so many entrepreneurs, coach, I see this as the cycle for them getting to fear. So everyone take a personal reflection. Which one are the ones that you're most afraid of, is it poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love, old age or death. Josh: And I'm actually just going to stand up here. Because I think it'll be easier. And one of the things that... So what he's trying to do is he's trying to use one of these six things to get you to become a drifter. Ooh, we just moved the screen. That's the key thing. And I'm looking at this camera here. Okay. That's the key thing that he's trying to get you to do is the devil wants you to become a drifter because if the opposite of being drifting is, and it's the characteristics of a non drifter over here, is you have definitive purpose. You have mastery over self, you have a learning from adversity, controlling environmental influence, time, positive thoughts over time. And then thinking through plans before you act on them. So if you have those things, that's the opposite of being a drifter. If he can get you to drift, then you don't have definitive purpose, then you're not actually going after anything. Then you're not going to be able to have control over it. And then he has control over you. And that's the comparison that he keeps drawing in the book, right? If he can get you to drift, then he has control over you. But if you're not a drifter, then guess what? Then he doesn't have power over you. And then you're ultimately going to have success and freedom in life. And so, these are the things that he lays out in the book and it's like, okay, look, if you choose to be a free thinker, if you choose to be someone who is like, this is what we're all about. Has control of your mind. You're going to come into this spiritual, mental, and physical freedom category versus the drifter category. Russell: Yeah. It's amazing. And yeah, I think what... In fact, I almost called this column here, definitive purpose. Because it's so in fact if you read Think and Grow Rich, he talks to the whole chapter about definitive purpose. People who say, this is the thing I want going to go through it. I'm at a definitive purpose. No matter what happens, no matter what obstacles, trials I'm going to go get the thing that's definitive purpose, right? Again, that's the big premise of Think and Grow Rich. And here he comes back to it. Again, I almost made the title of this, but it's not- Josh: I think it fits better. Russell: It does. But it's not an opposite, where this is freedom versus drifting is the opposites. And this is what it actually says in the book. Josh: If we just summarized it as one word drifters versus freedom. Russell: Yeah, yeah. Spiritual and physical freedom. Yeah, because freedom of mind, this whole thing is he trying to control the mind if you control your mind, you win. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And so, yeah. The definitive purpose, that's the number one characteristic of a non drifter is definitive purpose. Right? So, you're coming here. I'm an act. And you're like, oh, I got fear. I got fear. What if, what if, what if they criticize me? And you don't act. Where here you're like I've got definitive purpose. This is my mission. This is the goal. I don't care what happens. I'm going to go for it and you just go for it. And that's where you're acting in faith. I don't know the path. I don't know where I'm going, but I believe in my skillset, I believe in my mission. I believe in my calling. I'm going to go and you start moving and eventually you show up and you end up over here. Josh: Yeah. Russell: So anyway, and then these other ones are all amazing. We can go deeper, but. Josh: Yeah, we can go deeper. And I think we can hold this. This is the same thing. Right? Russell: Okay. Josh: So we can hold up there? Russell: All right. Josh: And that way we can get kind of back to poor Brandon's over there. Brandon's over there like, yeah. Russell: You're ruining my mic. Josh: Yeah. So one of the things I want to dive deep down in on this is specifically on here, you have this thing called hypnotic rhythm. And if I were to do this, as an overview, it's basically, there's a human and then there's the devil. And then there's God, this is basically how he describes it in the book. Right. There's the devil and there's God. And there's the human and the human is going through life and there's the devil pulling for him and there's God pulling for him. Right. And then that person has the choice. Russell: It's like two angels, devil on your shoulder Josh: Yeah, pretty much. Right. And then you have the choice to either choose faith or choose fear, which is why, one of the things that I've been so adamantly kind of fighting right now is, don't live in fear. Why is anybody fearful of anything? And I know that's easy for me to say, because I'm not afraid of death. Right. And that's literally one of the top things that he uses to control the mind. Right. And you look around the world today and everyone's so afraid of dying or it's like, who cares? Whatever. I know where I'm going when I die. But, that's one of the things that I've been fighting so strongly. So, I have a fear and I become a drifter or I have faith and I become someone with definitive purpose and I have freedom ultimately in my life. But there's this thing underneath that is kind of the core crux of what ultimately keeps us there. And it's, I actually have notes on it, but it's this thing called hypnotic rhythm. Russell: It was interesting because he talks about hypnotic rhythm after he talks about drifters. And he's like my goal is to get them into hypnotic rhythm. He says that if you go from routines to habits you have, it's going to be habitual. And they're habitual, they become hypnotic rhythm where you're stuck in this cycle. And he says is that how you control the drifters. That's how the universe controls everything. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Positive and negative. That's why, if you look at the bottom here, it's got the little whirlpool at the bottom for hypnotic rhythm. It's the same thing. So if you have good habits and you're doing things, do you get a spot where eventually it's a pattern that you're just stuck in. It's easier to stay in the 2%. If you're in the 98%, it's easier to stay there too. Hypnotic rhythm serves all things. Josh: And that's the thing I think is so interesting about it is the way that he explains it is hypnotic rhythm is the thing that keeps the world in harmony. Right? And one of the quotes out of the book that I wrote down is nature, which in this particular case he's talking about nature in the form of hypnotic rhythm. "Nature is not interested in morals, as such she is not interested in right or wrong. She is not interested in justice or injustice. She's interested only in forcing everything to express action according to its nature." Right? So when you go into hypnotic rhythm, either positively or negatively, you get into the rhythm of nature, right. And nature is interested. And if you look at it purely from an objective standpoint, he's saying that nature is only interested in making the thing, the object, in this case you do what has been designed to do. So if you're choosing to be in hypnotic rhythm in the spiritual freedom side of things, nature is going to keep you in that. And that's why, it's almost rewiring your whole brain and your whole life for success. It's why successful people continue to have success. And it's why non-successful people do not have success. And I think understanding that and understanding that hypnotic rhythm is, I almost like to think of it as the subconscious mind. Right? Once your subconscious mind goes into the hypnotic rhythm to just do the same thing over and over and over again, it's very, very difficult to escape that. Russell: Yeah. And you see it happen in your life all the time. There's times in my life, when I was wrestling where I had so many routines, so many things where that structure in my life was just, it happens on autopilot because that was what I did. Right. And so it was perfect. I didn't have to everyday figure out, how am I going to be successful? How am I going to have definitive purpose? It become part of me. Right. Josh: Yeah. Russell: It’s something in business, or other parts. I think that it's true. We get these patterns, these ruts, these things, wherever it is. Either positively or negatively, but that's the hypnotic rhythm where that's the goal is to get in those. But in the positive side, not negative side. Because you see it's a downward spiral. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Right. Upward spiral positively or downward spiral negatively. But if you get into hypnotic rhythm, that's the thing that keeps you in that spot. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Does that make sense? Josh: Yeah.

The Marketing Secrets Show
The Atlas Shrugged Interview - Part 5 of 5

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2020 36:24


Welcome to the final segment of this special interview! In this episode you get to hear Russell answer all these interesting questions: Who do you look up to? What is Tony Robbins like? How do you “deal” when things get heavy? What do you sacrifice for success? Is there closure as an entrepreneur? What do you want to be known or remembered for? Russell and Josh chat about all this and much more in the exciting conclusion to this “Atlas Shrugged” interview series. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson, and I want to welcome you, first off, to the Marketing Secrets podcast; and, second off, to the last part of our five-part Atlas Shrugged interview series. The exciting conclusion. At this time, we'd been going for three-plus hours. I was really, really tired. If I sound like I am kind of out of it, it's because I was probably a little bit out of it. We started the interview at 8:00 or 9:00 at night, so this is probably midnight or so. The night before, I had slept three hours. Or, two nights before, it was three-and-a-half... Three hours and 12 minutes. I remember. I wear an aura ring, so I track my sleep cycle. So, the night before, I slept three hours and 12 minutes. The night before this was, like, five hours. So I was tired. I was worn out. But I still had a lot of fun with it. I think Josh is a great interviewer. And I think that we had a lot of fun talking about all this stuff. So, with that said, you guys, hope you enjoyed this interview series. And, when we come back from the theme song, you have a chance to jump right into the exciting conclusion. Part five of the Atlas Shrugged interview. Josh Forti: So, one of the things you talk about in... Well, actually, expert secrets. But I think they mention it... She kind of mentions it in this book, too... is creating belief by looking up to somebody. And, if you can't see it, if nobody else has done it, then it's hard for people to kind of imagine it and ingrain it. Like, for me, I look up at... I'm like, "Who do I want to be like? What business do I want?" I'm like, "Okay, cool." Like you and your books, I want to be like that type of bit here. And then Katie Richards is another one. Being a powerful person, just in general. Okay, like, these are the people that I look up to, and I'm like, "Okay. That's what I'm going towards." So, for you, who are those people? Like, in your life. That you look up to, and you're like, "Okay, that's it." Because I feel like, the higher you get... And, I mean, you're not all the way up the ladder, right? There's still plenty more. But you're way above where the average person is going to get to. The average person has a lot of people they can look up to. You, there's a lot less options, I feel like. Who are those people that you look up to and go, "Okay, that's who I'm trying to be more like," or, "That's where I learned my lessons from." Russell Brunson: Yeah. There's different parts of my life for different people, too. You know? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I look at the business side, I know the companies I aspire to be like. Salesforce, Shopify, HubSpot. Those are companies that are just like the next tier, but from where we are. That they've crossed the chasm, where we're still trying to figure out how to... That next tier. Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I think watching them has been... That's when we said we'd go to DreamForce two years in a row, just because I wanted to... And I talked about it, actually, on my podcast. Because when I was out there, it was like... And you need to see it to understand it. Because I remember, when I was wrestling, my dad, my freshman year, took us to the... I had just started wrestling. He took us to the state tournament. I saw this guy on my team win state. And I was like, "That's what I want." Exactly what it was. That'd be my goal. And you see it to do it. So I think for me, those are kind of the businesses that I look up to. People, I mean, Tony... From an influence... Like, people speaking, Tony still, to me, is like... Who's bigger than him, right? Josh: Right, right. Russell: Or better. And the fact I've had a chance to build a friendship with him is really cool, because it's been interesting to see him not on stage. You know what I mean? Like, everyone has a chance to see him on stage, and he's the best in the world on there. But then you see him offstage, and see who he really is. And it's just cool to see that, I don't know, someone who's been doing this for that long, consistently, who still cares, who's still doing this. He doesn't need money, but he still is doing events almost every day of the year, because he wants that. So I think that- Josh: He can stop. Russell: Yeah. And I get it. I have so much respect for that. So I think that's a big thing. Yeah. Just, different areas of life, there's different people. But- Josh: What's it like- Russell: I've tried harder and harder to get closer and closer to him, because I like seeing... I like understanding them, not just from the outside, but understanding from inside. Because it's just a different perspective that you don't get. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. What is it it like? What is Tony like? Russell: Honestly, he's like a little kid. We went to his house, and... I can't talk with details, but he had a slide in his house, and he went down the slide with us, and it just... It was really cool. And we had a chance to go with him and do the meditation thing. And the way he served us, when we were with him at his house, you can tell it's how he wishes he could serve everybody. You know? And that just is hard. Like, you saw him... He's in this room serving us, and he's crying, and you see this emotion. And you're just like, "Oh my gosh," like, "he would do this for everyone if he could." But he can't. So that's why you do these big scale things. But it's the best way he can do that. But I think, if he could, he would do that for every single human being he could. It's just really... I don't know. It's cool. There's been a lot of situations, when I've been around him, where he could have not... He could have easily, like, turned it off. You know, but it's sincere. He doesn't turn it off. You know what I mean? And I try to be that way as much as I can. And hopefully you've seen, now with me and my kids? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Russell: I try to. And obviously, there's Russell, who's a more introverted, more reserved, and then there’s Russell who’s gonna be like, "Ahh!" But it's still the same... Hopefully. I want to be growing like that. Like, I'd respect him, because he's... In every situation I've seen him, he's always been sincere. Which is not... I can't say that about most people in our industry, and our world. Josh: Yeah. For sure. Russell: Which is unfortunate, because it's just like, "You are..." I remember one time I was in an event, and I heard this guy speak. He was awesome. And he just breaks down crying in the middle of this event, in the middle of the speech. And I was like, "This guy is great." And he got offstage. And he looks at me, and he's like... He said something like, "I pulled out the fake tears again." And I was like, "What?" I remember just feeling like... Ugh. I just felt so sick. How does someone do that and not... He was all proud of it. Like, "Ha," like, "I got them with my..." I just remember feeling so... Just dirty. And I just didn't like that. I was like, "I don't want to be that way. I want to be..." I don't want people saying, like, "Oh, yeah, Russell's different here than here." I don't want people saying that. Josh: Yeah. Like, one consistent person. The same person on and off stage. Russell: Yeah. Josh: There's certain people that... You just know. You meet them, and they're just genuine all the way through. Right? Russell: Mm-hmm Josh: I'm trying to think... Like Catherine Jones, right? For example. She's awesome, right? We had dinner. I had dinner with her, and... Well, God. I had dinner with her, and some friends... Russell: "What am I allowed to say in the podcast?" Josh: Yeah. No, her and some friends, when I was in Utah last. And I've had her as a client. I've watched her speak on stage, in front of... Live. I've had dinner with her. And it's like, it is the same person. Right? Russell: So cool. Josh: And there are people like that. And they're rare. I really do think- Russell: That's what people say. Like, "You never want to meet your mentors, because they're going to disappoint you." Josh: Yeah. Russell: Because of that. Because it's like, "Oh, you put them on this pedestal, and you see them in real life, and you're like... 'Huh. Well. That's disappointing.'" And then it negates all the stuff... That's my biggest thing, is that I don't want somebody who... I gave them something, to help them, and they see me in real life, and it's like, "Oh." It negates- Josh: Yeah! Russell: All you just gave them. Which it does, right? Josh: It really does. Because it takes away the trust factor. Russell: Yeah. And so it's just like... I don't know. Because I think I was nervous meeting Tony the first time. I was like, "What if..." Josh: Yeah, no kidding. Russell: You know? And you see him multiple times, over and over and over, and you're just like, "Cool." It's just neat to see that. Josh: So, what's interesting is, one of my biggest reservations about Tony before... You, and Funnel Hacking Live, was actually the thing that warmed me up to Tony. Because I didn't really know a whole lot... I'd never experienced Tony like I have at Funnel Hacking Live, or anything like that. It's so crazy. You walk into the room when he's talking, and it's like you feel the energy shift. Russell: Nobody on earth has presence like that. Josh: It is insane. Like, everyone tells you about it, but then you don't really believe it until you experience it. And I remember, actually, it was in Orlando. The first time, when he was down there or whatever. And I remember, he came... He was in the room... I was in the room when he entered. And energy, obviously, just like when anybody walks on stage, was quite ramped up. But then he just went into his normal talking. And I remember leaving the room. And, most people, you walk in and you feel it? And I remember opening that door, and shutting it, and like... My whole body shifted. Out of this high energy state, into the low energy state. And I felt like, if I was in that room, I could literally go forever. Right? It was just this nonstop source of energy. But what was interesting about Tony is, Tony doesn't really talk about God. Which is super interesting. Like, I don't know what faith Tony is. And maybe he's talked about it in something about that. And so, for me, one of the biggest struggles that I had... Because, well, growing up, and when I first the house, and when I first got into the entrepreneurship, I, like, really wrestled with God. Right? Especially, you know, going through the death of my brother was actually, ironically, the thing that brought me back to God. But I really, really wrestled with that. And so, for Tony, it was like, he's got all this energy, and he's connecting to this higher source, and he's talking about all these things, but he never... He never ties it to anything. He never gives credit to... Well, in this story I'm telling myself at the time, he's never giving credit to this higher... thing. Like, where does that all come from? And then, the more I got to know Tony... Not personally, but through his work, and through watching his videos, and seeing him at Funnel Hacking Live... I'm like, "I don't know what it is that he believes." I've never sat down... And if I ever get to interview him, I'm absolutely asking him that question. But, whatever that is, I don't think it's possible to be incongruent. Because it's... I don't know! It's not of Earth, almost. It's like you're tapping into something that isn't... In in order to operate at that level, you can't be selfish. Like, you know what I mean? Do you sense that with him at all? Like- Russell: Yeah. And he is, I think... And I'm sure you've seen it before. You talk political, and your audience is cut in half, right? Josh Forti: Yeah. Russell: I think for him, he's traveling such a world-global thing. I mean, Tony is Christian. But it's tough because half the world he speaks to are not Christians. Josh: Right. Russell: And so he... He draws that line, because he doesn't want to alienate people. Because he's like, "I'm here to serve God, and..." Josh: Right. Russell: “God didn’t send me to serve a certain group, it’s to serve everybody.” I think... That's my guess, as to why he doesn't anchor that in as a hard thing. Because his audience is so massive. But he definitely, if you ask him, he definitely knows where it's coming from. You know what I mean? Because, wherever he talks about it, he's... You know, the first time he told me, he's like... It's funny, because I'd experienced this myself, and didn't have words to put to it. Because I come on stage, I have a plan, everything's there. I start talking, and all of the sudden, like, something comes through me? And he's like, "It never comes out the way that I plan, but it always comes out perfect." And he's like, "As long as I follow that, it always just works out perfect." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I've had so many times where I... Again, I start talking about something, I don't know where I'm going. I'm like, "Why am I talking about this?" And then all of the sudden, it's like, "Oh, wow." And there's somebody... Like, that was the thing that- Josh: Connected it. Russell: Shifted it for them. You know what I mean? And I think the more that you tap into that, the more... Again, it comes back to what I talked about before, like, where you do that... God's giving you this thing, and if you have stewardship over it, and you use it, he'll give it to you more and more. And Tony, now, who's been doing it for 40 years... Josh: It's actually super interesting you say that. So, literally, every Tuesday, I meet with Katie. Right? And we have our one-on-one call, and we talk for an hour. And one of the topics of conversation was, I was like, "Katie..." We were actually talking about getting ready for this interview. I was like, "I don't feel nervous. At all." Right? And I'm like, "And I'm getting so many texts and DMS or whatever, like, 'Oh my gosh, are you nervous? What if you mess up?'” And, so many… So many different things, right? And I'm like, "I don't feel any of that. I feel like this is just like, 'All right, cool. I'm flying out to Russell. We're gonna hang out. It's gonna be great. We're gonna go.'" And I'm like, "So, why is everybody else telling me I should be nervous? Right? Like, why is that a thing?" One of the things that she said was like, "Being who you are, being your person, knowing yourself, and, like, doing this..." But one of the things that we talked about was some of the things that you have to accept by faith. And I was really wrestling with this idea of, like, "Am I supposed to be prepared?" Am I? Russell voxed me and was like, "This is the first interview he's ever prepared for." I'm like, "I just read the book. I don't have any notes prepared for him! I'm just gonna show up and talk, right? That's what I do." And she's like, "But that's your superpower. That-" And sometimes you have to just have faith. And she's like, "You prepare 80% of the way, and leave the 20% up to God." And she's like, "And most people are not going to understand that. And, for a lot of people, that's going to freak it out." But she's like, "How many times have you prepared something 100%, you knew every word you were going to say?" And I'm like, "Very little." She's like, "Well, think back to one of the times that you did." I'm like, "Okay," and she's like, "How'd it go? I was like, "Well, terrible! Literally. It was some of my worst presentations. The most prepared I come, the biggest it'll flop." Right? And she's like, "And the least you prepare sometimes, you just walk in confidently and you do your best, turns out amazing." Yeah. Because that's what Tony's talking about, like, "It just comes over you." It's like, if you have faith that, when you show up and become... You are the best version of yourself. You show up the most prepared you can be. And you just fully embrace that, and have faith in the rest? God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, I feel like it just works the rest of it out. You know what I mean? Russell: Understood. Yeah. That's why, before I do anything, I pray before. I prayed before this call. Or, what's it called? Before this interview, before I step on stage every single time. Because a big part of it's like... Without that, what good are your words? You know what I mean? If you're doing it with the Spirit, with God... Whatever you want to call it, you know? For me, it's the Spirit. If you're with the Spirit, then it'll touch people, in a way that you can't just by your words alone. And so I always ask that, and I look for help. And I remember, I think Steven Larson, the first time he was working for me, we did our first event in the room over here. And I remember, before I would do the events myself, he started working for me. And I was in the back here. And I was saying a prayer, and he walked in. He's like, "Oh, sorry!" He's like, "That's cool." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "You pray before you go out there." I was like, "Oh, yeah. I'm not going out there by myself!" Like, you know? I'm not that good. So, I need help, and it shows up when you... pray. Josh: All right, I have two questions that I want to ask you, before we kind of go to rapid-fire, to kind of bring this to a close. I don't know. We could probably go all night, but... Russell: You just want us to keep going all night? Or you want us to go to bed? Josh: How much longer do we go for? Are you guys liking this? Comment down below. Let us know. Give some feedback. Do you like it? Do you not like it? What are your thoughts? We've been going for about three hours. And I figured, at least, it was going to go at least this long. Russell: I guarantee there's going to be some of you guys who are like, "I agree with everything," to be like, "I agree with half," or to be like, "I don't understand what they're saying. I agree with nothing." So- That's okay. There's nothing... Again, our goal was not to motivate, was not to try to convince you guys of anything. That's not my goal. Our goal was to flesh out these ideas, and hopefully you guys come on the journey, and get some cool ideas from it, and see how perceive life. I think what's fascinating is everybody has such a different perspective on life. And so many times, when we hear somebody else's perspective, we get offended. And it's like, "What if you didn't get offended, and just listened to their perspective?" And maybe you don't listen to everything, but you're like, "Oh. I'm going to take that, and that. Those are two things that were really cool for me." Just don't pay attention to the rest of it. Right? Because I'm sure, if you paid attention to everything that we both said, you probably got offended at least 12 times. But if you're just like, "I'm just going to take the gold that's good for me, and then leave everything else on the side," you got a dozen amazing things that you can use, hopefully. So. Josh: All right. And so my next question is, who are you voting for? No, I'm just kidding. Russell: Ugh. Actually, last year, I don't... Four years ago... So, I'm a big Jack Bauer fan, and I bought "Jack Bauer for president" shirts. And then, that whole day, I was Instagramming and Facebooking, "I'm writing in Jack Bauer! I'm writing in Jack Bauer!" And I would have if he was a real human. But, anyway. Josh: That's funny. Who was I just... Oh, Leah, I was talking to her on the way, as we were driving to the airport. We were talking about Joe Rogan. And, because Joe Rogan is... It's so funny, because people... Like, Trump retweeted one of his tweets. And Joe Rogan's a big liberal, right? Like, he even said he was going to vote for Bernie, before Biden became the nominee. And so I feel like a lot of Trump supporters, are like, "Yeah, Joe Rogan's a Trump fan!" Like, Joe Rogan is not a Trump fan. That's not at all what it is. And so we were like, "Well, who do you think he's going to vote for?" And I was like, "If I was a betting man, I would bet that he votes for Kanye. That he wrote him in." Because he does this three-hour interview. And Kanye answers... If you watch the interview... I mean, I know it's three hours of your time, and you'll probably never get to it. But it is a fascinating interview. And he asked... Because he keeps trying to bring Kanye back to like, "If you were president, what would you do?" Because Kanye is like, "I'm going to be president. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when," right? Like, "If I don't win this year, I'm going to for sure win in 2024." Kanye, I love your confidence. But anyway, so, Kanye answers these questions completely differently. And so, anyway. I don't want to run with that. But, my real question for you... So, you can go long on these, or we can go rapid-fire questions on them. Either way. Atlas Shrugged. Got the world on his shoulders. You feel that. How do you deal with that responsibility? Because I'm sure there's been times, I know in my own life, with my three to five little people that I'm managing, and some contractors, I'm like, "Oh my gosh! If I have to take one more thing, I'm just going to explode!" Right? Like, if we don't... So how do you, how do you deal with that pressure, and not... One of the things that I've had to learn how to do is, I don't know if anger is the right word, but deal with not taking out my frustration on somebody else. Right? Like, God bless Leah. She knows me super, super well. And like she knows the moods where it's like, "Don't ask him a question." Like, "Avoid it, and let him cool off," because if you say the wrong thing right now, I'm just going to inadvertently take it out on her. And I've had to learn how to balance that and communicate that. How do you deal with all that pressure, and still... You've got 400 people looking up to you. I know you don't talk to them everyday, but that's a lot. Russell: Yeah. That's just employees. And you have the community, and... Josh: Right. Russell: Yeah, it gets heavy. A lot. And I think it's funny, because, as you read the book, you know, Atlas Shrugged and walked away from the thing... Josh: Right. Russell: And I think for me, I don't want to walk away. You know what I mean? I don't think... That's a big thing. And I think, because the first part is, I was thinking about it, that... Because I'm a big believer that this, for me, is a calling. It's a mantle. This is what I've been called to do at this time in my life. And since, as heavy as it gets... Like, man, think about other people in a different time who had to carry a burden they didn't want to lift, right? There's tons of them. So I think about that a lot. I reached out to other people who were producers, who I know have heavy... You can ask Garrett White. Every time I'm stressing out to the max, I text Garrett, and I'm like, "Hey, man. Life's heavy. Just thinking about you." And he always sends back something about, like, "Dude, do you realize how you've changed my..." just things like that, that just... It's just like, "Okay, it's worth it. Thank you." And then, in Voxer, whenever someone voxes me something, it's like, this success story of, like, "Dude, just so you know, blah, blah, blah." And on Voxer, you can star things. So I have a whole starred menu of all the people that have told me how the fact that I'm carrying this has changed their life. So I'll listen to those, and I'll listen to four or five or six of them. And eventually, when I hear those things, it gets lighter. And so that's a big thing, for me, is just that... Dave, one of my... I'm not sure if Dave's still here or not. But Dave's one of my best friends. Josh: Is he still here? Russell: No. Josh: Dave. Russell: One of my favorite humans. Yeah. And now he's... Anyway. You know, he's carrying a lot of pressure, now, too. Dave... I don't know if you knew this... Dave is the CEO now of ClickFunnels. He's taking over a huge part of my responsibility. And he's carrying out- Josh: Oh, he's into the CEO role? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Or, is he? Or he's moving into it? Russell: He is. Officially, now, yeah. Internally. And he's... Josh: Congratulations, Dave. Russell: And, looking back now, something I should have done five years ago. He's so much better than me at... Than I am. But I see him, I see Todd, I see that people on our team who are carrying weight. And having other people that you're doing this with, besides yourself, helps a lot. So I think that's a big part of it, too, is just... I don't know. If it was just me, like that, eventually I think I'd shrug and walk away. But I know that there's a dozen other people all holding that up as well, and that helps a lot as well, because you know you're not in it alone. I always tell Dave, I'm like, "Man, if I was going to war, I would bring you. Just because I want you in the trenches with me. You know what I mean?" And knowing that I'm not in it alone helps a lot. So I think a lot of times, it's those things. When you're where, when you're doing it by yourself, that's when it gets hard. I try to not... And I think our default human thing is to isolate, and take the pressure and pain. And just for me, as an introvert, I'd rather isolate. But I try, specifically when it gets heavy, just to, like, "Okay, I can't isolate, or I'm going to just get crushed." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I reach out, and that helps me a lot to be able to sustain stuff. Josh: Next rapid-fire question, if you will. Success takes sacrifice. So, in managing ClickFunnels, obviously you love it. But what things are you not able to do, or do you wish you were able to do more of, that you are not able to because of the role that you play in ClickFunnels? Russell: Yeah. Stuff like this. I feel bad. There's so many people who ask for podcast interviews and things like that. People that I would love to do it with, but just there's not enough time. I miss... When we were first growing ClickFunnels, and starting it, I just remember coming in in the mornings, and being like, "What should we do today?" And thinking about it, and brainstorming. I miss that part. Now you come in, and it's like, "All right, there's 8,000 things you got to do." And it's like, "Okay," and I miss those parts of it. I don't know, I miss... Not being able to turn it off, but I think... I don't know, it would be nice... I think it's Alex Charfen, I'm thinking about. Like, "You don't want to run off into the white wood." There's times where... And this is dorky. This is the cheesiest thing. Remember watching the last... Endgame? Avengers Endgame. Josh: Oh, yeah. Russell: And, at the end, when Iron Man dies, and... What's her name? Pepper Potts. When she's like, "You can rest now." I remember hearing that, and I was just like... I actually started crying. I was just like, "I feel like I want to rest sometime. I don't know how, or when, or-" I desire that. I don't know how, because there's so much stuff and so many things. And I think, I don't know, I long for that moment. Where it's just like, whatever the... Like at the end of the Bootstrap book. I don't know where or when that happens, but- Josh: Right, yeah. Russell: If there's ever a time where it's just like, "Oh. We did it." Like, it's weird, because in wrestling, there was a thing where you get your hand raised, and then you get to rest. Business, I haven't found that. Like, it's just this constant thing. Where you have victories and stuff, but you never... Again, wrestling is like, you'd cut weight a week, you'd train, you'd practice, and you'd go out there, head-to-head. You wrestle. You get a hand-raise, you go out to eat, and you relax. You sleep that weekend. Monday, you get back to work. I don't feel like, in business, there's ever been that. Like, "Ah." Josh: Do you think it exists? Russell: I don't know. I assume when people sell a business there's some of that, but most people I know that have sold a business... It's harder. Because it's like someone else is taking your thing that your identity is tied to. So that scares me too. And so I don't know. That's something, I don't know if it's like... Is it when I die that I'm like, "Ah." Like Iron Man? I don't know... I don't know. Some day. I desire that. I don't know how to get it, but that's something I'm looking at. How do you get that? How do you get that release you get, where you're just like, "Ah, I did a good job." I think Funnel Hacking Live is probably the closest to that? Josh: Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Russell: Right after it ends? But then also, sometimes... Like two years ago, and it's semi-controversial, and I got blown up for, like, three or four days. And I remember I was like, "This sucks!" Like, "I just killed myself, and now I'm defending myself for three days because of some other speaker who said something that I wish they wouldn't have, but they did, and..." And, yeah. Some of the things like that are hard, but, huh. Anyway. Josh: Are we having Funnel Hacking Live this year? Or, next year, I guess? Russell: Some version of it, yeah. We're in a contract battle with Nashville, where we've done it the last two years. I was just to go there again this year. It typically takes us nine months, for Funnel Hacking Live. Obviously, because of everything, we haven't. We're three months out from when it was supposed to be, and there's no way I can fill it in time. Plus, I don't think we were going to come do there. And so we're trying to push that contract for another year, and then doing a hybrid, something in between. So far, we haven't even got the contract, which is... Anyway. So, something will happen. And I'm dying to not announce it yet, because I don't have finality yet. But some version of Funnel Hacking Live- Josh: What? You mean you can't break something right here, live, at- Russell: I've tried my best! To- Josh: 1:00 in the morning, Eastern time? Russell: We'd love to do some kind of hybrid... Something. Essentially, because I spoke at Tony's thing, where he had the big internet… Josh: Yeah. How was that? Russell: It was really cool. And hard. Because, at first, you come out, and you're in this room, and there's faces everywhere, like, "Ah! That's amazing!" But you're speaking at an event. You shift, and you're looking at different people, which is fun. Here, if you look at people, it looks like you're talking like this. So you have to look at the camera. So, you have a million faces everywhere, and you have to look right here? And you can't- Josh: Oh my God! Russell: And everyone's doing weird things, and so it's kind of hard. Because you're like, I have to look here, or else it looks like I'm not connected to you. But there's so much happening that I want to... It was- Josh: Oh. That's crazy. Russell: It was almost... I don't know if "Dizzy" is the right word, but something that we were just like... It was different. It was hard to get used to. But, anyway, he's building a new place that's three times as big. We're just going to have a hybrid, where half is at... half's the stadium. He said something interesting. He's like, "This year is the year of virtual. Next year is the year of hybrid." So I'm trying to figure out our version of that. And I don't know what that is yet. Josh: Hybrid being part live, part... Russell: Yeah. Yeah. Because I never wanted to make Funnel Hacking Live virtual, ever. Because… it’s this thing. But I also want to make it... Yeah, anyway. So, I'm hoping. I'm hoping the next couple weeks have some finality on that contract, so we can start the next... Whatever the process looks like. So it'll be some version of 2021, for sure. Josh: Cool. Russell: Where people who want to travel will be able to travel. Josh: All right. Awesome. Two more questions. Russell: Okay. Josh: One: what is one thing that people don't know about you? What's a Russell Brunson thing that is a pretty defined part of who you are that people don't really know? Russell: I'm public about everything... Josh: Are you, though? Russell: I don't know. That's a good question. Have you learned anything by me since you've been here in our... Josh: Yeah, a couple of things. Russell: Really? Josh: Yeah. A couple of things. Yeah. More from your wife, though. Yeah. She's told... Russell: She's telling you all the good stuff. Josh: Also, your kids are fascinating. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah. I talked to them for probably 10, 15 minutes. Russell: My kids are the coolest. I think my biggest fear in life is that I am not going to be the dad that they need. You know what I mean? I don't know. He's going to be like... I don't know. Being a parent's way harder than I thought I was going to be. I thought I was going to be amazing at it. I'm like, "I can influence thousands of people at once," but the person you care about and love the most? And same to my wife. I think those are my biggest fears. I don't want to mess up the family. And it's weird because, again, it's like all my super powers are like my kryptonite in a family. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And so I think I struggle with that a lot of times, where it's just like, "Nah, I'm such a good communicator." I think. Communicating messages. And I struggle communicating with people I love the most. So I think that's it, I think. I am scared to death of cats and dogs. I will not touch them. Josh: Really? Russell: Yeah. I won't touch any animal. They're disgusting to me. And I'm allergic to cats, but the way it came about is, when I was in high school, the girl I was dating, she had a cat, and they went out of town. She's like, "You can watch my cat." And I was like, "Okay." So I came in, and the cat's rubbing against me, so I was petting it, because I'm like... I'd never had an animal before, right? And I'm petting it. And my eyes swole shut. For three days. Three days later, they finally opened again, and the white part was all blood-red. And I don't trust animals since then. You can watch me. My in-laws have cats. I walk in the house, and I stand there. I won't sit on the couches, because I'm like... Because I break out an allergies. If like a dog runs up to me, everyone... You'll see I've kind of turned my... Like, "Don't touch me." Anyway, I don't like animals. Unless you can eat them. So there's something people probably don't know about me. Josh: There you go! Who would've guessed, who would've guessed. All right. Last question. Final question. And I asked this to you... I think I have asked this to you before, but now we're here. We're in person. And we're going to talk. I want you to fast-forward to the end of your life, when you are on your deathbed, and I want you to... All your money, and success, and fame, and influence it's all gone. But you've influenced a lot of people. And you get to leave them with a final message that kind of defines... not what you took away from life, but like the message that you feel like you should put on to some... Pass on, for generations to come. What would you want to be defined by? What would you want that message to be, for people to remember you by? Russell: Cool... And I'm hoping... Honestly, my biggest hope. I'm hoping that when we die, we go to our maker. I'm hoping that we get a glimpse of what our life actually did. You know, like the ripple effect? Josh: Fascinating. Russell: You know It's A Wonderful Life? Josh: Yeah. Russell: When he sees what it was like, before and after? I'm hoping all of us get that experience. Because you have no idea what you're actually doing with it. But I'm sure what we're all doing is... Anyway, I'm praying that we get that moment, because that would be... Anyway. I think my message that I- Josh: That would be so cool. Russell: Yeah. Can you imagine that? Josh: Yeah. That'd be wild. Russell: Yeah. Josh: We need to do a podcast just about our faith. That'd be cool. That'll be our next one. Russell: Okay. That'd be fun. Josh: Next one, I'll fly out here for, and we'll just do it, just about- Russell: That'd be fun. Josh: Just about God, and faith. All right. Russell: That'd be fun. But I think for my message, I would leave it as, I think that... Again, just to tie back to what we talked about initially, I think a lot of us start these businesses, or start whatever we're trying to do, whatever we're called to do, you start initially out of greed, right? It's natural, man. We have these desires that make us want to do stuff, right? And I think for me, when I first got started in this business, I just thought it was to make money, and all these kind of things. And I saw, even when it started having an impact, I mean, "This is cool, this is cool." But it wasn't until... I had a coach a few years ago. She's amazing. And I remember she asked me about what I think God thinks about my business. I'm like, "Why would He care about this?" He cares about how I'm living my life, and I'm keeping to the Commandments and stuff, but why would He care about this?" She's like, "Don't you see it?" And I'm like, "See what?" She's like, "You don't see what He's... Who you've become? His hand in your life?" And it never had crossed my mind. And she started helping me understand, like, "This thing that you're doing is not just to make money. This is a calling. This is literal... This is a calling. You were called of God to do this thing, and the ripple effect, and people's lives you're changing... Even though you're helping people to start businesses, build funnels, it seems like it doesn't matter, but it does. Because it frees people, and then they can change people's lives. And the ripple effect is huge." And she helped me understand that day, in such a profound way, that just these things that we're doing, it's a literal calling from God. I think if I was on my deathbed, I would want people to know, like, when you feel that tug, or that nudge, that thing that starts you on this journey, that's not just like, "Oh, it'll be fun. Oh, I'll make some money," or whatever. It's literally God giving you something. This is your stewardship. Do something with it. See what it is. I think, if you realize that... Since I've realized that, it's been different. Now that I know that, it's like, "Okay, I'm going to run as hard as I can. Because this is not just an idea I had. This is a gift." And it's like these tests, like, "What am I going to do with this?" And then when you look at it from that lens, it's like, man, you can do and create... You have more faith in yourself, because it's not yourself, right? I get scared every time I get on stage. I got nervous before this. Like I get... "You're probably confident, because you're on the stage in front of 35,000 people." No! I freak out in front of, like, 20 people! I get so nervous. But I'm like, "I know that I can do it, because this is a calling that was given. And He's not going to give me something that I can't do." And so I think that, if I could help people understand that... I don't know the right way to articulate it, but I think if everybody understood that, how real that actually is, it'd make you run harder, make you work harder, and make you braver, and make you have more courage, more... All the things you need to get that message out. Because you were called. It is a literal calling. And you're probably not worthy of it yet? Like, when you get it, you're not worthy. Like they say, "He qualifies, so he calls," right? You're not qualified right now, but the act of you moving forward is what qualifies you, and what prepares you for the calling. And I think that, if people understood that, man, people would focus so much less on themselves and on their situation and just, like, "All right. Here's the baton. Run." Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: You're now gonna start running. And you would do it with perfect faith, because you know it's from somebody beside yourself. And I think if people understood that and believed, it would change everything. Josh: Russell. Thank you so much, man. Russell: Yeah, man. Josh: This was so much fun. Russell: It is fun. Josh: I'm so glad we were able to make this happen. Russell: How long do we have to do... Where are we at? Josh: We're at three hours and 18 minutes. Russell: Dang. And we're still here? Josh: Three hours 20 minutes. Yeah. Russell: Dang, a lot of people still here. Josh: Yeah. I've got... Yeah. Quite a bit. Russell: Thanks for having me, man. Thanks for coming all the way out here for this. It was cool. Josh: Yeah. Of course. Yeah. And- Russell: Oh, and we have the comments now. Josh: What do you guys think of the interview? Yes? Good, bad? Thumbs up? Rate it! On a scale from 1 to 10. On a scale from 1 to 10, give us a rating. 1 to 10. Russell: "I used to think Russell was cool, but now I think he's crazy," or, "I used to think Russell was crazy, now I think he's cool." I'm good with all those things. I'm just curious. Josh: Russell, God bless you. God bless your wisdom and mission. Look at this. Thank you so much. This is amazing. Russell: Smileys are here. What's up, Smileys? Josh: Let's go, let's go. What's up, James Smiley? Great stuff. Awesome. I love it, I love it. I could do... A 1000. We got a 1000 out of 10. Russell: Dang! Josh: That's pretty darn good. Russell: It is really good. Josh: 12? 12 out of 10. Russell: Oh, so fun. Josh: Brent? what's up, man? All right, we're going to have to do this again. Sometime when we can sit down and talk about God. That one, we're really gonna have to get prepped for it. Oh, do you know Nick Robbins? Russell: Not off the top of my head. Josh: All right. He's kind of in the ClickFunnels world? He ran an agency, sold it, but still remained a partner, and then got bored, and then came back into it? Anyway. So he and I had, I think, a three-and-a-half-hour conversation about God. So, it's interesting, because he and I actually have a lot of similar beliefs, but he doesn't believe in God. So he's like, "Yeah, I think there's something out there, and it's something intelligent," or whatever. And so we had a... He uses language. And I don't, typically. And so we had all this big, long, huge debate. So, and we've gone there and said that. Russell: That's fun. Josh: Yeah. So. Russell: I think one of the most fascinating conversations I ever had was with Howard Berg, the world's fastest reader? That guy's, like, 30,000... Josh: Yeah. Oh, that's right! He came here, didn't he? Russell: Yeah. A couple of times, since we've hung out. He's read 30,000 books. I was like, "I can ask this guy any question I want." And so I asked him. I was like, "What's your opinion on God?" And I remember he told me, he said... Because, again, religion usually causes fights. Because, like, "Well, I believe-" you know, and it's so cool, because he's like, "Well, most people read one book, and then they base their belief in God on this one book." He's like, "I've read..." I can't remember what it was... "Like, 1,200 books on God, from every perspective." And he's like, "Based on that, this is what I believe." It was just so cool to see that, I think. And I feel like all of us, instead of us being like, "This is my way, this is my way." It's like, just hear... Even if you completely... I completely disagree with so many people's opinion, but I still hear it. Because, again, why do they believe that? There's something. There's a reason why they believe that. I want to understand that. And, anyway. And it's just so interesting. Josh: That's my big thing. My big thing is like... And that's one of the hardest things, for mem is figuring out... My beliefs are always changing. That's probably reason I started the podcast. I just wanted to talk to people. Right? Like, if I'm wrong... I'm so excited whenever someone comes in and is like, "You're wrong, and here's why!" And I'm like- Russell: "Sweet!" Josh: "Oh my gosh! Thank you so much! I know what I'm onto next! Yes!" Right? Where everybody else is like, "I don't want to be wrong. What are they-" I'm like, "If somebody comes in and proves my idea wrong..." Like, my ideas are pretty thought-through. And I'm a really thought-through person. I know why I believe what I believe, not just what I believe. Right? So if somebody can come along and challenge that? That's one of the things that is so attractive to me about Leah. Leah was smart. She challenged even beliefs that she maybe even agreed with. She'd play the devil's advocate, and change, and challenge it. And I'm like, "that's what I like. I want to grow and expand like that." So, anyway. Russell: Yeah. That's awesome. Josh: We'll have to come back and do that, so. All right. Russell. Thank you so much, man. Super, super appreciate it. Guys, as always. Hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different. And who knows? You might just end up in a chair next to Russell Brunson. So, that'd be awesome. Guys, as always, hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different. Those of us that think different are going to change the world. By using funnels! And other stuff. Russell: Yeah! Josh: I love you all. And I will see you on the next live stream episode. Take it easy, man. Russell: Bye everybody. Josh: Peace!

Prosperity Through Multifamily Real Estate Investing
Raising Equity Through Retirement Accounts with Josh Plave

Prosperity Through Multifamily Real Estate Investing

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2020 45:58


Generally speaking, for most, the second largest percentage of an individual’s wealth is derived from their retirement accounts. The unfortunate circumstance is that one really can’t do much to control their retirement account, or so you may think...Our special guest on today’s episode is Josh Plave, Founder of Wall to Main. Josh is an expert in understanding how to take control of and leverage retirement accounts to invest in real assets like real estate. By structuring Self Directed IRA’s (SDIRA) and Checkbook Control, Josh has found his niche in maximizing the potential of his retirement accounts and educating others to do the same. Josh also specializes in helping investors use their retirement funds to passively invest in real estate.At a young age of 16, he opened his first Roth IRA due to the influence of his grandfather and mother who were both CPAs. He founded his company, Wall to Main, after the unfortunate passing of his grandfather and mother and funded it from the IRA’s he inherited from them. After forming his company, he pioneered the creation of the industry’s first UBIT calculator aimed to assist investors in calculating the expected taxation from using a Self-Directed IRA to invest. Josh provides all of the tips and tricks needed to invest quickly, safely and inexpensively with an existing retirement account.In this episode, we cover:What is a SDIRA and what are its limitations?When is the right time to utilize your self-directed IRAs and how to properly utilize it? What is UBIT and how does it impact our returns?How does the UBIT Calculator work and what benefits will it provide you as an investor?What strategies did Josh used to build his portfolio?What are some of Josh success stories?Tune in to the entire episode as Josh covers these informative points and so much more!Final Four Questions:1. What are the things that you do for your continued education to help further your investing?Josh: “For my continued education, it's interesting, it's kind of evolved. I've gone from, I started with podcasts. And, you know, I got all the basics. But once you become an operator, I don't listen to podcasts as much that kind of when I see an operator or someone with a special skill set that I want to listen to, I jump in, but I've really moved towards books, and specific, you know, topics that I'm really interested in at the time. And I found that it really is, it's a nice opportunity to expand my mind. I was never really into books early on and I've now read a couple hundred.”2. What have been some of the most impactful lessons that you've learned along the way?Josh: “People may have heard of before, but it's been really impactful for me is really focused on one thing. People get a lot of shiny object syndrome, especially when they have this entrepreneurial spirit and they want to build something for themselves or for their family. I talked to one guy, he does multifamily, he does office space, he does industrial he does this night and like he you know, he's got his finger in his hands and a lot of different pies and which is great. But I like to really master one specific topic. 3. What advice would you give to the listeners to help them grow their businesses?Josh: “It sounds so cliche, but really just educate yourself and stay curious. And so, just don't sit on your laurels, always make sure that you're learning. Stay curious as it makes you become a more well-rounded individual.”4. Tell the listeners how they can learn more about and get connected with you.Josh:Website: www.walltomain.com

The Marketing Secrets Show
The Atlas Shrugged Interview - Part 4 of 5

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2020 41:13


Welcome back to the 4th part of this interview series. We are getting near the end and the topics keep getting more interesting. In this episode you hear them talk about the influence their parents had on their lives in business. If they feel misunderstood as entrepreneurs and how their ability to communicate might be able to change that. Russell explains how he realizes that Clickfunnels is a team effort and that’s what help him stay so grounded. Then they discuss what each liked most about the Atlas Shrugged book and what character they each associate with most. So tune into part 4 of this exciting interview! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody, this is Russell. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. All right. I hope you guys have enjoyed the first three. We are moving into the fourth episode of our interview. My interview with Josh Forti talking about Atlas Shrugged. Again, during this series, we've been talking about religion and politics and all the things you're not supposed to talk about, but we've done it all through the lens of Atlas Shrugged, which I hope you've enjoyed and had a lot of fun with it. Hopefully it's made you want to go and actually read the Atlas Shrugged book, which I think would be really, really cool. With that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song. When we come back, you have a chance to start listening to part four of my interview with Josh Forti. Josh Forti: So, what did your parents do right for you? One of the things that I try to say, I try to say it a lot but I don't even say it enough. My parents have played a absolutely tremendous... I owe so much of who I am today to my parents indirectly in a lot of ways. My parents didn't teach me about money or things like that. That wasn't their gift, but the principles of hard work and family values, biting your tongue, even though it doesn't seem like I bite my tongue. Oh my gosh. Every day, right? Russell Brunson: It could be worse guys. Josh: Right. It could be way worse. Some people would love that, but you know, deescalating situations and having those... I owe so much of who I am to those. Yeah, they messed up in a lot of ways like you said, but what were some of the things that your parents did right? What are the things that you remember from your parents? Russell: Yeah. I love my parents. I was very blessed with my parents, for sure. I don't think my dad was super engaged when we were younger just because he was in the phase where, like trying to figure things out and make money. It was different back then. Josh: Is he an entrepreneur? Russell: Yeah. He also had a job, but he did side business so he was always trying to figure things out. I saw him doing these things. I saw the job he didn't love and then I saw him doing stuff he did love and I watched him work really hard. Then when I started wrestling, I saw my dad... That became the thing that me and him connected with which meant the world to me and it was so important to him. What's cool was that my dad showed up to every wrestling practice. He came to every single match. His day job was State Farm insurance, he built up his book of business where by the time I was wrestling, he was able to take off as much as he wanted. It ran itself and he was making money and had residual income. I remember my dad was the only one, as soon as wrestling practice got done, my dad would walk in and we would do practice afterwards. Never missed a match. He was always there. I remember just thinking, I want to make sure I have a business or something like my dad was for me. That was so important to me. Like I said, he wasn't super around when we were younger and I think he struggled because of the younger kids, which I understand. That phase in my life, he was there and my best friend and it was just, it was awesome. I love that and I've been trying to have my kids now. Especially at times where maybe I wasn't as good of a dad, I was too busy. I'm trying to connect more. That was my dad for sure. Then my mom, for me she was just... I wouldn't say I'm a people pleaser but I'm very much an achiever. I think when I started wrestling and I saw my dad got closer to me and then I got a win and I saw him get excited, I wanted to win because I wanted to impress my dad. To this day, I think I still have that. Part of the reason I'm in this business and I'm doing stuff is I love when my dad sees it. There's something, I love impressing him. To this day I love that win. With my mom, she loved me even when I didn't win. that was something that was so foreign to me. I remember I'd be cutting away for wrestling, I hadn't eaten for three days. I'd be so tired, so miserable. She'd come down and sneak in my room, bringing me food. I'm like, "Mom, I can't eat. I'm not going to make weight." She's like, "Why don't you just quit then? You don't need to do this." She was the opposite of my dad. She loved me no matter what and didn't care that I was trying to win or succeed. Couldn't care less. She loved me just because I was me. That was weird but so cool as well. It's both those principles, it's something I've tried to weave in. I've got two different sides I'm trying to weave that into my kids. Again, so far from perfect, but I think those are the two things that meant the world to me, that I'm super grateful for them those things for me because I still remember those things now. Josh: So there is... Which by the way, that's awesome. There's a lot of people in this world that are growing up without a dad, without a mom. It's interesting because I think a lot of my social media posts, I kind of come across sometimes like the heartless a-hole, you know what I mean? A little bit, they're like, "Josh!" You know what I mean? You talk about, take personal responsibility for your life, everybody can do anything. If you're broke it's your fault, that's one of my favorite sayings. If you're broke in America it's your fault, right? They're like, "Josh, you don't understand. You grew up and your parents are still married. Not only do you have parents, they're still together and they still actually love each other." It's not even necessarily they're still together. You're like a percentage of the percentage of the percentage in a lot of ways. I don't even know what question I'm asking you, but what would you do? Where could somebody find that? What can we do as a society or just as entrepreneurs, as producers to help those people? I feel like that's a really big need. Russell: For sure. Josh: One of my big struggles with this is I always want to point it back to the church. I had a really awakening, come-to-Jesus moment back when I posted, this is probably a month ago or so. I posted it on Instagram actually. I think you liked it, actually, so I know you saw it. I said, "Defund the media, defund fear, defund career politicians. Fund orphanages, churches and schools." I posted it on Facebook and I posted it on Instagram, and I was shocked at how many people were like, "Dude. Fund the churches? They're a bunch of pedophile people there too." So many people had such this negative view of the church. I grew up in the church, that's what I knew. How I knew how family works is because I saw our own family and then I saw the church family and I saw the community and how the church was involved in the community. The church that I went to, after I moved out Grable, Indiana, I worked three doors down from it and that's where people went to vote was in their gym. And the fair, that's where people parked. The church was such an integral part... that word, a part of the community. So when I saw all these people that had this negative view of the church, that broke my heart because that was my solution. There are so many things. Like, if you don't have a dad, you can go to the church. If you don't have this, you can go to the church. Said, "What?" If that's your answer, that's cool, but how can we as producers of society and the people that are going out there and making the money, how can we help those that don't have what you and I had? Russell: It's interesting. What Mormons believe is the family is the central everything. That's God's plan. Husband and wife starts a family. That's an eternal principle, right? If you look at the adversary, Satan, whatever you want to call him, his job, if he can destroy the family, everything falls apart. That's the war we're in right now. We think we're in a lot of different wars. The war we are in is, Satan is attacking families. That's it. Josh: Okay. I want you to finish this, I have to say this though. Guys, and this is not Russell saying this, this is me. This is why I hate the Black Lives Matter organization. Not movement, the organization so much. Because, their whole principle is bragging about the traditional family values. Anyway, I'm not speaking for Russell. Russell: Yeah, if you Google "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," you'll see my beliefs on family. We have it printed out eight foot on my wall in my house. That's my belief. Family is central, everything. So, Satan, the way he destroys societies and nations and this world is, destroy the family. So when you see families are broken, they're single mothers and single fathers, it's heartbreaking. I think it's the saddest thing in the world. I don't know the right way to solve it. I do know that it's vitally important. I remember first time I met Tony Robbins and started learning from him, one of the principles he talked about in relationships is masculine, feminine energy. The masculine and feminine is key to a relationship. I could go on for four hours just on masculine and feminine. Oh, that's the most fascinating topic in the world. If you ever see how Tony fixes relationships, you look at the traditional view of traditional counseling, there's a problem. They're like, "What's the symptom of the problem?" They try to solve the symptom of the problem and counseling takes years because it's a symptom of the problem. All the issues, they're all symptoms of problems. The real problem is when there's a masculine and a feminine, and it doesn't matter. Again, this is true with gay, straight, doesn't matter. Feminine, masculine energy. You take a masculine and a feminine and that polar opposite, that magnetism, magnetize together, right? That's what creates attraction, passion, everything. What happens is you have a masculine and feminine, they're attracted together. That's how you start. That's how any relationship starts. Right? Then you look at people getting married. It was interesting because what Tony talked about, he said you look at typically in a relationship, there's what they call the seven-year itch, and why is that? He talks about the way the feminine causes change is... Some day I want to write a book on this. I don't know perfectly enough to- Josh: Russell needs to become a writer. My word… Russell: Yeah, I've got a lot of books to write. But, this is how it works in traditional marriage. Masculine and feminine. What happens is one of the ways that feminine causes change is they criticize, right? I see this with my wife, with friends, with girls. If they want their friend to change their hair they don't say, "Hey, you should get a haircut." They'll criticize to try to cause change. Right? What happens is that a feminine- Josh: Yo, wow. That's so true. Interesting stuff. Russell: Yeah. That's just one example of- Josh: Dave! Russell: Feminine… Josh: Right, right. Russell: So, feminine and masculine come together. This is just an example. They'll start criticizing the man, but a masculine man doesn't care, it bounces off him. Like, "Okay. Okay." Right? What happens after seven years of that happening? Eventually instead of it balancing off of you, which is the masculine response, you start taking it personally. Like, "Oh." As soon as you take it personally, guess what happens? You are shifting physically from your masculine into a feminine. You start shifting and what happens is you shift from masculine to feminine and boom, the attraction breaks, and it starts falling apart. And then all the other problems start happening. The problem isn't solving the fact that you leave the toilet seat up or that you don't communicate well. The problem is that the masculine-feminine attraction is broken. If you fix the masculine and feminine, you can make men become men and women become women. Attraction comes back, all the other symptoms disappear. It's fascinating. That's from a marriage, family, relationship standpoint. Josh: Okay. I want to- Russell: I'm telling this because I want to talk about this from the family with kids in a minute, but yes. Josh: Okay. But I want you to now give me another example that Tony Robbins has said, because what you made it sound like there is that the way the woman does something is the thing that's causing the bond. I know that's not what you meant. Russell: Oh, it could be, yeah. That's- Josh: I just wanted to do that clarification. Russell: It's the same thing with the men where the men are responding over and over, where women now become defensive and they become more masculine and it's the other way. Yeah. Sorry. That's not the only example. I was just- Josh: Right. Russell: The one- Josh: I just wanted to make sure we clarify that because I know thing's have been taken out of context before. Russell: Somebody is going to be angry at me. I apologize. I'm stupid. I get it. But conceptually, does that make sense? It's the break of the masculine and feminine that causes the split, which causes the disharmony. And if you bring the masculine and feminine together, I think that's what causes attraction and causes passion and causes all these things. I look at my life when we were struggling in our marriage, it's because I'm showing up feminine. When I show masculine, everything's great. Where my wife comes in masculine and I'm masculine, we butt heads, it's fascinating. Anyway, I don't want to get deep into this because there's so much stuff. There's another show on this, because you look at this thing. You've got a family and the mother and father split and then there's kids who go with either the mother or the father, and now what they have is they've got either a very masculine person they're learning from or feminine, but they don't see both. And so it shifts them and it shifts their relationship. So many problems. I think the way we help the most, or can help the most is... Hormozi does this. Alex Hormozi does this. He donates his money to... Do you remember the name of the charity? He got our first Two Heart award. It's afterschool kids. These kids, like men who... There's these kids trying to play basketball or lift weights or whatever, who don't have masculine energy in their life. They come and they donate their time and they help the kids to brig masculinity. All of us, we need male and female perspectives. Josh: Right. Russell: It's designed to have those things together. When you lose one of them, it's a tragedy. I think the way we can start helping is, how do we bring programs where they can see masculine energy and see the way to make it a positive and not a negative thing? A lot of times, all they know is masculine energy left and oftentimes there's a lot of anger between the people. They hear talking trash about the spouse and talking trash about these traits which are traits that are essential for them to develop. I don't know. I don't know if that's the right answer or not, but I feel like that's how we could help those things. Help them understand, like the kids who don't have a father or a mother. They need that energy in their life to understand it, to be able to... I don't know. Josh: Okay. This is seemingly unrelated to this, but I think that I can tie it back in because it's a question that I think fits in here. I'm going to start with a super-basic question, which I think the answer is obvious, but we'll go down this road. Do you feel misunderstood as an entrepreneur? Russell: I did early on, less so now. Josh: Why is that? Russell: When I was got started... Entrepreneurship has become more of a cool thing in the last decades. Since Shark Tank and stuff. Back when I first started it wasn't. Everyone was confused. Like, "Why would you do that?" It is cooler. Also, I think the more you talk, the more you either alienate people or you attract people, and I think a lot of the people who I have alienated have been alienated and I think they are attracted by attractive. So my bubble of people around me are people who understand this lingo, who relate to it. So it's less hard now than it was initially. Josh: I believe that one of my superpower... Your superpower, your art, your format is marketing and funnels, funnels specifically. That's what you do. I feel you could just sit there for hours and hours and days and forever for the rest of, all of time. Russell: Yes. I love it. Josh: My superpower thing that I like to do is this. Communication. I love constructing words in a way that people can understand. I'm sure not, but the Kanye West interview that Joe Rogan just did three days ago. Russell: I've heard about him… Josh: This has been a long awaited episode. No one thought it was ever going to happen because it was teased and it wasn't, didn't happen. Finally happens. So I see this, I had no idea what's coming. It drops and I'm a huge fan of Joe Rogan and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing!" I sit down and I look online and all these people are like, "Terrible interview. Not worth your time. Couldn't get past the first 20 minutes." Anything like that. I'm like, what? So I go and the first 20 minutes are kind of like, eh whatever. I get done with this three-hour interview. It was like, top three interviews of all time. What's interesting is... Do you know Kanye? Like, how Kanye communicates at all?   Russell: No.   Josh: Okay, there's so many references that I want to use that you won't get. Kanye sees the world fundamentally differently and how Joe describes it in there and the way that I described it is... You wouldn't know this, like I said, because it's psychedelic, it's like a drug or whatever. But imagine being on a psychedelic drug in a small format at all times. That's how his mind works. He sees everything, it's like expanded. So even Kanye said, "The reason I have such a hard time communicating sometimes is because I see things in three-dimensional and then I have to put them into a two-dimensional conversation." I'm not trying to compare myself the way I think to the way that Kanye thinks, ubt this concept of people think he's beating around the bush when really he's just trying to explain something. One of the things I love doing is taking a concept that and figuring out how to describe it in a way that the average person can understand. I live in a different world, just like you live in a different world than the average person does. I live in a different world and that is by choice. I do not see the world the way that most people do. I intentionally do not want to see the world the way that other people do. Everything that I do, I will intentionally engineer where my life is different than the average person because I want to see the world differently, but I want to be able to communicate that in a way that they can understand. My question is, do you think that there's a lot of great ideas stuck inside of producer's heads that if more people understood them and thought like that, we could change the world for the better? But because they're stuck in their head and that person doesn't know how to communicate it well, or is not focused on that, that that effect never happens. Russell: Gotcha. Yes. That's why I think for me the study, this art of funnels and copywriting and story does, is so fascinating. That's what it is, right? I always pitch, like when we have an idea, in my head it's like this big granite block, right? It's like, this is the idea and give it to somebody, like, "This is the idea." You're like, "I don't get it." Right? Josh: Right. Russell: Then you start thinking about, who is it? Start chiseling away at the stone. You start chiseling, chiseling, and eventually you have this amazing statue. This thing that people can see and they can understand and they gravitate towards. I feel it's the same thing with communication or with any kind of idea you're trying to sell. The funnel is one thing. Right now, like, "Hey, you should buy my coaching programs." Why? Like, "Ah, it's too big." I need to take them to a path, simplify that. So there's a step-by-step process which is like chiseling away. Then inside each step of the process, there's the words and the stories, the things you communicate to simplify it to get more and more fine tuned. That's why for me, when we create a funnel and we launch it, it's like taking this big granite block and chiseling it down to now something that somebody can come in on the side of it go through a process. By the time they're done at the end, they're going to get some money, they're going to get a product and something's going to change for them. I think that's what marketing is. it's that process of trying to simplify the message. I think a hundred percent, that's why most ideas don't get out. I don't know, how many times have you had... This kind of comes back to talking about, who knows, an hour or two ago too, but four or five people get the same idea, but then one person executes on it. It's like the person who understands the communication the best is the one typically who gets it out, right? How much of your life or my life has been focused on the communication? I don't necessarily like that part as much. It's not my favorite part, but it's such an essential tool. I remember when I got in this game and I was trying to sell my very first product, Zip Brander. I put it up, I had a picture of it, Buy Now button and tried to send traffic, and nobody bought it. Someone's like, "Well, you need a headline," so I'm like, okay. So I put a headline. "Tell us what this does." So I found some sites that kind of modeled what they did and the people started buying it. It was learning that process of, how do you communicate? I remember thinking, I never want to learn how to write copy. That's what we all thought back then. "I don't want to write copy, I don't want to do that. That sounds horrible." I wanted to hire someone, but the people I tried to hire was expensive, it was 10 to $20,000 for a sales letter. I couldn't afford it, so I'm like, I have to learn this art and how to communicate. I'm so grateful because that's how everything we built has been, off the communication of an idea, and doing it in a way that gets people to move. Josh: How do you decide what you're going to communicate? You have a lot of ideas in your head and you have a lot of different thoughts on everything and you choose to share funnels and marketing primarily. Then you have some religion in there, which I would say probably is number two, maybe ish, of what you communicate. But that's it. How do you decide... Russell: The battles I want to choose? Josh: Yeah. Russell: What battles? That's a good question. I think part of what's interesting, like why did I want to do this interview? I read the book, it was fascinating. I don't know the answers and I thought this would be a fun way to talk it out loud. This is fascinating. Funnels are fascinating to me because I can apply it to so many things. You know when I talk a lot about wrestling, but not the community you bump into but for wrestling, I talk about that. I think it's just the ideas that fascinate me that I feel have the most fluidity and can do the most. Again, as an introverted person, I'll typically go out and have conversations with people as much as I can, but when I find something that does cause and effect, that's why I practice telling my story so many times and I'll do a podcast. I know now when I'm on stage in front of 9,000 people, the stories can get people to move because I practice it. So I think it's putting a lot of things out in the water and then seeing what things people relate to, and then I go deeper on the ones that are like, "Okay, this one had an impact." There's a lot of stuff. I remember in first version Dotcom Secrets, there were seven or eight chapters more that never got published. I was going to publish… Josh: Do you have copies of this? Russell: Yeah. It was like, all my best stuff at the time that I knew that I was going to publish it and it was all in the book. I remember I heard an interview with Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday... Ryan Holiday at the time and they were both talking... Anyway, they were talking about their books. Both of them said that when they write a typical book... You know, Tim Ferris's books are like this fat… My first draft was like, twice as big. It's like, to make your book go from good to great, it's not adding more. It's cutting. Like, I cut two thirds of my book to give you this one. I think it was Ryan said the same thing. The first draft is usually twice as big as the final one. Then the next section, it's cut, cut, cut, cut. I remember going back to Dotcom Secrets that night and I was like, "Okay, based on that, what would I cut and how would that do?" I cut seven chapters out and after I was done, I was so scared because I love these things, but those things aren't that important to get people what they need to actually be successful. Some of those things ended up being in Dotcom Secrets and Expert Secrets, and different places, but yeah. I wonder how that first version- Josh: I was going to say, I wonder if she just published the first day or if she had a 2,700 page book and cut something out of it. That's crazy. Okay. Back to the question in the car, and I want to tie this back to the book. How has growing a multi-hundred million dollar, making hundreds of millions of dollars having a roughly billion-dollar company, being the CEO of 400 employees, how has that changed your perspective of the world? Russell: So many things I could respond. I think there was a season of my life where I thought that if I was going to create something, if I was going to do something, the way I was going to do it, by me. Does that makes sense? Josh: Yeah. Russell: In fact, if you look at my history, the first decade of business, the businesses were about me. They were me. I was the sole owner, the sole person. On this journey, when we started, it was so different. It was like, what's the team look like? Todd was my first time I had a partner. That was so scary for me. Then it's been the greatest thing I possibly could have done. Right? Then we brought in other partners and then employees and stuff. I don't know. It's been fascinating just realizing that to build this, it wasn't about me. It was about... I don't know, just that whole thing. I think anything great, a lot of times there's a person that gets credit for it. Like, Elon Musk gets credit because whatever or Bill Gates or whoever the people are, they get the credit for it. You start really seeing how many people are involved to make something amazing. You know what I mean? I think that's the biggest thing for me as I started growing it. It's frustrating. Not frustrating for me. I enjoy it. People are always asking, "Russell invented ClickFunnels." I literally don't know how to code anything. There's not one dot of code in that word. Maybe once I leaned over Todd's shoulder, put a button in that and he had to delete it. I think it's cool that you see how many... Before Funnel Hacking Live, every time we start we bring our whole team together. I'm the one who's on stage, but I am fully aware that it is not me. This is us. If it wasn't for this team and these people, all you guys, all your contribution, this was impossible. I want to always ground that because I think sometimes the leader or whoever gets a big head where they think it's them. I see that with a lot of people who are on big stages where they still drink their own Kool-Aid so they think it's them. That's my shift in the world, just understanding the great things, the things that we remember. The things that are legacies that go on and on and on. There may be a head or a person that the branding tied too, but there's this group of people that created something amazing. That's… know what I mean? Josh: How do you stay grounded? I am a huge fan of Russell because for me, you're the person I look up to as not just, hey, you taught me how to make a lot of money, but I want to have the character that you have. I don't want to have... I look at Grant Cardone. You don't have to talk smack about Grant Cardone, but I can. Grant Cardone is really, really full of himself. Don't get me wrong. I learned a lot from Graham Cardone, especially about money. He's changed my perspective about a lot of things. I'm eternally grateful for that, but if I grew up to be Grant Cardone, where that was the focus.., I mean, I watched him, I was there at the stadium down in Miami or whatever. It was all about him. I think he even got up on stage and was like, "Oh yeah, everybody says Russell is the greatest salesman, but I'm the one that packed the house." I'm like, dude! You know what I'm saying? Why? Why is that necessary? How do you stay grounded? It's so fascinating to me to watch different types of people. I know Tai Lopez for example, for awhile there, it was all about Tai and now he's gone more behind the scenes, but each person that I watch whether it's Tai or Gary or Grant, they all have a different way about them. You have your way about them. The one that I see as the most grounded, humble... There's nobody that's looking at you. You get up on a stage and you're like, "Oh yeah, I'm Russell!" You know what I mean? Russell: Everyone awkwardly, like, "Yay." Josh: Right. Then you walk up and Grant's like... But you, it's just yeah, it's that awkward, "Hey, I'm just over here." How are you grounded in that? How do you not let it get to your head? Because it would be so easy for you to get wrapped up in your own head. Russell: Someone told me it's because of my wife. They said, "If you'd married anybody else, your head would be so big." Josh: I met your wife for the first time today. I mean, we had crossed paths, but I said when you were getting your haircut, "So what's it like being married to Russell?" She goes, "Hes just the sixth child of mine." I was like, oh boy. The big kid. Russell: That's awesome. I think I would say it's two things. We kind of talked about this earlier, but I'll tie back to it. The first one is that I am fully aware that these ideas are not mine. I didn't invent the funnel. I didn't invent any of this stuff. All I know is that I was on a path, in a journey. I was given the thing and the next thing, and I was freaking out and I was putting them together. That's part of it. This stuff's not mine. It's stuff that was given to me and tested and so I'm so grateful for that. It's never me like, "Oh, look what I invented." That's so annoying because it's not. Again, come back to these ideas, these thoughts, these desires and things that were given to us. I think that's the first part. The second part of it is, and I see this a lot in people in my world who, they had some success and then they're like, "This is my person. I made them a bajillion..." I hate that too. Like, you helped them in a piece but they did the work. I'm very careful to always when I'm talking about any of our success stories, I didn't make that person. We had this super-cool opportunity to be a piece to their journey. Right? We helped them give them some ideas and a tool, but they're the ones that killed. I don't know what it takes to build what they're building. I didn't do that. They did that. I'm grateful that they did and I'm even more grateful that I got to be a little piece of that. I got to be part of that journey. I got to see that and just have the impact of, oh my gosh. Because I killed myself and wrote those books and because Todd killed himself and wrote software and I was able to communicate it, they're able to do this thing and it's not all me. I'm fully aware it's not all me. I know what every entrepreneur has to go through to be successful and it's not a mentor who gives you everything. It's just a lot of people who are a piece. I've had mentors who gave me a piece that I'm so grateful for, but then they try to take all the credit, like, "Oh, this is when..." I hate that too. So I think those two sides. Number one is again, I don't think these ideas are something that I came up with. They were given to me and I was a good steward of them because I was able to aggregate and there's the thing. The number two is just my belief that I didn't help anyone. Even when you said, "You and Katie," I felt awkward. I didn't do anything. Josh: Right. Russell: Luckily some of the stuff resonated with you and it was a little piece of your journey. I'm so grateful for that. The fact, to see you do stuff now, it's so much fun for me to watch you. Just knowing, "Man, because he bumped into me, maybe something happened and now he's doing this stuff and this work and it's so cool seeing how you're impacting people." I think those are the reasons why I don’t think my head gets big, because I don't think it's me. I'm grateful that I get to be a piece of it, of the journey, but I'm not the creator of it. Josh: All right. I want to loop back to the book. Russell: Go ahead. Can we just read it? You guys want us to read it to you? Josh: Yeah. What was the thing that fascinated you about it though? When you've asked me, you were like, "Dude, I read it and I'm geeking out about it, I just want to geek out about it." What about it had you so fascinated? What did you want to geek out about it? I have a question that I want to ask later on about it, but what was the thing that just made you geek? Russell: There are a lot of things. I think the biggest thing that I was really excited, we talked about earlier was just… The biggest thing earlier was just this cons-... Again, for those of you who are tuning in late in here, there's the whole, it talks about greed. Right? And that concept of greed versus charity. Again, the book very much is like, greed is good, it's the thing that causes production and you should care about yourself and then good things will happen, it will create jobs and everything else will take care of as long as you're caring most about yourself. Which I thought was kind of cool but then also I had the other side with my beliefs in Christ and Christianity and all these things like that, where it's just like, how does that reconcile with faith, hope, charity and love, and serving everybody else? That's probably the thing that got me the most. I think about that a lot, especially in politics. Again, I'm not deep into politics, I'm not going to talk about who I'm voting for, not voting for, it doesn't matter. But I see that on both sides. I feel like on the Republican side you see a lot of this stuff, like this. Then on the Democrat side, you see a lot of the charity stuff. Again, in my notes I wrote this actually initially, because I wanted to talk about this. I'm a big believer that there's not a right and wrong. There's good in both sides. Josh: There's not a right or wrong side. Russell: Yeah. Things are messed up on both sides. It's how the world works. Satan, there's this eternal struggle between God and Satan and Christ, this is always happening. So there's two sides and there's God-like principles and things on the right that are amazing and then there's Satan that's twisting things and jacking them up. Same thing on both sides. I see everyone fighting tooth and nail and I bet you, if we all sat down, the majority of all issues we'd all agree on. But then it's these fringe things that causes so much hatred and fighting and just drives me crazy. I think that this book is the perfect example of what I believe so much in some of these principles, but there's also the opposite principles that I also believe in and they're both right. If you missed the beginning part of the interview, we talked more about that but the greed, the growth and contribution, that transition is the key that just fascinates me. Josh: Yeah. What parts of the book contradicted the most with your faith? What part of the books did you have the hardest time with because of your faith? Russell: Yeah. The producers in the book, the minds, the people that I connect with, because I self-identify as a producer, someone who's obsessed with production and creating. That’s why I relate with Hank Rearden, Dagny, all these people are cut from my same cloth. It's as they're growing this stuff that they didn't give back, that they didn't... That's the thing. I felt like they weren't rounded out characters and that's the biggest thing for me. The first half of the book, I want to be Hank Rearden. He's fricking the man. Like yes, that's all I want to be. I wanted to see him have that change of heart where he's Christ-like and he gives of his own free will. Not because the government came with the gun and told him he's got to pay taxes. I wanted to see his character develop and realize that, "Oh my gosh, I should be serving people because I love them. Not because of the government's force." That's the piece that I wish. Josh: It never took that turn. The book, you almost expected it and then it didn't happen. Russell: It got worse and worse and worse and then they waited until just everything... People were dying, everything collapses and then the lights in the yurt go out, wooh, and they're like, "Okay, now we can come back and build." Josh: Now we can go back and build, but even when they come back and build, it was built by our new law of basically... Actually, one of the things that's fascinating about that was... Gosh, it was towards the end. Was it Galt? I think it was Galt. Yeah, I think it was during his speech when he was like, "The minds society, we gave all this stuff to you guys basically." Trying to be like God there, but every day, we created all this stuff, we created these jobs, we created these resources. We gave it to you and all we wanted from you guys was for you to let us be in our own head. Let us, our minds be free and not be controlled by anything else. You took all that and not only did you take it all, then you said, "No, you're bad and we're going to take that away too. So we're all going on strike because of that." You relate to that so much and then it's like, yes! Then they explained how they live and it's like, you expect them to have that change of heart rather, but no. It's because we are amazing and because we are the great minds and we must live by this code. It has nothing to do with actually giving back or actually contributing to society. It was like they didn't care about contributing to society. It just happened to happen. Russell: Yeah. Which is cool, which is why again, governments should let producers produce because the byproduct is really good. Josh: Right. Russell: For everybody. So that part is so much I relate to. Part of this is probably because Ayn Rand didn't believe in God. You know what I mean? That wasn't part of her values and so it's tough because she weaved that... I just wish at the end of the book, it would have been like, and then Hank Rearden realized that he could help all these people himself and so he built orphanages and changed all these kids' lives. Like, yes! That would have been amazing. He found about OUR and he went and donated money to save all these children. Josh: Right. Russell: But he did it of his own free will because he had that change of heart. I don't want to die at the end of my days and... I produced some great jobs, but I didn't care about people. I feel like that missed the mark. Josh: Hank Rearden you say is the person you related to really most in the book? Russell: Yeah, I think so. I wanted to be Francisco though, he was pretty sweet. Josh: Who do you think I related to most in the book? Russell: Oh. Who was it? Josh: It was a relatively main one. You were close. Russell: Oh, was it Francisco? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Russell: He was cool. Josh: Right from the beginning he fascinated me. I knew right when, the plot twist of where he ran off and became the playboy or picture, he was obviously a playboy or whatever. I knew right then and there. I don't know what the plot, I don't know what the connection is but I know this is going to come back around and it's not going to be how it seems. The mind doesn't shift and then he stays in the scene or whatever. He fascinated me because, or he strikes me as someone... Hank Rearden didn't care about the crowds. He did not at all. He hated going to the wedding. It was by force that his wife drug him out there that one time. It was always, "I just want to work in my office." I'm actually not like that. I am actually much more the... I do like the crowds, but I don't like the crowds because I need praise. Don't get me wrong, I like being on stage and doing this type of stuff or whatever, but for me, I like the crowds because I love people. It's funny because I actually don't get along with a lot of people in real life. Whenever I go to the airport, I'm like, I will pay whatever it takes. Put me on a plane first, the least amount of people I have to deal with, whatever. I don't want to have to interact with people that I don't want to interact with. But I love studying and understanding people's minds. For me, one of the reasons I am so fascinated by Donald Trump is because of how he can control the crowds. You look at his rallies. Dude, you can't ignore them. They're just huge. My fiance's parents, or her mom and Kirby went yesterday, I think it was last night, to Omaha. 29,000 people showed up in the bitter cold of Omaha, a last-minute notice. That type of control or not even control, but that type of influence to be able to go through, what is it that makes people go and do that? So Francisco in the book, he was the partier guy and he went and he was with the crowds and he was very good with words and articulated, but he sold me at that wedding. I'm telling you. Russell: That was good. Josh: To me, there's more than two ways, but super simplified down, there's two ways to influence people. There's one, which is the indirect, which is build a software company, it's build a product, it's build an iPhone. You're not directly influencing them with your words or whatever, but it's influencing their behavior by creating a product, by creating a service that's going to go out and change the world. Then the other way is to actually go out there and change them with your words. That's why Jesus, for example, Jesus didn't build the product. He did it through His words kind of, sort of, but to me that's so fascinating. If I can figure out how to do that, that's how I can affect real change in the world. And it's funny because you've had had such a massive influence on my life, but probably a year and a half maybe ish into me knowing ClickFunnels, I was like, "Man, Russell's doing it all wrong." I had this thing of, if Russell would communicate more about stuff besides funnels, he would have a bigger impact. I had this limited belief of, this is the only way you can influence and impact people, is by going out there and actually speaking to them. But that's my superpower and my gift. In the book, Francisco was the one I think that best represents my style of trying to go out and do things. I find it interesting by Hank Rearden with you… Russell: I'm the same way. I would rather be in here building funnels, doing some stuff. There's scenes of Hank in the book where he's sitting there looking out over the factories at night and he sees, he watches the steel being poured, it's glowing. He's enjoying that. For me, it's similar where I do the stage thing and things like that. I get less value… interactions are hard, but I spend a lot of time on social media at night, just looking at the people that I know are in our world and watching what they're doing because that's me watching the steel. My mission is not to go teach people how to do what you do. I'm giving you a blow horn so you can go do it. That's more fascinating to me to sit back and explain to my wife. Events drive her crazy because then it'll happen and it'll get done and then I scurry off and I don't want to talk to anybody. I sit in the room and I just watch what people takeaways and then who they're talking to. I spend a lot of time just watching. That's for me like looking over the steel and being like, I gave them a trumpet or I gave them a blow horn and now their messages are going out there and I can just watch it. So for me, I don't want to teach personal development and this and that, but I want to empower or give tools or whatever tools there are so that you can and whoever all the other influencers are to be able to do those things. Does that makes sense? I'm an amplifier. I'm an amplifier of other people's messages and my message just happens to be, "Here's the amplification that you need to amplify your message," and then letting everybody else go and do it.

The Marketing Secrets Show
The Atlas Shrugged Interview - Part 1 of 5

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2020 44:08


Welcome to the first episode in a special 5 part series. Over the course of these next 5 episodes, you’ll get to hear an interview between Russell Brunson and Josh Forti about the book “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. But this interview is much more than just them talking about the book, they are actually discussing business, religion, and politics (a subject Russell doesn’t talk about often) as they pertain to the concepts in the book. In this first section, you’ll get to hear the introduction and the basis for how the entire conversation will flow. The first main topic of the book, and the main concept for this episode is greed. Is it bad? Can it be good? Are we born with it? Can we change? So listen in to part one of this unique interview and start reading “Atlas Shrugged” (just read it, the movies aren’t great), so you can be ready for part 2! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. And right now, I have a treat for you. Over the next five episodes, I'm going to be taking you in behind the scenes of an interview that I did with Josh Forti about the book, Atlas Shrugged. And some of you guys have read Atlas Shrugged, some of you haven't. Some of you know the premise, some of you don't. And I want to preface this by saying I do not believe in everything taught in the Atlas Shrugged book. I love a lot of it. It talks about producers versus consumers, the looters and the takers versus those in society who are the creators. Right? And there's a lot of things I strongly align with. There's also things that I don't strongly align with. And so I love the book, one of my favorites I've ever read. And so that's the first thing. Number two is, as I finished the book, I remember Josh Forti, who's one of our funnel hackers, he wanted to do the interview with me and I was just like, "I don't have time for interviews." And we're getting closer and closer to the election, we talked on Facebook. We were posting some comments and I was like, "You know what? The interview that I would actually love to do would be about Atlas Shrugged, looking at the whole political thing as it's happening right now and the elections and everything, through the lens of Atlas Shrugged. That'd actually be fascinating for me," because I don't typically, as you know, talk about politics. Right? I do talk about religion, but I don't talk about politics. That's not something I typically go into, but I thought it'd be interesting to look at politics from the lens of Atlas Shrugged. And so in this interview series, it's a lot of fun. We talk about producers versus consumers. We talk about the left and the right. We talk about some political things. Now Josh, just so you know ahead of time, he's very pro-Trump, very much on that side of the discussions during this interview. And this interview, just so you know, took place before the elections. As of right now, I'm still not sure who won. You guys probably will know by the time you're listening to this, but as of when I'm recording this, we don't know, but he definitely leans on the Trump side. I don't really share much of my political beliefs, but you'll get kind of what I believe and why I believe it through the lens of Atlas Shrugged over this interview series. So I hope you enjoy it. It was a lot of fun to do, a lot of great feedback and comments. And again, we talk about stuff I don't typically talk about ever. So this may be a one-time shot to hear inside my mind when it comes to politics, religion, and all through the lens of Atlas Shrugged, the book. So with that said, I want to introduce you guys to the first part of this five-part interview series with me and Josh Forti, talking about Atlas Shrugged. Russell Brunson: Are we live? Josh Forti: We are live. Russell: What's up, everybody? Josh: Oh, my word, with the incredibly ... I don't know if long-waited. It hasn't really been that long. Two months ago. So much expected podcast with Mr. Russell Brunson, himself. How are you doing, dude? Russell: I'm doing amazing, man. Thanks for flying all the way to Boise just for this conversation. Josh: Yeah, absolutely. Dude, this is probably the conversation I'm looking forward to most, certainly in my life thus far, when it comes to business and philosophy and everything like that. Russell: No pressure at all. Josh: Well, it's funny. Your wife said, "Oh, thanks so much for coming out." I was like, "Yeah, it's certainly ... Yeah, because it's inconvenience to me to fly all the way out here." I will say, this is my first ever in-person interview like this. Russell: Oh, really? Josh: Yeah. Russell: We got the microphones set up. Josh: I know. We have- Russell: He’s a professional. I've never done this before. Josh: Literally, we have a soundboard down here. We've got Russell's mic. Can you guys hear us all right? By the way, guys, for all of you listening on audio, we apologize because we're going to answer some comments in the Facebook feed here because we've got everybody down here. By the way, you can see all the comments down here. Russell: What's up, everyone? Josh: All right, guys. If you are live, comment down below. Let us know where you're tuning in from. Let us know if you know Russell or if you know me or if you know both of us or what you're most looking forward to. And Russell, I'm going to be honest with you. We're just going to be super chill. Guys, we have a live audience back here. We've got Dave. Dave's over there. We've got Jake and Nick. Russell: What's up, Dave? Josh: Where'd Jake go? Russell: Jake's working. Josh: Oh, there we go. Jake's working late over there. Russell: Jake, by the way, designed these amazing shirts for this- Josh: Yeah, check us out. Russell: This is my Rearden Steel shirt. This is my Who Is John Galt shirt. Josh: Isn't this great? Okay, but I feel like the back- Russell: Yeah the back I’ll read what it says. It says, "I started my life with a single absolute, that the world was mine to shape and the image of my highest values never to be given to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle." So do you guys like these shirts? These are custom made for tonight. And you guys may have a chance to get one of these, but not yet. No, not yet. Josh: Not yet. Russell: We'll let you know when the ability ... If you guys ... Josh: Oh, man. Oh, man. Russell: Anyway, it's going to be fun, but these are custom ... We literally made these today. We needed some sweet shirts…for the show. Josh: Okay, Will says he got your text. Did you send my text to everybody? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Russell on top of it. I sent out a ManyChat, Russell sent out a text. All right, guys. Let's lay some ground rules here. So the quick backstory behind this ... And it's going to be weird. You've got to look in the camera here. Quick backstory behind this is I make a post on Facebook about, what, probably three months ago now or so? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Two, three months ago. And I go, "We need some epic people to interview for the podcast. Who do you know? Tag them all down below." And shout out, Georgie. Georgie comments and goes… "I coached Russell. You should totally interview me." And I was like, "You've got to be pretty gutsy to tag Russell in your comment and tell him you coached him," but then Russell comments back- Russell: And George is an Olympic wrestler. He was on the Bulgarian Olympic team. He wrestled at Boise State with me. He's the man. So yeah. Josh: I commented back. I go, "You coached Russel?" And then Russell goes, "Well, yeah. He coached me. He's awesome. You should totally interview him." And so I said, "Yeah, Georgie, of course, you can come on. We'll do an interview, but Russell, I've got an open invitation to you if you want to come back on." And then you were like, "Sure, if we can talk about…" or no, you didn't say sure. You said, "Can we do it about Atlas Shrugged?" Russell: Yes. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Because I interview a lot about business stuff and- Josh: I'll pull the microphone just slightly. Russell: Yes. I don't do a lot of interviews because ... I feel like I've said, but I don't want to say, but I just finished literally probably the fattest book in the history of books called Atlas Shrugged. And I was geeking out on it and I wanted to talk about it. I didn't have a way or someone to geek out with, other than some of my friends here. And I was like, "If you want to talk about Atlas Shrugged, I'm in." And then you started freaking out. Josh: The funny thing was is I go something to the effect of, "You want to talk about the fall of capitalism because of a boycott, because of a brilliant person and why socialism sucks? Yes, absolutely. I would love to do that," to which you don't give me a yes or no answer. You reply back and go, "Ha-ha. Oh, man. That'd be fun." I'm like, "Talk about an open loop, man. Come on." So anyway, I immediately messaged Russel and I'm like, "You better not be joking because that would just be rude." He goes, "No, I'm totally in." Josh: So about two months go by. You had a bunch of stuff. You had some fun stuff during that time, hanging out with- Russell: Lot of stuff is happening. Josh: Tony Robbins? Russell: Yeah, Tony, man. And it's been chaos the last couple months, not going to lie. And as we got closer and closer to the election, I'm like, "This is an interesting conversation, post-election, but I think it's more interesting before election." And so was it two days ago, three days ago, you're like, "I will fly to Boise to record this." Josh: Yeah. Russell: "What day do you have open?" I'm like, "Only Wednesday night." And now we're here. Josh: Yeah. It was Friday afternoon. We were Voxing back and forth and you're like, "Dude, we've got to get this done before the election." I'm like, "Before the election? Oh, my word." I said, "All right. Sounds good. What time do you have available?" And that's when I was like, "You know what? I was going to ask you creatively, but I'm just going to ask you. How about I fly out to you?" And you're like, "Heck, yeah." Josh: So guys, that's the backstory. That's how we got here. And so this is an open conversation about Atlas Shrugged and kind of everything that encapsulates. I think we'll talk about some religion, some politics, kind of both sides of the aisle there and open it up. Russell: Fun. Josh: Anything else you want to add to that? Russell: The only other thing I would add is, because this book, by the way, if you haven't read it yet, is very polarizing. There are people on both sides of it. Russell: And I think both of us wanted to stress ahead of time that I do not believe in everything in this book. A lot of things in this book, I do believe in. And it's interesting. One of the things I want to dive deeper in in this conversation, I'm excited for and I told you not to do Voxer. I was like, what's fascinating to me is not, "This is what we should believe." What was fascinating to me as I was reading this book, and we'll get into the premise of the book for those who haven't read it, but the big thing is producers and going out there and creating stuff and doing things, which is what entrepreneurs do. Right? And it gets in the part of greed is good. You should be greedy because it's going to create all these amazing things, which then the byproduct's really good. Russell: And part of me is like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes," and then part of me, as a believing Christian, I hear this message I believe in and then I hear in my mind ringing Christ, talking faith, hope, charity, and love. And I feel like they're these two polar opposite things, which by the way, we dive into politics a little bit. There are two polar opposite sides, one that believes one, one believes the other. Russell: And I think that there's a happy medium and that's what I want to dive deep into just because I don't want anyone thinking, "Oh, Russell and Josh just believe this," or whatever. It's like, no, there's sides of this and I empathize on both sides. I want to talk about both of them because they're fascinating. Anyway, I've toyed writing a boy about this concept, these two things. Anyway, I think it should be fun to first time verbally ever talk about this stuff. So I'm excited for it. Josh: Yeah. And I would just echo that, as well. I think one of the things that often happens with me, with my ... So funny. You, who never, ever talks about politics and me who doesn't know how to get on Facebook without arguing about politics, colliding here, but is that a lot of times I get grouped into, "Oh, you like this reading. Therefore, you believe with everything." "You read this book," or, "You support this person," whether it's a political figure or a book or something like that. It's like, by saying that you enjoyed that or that you learned a lot from it, that all of a sudden you suddenly believe everything in it. And that is not the case at all. And I've gotten a lot of criticism from people that are like, "How could you possibly like Atlas Shrugged?" And I'm like, "Well, this is the conversation that we're going to have." Josh: So real quick, before we dive in, I'd be curious ... I want to do a poll real quick. How many of you guys have actually read the book? I'm curious to know. Hold up here. There's two different versions of it, but if you've read the book, just comment below the number one if you have read the book, the number two if you have not read the book. I think that will just kind of give us a poll. We've got 200, 300 people. Russell: And if you listened to the audiobook, we'll count that as reading, too, either way. Josh: Yeah. Not if you know the premise of the book, but actually have read the book and have a deep understanding of it, or not deep understanding. But have like… Russell: Understand the stories them in. Josh: Yeah, things like that, because then it'll be interesting. Russell: One is read. Josh: One is read, two is not read. Oh, more ones than I thought was going to. Russell: Yeah. Me too. Josh: Russell's book is so underrated. Russell: We're 50/50. Josh: Ooh, yeah. I think we should take a poll at the end; what's better, Atlas Shrugged or Dotcom Secrets? That's the real question we should be asking right now. Russell: That would be good, that would be good. Josh: Okay. So we have a lot of people that have not read it, so we'll have to go into the premise of that. Okay. Russell: Are you ready to get started? Josh: Yeah. I'm ready to rock and roll with it. Russell: Oh I’m ready. Josh: Okay. Guys, we want to lay a couple ground rules. Okay? Because I don't know what it's like to be Russell, Russell doesn't know what it's like to be me, but I think we both have a mutual understanding that we could very easily be taken out of context here. Josh: I think the goal, and then I want you to kind of expand upon this, is we're not trying to take a side here. We're trying to have an open discussion about it. This could very easily turn into something that's like, "Why did you vote for Trump? Why Biden sucks, why Biden's great, why Trump sucks," something like that or certain religion. We're not trying to convince you of anything, really. In fact, this is honestly more of a conversation for us. And we're like, "We think it'd be cool to stream it out to a bunch of people because there's a reason for me to fly out here and do that," but the purpose of this is to have an open discussion about the book, the premise of the book, an understanding of it, and then honestly we're probably going to be in our own little world over here. Josh: And we want you guys to interact and comment and engage and push your questions. And we'll go back through it, obviously, but the purpose of this is not to try to convince anybody of anything. It's simple to, at least from my perspective, shed a new perspective and give the perspective of somebody who, for those of you that don't know who Russell is, the founder of a ... ClickFunnels is a billion-dollar company, SaaS company. You have 400 employees? Russell: Yeah. Josh: 400 employees. So from that perspective and from my perspective, to open your eyes to a new perspective of what we like, what we don't like and, like I said, more of a conversation for us. Russell: Yeah. I think that's good. And I think a big thing that we will talk about ... Our goal is not to convince you of anything. In fact, I think I'm still convincing myself of both sides. I believe both these two things that seem contradictory, but I think there's a middle ground and I'm excited to explore it. So it'll be fun. Josh: Cool. So I think we got to- Russell: Talk about the premise of the book? Josh: Yeah, we've got to talk about the premise of the book. Russell: I might have a little mini statue behind me that might help. Can I grab that? Josh: Ooh, yeah. Russell: Okay. So folks that have not read Atlas Shrugged, I didn't know what the premise was at first, but this is the story of Atlas. Some of you guys know Atlas was cursed to have to carry the entire weight of the universe, entire weight of the world upon his shoulders for forever. Right? And so this is where the premise of the book ... All of us, people who are listening to this might guess that you are a producer. Right? Otherwise, you probably wouldn't be listening to me or to Josh. I attract, I teach, I coach, I help producers, entrepreneurs, people who are trying to change the world. Right? Russell: I'm curious, how many of you guys have ever felt this pressure. Right? When you feel like you literally have the entire weight of the world upon your shoulders. And if you haven't, it's time to become a producer. That's first off. Second off, I can empathize, though. There's so many times, you can ask Dave or any guys on my team, there's days I come in, I was like, "I feel like I'm going to crack." There is so much weight to carry this around. And I'm guessing most of you guys have felt that. It could be with your family, could be in work, could be business, whatever, but you've felt the weight of the world. Right? Russell: So this is what Atlas had to hold. Right? And so the premise of the book, Atlas Shrugged, is what would happen if the producers, the people that are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, what happens if they were to go on strike and they were to shrug their shoulders and be like, "Meh." In fact, should I read your tile you gave me here? Josh: Yeah. Russell: So Josh, as a gift today, gave me some amazing tiles. This is a quote, actually, from the book, Atlas Shrugged, talking about this. It says, "If you saw Atlas, the giant holds the world on his shoulders. If you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling, but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater of his efforts, the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders, what would you tell him to do? Just shrug." That's things like, what happens to society when us, the producers, when we no longer want to carry the weight of the world? We shrug and we walk away from it. Russell: And the book is a story about that. What happens when these producers start disappearing and they start leaving, they start going on strike? You see society, what happens when the producers disappear. Josh: Yeah. It's interesting because there is no one named Atlas Shrugged in the book and there's nobody named Ayn Rand in the book. And so there's concepts that she's writing about outside of that and it's this ... How do you summarize a 1200-page book? Basically, in the book, there is a main character by the name of Dagny. Russell: Oh. Yes. Josh: Oh. Russell: I was going to say John Galt, but you're right. Yes, Dagny’s the main character. Josh: Sorry. For the first two thirds of the book, the main character is a woman by the name of Dagny. And basically, she is one of the producers of society. And she's not the head boss of the railroad, but she's basically the person that runs this railroad company. And it is written, what, 1950 is when this was- Russell: Yeah. Josh: So 1950, and it's basically this forecast into the future of a government that is basically forcing super, super strict restrictions onto private businesses and making them do things, kind of like today in America, but super, super government overreach in a lot of ways. And so Dagny is trying to keep the world afloat, more or less, by getting the railroads done on time and getting orders shipped. Josh: And I'm super oversimplifying, but around her, all the people that she works with that owned all these other companies that she would buy copper from or she would buy steel from or buy the railroad track from or buy the coal from, all of a sudden all these head people ... Imagine people like Russell, all his friends just start disappearing. Imagine Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Russell all just started disappearing. Right? That's what's happening all around her and she doesn't understand what's happening to them because just, one day, it's up and it's gone. Josh: And so the premise of the first two thirds of the book is showing this story of this producer who is living in this world of super government tyranny, overreach that's super, super controlling and she's watching all of her friends disappear and she doesn't know why. Would you say that's a pretty good explanation of it so far? Russell: Yeah. And every time they disappear, they leave behind a note or something that says, "Who is John Galt?" That's this theme throughout the book, is who is John Galt? Who is this John Galt person that makes all the producers disappear? Josh: And Dagny has no idea who John Galt is. Right? She doesn't even know, actually, for awhile that John Galt's actually even a real person. And so once she does find out that John Galt is probably a real person, John Galt becomes her sworn enemy because she doesn't know who he is or what he's doing. All she knows and all she associates with is that John Galt is taking away all these producers of society and is making her life harder because ... Imagine you being an entrepreneur and all of your entrepreneur friends that you buy stuff from and that you send all your people to, your referrals and everything, you buy all your supplies from, imagine they're all just disappearing and you think it's because of this one guy who's taking them all away and you don't know what's happening to them. Obviously, they'd become your sworn enemy. Josh: So for the first two thirds-ish of the book, that's kind of this premise of they're painting this really, really vivid story of the ... what are they called, the great thinkers of society? Yeah, the great minds of society, basically disappearing. And Dagny and ... there's a guy by the name of Hank Rearden, I think. Russell: Yeah, Rearden Steel. Josh: Rearden Steel, yeah. So Dagny and Hank Rearden are the two major ones left right before the big plot twist happens and you're like, "Oh," and then you get introduced to John Galt. I'm going to let you explain John Galt now. Russell: Oh, man. Okay. So that's the first two thirds of the book. By the way, there's movies. Don't watch them. They'll ruin the book. The movies were really bad. Josh: Yeah. Read the book. Russell: So two thirds into the book, she starts trying to figure out this mystery of who's John Galt. She ends up finding him and turns out that he has been going around and getting all these producers to go on strike, convinces them to, "Look, it's not worth fighting for anymore. All your incentives are gone. Let's leave. Let's go on strike," and they leave. And John Galt's trying to get her to leave and she's like, "I can't. I have to do everything in my power." The last third of the book is her leaving John Galt's presence and going back and trying to figure out how to do this thing as she's watching just government regulations getting harder, and harder, and harder, and harder to the point where everyone just has to disappear. Russell: But one of the things John Galt and the people say, "When the lights of New York go out, then we'll come back and we'll rebuild society from the ground up, after the looters and the people are gone." Josh: And that's basically how the books ends is lights of New York go out and then- Russell: For such a long book, all of a sudden it just ends and you're like, "Oh, I need one more chapter. Come on. Just end it." Josh: And we're never going to get it. Ah. Russell: Well, maybe I'll write it. Josh: Yeah. So that's the storyline of the book, but what I think we really both want to focus here is kind of the premises and the overarching ideas that the book presents, and capitalism versus socialism, and I think we'll talk religion and politics and kind of everything that’s in that, but I kind of want to, if it's all right with you, I kind of want to turn the conversation more towards us now and just kind of start geeking out just about that. Josh: So guys, we'll obviously go back and ... By the way, we want all your comments if you're ... Actually, comment below right now. Where are you watching? Are you watching it on YouTube? Are you watching it on Think Different Theory page or are you watching it on Russell's page? Comment down below because we went to multiple different locations. So we have a bunch of different people tuning in for everything. So just comment down below. Leave your comments, leave your questions, smash the like button, love button, share this out, and we're going to be here. Josh: All right, Russell. What's up? Russell: Hey, man. Josh: All right. Dude, I've been wanting to, and I hate this terminology, but just pick somebody's brain like yours for the longest time. And this book, oh, my gosh. So what do you like about the book? What was your favorite thing? Russell: Yeah. Well, let me tell the backstory. So 2008 is when the market crashed last time, right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I didn't realize that, that year, over 500,000 copies were sold organically by people talking to me about it, talking about, "Everything's she's prophesying is happening right now." And so, back then, I remember all my entrepreneur friends, like, "You have to read this book." It was the word-of-mouth buzz that sold 500,000 copies of a book has been ... The author died, whatever, 30 years earlier. There's not active marketing out there. It's crazy. And everyone's talking about it, like, "What's happening in this book is happening in 2008." And it was just this prophecy that was being fulfilled. Russell: And so everyone in 2008 was telling me to read this book. I remember buying it and I was like, "This is a really, really big book." And it took me awhile to get into it and I could never get into it. I read the first, I don't know, first 200 or 300 pages four or five times. And then, finally, this summer, one of my very first trips where I didn't bring a laptop since my marriage. So my wife is very proud of me. Josh: Dang. Russell: And so as I was leaving the office, I grabbed this book. And I picked it up and I was like, "I have no computer, but I've got this." And usually, I bring 20 books just because I know I'm going to read. I just brought one and I was like, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to be forced. I'm on a lake for a week and a half with my kids and all I can do is read this book." So I brought it, got the audiobook, as well. It's funny, I do the same. I listen to the audiobook and I read along so I can listen to it way faster, that way. And I started going through it. It took me a little while. She does such a good job of character development at the very beginning, it took awhile to get into it. Josh: Yeah, for sure. Russell: And then the story hits and then you're just like ... And you couldn't- Josh: It's like thing, after thing, after thing. It's so quick. Russell: Oh, yeah. And it got crazy. So for me, it was interesting because I think, if I would've listened to it 10 years ago or read it 10 years ago, I had never experienced any of the things they talk about in this book. Right? Josh: Now you don't have to worry about it. Yeah. Russell: Even better. I never experienced government regulations and things like that or just those kind of things. And as ClickFunnels has grown from me and Todd to our first member, to our first thousand, 10,000, 100,000 members, 400 ... I don't know how many employees, a lot, 400 plus employees. As it's grown, it's been crazy because you would think all we'd be focusing on here inside ClickFunnels is the next feature in the app, next thing. Russell: And there's the year where we had to spend an entire year just refactoring the software for GDPR compliance. We have regulations that come in on taxes and this. It's constant where most of the battles we fight at ClickFunnels right now is not about, how do we make this thing better for the customer? It's, how do we protect our customers from the government? It's crazy. And just so many regulations and things. Russell: And so I have been feeling this pressure. Some of you guys may have seen my interview I did with Tony Robbins ... not interview, but Tony Robbins did an intervention with me last year in Fiji. Josh: Yeah. That was fascinating, by the way. Russell: I'm so glad we captured that. It was a really cool moment in my life, but if you listen in there, I talked about ... He's like, "Well, what do you want to do?" And I was like, "I don't know, but the pressure ... I love the same, so I love everything I'm doing. I love the people we're serving, but there's these other pressures that aren't the game, that aren't the people, that they just get so heavy sometimes where it makes me want to just walk away." And again, as I'm reading this book- Josh: You hadn't read the book at the time. Russell: I hadn't read it yet. Josh: Yeah, okay. Russell: As I'm reading this, it's like- Josh: Did you know anything about the- Russell: I did not know the premise, no. Josh: You knew nothing. Okay, okay, okay. Russell: I didn't know what Atlas Shrugged meant. I was just like, "Oh, it's Atlas ..." I didn't know ... And it was like, when I read this title, like, "What would you tell Atlas if this was happening? Just shrug." And I was like, "Oh, that's why they called it Atlas Shrugged." And then I remember vividly feeling the pressure of this calling and how heavy it is. Russell: And there's so many times I wish, like, "Okay, sometimes it'd be so nice to walk away or to shrug or whatever." And so I instantly, with Dagny's character, I was like ... I feel that with Hank Rearden. I had so much empathy and understood their characters because I feel that so many times. Hank Rearden just wanted to invent his steel and put it out. That's all he cared about, right? For me, funnels are my art. I can't draw, but funnels, that's my art and entrepreneurship. That's my art. And so I just want to do my art. That's it. He just wanted to create steel. And it's all these other things and it's just like, "I just want to do my steel. I just want to do my art. Why do I have to deal with all this other stuff?" Russell: And so as I'm reading this, I just had so much empathy for the characters because I felt like I was the characters, even though it was weird because it's railroads and stuff like that and I'm internet, but I think that's why I really got into it. And then I got just curious, what happens? How does this story end? Be I'm in the middle of it. And depending who's listening, you may or may not have felt some of these pressures. As you grow, you feel them. Russell: It's interesting. As ClickFunnels has grown, we've talked about the pressure that I feel today would've crushed me five years ago. Right? And so you have to go through this thing where you build capacity to handle the next set of pressure, and build capacity, and build capacity. And nowadays, stuff happens daily that's just like, "Man, that would've destroyed me five years ago." Russell: And so I think, if you guys haven't felt that, as you grow, as you continue to try to get your message out and try to grow your businesses, whatever, the bigger you get, the more that pressure comes. Josh: Do you think…with that ... And I want to continue that because it's such a good conversation, but with the pressure, the things that are happening now daily that would've wrecked you five years ago or three years ago, whatever it was, do you think it's good, though, that they would've? Is it good that, at the capacity that you understood, that you took those things seriously then or would it have been better for you to just be in this mindset? I know it's not possible, but looking back, if you could snap your fingers and back then would've had the mental capacity to just ignore all those things and go up, would that've been a good thing? Or the fact that you went through all those things, does that help? Russell: The going through it is what makes you worthy of the things, right? Josh: Being able to… Russell: It makes you ready for it. Otherwise, just like lifting weights, if you try to squat 800 pounds, that's what it feels like. Right? Your legs buckle and you die, but because you went through that thing, you're able to have the capacity to hold the weight. Josh: Okay. Russell: Yeah. So anyways, the thing for me that was the big thing is reading this. And so I was just fascinated because I was like, "This is kind of my story. How does it end?" Josh: How long did it take you to get through it? Russell: I'd say about two months. I got a lot of it done on the boat, and then I got into biking for a little while, so I was listening to it while I was biking. Josh: That's right, I remember that. Russell: I just kept biking and biking, like, "One more chapter, one more chapter." I'm in really good shape because of it. It's funny because one of the premises ... And they don't say greed is good, but there's a chapter, I think it's called Greed. And I remember, if you guys have ever seen Wall Street, Gordon Gekko talks about, "Greed is good," and I never understood that premise. Right? In the book, they start talking about that, how greed is what drives this whole thing. Is it called Greed? Josh: I'm trying to find it. Russell: Utopia of Greed, yeah. Josh: And then Anti-Greed. So Utopia of Greed and then Anti-Greed. Russell: So what's interesting is ... because all of us are taught that greed is bad, right? That's just, like, you shouldn't be greedy. That's, I think, a principle that's instilled in most of us, but then I think about, for me, when I started this business, why did I start this business? I wanted to make money. That's greed, right? And you think about any of us, we go through a phase in all of our lives that greed is the driving factor. Right? When I wanted to become a good wrestler, I wanted to become a good wrestler. It was greedy. I went and got coaches and spent all my time and it was a very selfish time in my life. Not that it's bad, but it's a very greedy time. Right? Kids, when they're first born ... I love my kids. They are so ... not in a bad way, but they're greedy. It's about them. Right? Josh: Right. Russell: And it's this growth phase where growth ... You have to be greedy. You're in the growth phase. Right? When you're trying to learn, you're sucking things and you're learning and you're not contributing it. You're just learning, you're growing. And it was interesting because, as I'm going through this, I'm like, the greed is what got me into business. Right? And it's what got these things started and then the byproduct of that is jobs were created and things ... All the byproduct of it is ... I think, in the book, how it justifies it, Hank Rearden going after ... he wanted to build his steel and make a bunch of money, created tens of thousands of jobs and changed the world and changes all these things. Russell: And so the premise of the book is that greed is this driving force that gets you moving. And it is. If you think about any aspect of your life, from sports to education, to business, to everything, it starts with greed. Now, we'll go deeper into this. I don't want everyone to think that I'm just into this for the greed, because there's a transition point. We'll talk about it in a minute, but there's a transition point from growth to contribution that happens, but that's in the book where it starts talking about that. Russell: And I remember I was on the greenbelt here in Boise, riding my bike with James P. Friel, listening to that chapter. And I was trying to think, "Is this true? Did I get started because of greed?" And it's like, yeah, I didn't start a business because I wanted to change the world. Eventually, that happened, but it wasn't like it was ... Greed was the driving force that moved me forward. I think it moves all of us forward such a long time. And as I was listening as I'm riding my bike, I'm like, "Yes, I understand this," and the other half of me was like ... I started thinking about my spiritual upbringing. Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I'm very Christian. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints and I started thinking about Christ and his teachings, which are, honestly, the opposite of that. Right? It's like- Josh: Really the polar opposite. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Which it's funny, whenever you say that, people are like, "You know, Jesus was a socialist." I hear that a lot. I'm like, "You need to read the Bible." Anyway, but I think a lot- Russell: But he definitely is way more liberal leaning, 100%. Josh: Right, right. And I think that that's where Republicans, conservative, traditionally on that side of the aisle, fiscally Republicans get into trouble is where we're like, "Yeah, we're Christians, but we also want to get rich," and they never talk about all this other ... People like to use Christianity, I feel like, when it's convenient. Russell: We call it cafeteria Christians. Josh: Right. Russell: They pick and choose the things off the menu they want. Josh: Right. And then they go through and do it. So I definitely want to dive further into that, but continue that. Russell: Yeah. So that started this question in my head, though, of just, so is greed bad then or is it good or where does it fit in the whole grand scheme of things? Because it is something that's instilled in all of us from birth. Right? When you're born, you're a baby, if you didn't have greed, you would just die. Right? It's me. I need food, I need love, I need shelter. It makes you cry, which creates people coming to you. Greed is a driving force that's instilled in humans from birth, right? When we come here, greed is what helps us survive the first part of our life. Russell: And first, I was having this conundrum. I'm just like, "God, is this book evil? I don't know what to do with myself." Right? But all good things in my life that happened happened initially because the seed of greed started me on motion, started me in momentum. And then I started thinking, if you've read the Expert Secrets book, which- Josh: If you haven't, come on. Russell: If you haven't, you must hate money. Come on. No, but in the beginning of Expert Secrets book, I talk about this concept, as well, where as an expert, there's two phases to go through. The first is a growth phase. Right? I want to be an expert in whatever. You go through and you're a consumer, consuming everything. And that's greed, right? And then there's this transition point where, eventually, you keep trying to grow, grow, grow, grow, trying to learn everything, going there. I'm listening to all the podcasts, I'm reading all the books, I'm growing, growing, growing. And eventually, there's this point. I remember feeling it in multiple parts of my life. In wrestling, I felt it. In business, I felt it where you can't continue ... The ability to grow through consumption slows to almost a halt where you can't continue to grow. Right? Russell: I've shared this story. I think I shared it in the book with wrestling. I was a really good wrestler. I was a high school state champ. I took second place in the nation. I was an All-American. And my senior year, I got invited to go to a wrestling camp. My coach was like, "Hey, do you want to come coach wrestling this summer?" And I was like, "Why would I do that? What's in it for me?" Josh: Before you go on here, I want to ask you something. So you're riding your bike, wrestling with this whole greed thing. Is this the first time that you've thought about greed in this way? Russell: 100%. Josh: And this is, what, six months ago? Russell: Not even that. Maybe four months ago. Josh: So you've built most of what ClickFunnels is today and now this is the first time you're really sitting down and wrestling with this idea of greed and is it bad, is it good, what's the balance there and stuff like that? Russell: Yeah. Josh: That's fascinating. Russell: Yeah. It never crossed my mind, really. And then it became this thing where it bothered me because I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. I don't want to be a greedy person." You know what I mean? Josh: Right. Russell: I'm like, "I don't feel like I am," but I was stuck. I couldn't figure that out. Right? And so I'll rewind to the wrestling story because I think it will set it up. Josh: Yep. Russell: But my senior year, again, I'd been growing as a wrestler. I was going to camps. I was getting coaching. I was greedy. I was sucking up everyone's brainpower I could and I became a really good wrestler because of it. And then my coach asked me to go coach a wrestling camp. So I say yes, go to the wrestling camp, and I remember he's like, "Okay, I need you to teach ..." My best move… I'm really good at tilts. So for all the wrestlers out there, I'm really good at cheap tilts. And he's like, "Teach these kids how to do a cheap tilt." Russell: And I was like, "Okay." So I walk out, there are like 30 kids. I'm like, "Yeah, you do this. You just do it like that." And they all look at me and they go try and they try to do a cheap tilt and they all just fall apart. I'm like, "Are you guys dumb? This is not that hard." I'm like, "Come back in, come back in. No, you did it all wrong. This is how you do it." I show them again, like, "Go do it." They go back out, nobody can do it. Russell: And then, all of a sudden, I'm like, "Gosh, they're missing something. What is it?" So I have them come back in and I start breaking down, "Hey, for the move to work, your hips have to be here, your legs have to be here." I start walking through all the things. And as I'm doing that, I start realizing, "Oh, the season why I'm able to do this is because of this," and I started realizing what I was doing as I was teaching people. And as I taught it to people, then the kids started doing it and they got better and better. And all of a sudden, I started realizing, "Oh, my gosh. This move works because of this." Russell: And now that I was aware of the situation, now I was able to make these tweaks and stuff on my own. And I realized that, but coaching the kids, that was the next-level growth. It was a shift from selfish greed growth to contribution. So that's why I started coaching camps every year and that's why I went from slowing down my progression to, all of a sudden, it sped back up again by shifting from growth to contribution. Okay? Russell: And so I think the same thing happens in business, right? I got in business because that seed of greed is in us. It gets us moving, gets us in the momentum. And some people never get out of that. Some people live their entire lives chasing greed and they die and it's a tragedy, but I think for most people, there's this transition point. And I don't know where it happens. It happens different spots for everyone where, all of a sudden, you realize ... you make the money, you started the business, and you realizing how unfulfilling that is. You're tapping out. You're like, "I'm not growing anymore. I thought I wanted money, but I don't. I want growth. That's what we're here on this planet for, is to grow as humans. Right? Russell: You don't get that and, all of a sudden, you realize money's not fulfilling and then you start seeing the other people you're contributing to and you're helping. Then it shifts to ... We hear people talk about, "This is about impact, about growth, it's about helping other people," and that's that transition. That's charity, love. That's pure love of Christ. It's that transition, but greed is the seed that gets us moving, right? And so there's this handoff. It doesn't happen all the time. And are you guys cool if I share scripture stuff? Because- Josh: 100%. Russell: -all this stuff is scriptural. It's not just- Josh: They don't get to decide, Russell. I get to decide. It's my podcast. You can talk about whatever. Russell: If you hate scripture, just close your ears and go, "Blah, blah, blah." So I wrote down some scripture. This is a scripture because it illustrates this point. I think it's so good. Josh: Also, I just want to say, Russell Voxed me and he said that this is the first episode of a podcast that he's ever prepared for. When you said that, I'm like, "Ha! I was the first for something for Russell. Let's go." Russell: I want to be ready. Okay. So this is a scripture. It says, "For the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever." I'm going to stop right there. Okay. So natural man is an enemy to God. Why is that? We're born. We have this greed inside of us, so the natural human is the enemy of God because we're chasing after greed. Right? But God gives us that seed because it creates momentum. It creates motion. It creates us doing something. Right? Russell: And then it says in here, it says, "For the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam, will be forever and ever," and then this is the transition point, "unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit." So he's greedy forever, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and puteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ, the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." Russell: So growth is the seed. It's the natural man. It's the thing we have that's ... It's good, right? God gives it to us because it gets us to do stuff, gets us to learn, gets us to not die in our crib because we need love and attention and to get fed. Right? So then it gets us off our butts, off the couches, us being producers that gets us moving. And if we're not careful, though, the natural man will destroy us. You see so many people who made tons of money and they destroyed themselves in their lives because they don't do that second thing, which is, "Unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit." Russell: That's the thing saying this is not about money, this is about the impact. Look at the people you're changing. And it shifts, right? If you make that shift, all of a sudden, now this thing you’re creating is not about greed, it's like, "Oh, my gosh ..." I remember, for ClickFunnels, when I had that transition was when I started seeing Brandon and Kaelin Poulin. I started seeing the ripple effect of their business. And I can name hundreds of people, person, after person, after person. Russell: I was like, "This isn't about money. This is about the ripple effect of what we've created in each person's life." Now, that's charity. That's love. Now the mission isn't about money. We don't care about the money. We keep score with money, but that's the mission, is the people's lives and the impact. And I think that's that transition where greed is the thing that gets us moving, but if we don't have that ... Russell: I think that's happened in the book. We talked about it. You said this at my house earlier, like, "A lot of people in the book seem like they have a miserable life." And it's like, yeah, because they never yielded to the spirit. They never made that shift. It was all greed to the point where they let everything collapse as opposed to the charity side of things. Josh: Yeah. So one of the things about the book ... And I'm sitting on the plane on the way over here and I'm like, "How do I articulate this?" Because that's always the hardest thing. You have this idea in your head and you're like, "How do I get it out and explain it in a way that somebody else can be like, 'Yes, I understand that?'" I'm going to go kind of political here for a second. I'm going to bring it back, too, specifically to the book. So I am pretty vocally a conservative. Right? I'm a blatant Trump supporter, very much so conservative when it comes to everything fiscal, but I call myself a libertarian because I actually think that I lean left on a lot of social issues. I think the government should stay out of gay marriage. Right? There's a lot of things that I lean left on, but when it comes to money and finances and things like that, I lean to the right. Josh: But the reason I lean to the right and I typically go with the right is because I like what the left is trying to do in concept. It's like, okay, there's a bunch of people that are really truly in need. I agree. We need to help them. The problem is is that the way they go about doing it, I so radically disagree with it. It's against everything that I stand for. Right? I'm like, it's not that I disagree with what you want to do, it's I disagree with how you want to do it. Josh: What's interesting is I feel like, in this book, I feel like it's the opposite. I actually don't agree with why they're doing it. This concept of ... I mean, Hank Rearden says it over and over again, "Everything that I do is for profit." That is it. Even to his friends. He took a bullet for John Galt, right? He gets shot. And John Galt thanks him for it. He goes, "You know I only did it because it's what I wanted to do, right?" Literally saves a guy's life. Josh: So it's all about what he wants and only for him and that's it. And it's profit and money and dollars. It's not about everything that he helps. And I'm like, I disagree with that premise, but what that leads to, I actually do like. And I feel like it's flipped compared to the world I'm living in now. Half the stuff that the Democrats ... I hate to… oh I want to go into politics so bad… Russell: Left and right. Josh: Yeah, the left. Guys, we're going to say left and right. Generalized here, right? Oh, my god, but generally speaking. And so when it comes to the whole greed issue, I'm like ... It's interesting to hear your perspective because I never, even throughout the book, I'm like, "Greed is a bad thing." And hearing your perspective, I'm like, okay, I understand what you're saying, but is it greed or is there some other driving ... If I were to ask you a year ago ... When were you in the heart of ClickFunnels, like a year and a half ago, two years? There was a time of your life when all you ... I know all you do is ClickFunnels, but when- Russell: It's the last six years of my life. Josh: But you know what I mean? Wasn't there a year or two period in there, in the growth phase, where 100% of everything you do was just ClickFunnels, ClickFunnels, ClickFunnels. It felt like you were going nonstop. It feels like you're a little bit more balanced now. Maybe not, but from the outside perspective looking in, it does. Anyway, during that time of growing ClickFunnels, before you read that, would you have described yourself as greedy? Russell: No. Josh: What would you have described yourself as? What's the word? Russell: I don't know. That's a good question. I was always trying to create stuff. It's art for me, right? So it's like I was trying to create stuff. I think, initially, I was creating for myself as opposed to, "Oh, my gosh. I create this for myself, but look what happens to the people." Josh: What point was that shift for you, though? Russell: You can see it in my marketing, by the way. And by the way, for those who are greedy capitalists who only care about money, it actually is a better marketing way, too. My marketing went from- Josh: For all you greedy capitalists out there, switch to being a contributor, you’ll make more money. Russell: Well, think about it. My marketing is always like, "Here's Russell. Here's how much money my funnel made. Here's how much ..." It was me talking about me all the time. And then I realized, "Who cares about me? I don't care about me. Let me show you what this person ... Let me show you all the results of the people we're serving, what's happening there," which first off, is better marketing and, second off, it's that transition where I was literally like, "Everything I've accomplished is stupid. What they're doing, that's the real ... What we're doing, that's the thing that's amazing." Right? That's the spiritual side of it. That's the thing where it's like, the thing that got you into motion now is doing good in the world. And when you start seeing that, it's like, oh, my gosh. That's so much more fulfilling and so much more exciting. Russell: And people ask me, "The last six years, why'd you keep getting up? Do you need more money?" I'm like, "No, that's not what keeps me up," but I can tell you 100 stories of people who ... literally the ripple effect of how many lives they've changed because I did my thing. Right? We made a documentary of the Two Comma Club and Jamie Cross has this whole part there where she's bawling her eyes out and she said, "Where would my family be if Russell wouldn't have fulfilled his God-given calling?" And every time I see that, I start bawling, myself. That's why, eventually, you start doing it. Right? Josh: But when did that shift happen? Russell: I don't know. It wasn't a day that it happened. The energy of it shifted. Right? I don't know. It gradually kind of happened. Josh: What's that? Dave: Tell them about your dad. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Dave, come on in. Dave's here. Dave, take the mic. Here. Dave: Yeah. No, honestly, I think… this has been one of those things. It's been fun for me to watch Russell from the sidelines here. I think, honestly, it was your dad's 60th birthday. Josh: Which was how long ago? Dave: I don't even know. Russell: Three, four years ago probably. Dave: But it was the reflection on that and it was the difference from having your hand raised versus ... because I remember you… Russell: Yeah, you want me to tell that story? Dave: Russell is a much better storyteller. I'll seed the thought, but I'll let him finish. Russell: All right. Josh: Oh, thank you Dave. Russell: Thank you. Interesting. Josh: Guys, we have a live audience here. Russell: So yeah, my dad turned 60 and we have our little family reunion every year we do. And so it was during his birthday. And I remember my mom gave him $60, six $10 bills. And so she gave them to him one at a time and said, "Okay, the first decade was one to 10. Tell us something you remember about that." He's like, "I don't remember anything back then." The second one, he's like, "10 to 20, that's when I was a wrestler. It was so much fun for me." And then, 20 to 30, he was like, "Okay, that's when I was starting my business, trying to figure things out and trying to get our family stable." 30 to 40, "That's when my kids were wrestling and I was coaching them." And then 50 to 60, he kind of went through everything. Russell: And then, after it was done, I asked him, I said, "Well, Dad, of all the decades, what one was the best for you?" Thinking, in my world, the best was going to be when he was a wrestler because I was like, for me, the greatest part of my life was when I was wrestling. And my dad said, "The greatest decade was when I got to coach you." I forgot that story until Dave said that, but I remember coming back and telling Dave and other people that I always thought the best part was being the all star. For my dad, the best part was coaching other people and seeing their hand raised. Josh: That was a good interjection there, Dave. Huh. Russell: …which was really cool.

Business Built Freedom
171|How To Relay Your Message To Customers With Krista Ripma

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2020 24:00


How To Relay Your Message To Customers With Krista Ripma How to make sure your message isn’t lost? Josh: Who has trouble relaying their message and being the person that they want to be from their heart? You got into business for a certain reason, and most of the time that is emotionally driven for those young entrepreneurs that are trying to make a difference. Sometimes that authentic marketing doesn't come through with your message. We've got Krista here from Authentic Audience. She's here today to talk to us about how you can get that message through in a way that resonates with your story, resonates with your customers, and ultimately gets you more sales. So, Krista, tell me, how do you make sure that your message doesn't get lost in the midst with the message of everyone else? That's also trying to make sure that they're authentic? and so on and so forth? Krista: Great place to start. So no one is you is the simple answer. So although there are lots of marketing and sales coaches out there in the world, nobody's me, so nobody's going to deliver my message in the same way that I am. So I think the first step is to ask yourself, what are your gifts, and these are the gifts that you bring into your business that you walk into a room with, that your best friend would say about you, and start from that place. So for me, my gifts are authenticity and truth. So I try and bring that into my business into my messaging and into everything I share, which sets me apart and makes me more unique and approachable. And I also think, sharing your why and sharing your story, your personal story and journey before you found x, whatever product service or anything it is that you're selling, your customer is you before you had this transformation. Get really, really specific in who you are and also who you're talking to.   Finding The Right Audience That Wants To Work For You Josh: If you've got your message down pat, or maybe you need someone to see it from a distance, I found it difficult to see the forest for the trees. I thought I've got a great message. But, I've got that message from the mindset of an engineer from the mindset of someone who is very detail-oriented. So having an authentic audience, how can you make sure your audience isn't just talking bullshit? How do you make sure you get the right audience that does resonate with your message? Krista: My first suggestion is to write a letter to your dream client or your dream customer. This is like the first thing I have anybody do if you ever come work with me. Regardless whether it's a session with me or a course, we always do this, and I have you write a letter to your dream customer, because they're out there. They need what you're selling. They're listening to other podcasts. Who do they follow? What books are they reading? What inspires them? What pain points are they experiencing, the more you can get in the head of your dream client or customer and talk to them. It's amazing how quickly they start to show up every call I get on. I'm still excited and surprised who shows up because it's like you're exactly who I was speaking to and you're exactly who I made this for. Quality Over Quantity Krista: So I think a big mistake we make when we're trying to grow our audience is we want quantity over quality. And really, it should be the other way around. If you have 100 people who are engaged with what you're sharing and buying from you, that's amazing, versus 10,000 people who aren't commenting, aren't buying, aren't connecting. So the name of the game is get specific, get really, really specific. And the best way to do that is talk to this person, write a letter to this person, create a mood board, whatever it takes to really connect to and be in service to your dream customer. Be Authentic Josh: I know for my customers, I'm happy enough to say that if any of them saw me at a pub, they come over to me and buy me a beer without even saying hello, they're like "oh Josh, here you go" and you've got that perfect relationship and they know your partner's name. I'm happy to say that we do have a fantastic group of listeners, the businesses that we work with. What we found in having that is their retention rate is huge and the churn is incredibly low, so we don't lose many customers. Because we do have that relationship and because we do understand their pain points, anyone in business can really start to see it. They and feel like hey, if they know me to this level of business, if they know that I'm building this house and the direction that my business is going and not just macro but micro details about each other, you can make the right decisions and know that you are going to be putting in better solutions than your competitor.   It’s Beyond Business Benefits Krista: That's a really good point that you made. It's beyond just the business benefits, it's the benefits of you, of being in your community of being in your world. And I just can't stress that enough how valuable that is, the more vulnerable, the more personal, the more real you are. And then when somebody sees you, like they come on a call, or they use your services, or see you in the pub, they feel like they know you. I do think that the more we can authentically be our full selves, the more people will resonate with that. I just can't stress enough how beautiful that is, and what an important point that is to make. When you hide behind your brand it's impossible to have that relationship with your audience. Don’t Hide Behind Your Brand Josh: Perfect what you said there, hiding behind your brand. You sit there hiding behind your brand, we have a look at Steve Jobs. And the way that he was the ambassador for the brand, people loved Steve Jobs. He owned a portion of Apple versus some of the other massive brands out there, like who resonates the same way with Google. Or the same way with McDonald's or some of these other massive brands. And it's not that they're doing things wrong, they're still working in a way, that's fine. But when you go to contact Google support, you can't find a phone number. Facebook support, you can't find a phone number, any of these large companies can't find a phone number. With Apple, you're able to go into a store and speak to someone there and really get to know them. How to Not Be a Copycat Business Josh: If you've made an entry point that the other businesses weren't doing, how can you make sure that you don't end up with a copycat business that takes the same information? You've created the same content on the web, the same scripts, it's very difficult to sort of not just have those spun and changed into something else. And for anyone out there that's listening, spinning content is where you take someone else's content, adjust some of the syllables pretty much and then make it your own, put the sentences in a slightly different way. But how can you make sure someone doesn't have that same message so that from the outset, it appears as if you are the same? Or at least they're trying to compare apples with apples before they have that authentic relationship? How can you make sure that for us in Australia, the Hungry Jack's to McDonald's, or for you guys, the Burger King to McDonald's, how can you make sure you can have that differentiator? Krista: You know, I mean, people can smell authenticity, it's crazy. I think just having that faith in our customers and in our audience that they know. For me, if somebody was trying to spin off my content, I would see that as a great sign, it means I'm doing something, right. And also, nobody's me. So you could take my script. You could have my talking points. You could have my slides, but it's not going to feel the same. And I think as a culture, we're becoming more and more conscious of who we're buying from and where our money's going. I'm seeing it in the Facebook ads, I'm running every day, like people really care, especially since COVID. This whole idea of spending and connecting and community is so big. So I think that, first of all, if you are focusing on copying somebody else, or doing what somebody else is doing, you're doing a disservice to yourself and to your customers, and really into the world. I am very spiritual. I believe we're all here with a Dharma or a purpose. And it can be really easy to see somebody else in our industry doing something and be like, oh, I'm just going to try and do that. But that's not your purpose. That's not your dharma. And so to try and do that, or change your business model, or your strategy based on somebody else's, or their posts or their content is such a disservice. If you can just try and block out that noise. One of my teachers says comparison dilutes your focus. Because when we're comparing ourselves, we're not focused on our work on our art, our flow, our process, whatever it is that we're creating. So for me, if I'm on the side of seeing somebody else trying to copy my work, I'm like, go for I. You're never going to be able to do what I can do and just own that. And secondly, if you're trying to work on somebody else's stuff, instead of focusing on your stuff, that's such a bummer, because you have amazing gifts and services that are getting lost in that process. The last thing I wanted to say when you talked about Steve Jobs, I think that's such a good example. And I say all the time and people follow people, and then they follow brands. And so just how you introduced me, Krista from Authentic Audience, and I'm the face of it, I'm the voice of it. It's not me. Authentic Audience is a beautiful company with its energy and vibe of its own. But it wouldn't have the same energy if there wasn't a face and a personality and somebody being the messenger for that brand. So when you hide behind your brand, or you don't step forward and really own it, you're actually doing the business a disservice as well. The Secret and The War of Art Josh: As the saying goes imitation is the greatest form of flattery. And it's not a bad thing, if people decide to do that, it's a good thing. And it sounds like you would have read "The Secret". Krista: I have, I've read The Secret. And my other big book that I tell people to read is the War of Art by Steven Pressfield, it's a quick read. It's a lot about resistance, and stepping into your art and like facing resistance, and overcoming that and really owning who you are, and working on your art and your purpose and your guests. And yes, The Secret, I read it a long time ago, but I feel like it really stuck. Josh: When you were saying write a letter to your ideal customer, bringing it into your world and knowing exactly what you want. And having that hyper focus makes a huge difference. Knowing that these are the people you want to work with also removes the poo customers, so to speak, the ones that you don't want to work with. Krista: Totally because they won't resonate with it. I just think energy is so real, especially in our businesses. And it's like if energy is too woowoo for you then like getting more concrete with goals and spreadsheets and getting really, really specific, like this is my dream customer. This is how many of them I want to reach this is how many sales I want to make. And this is how I'm going to go about doing that. So I always start with the goals. And then the very first action item that I have anybody do is write a letter to the person that they want to reach with these goals. And it's just it calls it in, it's like you have to put it out there. And the more you say it, the more you speak it, the more you share it, those people will just start to show up because they'll hear you. The Right Customers Are Out There Josh: That's exactly what we want. Like we want those correct people, anyone that says that they don't have enough people in business, or they can't find the right audience are probably not really thinking enough about who their right audience is. And a lot of the time and you'll hear this, everyone's my audience, everyone can work with me. And when you have that approach, I find that no one will work with you if you've got everyone working with you. It just dilutes your message and also makes you more commoditised. So if you are in a position, you've got that mindset and someone wants to start writing this letter, what are some of the attributes, you really want to make sure that they're having that hyper focus on like, I've undergone similar activities, where were we talking? Do they like golf or yachting? Or just you really go down to their hobbies? What does their weekend look like? Is that the kind of stuff that you'd suggest to go into the letter? Krista: It really depends. There's somebody out there that needs your service right now. If they were sitting across from you, what would you say to them? I mean, it's as simple as that it's what pain points are they experiencing right now that your product service or offer can solve? And how do you want to deliver it to them?   The fiist thing I'll actually suggest sometimes if you don't know where to start with your letter is answering the four key questions that any business needs to be able to answer. Who are you? What do you do? Why does it matter? And what's in it for me, the customer? That's your pitch. That's your one liner. That's how you connect with people. And that's how you feel seen and engaged as quickly as possible as being able to refine those answers. So when you're writing this letter, it's who are you, you tell them who you are. You tell them what you do, you tell them why it matters, and you tell them what's in it for them. So that's always a good place to start, and then getting as specific as you can. Also, my dream client is always changing, because my business is always evolving and changing. So the person I was speaking to last year isn't who I'm speaking to now. And so I suggest people do this almost quarterly to sort of set yourself up for success. I like to work in 90 day sprints. So every 90 days are, so I like to sort of revisit this idea of who I'm calling in to hit these specific goals for the next 90 days. It truly is amazing how it happens and how quickly it happens to.   Finding Customers When You Aren’t Outgoing Josh: You have to have a business plan, but they evolve as well. And I think that you should be writing them both together, you shouldn't be neglecting one or the other thing, having the business plan to know what you want to achieve is just solidifying a dream and writing down so you can have actions to get to get to the future. Knowing the people that are going to be able to have you take those actions is all about writing a letter to know exactly who you're talking to. When you've got those items in place. How do you start if you have no knowledge on how you're going to find a customer, you've never done networking, you're possibly introverted type person? Where do you find the person? Or how do you know once you've got your letter written? I know this is going to be a super difficult question to answer. So I'm going to go with this scenario. Let's say you've just finished university and you want to become own your own practice as a lawyer, or we can go with this scenario of the pie shop owner. How do you go about finding those people when you know you're a detail oriented person, very factual, but not necessarily outgoing and you need to go talk to lots of people. How would you find that audience? Krista: I'm going to assume that you're a fantastic lawyer or that you bake fantastic pies. The product is everything, so marketing and sales can't make your product better, right, it can just get it out in front of the right people and position it in a place for them to buy. But it has to be good. So let's just assume that it's good. It's the best pie in town. There are five people in your world right now, just five people that if you reached out to them, it would change your business. Right now, everybody has this, whether it's an aunt, an uncle, a friend, a cousin, or somebody that you knew from college, there are five people in your world that if you reached out to them, they would be excited to hear from you and happy to help. So I always start those there, those are your low hanging fruit. And just say, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm offering, this is what I'm looking for. What do you suggest if you're just starting from the very beginning? Get some beta testers. I have three free slices of pie that I'm giving away today, who wants them, like DM me, write me back if you want this free slice, or this beta test of whatever it is that I'm offering. So it's always about crawl, walk, run, you don't want to just hit the gas without testing without refining. And as my partner would say, it's get one customer and get one customer, take them through your journey and make sure that they're happy customers. So you take one person, make sure they're happy, they loved your service, they love your offer, the best form of marketing will forever be word of mouth. So you make one customer happy, you'll get three more, because they'll go tell their friends, they'll go tell their partners, and the word of mouth will start coming. What marketing is online, what I do is just kind of like digital word of mouth, right? But you still need that initial organic traction, before you start running ads or doing anything crazy like that. It's like, reach out to five people get one customer make it a success. That is way farther than most people starting out will do. You're already ahead of the game if you have one happy customer. You Need to Be Sustainable Josh: I think it also gives you the confidence internally to go, okay, I've done this with one person, I can do this with another. And as you said perfectly, I don't think people get into business, and I could be wrong in this, but I don't think people get into business to go, I'm going go make shit pies and be a bad lawyer. Krista: I mean, I would hope not. I would hope not. You know, it's not sustainable. And so that's always like, when you're having trouble with sales or marketing. I'm like, well, how's your product? How's your service? Can we invest in making that experience better for people? Whenever I look at somebody's account, or website or service, I'm like, before we drive people here, let's make sure this is good. Let's make sure this is going to convert and what you're offering is super valuable, because it's way easier to keep customers then continuously finding new ones. Josh: I completely agree with that. And when you look at costs of churn customer churn, it's huge. For us, we have some pretty cool offers for our customers or for our leads, where we say, look, we'll hack into your business, if we can't hack into business, we'll give you $1,000. And we think well, that's pretty good. But if we can hack into your business, we're going to have a discussion around how we're able to do that. Krista: I love that! Josh: It's a strong call to action that says we know what we're doing. And it has some elements of discrediting the current company that wins, because business owners that need to know they aren't in the game of knowing all that they need to know about technology, all that there is out there about technology, because it's not a requirement for them. That's why they hire the experts and making sure you're making great pies. Lead With the Benefits Krista: I love that call to action, though, I think that says so much like I feel something it's risky. And it tells me that you know what you're doing? And also, I don't need to know what you do. I just need to know the benefits. And I think that's a huge mistake. So many people are focused on the features like what's included, but not the benefits, right? So I always say lead with the benefits. And I feel like that call to action right there. That's solid. I have nothing to say about that. There's always something I have to say, so that's very impressive. Josh: Only because you said that I'm going to tell you the other one that we use and that's financially backed up time. So we had to look at what our competitors were offering versus what we are offering and our competitors charges a flat rate per month for their IT support and you get unlimited IT support, we charge a flat rate. And we thought, well, that's not really a differentiator. But then we said if you have downtime, we will pay you per hour until you go back up. That's not something anyone else is doing. That means that if your business is down from a technology standpoint, it's costing you money, it's costing you downtime, it can be costing you 10s of thousands of dollars an hour, depending on the size of the business. If we say look, we're going pay you per hour if you go down. And obviously that's a scalable statement, depending on the size of their business, everyone's pulling the ship in the same direction. We want to get to make sure we're offering the best support the fastest support the best solution so that you don't go down because we don't want to be paying it. It's not a very good business model for us. Krista: I think it's great. I mean, and just the way you talk about it, it's so clear that it's authentic, right? And it's like, again, going back to that idea. Like, it's not something you can fake like seeing the way you light up about it. And you're excited to tell me about it. I personally find I.T very boring, but listening to you talk about it. I'm like, tell me more. That matters to people. When I teach my marketing fundamentals course, and the basics of marketing, it could be very boring, but I'm so excited about it, that it makes other people excited about it. And I think that's just a key point in selling and sales is if you're not excited, and you're not sharing and posting and screaming it from the rooftops how amazing your offers, why should anyone else care? Josh: Exactly. And everyone has the ability, as I say, this is a cringy sentence. But with IT, we try to squirt some sexy on it. Krista: I love that. Josh: It's what we try to do. It's not a very fun topic. It's something that people will roll their eyes over at. But it's something everyone has to have. And everyone understands the effects that has if you don't have a great marketing plan, if you don't have a great sales strategy, if you don't have your sales funnels or pipelines reformed and refined. You're not going to be able to have said sexy squirted on your business. So people out there that are probably thinking, ah, man, I want some sexy, or my business or I want to have a business, it's doing what what I wanted to be doing. But maybe they're a bit too scared. Or they might not have that creative mindset or flair to be able to really bring that laser focused message into place. I understand you got some strategy sessions, and also a course, tell us a bit about how that works. Getting Help From Krista Krista: Sure. So the two ways in which we can work together, I have a course called Marketing Fundamentals and that's the basics. So it goes through types of digital offers, a lot of people don't know, there's so many things out there, YouTube, LinkedIn, SEO, Facebook, like what should I be doing? How should I be doing it? So I break down all the types of digital marketing. Then I go into mindset, and then I go into organics, and I teach you how to build a sales funnel. So that's the basics. If you have a good audience size, if you have a great email list, and you don't know how to launch, you don't know how to price you don't know how to create your offer, or you have an offer, but you're ready to get it out there more. That's where my Strategy Sessions come in. So I do a deep dive with you. We get on and we go into everything from customer journey, pricing flow, everything across the board goals. And then we hang up and I build you a custom strategy. if you do what I say it will work. Josh: I've been in business for 13 years, and I'm still doing courses, I'm still doing refresher things, you can never know too much. Like as you said, you wanted to do something, let's say you're not doing much, or you're not doing much well through social media. So what do you go through Pinterest, or Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, or focusing on the AdWords strategy. There's so many different options. The only advice I could give is focus on one, not all of them. If you want more advice in that you should probably be talking to Krista there and jumping in and checking out what she has to say because it varies for every business to what the approach is. In today's day, there's no silver bullet that's going to help work for everyone. It's about working out exactly how it works for you. Krista: Yeah, that's exactly it. That's why I created these custom Strategy Sessions because I know business is the same even if you're in the same industry or strategy, depending on your needs, budgets and goals is going to be totally different. So that's why I like to dive in with you and build something that's totally tailored to you. That's like with clarity, focus and again focusing on one thing at a time that is key. Josh: If you have enjoyed what Krista has had to say make sure to jump across to Authentic Audience.co. Give us some feedback, and stay healthy.  

Up Next In Commerce
Color Me Intrigued: How Crayola is Expanding into Digital

Up Next In Commerce

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 29, 2020 42:11


It is rare that a brand has such reach and such impact that people all over the world can not just recognize it, but have memories of using the product for generations. Crayola is one of those rarities. Of course, Crayola was built around the production of crayons, but throughout its more than 115 years in business, Crayola has vastly expanded its product offerings and worked to build a community of consumers who gather around the idea of creativity. But how do you sell that expanded brand and provide opportunities for customers to find and interact with you in new ways?On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Josh Kroo, the Senior Vice President Brand Marketing and Digital Strategy at Crayola, joined us to discuss some of the strategies he is putting into place to increase brand awareness, expand digitally, and offer experiences for all kinds of audiences. Because whether your company is a century-old or a brand new startup, finding ways to adapt and expand will always be important. Main Takeaways:The YouTube Generation: A recent study reported that 81% of parents with children of children age 11 years and younger use YouTtube to find content for their kids. As more and more children — and parents — find their way onto the platform, brands need to be prepared to invest there if they want to stay relevant, as well in order to achieve relevance. Can I Interest You in Some Apps?: There are a number of ways to use apps, so you have to decide the purpose and KPIs of the app you are building and then deliver the type of experience that will bring the engagement you want. And it’s important to remember that one app doesn’t have to do it all. You can have different apps for different purposes and customers — one to drive discovery and brand awareness, another to drive conversions and sales.Every Kind of Experience Is Available: Physical experiences with brands — whether in store or at an event — have been the bedrock of creating a connection with customers. As the world changes, though, there is more opportunity to connect with customers in a new way – through digital and hybrid experiencesFor an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder of mission.org. Today on the show we have Josh Kroo, the senior vice president of brand marketing and digital strategy at Crayola. Josh, welcome.Josh:Hi, good to be here.Stephanie:It's really exciting to have you on. I was actually just playing with some crayons with my two-and-a-half-year-old right before this, trying to get [crosstalk] for the interview.Josh:Excellent, that's good. I like that.Stephanie:Yeah, it's top of mind now, yeah. So, I want to hear a little bit about what led you to Crayola?Josh:Sure. So, I grew up kind of in a traditional brand marketing capacity. I started my career at Kraft and Danon, and had spent a lot of time building businesses there, but when the opportunity came calling to come to Crayola, which is one of the most iconic brands in the world, it's one of those brands where people ... you say that you work at Crayola, and everyone sort of has A, a memory, and then B, their face lights up, and they generally ask you a fun question like, "Oh, who names the colors?"Josh:It's just one of those brands that has touched so many people, and pretty much everybody along the way, and so for me to get the opportunity ... I joined Crayola to lead the marketing communications group. It was an opportunity to be a part of that brand, part of the mission, which I think is really wonderful, which is all about celebrating, and nurturing, and helping to spark the creativity in children, and giving parents and teachers the tools to do that, and then the chance to bring some energy to the brand, and I don't want to say revitalize it, but contemporize it, make it relevant for today's kids and parents, and lead a great team through that process.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. So, I mean, Crayola's been around since, I think it's the 1880s, right?Josh:Yeah, we are over 115 years old. So, started with eight little crayons. Edward Binney, our founder, his wife wanted kids to be able to color the world as they saw it, and so we launched with eight crayons. That's actually where Crayola comes from, cray meaning chalk, and ola is sort of like oily chalk with the colors. So, a lot has happened over the last 115 plus years in terms of the brand, but what's amazing is that the mission and the purpose of the company has still always really remained the same.Stephanie:Yeah, that's really cool. So, what does your day to day look like at Crayola, because I'm sure you've seen a lot of shifts happening over the many years that you've been there, or throughout the brand as a whole I'm sure you've heard of shifts, what are you doing now that maybe was different than a couple of years ago?Josh:Wow, there's a lot for unpack in that, I think-Stephanie:Yes.Josh:... first of all, my role has certainly evolved, but no, I think you can go ... or I personally can go from a meeting where we're talking about ecommerce marketing strategy, to looking at pieces of creative or creative work that we're building out for holiday, to a meeting where we're looking at what our strategy is going to be going forward from an annual planning perspective. I manage our interactive business right now, so it could be a meeting where we're looking at what are the next updates for the plans for our apps, and how are they performing? So, it really it can touch all different parts of the business, and I think that's part of the joy of working for a brand like this, and in my role. It's everything from all the brand marketing, but now most recently digging deeper into the digital and ecomm side of things, and helping to guide the company in that way. So, you never know what's going to come on any given day, but I think that's what keeps it fun.Stephanie:That's great. So, you were just mentioning apps, and I think that would be fun to kind of dive into Crayola's mobile efforts, because I think when I think of Crayola I, of course, think of the crayons that we have in our living room, but I'd love to hear how you guys think about building out apps, and how do you know what's going to work, or what doesn't? How do you think about what you want to invest in when it comes to that area?Josh:So, that's a great question. I think it's been a really interesting journey for us in the app space. We've actually been making apps for over a decade now-Stephanie:Oh, wow.Josh:... but the way that we've been doing it has really evolved. So, this predates my time even, but we had what we called here physical to digital apps, which was this idea of how do you merge physical creativity and digital creativity, and bringing them together in an app. We were working hard at that, we had the first augmented reality coloring books that were out there, we had augmented reality based animation, we had all these products, and I think ultimately what we figured out was we have to be okay with kids being creative in a digital space.Josh:I think overarching what you recognize is that if you look at kids' free time in a pie, they're spending more and more time with technology, depending on the age of the kid it can be upwards of 30 plus percent of their time with technology, and certainly within that, they're being creative. So, what is the best way for Crayola to play there? And we evolved from this kind of idea that you had to do something physical, or physically creative, which is at the core of what Crayola's been about for well over 100 years, to what does modern creativity look like for a kid? And I think that's really where we set out to build from, from an app perspective.Josh:So, looking at it, and then you start to ask yourself, and we've got a variety of different apps today, we've sort of got a flagship app called Create and Play, which is really the premium Crayola experience, everything that you could want for digital creativity that's sort of targeted to younger kids in that three to five space. And then we've got other apps that are out there that are supporting different brands or IP of products that act as a marketing vehicle. I think for our flagship app, what we really wanted was to create an experience that was if you think about opening a crayon box, what is the magical experience that a kid gets from opening a crayon box? I'm sure your two-and-a-half-year-old can relate to the smell of the crayons-Stephanie:I was going to say, the smell, yes.Josh:... the excitement of the color, so you've got all of that there, and how do you bring that into the app space, and how do you also empower kids to express themselves creatively? And what we wanted to do here was help kids learn through creativity, but without really knowing they were learning, so it's all through play. I think from a parent perspective, so two and a half maybe or maybe not be a little bit young for your kid, but parents want to feel good about what their kids are doing on an app, and so how can we give a wholesome experience as well? So, that was really the approach that we took there, and we built out a variety of different apps, and continue to expand on the content, and it's a really great way to foster digital creativity.Stephanie:Very cool. Do you have any tips or things that you found out along the way when you're trying to make sure that you're staying true to the brand that everyone loves, and like you said, being able to do things in the real world, like actually draw on stuff is an important part of it, while also moving forward in this digital arena?Josh:Yeah, so I think the fun part about being in an app is being okay with the fact that there are fantastical things that you can do to express yourself in the app space. So, for us, it's always about staying true to the essence of the brand, but our brand is really all about creativity. So, you can color with a crayon and make marks on paper, and that's wonderful. How do we exaggerate that in the app space so it's delivering that magical experience for a kid? So, you can color with flames in the app, for example, or you can express yourself in different ways.Josh:So, we have a whole area in the app that's all around pets, and pet play, and pet care, and you can dress them up, color on them, make music with them. It's all creativity in a different way, but I think for us it's really it's all about letting kids express themselves, whether it's physical or digital. I think for us, the other thing that is true about any, whether it's physical or digital creativity is there is no such thing as bad creativity. So, we celebrate everything, whether you made a random circle on a paper, or whether you painted a Picasso, it's all celebrated, it all goes into the gallery, and every kid should be proud of what they create.Stephanie:That's great. How do you stay ahead of what kids are looking for? It seems ... I mean, when I think about my kids I'm like, I have no idea, sometimes they like certain things that I'm very surprised by, or I think they're going to love something, and I buy them this really cool gift, and then it's like a flop. So, how do you guys stay innovating in that area and stay inside the kids' heads of knowing what they're going to enjoy and like?Josh:Well, certainly there's an aspect of just being immersed in the world of kids apps, and playing with other kids apps, and understanding what's out there, but then you're also always looking for what's trending, and making sure that we're staying on top of that from a trends' perspective, and you can sort of pick it up by just the amount of research that we do with kids, and talk to kids in general, you can sort of get a flavor for what they're doing. And then we also do a lot of user testing as well along the way to validate the concepts and the content that we're building out.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative), very cool. How do you think about like you're building these apps that, I would say, encourage the kids to play around for a long time, are you mostly focused on having someone really engage with these apps, or are you also building apps that are focused on conversions of maybe selling actual products, or is it kind of a little bit of both?Josh:It depends on the app. So, our flagship Create and Play app, that's actually a subscription app, so you can go into that app and you'll be able to play with, call it, a quarter of the app for free, but if you want the full experience we're monetizing it through subscription, and I think if you look at the app space in general in the kid space it's really moving in that direction from premium and freemium, and it has been for a few years since the subscription. The win for us there, certainly I'm happy that we're monetizing it, but we see kids on average playing 25 to 30 minutes a day deeply engaging in your brand, I mean, that's sort of hard experience to replicate.Josh:And then there are other apps where it is just free, so I think the most recent one we launched was probably nine or 10 months ago, it was called Scribble Scrubbie Pets, which is an IP that we have that's actually a toy-based app, and that really is ... it's a totally free experience. Again, we want kids to immerse and connect with the brand, and we'll see them averaging 20 plus minutes a day with it, and there are different things you can do. So, there's, call it, almost 40 different Scrubbie Pets in there, you can unlock them by either buying the product, and that's a shortcut to unlocking pets, or you can just continue to play and engage with the brand and do activities, and unlock the pets that way. So, the conversion will happen more down the line, and it really is about generating that brand awareness, and brand love.Stephanie:Cool. So, when thinking about your ecommerce and your website experience, what are you guys doing on that front right now, and what are you seeing that's working? Well maybe, what step of, or what stage are you guys in with selling online? Whereas I guess I still think of you as I would go to the store maybe to buy some crayons right now.Josh:Yeah, it's really interesting, it's been a total evolution for Crayola. If you go back 10 or 15 years ago, or maybe even shorter, two of our biggest customers were Toys "R" Us, and Kmart, and you know where they are-Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, Kmart.Josh:Exactly [crosstalk 00:11:59]-Stephanie:Forgot about them, yep.Josh:No, so we made a very concerted effort at Crayola probably three or four years ago recognizing that ecommerce and specifically Amazon were going to be a huge factor in how consumers shop, and we really pivoted the business, built out a totally siloed ecommerce team to grow that that was partnered with my team on the marketing side and the content side, and put a huge amount of organizational effort and resources against growing that part of the business. So, I'd say I feel like we're pretty far along from an ecomm perspective, both from just where our sales are coming from, and how consumers are buying our products, but also internally from a talent perspective, from a process perspective, from a knowledge-based perspective in terms of grabbing growth in that platform. But it's been a three, four year evolution in getting there, and now you see how things are playing out and it's even more accelerated when you look at the onset of the COVID pandemic, and I feel really good about the place that we're in right now to be where consumers are. Ultimately, that's kind of what we have to follow, right?Stephanie:Yep. Yeah so, what platforms did you guys move towards, and which ones are you seeing the most success with right now?Josh:So, we've had a DTC business for maybe close to five years right now, but I think we really prioritized growing with our retailer platforms, Amazon being the number one focus, but not far behind that are the Targets and the Walmarts of the world, and I think in the last six months we've seen just every retailer become an omnichannel retailer. But I'd say we put a tremendous focus on probably, if you can think about where our Crayola business goes through, those three players, with Amazon kind of leading the way obviously from a share of an ecommerce perspective, but I think we've taken the lessons from there and really extrapolated them and leveraged them across all the other selling platforms to put our best foot forward, and be everywhere that consumers are from an ecomm perspective.Stephanie:Yeah. So, what kind of lessons did you learn from Amazon that you're applying on the other platforms now?Josh:I think certainly understanding how to leverage search and paid search was a big one, and understanding how that sort of ... and even organizationally, we're a company that's been built on brick and mortar sales for 100 plus years, just adapting the mentality internally of understanding that there's an endless sea of products, and when you're buying search, or when you're buying those placements, you're basically merchandising yourself, and it's all about, call it "physical availability in the digital space". So, we spent a ton of time learning how to optimize that experience and finding the right partners to help us get there, and then have really leveraged those learnings. And then I'd say from a content perspective too, so Crayola ... I think when you're walking down a store you look at a shelf and you experience all sorts of different connections to the brand and triggers based on the products that you're seeing on a shelf.Josh:When you're shopping online it's a little bit harder, and so from a content perspective we've worked really hard, first of all, from a discovery, just written content, and driving traffic, and a lot of effort there in understanding that, but also from a visual content perspective, and now evolving much more into video content, because we want our products to come to life. At the end of the day, we want a parent or a kid who's looking at our product detail pages or seeing any visual content that we put online to have a connection and inspiration to what they can actually create with our products. So, there's been a lot of effort put around visual and video content to bring the product to life, and drive that conversion.Stephanie:Yeah. So, when you're making this video content are there any specific platforms that are working really well, whether it's YouTube, or what are you guys utilizing to get that content out into the world to be found?Josh:We'll typical host on YouTube, but we've spent more time, especially from a parent's perspective, focused around social platforms to drive a lot of the content, but then I think what we've found is that our consumers, when they get onto the product detail pages, are really looking through all of the images and videos, and now you're starting to see it be more prevalent even played up, call it, before you get to a product detail page. So, the use of videos on Amazon is certainly growing. So, we're kind of ... it really depends on where the audience is and what stage of the funnel they are, but we're leveraging video as much as possible everywhere, whether it's in our paid marketing or organic marketing on social platforms, and throughout ecommerce.Josh:I think YouTube is becoming a bigger and bigger focus for us, specifically from a kid perspective, and if you just look at ... I think there is a recent study that came out, 70% of kids are on YouTube. It depends on the age, obviously, but kids are literally spending upwards of 90 minutes a day on YouTube, and if you want to connect with kids it's kind of hard to say, "You shouldn't be there." You've got to be there, and I think we're seeing a tremendous amount of content focused to kids there, and we're no different in terms of how we think about specifically video content.Stephanie:Yeah. What about TikTok? Are you guys trying out the good old TikTok, or not yet?Josh:No, we actually have. So, most of our products are geared towards younger kids, the real sweet spot of Crayola is kind of in that, call it, four to seven, three to seven range, and I mean, some of those kids are on social media, although they shouldn't be, but we do have a few product lines, and certainly I think with the adult coloring phase that happened, if you remember that in 2016?Stephanie:Yes.Josh:I think it really inspired a lot of adults and teens and tweens to get back into the creative space and sort of find their own creativity. So, when TikTok came out we've been certainly dabbling in that space with a variety of our different brands. We have a line of writing tools called Take Note! that's all about expressing yourself through colorful note-taking, and we've played there a little bit. And I think there is a ton of just organic user generated content around Crayola, and it can be everything from the weirdest product we've ever launched like something called Globbles, where someone posts a video, it catches on virally, and all of a sudden it's selling out on Amazon like crazy. So, I think we're-Stephanie:What is a Globble?Josh:A Globble is a small ... I don't even know how to describe it. Think of it like the size of Silly Putty egg, but it's sticky, you can sort of mash them together and throw them at walls, and they'll stick to ceilings, and kind of just be creative in a weird way, but-Stephanie:That sounds very therapeutic.Josh:It is, it is therapeutic, and you can sort of get creative with them in ways to play with them. But it's the power of these different platforms you can see it in something as silly as that where we're still seeing a spike in search on Globbles on our DTC site.Stephanie:That's great.Josh:But for the most part to reach our audience I would imagine that similar to what we've seen with Facebook and Instagram you're already seeing it throughout the last six months that TikTok ... there're older people getting onto TikTok, and parents getting onto TikTok, and there's a place for us to continue to experiment there, for sure.Stephanie:Yeah, that's what was coming to mind. So, I'm on there, but I follow a lot of other moms, and right now a big trend is trying to figure out ways to keep your kids entertained with all the kids who are home and not going to school. I'm like, "Oh, it seems like a good opportunity to connect with fellow moms out there who are like, 'How do I keep my kids occupied?'"Josh:Well no, that's great, going back to your question about video content, I mean, what we're looking at is what social platforms can we get it out there, and for the last six months the team, from a content perspective, has been really focused on appointment programming, so this idea of, "Hey, we are going to have a creative activity for you every day.", and whether that's Crayola filmed or whether we're partnering with a ton of different, call it micro influencers that are out there, it can be in the crafting space, in the calligraphy space, in kids crafts, adult crafting, and so it's a great point that you raise of folks are at home, whether it's themselves or their kids, and looking for creative inspiration, and we're doing our best to be across all platforms to share that. So, I think it's a great point.Stephanie:So, you just mentioned micro influencers, how are you guys parenting with them, and how are you measuring if it's successful or not? Because that seems like a topic that a lot of people are trying, and we've had some guests say, "Oh, that doesn't work.", and then other guests say, "Oh, it's working really well for us." So, I want to hear how as a legacy brand partnering with someone like that, how are you guys tracking if it's successful or not?Josh:Yeah, I guess for me I don't necessarily look at that as performance marketing, for me it's all about generating brand awareness, and connectivity with consumers. I think part of the job that we have in the marketing group at Crayola is most people do think of us as the crayon company, and so even you yourself said at the beginning of the call, "Crayons.", but we have hundreds of other products in the space, and so for me I look at this as more upper funnel activity. So, we're looking at viewer engagement, video completes, and things of that nature, but I'm not necessarily trying to correlate it all the way through to conversion. I think still, throughout much of the year a large part of our conversion is going to happen at retail, and it's just not big enough necessarily to track back to that performance. But ultimately I want as many eyeballs on it, and watching as much of those videos as possible, because that's generating brand awareness for me.Stephanie:Yep. So, are you guys making an active effort to kind of be known as not just crayons but other things, or are you kind of just okay with being like, "We're being out great things, and if people are using it we're okay with not everyone associating us with those products.", like how are you think about that branding?Josh:I think we'll always be known as the crayon company to a degree, but no, not okay with it, I think our job is really to help consumers understand that we have everything from a full range of arts and crafts products to creative toys. I don't view our competitive set as crayons per se, I think our competitive set is really kids free time, and the more that we can help showcase all the different range of options and great products that we have available the more it will fit into kids' lives. I think when I think about what we're really enabling, and what we're about, we're about self-expression, and creativity, and we're a creativity company. So, I wouldn't want to define that by crayons, as we talked about before, we want you to be creative with Crayola in an app, I want you to be able to paint, or I want you to be able to color, and recolor your Scribble Scrubbie Pets, and be creative and express yourself in that way. I'm good with all of it.Stephanie:Great, yeah. That's a good answer. So, for going forward over the next couple years, or before this call you were mentioning that you were in a meeting talking about how to maybe invest around ecommerce, and I wanted to hear your thoughts on where are you guys headed, what are you looking to invest in, what new things are you trying out to meet the market either now or in the future?Josh:Yeah, so that's a great question. I think in the here and now when I think about the ecommerce space ... it was hard in the beginning to figure out what is the right amount to invest, and you heard all sorts of numbers thrown around, is it just whatever you can carve out of your budget and dedicate it there, is a percent of net revenue, a percent of gross revenue? But I think when you think about ecommerce, and it seems kind of silly looking back on it now, it really is a math model. It's the number of eyeballs you get times your conversion rate. So, how many eyeballs can I get to the product pages, and then what am I converting them at, and then what is my average sales price, or what are the products are they selling for?Josh:And that's eventually going to be how you generate your growth and your numbers, and so the way that I've been looking at it and been pushing the team to look at it has been, all right, what is the traffic that we need to drive, and look at every element in this, what's the traffic that we need to drive, and how are we going to get there? So, I think for us on many of the ecommerce platforms, whether you're talking about Amazon, or walmart.com, it's first and foremost, search is the lowest hanging fruit. How do we maximize that as much as possible? And we have enough historical data over the last few years that we can figure out and invest in that model on what it's going to take to get there.Josh:I think beyond that as we look towards the out years, because eventually we haven't reached nearly a point of diminishing returns there, but we're always trying to figure out, "Okay, if it's ecommerce, how do I drive those page views? Is it experimenting with different tools on Amazon's platform? Looking at them as a DSP, so am I looking at AMQ type tools, addressable TV, what else can I do to drive those eyeballs, but it comes back to the math and the return on ad spend, which certainly in the ecomm world we're very focused on.Josh:And then I think it's also about pulling the other levers. So, if I can move my conversion rate on a big business by a half a point, that's pretty significant. So, what are the areas that we're going to invest in from a content perspective as well to try to drive and pull every lever to ensure that we're continuing to drive growth. And I think broadly the mentality that we have as just a marketing team, I won't call it digital marketing, because I just think it's marketing, we embrace the test and learn mentality, and we're always looking out there, whether that's talking to our peers in the industry, partnering with agencies, just generally being consumers ourselves, what are the things that we're seeing that we should be testing? So, a great example now would be shoppable social, right?Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:If you think about our brand, and we're putting out all this inspirational content, how do we try and shorten that funnel and make the content more shoppable? I don't know if it's necessarily huge yet, but I believe it will be, and so how do we start to build our knowledge base and our skillset in that regard, too? So, I think there's different ways to look at different spaces of investment, but that's kind of how we're approaching it.Stephanie:I really like the point about shoppable experiences. I've actually thought that that seems so behind to me, even right now when I'm on Instagram, I mean, I know Pinterest is doing it now, but it seems like this is something that should've been around a long time ago, and it's just starting to pop up, but the experience still isn't there. Any thoughts on why it's been such a slow transition for something that I think should've been here ... well, it feels like a long time ago.Josh:I think it's all ... it's interesting for why maybe it has or has not caught on, certainly everyone's investing behind it, like interest ... sorry, Pinterest and their partnerships, looking at Instagram and where they're trying to go, I think it's got to be all about convenience. So, I'm curious to see what the consumer behavior is. Sometime you might be in a shopping mindset, other times you might just be looking to scroll through and do you really want to leave the platform. So, I'm sure, and we're seeing it, the investment, and how do we just create a more seamless, convenient experience that doesn't disrupt what you're trying to do?Josh:Ultimately, with anything in the digital space, I think kind of comes back to that, what mentality are you in, and how convenient is it going to be? I think we see that with the general ecomm growth that we're seeing, like the pandemic forces you to all of a sudden adopt new buying habits, whether you're on Instacart or wherever else, and then all of a sudden it's convenient, and so those are the types of things that stick. So, I'm just wondering if from a shoppable social perspective, have we truly hit the peak of convenience and ease, but I'm sure it's going to improve YouTube now investing in this space, so I think it's clearly an area of opportunity, but it seems to be that the industry's moving that way.Stephanie:Yeah, it also seems like there's a strategy there of building content that's focused on conversions where someone's going to be watching it, and they're going to want the things that are in that video, versus like you said, maybe someone goes to a video and they're not really in that mindset, but also maybe the content is not focused towards a conversion, or towards you need the products that are in there to be able to even do this.Josh:Yeah, and I think we're going to continue to see those two worlds blend, right?Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:The idea of sort of that kind of performance marketing mixed with content and converting the content into commerce. I know that's an area that we've been talking about for years from a Crayola perspective, because it's hard to look at a box of, making it up, metallic markers and understand what you can do with it, but if I can connect those metallic markers to a beautiful piece of what we call Crayoligraphy, and then I can connect that to a bundle that will teach you how to do it, now we're really starting to merge those things together, it's engaging from a viewing perspective, and there's a practical outlet for you to now go get creative and do it yourself.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, and I think that also kind of circles back to what you were talking crating daily, in a way, lesson plans, or something to keep someone engaged constantly, but then it opens up a whole thing of like, "Okay, let me get my supplies for this digital lesson plan that I'm going to be following along with.", and it kind of creates a mote where you need to have Crayola's products wield up, go through this lesson plan, and have fun, and enjoy every step with the right products.Josh:Yep, and that's exactly kind of the areas that we've been experimenting in. So, we had a summer craft series with one of our micro influencer partners out there, and we're selling a craft box to get everything you need for that week of crafts along with it. So yeah, I think there's a world where, yeah, those things start to make sense, and the more we can inspire you, that's really winning for us. We want to inspire that creativity and give you the tools to do it.Stephanie:Yep, I love it. So, are there any brands that have been out there for a long time that you guys watch, or that you partner with, to kind of keep tabs on how they're doing things, or how they're going through maybe a digital transformation, or just kind of learning from them and watching where they go?Josh:For me, I think one of the best out there certainly is Lego. I just think they have absolutely mastered it from everything from entertainment, to community building, to best in class content, to leveraging user generated content, and tapping into passion points of consumers. So, I really love what they do, they're probably the number one brand that I would watch out there, and just look at ... I mentioned YouTube before, I think they just eclipsed 10 billion views of their videos on YouTube, I mean-Stephanie:Wow.Josh:... truly doing a lot of things right to grow their business. So, I think they're a really great case study out there of how to build out content, and really surround consumers, both kids and adults, with your brand, and then products to boot to go along with [crosstalk 00:32:44]-Stephanie:Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, even thinking about that Lego movie, which to me is so smart because I mean, it connected with kids, but I think it actually was very sticky with parents as well, I mean, that was the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to content that they were creating. Has Crayola thought about creating something like that, or backing a project like that, that would connect with kids and adults, but then also leave people talking about it?Josh:Yeah, I think it's certainly a place where there's opportunity. We haven't necessarily ventured there yet, but I wouldn't say ... I would say anything's on the table, certainly as, I think, the world of content is constantly evolving. And so, while it maybe is not necessarily entertainment in that sense, we actually have five Crayola Experiences that have opened up around the country, and that's depending on where you are that could be four to five floors of immersive creative experiences where parents and kids are coming in and spending three to four hours there and just delving into the brand. So, there's all sorts of ways from an experiential perspective to connect with consumers, and I think what you'll see from us, certainly in the YouTube spaces, starting to dip our toes into the water of content in that sense. So, I wouldn't say it's anything that is imminent, but certainly, you never know where it's going to go, and I think Crayola's one of those brands that can play in lots of spaces like that.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's a really good point about creating experiences. I think there's going to be a lot of pent-up demand after staying at home for as long as we have, and having places that you can go to experience the brand and the product and have fun, it seems like a really strong strategy going forward after all this kind of calms down.Josh:Yeah, I think when you look at just general consumer sentiment and what they're saying, and it's been trending this ways for years is that people are looking for experiences. What's interesting is they can be physical, so in a store, or in a location like a Crayola Experience, but I do think there's an opportunity for digital experiences coming to life, too. I think I saw the other day L'Oréal sort of introducing a new way to buy your cosmetics and makeup, and making it more experiential. So, I think experience, and what that consumer experience is, and how they can engage with your brand in deeper and deeper ways once they're sort of at that interest point in the funnel, or at various points of the funnel, is going to continue to be an area of focus.Stephanie:Yep. What about community? How are you guys thinking about curating and building on a community to where I'm sure a lot of parents and kids would all want to talk and hang out, and show projects together, and I could see you guys having a really good angle there. How are you all approaching the community aspect of your brand? And building that up?Josh:It's a good question. I think with kids it's a little bit more challenging in that you've got all sorts of privacy regulations there, and so creating a closed community and getting kids to join that is a pretty tall order I think. From a parent perspective, we've actually really been more focused on that sense of community on social platforms rather than trying to create our own, and pushing out our content there, and engaging with consumers in that sense. So, I think we're trying to be where consumers are, versus necessarily building something big and trying to get them to come to us. I think we have the type of brand that can be relevant in all sorts of ways in peoples lives every day, and so following their lead and where they are, and that can be everything, again, from social platforms to native content that we're developing, et cetera. But I'd say that's kind of how we've approached community versus necessarily building it ourselves.Stephanie:That makes sense. So, I want to think a little bit higher level around just the ecommerce playing field in general, what kind of disruptions do you see coming to ecommerce?Josh:I think the demand of convenience will just continue to set the bar higher and higher for brands, and put more and more challenges on brands, and probably more retailers than brands themselves, but ultimately then it starts to come back to the brands themselves, or the suppliers in that in terms of how we supply product, where the inventory's being held, all those types of questions. So, I think we'll continue to see that push on convenience, and I think those are going to be the folks that win. I think Target's a perfect example right now of how they approached it, but I think it'll only continue to expand.Josh:I think ... it's hard to say it's a major disruption, but I think just this change is going to force a lot of organizations to look at themselves a little bit differently. There's all these organizations that have been built on brick and mortar businesses, and how does that ... it's going to continue to evolve, ecomm is not going away, I think to that earlier point of what becomes a part of peoples shopping habits is there, so how do you adapt internally as an organization to continue to put out product and content at the speed of which consumers are demanding it in that space? And then there's, I think, as more and more shopping shifts online, how does buy online/pick up in store disrupt what we're doing? How does a lack of impulse purchase disrupt what we're doing from a company? So, I think it's just going to be an evolution of how we go to market.Josh:I guess the other interesting thing that I've been thinking about recently is just the power of brands in this space, and again, the shift to ecomm, it's always been coming, maybe it's been accelerated, but it's coming more, but can bigger brands ... there's been a resurgence in bigger brands in this space, and is there a renewed emphasis on brand building as everyone starts to move online, will the big brands win? Will they win the search? Will they win the share of space, sort of the infinite shelf space? They're winning in the pandemic, can that continue?Stephanie:Yeah, that's a good point. I think that bigger brands seems like they would, of course, have a leg up, because the people who are coming online who maybe weren't always there before, they're already top of mind, or that's already someone that they trust, but it does seem like there's also a lot of room to kind of gather that new trust, or get that brand awareness out there in a way that wasn't done before.Josh:Yep. And I also just wonder if the standards are going to change for what that experience is going to be that you expect from a big brand. Sometimes digitally native brands can be more nimble, deliver more personalized experiences, so what are those ... is it a more experiential experience that you're looking for, whether that's in store or in the digital space, how do the expectations change from a go-to-market perspective? And I think that'll continue to evolve.Stephanie:Yeah, with so many of these new brands popping up now, I mean, it sounds like ... I mean, there's a lot of new great companies that are popping up, but it also seems very noisy, and that could also maybe hurt the consumer experience if they have a couple bad purchasing experiences with smaller brands. So, how do you guys stay focused, and not kind of get caught up in all the noise, and have like your true north of like, "This is where I'm headed, and this is what we need to do.", without getting caught up in maybe the trends, or the quick things that are going on right now?Josh:Yeah, I mean, for us I think it always has to be true ... our true north ultimately is the mission, and that funnels down into everything that we do. So, what kind of experiences do we want to give to people online, it's going to be in service of that mission. When we think of giving personalized experiences, it's how do we make that a better experience for you, but again, always in service to the mission. The creativity that, or the messaging, or the crafts that I offer up to someone who's coming in that's an adult with no kids versus a parent with a three-year-old, those should be different experiences. So, I think for us ... but it always comes back to inspiring creativity in the best and most relevant way possible. So, I think if you've got solid ground in that regard you can kind of cut through the noise and say, "Hey, these things are extraneous, but these things are in service of a better experience that brings our mission to the forefront.Stephanie:Yep, I love it. All right, so I want to shift over to the lightning round brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask a question, and you have a minute or less to answer, Josh.Josh:Okay, let's see how I do.Stephanie:Dun-dun-dun. What new ecommerce tool are you trying out and having success with right now?Josh:Interesting. I think one of the tools that ... I don't know if it's a tool. I do think shoppable social is an area that we have been focused on, as I mentioned. So, I think we've seen in our little test and learns some success in that space as we try to merge content and commerce, and we'll probably continue to expand on that.Stephanie:Cool. What is a favorite piece of tech or an app that makes you more efficient?Josh:That makes me more efficient?Stephanie:Or that you just love.Josh:I was going to say, I went to what app do I love right now-Stephanie:Yeah, there you go, what app are you loving right now?Josh:So, I would say it makes me more efficient ... you know what? I wasn't a fan of Teams in the beginning, but I have actually found that Microsoft Teams has really helped from a connectivity perspective during this time, and it really has become a very frequently used tool. The app that I'm loving right now is a tiny little app called Readwise, which I think is super fun, and Readwise basically, if you ever read on the Kindle and take notes, or if you're reading books in general, you will actually take the highlights and things that you've taken out of those notes, or if you've read a physical book it'll just take the most highlighted sections by other people of those books, and serve them up to you in whatever increments you want every day. So, if you wanted five highlights a day, seven, and it just helps to build and reinforce those memory structures of the things that you're reading at there, and that can be whether that's articles, or whether that's books, I think it's a neat app that I've grown to love over the last few months.Stephanie:That's cool, I'll have to check that one out. So, what are you reading these days?Josh:Man, a lot of books during the pandemic, some of the most recent ones were a couple of Brené Brown books, which is sort of all about workplace culture, been reading a bunch of the Tim Ferriss books that are out there, The Lean Startup, is a recent one that I read. So, I don't know, I can probably keep going on a bunch of other ones, but there's ... for whatever reason I've been reading a lot more recently.Stephanie:That's great. What's up next on your shopping list, or ... Actually, no, I have a different question, what is a favorite new product that Crayola just released? What is your favorite newer product that maybe a lot of people don't know about yet?Josh:Oh, my favorite product that a lot of people don't know about yet. So, I mentioned Scribble Scrubbie Pets-Stephanie:Yep.Josh:... I think that would be one of my favorite ones out there, and the other one is a line that we launched last year called Take Note! I mentioned that, that was sort of writing tools for teens and tweens, so it's got erasable highlighters, incredibly vibrant dry erase markers, gel pens, the whole works, and I really have grown to love that line of products and have many, many of them sitting on my desk in front of me and in my office here.Stephanie:Very cool. Well, Josh, thanks so much for joining us on the show. Where can people find out more about you and Crayola?Josh:So, certainly finding out about Crayola you can go to crayola.com. For me, I can't say that I'm a huge Twitter or LinkedIn poster, but @JoshKroo, you could follow me there, and yeah, generally just look for Crayola wherever you'd be looking for creative inspiration.Stephanie:Cool. I love it, thanks so much.

Business Built Freedom
170|All Things Franchising With Lance Graulich

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 27, 2020 29:31


All Things Franchising With Lance Graulich Josh: Let's talk about all things franchising. You might have a cool idea, a booming business or want to get into one and I want you all to listen up. We've got Lance Graulich here and he is the expert in franchising around the world, the top 1%. So I'm going to ask you here, Lance, tell me, how do you know if you have an idea that's franchisable? Get more tips about franchising at dorksdelivered.com.au Lance: Well, Josh, first of all, thank you for having me from around the world here in Las Vegas. So look, I always talk to people when it comes to franchising, what is your secret sauce? What do you have? What do you have that other people don't? More importantly, what do your customers tell you that you have? Why are you good? And I always call it the secret sauce. Every business has it. Is it your people? You know, I was in a conversation the other day about Starbucks. Starbucks, the founder and CEO Howard Schultz will certainly tell you, it's not about coffee, it's about people. He'll tell you his culture that he built is the secret sauce to why Starbucks is so successful. So that's the short answer to start off. Josh: Cool. So everyone needs to find their secret sauce, I guess is what it comes down to. And that sounds on paper easy enough. But I understand that like, obviously, you have the likes of McDonald's and these huge franchises. Is McDonald's the biggest franchise at the moment? Lance: Well, McDonald's, Subway, those are two of the top right there in units. I mean, Subway has 15,000 just in the United States alone probably now. Josh: Yeah, Subway recently has had a bit of a an upset with their direction. Is that fair to say? Lance: You hit on something very important, because one of the biggest things that I talked to people about when they are looking into a franchise is you have to really like the leadership of the brand that you're looking to get involved with. Because, you know, this is a long term relationship. A typical franchise agreement is 10 years. And it's like dating, you know, you have that first conversation and you decide, is there going to be a second date? So you talk about Subway. Yeah, there have been hiccups along the way. And that typically stems from leadership. As brands are growing, and in some cases, are not growing, all of a sudden, they have a period of time where they go negative. And, you know, the future is not looking so bright. Well, change of leadership means change of strategy. And the new strategy doesn't necessarily always take off as quickly as everybody hopes. And the franchisees isn’t in some cases, the ones that are high performing and doing very well typically are not going to be affected. It's the franchisees that aren't doing as well that, you know, could have the most to lose, I guess you could say at that point. Josh: That makes sense. I guess it's just for lack of a better term, removing the dead wood or clipping the bush. Lance: Trimming the bush Josh: Trimming the bush, that's right. So finding your secret sauce, like, I would say that I've got a team of unicorns that work for me, they're fantastic, and they are the lifeblood of our company. I can say that when I started the business 13 years ago, and it was all me as a single one-man band in my parent's garage as it would be that expanded out. And one of the things I noticed with expanding my business was, I had a process in the way that I did things. And when I brought staff on, they would have a process and the way that they did things all that would be looking to a process and amid the training and that upscaling was quite a long process to get there. One of the things that I've seen with franchising is documentation is paramount and procedural documentation so that you can stir and repeat and have your empire run by 14-year olds is a big key to success. If you don't have documentation, or if you're running a business that is heavily reliant on the professional services industries, where you need upskilled, university degrees and so forth, is there any reason that that should create more friction or less friction towards setting up and selling a franchise? Lance: You know, since technology has become a thing, I think it was 2000 or so that Google really came out strong, might have been about 20 years or so. But as technology has come about, the franchise world has really gotten even stronger in my opinion. Technology is a major advantage to being part of a franchise organisation. You remember the old Yellow Pages, I mean, in the US? You know, you wanted to if you wanted to find any kind of business, you would either call directory assistance, or you would, you know, open up the Yellow Pages and look for an ad on movers or whatever you're doing, you'd find the Yellow Pages. Well, now everything's on Google. So what do all the big companies do? It's all about SEO, Search Engine Optimisation. And the biggest companies is spending their most money there or so, you know, all the franchise brands will show up in the top 10 searches. If you're a lowly little mom and pop, good luck getting discovered when all the franchise brands are spending the money. So look, I mean, the idea of a franchise is that anybody can jump into a franchise. What brands are typically looking for is they're looking for smart people. They don't care if they have any experience in the industry. Let me give you a story. I got a guy. He has 19 franchise hair salons. He was a banker. He didn't even have a retail establishment. He did nothing about retail and hiring employees at all. He was a banker. Had some money. And he's a good friend of mine now, but I met him after he made this deal with another friend of mine who's a franchise consultant like myself. And what we do as franchise consultants, is we listen to what people want in a brand. They don't necessarily have any emotion attached to what the brand is because they don't know what the brand is, but they know what lifestyle they want to have. Are they going to operate it? Are they going to be a semi absentee owner and hire somebody? Are they looking to have a lifestyle where they don't work nights, they don't work weekends, etc.? What's their investment level going to be? So in this particular example, this gentleman has 19 franchised hair salons and guess what, he has no hair, he’s cutting the hair of a customer. And on top of that he doesn't even know how to cut hair. Nor is it a passion or interest of his. So he followed this particular system, an amazing franchised hair salon brand. He nets, nets a million and a half US dollars a year from his hair salons and probably only works about five, six hours a week. Josh: And he's not spending that money on cutting hair obviously, because he doesn’t have any. Lance: He's saving his money on his haircuts. Absolutely. Josh: That's great. So I guess there's two parts to it. So we got the franchise's for go getter investors really it's not about what the product is. It's about go getter investors and making sensible financial decisions, as opposed to buying a pie shop because you really love pies. Somebody went to McDonald's is looking at the numbers, not looking at how the burgers cooks so to speak. Lance: Yeah, I mean, look, anybody can start their own business, you don't need to be in a franchise model. However, to do every single thing yourself, create a logo and trademark it and figure out what the prototype is. What size is just right for this particular business? Is it home based? You know, how do we do it? How do we get the name out there? How much marketing dollar in marketing dollars do we need to spend to get any traction that gets us any attention. There are a million different pieces. Now besides myself owning quite a few franchises and being very successful. I've created some of my own brands and been very successful and sold several of them. So I am a consummate entrepreneur, but I'm also lucky. I was brought up in a very entrepreneurial type family. My dad realised at a young age, my young age at the time, he said, you know, I'm pretty sure you're unemployable like your grandfather's, you better go figure out how to be an entrepreneur. You know, so you can start your own business. But if you can start with a franchise. You know, what I educate a lot of people on Josh is, you can basically get into a franchise as your first venture. And getting into any good franchise will teach you everything you need to know about business in general. And I see a lot of people do that, do really well. And then start to create their own concepts that they have a burning desire to bring to market. Because look, if you have a burning desire to do something, the first step is to look at all the franchise brands and compare and contrast is there's something out there that’s similar to what I already want to do. Do that competitive analysis. And if there truly is nothing and you still think it's a great idea, then go for it. Josh: There was a company just on comparing and contrasting. There's a company called Pita Pit. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Pita Pit. Lance: Oh absolutely. I know the founder of Pita Pit. Josh: Oh cool. We did a lot of their IT support work throughout southeast Queensland and I had a look at Pita Pit versus Subway in Australia. And I personally liked Pita Pit more than Subway. Fresher ingredients, slightly more exotic ingredients. You had more options with the way it was cooked. It became instead of just a sandwich or a raffle stuffing, an experience. Let's use that term. Lance: More creative. Absolutely. Josh: Absolutely. And then all the Pita Pits locally around here we had like eight and we're down to one now and it's ages away. And I had to look at why is that? Now I don't know if Subways done this everywhere. But Subway now started using similar ingredients, similar reps and they sort of looked at it, okay, this is what our competitors doing, wipe them out. The reason I'm saying that when it comes to franchising, is it good to come through with a slightly different idea. I'm not going to say Burger King and McDonald's are the same company pretty much but they are, aren’t they? They really are. And you know who came first. But Burger King or Hungry Jack's, as it is in Australia is still doing fine. They're still doing very well. Is there any problem being, for lack of a better term again, a copycat type business in a franchise or do you have to completely reinvent the wheel? Or what would you say? Getting back to that secret sauce. What's the secret sauce that the Hungry Jack's or Burger King has that McDonald's doesn't or how do they differentiate from an investor's standpoint? And from the end consumers? Lance: It's certainly a great, great question. You know, there was a book many years ago called Raving Fans. And I still think, you know, when I'm looking at franchise brands, I'm looking for who that customer base is, why our customers, use the example of Hungry Jack's or Burger King, why are some customers coming to Burger King versus McDonald's? Is it the product? Is it the convenience? Some brands are definitively a destination. Starbucks in the early days was absolutely destination, they made a conscious decision that they were now going to be a convenience, and they started putting in Drive Thru’s. So all of those things, you know, part of my expertise in franchising also happens to be the restaurant space. So with this question, I would want more of a point of differentiation. I don't want to be another me too look alike type brand. Now to your story on Pita Pit. I don't know the history in Australia and what might have happened. But sometimes you have operators that maybe don't perform for whatever reason, maybe there was a partnership breakup. And it was easier to not pursue Pita Pit, and there was nobody else interested in the market at the time. I could tell you there's a brand right now a friend of mine owns in the US, where he has quite a few of these restaurants. And he's incredibly successful by all standards with these restaurants that he operates. And I think he has eight right now, makes a lot of money. And he's very happy. He's got a great team. Interestingly, this brand has opened about 150 restaurants successfully, but they've closed 52 at this point. Those aren't exactly good numbers, would you say? I mean, definitely not. Josh: One in three is not ideal, no. Lance: But they're still able to sell franchises at a good pace. You know, the most difficult thing is getting to a new market, and really expanding in a new market and doing it effectively. So your customers can actually hear you through all the noise. And it's what I call competitive noise. You know, Starbucks, when they opened in Las Vegas, where I am, Las Vegas isn't that big of a place, about 2 million people and Starbucks literally open eight locations back to back to back to back in no time. Why? Because they wanted to build brand awareness quickly and get out and you know, have enough advertising dollars to share and spend for the entire market. So there are different strategies. But the bottom line is, for me, it always comes back to you know, does your family like the food, because if you like the food, and you can be a customer, there's a chance that this brand can do really well. If your entire family doesn't like the food and nobody knows is going to be a customer. Probably a brand I'm going to try to stay away from. Fair to say? Josh: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things on liking the foods that I found that just recently so only in the last 15 months or so Hungry Jack's and Burger King, before McDonald's released the Beyond Meat patties, the vegan options that then put them as a differentiator in the marketplace. Now I thought cool, okay. And that sort of made me think why hasn't McDonald's done this? And what is their connection to the meat production industry to have not done this? I thought cool, they've done this and then that instantly made it you if you're ordering Uber Eats or something like that. If you're ordering for a few people and there's a vegetarian or a vegan or something like that instantly, you know exactly the place you're going to be going because they’ve made that differentiator. On that, when it comes down to things like Uber Eats, so I understand there's a lot of different ways that franchises can be modeled now Uber Eats isn't a franchise, but you still have solo operators that are going around getting a slice of the pie so to speak, whether or not an employee they're contracted to a larger business. Would you call Uber Eats and Lyft and Uber a franchise in a sense, or what would you say differentiates their model to a franchise model? Lance: They're not a franchise at all. A franchise system one of the biggest keys so let's talk about its use McDonald's as an example. If you're going to become a McDonald's franchisee, McDonald's corporate, which is the franchizor, ZOR. The ZOR versus the ZEE, the franchizor has to exercise quite a bit of control over their franchisees to have a successful franchise model. And the documents you know, franchising is regulated in the US regulated by the Federal Government, the Federal Trade Commission, and there are specific documents you have to create in order to be a franchise in the US. And for that matter anywhere in the world, there are different laws depending on the country you're in, they might vary. But the bottom line is this, you have to exercise a reasonable amount of control. So if you are a franchisee of McDonald's, you can't decide to purchase things from different vendors. You can't choose to have your employees wearing a different uniform, you certainly can't choose to buy certain, you know, menu boards or lighting or tables and chairs, you have to use only approved vendors. Now, if you can consider franchising the most rigorous control type environment, you know, you have licensing, which can be kind of loosey goosey, where, you know, you can license a certain product or recipe or name, but they can't control whether or not you serve hot dogs, for example, or change the uniforms. And some of the companies you're talking about, you know, Uber Eats or what have you or Uber. I mean, they are major corporations that, you know, choose to run markets in a different fashion than a franchise would entirely. They're not following the same rule book or operations manual necessarily, the control is on a corporate level, but it's completely different from a legal setup. Josh: Okay. If you've got an awesome idea that's scalable, and you're not looking to buy into, obviously a franchise, you're looking to franchise at your business. How do you go about picking your market? So just recently, we've got Taco Bell, and Carl's Jr. to Australia. And people are loving it. And it's going great. If you've got a product, how do you go about picking your market share? Where do you go about finding where you should be running a franchise? Because I'd imagine it's not always going to be best just to run from home base. Lance: No, you know, the first step is always where have you founded the company? All great franchises, at least start a franchise brand, starts with one location. A lot of people have seen the movie The founder with Ray, you know, Ray Kroc, and the story of McDonald's, it's pretty true. As far as I can tell, I've read all the various books on it as well. But it all starts with one location. In their case they started in Southern California. Where did the first franchise take place? Well, Southern California, that's where they were. And they started expanding throughout California. So it's all about proximity and franchising to start, although with technology, you can be worldwide in no time, it purely depends on the brand and how much support is required. So I would say if you have a business in Australia, and as I mentioned in the pre show, you know, I have actually talked to Australian brands quite recently that want to come to the United States. If you have a brand that's already successful, even if it's a single unit, by all means you could be ready to start a franchise. And that starts with a free call with myself to explore those options. We get on a Zoom call like this, and have that conversation. So anybody, it doesn't, you know, some people say, Oh, you need five locations, ten locations. Look, if you have a brand that's successful period, doesn't matter how big you are, let's have a conversation. If you're looking to grow, that's an option, because to grow on your own, the way Uber has chosen to do, they raise money in the public markets, they went public, they raised funds. And it's not a question of better or worse, it's a question of the desire of the owners. I can tell you in the United States, there's a lot to be said about private equity. Private equity is a huge topic. Private Equity groups control the money in the United States these days. And then the private equity groups love to gobble up franchise brands, because they're successful. That's why I do what I do. And by the way, Joshua, keep in mind, there are so many franchises because so many people do think of restaurants as being the preeminent franchises. And while I represent almost 190 restaurant franchises, I represent about 400 non restaurant franchises in every category. Josh: If you are looking to dip your toes into business, as you said, this is an easy entry point jumping into a franchise is you've got a rulebook there, you've got sales guidelines, you've got call to actions ready to go, you've got logos, you've got websites, you've got all this information that I know after being in business for 13 years, takes a long time to get sorted and get set right. If you wanted to dip your toe in and go okay, let's see if buying a franchise is right for me and you're interested in taking a little bit of money out of the mortgage or saving up a bit of coin, what’s the palatable entry price that you could expect to dip your toe in again. Okay, this is for me. Now let's go the full hog and dive right in. Lance: In US dollars, about $150,000 or less. I have quite a few franchises around the 100,000-dollar mark, home based brands that are phenomenal. And in some cases, it might be $100,000. Get a little bit of little office somewhere, a lot of great brands. So that's the answer. $100,00 and $150,000. And I have quite a few brands that are branching out. I mean, look, most US brands go to Canada first and then they look to eventually get to Europe, Asia, and eventually they'll get to Australia of course, like McDonald's for example. Taco Bell, as you mentioned, just got there, because they're pretty much full of the US at this point. Josh: In the land down under it takes us a while to catch up, I think. Lance: Running for the border. Josh: If you're buying into a franchise, let's say buying into a taco bell or a home based business, you say you should have a backing of about 150,000 or be able to gain a position the bank is going to give you that that kind of money. Is that fair? Lance: Yeah. I mean, look, there are opportunities throughout the United States, the Small Business Administration, which is of course, backed by the government, it's essentially a government backed loan will lend to everybody on franchises. I mean, if they're a good franchise, they'll lend typically 75%, 80% of the money that you need with a minimal credit score, it's not even a fantastic credit score. It's in the US, it's just a 680 credit score. So Australia is going to have similar programs to simulate business and the Australian economy. You know, the challenge just becomes, you know, what are those brands that if somebody wanted to bring it to Australia, what are they? Because Taco Bell is not an inexpensive franchise, Taco Bell is not sizable investment, so is Carl's Jr, as you mentioned. Again, as I mentioned earlier, because of technology today, it's quite a few, very inexpensive high performing franchise brands that are easily duplicatable or replicable in Australia. And those brands, if they're not in Australia, now they're coming. Josh: That's a pretty easy entry point really. Like if you had to look at the return on investment of buying a house with a 20% loan or 80% Elvia, and then you had to look at buying a franchise where you're getting the same amount of money sort of borrowed from the bank or whatnot. And it's sitting at 30 grand or something like that US obviously, as we're saying, but 30 grand, what would you say you see, and obviously, this is such a difficult question to ask, but what are the returns? So a house, you might get 5%, 7% every year if you’re doing well, 2% in worst areas, 0.5 in the middle of the cities. Lance: This is one of my favorite questions, because I've actually gotten in arguments with accountants and attorneys over this, because sometimes they miss this. When you buy a franchise, you know, just like you're describing a house. So you make a big investment like a house. Obviously in the US, you certainly have write offs, mortgage interest, you get to deduct, there are various things that advantages to owning a house in the first place. And then you also have the equity that you build over time in owning a house. Well, a business is no different. First of all, you have a tremendous amount of write offs when you own a business, and a lot of people forget that. Secondly, you do have the obvious equity that you have, when you own a business. When you sell a business in the US, especially a franchise, there's a secondary market for franchises, there are brokers set up all throughout the US, if franchisees want to sell, you know, you could sell for four times your cash flow. This is substantial upside. So if you got into a franchise that only cost you $100,000, and you create a substantial cash flow, which you can, I'll give you a perfect example, I have a franchise that cost $62,000 US home based. There's a gentleman that just sold his franchise that he purchased it for $62,000, seven and a half years later, he just sold it for $1.7 million US, he also made a nice income, about $500,000 to $800,000 a year while he operated. Josh: So that's a perfect segue into what I was just about to ask. How do you make sure or how do you make sure you're buying a job or some franchise, you're buying a job, some of you buying an investment, some of you buying a spot to work with a known brand where you're doing something you love, so you might be a plumber, and you go, I'm going to operate underneath this brand, because I know that this is a going to bring leads to the door, I'm not going to have to do any of the other business stuffing around or the footer, I'm just going to be able to do the voodoo that I do. In the franchise world, is there an easy way to differentiate between buying that investment, which is probably going to have a lower return, but you're forking out the money but you're doing nothing. You’re just sitting there set and forget the like, like stocks and shares or something like that. Versus buying a job, which is still a fine enough thing to do, because you're buying that brand recognition, you're getting your foot in the door very easily to get to do exactly what you want to do with a known brand with leads coming through. Is there a way to differentiate between those if you're going through some franchise broker or someone was to contact you? And I said, Look, I want to buy an investment. I don't want to buy a job. How do I work that up. Lance: That's why people use me, I'm free. My advice is free. I get paid by the brands. So there's a lot to unpack in what you said. So let's take it in two parts. There's a validation stage. So once I introduce you to various brands, and Joshua says, Lance, I'm interested in this brand and this brand, set me up with a phone call. I introduce you, you have your first call, your second call and you go to especially these days, it might be a virtual type discovery day where you meet the team, tour their corporate office, even virtually if that’s the case usually has been done face to face, they've changed things up a little bit these days for expediency. But there's a validation process, as you get to the end. Where if they really love you, and you love them and you want to do a deal, they say, well wait a second, Joshua, we would like you, here's a list of all of our franchisees, I would like you to call at least five of them at random, whoever you want to call. And I want you to ask him any question you want to ask him. Things like, you know, would you do it again? Are you happy? Do you make money? Do you have the appropriate support, marketing, etc., etc. And you could either see yourself in those people or you don't, and decide to move forward. So in the due diligence process, I asked you or my candidates questions like, again, what kind of lifestyle are you interested in having? Are you going to be the owner operator? Because let me tell you, if you want to be a semi absentee owner, and absentee owner, I have brands like that. I have brands where you can be a complete absentee owner, and not do anything, it's a strategic move by the franchizor. They have technology and systems in place where you can do that successfully. Now, there are quite a few of prospective franchisees in the US as an expression called the pipe dream that doesn't necessarily exist. And they think they're going to get wealthy from owning one little restaurant. That's not how it goes. Sometimes you have the individual franchisees that jump into one restaurant, and they might be successful, but it's a grind, and it's a JOB. It's not the dream that they wanted. So what I tell people is, if you only have money to get into one restaurant, you really want to do the restaurant business, go right ahead. But keep in mind, you got to get ready to get a second one, and a third one. Wealth is easily built in the restaurant business when you have multiples. You start to get five restaurants, you can net $80,000 a location, $400,000 US from five restaurants, that's substantial income. I's hard to do that when you're working for someone else. And now you get to write your own schedule. In my case, I work seven days a week in my restaurants, because it was working for myself. You know, what’s the old expression, you rather work 80 hours a week for yourself than 40 hours a week for someone else. Josh: Yep, it becomes something you're interested in doing, especially if you're buying into something that you believe in and you're passionate about. So I understand you've got an assessment tool at ionfranchising.com that people can jump on to. Tell us a bit more about that tool. Lance: Yeah. So, at my website, ionfranchising.com, there is a free assessment. If you scroll down a little bit, and it's quite scientific, it'll take you 10, 15 minutes to do. And it'll determine not only your current mindset based on your past skills, and your risk tolerance, comfort zone, and it kind of whips it all together and determines compatibility with what brands you're most compatible with is the best way to say it. Then it'll give you a detailed report. It'll give me a detailed report, and I'll be able to guide you better. I'm still going to ask about 30, 40 other questions to roll it all together, because that's the way I'm going to help you best. So it's a great tool. It's free. It's right on my website. Now one of the big pieces I tell people a lot, Joshua, is my goal is to get people really clear, to give them the clarity to understand what their goals are. As much as I'm a franchise consultant, I'm really a franchise strategist. I help people develop their life plan and how they can most effectively be an entrepreneur. And my favorite expression as a result of that is clarity is currency. So clarity is currency is my general theme. Getting people clear so I can get to you know finding them brand that is absolutely perfect for them. Josh: It sounds like there's nothing to lose only things to gain. More clarity for them, more clarity for everyone and definitely give me more clarity on how franchises work and the direction that things can go. And if anyone out there is keen we're going to be jumping in and organising to have another podcast on how to set yourself up and price your first franchise. Otherwise, did you have any other questions, Lance, or things that you'd like to go through before we head off? Lance: No, Tony Robbins once said model success and that is what franchising is. So that's my final word of the day and you have been amazing and I look forward to round two. Josh: I've loved doing it Lance. And if anyone out there has any feedback and comments, jump across the iTunes, give us some love. Leave us some feedback and stay good.

Business Built Freedom
169|Cash Flow Forecasting With Louise Delaney

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 20, 2020 24:43


Cash Flow Forecasting With Louise Delaney Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land. There is a gap in many businesses ad that's cash flow forecasting. It's too expensive not to have good cash flow. So I've got a special guest here, I've got Louise from Cash Flows For You. And she's going to talk to us about how you can better your cash flow and make sure you keep good records of that and make sure you know where you're going, especially at a time like now. So, Louise, tell me about your pain story and how you learnt those need in the industry to start cash flows for you. Learn more about cash flow at dorksdelivered.com.au Louise: Oh, hi, Josh. Thanks very much. Good question to start off. So actually, the pain that I felt was personal running my first business, which was a law firm, and I'm not a lawyer, I'm a business owner, and my business partner was a lawyer. And there was a massive disconnect between the work coming in and delivery and when we were going to get paid, and then the bills and how I was going to pay wages and practice subscriptions and all these things. And so the stress was real, and I wasn't sleeping and I went to bookkeepers and accountants, you know, who are very focused on the backwards view and doing the right thing with the general ledger. And I couldn't get the forward view that I needed, or the control of my cash that I needed. So I did some research and started it myself. And I swear by the 13 week rolling cash flow, which was originally a Keith Cunningham design, and is now a hybrid Louise Delaney design. Josh: I know myself, you see people and you hear all these different ways that people try to combat cash flow. And even in a home sense, you got, okay, let's have one bank account for holidays, another bank account for personal fun stuff, and you might spend 50 bucks a week on yourself and then spend $100 a week on your holiday or whatever the breakdown happens to be, then all of a sudden, you get this crazy bill and you ah man wasn't expecting the car engine to blow up, the insurance to come through the whatever that happens to be. And I guess having good cash flow practice and good cash flow hygiene is all about understanding where that's going and where you're actually sitting. So you're normalising your understanding of how much money is actually coming in and going out. Would that be fair to say? Louise: Yeah, definitely. And it look at the measuring business that most of us don't have when we start a business. You know, we measure our marketing, we measure our sales, but we never measure our cash. It's like anything. If you've got visibility of it, you know, you can stop stressing about it. It’s not running around in your head, you're not guessing. So when those unexpected bills come in, you're like, ah, didn't really plan for that. But that's okay. Because I know what my cash is doing. And I know how to manage that. Josh: Yeah. And when you have that data, you can then make decisions, you can make decisions without the data. And I see just from an IT perspective when we go into businesses, the amount of waste that people have. They'll be spending something because they've been spending something and there'll be things with it, they might be on a phone plan for their business where they're spending $1200 or $1500 dollars a month, we went in, and at this stage, we hadn't started doing this as many, many years ago, I saw the bill sitting there on the table and because I'm your eyes wander, don't they? And then I had a bit of a look. And I said is that what you're paying? And they said, Yeah. I said, oh my goodness. Why? I’m like what is it doing? It has this working and I had a look and I said I said I'm sure we could do it better price for you than that. And I looked through and $200 a month is what it got down. And I guess always doing something the same way doesn't mean that it's always the right way to be doing that. And always just paying the bills as they come in, you have this haphazard approach, you're always trying to think, okay, on my net terms, right with the clients that I'm working with, or some bigger firms, like you'll have like three months before you get paid off, you do your work. Louise: Yeah. And if you can see it, you can alter it. So if you've got low sales, you'd have a look down and go, where can I save some money here? And that makes you focus on those bills that you've always paid at the same rate and never question. So it definitely gives you eyes on the numbers without thinking about it from a spreadsheet point of view. It's more of a personal connection with how am I going to pay these bills? And where can I save some money just so you can get to keep more cash. So it definitely holds you accountable for where you're spending your money. It also highlights if you need to increase your sales to keep paying a $400 Telstra bill or is there a better way to do it. So it helps you to push towards making decisions, to get smarter with your cash. Josh: As I said, in times like now, businesses, I'd say some are in a holding pattern, some are nosediving, some are skyrocketing, some, they're all over the place. It doesn't really matter what part you're in, if you're going up, down, left, left or right. If you don't have good cash flow, if you don't know where your numbers are, you don't know where your expenses are going, you can very quickly go backwards. That's something I've noticed with business owners that are bringing in $400,000, $450,000 profit to themselves a year. So they've got businesses with 40 to 60 employees, and they're bringing in a reasonable amount of money. But they're also spending a reasonable amount of money. I kind of put the analogy, like you've got your hands and you can't see this on the podcast you put your hands out. And if you grab it like it's raining money, some people hold them ready to hold that money, just in case there is a drought coming, other people hold them and the money just flows through their hands. And then when that drought comes in, they starved. Louise: Yeah, you asked at the start was this and what was my pain, the other pain point was my business coach, and my accountant was saying, oh, look at this profit, look at this profit. And I was like, have you seen my bank account? Like, where is this profit, we can't spend profit, you know, it's a cash that's going to be, once you've got that foundation that's going to allow you to get to profit, if it's slipping through your fingers, as you just said, then you're on that rodent wheel, and you're never going to get past it to actually make clear profit. And so your foundations of your business grow. So you can make those decisions, and look, you know, whether you're going up in your business, or just trying to stay alive, you know, getting some control over even if it's a tiny little bit of money coming in. In fact, that's even better. That's what happened with COVID, people stopped, you know, a lot of people didn't earn as much or didn't get as much cash coming into their business, but they also dropped all their expenses. So you know, it's managing what's coming in, and what's going out, and making sure you're setting clear goals for that money that you're going to keep in the business. Because if you haven't got a buffer, you know, or a goal, you know, like it might be to start a craft beer brewing company [hypothetically], just saying, maybe, want to have you know that on your goal is so you know why you're trying to retain cash in your business for the foundation for the next growth period. Or even if it's to get out of your business, to be able to present somebody with solid cash flow forecasting, then it's a great exit strategy as well. Josh: I can resonate well with the craft brew story there for some reason. I know when I started out in business, what I did is I had about $1,000. I’m like okay, let's see what happens. I have $1,000 and at this stage, it was the side hustle working for Education Queensland. And so let's see what happens, where does this go. Put $1,000 in and pulled out $1500 and I said okay, cool, cool, cool. I'll take my $1000 back, use that $500 and make that $1000 and then that $1000 turn to $2000. Then before I knew it, I was working with Education Queensland and bringing in $4,000 a month doing this side hustle, as it's known, this side hustle. And then then it started just creeping up from there and up from there and I went okay, this is becoming pretty real. I thought what would it take for me to jump and this is what a lot of people, if they want to keep their security net of their own job, what would I need to jump? And some people go I just need 12 weeks and all we had to set up a million dollar business. You know, good luck. Don't do that. Get to a couple of conferences and talks to some business owners and some mature business owners first, but I had the business running as a side gig for three years and I'd saved up enough for all of the expenses for six months, even though the business was sitting on a recurring basis bringing in money. So I had a positive reoccurring income and then I still had six months of expenses, just in case all of that disappeared, and that was my safety net. Louise: Well, why did you have that insight so early in business? Josh: That's a good question. I don't know. I started my first business, wasn't the IT business, I started another business which is all around it's really boring, but making numberplate brackets, which was just a lighting loom and fixtures on number plates. And when I made those, the process wasn't very automated, ended up automating the process and seeing that I needed to have some money kept aside to be able to buy parts and whatnot. So I guess there's an element of that where I had all the responsibility for myself there. But I read every book that I could get from the government on GST and starting a business beforehand. So I did it the cheapest way possible in reading the literature that I could get for free. And then I just sort of had a look and thought, what would it take for me to make the decision? If it wasn't going wee? If something went belly up, how long would it take for me to get another job? Where is my risk level? And would I be comfortable in losing a certain amount of money? I’m like okay, at that stage was 60 grand. I went if I lost 60 grand, how annoyed would I be? And my whole thought was, I've learnt the whole way along the journey. Although I would lose that money technically, it was money that I've only earned through the process and setting it all up. As anyone knows it's been in business for a while, that's a seasoned business owner, the passion you get in for business is a lot of times sideline from the other things that you need to be doing in business to keep the business running. And I'd learned all these other different things. So, okay, well, I've still learned a lot. And if I had to go to university to learn that, I probably would have spent the same amount of money. So that was kind of like the sort of thought process that I went through and I thought in case something goes really wrong, I could still go get another job. But if I couldn't get a job for six months, because there's a global pandemic or something, something really terrible… Louise: You thought that I'm sure. Josh: No, that wasn't, that wasn't on my radar at all. Louise: You’re still very strategic, you know that, I mean, that's a strategic approach to business and managing your risk. So that's pretty impressive. A lot of us business owners, when we go into business, we might do the number crunching to get started. But then we stopped looking at it going forward. And you know, and in fact we’re fearful of looking at it, or we think that this is as good as it gets. So with that strategy that you used to start the business, it would be brilliant if every business owner could take a few weeks off, maybe go to Thailand or Bali every year, or maybe just Queensland, and do that same strategy planning again, and base it around your foundations for building your business, in particular for this conversation, your cash, you know, what's my break even. Like, when COVID hit the first thing that my clients did was look at their numbers and go right to how long can we last? When do we have to start laying off people? You know, when do we drop out office space or ask for a reduction on our rent? You know, this was all before the government stepped in with Jobkeeper and things like that. But having that business plan and strategy, continually, as a business owner for working on business skills, on business tasks, it’s going to be, you know, the best roadmap through business, rather than just hoping to God it's all going to work okay, because then when COVID hits and you go or anything, you know, your key employee leaves, the price of something goes up, you know, you can look at your numbers and go, all right, well, that's only going to affect me for this time, I need to pedal harder and get more sales, and make sure that I maintain, you know, the momentum in my business, or even when to drop staff so that you can go back to just being you running the business, you know, because they were decisions we all had to look at when COVID hit. Josh: Over the years, even though I've done some planning, I over planned probably of anything, more planning the execution. But if anything, what I've noticed over the years is every business has these problems. And I had a vertical that I was working with, that was working really, really well. And we thought this is fantastic. They were growing very, very quickly. And so we went and invested a whole bunch of money in new infrastructure and data centers in Melbourne and Brisbane. And then a month after doing that, having $80,000 worth of cash that just outlaid towards this infrastructure that was going to allow us to sort of 10 times our business growth, the whole thing came tumbling down. And I was like, oh, that nearly killed us. And then I've had the key employee disappear as well, definitely this silver lining now, but at the time, the breakup of business partners and things like that, which doesn't help, shit happens as it would be, it’s good to be prepared as best you can. But having that rainy day like for me, my risk threshold was six months. But what I learned was interest compounds interest, other people are going to smile or frown depending on what position or business they're in. But when you've got $60,000 sitting in your bank, and you're running a positive business, every day that that still happens, you've still got more money coming about, admitedly not much at the moment with the RBA rates, but it's something. Louise: Yeah. But it's also emotional interest. You know, like, if you've got 100 bucks in your wallet, or 20 bucks or 500 bucks, you certainly feel a lot wealthier than if you've just got a card. [Absolutely.] I find when you start doing your cash planning is like saving in the piggy bank, once you start seeing, you know, your cash balance going up, you know, and I do mine on a spreadsheet or a dashboard. Once you start seeing that cash line go up, you get more efficient at how you use your cash, because you know it's not yours. It's the business and it's whether you want to stay in business for a long time or a short time or hit a peak. You get a bit greedy with your cash. But when you make decisions, you make them without the emotion attached to it. It's the numbers that are really blindingly obvious that are pushing you towards that decision. Josh: Everyone has that feeling of dopamine release when they go oh I just bought something cool. But when you buy something on the credit card you have that and when you buy that out of your own cash, you have the same feeling. But a week later, or 55 days later, after the interest free period, you think, oh crap, then then you dive down. And once you become cashflow positive, there's a stress that’s lifted off your shoulders. Louise: Totally, like I don't even run my law firm now with a credit card, you know, and it took me about five years, I always had probably 10 grand on that credit card. And not in the interest, I still paid it off bits and pieces, but I would have paid interest to the bank for having that. And that was, I didn't even need it, I used it because I was scared to use the cash in my business in case I didn't plan for bill properly, or there was, you know, extra taxes that you hadn't planned for. So now I run that without a credit card. And I do have a credit card in my personal life but same principle. As soon as I use it. It's awesome to go and do the transfer to pay it off again. [Yep] you know. And it hasn't always been that way. I've been burned for sure using a credit card. But it's also nice when one of the benefits of cash flow planning is if you've got a 12-month subscription for something, you can pay it monthly or weekly or six monthly. And it's better for cash flow to do that. But psychologically, it's amazing to be able to go, I've got enough cash just to pay for that. And I'll take the 10% or 15% discount, you're going to give me for that. Josh: I completely agree. All these discounts are out there ready to go and get them and on the credit card on interest. So I have a credit card and I pay it out each month. I'm like, woo hoo, I had a look, it was early this morning that my credit card issued. And it sounds like I'm making this up. But it's legit the truth. I had a look. And it was $18,000 on the credit card. I thought okay, that's, that's alright, because most of the business expenses go through it, and then just get paid off at the end of the month. And it said, if you make the minimum payments, this will take 98 years to pay off and there'll be $780,000 worth of interest. I was like, what the hell? I was like, why? My goodness, and that is straight up interest, compound interest. I’m only using the credit card now for purely stupid rewards points. Louise: Now, I need to talk to you about that. This rewards plan, I have another client that is very difficult to do cash flow forecasting for because everything goes on the credit card. But she did it too, because of the Qantas points and all the rest of it. Well, I say maybe that should be revisited now. Just change the payment cycle. You'd almost say, well, you don't pay interest anyway. But a lot of people do, the money that you would save in interest just to get the points, you could just you know, you could probably buy Virgin at the moment, I believe. Josh: That's right. Oh, definitely, if you aren't paying your credit card debt, get rid of the credit card as soon as you can. I don't know why, I'm still feeling stupid having it. It's annoying actually, because it's one extra thing, it doesn't sound like much one extra line to reconcile for the bookkeeper. One extra thing to keep in your wallet, it’s just one extra thing to get hacked. It's just one extra thing. It's just annoying. You might know more so than me, international fees. When you have these international fees, and you buy something overseas. So I've actually got two credit cards, I’ve actually got two credit cards, I got one for overseas purchases, that has no international fees. And looking at when I move that across it I have saved a couple thousand dollars for any of the software products we are buying overseas. I don't know how that company stays around but I'm okay with that it’s only a very low value credit card. So it's like $3,000 a month or something like that. With the primary credit card for the business, everyone's going to know my whole setup now. Louise: This is a like a truth serum podcast. Josh: It is, isn’t it? Hi, my name is Josh. And I've got two credit cards. The bigger business one, the International transaction fees, they're ridiculous. You know, if you get those on, if you're not using a credit card, if you're using a normal bank account with a Visa Debit, or something like that attached, do you know if that's just probably more of a banker question? Louise: But my background is banking, but it's been a while and transaction processing actually. And I don't know the answer to that. But I do know that in my bank account, if someone is paying me from overseas, I get charged the international fee. And if I have to refund somebody to an overseas bank account, I get charged the international fee. So I imagine that it's just their processing fee. Josh: Okay. That was definitely adding up on that credit card, which is why I got the second credit card. Louise: I don’t know the way around that is, but now's the time to approach the bank and find out what the way around that is because, you know, as the consumer, it's in our hand to be questioning this. Josh: Yeah, absolutely. There's definitely interest to be saved across the board. That's something else, I guess with cash flow management, looking into things if you do have overdraft facilities or if you do have different things such as loans, whether they be equipment finance loans, or even your home loans and things like that. Some of the rate variance is huge. I had a look at for us again, I'm getting probably back to the personal loan stuff now, but I look and changing from one of the Big Fours across to one of the others that are just online only type lender, without bringing up names or anything, I was going to be saving $10,000 a year in interest. [Really] On a home loan, I was like that is pretty substantial. I was like that's a huge amount. And my current home loans are in the, like, mid low threes. And but with the big four verse. One of the online only is which were low twos. Yeah, both variable. So they're both comparing apples with apples, both with offsets, but with everything else. We’re probably slipping away from cash flow stuff now. Louise: Well, it's making you look at it, though, isn't it? [Absolutely] Maybe cash is going because we could all use an extra 10k? Josh: That's right. I looked at my bloody hell that's like, not that I'm going out to dinner every week for 10k a year. That's nearly thousand dollars a month. Louise: Or you will own your home earlier. Josh: Absolutely, that's right. Louise: If you want your investment property for negative gearing they used to call it or tax reductions, then you go to one of the Big Fours. But if you want to get your personal residential property paid off quicker, go to one of the old shop around and find a better rate. Josh: Yeah, that's right. Absolutely. I think you've definitely given a few tips here that are really awesome to do with cash flow, making sure that he's keeping on top of it being positive, where you can. Spending time to be able to have that cash flow. Even if it might take a few years to build up to a comfortable spot for you, can do it with a beer in hand traveling around Queensland possibly until the borders open up and then come to a spot where you go, okay, in a few years, I can now start buying things saving 10%, 15%, 20%, even 30% on some of the software out there, if you're buying it per year, and I know us we offer a pretty substantial discount on IT services if paid yearly, definitely worth thinking about. So if there was to be one book that you suggest anyone to read, what would be that book that would that influenced you or that should influence them? Louise: Oh, aren't you writing a new book, Josh? Josh: I am writing a new book on lemons. Louise: On a serious note, I love the Keith Cunningham books. They're brilliant. And you said one book, but I am going to over extend that and say Barefoot Investor, Profit First from Mike McCalla, who has just written Fix This Next which I'm just reading at the moment. And really the foundation for me for getting your head around cash flow management when you don't have an accounting degree or your not a bookkeeper. Josh: I can vouch for profit first and barefoot investor both fantastic books. Before we head off, is there anything else you'd like to ask all leave our audience with? Louise: I guess the key really in the cash flow management and the motivation to keep doing it weekly, is to get clear on your goals, actually know the dollar value of your goal. It doesn't matter what it is, if it's 200 bucks, or another business of 2 million, whatever it is, get clear on your goal and then reverse engineer how you're going to get to that goal. So whether it's more sales, less expenses, double everything you're doing to get there quicker, until you know what your goal is or your comfort zone, your goal may be to reduce your risk. You know, if the industry changed that you're in and you got wiped out, or the industry got wiped out, you know, your goal might be to keep going for six months until you can change your direction of your business or get another job or whatever it might be. So that's probably the way I would get started with my cash flow and just get started. You know, until you start writing it down on a bit of paper or on a spreadsheet, just get started. And you know, really quickly you'll get excited about the results. And if they're not exciting results, at least you know about them and you can do something. Josh: And if you haven't liked your results, jump over to cashflowforyou.com and jump across the book a discovery call Louise will be more than happy to go through what she can do to help you out and make sure that the results make sense and that you do have achievable results with micro milestones. One of the things I love saying is if you aim for nothing, you'll be sure to hit it. So make sure you've got some goals in place. It's very important. Louise: Brilliant. Brilliant. Thanks Josh. Josh: No worries if anyone out there has enjoyed this episode, make sure to jump across to iTunes, leave us a review give us some love. And as I said go to cashflowsforyou.com if you're looking to hear a bit more information about how you can better your cash flow better position become positive, and not just in your money but in your emotion as well. So everyone out there stay healthy and stay good.

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟
第996期:Tacoma is home

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2020 3:04


更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Shirley: So Josh, where do you come from?Josh: I come from Tacoma.Shirley: Tacoma.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: I've never heard of that. It's in America, right.Josh: Yes, it's in Washington State, really close to Seattle.Shirley: Oh, okay, Seattle. I've heard of that. Well, tell me about Tacoma.Josh: Well, Tacoma is smaller than Seattle but it has many great things to do too.Shirley: Okay. So give me some examples.Josh: Well, there's a great par right in the center and at that park, there's a botanical garden.Shirley: Wow. So a little bit like Melbourne, in Australia.Josh: Yeah, it is.Shirley: Okay. What about shopping?Josh: Shopping? There's really one place for the best shopping, and that's the Tacoma Mall.Shirley: Mall. Hmm, what's a mall?Josh: It's a big indoor shopping center.Shirley: Oh, it's all indoor.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: Wow that must be a really big building.Josh: It's huge.Shirley: Okay. What kind of shops do they have there?Josh: Everything. They have lots of clothing shops, and they also have two sports shops and they have a food courtwhere you can buy any kind of food you want.Shirley: Wow. Well, that sounds convenient.Josh: It is.Shirley: Okay. Well, how about traveling around the city. What's the public transport system like?Josh: Mostly, we travel by car. But there are buses too.Shirley: Okay. So not so much public transport.Josh: Not really. The buses stop early in the evening.Shirley: Okay. I see. What about sports because, you know, in Australia, we have lots of places to play sport. We really like our sport. So what about Tacoma? Are there many places to play sport?Josh: Mostly, we have parks that have baseball fields and tracks. And those are the best places. But as far as professional sports, you have to go to Seattle.Shirley: Oh, okay. What about tennis courts?Josh: Tennis courts, I think there's one. But it's really expensive.Shirley: Really?Josh: Really.Shirley: You know, in Australia, we have lots of tennis courts everywhere.Josh: That must nice. I love tennis.Shirley: Yeah. It's kind of fun. What about eating in Tacoma because it sounds like it's a little bit of a small town, so is there any good place to go and eat food?Josh: That's one strong point. There are lots of restaurants. The best restaurant is actually near my house, and it's a barbecue restaurant.Shirley: Okay, lucky for you.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: Tacoma sounds like a nice friendly place to live.Josh: It is.

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟
第996期:Tacoma is home

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2020 3:04


更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Shirley: So Josh, where do you come from?Josh: I come from Tacoma.Shirley: Tacoma.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: I've never heard of that. It's in America, right.Josh: Yes, it's in Washington State, really close to Seattle.Shirley: Oh, okay, Seattle. I've heard of that. Well, tell me about Tacoma.Josh: Well, Tacoma is smaller than Seattle but it has many great things to do too.Shirley: Okay. So give me some examples.Josh: Well, there's a great par right in the center and at that park, there's a botanical garden.Shirley: Wow. So a little bit like Melbourne, in Australia.Josh: Yeah, it is.Shirley: Okay. What about shopping?Josh: Shopping? There's really one place for the best shopping, and that's the Tacoma Mall.Shirley: Mall. Hmm, what's a mall?Josh: It's a big indoor shopping center.Shirley: Oh, it's all indoor.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: Wow that must be a really big building.Josh: It's huge.Shirley: Okay. What kind of shops do they have there?Josh: Everything. They have lots of clothing shops, and they also have two sports shops and they have a food courtwhere you can buy any kind of food you want.Shirley: Wow. Well, that sounds convenient.Josh: It is.Shirley: Okay. Well, how about traveling around the city. What's the public transport system like?Josh: Mostly, we travel by car. But there are buses too.Shirley: Okay. So not so much public transport.Josh: Not really. The buses stop early in the evening.Shirley: Okay. I see. What about sports because, you know, in Australia, we have lots of places to play sport. We really like our sport. So what about Tacoma? Are there many places to play sport?Josh: Mostly, we have parks that have baseball fields and tracks. And those are the best places. But as far as professional sports, you have to go to Seattle.Shirley: Oh, okay. What about tennis courts?Josh: Tennis courts, I think there's one. But it's really expensive.Shirley: Really?Josh: Really.Shirley: You know, in Australia, we have lots of tennis courts everywhere.Josh: That must nice. I love tennis.Shirley: Yeah. It's kind of fun. What about eating in Tacoma because it sounds like it's a little bit of a small town, so is there any good place to go and eat food?Josh: That's one strong point. There are lots of restaurants. The best restaurant is actually near my house, and it's a barbecue restaurant.Shirley: Okay, lucky for you.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: Tacoma sounds like a nice friendly place to live.Josh: It is.

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟
第996期:Tacoma is home

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2020 3:04


更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Shirley: So Josh, where do you come from?Josh: I come from Tacoma.Shirley: Tacoma.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: I've never heard of that. It's in America, right.Josh: Yes, it's in Washington State, really close to Seattle.Shirley: Oh, okay, Seattle. I've heard of that. Well, tell me about Tacoma.Josh: Well, Tacoma is smaller than Seattle but it has many great things to do too.Shirley: Okay. So give me some examples.Josh: Well, there's a great par right in the center and at that park, there's a botanical garden.Shirley: Wow. So a little bit like Melbourne, in Australia.Josh: Yeah, it is.Shirley: Okay. What about shopping?Josh: Shopping? There's really one place for the best shopping, and that's the Tacoma Mall.Shirley: Mall. Hmm, what's a mall?Josh: It's a big indoor shopping center.Shirley: Oh, it's all indoor.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: Wow that must be a really big building.Josh: It's huge.Shirley: Okay. What kind of shops do they have there?Josh: Everything. They have lots of clothing shops, and they also have two sports shops and they have a food courtwhere you can buy any kind of food you want.Shirley: Wow. Well, that sounds convenient.Josh: It is.Shirley: Okay. Well, how about traveling around the city. What's the public transport system like?Josh: Mostly, we travel by car. But there are buses too.Shirley: Okay. So not so much public transport.Josh: Not really. The buses stop early in the evening.Shirley: Okay. I see. What about sports because, you know, in Australia, we have lots of places to play sport. We really like our sport. So what about Tacoma? Are there many places to play sport?Josh: Mostly, we have parks that have baseball fields and tracks. And those are the best places. But as far as professional sports, you have to go to Seattle.Shirley: Oh, okay. What about tennis courts?Josh: Tennis courts, I think there's one. But it's really expensive.Shirley: Really?Josh: Really.Shirley: You know, in Australia, we have lots of tennis courts everywhere.Josh: That must nice. I love tennis.Shirley: Yeah. It's kind of fun. What about eating in Tacoma because it sounds like it's a little bit of a small town, so is there any good place to go and eat food?Josh: That's one strong point. There are lots of restaurants. The best restaurant is actually near my house, and it's a barbecue restaurant.Shirley: Okay, lucky for you.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: Tacoma sounds like a nice friendly place to live.Josh: It is.

Business Built Freedom
166|Leaning Out Your Business With Crista Grasso

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 6, 2020 25:36


Leaning Out Your Business With Crista Grasso Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land, we've got a special guest here from leanoutmethod.com, we've got Crista Grasso, and she's going to be talking today about why you need to lean out your business to level up. So how do I know if I'm running a lean mean business machine or not? How do you go about knowing that you're at that right spot, you need to lean? Or how do you know the health of your business? Crista: So honestly, it usually comes down to do you have way too much going on? You're constantly overworked, you're constantly overwhelmed? Or do you feel like you're always focused on the right things, things tend to be flowing, not that you don't have issues, because you know, you always have issues in business, there's always the unexpected things that come up. But you have a really high degree of confidence that you're always working on the right things that are actually making a difference, the things that are adding value for your customers and profitability for the business. And you have that really clear alignment to what your strategic objectives and goals and vision are for the business. If you're in that space, you're already well on your way to lean. If you're more in the place that a lot of businesses are, where there's just a lot going on, you're not quite sure if the things that you're doing or the things they're actually going to make the difference are actually going to really drive that profitability or be things that your customers are really looking for. That's when you know that you have a real opportunity to lean out. Josh: Okay, I got a lot of great things to ask. So I know dad's always said to me, prior planning prevents piss poor performance. And it sounds like a lot of this comes down to making sure you are planning out for things like that, would that be fair to say? Crista: Absolutely. I'm a huge fan of strategic planning. And I always add a lean flavor to that. So that you're combining that strategic planning along with lean practices. So you really are just getting super crystal clear on what are those things that are going to make the most difference so you can focus there, and just eliminate all that noise and waste in the system. Josh: So I'm a big fan of lists myself, I love writing things. And I'll have a brainstorming day, normally with a cheeky beer and sit down and just write down. Okay, where is my business, where do I want it to be? Where's it going? And having an engineering background, I do a lot of planning, I do 90% planning, 10% execution. So sometimes I'd say I probably plan too much, then sometimes miss the reason why I was planning, that's a problem for me that I'm trying to overcome. But for others out there, if you've written a list of 100 things that need to be done in the business or ten things that need to be done in the business, how do you work out the one that is going to be that golden nugget that needs to focus? Crista: Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you love planning because that means you're a lot better off than a lot of people. So here's where I think you really want to start with business, I think it's so incredibly important that you get really clear on vision. And I consider a vision, a next level vision is where you're looking at three different facets. You're not just thinking about where you want your business to be in the future. You're also especially if you're the business owner, you're thinking about your life and lifestyle and making sure that your business in the design of your business, your model actually matches that. But the third facet that a lot of people don't consider that I think is so important, is when you think of your vision, you're also thinking of your clients and your customers. And so what are your customers going to want from you and need from you at that point in the future? Just like where is your business going to be at that point in the future. And I think when you start there, and then you take that, and you break that down into some near term goals. So you have goals for the next 90 days, and it gives you a lot of clarity on Am I focused on the right things? And am I focused on the right things right now? Because that vision where you look at that next level of vision across those three facets, it gives you that kind of directional correct look at things where you don't always know everything that's going to happen. You don't know now those projects that you're going to be working on, there's things you're going to do in the future. But you at least always know if the things that you're choosing and making decisions on are directionally correct if you have that clarity and vision. Josh: I guess it's about prioritising a vision and that balance really to make sure that the reason you got into business is achieving those goals, if that's the vehicle that is doing that. Like I know myself I started my first business, my first legally registered business, I started 17 years ago, when I was doing sort of a little side hustle before that. And this business has been around for 13 years. Prioritizing is important, balance is important. And I definitely know that I was a bit out of whack to start off with an over focus on business. I didn't really look at family clients and lifestyle. And you brought up a good point. It sounds like it's definitely all about balance. Is that right? Crista: It is, yeah. And so I believe so fully in sustainable success. And I think that when you think about when you first start a business, just like you described, things tend to be out of balance. The nature of that startup emerging stage of business, is that you're saying yes to everything. You're wearing all the hats, you're naturally overworking. It's a bit overwhelming, but it's also really exciting because you're building something new. It's very high energy right. And that's great, but that can't sustain. Once you move out of that emerging stage, you know, your product market fit, you know, who you serve, you know, what your core offers are, you know how your business actually makes money. At that point, you really do need to focus on leaning out and focusing much more on that balance and in that sustainable success and sustainable pace. And so what are all those facets of your life that are important to you aside from your business? And how can you carve out and create the space for all of them and build a team to surround yourself so that you can achieve that balance and maintain that balance. Josh: In achieving the balance and maintaining the balance, I would say, I'm a big believer that change is as good as a holiday. But I think a lot of people do not necessarily feel that same way. And they might be like, oh, look, I've been doing what I've been doing for ages, it's kind of working. I've got enough money to have a boat, and enough time to sometimes go out on it, and sometimes see my family or whatever the kids names are. I can't remember now, because I haven't seen them that often. How do you make sure someone becomes comfortable leaning out? Or what are some things you just see all the time? Is it like process things that you're saying people are just spending too much time on repetitious tasks? Or what are some of the core things, if you had to list five things that people are always making this mistake on? You go in there and go, oh, what are you doing? Why haven’t you automated your bookkeeping? What are the things that you see as the five things that relate to most businesses? Crista: Yeah, sure. So the first one, I will say is too much. So doing too much, offering too much, it's people especially if they don't have that real clarity is sometimes they have way too many products and way too many offers for way too many different customers, and it can be really confusing, it's hard to know what the business is really known for. And that in turn, ends up creating too much work for the team as well as for the business owner. So it's just too muchness, it's waste, right? And so that's probably number one. Number two would be not focused on the right thing. So it's not just the quantity, but it's the things that you're focused on. So a lot of bright, shiny object thing. Oh, let's try that. Let's look at that, but not really considering is this the right thing, and is this the right thing right now? I think even having that strategic plan is probably the third, a lot of people have a vision. And a lot of people have a list of mile long of things to do. It's not super common that those two things connect to one another. And they do need to connect to one another. When you're trying to figure out what it is that you need to do, you need to make sure it's in support of the vision and goals. The next one, which is four which builds off of that, is you need to make decisions on what you're going to do based on the capacity you have. And what I see so many people doing is they just have this big list of stuff to do. They know going in they're never going to get it done. But it's just the list. They basically work until exhaustion, then they pick up the next day and do it all over again, instead of reverse engineering and saying, here's the capacity that me and my team has, here's what we can realistically do. Let's just commit to this. And then probably the fifth that I would say is avoiding sunk cost, right. So people have started something, even if all signs point to the fact that it's not what customers want, it's not something that's going to drive profitability, because they've sunk time, effort money into it, they finish it anyway, and continue to work on something that's not actually going to make a difference. And if anything, it's actually gonna hurt the business from a profitability perspective. And that's time that could have been spent on something else that would be more value add. Josh: The paradox of choice is a real problem for people. If you have more than three things, especially if you have more than three offerings. I know myself, Oh, jump into the shops. I’m the lucky owner this week of what you'd call an RV or a caravan. I bought that I'm going to camp trying to fit it out with different things and I'm going, right, there's too many choices. So generally, I kind of stuffed it. Well, solar panels I put on it, I'm not going to put any solar panels on it, it's too much choice. And that's as someone who's wanting to spend money to better something. And I definitely see that businesses need to make it clear and concise as to what your service offerings are, and remove some of that paradox of choice. And when you're coming into cost cutting elements, another thing that is very hard for people to do, especially if you start a project, people like seeing that come to completion, it's just human nature to want to see that finish, even if that's not something that when once complete is going to be profitable. When I first started a business, I bought a book called The E-myth by Michael Gerber, which is great, and started writing out mission statements and business plans. And every couple of years I go back and review those and I think leaning out and making the decision. Obviously, mission statements and business plans have to come very, very closely in line with leaning a business, yes? There's lots of lots of different methodologies in leaning out your business. As your mission statement or business plans change. How does that reflect a business that you've started leaning at? Or is that just make it more focused? Or if you have to pivot because there's a global pandemic, hypothetically, that would never happen. If that was to be the case, how do you go about making sure that if you've got sniper vision and your business plan, your mission statements, everything's laid out and you're absolutely pulling the right direction? Do you think that brings clarity or disparity if you have to pivot? Crista: Yeah, so it's interesting. One of the clients that I'm currently consulting with, they had to stop all manufacturing big, huge major manufacturer in the US. And obviously, because of COVID, they couldn't have people in house, so they had to stop manufacturing. So you would think that they would have had an absolute tank in their quarter and their performance. But they pivoted, they produced masks and they produced all of these other things with a really small, tight crew, where they kind of revamped everything. But because they were very lean, that they knew exactly what their capacity was, they knew exactly what the capability of their plants were, they were able to pivot and adjust and do what they needed to do in order to not only help out which they wanted to do, it's a family business, they're very big on helping, but also they actually were profitable at a time when you would have thought they wouldn't have been since they had to shut down manufacturing. So I think lean can actually really help you. But you do have to pivot and you do need to be willing to make those shifts and make those changes. I think you just need to always go back to what is that long term vision? Where are my customers? What are they going to need from me? And just to make sure as you're pivoting and making those changes, it's still in line and directionally correct. Josh: I love the way you've answered that. It's perfect. I can say that myself, over the years in business, being pushed towards a hard wall gives you one direction to go and that's forwards. And you definitely see when times become tough, you work out what is the most important thing, why you're in business. And it's sad that businesses have to sometimes make those very snap decisions in a pandemic like we are currently in. That's right, anyone in the future that’s listening to this, we’re in a pandemic. It's definitely better to be able to have the forethought hindsight and time to get a workout and plan strategically. And that's I guess, where you can come in and help businesses out to have that ability to see into the future without having to be at that spot where they have to make these hard decisions, get rid of key employees and make sure they can focus on their business and pulling the right direction. So the lean out method allows you to focus and plan before you need to focus and plan and be running a profitable, fantastic business without being pushed towards a hard wall. Is that fair to say? Crista: Yeah, absolutely. Well, the thing that I see so many people do wrong with planning is they're overly prescriptive. And they try to plan too far into the future. And I think plans are so critical. And you absolutely do want plans. And that's why you want a long term vision, you want a 90-day plan. But I also think that you need to look at what are the outcomes that we're trying to achieve. You need to allow some flexibility and getting there. And certainly, this year has proven that any prescriptive plans that you had probably got thrown 100% out the window. But it doesn't mean that you can't still achieve your goals or still achieve those outcomes that you are going to if you're willing to be flexible and pivot, and still make sure that you're directionally correct. Josh: All right. So you said the 90-day plan, how long term should you be looking at? Should you be going, okay, I know that we've had people come on the show before talk about exit strategies and things like that. And when you get into a business, you should know your exit strategy, you should know the vehicle and what it's bringing away where you're going with it. And so they're talking sometimes, five years, ten years, twenty years into the future, what do you want it to look like? I know myself, I had a sort of a bit of a real moment, I thought, what I want to be remembered for at my funeral, and then work everything back from there. So when you're planning, the core objectives you want to get to see and achieve and be able to see those milestones and wins, and those champagne moments would be in those 90 day, I guess you'd have a detailed 90 days and then do sort of step back and still into the future a bit further. How long term do you need the vision to be? Crista: Yeah, absolutely. So I always say from a vision perspective, you should look as far into the future as you can. And so when people are first starting a business, sometimes they either have this big grand vision, or they have a very small vision. Like I just want to make enough money to never have to have a nine to five again, right. That was my very first business that I ever had. That was all I wanted. My vision today very different now that I have such a big company in. So I think that you just want to look as far into the future, as you can see, but at this stage, I'm absolutely thinking and looking in terms of ten years. But I'm looking again at outcomes and results in what I want. I'm not looking at specifically how I'm going to get there every month for the next ten years. And I think that's the key is you need to know where you're going. You need to know what's important and why it's important. And that lets you make the right decisions in the near term and tactically do the right things, because you're wrapping it in that longer term strategic plan. Josh: Okay, that's fantastic. I know with the plan and that that should also be not just a plan for you in the business, it should be a plan for you and your personal life, you and your wife or husband or whatever the case may be. Like I know we've got a massive whiteboard and I wrote off at the end there $1.5 million house, two jet skis and all these different things that I wanted to have at the end and then I wrote where I am. Knowing what your goal is let you make sure that you can then work out and if this is something that you want to retire with or have financial freedom knowing your goals. And your steps beforehand, let you know what you need to do to get there. And that's important. It's writing it down and just knowing that's what it is, is that achievable? Is that not achievable? If it isn't achievable? What do I need to change to make it achievable? Crista: And that helps when things get tough, because like this year proved right, sometimes things just do not go according to plan. Sometimes we all have seasons that are good and bad in business. And when they're not so good, it's really nice sometimes to have that very clear vision of what you want, and what you see. Again, as you said, not just for the business, but also for yourself, because that helps you stay motivated, that helps you push through, that helps you keep pivoting and being innovative. At times when you are probably internally saying, boy, it would just be so much easier if I did something else. So it does help. Josh: It's like you're reading what I'm about to ask you. Anyone who is listening, Crista is not. I just wrote if your business is in its infancy, how do you balance your life? So how do you know that you need to be able to have those elements? How do you know what you should be focusing on? Like, if you know that you want to achieve certain things? And you go, okay, look, maybe you're single and you I want to achieve these things, and I've got a 90-hour week, and then for whatever reason you're at a barbecue and then the love of your life comes into your life? Oh, can't focus on that. You should not be spending 90 hours a week and visitors probably not very healthy either. But you can't necessarily you need to be out of balance everything. How do you make sure that you're balancing without pushing your goals further into the future? Crista: Yeah, so I have something that I call the time pie that I recommend everybody creates. And the reality is, we all have 24 hours in a day, right? The great equaliser, everybody has 24 hours in a day. You knock out the essentials for sleeping, eating and taking a shower and all that kind of stuff, and you're left with however many you have, right. And you have to figure out how you carve the rest of that time up. And you have to figure out what's important to you. And I always tell people look at it from a work day and a non-work day. Even as business owners even though we tend to have every day be a workday, we still have some days as more non work days, and look at what you want that balance to be. And then what I think you need to think about is, I think, a balance at a macro scale, as opposed to a micro scale. What that means is not every single day is going to be in balance. Not every single week is going to be in balance. You're going to have periods where you're launching something, where you're doing something where you maybe have something in your personal life, and things are going to be out of balance, which is fine. But you want to look at that macro scale and try to swing it back. So if you had too much going on in your business, and you were doing the 90-hour week that you mentioned, then you really do need to carve out time for personal. In the example you gave where you meet somebody, right? There's all these things in business that you feel are critical and you must do and while you're working the 90 hours. And then you all of a sudden realize you could have actually run a leaner business. Usually, well maybe I didn't really need to be doing that. I can create time to go on a date tonight. And so sometimes it's fun to even put yourself mentally in those types of scenarios, to say, what would I cut if this thing that I want so badly personally came up. And sometimes that's a good indicator of things that aren't actually as important as you think they are in your business. Josh: That example that I gave actually is very close to heart for me, I met my partner just over two years ago, and I while I went okay, I'm going to focus heavily on this. I love it, I live to work, I really enjoy it. And she said you're never gonna retire. I said, guys, technically I am retired, I said, if I'm doing everything that I love doing every day, and I can choose to do the things that I love doing. And there's only a small amount that I don't, then I said I kind of living the dream, but when she came in and I found that she was part of my dream, I went okay, well I've got to go to see what I can do there and definitely worked out how to rebalance that. Something else that I found though that was interesting was a dear friend of mine was saying that you need to sharpen your soul and sometimes going away and taking away a break away from your business allows you to sharpen your sword to be able to continue cutting down the trees as opposed to working out hard out continuing to cut it down, your soul becomes blunt, and then you just become working more and more. I went away for three weeks and only came back just recently and coming back on you know what there's so much that I that I haven't done during this time period that it became monotonous routine that I don't need to do that anymore. And just you're able to claim that out just by not doing it for a bit you realise you didn't need to do it. That could be something as simple as maybe you sit down and watch TV at a certain time or jump onto Netflix, and yeah, it’s not that important. So I'm not actually enjoying that as much as I would just having a sneaky one and have it cool or whatever it is. So, I found going on holidays definitely makes your business more efficient. How can you convince someone to do that though, if they are in that 90-hour week back and they go I can't possibly do this. How do you convince someone or have someone see the light? Crista: I have this happen all the time. So I actually back pre-COVID actually started a planning retreat. So people would come out to this luxurious location and we would plan their business and it was basically committed days to work on their business, but I did it intentionally to encourage people to take the break. And I mixed in just enough business, so they felt like they were getting in what they needed to, but also gave them a great opportunity and a lot of space. I always encourage them to add a day on the front and a day on the back. I would always say you're going to want time to think and reflect, and people would just come home so relaxed. But what I do outside of that, since these days, there's no in-person retreats, what I always encourage people to do when they're working, which I think is a really effective way of working is working in focus blocks. So when I help people work in focus blocks, I have them carve out focus blocks for self-care and for relaxation, and for recharging. And so I say use this concept for everything, and this week, I want you to commit to a minimum of a two hour focus block for self-care. Next week, I want you to do a minimum of a four hour focus block for self-care. And they get really into working in the focus blocks, and they find they actually get much more efficient anyway, so they have the space for it. But using that concept, that's almost like a time management thing that feels very businessly to them, usually will let them create the space to do it. And then they start to see the benefit from it. And it just kind of snowballs. Josh: That's cool. Like you said, you were very sneaky for them to see without saying come on holidays, come on, we'll look at the books, we'll go through everything a little bit. But that's good. It's a good way to sort of introduce that balance. And also, if partners are invited it gives them the ability to see their partners in the environment that they're in. And I like that. I know that you're familiar with the tomato timer and things like that 25/5 whatnot timers, I think that's an invaluable tool to make sure you are focusing and then shifting focus and focusing and shifting focus. And so there's definitely a lot of ground that was covered here. And for anyone out there that is listening, we've got a fantastic master class at leaner method is running there. And it goes through a bit on how to actually get your business tell me how does that work? Or what people to expect in the master class? Crista: So I truly believe that in order to level up your business and take it to the next level, you do need to lean out. And so in the master class, I walk everybody through, it's very interactive. And I walk everybody through how to do that. So how do you actually lean out your business? How do you level up your business? How do you combine both to really get results that are sustainable? So it's multiple days, every day we go through an activity, people have homework, this is one that you got to show up and work for. But it's good because it's for your business and each day's session builds on the prior day. So by the end of the masterclass, people have their next level vision defined, they have their 90-day plan defined, they've created their time pie. They've started to look at how they can achieve more balanced, they have committed to working and focus blocks and carve out what they're going to be working on in focus blocks plus a whole lot of other things. But really, I take you through everything that you need to think about how you can lean out your business and what it's going to take to level up your business. Josh: It's five days, you said yeah? Crista: It's five days, and I toss in some bonus stuff, too. So it's usually about nine days that we're together. Josh: Just getting back to the time pie. Five days, isn't that long for the amount of value they get from that on the time pie. So many people I talked to, like, how long are you on social media for a week, and they got in, a couple of hours. And then I'm going, how often are you doing this a week? How often do you do that a week? I installed a couple of different tools, Manic Time is one of them and Rescue Time is another. I thought how often am I actually doing this stuff. And I'm on Facebook for two and a half hours a week. And I thought well, that's okay enough like that. That's not terrible. And that's including messenger and stuff like that. But I can still cut that down. So I've tried to cut that down to an hour. I've got other friends that install it that they've found out, they're on there for 15 hours a week. And I thought how many people get I don't have the time to do this. They don't have the time to do that. I said if you if you're doing things, and you don't even know how long it's taking to do that. If you're on Facebook for 15 hours a week, it's definitely not going to bring as much value as jumping into the master class and finding out what you can do 15 hours of Facebook a week, that's only a month of Facebook, you're going to swap out to add significant income and level up your business. So I definitely suggest you go across there and check it out. A couple of final thoughts. One question that I had for you is what is your favorite book that people can read and just really get this influence inside going, okay, this is what I need to be doing? And what was that book that changed your mindset? Crista: Oh, gosh, there's so much but I would say if I recommended one book that's really in the camp of lean, it would be the one thing. And so it's really just about focusing really, really, really great book. Gary Keller wrote it I want to say it came out a few years back. Josh: Is there any other questions that you had for me or any final words that you'd like to leave our listeners with? Crista: I would say you know, if you don't already have that next level of vision, make sure that you create that. Come up with a 90-day plan that's in alignment with that. And most importantly, make sure the things you do on a daily basis actually are in alignment with your vision and your goals. Because usually people find a lot of things that they do on a day to day basis aren't actually the things that are going to move you closer to what you envision for your business. And that right there is the quickest way to lean out your business and get back some of that balance is just eliminating those things that aren't in alignment. Josh: Definitely good advice and again, getting back to when I started. I was a fantastic technician, a shithouse business owner. I definitely needed to focus more on the hustle side of things. Anyone that does want more information that leanoutmethod.com/masterclass, we'll put a link in the description. If you have enjoyed the episode, make sure to jump across to iTunes, leave us some love, give us a review. And you guys choose the content and direct the path of where we go. And I've loved having you Crista and thank you very much. Crista: Thank you so much for having me.

The Business of Open Source
Securing the Cloud with Josh Stella

The Business of Open Source

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 30, 2020 39:16


The conversation covers:  Josh's role as CTO of Fugue, a leading cloud security and compliance provider for engineers.  The difference between cloud security and data center security — and why old school approaches to security don't work in the cloud.  How engineers and security specialists can best communicate with business leaders about how to approach security, and how Fugue can help.  Who should be the person in charge of setting up Fugue, running reports, and communicating results across an oragnization. The people who tend to lose their job when a cloud security breach occurs.  Why cloud security requires organizational change, and how companies are adapting to prevent issues.  The importance of upskilling employees and making sure they have the appropriate knowledge to solve cloud challenges.  Why the cloud has the possibility to be more secure than a data center. Josh also talks about cloud perception, and why some are still viewing the cloud as scarier than the data center.  What Joshn considers to be the most effective hacking strategies for cybercriminals.  The relationship between security and compliance, and how organizations should approach that relationship.  Why there is no such thing as a perfect security posture.  Links Fugue: https://www.fugue.co/  Customer write-up on G2: https://www.g2.com/products/fugue/reviews/fugue-review-4269523 Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshstella LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-stella-949a9711/ Fugue Blog: https://www.fugue.co/blog Fugue Masterclass: https://resources.fugue.co/cloud-security-masterclass-registration Fugue Office Hours: https://resources.fugue.co/cloud-infrastructure-security-office-hours TranscriptEmily: Hi everyone. I'm Emily Omier, your host, and my day job is helping companies position themselves in the cloud-native ecosystem so that their product's value is obvious to end-users. I started this podcast because organizations embark on the cloud naive journey for business reasons, but in general, the industry doesn't talk about them. Instead, we talk a lot about technical reasons. I'm hoping that with this podcast, we focus more on the business goals and business motivations that lead organizations to adopt cloud-native and Kubernetes. I hope you'll join me.Emily: Welcome to The Business of Cloud Native. I'm Emily Omier, your host, and today I'm chatting with Josh Stella. Josh, thanks so much for joining us.Josh: Well, Emily, thanks so much for having me.Emily: Of course. I always like to start the same. Can you just introduce yourself and your company, and tell me a little bit about what the company does, and then also what you do?Josh: Sure. So, Fugue does cloud security for public cloud providers like AWS, and Azure, and Google. Prior to founding Fugue, I worked at AWS as a principal solutions architect primarily focused on national security; Department of Defense, and similar things. My background is I'm a programmer and I'm a software architect, and I've kind of lived between national security kinds of work and high tech in startups. And so what Fugue does is we'll tell you all about the security posture of your cloud environments, and teach you where you have weaknesses that hackers can exploit; we help you close those, and then we can actually keep things from having those misconfigurations going forward. So, that's a little bit about us. If you're a developer, you can use our forever free developer version, and we work with a lot of enterprises folks like SAP, and big organizations, too.Emily: So, were you involved with setting up the super-secret CIA cloud that AWS was involved in?Josh: I was not personally. A very close colleague of mine was actually working very closely on that, but no, I was not directly involved in that.Emily: Okay, you probably couldn't talk about it, even if you were so. [laughs].Josh: No comment.Emily: Anyway, I always like to ask also, what do you actually do? Like, you get up in the morning, presumably, you don't go to an office anymore, but—Josh: Oh, true. True, yeah. Whether going to an office or not, my days are… so I started out founding the company with my co-founder, Andrew Wright. And for a while, I was the CEO when we were in the kind of R&D phase, but then I always intended to hire a really great CEO, which we did a couple of years ago, Phillip Merrick, and I became the CTO. And there are different kinds of CTO. My main functions are, like, I get up in the morning, I go read the news about any breaches in Cloud that have happened, and then I try to recreate them whenever possible, if there's enough information, because the attack vectors on Cloud are completely different than in the data center, and are inobvious to folks. So, when you read about a breach, and you see that they use the identity and access management service almost like a network, to get to S3, that's really interesting and it's really important so that Fugue can protect our customers. So, I spent a fair amount of time doing that. I do work every day with the product team. Occasionally, I will weigh in fairly strongly on an engineering topic, but a lot of times our engineers are just very, very good and we've hired experts and all their areas so I work with them, but it's usually just to give advice and some guidance. And I do a fair amount of writing, and I do a fair amount of teaching classes online: we have a masterclass series on Cloud security that has been very well received. And then the research I do into how cloud exploits are actually being done by recreating those in my own environments, I use those both in the classes and of course, Fugue as our product can then have protections built-in against them. So, I'd say that's a lot of what I do.Emily: I wanted to ask a little bit more about this difference between cloud security and data center security. Can you go into that a little bit more? And then also, what do people miss in that difference?Josh: Okay, so I'm going to start at the prosaic and kind of go to the sublime a little bit, but the most simple way to think about the difference is in the data center days, you really had a network perimeter. So, you've got a big pile of servers, they're racked and there are switches that that connect them together, and then there's this layer of security at the, kind of, perimeters of the network where the data center network connects to, whether it's the corporate network, or another data center, or the internet. And that kind of perimeter defense slash defense in-depth idea meant when you were talking about data center security, the primary things you were thinking about were, “What's happening on my network?” And, “Are the servers—or the physical devices that are actually running compute stuff—are they secure?” Well, it turns out in the Cloud, almost none of that matters that much, and the reason is—so I think Gartner recently said, like, over 90 percent of cloud exploits are due to misconfigured cloud services. So, that the data center, you had, like, piles of baryonic matter. You had actual servers in racks, you would replace them every three years, maybe five years on a recap cycle. And so it was moving slowly, and to get to those things, you had to kind of penetrate those layers of network perimeter and defense in depth. Well, on the Cloud if you stand up an S3 bucket, for example—and the press loves to pick on S3 breaches because well, a lot of people store data in S3, but very often these breaches are much more complex than just a misconfigured S3 bucket—but Gartner said the vast majority—and this is what we see, and what I saw at AWS—of hacker success in Cloud is looking for misconfigured cloud services, and then exploiting those. So, wherein the old days you might have been really concerned: “Do I have a bunch of packets coming in from an IP address that's known to have botnet activity on it?” And if so, I'll try to shut off that flow of packets, and, “Are my server operating systems patched?” And things like that. You definitely still want to keep your patch levels up, but a more typical cloud exploit would be something like finding API keys in an insecure place so that the attacker can modify your cloud infrastructure, and goes in and steals the backup of a database, or installs crypto mining software inside your infrastructure. So, it's a really big topic, but you really have to think about it very differently. You have to think about it as a software engineer more than as a security engineer. You have to think about it less as, “I'm protecting things,” and more as, “I'm configuring them properly. I'm making the Cloud safe by configuring it properly.” This is why we teach masterclasses. There's a very long list of ways to get those things wrong.Emily: Do you think in general, people are aware of these differences, and this idea that you have to think about security differently? Like, how much is that percolating through to people who are not in—they're not living and breathing this cloud computing space?Josh: It has not dawned on as many people as I wish it had. [laughs]. There are still a lot of folks who think using old school approaches to security will work on Cloud. And there are a number of problems with that. One is that the skills needed to do this stuff properly on Cloud are more like software engineering, engineering skills, and less analyst skills. So, when you can configure all of your compute resources via APIs, which is how the Cloud works, you're going to automate—I can build a global network while I'm talking to you by typing in the background. You could not do that in the data center. So, I don't see enough people being aware, not fully. And the worst thing that I see—well, and it's particularly bad if you don't understand what the threat is and what the attack surfaces are because, guess what, the attackers are all automated and very clever, and they will get you—but the next bad thing I see is when people try to force the Cloud to act like a data center in order to use the old ideas about how to do security. And that removes all the advantages of the Cloud, and it also never works.Emily: That's interesting. Obviously, this podcast is about the business of cloud and cloud-native, and security is sort of ultimately a business problem.Josh: Yep.Emily: How do people talk about security when they're talking, not just inside the engineering department, but also with business leaders, and how can engineers—or security specialists—how can they communicate, “This is the way we need to approach security. This is why. This is what we need to do and why?” How do people make sure there's not some stuff that gets lost in translation?Josh: What I recommend is that—and this is why we—it's one of the reasons why we built Fugue, is we give people tools for doing this—what I would recommend is kind of base camp one on climbing the Cloud security mountain is just understanding your current security posture; understanding whether what you have built in the Cloud is safe. And I can pretty much guarantee to every listener that, you know, we had a new customer write a nice write-up on Fugue in G2 saying, “Fugue is going to hurt your feelings the first time you run it.” We're going to tell you about a whole bunch of stuff that should scare you, and we're going to present that visually, and that's something you can take to a boss. You can say, “Hey, I used this free tool and it says we have, like, 90 things configured in ways that hackers exploit. We should go fix those, and by the way, we should keep keeping track of this.” And so I think presenting the information, rather than it being vague, quantifying it and having evidence, in my experience—in general in life around business decisions—is much better than having an opinion or winning an argument. So, get some data, show it to your boss, and go start fixing stuff. [laughs].Emily: So, my next question is who should do this? I mean, I think there's often a question related to security, and particularly you were just saying part of the issue with cloud security is that there's a little bit of a shift of responsibility, but who should be the one that's setting up Fugue, and running these reports, and talking to their boss about this problem?Josh: Yeah. So, it varies because organizations are struggling with where these things should live. What I believe is the concern with security, as you pointed out, is fundamentally a business concern. It's: “are my systems doing what is intended for whom it is intended, and only that?” So, that has to begin with the folks that are building the systems. So, very often at Fugue, what we'll see with the more sophisticated customers we have, the DevOps team will want this stuff baked in really early in the software development lifecycle, and they might even be doing that kind of independently of the security team, but the security team usually also has a role as does the compliance team. So, what we believe is that this should be implemented throughout the entire software development lifecycle from when people are writing their infrastructure's code or building infrastructure in the development environments, all the way through to monitoring and production, and doing audit reports for SOC 2 compliance or whatever. Generally, with Fugue—depending on the organization—we will either find folks who really care about what we do in the DevOps team, or in the security team. And the way we like to talk about it is any engineer who is concerned with security—whatever their title and role—can benefit from understanding cloud security and being more effective at it.Emily: When there is a cloud security breach, who loses their job?Josh: Uh, well, quite a few CSOs. If it's the kind that hits the Wall Street Journal, usually the CSO is not going to be around. And if you can agree with what I'm saying, which is that building stuff correctly and not misconfiguring cloud is the most critical thing to get right for cloud security CSOs don't generally have authority over how people build software. And I think this is a disconnect that really needs to be addressed in every organization. If you get breached, you might say, “Well, that's the chief information security officer's job to keep those from getting breached.” In the old days, that meant the security organization adding in those layers of perimeter defenses and trying to capture things. Well, now it means, you know, Global 2000 or Fortune 500, there are thousands of developers, any one of whom might be building a new network right now, or a whole new application and all of its attendant infrastructure. So, I think we're going through a period where that shift in technology has created a shift in responsibilities, or maybe a shift in the ability to do the right things and where that needs to happen, but the old ways of thinking about how information technology was built and secured aren't helping. So, the CSO gets fired, but it's usually not their fault is my opinion. [laughs].Emily: What would you think—I mean, everything I talked about with moving to Cloud and moving to cloud-native, there's all these technical changes, but there's also all these organizational changes. How does cloud security require organizational change? And how successful do you see companies being at adapting not just tech, but also organizations?Josh: Well, I mean I think that is the important part. The tech is there: we built Fugue, there's other tools out there, there's other things you can use, there is great technology for this. The struggle is with the organization and how to implement it, and how to operationalize it, and build it into workflows. So, I think that as far as how well people are doing with it: it's highly variable, and it's even highly variable within organizations. So, you might find a sort of pocket of people who are very clued in to how you should be thinking about this and dealing with it in the same company where another group is still thinking, our firewalls and our intrusion detection systems are good enough, or are more important than they are. So, it really comes down to whether you are thinking in a cloud-native way. And I think that the Cloud is not a pile of remote data centers. It is a global distributed computer that you can program and configure. And that's really what we're talking about when you build an air-quotes, “network,” Amazon aren't running around and plugging wires into switches. That's just a configuration. It's just a configuration of that big distributed computer, and so we have to think about this from a software engineering perspective. Now, the good news is there, that—well as it relates to the organization, a lot of security organizations don't have a lot of developers in them, and so this looks confusing and scary. And that always creates challenges. If people are intimidated by something or it's out of their comfort zone, that actually creates organizational friction. But I'm here to tell you, the Cloud is potentially—if done well—Cloud is the most secure way to do computing ever invented by humans, and for a really simple reason: you can control it all through APIs. Now, that means I can build a global network in five minutes and you might not notice, but it also means I can write programs that are constantly aware of everything and know how to get things right. So, it is a big organizational challenge, a lot of folks that are trying to, kind of, adapt their traditional data center teams may not be aware that you probably have people on your teams that are really trying their level best but don't have the most appropriate skills for the problem that is now required to be solved.Emily: Skilling up is always a big challenge, as is reorganizing and reconceptualizing how you work and how you work together.Josh: Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of the—it gets really complex because organizational structure has a whole lot more inertia than technology, and for lots of reasons: somebody has been here for 15 years and wants to get promoted, or hasn't been promoted and has a whole team and a budget, and who's going to pay for this, and who's going to chip into this, and which managers need to change their ideas about what they own and are responsible for? And I'm not trying to be pejorative here. That's all real stuff. The Cloud has effectively turned security on it's head. It used to be the infrastructure and security teams would go build secure environments, and then application developers would deploy into those environments. And now all of a sudden, application developers run a script or a program, and it builds the “infrastructure”—air quotes, again. We're really configuring a big, existent thing—but all of a sudden, in five minutes, you have what it would have been weeks and months of procurement, and discussion, and controls on what was being built. So, when you have a change that radical, you probably can expect—you should expect—that a lot of people are going to be challenged by that and probably won't tell you that they are because people don't like to admit when they don't understand something. So, skilling people up is really, really important. What we try to do in the masterclass series is give people new ways to think about these topics. I can't teach you everything I know about cloud security in a series of classes that are only an hour every other week or something, which is about what we do, but I can tell you how to take apart the problems and really think about them. And guess what? Even if you don't already know how to do that, you can learn it, and it's interesting, and it's fun.Emily: I wanted to go back to something else that you said about Cloud having the possibility to be more secure than a data center. How do you think that figures—if at all—into organizations' decision to move into the Cloud? I mean, how aware are they that this actually could be more secure?Josh: Highly variable. Some understand that. Most don't. Most are still viewing Cloud as, kind of, scarier than the data center because their mindset hasn't shifted. So, for example, with Fugue, you can tell Fugue, “Tell me everywhere I have a dangerous misconfiguration.” And we will show that to you on an automatically generated map, like a Google map of your infrastructure. We'll show you physically, visually where that is. Well, how would you do that, even that simple thing from a Cloud—Fugue perspective, in the data center? You would have to typically do what's called a data call, and get a bunch of human beings to answer questions and plug data into spreadsheets, and when I worked in national security, we would get these data calls, and you'd be given, like, a week. Well, Fugue can do that every five minutes, in about five minutes. So, even out of the gate, the fact that you can use computer software to interrogate the other computer software means you can automate it, and you can be much more thorough. Humans, also, are terrible at keeping lists of details. Computers are great at it, so we can use them for that. But then as you extend further—and we have this diagram of climbing a mountain of cloud security—so the very first base camp, sort of, at the foot of the mountain is just understanding what you have and what's wrong. But as you go up, you want to start doing some other things: you want the system to automatically tell you any time something changes, and any time something changes in a dangerous way. And then with Fugue, we've, kind of, taken this to its logical conclusion—and we're unique in this regard. This is actually what we started with when we first founded the company, and why we did so much R&D—you can tell Fugue, if anything is misconfigured, automatically heal it back to a known good configuration. Fully self-healing infrastructure is something that was totally elusive for decades in the data center because there weren't consistent APIs over these things. So, not a lot of people are ready to think that way, but that's where this is all going.Emily: So, is this kind of like how people are more afraid to fly in an airplane because they're not in control, but they have no problem getting into their car, even though you're, like, dramatically more likely to die in a car accident.Josh: That is an awesome analogy and I'm going to steal it. Yeah, it really is a lot like that. I think that in the history of automated systems in computer security, a lot of claims were made that couldn't be backed up with tech because we did not have these very consistent APIs that the Clouds have. If you were trying to do automated security in a data center, you probably got burned. So, in a way—and I don't want to strain your analogy too much, but I might a little bit—early flight was not so safe. Until you really get into the '60s and '70s, you should probably have been nervous getting on an airplane in 1937 or 1945, but by the time we really had figured it out, it became tremendously safer—as you point out—than driving a car. And I think that folks are just starting to realize it. But you have to trust the system, you have to trust the automation, and that takes time and building trust. But I'm here to tell you, this can now be done in a way that will work highly effectively and it is the future. The bad guys are all automated, okay? The hackers are running scripts, and programs and botnets constantly to find anything you have facing the internet that has any exploit they know how to use. So, they just get up in the morning and have a cup of coffee and look through a log of all of your and everyone else's stuff that you got something wrong on, and they point another program that and exploit it. Well, if you're not using automation and they are, you're doomed.Emily: Yeah, I wanted to ask, so if you went over to The Dark Side and decided to be a hacker, what would you do? What do you think are the most effective hacks? You don't have to go in detail, of course, but I'm just curious what you've learned.Josh: Sure. I mean, there's a lot of ways to do this stuff. I mentioned two of the most common ways are finding—so if everything is driven by APIs, if you can get a hold of the API keys—essentially the login information, the ability to access APIs—if you can get a hold of those, then whoever's stuff is using those APIs you can now get to. And so you see a lot of that, folks using bad engineering practices and putting keys in source code, and it's showing up in GitHub, and people searching GitHub for keys. Or doing things like having unencrypted backup snapshots of file systems sitting out there and in those file system backups there being keys. That's something bad guys do a lot. You should be using things like IAM, and key rotation, and putting everything in KMS, and doing best practices there, and never ever, ever having API keys stored in source code or on a disk or anywhere that the bad guy might find, it even later. I mean, there was a breach last year of actually a cloud security company—not us—where that's exactly what the bad guys did. They found—I won't name names—but they found some keys, and then they managed to get into the company's cloud environment—and this is really a cool hack. Instead of—the keys they found gave them access to the production database, but they didn't go into it. Why didn't they go into it? Because they're probably monitoring the production database. But those same keys allowed the bad guys to stand up another database cluster with a backup of the production database. Like that is such a cloud-native hack, you would never have hackers—well, I can't say never, but it would be extraordinarily difficult to imagine hackers breaking into a data center and then standing up a new compute cluster to steal data from so that it wouldn't be monitored because that would be obvious. But in Cloud, that's probably happening all day, every day where people are building stuff, and that's why something like Fugue becomes important. So, there's lots of ways you can go about it, and honestly, one of the most fun parts of my job is reading about those things and seeing how hackers are going about it because I'm telling you, they are more clever and more cloud-native than most of the people that are trying to prevent them coming in, and I'm often just very impressed and, kind of, I'm not happy anyone's data got stolen, but I can appreciate a good hack and there's some really clever ones out there. IAM relationships is another big one to look at. People still think of IAM—identity and access management stuff—as being identity. And it is, but now it's the identity of compute resources, and it forms a network that sidesteps the TCP/IP-based network, and so if you can surf that network, nobody's probably monitoring it and you can get a lot of places. So, I can't answer more succinctly than that, but those are a couple of ways.Emily: Before we go, I wanted to ask you about the relationship between security and compliance. So, even if security is clearly a business problem, compliance is, like, even more into that business-y category. Can you just talk a little bit about the relationship between security and compliance and how organizations need to think about that relationship?Josh: Well, it's a good question. So, historically—at least in the environments that I worked in—compliance and audit were, sort of, at the end of the development process as a sort of gating function. In the national security world, you need to get what's called an ATO, an authority to operate, and an ATO requires going through a NIST certification and accreditation against the 800-53 compliance family standard, and that's a big manual process with a human team, and Excel spreadsheets, and big documents and so on. And it makes sense. You do want to try to prevent bad stuff from happening. Well, in Cloud—and then security was kind of different in that security were the folks who were doing things like monitoring firewall configurations and doing packet capturing at those perimeters that don't exist anymore, and doing intrusion detection, and making sure people's laptops didn't have unapproved applications on them. So, these worlds were a little separated. In Cloud, they're actually much more closely related, and they should be. And the beauty of that is, when you look at these compliance standards, like NIST 800-53, like SOC 2, like PCI, or GDPR, or HIPAA, or any of them—we cover a whole bunch of them—they're going to give you a whole lot of good advice from a security perspective. So, you can now, using automation and tools like Fugue, rather than having this dreaded audit come, or CNA process at the end of your development cycle that's going to add weeks to—of friction before you can deploy as you fix errors, you can just constantly be using those compliance standards to check your work in an automated way. So, you build a little, you find out that, “Well, am I breaking any NIST rules?” You know, NIST is going to tell you—well that NIST implemented correctly, like in Fugue, Fugue's going to tell you, “NIST says you have to have all your data be encrypted at rest everywhere,” And we're going to look across hundreds of cloud resource types and tell you if anywhere, you have data that's not being encrypted at rest. So, it really changes the game on Cloud because now compliance through automation, so it's not this manual audit at the end anymore, you can now have it completely automated and baked into the software development lifecycle instead of doing a week-long audit at the end. In five minutes, you get that feedback, and you can keep doing it iteratively. Compliance can actually become a massive help to getting things secure all the way through the lifecycle. And in fact, I would point folks to a good friend of ours, was the guest star of a class about a week ago, and he's an expert on bringing cloud environments into compliance. And he taught a whole class on that, I'd recommend that. The final thing I'll say, though, is all those CIS benchmark, and NIST, and all those, there's lots of good stuff in there, but what we've learned from recreating these cloud hacks, is that the hackers are ahead of the compliance standards and the security teams. And so in Fugue, we bake in what we call Fugue Best Practices, and really what that is, is a collection of stuff that will tell you if you're vulnerable to the kind of hack that you read about in the news recently. And you're not necessarily going to get that—you won't get a complete picture of that with things like NIST, and CIS, and so on. However, they're awesome; they're going to tell you a lot. I hope that answered the question. I hope I answered the correct question there. [laughs].Emily: Oh, absolutely. Well, first of all, it sounds like you can be completely compliant and still get hacked, but I think everybody knows that, you know, there's no such thing as a perfect security posture.Josh: That is very true. The security posture is going to be helped by looking at compliance standards. There are other things we know are dangerous that are not in the compliance standards, and that's why we put those—and by the way, those things are actually in the totally free forever version of Fugue; you can go see if you're vulnerable to this because the compliance bodies are, kind of, slower-moving, and we can be faster. But then there's another third category, which is hackers doing stuff that no one predicted they would do. And guess what? They're good at that. There's a reason why hacking used to mean a clever program, and now the means breaking into your stuff because they do it through cleverness, through deep technical expertise. So, you're not going to be able to predict what they're going to do, and that's their job. And therefore you have to employ other tactics than just compliance. You have to employ things like drift detection: noticing if anything changed in the environment's configuration. And again in Cloud, 90 percent of what you should care about is configuration of Cloud. Not logs, not packets going over networks. Those are leaky abstractions on Cloud. They don't capture—there is no real perimeter, so you really have to be thinking about configuration. And you want to use compliance standards, you want to use predictive rules, but then you also need to keep track of what's going on. So, for example, if I saw a compute instance change its IAM role association, I would immediately—if I got a notification that that happened, I would be immediately looking into that because that has the potential to be a devastating attack, and probably the biggest breach anyone has ever heard of, that's how it happened. So, we now predict that in Fugue Best Practices, but you really need to get things right from a security and compliance perspective, but then keep in mind that the hackers are going to do things that you're not predicting, and that's why we do drift detection and self-healing in Fugue because you just can't think of every bad thing they might do to you.Emily: I think also part of what you're saying is just don't think of compliances as exclusively this hurdle that you have to jump through, but also think of it as almost like a tool that you can use, a set of best practices that you can use throughout the process.Josh: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the beautiful thing about what's happening now with Cloud. It's stuff that used to be this onerous data call, and you have to fill out forms. You can just use—so, okay. I'm a programmer. I'm not a security engineer as a background, I'm a very security-focused programmer and software architect. When I'm writing a program, I have tools that tell me where I'm being dumb. That's, like, 80 percent of the job is your tools telling you where you've made errors, and then the other 20 percent is you catching the errors the tools weren't smart enough to find. So, for example, just to use a, kind of, goofy, trivial example, if I were to try to multiply your name times a date, if I have a decent programming compiler, or interpreter, or debugger, it's going to tell me, “You probably don't want to multiply a name by a date. You're probably not going to get a result that is sensible.” So, it's going to tell me where I've made a mistake. With Fugue and similar technologies, that can now be done for security and compliance. And we use the compliance families to provide that guidance. So, in the same way that a programmer in the past would see, “I've made a cast error on types,” or something, now with using Fugue, Fugue will tell you, “Hey, you made a security error on that firewall rule.” With Cloud, and APIs, and automation tools like Fugue, security and compliance become highway builders, not tollbooth operators. They contribute to velocity rather than taking it away, and I think that's really exciting.Emily: I just have a couple, sort of, last questions for you. The first one is what tool could you not live without, or I should say, do your job without?Josh: Well, to be honest with you. The most important tool I use, other than things like web browsers that are just par for the course, is just having a great text editor. [laughs]. And programmers out there will understand why I'm saying that. And I got to say, I was an Emacs guy for, like, 20 some years, but VS Code is really, really good. I love what Microsoft's doing these days with the programming tools, and so I'll choose VS Code. I love it.Emily: And then how can listeners connect with you, follow you, read more?Josh: Oh, cool, yeah. So, on Twitter, I'm @joshstella. They can email me, I'm Josh, J-O-S-H@Fugue, F-U-G-U-E.co. I'm on LinkedIn. And if you ping me on any of those—I mean, the main thing I would suggest is keeping track of our blog, and the masterclass series, and we also do office hours. I mean, we take education really, really seriously at Fugue and trying to educate folks about what we have learned. And so hopefully people will find those things valuable. A lot of folks have.Emily: Well, thank you so much, Josh, for joining us.Josh: Well, yeah. Again, thanks for having me. I enjoyed the conversation, Emily.Emily: Thanks for listening. I hope you've learned just a little bit more about The Business of Cloud Native. If you'd like to connect with me or learn more about my positioning services, look me up on LinkedIn: I'm Emily Omier—that's O-M-I-E-R—or visit my website which is emilyomier.com. Thank you, and until next time.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Business Built Freedom
165|Making a Foundation for Growth With Jeff Chastain

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 29, 2020 31:13


Making a Foundation for Growth with Jeff Chastain Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land. I've got Jeff Chastain here from Admentus. And he's going to be talking to us about a few different ways that you can make a foundation for growth with something called EOS. So tell me a bit more about the process and what EOS is for anyone out there that's listening. Jeff: Sure. Well, thanks for having me. EOS is really just a, it's honestly just a simple set of business practices, business processes that work for entrepreneurial-led organisations to kind of instill that foundation, what you're talking about, it's still kind of that basic process in place, because honestly, most entrepreneurs that come into business, they've got a great idea, they've got an idea for a solution, a product, something like that, they take it to market, but what they don't necessarily have is an MBA and know exactly how to go structure and build a business. They go out to market, they hopefully have something that's viable, that a customer wants to go by, they've got it sold. And then we're kind of at the stage of, okay, now, what do we do are we actually going to grow up and treat this like a real business and scale out people, scale out systems, things like that, so we can move forward. If you look at all the business statistics and stuff like that three to four year mark, when a lot of small businesses failed, it's really that stage where the entrepreneur, their core team has basically kind of hit their limit of they're trying to do everything themselves and getting frustrated that okay, things just aren't working quite as well. And they lose traction, the business saying, okay, when we first started, it was really easy change really easy to adapt. Now we're here and it just feels like the business is stuck in the mud, we've kind of lost all sense of fun of direction here. And that point, they just say, hey, we're bailing out and starting over. Whereas an operating system like EOS really comes back in underneath their successful business really that they built to that point and says, okay, now let's solidify the foundation underneath it. Let's actually get everybody working together with the same vision, get everybody performing the same way. And just really kind of reinvigorate that business going forward. Josh: Okay, so what you said there pretty much you need to create structure within the business to allow for growth and to allow for everyone to pull the ship in the same direction. Because if everyone's blowing wind in the sails in the same direction, the ship will move forward, as opposed to creating turbulence. So how would you go about moving to a structure where you have the systems in place when most people are going off their feet their busy as. Everyone's complaining, they have no time. So how do you go about introducing something that takes up time, that will save you time, if you need to get over that hump to be able to get there, what's the process? Jeff: It's a longer journey process is the way we look at it. With a lot of things you'll go out and visionaries especially go to a weekend conference, or read a book and come back into the office Monday. And here's all the new ideas we're going to go implement. That kind of stuff honestly never works, it never gets the traction. Whereas EOS is really implemented as a very phased process where it will actually start working right off the bat with individual tools to say, okay, go back in tomorrow and into your business, let's start on just this one tool, just these two tools, and start kind of building that piece by piece into your daily journey, your daily practice your daily work right there, and really build it in over time. It's a longer implementation process. But it helps take, okay, everything that you're doing today, all your ideas you're doing today, now, let's map in a little bit of structure. Let's map in some new processes. Let's figure out okay, what are you doing today in your sales process, for example. And let's go take and document that at an 80/20 kind approach from an entrepreneurial standpoint, and really get just that little bit in place to where now everybody on your sales team is using the same process kind of a thing. So it's little pieces that you can build into time, and it's not a complete turn right right now with the entire company and expect everybody to stay on the track. Josh: Getting back to my ship analogy, you can’t turn a ship on a dime, can you? Or a five-cent piece if you're listening in Australia. So what kind of tools would you say you're looking to implement or would be something that you that you go into and you get, okay, 80% of the people are having this same problem because they haven't implemented X, Y, Z or haven't reviewed this stack? Jeff: Oh, one of the keys that we really look at first and you kind of already touched on it is simply just looking at the company vision to say, okay, this entrepreneur, this leader has his idea of, okay, where are we trying to get to as a company, but I forget where it was, was a Forbes study or something not too long ago that went in and did basically a study on all those thousand something different employees of a company, and they said basically one in four had some idea of what was going on in the company, that they understood the direction of the company, they understood where they fit, etc. And if you look at it and say, okay, if you've got Sally sitting here working in your operations department, and she's just there to go in and punch a clock, nine to five, in and out kind of a thing, versus you've got somebody over here on the other side that is in tune with the company vision, they're excited about, hey, this is what my job is. This is how it contributes to the company. This is how where we're going as a company, and this is how I'm helping to facilitate that. That type of employee is going to be a lot more productive for you. And obviously, if you can get everybody in the company with that mental attitude, then to your earlier point about blowing the sales, okay, yeah, now we've got everybody on the same page, because that's really the key is to say, okay when most people look at vision they're looking at, okay, here's our core values, our core focus of being honest, integrity, all the kind of buzzwords that they go stick on the website. And honestly, forget about at that point, it goes and collects dust out there on the About Us page, and really what vision should be, it starts with that but it goes a lot deeper to say, okay, our vision X, Y, Z IT company here, who are we trying to serve? Are we trying to serve a different certain market? And why are we trying to reach out to them? What makes us special to go reach out to that market? What are our key differentiators for reaching that market? So that way, it's defined at a company level. And so when marketing is putting together their pitch, sales knows what marketing is doing. Sales can go out and use those same three key differentiators right there and their sales pitch. And that way, the support team, the IT team, the operations team, whatever this delivering the service knows exactly what they're supposed to deliver. Because if marketing goes off and sells one thing, sales, goes off the rails and sells something else, operations just kind of sitting there left saying how in the heck are we going to deliver this? And everything's a mess at that point. Josh: Yeah, and unsatisfied customers are never a good thing to have. And that then makes the whole system crumble down. Like I know, for us, when we first started out 13 years ago, the direction that we went was like a lot of people that haven't read enough personal development books and decided to jump out there with a gung ho awesome attitude, knowing that you can do better than some of the other people out there decide to get the clients charge a lower price. Wrong move, Josh. What are you doing? Jeff: That works for a little while. Josh: That's right. I'm gonna go back and select teenage Josh, what's he doing? Idiot, read a book. Jeff: Yeah, you had to start somewhere. Josh: That's right. So when we did that, we had incredible growth, and we bought someone else on and we're both sitting on 150,000 a year. So we're both pretty happy before turned 21. So we're both pretty pumped, if I call myself Batman, and he's Robin. When Robin had a stroke, and Batman had to pick up the slack. Batman didn't have enough time. And he say to do that he was too busy saving lives. So that was nearly the collapse of our company. And that came down to all processes at that stage and growing on a price. And when we decided to change that around, exactly like you're saying, create that differentiator. So now the businesses that we work with, we guarantee that they will have the uptime that we've agreed upon. So depending on the business, that could be businesses not down for more than 30 minutes, or for an IT problem not down for four hours, if it's a smaller business or something like that. And if they go down that guarantee means we pay them per hour at the agreed rate while their business is down. So we want them to be up and running as quickly as possible, because there's no money in us paying them while we're fixing the problem. Jeff: Sure, sure. Yep. Josh: It just realigns the way and make sure that our offerings and what you're saying there perfectly with the team. You want to make sure your team's pulling in the same direction. We figured as an IT provider and solutions provider to make sure that we are pulling in the same direction as them. And if we're charging people per hour, when something goes down, they're already upset with us, and then we're whacking them with a big invoice. So they just get more upset with us. And we found that the less skilled, less experienced IT companies would take longer to fix the problems therefore earn more money. And we went this doesn't make any sense. What is going on with this world? Why are we doing this? This doesn't make any sense at all. So we changed the model and then let's flip it on its head, let's have them be paid when things go down. That's one of our differentiators that we try to push through in our marketing as well as through our sales. But you're exactly right. You need to have that thing that we differentiate it isn't price because it's very easy to see the differences between that and that doesn't help businesses out. Getting back to what you said you said is Sally's in the business that may just want to do nothing but clock in. And it did sound like you want to create a latest mentality throughout the whole company. We have ever been looking at a problem, finding a solution and bringing that to the table for everyone to review and look at as opposed to just being a meat in a seat, so to speak. Jeff: Definitely you want to you want to empower your team basically give them give them a reason to come reason that they want to be there a reason that they feel like they're contributing, and also basically have that almost honesty, integrity, kind of openness in the company such that regardless of what level of the company Sally's at, if she sees an issue, or has a problem, or whatever, she feels comfortable raising that and everybody's going to take it seriously kind of a thing. While, you've got to have the structure in the company, and obviously reporting structure hierarchy, stuff like that. You've got to be real careful not to make that too rigid, especially in a small company that say, okay, well, you're at the bottom level, you can't do anything, just go do your job kind of a thing. You want to encourage that growth, that leadership model there to say, hey, no matter what your role is you're contributing this is how you fit into our long-term strategy, our long-term vision, this is where you are. And really, I said, empower them, make them feel like they're part of that so that they can contribute, they feel like they've got a worth and value in that company. Josh: I know, Dad has always said, if you can think of a way a problem can be solved. It's better to have that solution be found by a staff member. And they will then take ownership over that, and they'll cradle that and that'll become their baby, as opposed to even if you know what the solution can be just jamming that down someone's throat doesn't necessarily have people care for your solution. But if someone finds that, and then they take that ownership, and they take that pride in what they have found, that they brought to the table, and everyone wins. It's kind of like inception, you need to try and put that idea into their head, if you've got the idea, or work together and have people just started to spring up ideas and have moments. So we do a half Friday. And normally at the moment, I'm not drinking any beer for six weeks, but we only have a few beers and have a beer meeting, and go through how can we have done this week better? What was your favorite part? What was your least favorite part? And is there any new tools that you've seen out there that could help? Was there any special compliments that you had from clients? Was there any particularly difficult clients? And then we go through and work out how we can phase that. And then we do a difficult question section, which is where we reflect on each other? And we say, oh, look, I didn't quite like the way that you said X, Y, Z. Or you could have approached that question that you asked me in a less hasty way, or whatever the case is, just to make sure that you do have a better team, a better family that you're working with. When you go into businesses, what are the families like? How is the structure that disparity? Is it sometimes like, is there more strength in one arm than there is another say, for instance, they've got a fantastic team, but not a very well defined vision? Or is it all over the place? Jeff: Honestly, I'd say family is the right term to describe it with, because you can obviously have some families that are really tight, well knit together and enjoy being together, working together. And you've got other families that you better not put them all at the dinner table because they're going to be yelling and screaming at each other. Yeah, picking whatever, whatever the discussion is politics or religion, or whatever, they want to go at each other about kind of a thing there. You see it all in both kind of thing. And a lot of times, that's really, it's a culture really, from the top of the business. I see most of the time, that okay, are you going to have that entrepreneurial leader, because if you look at entrepreneurs, the journey, most of the time you've been talking about, okay, you and your partner starting off that business, at that point, you start growing out, start growing out. And the question is, are you going to be able to hand off one of those hats that you're wearing to your new teammates that you brought on? Or are you going to kind of pull and tug on the hat at the same time, they're trying to take it sit in their back pocket and say, make sure you're doing this this way, make sure you're following these steps kind of thing, writing over them. At that point, you're not instilling any kind of trust or any kind of confidence in your team. They're sitting there looking over their shoulder all the time, saying, okay, am I about to get beaten over this kind of a thing? Am I about to get called out in front of everybody, because this didn't go exactly the way the owner would have done it kind of a thing? And when you've got that kind of mentality with that owner, not being able to delegate, not being able to hand things off, and it just cripples the entire staff right there from an attitude perspective, because honestly, everybody's sitting there saying, okay, I'm basically ducking the entire time saying, okay, who's going to be the next one to get on his radar? And being glad that okay, sorry, it's your turn here to go be in the spotlight, not mine kind of a thing. And it's like bad attitude. I've seen that in too many companies where the owner is all frustrated himself or herself saying, okay, why is the company not working? I'm having to get down to here in the weeds and do all this stuff. It's like, you got to realise that okay, delegation is one of the key points of being a successful leader. And then really, where really the EOS comes in is, okay, yes, is delegation, but you've got to have the processes in place. You've got to have the numbers, the metric stuff in place where if I've got a documented process for how we're going to handle a trouble ticket in an IT business, I can hand that off to my IT support team over here. And as long as my numbers, my dashboard are correct here to say, okay, all tickets are getting handled in less than 30 minutes or whatever our metrics are for our business. Then as a leader, as the CEO, I can step back and actually relax. I don't have to go stand over that IT tech and sit here and watch the stopwatch. Okay, are you getting done here, you got five minutes left kind of thing. Because I can see the metrics. I know everybody's following the process. And I don't have to worry about that anymore. And that's really the key with these businesses as you've got to be able to systematise the business, you got to go put those processes in place. It's almost kind of counterintuitive to say, we've got to put more structure in the business, we've got to put more framework more processes in place, so that you can relax and have more fun. But most people would look at that and say, wait a minute, more structure means rigidity. I take the creativity out of my business, I take the fun out of my business. And it's actually just the opposite. Josh: We call it elastic documentation. And in where I'll be the first to say I'll create our documentation internally, and I think you have owned that hat so to speak, it's only fair that you write down how you've managed that hat and how that has worked. But once that's being created, it's then up to the person or team that has received that hat to then modify it and change it and tweak it as time goes on. And as processes change, as you might find a better way. Because ultimately, I'm just one person that's walked one direction, but the path you've walked in your life, Jeff, is different to my path. And that's means that the input that you would have would be different. So we make sure that everyone knows that this is the documentation and how it can work, not how it should work. And make sure to have elastic documentation. And as you're saying, delegation is key. Absolutely. You need to be able to let go and let that bird fly than hold its wings and hold it back. Because if you’ll just tire it out. Jeff: And really the key with especially when you're talking about documentation, because too many times I'll see a company say okay, we don't have enough capacity, we need more resources. So they'll go hire somebody in. And it's like, well, jump in, go, Good luck, go figure out your own job, almost kind of a thing. So when you've got these processes and stuff, like you're talking figured out, you can go scale out your helpdesk support team, because you've got documented processes where somebody's gonna step into that role, know exactly what they're supposed to do on day one, it can be productive there rather than spend the next three, four months trying to figure out what their job is or reinvent processes, reinvent things figure out, okay, previous guy walked out the door and basically took all the knowledge in his head with him. And now what am I supposed to do in my new job? And we're sitting there as owners paying them to flounder basically, having that kind of system. Again, that kind of structure in place for those people just facilitates that scale and just again, adds economies of scale, right there. Josh: Coming back to that first employee, I was talking about, we both just worked together enough to learn how to do it. The second employee after David was Alex, and it took seven months before he became profitable. And I went this is terrible, especially like I had read the E-myth by Michael Gerber. And I thought, okay, I should know to do this, but I got caught in that. Don't have time to do it. So I haven't done it. And so I'll just keep doing what I'm doing until that's done. And then I'll never have time to have any fun, which sucks. Yeah, but the moment you have these processes in place, like the E myth, sort of discusses, McDonald's is run by 14-year olds. It's a multi billion dollar business, it's ran by teenagers, really old enough to know how to read the documents that you've got in front of them. And it means that you've got something to lean back on for KPIs, for everything. Every business should have their processes documented. And sometimes it's a lot easier to say than it is to do. Jeff: Definitely is. And one key point about McDonald's or any kind of place like that, if you go in there as your 14-year-old and say, okay, you're going to be a new line cook. They don't hand them a six-inch-thick SAP manual that says, Okay, here's every single little detail about every single little thing you need to know. They've got a laminated sheet there that says step one, step two through step six, this is what you need to follow right here. So to me, that's where a lot of people get stuck when we talk about processes. It is like, okay, where do I even start, and I'm going to end up working for months building out this huge thing. And then nobody looks at it kind of kind of a system, whereas EOS really pushes the 80/20 approach to say, okay, we're going to document the top 20% of exactly what you need to know from a high level to go figure this out, rather than dive down and build that entire SOP manual kind of a thing there that nobody does. It doesn't matter that it's 100% perfect right up front. Take a quick pass to say okay, this is what we do every time. This is the high-level points, and we can always go back and refine it agile kind of process but still just make a quick pass at it and get started, rather than sit there and say, hey, there's no way we can spend months trying to figure all this out, you don't need much, you just need something quick to get started. And honestly at that point, let the people doing the job right now fill in the details as needed. But even still, I would say, don't even, it's not worth their time your investment to go build that huge manual, you don't need all those little details. Just make sure you've got the flow to where somebody can sit down and figure out okay, I can take these six steps and go cook the hamburger, I can do whatever I need to at a high level right there. Josh: Keep it simple, stupid, I think is the case sort of mentality. And keeping it simple. I know if you bought up earlier going to different day seminars and things like that, that they tell you, this is how you change the world with your business just implement this one little thing. And one of them said, I document everything, everything has to be documented. I document where the coffee filters have to be purchased from. What seat I want in an aeroplane. And I've got 120, whatever it was, a lot of procedures just around the way that I travel. And I thought, holy shit. I left going, why oh my goodness. Jeff: At that point, you hire the person on and is still take some six months just to go read all that. Yeah, it’s still why? Josh: It's just too much I went My goodness. And I thought he must have a huge churn rate in his business. Because if you've got a VA, and they're used to booking tickets for you, and they're doing what they're meant to be doing, they already know your preferences. You've told them once, they know. If there is, sound like getting away from the documentation thing, but it gets to a level where it's you don't need to know that on the plane, you're going to be ordering this drink first, followed by this many drinks if it's this many hours long flight, it just becomes too much. Jeff: It's definitely too much. But at the same time, there's a balance between it because for whatever reason, even if you want to scale out, it's not that you lost your VA, you just need to add a second VA. She doesn't necessarily or he doesn't necessarily know all that and having the quick high-level points to say, okay, we prefer this airline, or we prefer middle level seats, mid seats instead of aisle seats or whatever. It's just a couple quick bullet points there to say, Okay, this is what our list of preferences are, it doesn't have to go down to the point of okay, we want a third aisle or third row only, not fourth row kind of a thing and all that kind of mess. It's just okay, here's the couple quick points that we just know, anytime we go book travel, here's the quick set of preferences that we need to follow. And that just makes that new VA that comes on board, their job, they’re onboarding is so much easier, because they can just say, oh, we need to book travel. Here's the five or so pieces of data that I need to know when I go book travel. Josh: I agree completely. The way that I kind of worked at any process that we do in business, whether it be making documentation, or creating systems comes back to something that my brother told me many years ago. I was in my bedroom as a young teenager building electronic projects. And I said to my brothers and oh look up the one remote control turns the lights on, turns the fan on, turns the TV on, turns DVD player on, turns the computer on, does everything with the one can control. Anyway, so I said I'm going to make it to this remote control can also unlock the door and then with an actuator open up the door and then close the door as well. So that sounds pretty cool. And he's an engineer 14 years my senior. Yes, that sounds pretty cool. So he said, how long that's gonna take you to make? Oh, well with these parts, I have to make the PCBs and everything I said it's probably gonna take me 100 hours 100, 120 hours programming everything else. Okay, cool. Cool. How many times could you have open and close the door in 120 hours? Yep. Okay, I get it. Yep. So the door was never automated. But the lesson learned there was if you're going to be telling someone something more than once then document it. If you're going to be telling someone, something many times 100% documented. But if it's something that's just very quick, and you're not going to need to do that process, the same in business, we went automate something unless we know that it's going to benefit the masses of people. And that's what it comes down to being sensible, and maybe just writing a list of what would you suggest that maybe a list of 10 or 20 things of processes? Get five things that they do on a daily basis and try to write those down. What would you say is the magic number? Jeff: I don't know there's necessarily a magic number, but it's definitely just even hitting a one or two kind of a thing to say, okay, let's just look at this at a high level. But what I would take from what you were just saying, supposed the door was already automated or whatever, you wouldn't want to write the process that explains exactly how the motor turns and that electrical current comes on to this motor, and then it swings 35 degrees and it pushes here. It's like no, the process says press the button. That's all the process needs to say kind of a thing there. So you got to be careful with that's really what I'm trying to get at is how deep you go. All they need know is press the button right there if you need to go in or out kind of a thing. You don't need to know how it works. You don't have to no all that kind of detail at that level. Yeah, to your point, it's, it's really just a matter of, obviously one keeping it simple like we talked about, but really just getting started is the biggest thing. With the EOS implementation, it's actually typically almost a two-year journey that we look at from initial start to really calling mastery at that point of all the tools and the processes. And it's just literally, it starts out actually month to month, but then goes to more of a quarterly basis. But the idea is just to start doing something, getting one or two of those tools and start getting some muscle memory basically built with that. And that's really where you got to start with any of this stuff, it is just okay. Again, keeping it simple, but just get started with something. Pick up a piece and move forward with it. That's really the whole premise behind the system, it’s just simplicity. Because even going all the way back the first we were talking vision, at one point, I was working with a branding coach on one company I was working with, and I got this huge document on all the different logos, the color styles, the fonts, everything was all laid out, it was just this big old thing here. It's like, okay, this is just the brand that doesn't even talk about anything else. And when we talked to a company about establishing your vision, it's not again, some master plan that you got to bring in all these consultants on it’s literally two pages. It's eight questions that we go through, it's two pages. It's entrepreneurial, keep it simple, keep it basic, because again, same as the process is if you get in too deep, you start getting too big. Everybody freezes up and nothing gets done, or else it gets over-done and it’s never used kind of a thing. Josh: Well, I think there's going tp be a lot of listeners out there that have heard a lot of what we've been talking about, and probably looking at ways to get this implemented. And at least some consulting. I understand you’ve got admentus.com/resources, there is some bits and pieces such as a quick 20 question checkup? Jeff: Yeah, there's actually three different things on that page. The EOS system itself is built around six different key areas that we say, okay, if you strengthen those six key areas, basically all your issues fall into those buckets. So that's where that checkup comes in is, like I said, a 20 question checkup, they're just kind of measures how strong you are. And those those six key areas. And we'll actually utilise that through the implementation journey to say, okay, here's where we started, here's where we are now kind of a thing to other resources on that page are actually. Two of the EOS books, there's a whole, honestly, a whole library pretty much about EOS, but the traction book, literally lays out the entire system. You've got all the tools in that one book right there. So if you want to just pick up the book, read it yourself, go through it yourself, more power to you kind of a thing. The difference really is that I build myself or it was more of a coach and facilitator, I'm not a consultant, I'm not going to come in and do EOS for you. My role is to come in here and be that third-party working with you on that book. So we're still working from that book from those materials. So you can very easily if you're just curious right now the first chapter’s free up there on that website slash resources, grab the traction or the Get a Grip book, either one right there. And then other resources, simply just if you're curious, or you got questions about any of that, just send me an email at admentus.com/ask. And I'm always open for questions always opened up to help anywhere I can there. Josh: Cool. Well, we'll make sure to check this in the description there for the podcast over on the blog for us. And so everyone can definitely jump in there. I'm actually looking at jumping into doing the organisational checkup. Why not? Why not? It's only 20 questions. What's the harm? Jeff: We're going to get another set of data point for you. Josh: Exactly. Well, I've only got one other question for you. And that is, you've probably already answered the question, to be completely honest. But if there was to be one book that you think that anyone should be reading to be doing better in their business, what would that be? I think I already know the answer. Jeff: You're looking at two of them right there. It really is. It was because honestly, I've been doing I've done a number of businesses myself, I've been doing this kind of stuff for 15 plus years, too many I wouldn't want to count at that point. But it's it really was almost just a complete lightbulb moment when I first saw Traction, because I've been through so many businesses, getting frustrated with clients just you've got to get the foundation the business together. Because we were talking earlier about technology and stuff like that. It's like it doesn't matter how good the technology is, if you don't have the foundation there, and it just really hit me when I was first introduced to Traction. I'm not trying to sell I really do and it's not even my book, it's somebody else. Gino Whitman's the one that wrote it kind of thing. I don't get any credit on it. But it's still it's just that from an entrepreneurial standpoint is just one of those books that just really the lightbulb kinds of content comes on. And the other book is called Get a Grip and it's right there in parallel. But basically what that book is a fictional in quotes, narrative about actually implementing EOS into a technology company, or all type of companies. But still, it's one of those that Yeah, we didn't write this with any one particular person in mind. But sure, yeah. But yeah, if you prefer more of the fictional side, then the technical implement the tools side, but they complement each other really well right there. I've read them both multiple times, and like I said first chapter on both. I was free right there on the website. But honestly, those are the two books that from a business perspective I'd be diving into pretty quick right there. Josh: Sweet. Well, is there any other questions that you had for me? Jeff: I don't think so at this point. Like I said, technology's always kind of my thing I just I know exactly where you're coming from there all the all the terminology and everything. But it's a fun world. But I just try to emphasise especially now being on this side of it, there's like, okay, it's a great tool to help improve productivity, help make things better if you got the foundation laid right, and getting that foundation is really key, because I've seen too many times trying to implement technology to fix underlying problems. And it just can't do that really. Josh: We definitely find you have technology problems, then you have people problems, and you shouldn't be trying to fix people problems with technology. It's been fantastic having on the show there, Jeff. And if anyone has any questions, you can definitely jump across to a admentus.com or ask at admentus.com. Is that correct? Jeff: That's correct. Yep. Or you can email me anytime. Josh: Awesome. Sweet. So definitely jump across there. If you have liked this episode, head over to iTunes and leave us some love. Give us some feedback. And everyone stay healthy out there in podcast land.

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟
第976期:You know a good place?

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2020 2:04


更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Shirley: Josh, I'm really hungry now. Do you know a good restaurant we could go to?Josh: Yes, there's a really great chicken restaurant near my house.Shirley: Chicken?Josh: Yeah, they have lots of different types of chicken. They have fried chicken, baked chicken, broiled chicken, and so on.Shirley: Hmm, chicken. You know, I don't really like chicken that much. Do you know about somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't have chicken or beef?Josh: Yes, there's a vegetarian restaurant near my house, too. But it's in the opposite direction.Shirley: Great. Okay, what kind of food do they have?Josh: They have lots of salads, fresh salads. And they also have some stirfry.Shirley: Okay, and what's the restaurant like?Josh: The restaurant is really nice. It's pretty small, and there's not a lot people usually.Shirley: Okay. Is it light or dark inside the restaurant?Josh: It's a little bit dark but the food is really good.Shirley: Okay. What about the tables? Do they have tablecloths or do they not have tablecloths?Josh: There's no tablecloths and the tables are a little bit low.Shirley: What about the price of the food? Is it expensive or is it cheap?Josh: It's very cheap.Shirley: Hmm, that's good.Josh: Yeah. For example, you can buy a salad for only 5 dollars.Shirley: Wow. That is cheap.Josh: It is.Shirley: Okay. What about a soup?Josh: A soup is usually 6 dollars but they're really good.Shirley: Okay. Well, I have my car today, so is there parking at the restaurant?Josh: There's some parking but there's actually a lot nearby.Shirley: Okay, so no problem to park my car.Josh: It's no problem.Shirley: Great. Then, let's go for a vegetarian.Josh: Okay, sounds great.

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟
第976期:You know a good place?

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2020 2:04


更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Shirley: Josh, I'm really hungry now. Do you know a good restaurant we could go to?Josh: Yes, there's a really great chicken restaurant near my house.Shirley: Chicken?Josh: Yeah, they have lots of different types of chicken. They have fried chicken, baked chicken, broiled chicken, and so on.Shirley: Hmm, chicken. You know, I don't really like chicken that much. Do you know about somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't have chicken or beef?Josh: Yes, there's a vegetarian restaurant near my house, too. But it's in the opposite direction.Shirley: Great. Okay, what kind of food do they have?Josh: They have lots of salads, fresh salads. And they also have some stirfry.Shirley: Okay, and what's the restaurant like?Josh: The restaurant is really nice. It's pretty small, and there's not a lot people usually.Shirley: Okay. Is it light or dark inside the restaurant?Josh: It's a little bit dark but the food is really good.Shirley: Okay. What about the tables? Do they have tablecloths or do they not have tablecloths?Josh: There's no tablecloths and the tables are a little bit low.Shirley: What about the price of the food? Is it expensive or is it cheap?Josh: It's very cheap.Shirley: Hmm, that's good.Josh: Yeah. For example, you can buy a salad for only 5 dollars.Shirley: Wow. That is cheap.Josh: It is.Shirley: Okay. What about a soup?Josh: A soup is usually 6 dollars but they're really good.Shirley: Okay. Well, I have my car today, so is there parking at the restaurant?Josh: There's some parking but there's actually a lot nearby.Shirley: Okay, so no problem to park my car.Josh: It's no problem.Shirley: Great. Then, let's go for a vegetarian.Josh: Okay, sounds great.

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟
第976期:You know a good place?

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2020 2:04


更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Shirley: Josh, I'm really hungry now. Do you know a good restaurant we could go to?Josh: Yes, there's a really great chicken restaurant near my house.Shirley: Chicken?Josh: Yeah, they have lots of different types of chicken. They have fried chicken, baked chicken, broiled chicken, and so on.Shirley: Hmm, chicken. You know, I don't really like chicken that much. Do you know about somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't have chicken or beef?Josh: Yes, there's a vegetarian restaurant near my house, too. But it's in the opposite direction.Shirley: Great. Okay, what kind of food do they have?Josh: They have lots of salads, fresh salads. And they also have some stirfry.Shirley: Okay, and what's the restaurant like?Josh: The restaurant is really nice. It's pretty small, and there's not a lot people usually.Shirley: Okay. Is it light or dark inside the restaurant?Josh: It's a little bit dark but the food is really good.Shirley: Okay. What about the tables? Do they have tablecloths or do they not have tablecloths?Josh: There's no tablecloths and the tables are a little bit low.Shirley: What about the price of the food? Is it expensive or is it cheap?Josh: It's very cheap.Shirley: Hmm, that's good.Josh: Yeah. For example, you can buy a salad for only 5 dollars.Shirley: Wow. That is cheap.Josh: It is.Shirley: Okay. What about a soup?Josh: A soup is usually 6 dollars but they're really good.Shirley: Okay. Well, I have my car today, so is there parking at the restaurant?Josh: There's some parking but there's actually a lot nearby.Shirley: Okay, so no problem to park my car.Josh: It's no problem.Shirley: Great. Then, let's go for a vegetarian.Josh: Okay, sounds great.

Business Built Freedom
163|Planning For Growth With Blair Ann Verrier

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2020 25:23


Planning For Growth With Blair Ann Verrier Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land. We've got Blair here from Enrich Bookkeeping Solutions and she's going to be talking today about change, planning for growth and how to become a business warrior. So Blair, tell me what is the first step that people need to be doing when it comes to planning for growth? Blair: My advice on planning for growth is anything to do with budgeting, and making sure you understand the cash flow of your business. So what's flowing in and what's flowing out, and the timings around the flow of the ins and outs. Josh: Okay. So would that be say for instance, hypothetically if I'm running an IT company, instead of having supplies that we're working on a cash basis, we move to an account basis, we could then times the bills so that we're not always I guess in arrears, so to speak with buying a product that comes out of our account that then gets shipped off to the client. And there might be like a net 30 terms or something like that with the client that then waits 30 days to pay, and then we're sort of sitting without that money. Is that kind of to sort of help out with those sort of situations? Blair: Yeah. So the sooner you can collect money from your clients, and the longer you can pay your suppliers, it’s going to help the cash flow of your business. Josh: When is the right time to do that? Like, I know that when you first start out in business, you don't necessarily have any proof of dealing with businesses. And when you have different suppliers and things like that, they might say, give me some trade references, for instance, how do you sort of jump in there? What's the step? Are you just having a cash account and then showing them that you do have some throughput before moving across? So how do you manage that? Blair: Yeah, look, the earlier you can implement that in your business the better your cash flow is going to be earlier. Some businesses will offer accounts straight up. But it may be for a smaller amount than you need in your business. So, you know, you may have part of it cash part of it on credit until you've gained that credibility and trust with that supplier. And if you've got suppliers that maybe won't do it, shop around and see who will, and have the conversation with the supplier about, you know, how long will it be until we can look at a trade account? So is it three months, six months, 12 months? What, you know, is their general rule in their business that they're looking for? That way you know you're working towards. Josh: And that's always just as simple once you know that just chucking me a calendar and having another review in three or six months, whatever they say, I guess. Blair: Yeah, yeah. Josh: One of the things we noticed when we put in accounts, I was in my teenage years and I didn't have a credit card or any sort of cash reference. And I guess to them they would have been red flags. So it was difficult to get the first account for me. But what I did find out in shopping around exactly as you said, I found one supplier that was happy to have a cash account. And they also had very, very good guarantees at the speed that they will get things out. They said we'll give you a cash count after three months or six months, can’t remember what it is now, we did work with them and what they would do is drop ship the items so that's when they have the item is in their warehouse and they'll send it straight to your customers if it's come straight from you, which means it doesn't have to bypass through you to speed things up. We found that was great because it meant that they weren't waiting for the money to go from our bank account to their bank account, and back in the day, it's a bit quicker now for a lot of the big four banks now but back in the day it was overnight, then and then they would see it, they’ll reconciled it and they'd send it out and that's normally by the time they've done that it was two or three days before the customer saw it. The moment we got the account in place. We noticed that if we place the order eight o'clock, it was at the clients at 11 o'clock. So it improves the customer satisfactions. This supplier in particular wasn't the cheapest supplier around. But the ability to get the products out quicker was more important to us than saving $5 or $10, here and there. So we found that having that relationship and having the account was great just to increase the customer satisfaction, even if it means you're spending more. Is there any other ways that you would look to I guess, when planning for growth, you said cash flow is very important. Is there any other things that you think would be those Cornerstone, milestone type items that people should definitely be having on their to do list to look at? Blair: The budget is important because the budget, I guess sets the path for where you want to go. So you're going to plan in your budget for that growth. So then it's going to show you when do I need to start looking at hiring new employees, or do I need office space or bigger office space. So you're going to see that you know, your budgeting, you can budget you know, up to five years in advance. So if you're doing that you're going to see in advance what you need to do in your business. And you can plan for that prior to then all of a sudden, oh, I need two new employees yesterday. Josh: On the employees, that's something that I've learned the hard way. And I think a lot of people out there, a lot of business owners, for lack of a better term, start off as cowboys, cowgirls and try to work out what am I doing? How am I doing this? How do I step in that direction? And before the episode started, actually, we're talking a little bit about people that kind of think they know it old but have a lot of advice to give but no experience of where that came from. When looking at these I guess different monster moments looking back retrospectively, which is great. I have a look, and I go okay, before I got employees on I should have been planning for documentation and planning for our systems and infrastructure to make sure that the IT support that we'll be able to supply to our customers was top notch before already working at 120% capacity and then bringing on some of that, take that 20% while still having to then train them up, which was very stressful. Definitely put some pressure on the family. Blair: Yeah, that's right. And even, you know, when you are just that sole operator, getting the time to do that stuff as well, like you get so bogged down in working in the business, that often working on the business gets forgotten about. But I think, you know, if you are planning to grow your business, you need to allocate time each week to be working on the business. Josh: I completely agree. We get stuck in the trenches. And it's just what happens. Again, like as I said, most business owners, they start off as cowboys and cowgirls and it just comes through. A lot of people just have this brain fart and go, I'm going to be a business owner because I can do this better than where I'm at. Or I want to have more flexibility. Or whatever the case is, and very rarely do they think that they're going to be working more than they're working. Secret. Everyone works more than 40 hours a week if you're a business owner. But it's something you enjoy doing, which is good. Unless you've stopped enjoying doing it, then stop doing what you're doing. But the big difference I think between learning to work on the business to grow your business and working in the business is the differentiator between the business owners that own a job, and the people that own an investment. I'm definitely not slacking on Avon and some of the other bits and pieces out there when people say I own my own business. I sell Avon or Tupperware and things like that. That's fine. I wouldn't really say that that's it's earning a job more in my eyes and I think you're going to be retiring and selling off your share of your ownership of Tupperware or Isagenix or whatnot, and that's where working on the business is growing your business. That's where the investment is. It's money now versus money later. Blair: Yeah. It's about also like don't feel guilty about spending that time on the business when you know, you're not working on clients or income producing for right now, because the time you spend on the business now, like you said, produces income in the future. Josh: Yeah. And I think one of the other big things that I found when we were in our growth stage, I don't think we ever really get out of that. So it's just a cycle. And a mindset change is the mindset and the people aspects of that. So we had the first contractor, and I thought that he's great, he's fantastic. And then he started getting rather sick and had a lot of health problems. I thought, oh no, what I'm going to do. I can't run the business without him. And then I got someone else in and then he moved down to Coffs Harbour. And then oh no, what I'm going to do when they're working for you. You need to make sure that they are working and doing the best things for the business and you are pulling everything in the right direction. You want to have reliance safe, but you don't want to have them have the knowledge that you are completely reliant on them because then they've got more cards than you have. And then you kind of stuffed, you sort of push yourself into a corner. What’s been your experience with businesses that you've worked with when it comes to sole operators when they go from being a solo operator to the first full time employee, it pretty much doubles their workforce. It's pretty significant as opposed to someone who has 100 employees that gets another 10 employees, it’s only 10% more workforce. It's not anywhere near as drastic. Have you found people manage that sort of growth and having to have that management aspects of their business? Blair: Yeah, I think a lot of business owners aren't prepared for that first employee. I think sometimes it happens quicker than they expect it to happen. Like their business may experience growth quicker or all of a sudden, they just wake up and they go, you know, I can't work keep working 80 hours a week and not having a day off. And so they look at hiring and that you know, they're just talking out off on sea. And then they're bogged down with hundreds of resumes and trying to decipher through who is the best fit for their business and they don't really have a good HR or hiring plan, you know, and I think sometimes without that plan, and if they do get a good employee, they just get lucky, probably more often than not, they, you know, get someone who's not necessarily the right fit and they're starting again, or that person like you’ve experienced and then, you know, again, you're starting again looking for someone else. Josh: I don't think it's any secret for anyone listening to the podcast for a while that I love automation, I hate repetition. And the thought of hiring someone, and although I sound extroverts is a learned skill. Anyone can learn to do this. I definitely love my alone time. But the thought of hiring someone scared the hell out of me. I'm sort of putting food on their table and their family's table and it's became too much thinking about it alone. Oh, this is scary. So the first full time employee I had the HR guy come in and go through. And as I was asking the questions he was looking at the, I guess, the psychological responses and body language that the person was showing when these questions were being answered. And that's something that I went who, at that stage I hadn't even really thought too much about having to look at someone listen to their answers. Look at their body responses. Did they look away? Did they look to the right or do they look to the left? Did they close their hands or did they open their hands if you reword the question three different ways was it answered three different ways or the same way? And so I was thinking far out man, there is a science behind this. And I was so happy that I did, because the person I bought on, Alex was great as the first full time employee, as I said just family stuff and he had to move down to Coffs Harbour, but it was something that I was so happy I did that. That was a stress that was removed. That comes down to I guess what we touched on a little bit earlier about cowboys and people giving advice when it’s not warranted advice. You're talking a bit about a bit earlier about GST and the right time to sign up for GST. You want to let our audience here a bit about that? Blair: Yes, as I mentioned earlier, I saw on Facebook on one of the business pages, I'm a member of. Someone who had asked about when is the right time to register for GST? They're in business. They're have not met the threshold requirements yet, but wanted to know should they register anyway. There was a lot of people commenting, you know, giving their unqualified advice, and one person commented and that they had registered prior to needing to. And if you use an online bookkeeper such as QuickBooks, it's really easy, which I found was quite an interesting comment to make. Because QuickBooks is not a bookkeeper, it's software. Josh: It’s like comparing a screwdriver to a builder. You don't need a builder to build your house, go and buy a screwdriver. It'll work. It's the same thing. They’re just going to use a screwdriver anyway. The fact that you bought a screwdriver and a hammer and you think you’re going do something with that when you didn't buy nails or screws. It's kind of just like, what are you doing? It's, I thought, yeah, we see some of these situations and it just blows my mind. Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger effect? Blair: No. Josh: So the Dunning Kruger effect. And this is a big, big problem on the internet, it's a cognitive bias, where people think that they are smarter, more capable than they really are. So it pretty much means that people with a lower ability, don't have the skills needed to recognise that they're incompetent. And so they think they know everything, and they'll go and express that to everyone but the more they learn on the topic, the deeper they find the topic is, the less confidence they have, even though they're now more experienced. Does that make sense? The smarter you are at a certain topic, the less confident you are until you've been doing this for years and years and years. And I think that the biggest problem I have on these like Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups and other online forums is people give this advice and they go I've been a business owner for six months. Use Zero, use MYOB, it's easy. You don't need a bookkeeper. Just don't worry about it. Don't worry about depreciation schedules or anything else or how that even works. It's not even something in it. Just make sure the lines line up. The chart of accountants, not something important to you at the moment. It's just go and buy the screwdriver and build the house. Blair: Yeah, yeah, I did find it to be an interesting comment and show that obviously a lot of people don't really understand the value of a bookkeeper and the value to their business. Because it's not just about inputting information into an accounting software. Josh: No, the first person that I had that came into my business after myself. So in 2007, before I started the business, I got all of the different books that I could get from the government on GST and tax and everything that I could possibly learn about how things would work. The Queensland Government, well, just generally, the Australian Government has a lot of resources available. Now, it's probably all online, but back in the day, not so much. And these resources I read cover to cover and all these terrible examples of Sam and Sally going through and buying a certain amount of apples and whatnot. But the end position was I knew more about it, which is good for business owners to know about it. But it still scared the hell out of me. And so the first person I bought in was a bookkeeper to help me out and that was in 2011, I think, 2010, and two years after I set up the trust, and I hadn't done any returns. I was freaking out, I'm like, they're going to send the police here, I'm stuffed. I don't know if I've been doing anything right or wrong, or backwards or upside down, and I thought I’m just going to be completely stuffed and I was freaking out. Anyway, I got the bookkeeper, and she's like, no, it’s so good. We'll get through it. And it was like to fix up the previous two years maybe wasn't much, like $1,000 maybe 1500 dollars. And this is again, rewinding around a decade so adjust for inflation, but oh my goodness, I could sleep better at night. Now, I could have sat there reconciling lines, but it wouldn't have helped me out in the situation that I was in. And the second blunder that I've had is know that your bookkeepers doing what they're meant to be doing. And they have the qualifications and they're associated with the appropriate governing body. So say you're Zero certified and you’re CPA in bits and pieces, because the bookkeeper that I had after the first bookkeeper, the second bookkeeper wasn't looking at the invoices. One of the main suppliers that we had moved over to And we'll then claiming GST on something that we weren't meant to be for a number of years, racked up like a $30,000 GST debt that we weren't anticipating on. Yeah, so definitely don't go do it yourself far out. Blair: Yeah, I know. Like I've got clients who do sort of the bookkeeping side of it themselves. And then every quarter, I check their accounts and lodge their BAS. And I don't believe there is one of those clients, that's when I do the checks. I don't have to fix something that's wrong. Mostly incorrectly classified GST. So you know, claiming GST on things they shouldn't be or vice versa. One of the biggest ones that affect most people is Telstra. So, Telstra does not charge 100% GST on their invoices. I haven't been able to work that out yet. But they don't show that. Josh: Interesting. Wait, what parts are they not charging GST on? Blair: So if you have a look at your Telstra bill, your GST will not be 10% of the total or one-eleven. Yeah, it's usually a little bit less and most business owners just claim, put it in, you know, 500 bucks to my Telstra bill this month, find the GST, $45, and it's not. It might be $30 that they should have claimed. Josh: Far out. That's that's a big one because that's like, not a small company. People know of it. Blair: Yeah, so that's probably the most common one. The other ones would be insurance. People not claiming the right amount on insurance because obviously there's a stamp duty component to insurance that there's no GST on. And yeah, people don't realise that. So Yeah, it's not just about putting the information into the system, it's about ensuring that it's correct, but also making sure that it's been allocated to the right part of the chart of accounts. And that all your accounts actually reconcile, that's going to make your tax accountants job a lot easier at the end of financial year, is if everything's in the right place and reconciling. And like you said, making sure your bookkeeper’s qualified. Like, as a minimum, you want your bookkeeper to be a registered BAS agent? Anyone who's not a registered BAS agent, legally, cannot do anything to do with GST, FBT or single touch payroll. Alright, so chances are they will ask you for your paper BAS form that you've received from ATO so they can fill that out for you. That's a huge red flag. They lodging STP under your company's name rather than under an agent's registration. A lot of things business owners wouldn't realise. And it's something that I tell people a lot is anyone can wake up tomorrow and decide to be a bookkeeper. There is nothing governing them from not doing that. So Mrs. Jones, who's done the books of her husband's building business for the last 40 years. And now all the kids have left home and she's a little bit bored, can wake up and start advertising bookkeeping services. And business owners don't realise how easy it is for someone to do that. Josh: That's terrible. Well, it's great for Mrs. Jones but it’s terrible for every other business that she's working with. Blair: That's right. And often, you know, like, I hear people say, oh, but I can get someone to do it for $10 or $20 less than you down the road. And I'm like, okay, see you in 12 months, when they've messed it up and it’s not right. Josh: Yep. money spent on the right thing saves a lot of money in the future, being cheap is very expensive. Blair: Yeah, and a good bookkeeper will save you money at the end of year with your tax accountant. Like people think they're saving money by not using a bookkeeper. But then it gets to their tax accountant at the end of the year and it's wrong. And the accountant needs to fix it. Most tax accountants are charging anywhere from $150 an hour up. Whereas you're paying a bookkeeper half that. Josh: Circling back to what we're talking about planning for growth, you can't plan for growth if you're doing your own books. It's a task that you're able to outsource to a professional that can hold that screwdriver and build that house for you, build the infrastructure out and make sure it's working. And as you said, if they're checking on the pulse and doing some reconciliation, that's fine, but it doesn't make them a doctor. They're not going to hear a flutter in your heart that you guys will pick up on. So I think anyone's foolish for not engaging in the services of qualified people to look after the items of their business that they're not qualified to be doing it. Tell me a bit a bit about your book. You've got a book called Business Warriors? Blair: Yes, last year, the book was launched first of June last year. So I was a co contributor of 11 authors in that book, so I've written one chapter of that book about my journey in corporate world as a female and, you know, some of the stuff I've seen and experienced. I believe the accounting industry is a bit of a men's club, and considering like I did a little bit of research, when I was writing my chapter around the evolvement of the accounting industry, and found that, you know, way back when that industry started, they didn't actually let women be accountants. Josh: I could see that. Yeah, definitely. Blair: Yeah. And it wasn't until the wars came and they needed to send them into war. They were like, well, what are we going to do? We've got no men to do the work. So they then started letting women do the work. But they weren't allowed to call themselves accountants, even though they were doing the same work that men were doing. Josh: Really? What were they called? Blair: I think, like, just clerks. Like, yes, something along those lines. I kind of feel that's where that men's club started. And the culture of that just sort of continued. Probably, obviously, nowhere near as bad because we now let women work as accountants and 49% of the CPA membership are women. So there are a lot of female accountants in the industry now. And we're allowed to call ourselves accountants or we're allowed to be CPAs and CAs, and, you know, part of these governing bodies that originally we were never allowed to be a part of. We were not recognised in the industry. Josh: The IT industry, similar, very, very male dominated. Now, the majority of the managing positions in IT, 55% women, so it's really good. It's good to see sort of this change. My sister is an engineer. And when she was working for different businesses, she was the female engineer of a team of 100 engineers and things like that. It was good as she saw new blood coming in and empowering that there is sort of a bit of a change here. I still can't believe like some of the shady paths that we've come from. But if anyone out there is looking to have a fantastic bookkeeper, definitely jump across to Enrich Bookkeeping Solutions and give Blair a holler. And I'm sure she'll get to talk to you about all sorts of things from how to grow your business and better your business with your numbers and make sure that if you bought into some advice that you've seen on Facebook, you can do your numbers yourself, it'd be probably a good idea for her to at least give you an audit and then see where you're at. So, if anyone out there does have any advice or would like to leave a review, jump across to iTunes, give us some love and stay healthy and stay good out there in these interesting times.

Business Built Freedom
161|Avoiding Financial Blunders With Tracey Bissett

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 1, 2020 34:26


Avoiding Financial Blunders With Tracey Bissett Josh: G’day out there in podcast land, we've got a fantastic guest today, we’ve got Tracey Bissett from Bissett Financial Fitness. She is your PT coach to financial wealth and we're going to be talking about entrepreneurial blunders and what to look out for to stay profitable. So Tracey, let's say hypothetically, I've just started my business. I'm going to be a millionaire in 12 months. That's what we all think, yeah, we're all going to be a millionaire in 12 months and we're going to be retired in two years and there's going to be a Lambo parked out at the front. So what do you think is the first thing we should be looking at to realise that is probably a fallacy? Learn more on how to avoid financial blunders at dorksdelivered.com.au Tracey: Well, a few things. So the first thing I would want you to look at is to make sure as owner, you are fully accountable for the financial position of the company, which means you got to look at those numbers. You don't have to do your own bookkeeping. You don't have to do your own accounting, but you certainly need to get it done properly and look at those numbers monthly, and make sure you know what they're saying. So when most entrepreneurs go into business they're super passionate about their product or their service they deliver. And financial matters are not necessarily part of their education. So if that's not your strength, you want to learn as much as you can, certainly outsource the doing but make sure that you can make decisions based on your numbers and take full responsibility for it. Josh: I can absolutely resonate with what you're saying because I started the business 13 years ago and I have an engineering background, which means I love attention to detail and I love seeing a product finish. I'm not great at marketing or I wasn't great at marketing the products at that stage. So I would have likened myself to the at that stage, the kidneys garage of mum and dad's that the cure for cancer that has it sitting on a shelf to then find out something some other cool project to work on. Probably something that lights up. So that was that was me and I found that I started looking into books in bits and pieces. Those were few different government publications that came out around GST and tax and the business activity statements and I read all this stuff and it was kind of like reading a terms of service with a credit card. It's quite thick reading if you don't know what you're doing. And I read it and then I came to a spot on it, you know what, I can keep reading as much as I want but I'm not going to be able to be as good as the people that are out there that are doing this day in day out the people. The personal trainers are generally pretty fit people and yourself, I would say if you're if you're there doing the financial fitness, you're going to be pretty fit in exactly what you're doing and pretty experienced. One of the best things that I did was deciding that I didn't want to wear that hat anymore and giving it off to someone else to wear. But what my question is, sometimes is a bit of a gray area and I know I had this trap, which is you've got a bookkeeper, you've got an accountant, you can then sometimes have a financial advisor, and then a business coach. And then you've got yourself with your own ideas and it becomes a bit blurry as to the lines as to whose responsibility is what. I know some people will say all my receipts are in a shoe box in the back there I give them to the bookkeeper once a month, and it's up to them with whatever happens next, I just keep doing the voodoo that I do. So how do you make sure that there's a clear cut and defined line? Or is that something that the entrepreneur needs to learn or they need to define and then pass out to everyone else? Tracey: Yeah, I would say for the owner, they should be defining the accountabilities. Bookkeeping is pretty much data entry if your bookkeeper isn't overly knowledgeable, necessarily, but all of the things around accounting you want your accountant to check out the chart of accounts that your bookkeepers filling in the numbers into. So you would rely on them. I don't think a Chart of Accounts is necessarily anything of business owner necessarily needs to know. But the overall responsibility lies with them. And so when I'm working with clients, sometimes I find that because the knowledge may not be there, then there's a little bit of an intimidation to even ask questions. I don't even know where to start when I'm going to talk to my bookkeeper or my accountant. So how could I even tell them what to do when I don't know what they're supposed to do? So I encourage people to be curious, to be open, ask lots of questions, you get answers that help you understand and just recognise that they're there to do their role. They should help inform you about what they're supposed to be doing and what they would expect you to be doing. And if you're not seeing the numbers on at least a monthly basis, you need to speak up and say, you know, I need to see those to be able to make good decisions and run my company. So be curious, be open, don't be shy. A lot of people tend to not want to ask the questions because they feel like they're going to ask them wrong. And that's okay, you're learning. And the only way you can learn more is by finding out what you know and what you don't know. And finding better ways to ask the questions. Josh: Well, you don't know what you don't know until you know, you know. So that's it. I remember back in school, I was sitting in class, long story, but I missed out on a month of schooling. And I came back and everything that we're talking about in maths had changed. And they weren't talking about the gonna just use very simple terms, they weren't talking about plus ones and plus twos that though we're now talking about parabolas and matrices, and I'm going, okay, this this became very different. I don't want to put my hand up and look stupid in front of everyone. So to sit there and feel stupid and not do as well in the class is what I could have. And that's something that just hearing what you said that was very soothing and going, okay, it's okay to there's no stupid questions. It's okay to ask a question. It's okay to advance your knowledge. Don't feel like you're a lesser person by not knowing. It's natural to be very good at some things and via walking the path of learning the others. So, yeah, it's refreshing. And as I said, soothing hearing that and something that people can focus on quite heavily and they get a new idea. You get a new idea and you go, okay, I want to invest my time and energy into this, this is going to be amazing. It's going to be life changing for everyone. And how do you do a SWOT analysis on that new idea, taking into account the numbers and making sure that you're not investing too much? And I guess it comes down to like risks and all sorts, and where your risk profile sits with you, how do you make sure that you're not investing too much in a new idea that isn't proven? If you've already got a business that's up and running? Or you're looking to start a business? Tracey: Well, that's a great question. And certainly, it's easy to get distracted by new ideas that may build on what you've already got, and may actually detract from what you have. And so, I think you want to do a quick analysis in a relatively short amount of time to figure out if it's worth pursuing farther. As you mentioned, there's a lot of elements you are going to look at because you are going to do this SWOT analysis. So maybe there's someone in your company who knows the market really well, they've got to research that. While they're researching what you're going to offer for your product or service. They should be checking into what are the competitors charging for that because that's already Really important data point that you need to know. Then you need to find out what is it going to cost me to deliver this product or service? And then is there other overhead I might need to bring on? Am I going to need more team to do this? Or am I going to need more equipment? Am I going to need other tools to be able to do this? And so, then you can compare what the value is that you're bringing to the market, what the price you think you can sell it for? It's okay to be higher price than your competitors if you're offering more value, there's nothing wrong with that, and you need to be confident enough to charge that price. But when you see what the price is against how much it costs you, is it going to be profitable? Josh: Yes, that's a big thing I see. You'd see it even more. A lot of people have a cheap focus, people feel that their clients are going to be money driven and look at the dollar reduce, as I would call them, rather than focusing on why the competitors charging more. Have they done more research than then potentially you have when you come up with idea. Tracey: Absolutely. And we form views about money when we are little kids. So however we felt in our family, it stays with us. And we can certainly change the way we feel about money. But if you always felt like you needed to kind of ask people or kind of play with people to get money, you're probably going to feel like that when you put your product out in the market, and you may not charge as much as you should. Because if you know you're offering something value, you should be asking for the right price. But making sure that you are going to make money on your products and services, depending what you're selling, you may need to hit a certain volume of it before you become profitable. And that's part of your analysis too. Because if it's going to take you three months, but all of a sudden, if you can hit to that point, all of a sudden then the cash is going to pour in. If you can weather that three month period, and it won't harm your existing business, then that sounds like a good thing. But if you're never going to make money on it, maybe you need to pivot the idea, and there's no shame in rejigging an idea. Maybe turning to a different customer base, maybe adding or modifying the product or service to make it profitable, because you can only cost cut to a certain extent, at the end of the day, it's got to be the sales that actually makes it profitable. Josh: That's a big thing that you've just said. So a couple of things I'd like to touch on there like sales. Sales is its own thing. And that was something I was very scared of when I first started, I'm not a salesperson. sounds gross. I don't want to be a salesperson, I want to be a great business person. And if I have a great product and a great business, then people will work with me. And that statement is true to an extent. Tracey: Once they know about you, they have to know about you in the first place. Josh: That's exactly right. And then you need to have an understanding that if it’s going to be around people to know about you, then there has to be a path that you're following that is on a linear growth path because it's not going to be an exponential growth if you're not going to be marketing and going out there and sort of with the megaphone spruiking the brand and the promise that you have there and your ideals. A big thing that I've seen people sort of discount for things without even really looking at why they're discounting or what the reason is, or the motive is they're just like, I'll give you money off if you work with me. And that can sometimes be the wrong step into the relationship. What other sort of do's and do nots have you seen people focus on? Tracey: I've seen people setting their price based on what they think without doing any research. So you do need to validate it in the market. And as I said, if you are offering something of more value, if you have less clients, but they're paying you more, that's just as effective as a cheaper thing with more clients. It all starts with what does the client need? It has to always be about what do they need. Because if you've got something of value, then they're going to want it. Like you said, you've got to market it. And you've got to speak in a language that resonates with them, not why you think it's great, but how it helps them and solves their problems is really key. And what I find though, is a lot of entrepreneurs, they get so excited about their product or service, but they don't take those moments to look at the cost of delivery, and so they end up losing money on everything that they sell, and then that can impact everything else about the business because then you're tight on cash flow if you're running at a loss. You may have struggles paying your government remittances, you're going to have struggles meeting payroll. As an owner, you're probably not going to get a consistent paycheck if one at all. And then you may be letting down people in your family because you're not able to give them the things that you promised them you were going to do when you started your own business and we're going to make a million dollars. So it all kind of ties together and it leads to lots of stress, lots of anxiety, lots of tension, and then it really just distracts and detracts the owner from doing what they do best, which was why they started the business in the first place. So we don't want money to be an impediment to them achieving their goals. Josh: Well, I think you've touched on a few different things there and that is one of them I find like what do you think when it comes down to people say you've got to add value, you got to add value, and this is a big thing that's turned around a lot. Everyone's like, I add value. 15 years, 20 years ago, when you'd have a product, you'd have a look at a product, you'd add a margin. And then that would be the product. Now people are talking a lot about adding value, which as far as I can understand, my understanding of that is you package multiple products that can sometimes be intangible appear as if there's something that is going to be helping someone out is a value add. I guess now I'm using the term value add, you should never describe something with that word, should you? That's a big no-no. You have all these different items that are intangible bulk items that you can give to lots of people that people see and go, Okay, this is going to be a better reason to work with you. It could be something as simple as KFC have an app and if you've been using it, it gives you a little discount or something like that. Yeah, okay, cool. I've got a that's, I guess, a value add, but it's giving you a discount for using the app multiple times. They're not using the discount just because they've gone, okay, you've become a more loyal customer, he's a reason to continue purchasing the chicken or whatever from the meals from them. So I guess my question is value versus margin, how do you make sure that you determine the appropriate value. And this is something that I think is huge with the Cloud Computing software at the moment. Everyone's moving there, the application that would have charged $100 for up front or $1,000, for up front, into a model where they're charging $10 a month or $100 a month. And so they're seeing you're getting these updates. But you're never ending this suffer. And there's a whole bunch more can control of what you can do with this software. So how do you determine value versus margin? Tracey: I view it from the perspective that you're looking at. So the value has to be perceived by the client. So you can tell someone it's all value added, and it has this, this and this, but if they don't see that, that doesn't hold any value. So especially like what you're talking with the software, like you do have to figure out how much does it cost us to make this in the first place? What were all our sunk costs for R&D? How many times will we have to sell this stuff to break even and then to make money. And at what point does it become feasible? And can we get to that many subscribers, because a business is very valuable from a business standpoint when it has regular recurring revenue. Certainly, it makes it more saleable. It makes it a good acquisition target in the future, if that's something that people are interested in. But I really start with the basics, how much does it cost to make this and something like software, there's probably years of development that have potentially gone into it that gotta be recouped. So you've got to figure out from the numbers, what does that look like? And then it's from the client perspective, what's the value? And that value piece is kind of the profit, I would say that you're building into what you're charging. But making sure if I'm charging $10 a month, how many subscribers Am I going to need to be profitable? And what happens if I don't? Is this still a good endeavor? Then obviously, I would think because everybody's gone this way. They've found a way to monetise it and make it profitable, but the delivery method of how this happens, that's just some of its marketing. Some of its kind of just the packaging the new format for how it gets to the customer versus being perhaps more value, If maybe more convenient. I don't have to now put a CD into my computer to get the program. I'm just going to use my phone or download it from the cloud. Josh: That makes sense. And you bought up a couple of points earlier when we're talking about having this new idea and it does come down for a business owner. So it's not all about you. It's about how does that impact your family? How does it impact your mental health, which is a big thing, making sure that you are staying mentally healthy. When you go on these crazy endeavors and I'm wanting to say comfortably there's been periods of time where I was pulling 100, 120-hour weeks and I did that for about six weeks before I realised that something's going to break. And we had to remove a bunch of clients because of the way we're running the business. It was not going to be able to be something that we didn't see it growing the way that it did. Then I didn't have the time to train anyone else. So I was sitting there in this the golden shackles, as I call them, the jail that I created for myself, and I had to make the decision to cut a whole bunch of clients out, the old 80/20 rule. The clients that were noisier even though profitable, they were noisier clients that we went can’t keep with them. So mental health is a very important part of all this and your debt versus profit can play a big role on that with your family and with your mental health some businesses. You see them all the time, these huge businesses like Uber that sit there running in debt for year on year and Tesla running in debt. The first profit obviously you always want to be trying to run a profitable business but that can sometimes mean that you're running a business that you're not really taking any risks or you have a very low risk profile and that could mean that your growth isn't as quick but it also means your full might not be as quick or am I just talking out my ass? What are you what are your thoughts on having a business that is running profitably or is running with debt? Or when's the right time to consider increasing that overdraft or changing around your position to be pulling $100,000 or a million-dollar equipment loan to buy something that you think is going to work? How do you wage that? Or how do you work that out? How do you make sure you're making the right financial decision? Tracey: So a couple things. First off, it totally starts with a business plan, which includes a very detailed and well thought out forecast. So it's okay if plan is to lose money for three years, and raise enough money initially or have it to fund three years if that's what it's going to take because some ideas are going to take longer, you're going to need the scale and the mass to make it profitable. So start with a well thought out business plan. I know a lot of business owners don't necessarily like to start there because they're enthusiastic and want to just jump into the business. But you need to know what those expectations will be. And then secure enough money, whether it's your own resources, whether you need to go to an investor, banks are kind of challenging for startups without a track record. It's really hard though probably get you to borrow personally. You can put the money that into the business. So start with a plan, know realistically whatever come up with tack on probably at least another six months, eight months because things don't unfold as you expect. So know that things take longer, they cost more. Josh: Absolutely. I have a rule of 10 for myself, whatever I think it is, I times it by 10. Tracey: Yeah, well, if it's been your experience and then do it, it's the way it works for you. Josh: It makes it at least I'm not getting annoyed that it's not being achieved in the right amount of time. Tracey: Yeah. The second thing I would say is absolutely critical as soon as possible to establish credit in the company's name. So even though you may be getting the money right away through personal means, or because you put your personal guarantee, get those credit cards, set up overdrafts, even if they're very small amounts, set up lines with suppliers where you can start building up the credit because as the company grows, you want to be able to grow the company that the credit that the company has. And you can't do that if you go later and try to get a big amount of credit when they don't know you and there's been no track record for the company. So those two things are really key. Then based on your forecast, when are you going to make profit? If you're tracking according to your milestones, so if you thought maybe in a fictional example, maybe it's going to be nine months, we're going to start being profitable. If things are all trending that way, and the profit starts coming in, then you have some decisions to make with the profit. And we're going to take that out, am I going to give it to myself as owner, or am I going to reinvest in the business? Certainly, if you're going to be looking for financing, you've got some more growth plans and growth is super hungry and the fuel that it needs to eat is cash. So for you to grow your business, it requires that reinvestment of money. Bankers want to see you being in money as well. They don't want to be the only one who's injecting into this venture. So you will be profitable, you can then make your investment and it's appropriate to take on debt at the levels that you can pay back. So if you're taking on debt that needs to be repaid over a couple years, lenders are going to be looking for a track record where you showed that you had the capacity, that capability to pay it back. So be thinking about it in those terms. If you aren't going to be taking a higher risk proposition, you probably do need to look for some kind of investor who's willing to take that risk of potential loss. Because banks aren't going to take that risk with you. That's just not what they're set up for. Their shareholders don't tolerate that. That's not their mandate. Josh: I remember 2007, when I started the business, 2011, I went to the bank and said, I said 2007, I started the business as a side hustle, as they call it, a side hustle, side hobby thing. And it was 2010 that I got rid of my, what I'm going to call the buffer income, the income that was solid, repeatable and from another employer. And it was half 2011, started 2012. I went to a bank and said, I'd like to buy a house. I've got this 20% to 25% deposit, so a sizable deposit. And for that stage, a lot of people my age really doing a 5% deposit and things like that. And the bank said, okay, we've got some good news. You can borrow money for house, but only $40,000. And I said, well, what else am I gonna get in Australia for $40,000? It can’t even buy a bedroom. That's nothing. It can’t go any far out. And I already had credit cards and everything set up. But that was a that was kind of a bit of an eye opener for me. And I went okay, I should have probably bought the house before I got rid of the job. When I had some sort of income. Yeah, that was a one of my financial blunders. Oops! But after getting the first one, the second house was easy, which is good, I guess. But I wanted to sort of touch on buffer incomes. So when you're running it in debt versus profit, like you said, you obviously have to have some sort of a rainy day fund sitting there. And if you're doing that, what would you say is a sensible amount to have or get part and part of the same question? If you're starting a new business and you're looking to go out on your own and you think this is gonna be great. I'm going to quit my day job so that I have 40 hours a week to spend towards this business. I found that's a fallacy, probably going to be spending 40 hours additionally to the 40 hours you're spending with someone else. You’re probably gonna be spending 80 hours a week for quite a while to be able to have the wheels start to move. The train takes a long time to gain the energy to get the momentum it requires to move from place A to place B. So what do you think the buffer income should be? And what are the catalysts or the aha moments that you see when you go okay, it's time to get rid of that security net that you have of your employee. Tracey: Yeah, the buffer, that reserve you're going to have whether you're starting up or you're going into kind of an uncertain period, it really depends on what your run rate is. So how much are your expenses every month? And you need to know that number. If you have a big team and you know, you've got to make payroll, you at least want to have three months, maybe six months buffer so that you know you can pay people and keep things going in the organisation. So really depends on the business, some are more intensive in terms of the amount of money you got to pay out every month. If you're doing a lot of stuff on your own, you can get by with less. So building that business plan at the beginning, doing that forecast will quantify that number for you. I think I can totally agree with what you were saying. I mean, I was a banker for a long time. And I used to think I worked a lot. My last job before I left the bank, I was doing 60 to 80 hours a week in the office. And then I thought, oh, I'll just work for myself and I'll have more work-life balance. No, that's not how it works. So you're building, you're building and you've got to learn all these things you don't know how to do. I don't think entrepreneurship is necessarily for everyone. So what you were saying like how you started it on the side and you had your job. I think that's a good way. Number one, you've got to test your idea. Make sure it's something that the market wants, not just something you think is fun, that you want to bring into the world because you got to make sure you can actually make money from your idea. That's the goal. So make sure that your ideas sound. Make sure you actually like being an entrepreneur. So by testing it on the side gives you that, because if you can't sleep at night, because you're worried about your next sale, maybe you do need to have a full time job, because that allows you to sleep at night and have less anxiety. But if the thrill of it and chasing down the sales and all the marketing and all the moving pieces gets you excited, and it's going well, you're going to know where that trigger point is. Keeping in mind, whatever that amount you figured out initially. Do I have that? Do I want to maybe have a little bit of extra because certainly everybody who gets into business sees that things cost more, takes longer. Initial expectations usually aren't enough. So make sure it's for you and then build up the money before you leave that full time job. And just on the point you mentioned about getting the house, certainly, you want to make sure you pay yourself regularly on a salary to some level from your organisation. When you are running your own business, we've even seen it now with government support here in Canada with the pandemic. A lot of entrepreneurs were shut out because they did not pay themselves a salary. So you're having trouble personally, when you go to try to prove your capacity to repay a mortgage to the bank, if you're not getting a steady income, because they don't care about the cash inflow from the business. If it's not documented, and they can't see the history, they're not going to be that likely to give you those personal loans as well. And so you've got to think about the business and the personal picture together. Josh: I learnt that the hard way as I said, it delayed the purchase of the house by a couple of years, and had to be a not a top tier lender, I guess, I don't know, a B-class lender or something like that. And it worked. It was fine. And then a year later, we just refinance. Tracey: But you would pay more, you would have paid more in interest being with the B-lender. Josh: I did. I did. 2% more or so which is quite a sizable amount really. But I thought I'll get gets me in a place and gets me happy and set up and have a bit of solidity. But the income and that the aha moment for me was I looked at what I was earning in my day to day job, and I thought, okay, I'm spending a lot of time on the side hustle and it took two and a half three years before I switched off the day job, but it was when I had them on parity with the money that I was able to draw from the business. It was when I went okay, I'm now comfortably covering my debts, but six months of a buffer and I'm pulling an income that's on parity. It wasn't going to be absolutely gangbusters, walking out being Mr. Money with the cash coming out of my pockets. It was just on parity on one end it's had bigger legs to go further than what I would have in the job that I was in at the time. So that was how I thought would be the best way to go about it. But you bought up the current situation we've got with the pandemic. And sometimes when you forecast things, forecasts go wrong and you have these external events that impact you. There's a big airline in Australia. Ansett Australia was huge. And then some mismanagement led to it disappearing and then short of it, it was purchased by Richard Branson turned into Virgin Australia now and now it's going underneath a similar sort of overhaul, it's gone under administration. And they've obviously got some pretty, pretty smart cookies there that have still fallen by this pandemic. I guess you can't always look out for everything. But there's certain things you can look out for. When forecasts go wrong or when you need to pivot your forecast because of external events, how do you go about doing that? Making sure you're getting the right advice and you're not stressing out and putting your head in the sand like an ostrich as it would be? Tracey: Yeah, absolutely. And so couple things, you don't want to be highly leveraged all the time, because that gives you flexibility to potentially take on more debt in the future if you need to, for some unforeseen situation. Building up your cash reserves, so that you do have something. And then taking a hard look at your business and seeing just what I offer right now is that still going to be viable in the new normal that I think is coming? If it's not take action, maybe you start doing some tests of some new products or service and see how people reacting to it. But don't just wait. If you wait for a long time, you may be then out of business. And in my experience, as a banker, I've seen businesses go under in as quick as 90 days, because they weren't getting the cash flow. They might have been having sales on paper, so great sales, but if nobody pays you, it doesn't really matter you're going to be done for and if you're already maxed out on debt, there's limited room to refinance and the company limited ability to go out and get more debt. So I've actually been talking to some entrepreneurs now saying, if you weren't able to do well, or make money when things were going well, should you really take on more debt right now? Because how are you going to do your business better when we're in a more challenging time? So sometimes you have to ask yourself the hard questions. If you're uncomfortable doing it, maybe you're going to have that talk with your accountant and get them to get back to you. But being an entrepreneur means you do need to ask yourself hard questions so that you can, number one, take care of yourself, because you don't want to be so stressed that you get ill and then have a heart attack or blood pressures through the roof. You want to make sure that you're there and you're continuing on, whether it's this company or it's another company, you can't be so tied to the one organisation or the one product that you lose sight of making plans and doing the right thing in the moment. And certainly this is unprecedented. And nobody could have forecast the wide-reaching effects. But from the crisis in 2008, we know that companies that had less data at that time who had cash reserves, they were able to survive and persist. And then get out of it okay, others folded because they just didn't have any options. Josh: To continue on what you're saying there, take all emotion out of it. It's your business and you've been putting all this stuff into it. You got to look at very analytically, and get all emotion removed. I'd say that'd be fair to say? Tracey: Yeah, absolutely. And it's really hard. I mean, it's your baby, your baby. You created it from nothing, but sometimes you need to say bye to your baby. And if you can't do it, you need to at least have the knowledge of how you feel. And no one go out and talk to people you trust and respect that you feel have good judgment and ask them for their unbiased opinion. Maybe it's in the form of market research, you've got to test some things with your clients, hey, in three months, do you think you'll still be interested in this kind of thing, or you won't have any disposable income to buy it anymore. So get fax, and get other people to help you. The other thing you were talking about mental health with entrepreneurs, it can be very lonely to be running a business on your own as the one who has to make all the decisions. So it's super important to surround yourself with peers, with mentors, with coaches, people who are farther along than you in the journey, people who are in the same place so that you have a support system to get the help when you need it. Because you can't solve every problem alone. Josh: I'm going to say exactly that, eagles fly with eagles and you're the product of the five people that you're the closest with that surround you. So it's a very important to make sure you do that, and that'll allow for stratospheric growth. Well, Tracey, we've covered a lot of ground here on different blunders that new entrepreneurs can make and what to look out for to stay profitable. And I've really enjoyed going through this with you. Is there anything else that you think we should cover off before we get to the end of this episode? Tracey: One thing I want to highlight is that a lot of times when I start working with entrepreneurs, they tell me they don't know anything about money. They don't know anything about their financial statements. And they really don't know about the numbers. And I learned very quickly that that is not true, and they learn that too, because if you've been in business for any length of time, you actually know how to manage cash flow. You may not do it efficiently, eloquently, you may not talk about it the way that I do, you may not be planning for it, but if you've been around for length of time, you're doing it and you should give yourself credit for it. So I'd like to make sure we're building those wins as working together for you. So the name of my company, financial fitness, I really like to come at it from a positive standpoint. If we talk about financial illiteracy or you’re financially illiterate, that's really negative. But when we're talking about fitness, we're starting wherever we are. And we're just going to build on it. And we can learn every day and become stronger and flex our muscles with repeated learning. So anybody who's got a business out there who's listening today, know that you have skills that maybe you're discounting or not giving yourself credit for. The last thing I would say is if anyone's been inspired today, I have a free gift for your audience so they can keep going on their financial fitness journey. So it's a money needing agenda, which you can download at cashcoach.biz, and that will help you get focused on getting started and taking that next step. So you can get your money needing agenda, cashcoach.biz. Josh: Well make sure to check a couple of links there in the description as well as in our blog articles for everyone else to jump on to that fantastic offer. And I've got to say I love the idea of financial fitness, the way that you position yourself as a personal trainer for finance, because it's very clever. It's something that I know myself, you, everyone does this, you are going to lose some weight. And then you go out there and you go, I'm gonna be Arnold Schwarzenegger in six weeks, I'm going to have that six weeks abs or whatever. And it's two weeks and you're like, I can't do this, this is terrible. This isn't me at all. And it's because you have these huge goals, you think this is gonna be great, I'm all fit already. And then it's just about batting small bits off until you realise if you've already been as you sort of said there, if you've already been running a business for a while you already have that financial information that's required. It just you might not be calling it gross, net and profit. And anything else you might be calling it different things and transferring it in different ways and not calling it drawings and whatever else. But it could be and I might not be calling it the right thing. But it's about knowing that you just have to have a change of language and have someone to hold your hand there and over a course of time, get those financial abs. Tracey: Yeah, absolutely. Build your financial acumen and your confidence in yourself. So you do it one day at a time you consult with people who can help you but it's just how what can I learn today that's going to help me run my business better so I can get to the goals I've set. Josh: Cool. Well, everyone jumped on to that office. It's fantastic offer and Tracey, it’s been lovely speaking with you. And if there is anyone out there in podcast land, please jump across to iTunes, leave us a review, give us some love. Give us some feedback and everyone's stay good and stay healthy.

Business Built Freedom
158|Niching Your Business With Bryn Harwood

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 11, 2020 28:08


Niching Your Business With Bryn Harwood Josh: Who out there in podcast land has been told to niche or even micro niche. It's something that we have drilled into ourselves, you need to do this thing. And I've actually got a special guest, I’ve Bryn Harwood from Tradies accountants in Brisbane. And he's gonna be talking about the process and some of the past, where he's been and where he's gone and what the future looks like. So, Bryn, tell me a bit about where you came from? Like, what was your original business venture? Learn more about niching your business at dorksdelivered.com.au Bryn: Thanks for that, Joshua. Well, I started out as that generalist kind of accountant, so you know, suburban kind of firm doing 30 different industries and doing tax returns, doing company tax returns, doing a whole bunch of different kinds of things. And then one stage through the career I decided that it's kind of hard trying to really understand every different industry because you already know so much. So when you’re in general, it's really hard to give advice, specific advice to business owners because you kind of, there's only one of you. So what I decided was I was going to niche out. I looked at my database, and I had a fair few trade business owners. So I had some kind of builders, plumbers, electricians, and I liked working with those owners that had good businesses. So, at first, I thought, well, for marketing, what I'll do is I'll name it trader’s accountant, but it was still part of my original firm. So that's kind of the premise on how I started the idea of niching and how I kind of got into it. Josh: Okay, so it's kind of like a bit of a sub brand underneath the original umbrella. And then you had the, I guess already clients are already resonating with that brand. And naturally, you'd have to learn more about what they're doing and how their business works and the different tax advantages and equipment finance things that they're doing and whatever else, and that just allows you to build out the brand from there. Is that right? Bryn: Yeah, exactly. I started with the sub brand, as you said, and I actually labeled it -and this isn't a joke- I labeled it GFC Tradies Accountant. And that's not a joke. That's how I started. Obviously, I didn't consult too many marketers, I just came up with it, maybe a few too many beers. And then everybody said to me, why are we putting GFC in front of these? Like, what are you trying to tell us? Josh: Fortune tellers, not accountant at all. Bryn: Exactly. It wasn't a great marketing pitch. But to be serious with it. What I realized really fast was that it's more than just marketing. And I think if you're going to jump into a niche, from my experience, you have to jump fully into the niche. Try to hold on to your original database and then have a separate database. From my experience, and other people might be able to do it differently and it might work, but from my experience, it didn't work. And the reason for that is you kind of alienate your older clients. And then the new clients are kind of wondering why they're the older clients, so why they’re the other brands. So, I found a real disconnect. And it's almost like you've got to reach that moment where you're confident enough to say, I'm going to fully jump into this niche, and that's all I'm going to do. Which is the hard step because if you've got 100 clients on your books, you might have 30 clients that have one industry, and 70 that are in another industry that you still make a reasonable revenue. But for my experience, if you want to go into it, you need to get rid of the other 70, otherwise, it's just really a marketing campaign and you can probably just create a landing page, and do that if that's what you want to do. Josh: So, we haven't, I guess niched the same way you have, but I understand exactly what you're saying. So when we started our business back 13 years ago, we were the IT company that did everything. You call us up, there’s a problem with the VCR. Well, I can fix that for you. I'm not even kidding. I was fixing people's VCRs at that stage, not really the same task to fix someone's TV once and that was going back in the days. It was a big cathode ray tube. So your big fat TV. So I'm always the person who did everything that knew nothing, I guess, or knew something but not enough about everything. Then as things progressed onwards, I saw a bit more of a trend and Dorks Delivered, the original brand as it started, became an IT business. And then we had business efficiency experts that did all the automation stuff. And then we had asked about marketing, because it became too cloudy to see what it was that we're actually doing. And someone came to us and they said, we want to have our business marketed online. We want to have our LinkedIn marketing automated or something like that. And we'd go, yeah, okay, we can do that. And they were like, oh, we had no idea. You could do the names Dorks Delivered, and sound anything like marketing at all, and I'm like, Yeah, okay, we got to sort that out. There's definitely like you're saying about the GFC. I'm like, I can't bring up the business name of someone that I know that just changed business names, but if they move the space character, just one spot, it sounds like a type of operation that you get to remove puss from your body as opposed to an awesome IT business. In making that transition, you said 30% of your customers was sitting in the trading sub business banner. When you made the transition to jump out on your own as a trader’s accountant, did you find that there was less friction when it came to marketing, and the overall message was more easily heard because the tradie would come to you going I know you know what I need to have done? Bryn: Exactly right. I think that's probably the main reason you'd go to a niche is for that. But what I've learned is we've hired, you know, some really exceptional chartered accountants, and some really exceptional team members. And when you're just in one industry, you realise that the advice that you can start to give is actually really invaluable, you know, so we have knowledge on VBA. We have knowledge on QBCC, these are regulators that work in the trade space. We've worked with associations like the Australian Shopfitters Association, and through that we've worked with a fair few different shopfitters where now we're at the point where we can quickly look at a set of financials and see what's wrong with the financials, like quickly see what's wrong with the business. So we can understand, you know, things like contractors and the business models. And every industry is different. You know, we've had people come to us that, you know, wanted to set up a medical practice or that were in different industries, and we actually tell them when. So I've actually referred them to other accountants, and regularly do that now, like I will regularly say, we're probably not the right fit. And the reason is, is because what we do do, we do extremely well. And that's the only thing we do. Josh: Yep. And I think like, the big take home there for me is when someone has something wrong with their books, you can see what's wrong. You can see if they're spending 20%, 30%, 50% higher on their staffing costs, and they're spending 50% less in their marketing costs, and they're wondering about where their money is going. You could probably more easily drill down and say, hey, you need to sort of maybe consider taking a course doing this and dropping down some of these people's pays. Why are they getting paid so much? Is that a discussion that you could have? Bryn: 100%. It’s like, we can look at it and say, look, these are the risks. You know, if you're in the trade space, and you set up like this, this is a risk down the track, these are the regulators in that space. These are where the risks are of your company. This is the way you'd want to set your company up if you're doing XYZ, and then also just, you know, look over the financials and kind of say, look, you know, charge out rates for these, you're probably losing money there, you’re probably not as efficient as you should be here. You know, your GPs is other people in your field. So, you know, we have that real specialised knowledge now, and I mean, it's only probably been three to four years, but that's only going to increase because every time we hire people, they're only dealing with shopfitters, builders, contractors, that's all they're dealing with. So we know that industry inside out. And I think that is a big advantage with doing all these that I've done. I've talked to different business owners that have been worried about niching because I've thought, you know, then I'm going to be reducing obviously my size, like my client database, like it's going to go smaller. But I've always had the philosophy that you almost go inch wide, but mile deep. So no, we have clients from Melbourne, I did a webinar the other day, I had clients from Western Australia on there, clients in Sydney. So I believe that actually the trade business owners in Australia quite large, and that'll haven't actually reduced my overall client. I've increased it. But you've just got to think, I think pf it actually. In saying that, I'm not saying that everybody needs to niche. I've got some good friends that are partners and other accounting firms. And that said, why does every guru say we've got a niche, we don't have to, we can be accountants, and I think that's fine. I think there's a space for generalist accountants, and they do a great job. And you know, if their job is to do tax returns and financial statements, that's what their job is. And I think that's fantastic. I wouldn't encourage everybody to go and say, I'm going to go niche, look at my database and do it because I don't necessarily think that it's necessary to grow your business. It’s probably looking at your capabilities within and saying, you know, what can I focus on? What can I serve as externally? Josh: Yeah, and it comes down to what your end goal is, I guess. You can own a fish and chip shop and make a lot of money, and you can own McDonald's and make a lot of money, but they're very different things that the business owner is undertaking. One's buying a job, and one's buying an investment, it depends on what you're looking to be doing. Buying a job isn't a bad thing, if that's what you want to do, if you want to have that flexibility. Bryn: 100%. I speak to clients, you know, and that's one of the first things I say, what do you want? What do you want to get out of your business? Like some clients want us to work on the tools so I don't try and work clients off the tools if they don't want to do that, they might want to work on the tools, ran a crew of five people, you know, turn over a million dollars and have a couple hundred grand profit. I don’t believe the guru's and I don't listen to a lot of influences and say you know, niching is the only way to go for accounts and you need to have your own niche. I don't think you do need to have your own niche, but my advice on niching would be or from my experience, my experience share would be if you're going to do it, jump in 100%, don’t put your toes in learn the niche, speak to the clients and then start to get that extra skill. And it's not a quick process, you're not going to do it in six months, and then say I'm a medical expert now and I know everything about dentists. It might take you four years, until you really start to cut your teeth on it and really understand the industry. So you need to be patient. Josh: Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger effect? Bryn: No. Josh: It's a cognitive bias. It's where you start doing something. Okay, for instance, we'll talk about beer brewing offline beforehand. You might brew one beer and be like, I'm a brew master. I'm amazing. I can do everything. I know everything, and then you bring your second beer and go, oh, that one's stuffed up for some reason. And then you brew your third beer and you go, okay, now one was alright, maybe I'm going ok again and then you start mucking around with hops, and then you start doing other bits and pieces that didn't work or that did. Then then all of a sudden you realise it's a really, really deep subject. As you said, inch wide, mile deep. If you don't know how deep something is, the Dunning Kruger effect is this feeling that you've got a you've… a false feeling that you know everything about something. And interestingly, when you actually do know everything about something or close to it, you have this lack of confidence around the topic because you know how deep it's gone. And that's exactly right. So when you start jumping in there, and then being able to answer those questions that would, again, remove a lot of friction from sales. because somebody's like, oh, what would you do with XYZ? And you've got bang the answer straightaway for them. Bryn: 100%. And like, I'm still talking to business owners on things, like I'm still sitting in a board meeting or sitting with a builder. And they're saying, actually, we do this because of this, and this is how this happens. And I go, oh, wow, I didn't know that, you know. I find myself sitting outside in shopfitters presentations with you know, Pythor or one of the products that I use and go oh, wow, that product’s amazing, that actually shows the shop before they're built, I never knew that you could do that. So you know, even I've been in use for a while I think continually learning and sharpening that industry that you're in. Josh: Getting that industry knowledge, though, as well like being told about this new cool thing you think why is no one else told me this, it gives you a fantastic piece of information, a nugget of information that you can then talk to any of your other clients about, then you become that authority. Bryn: That's what it is. Like, I sat with a client the other day, and they were using a kind of generalist accountant and he sat with me for 30 minutes. And say I'm really happy with my accountant. But essentially, in 30 minutes, you've told me more than I kind of knew about the accounting, and he has a general accounting team. But he said, in 30 minutes, you’ve told me more than I knew over the last year and a half. And that doesn't mean I was going to change him. But it was just the fact that actually knowing the industry, knowing the software's he needs to use, knowing where the pain points are going to be. And knowing his next steps, like you know, if you only go to 10, these are steps. If you want to go to 20, these are the pain points you’ll have. That's the advantage you'll get from niching, but you have to be patient, it will take time to get there. And the marketing around it isn't instantaneous, like if you just go out and say I'm the medical doctor, no medical accountant. I mean, there are a lot of people in the niche space and a lot of the big firms have their own specialists in different industries as well. So there is competition, a lot of competition, and probably the same with IT. I mean, I've heard there are IT providers that just do pubs and there are IT providers that just do retail, which probably isn't a good space to be in right now, unfortunately. Josh: A great segue actually. Niching, luckily, I'm not in a single niche, but we do have a lot of shopfitters, and obviously they rely heavily upon the retail industry in the growth in the retail industry. And we have automotive businesses that we work with and we have people in the financial sector, so I'm lucky enough to say that we've got our eggs in a few baskets. But there is businesses that don't, and you haven't micro nation and you've diversified enough that it’d be very unlikely that you have the entire industry disappear. But if you have done something like I don’t wanna say silly, but it's not silly. But if you have done something where you're only focusing all of your efforts on to pubs, for instance, so servicing gambling machines and things like that. What do you do when everything shuts down, when hospitality disappears? Where we've put in a spot where you thought there was an industry that would never die, people keep eating, people keep going out and gambling and then you're told sorry, shops are shut for the next three months or more and nothing you can do about it. How did you make sure you didn't fall into that trap? Bryn: To be honest with you there, I was just lucky. Like when I went into it, some of the due diligence I did at the start was to look at the industry and kind of say, well, trade based businesses most likely aren't going to be outsourced because they don't really have robots that can go and put plaster up, go and do your electrical work or go and do your drains, so a lot of them are very nearby. So I thought automation was probably not going to kill that industry. So that was one of the things, and then the construction industry is a massive industry in Australia, obviously, I think 20% of employment comes from the construction industry. So it's a very big sector. But in your point, the Black Swan effect you know, none of this would predict that there's going to be a pandemic, and that’s gonna knock out a lot of industries. Fortunately for me, trade businesses were an essential service. And that wasn't by design, that was by luck. That's meant that a lot of my clients haven't suffered, although the shopfitters in particular have suffered, as you said, because they’re linked to the retail industry. But to answer your question, if you do niche, I think you are taking, you are almost part of that industry now. So the same risks they have, you have. So if you have a range of different industries, you're diversifying that, and then if the sun go down, you are as deeply impacted. For me, some day with some of the things I looked at, and I kind of thought to myself, well, if we ever get to the point where there's a robot that can come to your house and do your fix your lights and do your plumbing, we're probably at the point where none of us have got jobs. The accounting’s gone as well at that point. I’m like well, that risks are probably can’t mitigate. Josh: So I'm in a great industry, obviously, IT, because I'm the guy fixing the robots. But the good news is they're never gonna take everyone's jobs, because moments before you think they're gonna be able to accomplish the tasks, you'd have to turn them on and off again. I think it's kind of like when you look at the car, the car killed those horses jobs, these horses had quality jobs and now we're getting new shoes all the time and that this bloody car came along and stunk up the place, but you don't really look at it like that. That is a horse that is automated. It's a car, it's just an automated horse. And there's so many different metaphor vehicle, there's certainly other vehicles like that that have just automated the process. The calculator automated the abacus. Excel automated the calculator. It doesn't remove jobs though. I think it just shifts your focus to things that are more important. Bryn: Exactly. I think that's the thing, isn't it? Like when one creates another industry creates from that, and I think, you know, in the accounting space, I think you know, there's a lot of automation happening. We use Hub Dock, some people use Receipt Bank or Hub Dock or one of these programs and that basically puts copies straight into the system. There's a few different programs that now sync to your job management software and put your APs or your purchase orders to match the bills and they put them straight into the system. What I found with that is this still uses behind that, because there are still people that have got to sit there and make sure it matches and press the buttons and make sure that happens. So, I don't necessarily think, and there's still a very big space for strategic accounting, and I think they're always well, you know, I think in my lifetime, there probably always will be a place where you need actual advisors. So that automation was a little bit of a risk, but I guess I looked up, and I guess every business owner out there is probably looking at that risking their business to some degree. Josh: Well, if you're not automating, it's again, if you're running a fleet of sports cars and horses, it's not going to work. You need to adapt and change with the times. Automation has been around us for years and years and years. It's just it's become a bit more of a buzz term lately. I think like, when you look at checkout chicks and checkout dudes, jobs that have been automated by those little telling machine things. If their job, if it can be automated with a machine that's that big, it means whatever that we're doing was not going to be advancing their life in the future anyway, it was just having them sit there and earn some money in a brain dead job you could do with a hangover, and I'm getting ready to get some fire word, I just said then, but if you can have a machine that does this, that doesn't remove jobs, all it does is as you said, shifts the focus of the jobs to the people that are generating the software, entering the codes to make sure that it can be done, making sure that every item is weighed appropriately, and making sure that the one person is actually looking and doing everything and I'd imagine, it's the way with the all industries it's going to happen. Bryn: I think so. I think like from my experience now when I'm dealing with builders or shop fitters. contractors, like, the biggest thing we're teaching them is it's all software, these jobs now are all software already. Like, if you're a shop fitter, and you're not using software that can track GP real time, then you're going to get burned by other shop fitters because it's amazing now, the technology like everything sinking, everything's linking, and you've got people that can see the GP on every shot that you're building at one time. And that's probably where I'm seeing the good entrepreneurs in those fields are really, really taking off. And the ones that are still on the old based systems are struggling, wondering how the quotes are coming in so cheap. You know, theres something wrong with the industry because people are taking things below cost. It's not necessarily the case. It's because these other businesses are more efficient, exactly. And they do that for people like you, like your companies that come in and look at where the efficiencies are, what systems they can use, how they can automate processes, and yeah, the clients that I work with have been doing that differently have a long way ahead above the other. The clients and on to starting to slowly kind of die off, if that's a good way to put it. Josh: As you said, you've got to be ready to adopt, you've got to be ready for the future. And if you got to be niching, you've got to be ready to make sure that your eggs are in multiple baskets or in a basket that is capable of some level of contingency should risk such as the pandemic come available, which brings me to my next point. So I've looked in going, okay, how deep do I want to niche? How much do I want to look into it? This is silly Josh engineering mind going into gear and I think okay, I'll look through the census data, I'll look at the growth data. I'll look through the data of the population and what different areas and sectors are doing whatever, and then try and work out where the growth pattern be from there. So you are fortunate that you had a number of trade types of clients already working with you and then you build the business upon that spot. Did you look into the census data or the growth? Bryn: We did actually look at a bunch of different figures like how many trade businesses there were, the size of trade businesses, we did do a bit fair bit of due diligence in regards to that. And I think, you know, factor, that kind of point that you're raising around a niche is that you are kind of taking that risky industry. So you want to do the due diligence to find out as much information as possible as you can about the industry. And I think you could go further and micro niche, like, you could be a plumber’s accountant, you could be, you know, you could be an electrician’s accountant, or you could go that far into a micro niche. And then I guess you really want to look at that industry. Lke one of my mentors actually said to me, my good friend said, the best entrepreneurs in the world aren't the best entrepreneurs, they pick the best industry. And that really resonated with me because I thought about that for a while and he said look at Elon Musk, for example. He's picked renewable energy. And where's everything going in the next 10, 20 years? It's renewable energy, like people don't want the pollutions out of hand down. It's cheaper and proved it's cheaper than coal now. I think PwC, can have their reported that it is actually cheaper to use renewable energy. And so back to that point, I think the best entrepreneurs actually look at the industry they're in and it's not by luck that they end up in any race that makes sense. It's being able to look ahead and see well, where are things going? Obviously, right now, maybe, and, you know, maybe the retail industry, bricks and mortar is not where you want to be. Because no matter how good you are at retailing, right now, if you're not running an e-commerce business, maybe that's not the space. But maybe if you're running an e-commerce business right now, you're Amazon, you're riding the right industry. And I don't think these people, I don't think people like Bezos or Musk, these people. I don't think it's by luck they've ended up in those industries. I think they have looked forward to going what's going to be the biggest thing in 10 years’ time? What industry is that going to be? How people going to leave? How are people going to behave? What are the things people are going to do? And then they focus their services around that. Josh: Yeah. And before everyone thinks that they're obviously not fortune tellers, but I think there's probably 100,000 other people that have tried looking into the future, and then they just bet on the wrong horse. And we don't know about them, because they bet on the wrong horse. Bryn: I would have never known that trade services was going to be an essential service in a pandemic. I never looked at that. And I read the Black Swan. I actually read the book. I went through it and I thought, well, how can you predict a black swan? I could never have predicted that, and that was luck. But some of the factors that I went through in that was that I thought that they couldn't be automated. I thought there was always a space. New houses were being built continuously in Australia. The construction industry has always been a booming industry. We are still like under supply of houses even to this day, there's an under supply of houses in the Brisbane market, maybe the Sydney and Melbourne market as well. So if you look at those factors, I think there's going to be a lot more houses that are going to be built. And there's going to be a lot more big construction projects like intercity rail. You know, in Melbourne, there's lots of projects that are being done there. Josh: It’d be different for living in a city that was 3000 years old, and you could knock down buildings, you had all these different restrictions, it'd be a different scope or we're in a faux landscape, beautiful land down under that we can't really be complaining too much. Even in this time of unknowing, we're in and I'm going to plug Australia obviously, we're in the best country in the world. We've got the best health care, we've got the lowest death rate mortality rate from the pandemic, and we've got all these different grants and everything else that's coming through that's helping businesses out, like I can't complain. I'm pretty, pretty happy with where we're at. Bryn: You know, in Australia like you say, we’re in the place to be. I mean, we've got obviously the mining industry, it's going to continue, we've saved a lot of money. I think we're well ahead GDP per debts pretty low here. You know, they've got the money to spend on the population. And pumped money into construction, which is probably the best move. I know all the governments have now announced all these massive projects. And I think that's just going to get people in jobs and going to keep the economy kind of moving along as we come out of the back end of this. Just on a personal level, we went out to the coffee shop in the weekend. And, you know, as soon as I opened it up, and we were at a coffee shop, and we're at the shops, and we're spending money, and I think that's what people will do, you know, they'll go back and support local businesses. So I think in terms of tourism, I see people traveling, you know, domestically now. Go to Northern Territory, go to Townsville, go to Cairns, you know. You can't really go to Asia or Europe or anything like that maybe for the next however long that's gonna be, but we can go and have a good holiday at the Great Barrier Reef. Josh: All the overseas listeners hear that, you can't even come see our beautiful place, not for a bit, but it's pretty good. For any of the tradies out there that are listening, you've obviously heard a bunch of advantages to working with Bryn’s fantastic business. It'd be worth jumping across the tradiesaccountant.com and checking out the voodoo that he does, and booking in some time to make sure that you're doing everything that you can be doing to automate your processes and make sure that you're getting the biggest bang for buck in this time of the pandemic. So, before we head off, Bryn is there anything else you'd like to go through, we'll cover off on? Bryn: The point of the podcast today was around niching. And I just say, you know, if that's something that you're thinking of doing, I think the main experiences I gave is, like I've said earlier, head into it, and do it. Research the industry thoroughly, try and although you're not Nostradamus, try and predict what's going to happen in the next 10 years and try and kind of have some something's weather, collect as much data as you can, and have the data almost make the decision more than the intuition to some degree and then speak to other people that have done it. You know, if you're an IT guy and you want to go and niche into the trade space or something like that, come and speak to me or if you're you know, whatever you're wanting to niche in, speak to other people in that industry, and get to know as much as you can. That would be my main, probably three kind of points to share with the listeners on how to niche if you want to niche. But I would also say to that as a caveat on the end, don't listen to the influencers because you don't have to niche. Josh: Terms and conditions apply. I agree. And that's why I want to get you on the show because we have had people that have been very against it and we have had people that are very for it, but I haven't had anyone that's actually walked the walk and talk the talk and you've got a biased opinion, obviously, you're running a business that has niche, but it's still good hearing the journey that you've come on, how you got to where you're at and what you've seen is some of your advantages of doing that. Bryn: Thank you for having me on. I've enjoyed it thoroughly and I've enjoyed the beers that we've had. Josh: Oh, now everyone knows we've been having sneaky bees. Oh no. Oh, no. I've loved having you on as well, and if anyone else has anything to say, leave a review, jump across to iTunes. Give us some love and give us some feedback. Everyone else out there, stay good, stay healthy and look forward to talk to you again soon.

Business Built Freedom
157|Business Asset Protection with Jason Popelier

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2020 28:26


Business Asset Protection with Jason Popelier Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land. I've got a fantastic guest, he’s going to be talking about asset protection and how to change the model of your business to make sure that you are considering things you have between the items that are bringing you in money, the items that are costing you money are definitely separated, as well as not just from the accounting perspective, but also from a bit of a twist on it, bringing in insurance and all sorts of other things into it. So, I’ve have Jason here from FWO Chartered Accountants. So, Jason, what is the number one reason that you'd want to make sure that you are considering when reviewing the model of your business or making sure that you get a change? When do you go from sole trader to company to then having several companies or a Trust Company to make sure that you have asset protection? How do you know, when's that aha moment? Learn more about business asset protection at dorksdelivered.com.au Jason: Good question. The thing that I always start with any of my clients or new clients or potential clients are their goals. To start with, I don't really care what their structure is currently, I start with what they’re trying to achieve? And their current business structure (makeup) currently enable them to achieve that? I ignore what's been set up in the past because there's a lot of businesses out there who have the wrong entities, or have the right entities but they’ve structured it in the wrong way as well. Imagine a business that has higher risks, let's say the construction industry. Even though most of my clients are professional services, I have quite a few construction clients and they have millions of dollars' worth of equipment. There's a lot of businesses out there who look at the costs of setting up or maintaining two entities and decide to hold all assets all under the same entity, they want to save costs, technically the do but at a cost of increased risk. Realistically, it's not that much more to set up a new entity, especially when you consider the cost if you actually lose everything. These businesses have to maintain a minimum asset level for the licensing rules and the minimum assets are set on their turnover. But you can imagine that if something went wrong, and the business essentially got tanked, and it was out of their control, because they were a subcontractor to a bigger guy who deliberately withheld cash flow, it happens a lot, especially in the construction industry. if withheld for five months, they will essentially have to go into either voluntary liquidation or forced liquidation because they can't pay some of their subcontractors or staff as well. They will lose everything. And the other person just goes, great, one less creditor to pay. If they had structured the situation a little bit differently, let's just say they had a warehouse that held the equipment, they could have that in a separate entity, which is its own legal entity. Those separated assets can be protected in that sense. To cover costs and replacements, the trading entity can have, in normal terms, a cross charge for leasing of those assets and facilities. The difference now is those same assets are not subject to the same risks of the trading business, even if they’re ultimately still commonly owned. Looking at the types of structures, the reason you would have a proprietary limited (company) scenario versus a sole trader or partnership structure scenario is a sole trader (and partners) are liable to their share or the entire project, depending if they're partners default. Limited, by itself means that there's a limitation on liability. You automatically have less exposure than operating by yourself or in partnership. Then if you use multiple structures that are limited in their own rights, then there might be a further set of layers for protection. I went on a bit of a tangent around protection after what goals they're trying to achieve. Reviewing a client goals and objectives. If a client wants to retire at 50, actually let's go up to the new norm, retired at 60 because you probably realize the same as myself, by the time we get to retirement age, we'll probably be 75 or 80, so let's be realistic. Josh: If doctors can increase it, the amount of time we can live, the retirement age would just be 10 years prior to that. Pretty much. Jason: E xactly, and people will work longer, there's technology we can utilise as well in addition to medical advances. So, it might be a little bit later, but let's just say the goal instead of retiring at 50, is now 60. Because the 60 is the new 50 in terms of retirement age. To get there, we need to decide what that looks like and there is a combination of superannuation in there. We need to protect that in some sense, this may be around your investment strategy, to not be too aggressive or to have a balanced fund, depending, and the closer we get to retirement, the less risk we put into our investments. Talking about risk and protecting that, one of the greatest assets for business owner is the business itself. And it has the highest potential to create the most value out of any asset they are other than themselves, right? So why don’t business owners give more consideration to risks? We forget that we, as a person are our own greatest asset. No one else can replace us. And a lot of people forget that. You can actually insure that as well. But if you're in control of your own business (instead of being an employee), it's co-related. So there has to be an element of your business, essentially making up that retirement age, and that goal. And we look at that and go, okay, what is your business look like? And how can we de-risk that particular business or set of businesses, as people might have a portfolio of multiple. Referencing an example ... there was client I worked with a couple of years ago. They had about 26 entities that were trading, so you can imagine if they trade in over 26, we're talking the group that was 100 plus entities. Little bit complicated. We had to slice and dice and put appropriate levels of protection while grouping into pools because of those 26 trading entities, only about six or seven of them were actually making real decent money, but you got to look at each business in its own right, not as a big pool. Breaking down a business, you look as each and challenge, how can we achieve these goals? Start with an element that you've got to focus. Look at what products you have and how you have an advantage in the market, why people want to come and work with you. And this could be around branding and protecting that. Also consider elements through technology, and how do you protect those items or services? This is when cyber security would come into place. Josh: For me to understand, I guess any of our listeners, I guess that would mean like, if you have a house and you chuck security cameras on the house, and an alarm system is going to reduce your premiums. And similarly, if you have a business that has a bunch of IT equipment, and then you decided to make sure that you had someone else that was taking a level of accountability. Like for instance for us, we charge a set price per month, and then we guarantee their uptime. If they go down, we pay them while they're down. So we guarantee they're up. Now, so that in a sense kind of sounds like an insurance policy, but we make sure they have certain levels of protection, they have certain types of antivirus, they have certain types of networking monitoring. So if you have any of that sort of stuff, that would have to reduce the premium sound when you're looking at cyber insurance, is that right? Jason: Exactly, there's always an element. But yeah, it's a contributing factor. And if its contributing factor is significantly more, the more risks you have, and the more people you have in your business the change in risks you have to consider. So, you can imagine the risk that are reduced down for a 10-person practice or whatever it might be, versus 100 would be significantly less. And it also depends on the nature of the business and everything else as most insurances would factor in. Josh: If we look at like toll, toll recently, and in Australia was under a bit of heat with their hack and it came through a phishing email, for anyone out there that doesn't know what that is, is when someone sends an email pretending, they look like someone else. And then they asked for some coin and they sometimes do it, it might not be like, hey, send money to this Bitcoin address, I have your nudes. That's a very common one, but a lot of the time be more like, congratulations, you've just qualified for a business bonus, as long as you just fill out this form, and it comes from your director, your KPIs had being met appropriately, or whatever it is, and it looks quite legitimate if they've been doing something that's been a targeted attack. With toll hack, what could they have done differently? And what can we learn from that? From your perspective, what could they have done differently to remove the immediate problem as well as the overall not being hacked? Or at least having something there to fall back on? Jason: Good question, and what I’ll do is give you an example for part of that using what I do myself in my own business, because it's easy to explain how you've mitigated your own risks. A lot of businesses aren't taking cyber threats too seriously and that's just ridiculous. Australia is at a high risk in Cyber because of this. In my practice, we started with a quarterly, it's about biannual now, review of the cyber risks and everything that's involved. We've got a cyber risk manual and what's expected. And we also run systematic tests that we don't tell the staff. Josh: Phishing simulators and stuff like that? Jason: Exactly, phishing simulators. Exactly. We essentially have sporadic phishing emails sent to staff just to see what they do. And it's disappointing that I would say a high percentage maybe 10% - 20% would actually fail sent phishing but what that enables is a conversation with that person and identifies that they need further education around these risks. Josh: Do you give training and stuff like that after that's been found? Like you're obviously analyzing and have the data to be able to see this person could done whatever they didn't from there, yeah? Jason: Exactly. I might do part of the training myself. Some of my team will do part of it. I also educate my staff to obverse how I sound in my communication. If it doesn't sound like how I communicate in my words, isn’t logical in what I'm asking, is what I’m asking out of the business norm and if it is then don’t respond etc. Worst case, if they’re unsure, get on the phone and speak to me or speak to the Practice Manager. And it's about that education. It's about how many steps we can put in place to make sure it doesn't break or fail. So that's something that a larger organization definitely needs to do, they definitely need to assume that their staff will make mistakes because they are human, and test those mistakes to see who is making mistakes and at what levels and where you might need to educate. Because you can imagine a phishing simulator around cyber can globally be applied at a very low cost, at a very low cost compared to the impact. Josh: Sent to thousands of emails. Jason: Exactly, exactly. Compared to the impact that that one failure could potentially make. Using a recent example with TOLL. Their huge mistake cost millions upon millions upon millions of dollars. So that would be one of the key cyber takeaways that just gobsmacked me that, a dozen, a dozen major cyber hacks, right, it gobsmacked me actually that an organization like TOLL hasn't implemented something like that. But at the same time, it doesn't surprise me because the larger the organization, the more things get lost and the slower things move. There's also an element of embarrassment as well as it goes up the chain. This kind of embarrassment is actually not as bad as some of the Scandinavian countries which are very chain of command minded where they want to follow suit from the top, and they're not encouraged to identify errors and mistakes, which is why Volkswagen got themselves in a bit of a heat and it's also on. Josh: This is on the carbon monoxide output on the vehicles. Jason: Exactly. Which they actually knew about years ago but no one ever explained it because it was going against what the top dog wanted to do. You can even trace this type of mentality to why Nokia phones failed. Josh: I'm pissed off, I can't change my phone cover anymore. It sucks! Jason: T he good old Nokia phone that you could throw against the wall and pick it up and put it back together and it still works. Josh: And last five days on a battery. Jason: Exactly. But going back to the issues, there's an element that you have to address from a culture perspective. You have to encourage reporting if there are breakages to report. This means people don't get penalized for reporting, if they are then they won't report. that's a key thing. From a cultural perspective, TOLL could have done better. From a systems and operations, TOLL could have done better. How you handle the media, also TOLL could have done better. So, to de-risk a situation, there are specialists who organisations deal with and predominantly PR, but they might have a mix or organisations who help you identify risks of certain conversations and everything else. You know, one of the scenarios that we saw that was highly impacted in Queensland, especially southeast Queensland, was Dreamworld with the impact caused by a lack of maintenance and then everything else that followed. Josh: You're talking about like three years ago. Yeah, yep. Yep. So anyone else that's listening in overseas that happens to be here, Dreamworld, local theme park that had a bit of an issue with a lack of maintenance and some of the processes, it might have just been a few series of unfortunate events paired with lack of maintenance and lack of training, but there was a rough River Rapids ride that flipped over and it killed four parents, wasn't it? Is that right? Jason: Yeah, i t killed four people. There was a brother and sister you know, a mother or something and a father. It shouldn't have happened. The ride flip diver and essentially crushed them and it was a very tragic event. Looking back and reflecting from a risk point of view, there were risks everywhere in that scenario. We're talking about a listed company here too. There was a risk where the head of group was essentially bleeding cash out of the business from a daily basis that maintenace wasn’t allowed/maintained. They should have just cut off the couple of failed businesses. They weren't even treating the business itself as a separate business unit. In relation to the media, I know for a fact the PR company that they initially engaged resigned because they (Dreamworld) wouldn't follow their advice. And this is the same risk that TOLL made with the media. They actually engaged but they chose not to listen, and then their PR company decided to eject as fast as they possibly can, because it's a reflection on them as well. And there was a number of highly critical issues when speaking with the media about certain aspects. Giving themselves a bonus of millions of dollars a week later from the incident, just a bunch of really … really bad decision making. For you and me speaking, Joshua, and all the listeners would just go what? How stupid can you be … and this comes down to a bit of greed. So, there's a range of different factors. Josh: Do you think they had like a certain level of god-factor like they've put themselves above what they think is the rules and the law and they've sort of put them into god mode? Why do you think that they made the decisions? Because that way in our boat at some stage, if you at the theme part, I don’t know most of our listeners don't know the theme park, but they must have had some level of normalcy in their life, most people to go okay, how do I look at this and understand that it's going to turn to this. Surely, there's got to be a certain time or a spot where you think, okay, this is your shit decision. What happens? Like what do you think through that hit? Obviously, this isn't obviously what you do. You're not a psychologist, but like, what do you think happened? Jason: I could probably draw on some of my education as well as some of my consulting from corporate finance days where I actually put a value on who (people) to keep in the business from a culture perspective, and this comes back to the business norms. A culture is set by business norms. You (as an owner) might say this is our culture, these are our values, but if you don't practice them, then the people inside the business set business norms. And although we might be very highly surprised these sorts of decisions are made, to them (the culprits), it's only a little incremental difference compared to what their normal it might be. It can explain a lot of things with, you know, some of the famous collapses and really corrupt things in the finance world that occur, including Enron in the US. We kind of look at Enron and go ‘how the hell were these people able to essentially destroy people's lives’ and hold a state (in the USA) ransom for their electricity? This comes back to what their business norms are. If you get encouraged or rewarded for making decisions, that sets a new norm. Heading back to the Dreamworld accident and lack of any maintenance program. They cut the maintenance program to save some cash. The person who just created some extra cash as a reward, the board gives them some of that cash back and as an addition to this reward, they also get promoted. This now sets a shift in the expectations of the business. And the more this type of action occurs, the more normalised it becomes. And when something serious happens, the review the normal in their heads and say ... well, this is the normal, this is what is expected in my world. Everyone else is in my world. So, the impact is not going to be that great. And then they get surprised that the community essentially smashes them for their behavior. And they're like, but I'm just doing what I've been doing for the last however many years, and I'm entitled to that money. And it's just because these business norms that the culture is so disconnected from the community. Taking another slight side tangent, as business owners, we need to engage in the community. There's almost an element of obligation, not just for Australian owned businesses, but for businesses and across the globe as well. Businesses actually survive because we (the people) allow them to participate in the business community for particular cultures. We need to make sure that those types of cultures are engaged with the community and that they’re giving back to the community. The more that you (as a business) shut that window and just focus purely on a couple of variables around money and greed, and other things as well, the more disconnected you’re going to be and the higher risks that will bottle within the business. And that applies across the board. I've seen these issue sit in start-up businesses and they actually have a higher impact on culture and the community when compared to a larger business. If the culture is bad, is actually easier to transform larger businesses culture than a smaller business. And the mid-range businesses have the greatest impact because they're still somewhat nimble, but they can transform. This is just an element of risk in a business itself, and cybersecurity is just another component, while key person risk is another element. Josh: It’s a big one for me actually. When I first started my business, I was the key person, and getting key person insurance for yourself as a business owner as a fuzzy income, let's call it a fuzzy income. If you're reinvesting your money, you could be earning $10 or $10 million. But if you're reinvesting the whole load into your business, and you have no income, then what are you worth and where do you sit with your insurance, and so it becomes a bit of a fuzzy income. And the key person, you can't really get key person, you can correct me, but you can't really get key person for yourself when you're doing this with your income because you're investing into something that you can see as someone who's going to be working. Jason: You can actually insure the key person if they are the business owner; you just have to understand what impact they have and what price this equates to. It’s the same for anyone in a business, you can insure any key person … it’s just a matter of cost. Josh: Okay. So see if I ran a business and I was like a Pty Ltd registered and set up myself as the employee, and I'm just making up a scenario now, but let's say I earned $85,000 a year $80,000 a year just underneath the next tax, that’s $70,000-ish. I mean, I tell everyone, I don't know if that's exactly right now and if you're listening in the future, it might be changed. Anyway so $90,000, if I'm under the $90,000, I say I'm earning that, I'm paying the tax on that but I'm earning nothing, okay, I'm actually earning nothing I'm just able to pay the tax. And then I have some big issue where … and the key person in the business collapses. If the business never actually turned over but paid the tax what is the insurance yet? Jason: Well, you have essentially lied on your application. In this case you're not actually insured, even though you're paying for insurance, and best case they might just refund you. Josh: So the insurance is against the money that comes, not the money that you've paid tax on. Jason: No, no. You have to be truthful on an insurance policy. And if you're not truthful, they can deny the policy itself. if you're not actually earning that, and the business can't pay that about, then your key person insured amount and what you've actually said is a lie. There's an element that if you're taking out insurance, you got to be truthful, because if you're not truthful, they can deny the insurance, and there's no point of taking out insurance in the first place. That's a key thing for the listeners. Separate to that, you've got to define what type of insurance and what risks you're trying to alleviate. Josh: Yeah, of course. Jason: Looking at it, there's business disruption insurance, which is if something outside of the norm that disrupts the business, but you've still maintained all the key people, that's business disruption, noting this excludes pandemics. But that's when the government would step in. And we're lucky in Australia that we have a government that can support us versus other countries. . Josh: Bloody Oath, Mate. Jason: That's it. That's it. We're just lucky to be Australians. But separate to that, a key person insurance is if … let's just say, Josh, you run an IT business, right? You run at least at an IT business. You also have other businesses, but let's just focus on your IT business. Your family essentially owns that business with you, right? Josh: Yep. My emotions are impacted, and their emotions are impacted by my business. So absolutely, we're all together in this. Jason: That's correct. But there's an element that your family owns that business. What happens tomorrow if you were in a car crash, and you died, unfortunately, what would happen to your family? If you've got life insurance, they'll get the life insurance, but nothing else. That’s a risk in itself, right. Hopefully your insurance will cover everything your family needs to survive without you to some degree. They can't replace you, but they can at least financially survive without you. Josh: If I'm a workaholic. That's all I am, anyway. So, it's fine. Jason: Yeah, well that's it, that's it. Imagine now there are other people in the business, right. We’re now talking about other livelihoods, not just yourself, you're just the owner. You could be an employee, but you're the owner. What happens to them? They essentially lose their job. Josh: Our business right now have 12 employees, for instance. Jason: Exactly. So, all 12 employees are pretty much stuffed, right? Josh: Absolutely. Jason: To some degree, the business will just completely explode. If you had key person insurance, an element maybe protected depending on how its shaped. The business could survive because it’s protected. But then the issue shifts to who owns the business after. Does the executor of your estate get involved? if it's a sole owner situation, the insurance proceeds inject into the business may help the business survive until they are able to find someone who has similar skill sets. The business may not be able to survive in the same sense, but it has the ability to survive. Now, imagine the same situation but with two partners. So key person insurance is more to insure the person and business disruption is more to insure for the outside of norm that might happen that's not a pandemic or force of nature or something like that, right? Which is highly unlikely. Except in Australia, apparently, we've had floods, fires, droughts, and Corona Virus. Exactly. All in the last decade. Josh: Jump into the Old Testament and look at what's going next and read it forward. It's just crazy, isn't it? Jason: Exactly, exactly. Jason: I’ve seen in situations after the fact. Not in my case, because I always made sure my clients actually got these sorts of things lined up or else, they won't be clients for too long. And that's just, you know, you either want to follow my advice or you don't. Josh: You’re there for a reason. If no one's listening, what's the point? It's the same as me, like, people aren't listening to the advice we're giving. What's the point of having us here? Jason: I’m there for a reason. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So where I'm going to lead into is by selling insurance. Let's just say you're still in the business but you bring on another partner, and you are 50∕50. Something happened to that partner, and it's worth money in the business and they're 50%, but their estate essentially holds a 50 percent ownership of the business and you can't legally make decisions to some or some decisions because you need voting rights and there's an equal voting right to make a decision on some instances. Day to day you might be able to still operate, but you might be subject to being shackled for bigger decisions or essentially shaping the business where it needs to go or just continuing to operate. I've seen a scenario where an ex-wife from six years ago and I got involved after the fact of essentially- Josh: Divorced for six years, done, legally done. Jason: Legally done. I got involved to essentially sort it out. I'm sorry, I apologise to the listeners, the shit fight that essentially unfolded. An ex-wife who should have been removed from the estate, challenged the estate and essentially tried to control the business to get as much money as she could. If they had proper buy-sell agreements in place, what would happen is the business would be valued at arm's length, then a chunk of money would exit to the estate and the business would just operate without that partner as if they just got ejected from the business. In this scenario, the business could survive, and that is an element of risk when you have business partner, or multi partners. Think about whether something happened to your fellow partner/s, what would the impact be on the business, would it survive? This is your asset as well as their family's asset. Josh: I can say comfortably, my business has been running, when you pointed it out, it has been running for 13 years. And over the 13 years, I had a partner for a while and then not to my want, that all felt fell apart, as a lot of our listeners already know. And when that happened, did that impact the serviceability of our clients? Absolutely. Did it impact the quality of the return on work? Absolutely. Now, would I have been a better person had it then not happened? Absolutely. It all comes down to what are you doing in your life and how does your life affect the business and when you are a business owner, they can absolutely affect. If you guys have been interested in this and you've loved it, make sure to jump across to iTunes and leave us some reviews and we'll speak to you soon. Stay good.

Business Built Freedom
155|The Business Data Revolution With Emily Ridley

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 21, 2020 24:00


The Business Data Revolution With Emily Ridley Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land. I've got Emily from Emerge Advisory and she's going to be talking today about the data revolution and is your business ready. And it's probably one of the more interesting times that we've been living for anyone that's alive, in the amount of things that have changed, with pandemics, and businesses closing down or accelerating and going all over the place. So I guess, Emily, tell me a bit about what you can do to make sure that your business is ready? Learn more about business data revolution at dorksdelivered.com Emily: Hi, Josh. So it's really all about using the tools that available already and using them to your best advantage. So having the right tech and having the right app stack is absolutely crucial. So it's about finding out how you want to do your business. And there will then be a system or a process or an ease to make that digital and bring it to a wider audience, and using remote circumstances that we've all, you know, enjoyed recently and making that happen, but making that work for you so that you're getting the best out of your business and your best business is going to your clients. Josh: Yeah, that makes sense. So like, I guess, I know myself when we started out in business, we're using QuickBooks, and I'm not going to say that any products better than another, it was an application that I wasn't comfortable using. And I'm in the IT field. I wasn't comfortable using SSL. There's too many bells and whistles and things that I can click in here that are going to do something that they shouldn't. And a lot of the time you have this stuff with it using for years and years and years. And now we're not using QuickBooks, we’re on Zero. But we used to suffer for years and years and you might not be using it properly or to the best of your ability. And I know that a couple of packages that were introduced to would be now 18 months ago, two years ago, Receipt Bank, I thought is an amazing way of speeding up your process for any of your bookkeeping stuff that people should be using if they're not aware of it, and then obviously making sure that you've set up their appropriate rules and reporting so that you have that information coming out of Zero, if that is the product you're using, or whatever the product you’re using. Tell people a bit about Receipt Bank and other tools that you know that might be useful for them to consider if they're not to make sure that they are embracing the data revolution as they should? Emily: Yeah, sure. So Receipt Bank, Hooked Up, Easy Bills. They're all very similar applications. It's a matter of finding the right user interface for you. Zero now owns hooked up. So it's now free in most business subscription. So it's that minute in itself is an amazing way of wanting to adopt a service. And basically what that does is it just takes all the legwork out of doing data entry, particularly for you spend money transactions or your accounts payable. You take a photo or you forward on an email. It goes into the system, the software I use is OCR, it actually reads that receipt. So it understands the day the tax implications, the vendors, and it will then on the first instance, it will ask you where to code that in your chart of accounts integrated with your accounting software. But it's machine learning, and it constantly wants to follow what you do and how you spend your money. So it will learn it. Caltex, for example, is always fuel and it will learn that. Telstra is always telephone and it will learn that. Aegon is always energy bills. And so as you take the photo, that seamless data entry then goes all the way through into your accounting software. You pay your bill. Now if your bank account and if you use an accounting software, my own Zero, QBL now, that's got live data bank feeds, it will just find a match that transaction. So your actual input into our case in that transaction where it needs to go is as in depth as taking a photograph and then pricing okay, at the other end of the software, it's quick, it's efficient, it's easy, and it gives you more time to spend on your business rather than in your business doing all the stuff that, you know, traders hate to do bookkeeping, that's essentially what this is. Josh: It’s digitising their shoebox of receipts that they given at the end of the month. I'm pretty pedantic with the way that I still do stuff. But I'd imagine that you have these half failure receipts in their car inside on their hot dashboard, and they're all stuffed, and it's easy just to jump onto it and take a photo of it. Emily: It really is, as you put in the keys in the ignition of your vehicle, snap that photo and it's as quick as that. And then you can throw that receipt either in gold box or even better, you can throw it in the bin and completely accept digital copies that don't fade and they don't get coffee spilt all over them and they don't get lost. Yeah, it's a really efficient way of having all year, and all your accounts in order, particularly at this time of year when people are getting everything together for the end of tax time. Josh: I completely agree and everyone should be jumping onto that. Emily: Actually, it's free if there's software's built in. There's some amazing services out there. And like I said managing your accounts payable is just one but there's also for managing job management. Again, for traders there's Tradify and service may, which will do your task management, your staff management, your time sheets, and your invoicing all in one place as well. So it means at the end of the day, all your jobs are done, and they're in your accounting software, you don't have to finish your day of work, and then come back and sit down and do your bookkeeping. You can actually sit there in the garden with a beer or watch the footy when it's back on TV. Josh: Perfect. Having that time to yourself should be time yourself and a lot of business owners when they jump in there, they think oh, I'll have to work 40 hours a week I could do this bit I'm going to be earning more money, and then then they realise that they have all list of administration stuff that is zero dollar tasks, they're sitting there doing an entering stuff and it just takes them a hell of a lot more time than what it would have otherwise. So these little hints and tips definitely helped. We've got a lot of clients using another product called sim Pro, which is a fantastic product, not that I'm plugging their brand, but I noticed that when you're going through the different ones, I was like, oh, that's one that we that we use quite a bit. With the data Revolution, the way that data moves between systems has changed a lot over the years. And I've noticed more and more now as people are using Zero, I can set it up so that that invoice automatically sends to Zero when they send it to my email so that way, it can be transcribed without even have to go through services such as hub dock. If you've got somebody sends you an invoice doesn't integrate with Zero directly, you can pretty much do anything with hub dock, even if it's a multi page invoice and whatnot. Is that right? Emily: That is correct. Yeah. So and it's a filing system. So unlike receipt bank, where the invoices come in, they're dealt with and then they go to archives which then becomes its own digital shoe box really, inside of a hub dock, every Telstra invoice will go to the Telstra folder, every origin invoice will go to the origin folder. Both systems have what they call a fetch service now. So if you have an online account for origins, Telstra, and some of the really big suppliers that you use on a regular basis, it will actually go and get those invoices and statements for you. So you don't need to upload them at all. Josh: I'm learning stuff everyone guys, that's awesome. I'm going to be making sure to set that up. Because sometimes, it's just … the time that you spend is taking it from one system to another and it can be quite frustrating. How does that work if your suppliers overseas or you've got a non-GST items, or what would be a good for instance, just a software subscription service for a company server in America, is that something you just set the rule up once? And they have to go through email or is the fetch service purely Australian Base. So how does that work? Emily: So the fetch service was actually started in Canada, hub dock was originally a Canadian company. And so there are a huge number of global enterprises on the firm that range from European base, to Asian base, to Australasian and yeah, and the Americas as well. So it's incredible the amount of scope that you do have, certainly all the big hitters that you'd expect around there the global entities because one it's machine learning and two, actually the OCR, they actually reads the receipt, it picks up whether or not it's GST, or whether it's nil value GST, so if you're in Australia and you've got an invoice that's got VAT on it or New Zealand GST, it will pick that up and bring that in as a nil balance, because it understands the difference between what's required in Australia and essentially what's not a GST code. Josh: That's cool. One of the tricky ones that I always know I end up doing manually is when I get the car. They have to break down this the stamp duties and offices instead of the CTP elements and everything else, does it deal okay with that sort of stuff? Emily: See, if you set the roll up once so that your department of Main Roads comes in and you want to separate that one line item into two line items. So you've got your GST component, your GST free component so that it adds up the amount payable. Once you set that at once then yeah, it will read it at rego but it is difficult for in the first instance because there's always two numbers on it. It's asking you do you want to be six months or 12 months? So generally, it would still flag up and say what exactly what do you want me to do with this but it will try and preempt that as much as possible. So essentially, you're just an answer it whether or not you want to split. So we will split the invoice into two components but because you've set the rules to do that, but it will ask you which figure is the final closing figure, which one's going to match your bank statement, essentially. Josh: Cool. Well, we're talking about integrations. Obviously, that's what we've been touching on a lot. And like the eight year has a whole bunch of different rules and regulations and bits and pieces. And they have built a few really cool integrations with Zero that has been helping out with a lot of like the job keeper stuff with some of their calculators just help make everyone's life a little bit easier. What have you seen that they've been doing lately that have really been helping with some of their integrations to the way that the systems work? Emily: With the ATO? [Yeah] As much of about the ATO on a regular basis. The ATO has done some amazing things, the unimaginable things. And in the last three months, it's system software programs that just did not exist and weren't on anybody's workflow to exist at any time. And now they’re here. So the job keeper lodgement process is about as simple as it can be in order to be effective. Today’s the first of June so we're now able to lodge our may declarations. I've already done 19 today, so I've sent them out, I've got them back signed using electronic signatures. And I've just digitally entered that into the ATO portal. So it's all launched and confirmed. Now my clients can expect to receive their payments in about four or five working days from there. That in itself is a long, long way from where we were just even seven weeks ago when we were trying to work out what the legislation around job keeper was. So the fact that they're they're taken on board advice from accounting software providers such as Zero and it also from you know, the taken advice as well from industry. So I know Matthew Addison, who is the director for the Institute Certified Bookkeepers, for example, the ICB had an awful lot of say, and an awful lot of to kind of relay messages from what it's like to be the end user trying to manage these workflows, trying to manage this legislation, trying to get this data from our clients to the ATO as quickly as possible to get this money move in and be where it needs to be. So yeah, what we considered was a luxury 12 or 13 weeks ago is now going to be, I feel, part of our everyday new normal. This just allows for a huge amount of new data, new business calculations, new information. Every business owner in Australia, I think this becomes the beginning of a new revolution. And like I said, for the new normal, and I think at some point, every business and every industry is going to benefit from it. I think the opposite here are amazing. What we can do in a tiny amount of space and how much data we've got available tools to do that. Josh: You hit the nail on the head there when you're pushed into a spot that you have no other place to go but forward. They've definitely done wonders with the time that they've had. And I think it’s shown a lot of people how they can work remotely and how they can achieve big things. Like I'd love to say that all businesses always keep their books up to date. But I think you would know better than me that that's a big fallacy. Emily: Yeah, it's not realistic at all. But it can be so much easier than some businesses allow themselves to believe. It can be so much by bringing in automation, by bringing in systems and services that help rather than hinder. By taking away a lot of data entry or duplication. A lot of businesses can be more up to date than they realise, and a lot faster. And they can use that information in ways they've never been able to use it before. I think it gives a huge amount of opportunity for now for businesses to explore things that they never thought that they wanted or needed, but what they're going to see is essential in a very short amount of time. Things like budgeting and cash flow forecasting and data management and making those decisions with that it's all possible without too much disruption to your day to day work in life. Josh: I think ultimately the big thing that's going to have changed with this is businesses that might have been getting everything in just by the deadline are now being rewarded. To make sure that as you pointed out on the on the first of each month, while job keeper is available, everything is ready to go reconciled and on point so that they're making better business decisions and with enough repetition over time, that should become conditioned to be ongoing past when the job keeper disappears, hopefully. Is that what you think's going to happen? Or do you think people will start to slip off afterwards? Emily: No, I don't think people will start to slip. I think because having this information in this real time data in this world today is knowledge, and I think knowledge is power, and it gives you the power to manage your business in a in a whole new light and a whole new way. I think that compliance is a sidestep, it's something that is going to be available to you to do much quicker. But for me, using that information to your advantage, not necessarily the ATO advantages you know it's data that's it's your business, it's your livelihood, it's your growth and your development. And you can absolutely do some amazing things if you have that knowledge and you have that power. Josh: We're going to make the right decisions and you're able to see how much am I buying of something? What am I doing with something? How efficient is the team? How efficient is my buying power and make better decisions? Is it a good idea to maybe set up an account I know myself? One of the things that have come to light for us over the last few months, we've had an account with two major IT suppliers in Australia, and I was looking through only because we changed bookkeepers and I was looking through, and I went, we've got a lot of transactions here, that's from the same company. And so we've made the decision to set up accounts with a few different companies. And that will now mean that there's less bookkeeping, less backwards and forwards, faster response times for our customers. But it's only after really having that data to be able to see that and be able to make that decision that will ultimately give a better customer experience for our customers because they're not waiting for credit cards to clear the audit things instead of the way out straight away. And it means less reconciliation, so better experience for bookcases and easier for us to sort of rummage through everything. So it can't be anything bad happening from this change. And it's just about everyone getting ready to do it. For a lot of people in through the state of depression, we've got businesses that we work with, they're at 450% at the moment versus when they went into COVID. Emily: That's an amazing story and quite an extreme perspective. But I do believe that though, I think that from a bookkeeper and accountant perspective, I'd, again, never been busy and never done so many hours on the phones with the ATO, catch up legislation, do the data entry that's needed for all the new compliance around shopkeeper and cash flow and boost and other stimulus packages. But, it's, yeah, so it certainly has given a rise to like a new normal. And what you were saying though about the data that you've got access to so with the date to the transactions that you've been able to see you can actually see there in real time what you're spending with those suppliers, which gives you, you know, power to negotiate terms. It can, you know, a five cent save and goes directly into your back pocket on your bottom line for your profits and that money is much better off in your pocket than in your supplier’s pocket. So it's huge what you can do with a tiny little bit of information and how far that can take you. It's an amazing concept that I hope to be able to offer to an awful lot of customers moving forward, to sit down with them and say, this is the data you have, and these are the opportunities that you have with that- Josh: It’s data in, data out as they say, you can't make a decision if you don't have good data going in. And you do an amazing job at making sure that people are having the best quality data going into they can make the best decisions with their budgeting, forecasting and making sure that they're doing the voodoo that they do well and are able to continue doing that and as you said. I can see some trends, one of the ones that my partner saw was, she has a hair makeup business, was if she was to purchase all the items that she purchased over 12 months, just the core items that she's purchasing quite regularly in one bulk amount and they're all things that don't have a shelf life, she would have been able to have a 15% advantage. I said well that sounds like a good idea. As long as they're not things that are going to sit on the shelf for 10 years, you're never going to use them but without data, you won’t be able to see that, you wouldn't be able to make that decision. So where do you think the data revolution is going? Where do you think businesses are going? We've always had these huge changes over the last three months, and there's going to be more changes. What are the things that businesses should have in place that already exist? And where do you think it's going? It’s the doozy question. Emily: It is, isn't it? I don't know, to be honest, I don't know where this is going. I don't know the end of this is, I cannot know what the end of the internet is, and I don't know, you know what the end of the universe is. I know that the opportunity is immense. And I think that there is a huge amount of opportunity for development, for growth, for profit increase for every industry out there based on the back of this. I think that the digital revolution is absolutely going to change permanently, the way that we work and the way that we interact, but what's going to be more important than any of this is then that human interaction at the end of it. We're going to want to talk and know the people that we're dealing with, rather than just having an ether of mindless data and send out things like you know, like your accountant will send you out your financial statements at the end of the year, which is just pages and pages of numbers. But without having a conversation about what that means and what you can do with that information, it's kind of lost its purpose. So, where do I think this is going, I think this is going to bring those closer together by making us work further apart. I honestly do believe that. But I also think that Australia is going to be a big player in the global economy on the back of this. I think that we've got more power than we realise. We don't really have the internet speeds that we need, but we're getting there slowly. And I just think that we've got more voice that we believe that we have, I think we just need to be a bit more confident, a bit louder about who we are and what we can do with the data that we have. I think we've got some amazing tech out there that might just be a little bit lost because we consider a small Big Island and a small fish in a big world. Josh: I think what you said there encapsulates it perfectly where automation does not mean not personalised, don't keep it robotic, keep the bits automated that you don't like doing and then the bits that you do like doing and making sure that you have that face to face time, you're able to use the data then see what people's numbers are doing. One of the things that we noticed in our business, so we do set price IT for everything and give unlimited support, and guaranteed uptime from that IT support each month. What we noticed when we started putting these in place was customers weren't having things break. So this was sort of what are we paying you for. And so you need to make sure that you're you had that relationship and you were still going and seeing them and you're making decisions with them on where the future of their business was going, and it let you have those better conversations because there wasn't fires that you're putting out. And that has definitely had the people that we're working with we've built better relationships with because they're also not look looking at the clock going, oh, man, you've got a pointing on my clock, anyone who's listening. He didn't, they're not worried about how much they're paying you per hour because they're able to sort of see the value that you're adding to them, and you're actually sitting down and listening. And so definitely, don't keep it robotic, just wish you've automated it, make sure you keep it personalised and keep that relationship because that's ultimately all we’re in business for is to work with people we like working with. Emily: Absolutely. And it's that makes a good business a great business. And also the same way we charge up front fixed fees on everything. We don't have an hourly rate for anything at all. We're very open and honest about what we charge and we base our charges on outcomes. So what is it that the client gets out of it is how we manage our pricing around that. Josh: That’s definitely a really good model. We're nearly at the end of the podcast here. Is there anything else that you'd like to cover off on? Emily: I don't think so. Just recapping what we've said, it's just a really good time as we're, you know, moving through the COVID process, I guess as to as to what the outcome of that is actually going to be and what the new normal, essentially it's going to like at the end of this, I think it's just a really good opportunity to look at systems of businesses or processes and look at the changes that you've already had to endure over the last seven to 12 weeks and see where that can take you in the future, which I think is a really exciting opportunity to do that. Josh: I think we're all walking in this game together and, and looking forward to see we get on the end. If anyone is looking for someone that's going to be able to give them some more advice, definitely reach out to Emily at Emerge Advisory. She's going to help you out and go through any of the details. Make sure you've got that data to make those decisions. If you have enjoyed this episode, jump across to iTunes, leave us some love. Give us some feedback, give us a review and stay healthy and stay good.

Business Built Freedom
147|Improving Your Business Process Flow with Pip Meecham

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2020 23:59


Improving Your Business Process Flow with Pip Meecham Josh: Good day everyone out there in podcast land, I've got Pip here from ProjectBox. She is an absolute wiz-kid when it comes to any automation around your business and process flow, and making sure that your systems are working the way your systems are meant to be working. So Pip, tell me, how do you know when a system is broken and how do you know when to fix it, if you've always been using a broken system? Pip: That's a really good question. The way you know it's broken is customer complaints, frustrated staff. There could be a host of extra time issues, which then all comes back to frustrated staff as well, at the end of the day. Any kind of bottleneck, generally, you will notice things are starting to go wrong, but it can take some time to kind of pick up on that as well. Pip: Something could break and then six months later you'll finally pick up on it. It can take a lot of time without having someone come in and look at how you're actually doing things to pick up that things are any kind of different, if that makes sense. Josh: Yeah, that makes sense. For me, my big rule that I tell all of my staff is, "Have I asked you once?" Josh: They say, "Yes." Josh: I said "Have I asked you twice?" Josh: They go, "Yes." Josh: "Okay. Then I don't have to ask you a third time because you've already automated it." Josh: If you've had a problem come up more than once or you think that this situation is going to come up more than once, then template it out and automate it. You're saying, complimentary to that information, you would also make sure that the user experience, not just repetition more so the user experience isn't broken. Pip: Yep, and most people don't think like you. Most people don't have that trigger to go, "Hey, we've done this three times." Or, "Hey, this has gone wrong." Pip: Or anything like that, they just keep going with what they're doing, and there's nothing to really trigger that until something big happens, which could be a customer complaint or someone within the team saying something. It's a really tough one, if you're not systems tuned, most people don't pick up on it. Josh: It comes down to people continue doing what they think they're meant to be doing for an extended amount of time. Not knowing that what they're doing isn't what they should have been doing. Pip: It's rare to find people who have that kind of continuous improvement mentality to go and actively look for things. I actively try and break stuff all the time but that's my mentality. Josh: Yep. You're a hacker. That's exactly what a hacker does. Pip: I'm a breaker, not a hacker. I don't get in, I just break it. Josh: It can be both. You and I are very similar in that regard. We try our best to work out what is the best way to achieve something the fastest, most efficient way. Pip: Yeah. A to B. Josh: Yeah, and automation doesn't necessarily have to be a piece of code with loops and all sorts of other stuff that has an input and an output. It can be an input and output, but it can also be just a procedural document that allows for you to know when a staff is following something, very similar to how McDonald's work. Josh: They go through and they create an ice cream, a burger or whatever it is. And when you get it, whether it be in America, Canada, Australia, it's always the same crappy burger, but it's the same burger. And it's being made by a different 14 and nine month year old child or teenager, but it's the same burger, the same process. That's just come through repetition and the document that they've read, and knowing that this is the way that it works, this is the most efficient way. Pip: A lot of people don't think like that. Josh: No! Pip: There's so much decision fatigue in business where people wing it all the time, and they lose a lot of time because they're doing that. Whereas if you've got a straight out, set out processes. First do this, then do this, then do this. Automation kicks in to do some of that for you. It's so simple and it's so streamlined. Whereas other people are just weighed down because they're so overwhelmed on what to do next or how to do it. Josh: I'm going to talk on behalf of all the bloody Australians out there and say, this is the best time to be looking at your processes. Everyone's in lockdown. I'm sure everyone's working 120% of what they were before. That's why Bunnings is full of people, because no one's actually working. Pip: I can hear so many hammers and chainsaws around my neighbourhood. Josh: Me too. I'm like, "Yeah, everyone's really working hard guys. Are you all labourers at home?" Josh: Anyway, everyone's working at home and they're working on the house, which is great, but you should be working on yourself and on your business. This is the best time. When everyone goes, "I don't have enough time for that." Josh: Bang, this is enough time for that. You've got the time to do it now and this is the perfect time. They should be engaging in people like yourself and seeing what you can do to help them out. And as you said, there's always room for improvement and I'm not going to say what I do is right. But it's going to be better than not doing it at all. Pip: The problem is as well, is that people get so caught up in their own business that they can't see it, outside. What they're looking at- Josh: Can't see the forest for the trees. Pip: Yeah. They've got tunnel vision, like there's nothing else going on except what they, used to doing, what they know they need to do. Whereas I would come in and something that I kind of love doing and it's really wrong, but I love going in and pulling people's processes apart, and looking at the ripple effect that everything has on each other as well. Pip: Because everyone always talks about, a lot of people are changing technology at the moment because of everything that's going on, they're going, "Right. We're going to use this. We're going to implement new tools to do this. We're going to do this and blah, blah, blah." Pip: They look at that as a single element and they're not thinking about what's happening before and what's happening afterwards. So people are putting these new things in place and they think it's fantastic, but stuff is still falling over because they're not taking into account what's going on around it. The ripple effect. Josh: Yeah, exactly. The butterfly effect, ripple effect. It comes down to a big thing that people don't do enough. I started doing it 13 years ago, 14 years ago and then didn't realise how much of an impact it's had, but business plans. Why are you in business? Why do you exist here? What do you want to achieve? What are you going to achieve in one month, one year, five years, we've all heard it. Pip: Hate it. Josh: I started writing them. I'm like, "Uh, this is stupid." Josh: Then I wrote it and then thought, okay, let's see how this goes. Then I've looked back on some of them and I thought, wow, I've got so much more maturity, growth, direction. And some of the things that I thought were really important then, are no longer important and some of the things that are important now, I would never have thought I was even going to be doing. Josh: But being able to look back on what you've been able to achieve, lets you see the growth that you've done. That's the same, when you create these processes that sit there and can run autonomously or be running by someone else that's not you. You're able to have these processes running and then look at them from a distance to go "Hmm, how else can I tweak that?" Josh: While you're not sitting there being the driver. If you're always driving around, you're never going to be able to really see the sites out the window. Pip: It's being able to remove that connection. Josh: That's right. Pip: Cut the heartstrings. Josh: Absolutely, as long as that's what you want to do in business. I will say, straight away when I started my first business, I was the main driving cog and I was the person that did all the things in business, and I earned all the money and I earned all the debt. it was interesting, and good and bad. But overall, I didn't want to be the cog. I wanted to own the cogs. I wanted to have the systems, have the process to be able to step back. Josh: That's not for everyone, if you read any book on business or any masterclass, that's what everyone apparently wants, but there's businesses that we work with. One in particular, he's a cartoonist and he's big driving motivator is he just loves drawing. He said, "It's a lifestyle business." Now, to be fair, his wife's in a lovely position where she's earning enough money that he could have that decision. So, lucky boy. Pip: Yeah, but I get it. People always ask me what I want to do with ProjectBox. I don't ever want to stop actively getting into people's businesses and looking at their processes. I legitimately love that stuff, as geeky as it sounds, and people look at me like I am just stupid and crazy, and I'm off with the fairies, but I love it. I get this sense of, it's like a thrill with huge endorphin rush. When you go in and you help people piece this stuff together. I don't want to lose that, but I also want to be able to grow the company. Josh: Yeah. It's always about the balance. You need to make sure that you've got that interest. As I said, why did you get into business? Work at why you're in business, and this is, you brought this up earlier, probably not everyone's mentality, but when I first started Dorks Delivered in 2007, I thought, okay, I want to do this right. I've now got a trust and I've got a company, I've got all this stuff and all these structures. Josh: Let's make sure that I'm getting rid of any of the tasks that I don't like doing. And I thought, what do I like doing? Hate doing bookkeeping, hate doing invoicing, hate doing the car logbook. I thought, this sucks, so I created a process. I created an app back then, or was it a web based app. It worked on the Symbian mobile system for anyone that's out there that cares. Josh: It allowed for you to jump in there and see, as a technician, I had contractors working with me, they'd be able to enter where they're going and would work out their home address to where they're going, the amount of kilometres, how much to charge and how much to put on that invoice. Josh: They'd then get there and they'd type any prices and it'd automatically work everything out and then click submit or come up with a PayPal and they could get credit card details straight through their phone, right then and there, and this is 2007. Josh: So I built all that out and it was because I hated all the invoicing stuff. You could take photos and attach invoices and attach expense records, all sorts of things like that. You could do all that. I built this because I hated doing it. Now, not everyone's capable of building it and totally understand that, but that's why you bring in professionals that can help you out. Josh: The actual process of building it took me several hundred hours. Now, if I looked back and thought, would it have been more beneficial for me to have just learned how to do the invoicing and just done that and in a repetitious way? Possibly, but it wouldn't have been as fun, would it? Josh: And I've learned so many more skills and that's kind of what you're getting at. You get to learn. You're always growing, expanding and being in business is about being able to delegate. Whether that be in a digital sense through scripting and automation, or through staffing and process documentation, it's being able to delegate to grow your business. Josh: If you had to pick the top three things that a business owner should be considering with the way their business is set up and what they should change, what would you say they should be? And how can they achieve those for, let's say we're in lock down 'til September, yeah? Pip: Yeah. Josh: I think that that's probably likely. So what would you say, how can they do those between now and September? Pip: Yep. The biggest one is how information is flowing from one system to another. So no double data entry, too many people, literally they'll get it in one format and then be copying and pasting it into other programs. Stupidly time consuming and massive room for human error as well, because someone has to do that. That's a really big one. Josh: Yep. If you're using a pen, remove it. Stop using a pen. Stop having customers fill out forms with a pen. Pip: Definitely another one, try and go digital where possible. Josh: Absolutely. Pip: The number of people who are still doing it, there is a place for pen and paper. As much as I'm very much a digital person, when I am holding process mapping sessions or the brainstorming creative stuff, I have a roll of butcher's paper. It ends up running down my hallway and I'm literally dragging my computer down the hallway on my hands and knees filling out this paper because that's how I work there. It's really quick for me to draw arrows and then it gets turned into obviously digital [inaudible 00:00:12:31], the paper goes away. Sounds like a waste but I know that that is how I work best. Josh: I love that because I'm on computers for hours and hours, not because I have to, because I want to. I could spend 18 hours a day on a computer just working because I love doing it. You have people like Gary Vee say, "Work harder, work smarter." Josh: Well now what? I'm like, "Well, just do what you love doing." And I genuinely love doing it, but I also love the feeling of paper in my hands. And I've got a big whiteboard inside the house, like a four and a half metre by three by two metre whiteboard. I'll write up with my partner, Sarah, any of the new processes that we're going to be going through, any of the if-then statements we're going to be popping into any of the automations and make sure that we've written that out because it's easy to modify it and it changes your perspective. And get this everyone, it removes all those, how many times have you had a push notification from Facebook while you were dealing with butcher's paper? You don't have any of that. Pip: It's no distractions. Josh: No distractions. How good is that? It's great. Pip: Yeah. But it brings out the creativity as well. It's like going back to that cave person thing where we're drawing on walls. Obviously, there are some people that entirely a hundred percent digital is going to work for them. Most people, that's not the case. I know people who will still take their to do list and then send it to a VA to transcribe it into a project management tool because that's how they work. Pip: They just can't get on and do it, so they've delegated it to somebody. Yeah, get digital where possible. The next big one, and this sounds really stupid, but clean out your computer filing systems. I'm generalising here, but a lot of people it's like going to the supermarket where all the shelves have been knocked over and everything's been stirred together and trying to find fish in the fruit and veggie aisle. It is, looking for medicine and it's down in the freezer. Josh: And after a while the whole process stinks. Pip: Yeah. So it's taking time to sort out where everything is stored so that if a client rings, same with like your CRMs and project management tools, give everything like a cleaning over. It's a really good time to be doing that now, so that you should be able to find anything within about 10 seconds. No longer. Josh: Yep. I did a podcast a few months ago on defragging your filing cabinet and then your computer, or something like that. That's probably a cooler name than what I called it. But people do, we go into people's systems, I'm not going to say who it was, but I went into someone's system, they had two monitors and they had about 500 icons now. Pip: On their desktop? Josh: On the desktop. Anyone that has two monitors, if you've ever tried to put 500 icons on the desktops, you'll notice they don't fit on two desktops. So he had icons that he couldn't even see, they were on his two desktops. And you can't scroll up and down on a desktop, so they were just in the abyss. Pip: And for a lot of people, those computers die and all of that is gone. Josh: Gone, and they use these obscure systems where they go, "Okay, let's have this cloud of files that store on the right hand side of the desktop." Josh: Then you do a Windows update and then everything rearranges to automatic, and then you go, "Oh no! This is going to take me days to fix up my icons." Josh: Just fix it up now, you've got this great opportunity. That's great advice. That's a really good one actually. Pip: Yeah, nothing should be on the desktop. Josh: No. Well, you haven't seen my computers yet but I've got eight icons and it's the things that I use commonly, and use all the time. Pip: And there's shortcuts. So the original files have safety elsewhere. Josh: Somewhere else. Pip: Stored properly, with just shortcuts. And shortcuts is a great thing too, because most people will just copy the file, so there's two copies. So I update one and then they'll go to move it and not realise what's going on and go, "What file do I use now?" Pip: And end up with three, four, five, six or 10 different copies. So creating shortcuts, it's something that not a lot of people take advantage of. Josh: Shortcuts are great and I'm not going to get into heaps of detail on shortcuts, symbolic links and other bits and pieces of IT, but shortcuts are great. People should be using shortcuts. And in a filing cabinet, traditionally, you have things sectioned and it could be A to Z, but most of the time it's warranty information, ATO letters, bank statements, all that. Pip: Categories, yeah. Josh: Your computer systems, it doesn't have to be any more complicated than that. The way that I like to do it is, what would you share with your mum? What would you share with your partner? What would you share with your business partner? What would you share with your staff? What would you share with your nana and what would you share with the world? And then make sure your hierarchy has things in those categories and then from there then have projects inside those. Josh: For me, I've got family, personal, business, the three main ones. Then inside personal, it then stems off into different year categories for photos and things that used to go into your personal, it goes to photos. And then it has different years that these photos were taken inside each year, it then has different events for each of those years. And so if someone said, "Ah, do you have any photos from my 21st from way back when?" Josh: You'd be able to go, "Yeah, no worries." Josh: Click, click, bang, done. I had someone actually, and I've been a bit of a stickler for organisation for quite a while. I had someone say, "Oh, remember we did that school assignment on moths?" Josh: And I said, "Yeah." Josh: Said, "Oh man, if only I could see what my assignment looked like then." Josh: Anyone who knows me knows I'm a bit of a tricky dude. I happened to have acquired his assignment through the school systems back then, so I gave him a copy of his assignment. Pip: Wow. Josh: He's like, "What the hell? How'd you do that?" Josh: And I'm like, "Yeah, no, it's pretty weird, eh?" Josh: Having a hierarchy that works for you and the reason I say that those different categories to start off with, like the personal, and then the things you'd share with your nana or your mum and things like that is because if you are using different tools like Dropbox, you can then say, share this folder out to whoever, and it doesn't matter. And you know it's not going to have personal stuff. Pip: It gives people a great place to start because half the problem with this stuff is just getting started instead of looking at it going, "Oh my God, I've got like 10,000 files I need to sort out because they're all sitting in my downloads folder." Josh: Yep. The first five minutes is the hardest. Pip: Setting up that initial structure and then just, yep. Josh: Setting up the initial structure, and this is something I would've done on butcher's paper or would have done on the whiteboard. You just write it down and go, "Okay, that makes sense. Okay, that's sensible." Josh: And then you look at and go, "Okay, who's going to have access to what? If I give access to this folder, everyone has access to that." Josh: Obviously I'm talking a bit into the security stuff as well as just the organisation, but I just find if you start with security first and then organise around that, it'll make your life very easy and harder for people to break into your stuff. Pip: Definitely. Josh: As things become harder and harder. Pip: I guess my final one would be reviewing the tools and the software that you're using. Use the time to go in and look at all the individual platforms and work out if there's any overlap, because quite often we sign up to things or people recommend things and we don't really do a lot of research around it. So more often than not, the tools are capable of doing more than what you think and you can actually condense those down, or you can start to get them to talk which brings us back to first point. Josh: Yep. I would agree completely that and tools evolve even after you build them, they evolve over time and you look at some of the things and you go, "Man, that never did that before." Pip: It's really knowing and understanding exactly what that tool is capable of doing. Josh: It's going through it, having a look. Pip: Hey, you can't break stuff. Josh: Exactly. Just have a muck around then. That's great advice, especially as I said, while everyone's at home, hopefully with a beer in your hand, hypothetically we are having a beer, possibly, unless you listen to this at 7:30 in the morning, then we're definitely not. But it's a great time to be doing that and be jumping in and making sure that your systems are ready to go gangbusters. Pip: Exactly. So that as soon as things take back off again, you're ready to go. Holes have been plugged, you know what's what, you know what's happening by when, by who and how. Josh: Yep. And the cutovers, if there are programmes that you don't have to get rid of, you can't get rid of it because one thing does something really well and then another thing. We use ActiveCampaign internally. We're using another IT programme called ConnectWise, up until recently and ConnectWise did email marketing very poorly, but it did ticketing and invoicing really well, which ActiveCampaign didn't. Pip: That's like I said to you before, I use ClickUp for my sales dashboards because I couldn't get the data out of ActiveCampaign, But it's knowing that I could do that and understanding that. Josh: Yep. And that's where having a document on what the cutovers are, at least let you know where data is meant to be stored. The flow of data is very important. Knowing where your master, your primary, your truth data I guess, where you'd say this is where everything is pure. And then if people have entered dodgy records or transcribe things incorrectly somewhere else, then you can start to work out where the other stuff is. Pip: Go back. Josh: The last thing you want is if you've got five systems that you're running, as I've heard, or in a lot of American talks, "the silos of chaos." Josh: You have all these silos and you just can't control them and can't manage them and just everything gets out of sync, and then it gets out of whack. This is a great time to be bringing in people, especially like people from ProjectBox, that's able to look at your systems, integrate your systems and make sure that your data is staying the same between all of them, and you don't have any overlaps with your processes, and you're running an efficient shop because ultimately you don't know what you don't know until you know it. Pip: Yeah, exactly. The number of people that I've met or that I've done work with, who you ask the question, "How is this bit happening?" Pip: And they look at you and they're like "What do you mean? I know how that's happening." Pip: I'm like, "Cool. Lay it out for me. Tell me what's supposed to be happening at every step." Pip: And they either can't or we start talking, they're like, "Oh, well that should be happening." Or "I wish it could do this." Or, "Someone's supposed to do this." Pip: What they think is happening in their head is completely different to what is actually happening. Now a really good time to be looking at that stuff as well. And for the businesses who is super busy right now, this is the time where they will probably start to notice where those holes are. Josh: Yep, absolutely. It's interesting times, businesses are either crazy or quiet, or crazily quiet. I think there's a lot of good take-homes there. People need to be jumping in, making sure their systems are good. Their filing processes are good, and that you are engaging in people services. So if people did want to jump in and get a hand throughout South East Brisbane, or what is your reach with ProjectBox? Pip: So South East Queensland, Northern New South Wales, but because of what I do, I can do it remotely. So realistically, anywhere around Australia and New Zealand as well, I've got quite a few clients over there too. Josh: We're going to chuck a link down there to ProjectBox so you can check it out. Is there anything else you'd like to cover off, other questions that we haven't gone through? Pip: No, I'm pretty sure we got it. Josh: Yeah, cool. I've loved having you on the show and if anyone else has any feedback or bits and pieces, I'd like to say jump across to iTunes, leave us some love, give us some comments or a review and everyone out there stay healthy, stay well and start automating. Catch you later.  

Business Built Freedom
146|Enhancing Your Business With Madeline Clift

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 8, 2020 22:49


Enhancing Your Business With Madeline Clift Josh: G'day everyone out there in podcast land. We've got a guest here from Level Up Chartered Accountants called Madeline Clift, and she's going to be going through some awesome ways that you can enhance your business methods and processes with the help of technology. So Madeline, a quick question for you. What would you say is the number one thing that businesses can implement to make sure that they are able to enhance their processes? Learn more about enhancing your business at dorksdelivered.com.au Madeline: It's real listening. It's a weird one, but that's probably the best one that you can do, make sure you're listening to your staff and your clients. The first thing we've done was making sure that the business runs smoothly for ourselves internally as a company ourselves, even though we're accountants helping other businesses, is we ask our staff what they want. We make sure that they can do their job to the best of their abilities, and it's really paid off for us, especially during this scary pandemic time. Josh: Yeah, it is definitely a time of unknowing, isn't it? And I think you're on the right page there, where you say invest in your staff is very, very important. We were given two ears and one mouth, so use them in that ratio. Listen twice as hard as you're talking. Madeline: Exactly. Josh: That's very, very good advice. So start by listening and making sure that you've got the processes in place to get rid of the deadwood, I guess, would you say? How would you go about making sure that you do have a team of unicorns? Madeline: Team of unicorns, that's a funny way of putting it. We call them wizards actually, funnily enough. Josh: Oh, wizards. Madeline: Yeah. We'll have to tell them that they were referred to as unicorns. Josh: Yeah. Or ninjas. Sometimes I call them ninjas as well, but yeah. Madeline: That'll work too. Yeah, so our internal wizards, the first thing that they said to us was that they actually love how simple it is to work away from home if they need to. A lot of the guys have kids. This was long before pandemic time, but the guys were like, "Oh, I'm really glad you guys just gave me a laptop that sits on a desk with two monitors, because I can go home and work if I need to, if my kid gets sick for the afternoon," things like that. And because we invested in them right from the get-go, that wasn't an initial cost for us when everyone had to start working from home. Everyone was already ready to go. They took their laptops home and they even stole, basically, half of the monitors that we had floating around the office, so that they were even more set up at home. Everyone's working with two screens. Everyone's super comfortable. And that was just from that simple thing of listening. It's really already paid off for us when it comes to the stressful times. We know our IT provider, again, was really stressed out just trying to provide laptops for the week to get other businesses sorted. Josh: Being ahead of the curve there's really important, and it'll pay off in significant quantities, I think you'll find over next few months and years. Because it means that your commercial overheads from a commercial real estate perspective can be kept a bit lower. Which means that your footprint, that you're putting your carbon footprint, if people are working from home, is lower. Your time wasted between traveling is lower, which means people have time to spend with their family. They're spending less time and money on maintenance for cars. It's by far the most sensible way to go. Josh: And we started the business 13 years ago in mum and dad's garage, where all tech startups start. Went from there to a bricks-and-mortar building a couple of years later and had the staff coming in there. And then, same as you guys, have gone and went, "This is stupid. What am I doing? We're going to other people. We're very, very rarely having anyone come to us." And I thought, if they want to come to us then they're probably close enough to have them come to the house and have a beer on a Friday afternoon anyway. So that's the approach that we went, and I think a lot of businesses are going to be adapting that. Josh: And one of the things that I found, actually, after we started going through the remote workforce, this is probably now 2013 or so, we found it took a little bit of refining and adjustments for people that were used to coming into work. And we put in systems and practices to make sure that we had different KPIs, that we're able to manage around that. What would you say would be a method that you guys are using to be able to monitor and manage your staff to make sure that they're not having a few sneaky looks at Facebook? Or maybe they are. Maybe you've got that written in their agreement. Madeline: Technology-wise, we've actually already got a monitoring system in place. The guys know that they've got ActivTrak on their laptops. So if they're ever doing something they shouldn't be, like installing Bitcoin to try and make money, it flags our IT subsidiaries. There's one method, I suppose. We make that clear so the guys know that they can't be stuffing around. Madeline: Second one, which we're quite lucky for because in our industry, we have to report billable hours. So everyone has to put in a time sheet for what they're working on. It can be done simplistically, like you can say, "All right, for the first three hours this morning, I'm going to be working on this client's data. So I won't be free, don't talk to me." But then we've actually got the time sheet logged in there and saying, "Okay, well, they've actually done all of the work papers. They've done the end of financial year job for the entire client and all the individuals." Things like that. Madeline: Even for our admin staff at the moment, them working remotely, they're doing time sheets per hour. They're much smaller slots, but they're still actually putting in, "Okay, well, I actually spoke to this client for half an hour on the phone." It may or may not be billable, but they've at least put that time sheet in. So at the end of the week or the fortnight in the pay period, the director and myself are able to go through those time sheets and double check, "Okay, well, actually, you've worked a 12-hour day." Funnily enough, I find that more of the staff are spending more time, realising, because they're not doing anything at home, they're actually doing more work, which is really funny. But we're really lucky. Madeline: Yeah. Time sheets and actually the software tracking systems are probably the best bet, I would say, for most business. Josh: Cool. And so I guess we have two different models of clients. The majority of them, we charge a set rate per month where we just give them unlimited support, which works great for the clients. And then we guarantee their uptime to make sure that they're not. If they have downtime, in fact, we pay them. So we don't want them to have downtime. So we make sure they don't have downtime. So we're fighting for them to be up as much as possible and to be as efficient and utilised as possible. So that's the model of payment that we have for our customers. Josh: But for our staff, we have a similar model where we have hours that are measured, and then KPIs, which are normally on the efficiency of the work that was accomplished. Josh: So say if you have a client that's bringing in $2,000 a month, for instance, and that client calls up 10 times and the hourly rate, or the amount of time that client is spent on, if that was say a thousand dollars worth of time, the staff pool bonus is 10% of the difference. So they'd only get 10% of the money remaining. So it's in everyone's interest to make sure then it works, don't go down, and they stay up as much as possible. Josh: Then that's a sort of the big metric that we found because we put in place a program assistant called ObserveIT, which lets you see all the screenshots and keyboard logs and activity and things like that. And then we built a couple of other bits and pieces ourselves so that we can see if the sort of traffic and how utilised each PC is and if one's running slightly slower and all that sort of stuff. But when it came back to it, we just needed to make sure that the staff and the business were steering in the same direction, was the big thing of making sure that the reasons why businesses are working with you are bred into the culture of your business. So then it sounds like you guys are doing pretty well the same thing, which means you're a step ahead of a lot of accounting firms out there. Hats off to you. Madeline: Yeah. I don't like to toot my own horn, but we think we've really taken it to a different approach, I suppose, than a lot of the boutique accounting firms in the past. And then even at the moment, we've found other firms that are roughly the same size as us, the way they approach, I suppose, how they treat their staff, the hierarchy in the office, they're all 50-year-old practices. They've upgraded maybe the technology. They know how to use Xero now, which is great, but all of the rest of their systems and their processes are just stuck in the last century. Josh: We were using QuickBooks. It was about 1,000, $1,500 or whatever it was, back in 2007 to 2013. I hated it. I hated it so much, but it was the only system that our ERP solution integrated into, and smile from ear to ear the moment we moved across to Xero. You guys would use XPM as well, I'd imagine because you're a practice manager? Madeline: Yes, we do. We use both. Then again, a third system, monday.com as well, just for tasks and scheduling. Yeah, that was even simpler to use for our staff. Pretty much all of our systems are cloud-based. We don't want anything not to be on the cloud because we actually feel that that's more secure for us. So there's nothing wasted and paying for installing systems. I think the only thing that we pay for a subscription for is a PDF-editing software system. Josh: That's not too bad. As long as you've got the security behind it. I'm a big advocate for the cloud as long as it's been set up correctly. And that's another thing, a lot of people sort of just hear lots about it on the internet and read about it. And then Yellow Pages, even we're doing big campaigns about it, saying, "Everyone needs to move to the cloud," and I'm like, "Yeah, okay. That's cool." As long as you know your data is secure, encrypted, and isn't going to be attacked. Josh: My goodness, the number of solicitors and accounting firms that we've seen that have vulnerable data that's out there that we've been able to find, show them and they've just gone, "Oh my goodness, how'd you get access to that?" Or, "You shouldn't have access to that." And I'm like, "I know I shouldn't." I said, "And there's other people in there that wouldn't be telling you that they've got access to it." I said, "We're one of the good guys to help you guys out." Madeline: Our biggest expenses as a business actually are the people we employ to do our IT and I'm happy to speak their name, which Connected Platforms, and our actual staff. Those are the biggest costs for us as a business. Staff that we employ and how much we pay our IT company to manage everything that we're doing on the cloud. So those are our two biggest investments that I think are the biggest payoff, really. Josh: Absolutely. That's a differentiator with a lot of businesses. Some businesses look at staff and some of the other required services, such as IT, as a liability and an expense, where really it should be an investment. It should be something that you're sitting there and your Connected Platforms hopefully sits there with you on there, as like a virtual CIO or CTO to talk about how they can leverage new technologies, and what's your exit strategies for the business, and how are you going to be going along with that to make sure that your practices have built up around that? I would completely disagree with what I just said if it was 50 years ago, but nowadays, you can't run a business. It's kind of like saying, you want to run a business without electricity. It's like, yes, it can be done. Is it the most efficient, easiest way to do it? Absolutely not. IT is definitely where people need to be investing their time and money. IT automation and marketing would be our biggest expenses internally. Madeline: I think it will change, depending on industries. For example, we have a lot of clients, where their IT isn't obviously their biggest investment. It might be the equipment that they're using. Because they might be that kind of industry, where they're actually like earth moving or something like that, that's quite a big investment, earthmoving machinery and things like that. Madeline: Then secondary to that. It's always the people that they employ. They need to trust their staff. They're moving those million dollar machines around and things like that. So I think those two are pretty integral, regardless of the industry that you're in. Josh: I agree, obviously you have set up costs and bits and pieces. If you've got, as you said, earthmoving equipment or any sort of industry-specific equipment, it's going to have a big cost. But the good news is, I guess it's also equity sitting there in the business that if shit hit the fan and they had to start getting rid of staff, the equipment they could sell and it's going to give them something back, hopefully, unless it's completely depreciated. What have you guys found that are things that many businesses or accounting businesses can put in place that removes staff overheads and things like that? Madeline: Training in those systems, I think. The biggest problem with accounting, I suppose, is you've got a lot of young people coming out of university who, a hundred times work and study, then you're really trusted and really, really knowledgeable accountants in their forties and fifties. There's a definite gap there where you've got people who are incredibly tech savvy and just want something done and know that they can get it done quickly. And then you've got people who are used to looking at the Tax Agent Master Guide, which is a book bigger than any Harry Potter novel. They're going, "Check this index against this," and they're going, "Well, I could just Google it, mate," where like, what's the term or phrase kind of thing, like, just so we can make sure that we've got the ruling right if we want to make changes. So training and investing in those staff is the biggest thing that's kind of, I suppose, saved us, especially during this pandemic. Madeline: I know that other businesses that we engage personally have just absolutely had to shut down, apart from their few youngest employees who have to run the show at this point because they can work remotely. They figured out how to use the laptop and remote login to the systems. Things like that. Their older employees are just like, "Well, what do I do? I sit at home and do nothing?" It's like, "Well, I can teach you how to, I don't know, use Slack or something like that." Like a direct messaging system, that like, if you're struggling with Facebook Messenger, going to be a problem. Josh: A degree in Google is what I refer to that as. People just need to know how to search for what they need to find. You don't need to know absolutely everything. You just need to know how to use the tools that you've got to be able to find the answers, and the tools can be people or it can be your search engines or documentation systems and the like. Josh: And documenting your processes is great because it allows for you to level up. It lets you level up. You can easily chuck in more accountants and they can read through the on boarding documents. If you have a new business that you're working with, there can be on boarding documents for them as well. And off boarding documents, if you are downsizing or a business is no longer working with you, it makes everything more straightforward. Josh: And the way I would relate it is the biggest business that's operating or one of the biggest businesses is McDonald's and it's run by 14 and nine month year olds. Madeline: Yes, step one, step two, step three, press the button. It's all automated. Yeah. Josh: Exactly. And so getting those processes in place is super important. What do you normally use to create the documentation? Is that something that you're doing with the likes of video recordings or text-based things or both, or situationally, are you putting people into a situation where you can have them learn to become the teacher? Madeline: Yeah, actually funny, you just said that, just last learn to become the teacher. That's probably pretty much the best thing, we want to level up the staff that've spent years in the office because once they can write their own processes and teach someone how to do it, it's... I have two 18 year olds in the administration team, reception and administrative assistant. They're sitting there telling the 40 year olds, "Okay, this is how we're going to use this process." Madeline: It gets rid of that hierarchy as well, because you've got an 18 year old teaching a 35 year old how to use a program, but we're not using kind of like recording processes because everyone's an individual in how they teach. Everyone's, I suppose, an individual on how they learn. So there's no one set way of learning. I think we've discovered that a lot, just through focusing on the individuals in the office. It's one-on-one, 100%, but we document what needs to be done. Madeline: We use another program called MyGlue. So that one's again, referred to from our IT company. They use it for a lot of their internal processes and you can step out what you have to do for on boarding a client, like the step-by-step processes with that. We document the basics, but it's really a one-on-one experience. Yeah. That's why the business has basically quadrupled in size over the last year and a half. Just on that one-on-one mentoring, it's just that keeping to the basics in a PDF document. Josh: Talking about MyGlue, that's a, I think it's a part of another product called IT Glue. Madeline: Yes, it is, sorry, yeah. Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So when you said MyGlue, I'm thinking, I'm pretty sure it's IT Glue. It's a fantastic tool. We have the same family of tools that we use internally, and having that documentation there, as you said, not everyone learns the same way. We've spent a lot of money to have multiple ways for people to learn, videos of onboarding of new staff, as well as then screen captures, as well as then videos that they can watch from a screen recording, as well as in the text document. So you can then have your own internal research to be able to look it up and find out something. Josh: The biggest thing is to start with something. Having something's better than nothing. Having a process there and being able to write yourself out of the business is really important. You don't want to be sitting there working day in, day out, as the business owner. You want to make sure that as long as you're not in a position where you can become redundant, you want to be able to make yourself redundant. Madeline: Exactly. It's funny. Bring it back to you were mentioning the DISC profile before. And a lot of accountants being just one type. We used to do the DISC profile on all new employees coming in, but I no longer bother with that because I want that personality that's able to speak to clients and isn't just really process-based. It's just like, "Well, no, I just follow the process." We go, "Well, that's not being an innovative creative accountant." We don't want you to absolutely defraud the tax office or anything like that. But there is ways that you can be innovative and help the client in that business advisory way as well. So if it leads back into that we don't want to be that typical accounting firm where you're just following a step-by-step process and individualising it to every person and employee, making sure that they fit in. Josh: I think it's important to be personable and not be like what the industry says. Like I'm a, as I said, I started in mom and dad's garage, but that doesn't mean that I'm not the guy that jumps up on stage and talks to everyone about how they can better their business. It's about making sure that you are the thorn in the bush, if everyone else is the bush. So be the one that stands out and be refreshing. Madeline: Yeah. We're definitely not your typical accounting firm. Really accounting is a secondary, I suppose, skill that we want you to have if we're hiring you as an accountant, we actually want you to be able to talk to us and have a meeting with us and want to work for the company because I'll tell you what, the amount of offices or typical, even real estate agents I've worked in too where you walk in and it's sort of funeral tone to it. Because there's no sound. It's just a quiet receptionist sitting there that goes, "Hello. How are you?" And speaks very professionally. Madeline: In our office, when it's open, when there's not a pandemic on, we've actually got a dog. Usually in the office, there's always music playing. People are welcome to come and go as they please, if they've got appointments with work and stuff like that, the office is just where they can come to work. But there's definitely an open-door policy as well. No one has their own office except the director. If they need a private space, we've got those areas. But we're basically a big team where you can yell out across the room and go with someone, so and so, about this, "Who's handling that?" So it's definitely not your typical accounting firm. We don't want that. That's what we're trying to avoid. Josh: Well, it sounds like you're the Google of accounting firms. If anyone out there in podcast land's looking to level up the way that their business is running and make sure that they've got someone there that they can give you advice as much as they can give you without being a financial advisor, I'd definitely suggest checking out Level Up Chartered Accountants. Is there anything else that you'd like to cover off on, Madeline, before we finish the podcast? Madeline: Don't be surprised at how young some of us are. If you are interested in coming into the office and seeing how things go. We do have people that are experts, been in the industry for 20, 30 years. But Drew himself is in his early thirties, me myself only just turned 30, I'm pretty much the captain of the ship. So yeah, we've got a lot of young wizards in there, and that can be scary, I think, for some businesses where they they've known their industry, it's been the same way for 20, 30 years. And we don't disregard that. We know that it's your business kind of thing. We're just going to make sure one part of it runs smoother because we've taped up, we've leveled up so we can hopefully level up at least one part of your business and maybe it'll flow through to the rest. Josh: You heard it from the head wizard's mouth. And I think that's absolutely appropriate because when I started in business, we were dealing with much bigger businesses. When I was in mom and dad's garage 13 years ago, as a... Far out, was I, 19 years old at that stage. I was talking to these businesses and they're looking at me going, "What could you possibly know?" But people just, at the moment, anyone gave you the... Open up their ears, and that's circling back to what you were saying earlier. People need to listen more than they're talking. The moment they were able to listen and they went, "Oh geez, this person knows what they're talking about." Josh: I know myself, I was a few years ago, sent over to Vegas to do a presentation in front of three and a half thousand IT businesses about how we automate some of our internal processes. And I was freaking out because I'm thinking, Oh no, I'm like nearly 30-ish. And these people, when I'm looking in the audience are like you said, 50s, 60s, 70s. And I'm going, they are going to think just I'm a wally. They're probably still talking about punch cards. Anyway, I get up there and I start talking. And first minute, you see people's eyes sort of like not really paying attention. Second minute, everyone's there taking notes and writing down things and you could see their attention. I went, "Awesome." Josh: It just takes a couple of minutes for people to see the change and the benefit that you can have. And it's refreshing, I think, not doing things the same way that people have been doing it for decades. It's good to have some fresh blood in a business, to be able to push that along and have that experience, have some of the nomads in there, the grey-haired nomads, but also have some of the younger whippersnappers that are going to be able to break out, change, a difference. Madeline: Definitely. Yeah. We've found a happy medium, I think. Josh: Sounds good. Sounds exciting. And yeah, if anyone out there does want to have a discussion with Madeline, definitely jump across to levelupca.com.au That's levelupca.com.au, and you can check out what they've got on their page there, and probably even be able to book in a session to jump in there and meet the team and pat their dog. Madeline: Yeah. He's Chewy, he's lovely. Josh: Chewy. Awesome. Well, I've loved having you on the show and look forward to seeing how everything goes after this COVID situation. If anyone has any questions or has any reviews or feedback, make sure to jump across to iTunes and leave us a review, give us some love. Everyone out there, stay healthy and stay good.  

Business Built Freedom
139|Forecasting Your Business Numbers with Leschen Smaller

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2020 27:01


Forecasting Your Business Numbers with Leschen Smaller Josh: Good day everyone out there in Podcast Land. We've got Leschen here from Element Business and Accounting Solutions and she's going to be going through talking about some things that are on everyone's mind, which is forecasting with your numbers. What are you doing in your business? How come so many businesses have collapsed? Where have they gone? Why didn't they save for a rainy day? Learn more about your business numbers at dorksdelivered.com.au Josh: So I guess, I want to ask you a quick question and that is, what would you say is the benchmark number? How do you work out how much is the right number? Or how do you work out your financial projections and budgeting? And I know I've asked you a mouth, which you can answer in an elevator pitch, but tell me a bit about the voodoo that you do and how you can help. Leschen: Well thanks for that, firstly. We operate on a 13-week cash flow and getting those projections for when your cash is coming in and when your cash is going out, it's certainly really important and it's been highlighted through this whole COVID crisis thing. So normally businesses might save a little bit for a rainy day. I think we were talking about that before. You might have six months' worth of working capital to see you through, but this crisis came out of nowhere and I think people have forgotten what it's like and they have forgotten that cash is king. So they need to go back to the planning. And the easiest way to get your breakeven is just to average your monthly expenses for the year and that should give you your average balance that you should have per month. |And you might have three months capital up your sleeve or six months. Six months is actually a luxury, most people can cope with three. Josh: So, that would be a little bit industry-specific depending on what you're doing. Our listeners can be anyone from doing yard maintenance stuff to hairdressers and people running a multimillion-dollar fortune 500 company. So what would you say is a benchmark if you don't know what your expenses are? What should you save to start up a business to be able to make sure that you're not going to collapse, I guess or what would you use as your safety net if you can't have that safety net? So to speak. Leschen: People say that expenses are unknown but they're not. You know if you're a gardener, you're going to need fuel. You know how much it is going to be to repair your mower, your car, buy a trailer. And so, you need to have at least half that amount up your sleeve for if something goes wrong. But having said that, if you've got people that are just going into a business and they're starting up a business tomorrow, they're not going to have given that any thought whatsoever. Which is fine when they're on their own but as soon as they get employees, whole different ball game. Leschen: And then I think you've just got to be a lot more conscious about the money you're spending. And so using this 13-week cash flow, you know what customers you have, you project when they're going to pay you. You know what expenses you have and you put those into your spreadsheet and what it enables you to do is, say you had to pay... Say you had a repair and maintenance that you needed to do but wasn't essential. You can move that out a week on a week that you're not going to get too much income because maybe it was a public holiday or there's a public holiday in there and you couldn't work or you were ill or something has happened that has not allowed you to work for a certain period. You just move your expenses out and you can... It's a really robust tool to help you manage your cash flow. Josh: Okay. And so with the 13-week cash flow, I guess you keep saying the 13 weeks, I'm going to ask you a few more questions about that, but is that something you should be considering personally as well as in business? Because obviously you've got your personal expenses, you got your business expenses and if you're the owner, they very much overlap a lot of the time. Leschen: I would prefer you keep them separate but 100%. I mean, if you're a sole trader maybe, keep them together, but if you've got a company or something, then definitely keep them separate. Josh: Yeah. I was just thinking if there's a person listening to that isn't in business, this still really, really relevant for them because they could still be put out of a job, they could still be put out on the streets and they still have, depending on the stage of business, in baby formula or golf clubs to be buying. Leschen: Both, yeah. Oh God! Yes. Josh: I guess, you need to make sure that you're forecasting and doing those things where you can and have that cash available to you. That's from a personal sense. And then getting into a business, if you're running a business where most of our listeners are, you want to make sure that you have 13 weeks. So how did you get to 13 weeks? Where did the magic number come from? Why not 12? Why not... I don't know if you remember Something About Mary thing where he said, "Seven-minute abs." Leschen: No. Josh: It's like, "You can't do your abs in seven minutes!" Leschen: Because four's too short, eights kind of in the middle. So 13 weeks kind of encapsulated... Who likes 12? I mean 12 beautiful number, I have to say as an accountant but then 13 is odd, so 13 just works. Josh: It makes sense, I guess. The average amount of wakes in three months I guess would be probably- Leschen: I was going to say it's probably about 13, yes. Josh: Yeah. Leschen: You would be surprised at what... We use it in our business. Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Leschen: And we might shift around payments if we think, for some reason, that... So, for now, clients are paying slowly, right? But we still have wages to pay, we've still got rent. So if we have a discretionary spend we will move it from one week to the next. Josh: Yep. Leschen: Based on what we know, where our income is, or what week our income is going to land or cash our cash is going to land in our bank. Josh: Okay. That's actually brings up a very good point. So when you're starting up a business, and obviously depending on the scale and the size of your business, some people, they're net terms are nearly instant, they can sell a pizza and they're being paid in 15 minutes, but then depending on the level of business you're in, like for us, we have net terms that vary from anything from 15 to 45 day. Some people have, I think things are even higher than that. If you're in business and you want to make sure you have that cash flow, what is everyone else doing out there? What are the net terms and how much does that affect the bottom line? Leschen: It's so important because there are some things that you can't do much about because there's legislation around it, but again, I'll use us as an example, I'm quite transparent about what we do. So, we normally, for a client, we'll do your compliance work and then we give you a big bill, not that big, but we give you a bill at the end of the day for having done it.  Josh: Acceptable bill. Leschen: Yeah, correct. Of course. Josh: Yeah. Leschen: But then we're going, "Why are we doing that?" We would hate it if we went to you say, Josh, and went, "Can you provide us a service and then at the end of the year, give us a bill?" That would be a big bill. Right? Josh: Yeah. Leschen: But you might change it to monthly and that's what we're thinking about. So it's smaller chunks. People can absorb the cost a little bit better. People know what's coming up, they know when it's coming up, and people can then plan their cash flow a lot better. So people can do the same in their business if they've got something that they can start billing over a year or three months or six months, they should think about that. Because also then, for you, you've got a regular cash flow coming in. Josh: Oh, I think it's a fantastic idea. That's a big model that we're a huge fan of. So about 10 years ago we changed from being a per hour model to a per month model. And we give unlimited support for everything that we do and we're always available on the phone to talk to anyone and it's so much easier because you remove that resistance. Before you'd go into a business, you'd tell them what you're charging per hour and they'll talk really, really quickly. And I know I'm guilty of it. I'll go to my accountant and he'll be like, "Oh, so how's the family?" And I'm like, "Crap, am I on the time or not?" I don't know- Leschen: "Don't ask me about my family now!" Josh: Exactly. Ask me later when I know I'm not on the clock. And you start freaking out and we saw that that gave a lack of quality service because we'd go in and the receptionist would say, "I've got this problem." And the business owner said, "Not important." And I'm like, "Well that's not very cool." And so, charging a set price per month gave everyone that same thing, and I'm not going to say that this happens, but depending on your industry, when you have the likes of gyms that have popped up, these 24-hour gyms that are not doing much at the moment, but that you have this card sitting in your wallet. Isn't it weird how you don't lose weight with the card sitting in your wallet but the money still comes out? Leschen: I have a gym that I donate to. Josh: Yeah, exactly. You help fund their loans. Leschen: It's a great model that they have. Josh: Yep and so that's where I'm like, "Okay." So I don't know what you guys charge, but let's say it's $2,000 to do a returns for a Pty LTD something once a year or something like that. Leschen: Yeah. Josh: I'm just saying a ballpark number, but if it was two grand, that gives people the opportunity to go, "Ooh, shit, two grand, that's a lot of money. Maybe I should look around for next year." Where if you divide that by 12, all of a sudden, even if it was $200 plus the overheads of the additional bookkeeping and administration, and you go, "Okay, $200 a month. $50 a week, it's just coming out..." I know it's there. I know I can call you anytime. I know this is going to be done. I don't have this big expense and it's a much easier model and it's easier for everyone. Josh: But people... I'm going to use one of those terms like they do on the news when you say, "They said this is going to come." When they don't actually have any references. I mean I'm going to do one of those. I'm going to just say people freak out when they get their rates notice or their insurances too or whatever their case is in business and you go, "Oh crap. Here's an eight grand invoice that I wasn't anticipating at all." But if you're able to amortise that into smaller chunks, you're able to see the outgoings more easily, predict for that and forecast for that, for a lot of people that don't really use many forecasting applications and things like that. Leschen: It’s simple. Josh: Yeah, exactly. What do you suggest if you are new to the game and you're wanting to get a bit of an idea of, "What are I expenses next month?" Did you have any tools that you could suggest that you could do that in a live way? Leschen: Well, we use Zero a lot, but accountants love Excel, and I'm going to sound like such an accountant now, but Excel works wonders. Why make it complicated? You should know when your next bill is coming in. You should know when your rates bills are coming in. When you'd go into business, that does need to be a little bit of ownership about what you're doing. So yeah, if you're new in business, you're going to sign up for insurance. So you will know what that bill is and so you just put it into your little Excel worksheet and in the week that it's due and just have your weeks across the top and you just work it out like that. Josh: Yeah and that's easy enough. And most people don't, and I'm going to say the thing that all accounts hate, I love Excel, but if you don't have Excel, anyone out there listening in Podcast Land, use Google Sheets. It's the poo version of Excel. It's free. It's not as good. Leschen: I was going to say the same thing. Isn't it? Josh: Yeah, oh, it's okay when it gets down to.. For most uses it's going to be the same. Just when it gets down to some of the more complicated things that you're doing between them. Leschen: It's not complicated at all. Josh: Exactly, somebody can sit down there with a beer, hypothetically, and then go through and do that so that's really good advice. And when, I guess, looking to find out all your numbers and going through all your numbers, we've got a bookkeeper, we've got an account, and then I'm the business owner and a lot of people have that same sort of Three Stooges or Three Musketeers depending on how you feel about it. Where do you say is the best way to understand the cut-over between accountant, bookkeeper and business owner when it comes to responsibilities to create these documents, to know when things are happening? I'm not going to pick on any industry in particular, but some businesses sort of go, "Oh, no mate. I just do what I do and put everything in the Share Box and it just bloody gets sorted out from there. It doesn't, hey?" And then there's other people that have their finger on the pulse and I would be more closely aligned with that, myself. But I don't know if I'm... I don't want to think that I'm stepping on my bookkeeper's toes and they go, "What are you doing?" Or if the book is just meant to be there for reconciliation. So where do you say the cut-over really sits nicely to just know where your responsibilities lay as a business owner when it comes to things like this? Leschen: So if we start with a book, it's like a... What's the analogy with the cookie? Or making a sausage. The bookkeeper starts at the beginning, they input the data into your software package, say it's Zero or MYOB or QuickBooks, whatever it is, and then your accountant reads it and checks, is how I would probably put it because if I had to input anything into Zero, I would probably break it, but I could probably get my way around it, sort off, but I would not be anywhere near as efficient as a bookkeeper. Josh: Cool. So from an accountant's perspective, you're into the P and L's. Leschen: Yeah. I want to tell you how you're going, why is your marketing so high this month when you only budgeted X or why is your rent percentage of income so high? Those are the conversations that I want to have with you. I want help you interpret your numbers so that you can go away and go, "Right, okay, this is what I need to do." We're going on our plan traject trajectory or we need to change. Josh: Obviously, in the analogy of making the sausage, if the meat is rancid or the bookkeeper's not doing the job that you thought they were meant to be doing or something's wrong, let's say I just walked off the street and I was decided, "Let's start a business." Can you tell that the bookkeeper's been doing something a bit wrong? They've been claiming GST free expenses instead of other things where they shouldn't have been. They haven't got the appropriate tracking codes and things like that. Or can you go, "Maybe I should tell the business owner, this doesn't look a hundred percent kosher."? Or how deep do you get into it? Leschen: Yes, it depends how much you want us involved in your business. So we prepare a lot for clients. So it's at that time we review all the data and we go, "Well, this has got GST on and it shouldn't." Or, "Hang on a second, this insurance has GST on the full amount but it shouldn't. So can you give us the invoice?" That sort of thing. So we can certainly run a preliminary eye over what's in your books but it's not going to pick up everything but it will certainly pick up the majority of things. So we can definitely help from that perspective. Leschen: And then from a bookkeeper's perspective, it depends. We would always go back to the owner going, "Oh my God we had to reconcile your bank account. Why is it not reconciled? The bookkeeper should do that every time they come to your place." Or we would go, "Well no, we had to do 50,000 adjustments to your file." But it's just a two-way communication because we do like to work with the bookkeepers as well. And the good bookkeepers, we have a really open dialogue with so that they can ask us questions. Because the last thing you want is the bookkeeper and the accountant at odds with one another. Josh: Butting heads, yeah. Leschen: All three of us... Yeah. Because they get very protective of their work or the accountant gets very protective and it's not a good relationship. So you need the owner, the accountant, and the bookkeeper all to be on the same page, it just works so much better that way. Josh: I can say, comfortably, you're 100% correct. When I started the business in 2007 I read four or five books on bookkeeping and accounting and thought, "I can do this." Leschen: Oh my God. Were you having- Josh: Easy. Leschen: ...trouble sleeping? Josh: Ah, so 2007, start of the business, 2009 I went, "I am freaking out. What have I done? This is terrible!" And I got a bookkeeper and I'm like, "I need you to help me. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want the government to come and hurt me. I haven't submitted anything two years." And they said, "Look, don't freak out. It's all right. You're not the only person that's ever done this." I'm like, "Yeah but I don't even want to be any of the people that have done this." I don't want to be in the naughty chair. What am I doing? Anyway... Leschen: Just fix it! Josh: Exactly. So she went through it all, got it all sorted and at that stage we were using QuickBooks, got it all sorted and, oh my goodness, the weight off my chest, that was fantastic. That's something that I said, I went, "Okay, I shouldn't have been freaking out about this." The good news is though I read enough into it to understand enough about the numbers and so I definitely think everyone should... As you said, the business owner needs to take some responsibility when it comes to knowing what expenses are coming up and being aware of that. And I 100% agree because being able to do this, I was able to more easily diagnose and understand things when I was going in for an expense or going in for a loan or something like that. I understood where and how that would work and how you could better map out the chart of accounts or general ledgers. And that was great. Josh: And that, for me, definitely made the line of a bookkeeper versus a business owner a bit fuzzy because I'm like, "I don't want to step on their toes. How much am I meant to know and do?" But at the same time I think more knowledge can only be a good thing, but just know that there's other people that do what they do professionally and better, so I don't necessarily jump in. I wouldn't be expecting business owners to go and do security assessments on their companies. Leschen: Well, I was just going to say, my philosophy is you go and do what you're good at. Josh: Yeah. Leschen: I will help you interpret your numbers until you understand them, because I do like to get to a stage where you do understand them but I'll help you interpret them. I'll help you along the way, but you go and build your business and build what you're good at or do what you're good at because I wouldn't have a clue about IT. So it's just having those people... I think we're in a world where no one is an... You can't be a generalist. You can't build your business and be good at IT, your accounts, your... What else do you need? Legal. You can't be good at all of that and you don't have time to do that. Josh: It already bothers many business owners, including myself. You're kind of still expect it to be the salesperson, the marketer, and whatever the thing is that you're good at and it's still like, "Aw man, I had to learn to become..." It sounds like I'm extroverted at the moment, I assure you, I love a quality month alone with a book. Leschen: Sure. Josh: I realised in business, if you're not the person able to talk, your messaged doesn't go anywhere. You can have the cure to cancer but if it's sitting on your shelf and you don't have a voice to tell anyone about it, you shouldn't even have it. Leschen: No. If it's sitting on your shelf and you're at home trying to do your bookkeeping, instead of getting the word out there, or you're struggling with your bookkeeping and it's taking you a week to do instead of two hours, like a good bookkeeper or something like that. What a waste of time. What a waste of opportunity. Josh: Absolutely. And we've only got time once, don't we? So you don't want to be- Leschen: That's right. Josh: Spending your time doing crap. Leschen: It's the one thing you can't get back. Josh: Exactly right. So there's books out there that I have read and I'm sure other people who've read like The Barefoot Investor and stuff. Leschen: Oh yeah, I haven't read that one, but yeah. Josh: What would you say, if people are looking towards forecasting or people are looking towards some sort of material to not necessarily tell them, "This is how to do something." But just tell them how to make sure they're doing the right thing? Forecasting's awesome, the split of expenses can sometimes... My family are either teachers, business owners or engineers, all of them, my grandparents, everyone. That's the trifecta that we've got there. And dad was an engineer. So doing all of their operations and bits and pieces. Leschen: Oh, bite your tongue! Josh: This isn't just for that business it's for other businesses that he's worked with previously, but how much people generally spend on marketing, generally spend on the people in the trenches to get the work done. And I've always had a lot of trouble with that because I've sort of thought, "Well, if you want to get your message out there, your brand out there, you need to be spending money on marketing. "As much as when I first started my business, I thought like a lot of people, people will come. Rome wasn't built in a day but you build it and they will come and it wasn't the case. And that's when I learned to start talking more. Do you like review if you see some weird patterns, if you went, "Oh, that's weird that they're spending 60% of their revenue on marketing and 20% on business meetings and only 20% on staffing. That's a bit of an odd mix." Leschen: We'd certainly be having a conversation at that point in time. But it also depends on where a business's at. And so, part of our job is to, I guess, listen and we might have these set things in our head and go, "Yeah, wow, 60% on marketing. That's really high." But there might be a very valid explanation for that. So we'll play devil's advocate and make sure that strategy, I guess, is robust and that the business owner has thought through all the pros and cons. And if it's good, it's good. And if they go, "Ah, yeah, I could probably get an employee that would do..." It's all those types of conversations. So all in all, we just strike up a conversation around it. Everyone's got a filter through which they make decisions, whether there's $0 in the bank account or a million dollars in the bank account will affect how you make your decisions. So we're just trying to make sure that all decisions are made at an even keel. Josh: What was it that I saw? It was a presentation that I saw in the past and they said, "The decisions and the ways that your mind works when you're backed into a corner will be incredibly different to the ways that would work when you're thinking clearly." Leschen: Never a truer word has been said. Josh: Yeah. Leschen: I agree. Josh: So I would say every business has gone through some hairy bits. And if you haven't, you're going to, it's just inevitable. You're not taking enough risks. Yeah, that's cool. So if you are looking to make sure that you're keeping your cash flow in the right spot, what are some of the things, I guess, you can do in regards to say commercial property you might be leasing and things like that? Leschen: So right now,in this specific time, if you're starting to worry about cash, you should be speaking to your landlord. Josh: Just for everyone listening it's at the COVID time we're talking. People listen in five years time, it's the COVID time we're talking right now. Leschen: 2020 it'll go down in history. Josh: Yep. Leschen: Yeah. In this COVID time, because there's specific legislation now for it, you should be speaking to your landlords and see if you can get some relief around your rent. You should be speaking to your banks, see if you can defer payment. And at the moment they're not obviously I'm saying you can go payment free, but they're just tacking it onto the end of your loan. But it gives you a little bit more financial certainty now, just do it because your stress levels are going to sky rocket and you're not going to be able to think clearly unless you relieve some of your cash issues. And if you can, go for Jobkeeper if you haven't already. Josh: Yeah, jump into it. They've extended that haven't they? Just recently. Leschen: So they've extended applications until the end of May and you don't actually have to have paid that $1,500 per eligible employee until the 8th of May. The major banks are funding those so if you're a customer of Westpac, ANZ, NAB or CBA, you can actually go to them and they will do a short term over-draught sort of thing. Josh: Bridging loan type thing. Leschen: Yeah, correct. And at very reasonable rates and that will help you fund a lot of that. So I would be getting on the phone ASAP if you want to do that sort of thing. Josh: That's awesome advice. So Leschen, is there anything else that you'd like to go through that you think I haven't covered off on, that you think would be... Questions or information that we should be given to our listeners? Leschen: Look, if anyone has any questions, happy for you to get some notes and I'll shoot something through, but stress is a big things so look after yourselves and have a clear mind as much as possible. Yeah. Josh: Cool. It's been lovely having you on the show here. I'm going to chuck some links in the description here for Element Business and Accounting Solutions for anyone that's interested in jumping across there and hearing a bit of the voodoo that they do and how they can help you out if you are a bit or you're not sure that you're getting the right advice or if you want anything to do with forecasting and want a bit more information there, make sure to jump across and talk to a wonderful team. And everyone else out there, stay healthy and in Podcast Land, if you have enjoyed this, jump across to iTunes, leave us a review, give us some love and everyone stay good.

Business Built Freedom
138|Covid Created Customers With Julie Bannister

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later May 11, 2020 25:06


Covid Created Customers With Julie Bannister Josh: All right. Everyone out there in podcast land, I've got a cool guest for us today. We've got Julie Bannister from BforB, and she's been doing some special stuff with businesses for a number of years and several different flavours, and overall, she helps businesses grow and thrive. And who wouldn't want to grow and thrive at a time like now? So Julie, tell me, how would you say we could best take advantage of the current pandemic? Learn more about Covid created customers at dorksdelivered.com.au Julie Bannister: Hi Josh. Well thank you and thank you for having me on the podcast today. I think obviously we all are online because we cannot meet face to face and that was the whole part of our business. It was face to face business networking. So we had to pivot. I think that's a trendy word just at the moment. Josh: Isn't it? Julie Bannister: It is. I feel a little bit bad saying it, but we have had to change and we've had to go online. So that is our only option. That's everyone's option is to be online and really to support each other. But I think we all have to realise that it's not the end, it's not that we won't come out the other side of this pandemic, and it's not that we can't also grow in this time. Julie Bannister: So I think that is one thing that we really need to be aware of and for everybody to be aware of, and for us to think of ways that we can, and I've seen many of our members of BforB, and other business people just looking at how they can maybe take things online and sell their product online or doing other things so that they can stay afloat in this time and then come out the other side and thrive. Julie Bannister: So we've got lots of things that we're doing. That's one thing that I think we all need to be looking at, at this present point of time. Josh: Absolutely. Changing around the way that you do business is incredibly important and making sure that you're ready for the boom. And I think this is for some businesses, has come as a complete shock, to other businesses, they've seen this as a bit of a kick in the butt to start doing things a little bit differently. And it's all about just making sure that you're ready. And there's just been a breakneck speed that we've seen people do some of these changes. Josh: I guess what you're saying and I'll bring it to an analogy I'm very fond of which is comparing success to a Chinese bamboo tree. So the Chinese bamboo tree you can plant and for the first five years, it grows only very, very small amounts. And then on the fifth year, in six weeks, it grows 80 feet. Julie Bannister: Oh my goodness! Josh: I know. Julie Bannister: We've got bamboo in our backyard and it's been there for about four years. Josh: And using what you said as an analogy, I think all of us have some bamboo in their own backyard and one way or another. Julie Bannister: Yes. Josh: It's about working that out now and harvesting that and planting the seeds now because people right now isn't the time to bury your head in the sand. It's the time to be building relationships and helping people out and making sure that when things come good, you already have that groundwork done. You already know who you know, like and trust and you've already built those relationships up. Josh: So that you can then move forward and move onwards and upwards. Julie Bannister: Definitely. Josh: So anyone that's looking to start a business, this is the most ideal time. And I can say that with a lot of confidence, knowing that Dorks Delivered would start in 2007 as a bit of a side hustle, another one of those words that everyone overuses. Josh: And it was 2009 that we had the, I guess, mini-recession in Australia and the global financial crisis. And that was our time that we absolutely boomed. I gave up my day job, turned that into my full-time gig and I've never looked back. Julie Bannister: Wow. I didn't know that Josh. I've talked to you a lot, but I didn't know that. Yes, interesting. Josh: Yeah, and I think this is the best time that people should be growing businesses. People shouldn't be closing and they should be pivoting them wherever they can and making sure they're taking advantage of the huge amounts of time that people have available. Julie Bannister: Yes, definitely. Josh: So an example I'll use, my podcast has been running now for a bit of time and the YouTube channel has been running for a bit of time. Josh: We have over 100 videos in the YouTube channel published, I think about 120 podcasts and about 180 recorded. But I was only looking this morning at the dashboard for where we're sitting. So the podcast, just looking at it right now, the podcast, the difference in traffic between February and March increased to 30% more listeners. Julie Bannister: Wow. Josh: If we have a look at the YouTube channel, it's increased. The watch time has gone up by 47%. Julie Bannister: That is amazing. Josh: 47% for the month, just ridiculous. And the view count's gone up by 10% and so I think what we can take home from that is, going up by 10% means that I've got 10% more viewers or customers, but the current customers having watched 47% more of my content has shown that they have enjoyed what we're doing, but they just haven't had the time to look at it in the past. Josh: That's where you've got people with more time and what you guys are offering, which I'd love to make sure everyone else knows a bit more about that, but what you guys are offering is going to mean that they can build those relationships with that available time. If they have available time to watch my stupid videos, they definitely have available time to build relationships. Julie Bannister: I must say that videos, very entertaining. They're not stupid, they're entertaining. Sometimes I'm not quite sure why you said that, and why you say some things, but they are definitely very entertaining. Josh: I'm going to say something I'd normally never say, but I was told many years ago, you can have something that's boring. You can have a boring topic or something that people don't give a crap about and someone said, "They can give a crap about, you just have to roll it in glitter." And I'm like, "Okay, no worries." Josh: So you take a boring subject like IT and stuff like that, and you roll it in glitter and that's what the YouTube channel and podcast is all about. Julie Bannister: That's what you definitely do. Josh: That's right. So you've been running something called BforB in one form or another for quite a while and BforB connects people together and builds those relationships up. Julie Bannister: Yes. Josh: So tell me about what you're doing now for people that are looking to grow their business. Julie Bannister: Yes. Okay. So just to go back a step, you mentioned when you were talking Josh, that building the relationships and that's the core essence of networking and business because you need to build those relationships to actually get, as everybody says, the know, like and trust, so that people will want to do business with you. Julie Bannister: And that's what we do in networking. So now that we can't meet face to face, what we're doing is, we've gone online and obviously, the meetings are free to join in, and we're actually launching in a number of different areas. So we're launching in regional Queensland, we're launching in New South Wales in Sydney, and building extra groups near where we are here in Brisbane and Adelaide, and the Gold Coast. Julie Bannister: So allowing people to join in, in the already established network with our formatted meeting structure, it's formatted and it's professional, but it's friendly and casual if you can have that all in one. And you've attended some Josh and you understand that that's what it is. We like people to have fun when they're there. So currently, we're allowing people to take advantage of that and we're offering free membership, well we're saying three months at the moment, but that may have to be extended. Julie Bannister: We're saying the hopeful, three months, this nightmare, we'll be out of this nightmare and we'll be back to life. But that may need to be extended. So that free membership will be extended for however long we're in this situation and allowing people to join in with our network. And we have some larger meetings where all of the members all over Australia connects. Julie Bannister: So that would be people's opportunity to connect with everyone. But it's allowing people to build the relationships now and when we've got the time, as you mentioned, then when we come out of this, those relationships will still be there. And from that, hopefully, referral business can start happening for many, many people. Wonderful, I'm just so excited about it. Julie Bannister: I was sharing with my coach the other day and we got so excited about what we can do for businesses at the moment. And as you mentioned, Josh, people who are not even in business, it's a great time for people to start thinking about that. Josh: Absolutely. We've got an abundance of time. Julie Bannister: Yes, yes. Everybody's got a lot of time. And there's such an opportunity for everyone in this situation and this is the way that we feel that we can help people, help our current members as well because they get connected with other people and we're all hurting at the moment in one way or another. We're all coping in one way or another and all differently. But this is, I believe, a great opportunity for people to be building those relationships now for the future. Josh: Fully agree, as you've pointed out in different words, but your network is your net worth. Julie Bannister: Yes, definitely. Josh: And creating a good network and talking to people right now is the best thing you can do. Those without a voice, won't be heard. And if you're going to just sit there in your sorrows, it's not going to build your business or your mindset, or grow yourself personally. So jumping into a group, as you've very, very generously pushed a free reason. There's no reason, there's nothing to lose, if they just want to spend a bit of time building up their relationships with people now. Josh: When everyone comes back, as I was saying with the bamboo tree, as soon as everyone kicks back into gear, things will be striving through and thriving for them and their business. So it's sensible to set the groundwork now. Sow the seeds, put them in the ground, even if it's not five years, if it's five months that we're in this a pandemic for, it would mean that in five months' time you've hit the gas pedal and you're absolutely cracking out goals. So we'll make sure to put a link towards that because I think that's very, very important and that people do jump onto that. Julie Bannister: There's one thing else that you touched on is that, some of us, and I know even in the last couple of weeks, I've wanted to put my head in the sand or go back to bed and put the pillow over my head and forget that anybody even exists. Josh: I had a talk to my mate, Jack Daniels. We're sweet. We were pretty close. Julie Bannister: My challenge is that if I get too stressed, alcohol doesn't do me good at all. So that's not my answer. But I think we have to not be tough on ourselves because realising that some moments in the day will feel a bit like that and other moments will feel, no, I can do this. So we really do need to acknowledge that and get connected with people so that we can all pull each other through all of this and not be too hard on ourselves, I believe. Josh: Absolutely. Being able to sit down and just, if you want to do it with me right now, Julie, I think it'd be good. Just take a deep breath, and take a breathe in, and breathe out. And then just know, and recollect yourself, and recollect your thoughts and your position. Feel comfortable about where you've come from and this is something that I always try reflecting on every three months, every year, every five years, I go back and look at each of the different business plans that I've made either from the start of the year and go, okay, what have I achieved? Josh: What have I been able to achieve? What have I been able to climb out of? What's been the driving motivator and those things and go, I can do lots. I can't believe how much I've done and be excited about those things and then go, okay, how can I, in a time like now where people are thinking we don't have the resources to do things, we don't have the ability to go and see people. Josh: It's a time where you just need to pivot your mindset and think about how resourceful we have the world at the moment. Being able to do things such as Zoom. We have the ozone layer that's clearing itself up at the moment. We have a huge amount of benefits that are coming from this. Now there's going to be a whole bunch of fallout from that as well and what the world looked like when we went in is not going to be what it looks like when we come back out. Josh: But knowing that you're still here fighting the fight and you have a game plan and way to position your business, it gives you something to drive towards and thrive towards. Like your kids at Christmas time when you tell them to be good and then say Santa's coming. Like, "Oh, I'll be good then." You just got to have something to work towards and know that you can create that sparkle in your eye and your family's. Julie Bannister: Yes. I think the gem in that is, or the key point in that is being connected with other people, whether it's your family, but I think business people, we are a little bit different and we can't always talk to our family members about the challenges or the stress that we're feeling in business. So being connected with business people, is really important in any way you at the moment, I think. Yes. Josh: Absolutely. You're exactly right Julie, and we need to have people being connected with their businesses and what they're doing and also understand that your business and your personal life are two separate things and building relationships in business can help you out personally as well as in business. That's very, very important to make sure you differentiate the health of your business and the health of yourself. Josh: I paused everything to do with Dorks Delivered and I paused it for three days as I went through the personal approach and game plan as to what we would be doing and how we'd be making sure we're okay personally. And then once I was confident with the results, I then started looking at the vehicle that brings us the success that we've got in our lives. Julie Bannister: That's very interesting. I didn't know that. That's another point I didn't know, but I also didn't even think of doing that. So that's a very good point Josh. Josh: Well I think it's knowing that your family is going to be healthy. I'm a bit of a forward thinker and I'll plan for the worst and hope for the best and that's what everyone should do. Nothing out of the ordinary. I didn't go do some bulk buying or anything like that. I don't have a room full of toilet paper. Julie Bannister: I hope you've got enough though. Josh: I've got a mango tree at the back. Julie Bannister: Ooh. Josh: But yeah, just the normal amount that fits under our sink and that we'd normally buy and just knowing that we've got our water bottles filled up. I've got CB radio set up to mum and dad if something was to go wrong with the phone networks or internet or something like that. Just knowing if we have a complete blackout type situation, that you can still talk to your loved ones and where you're at with your mindset and your finances and that. Josh: That's something that I'd definitely suggest everyone doing is just having a look at what the government is putting on the line for businesses. There is quite a number of things we went through and we could see that if you were to be in an 800,000 to $10 million turnover business, you'd be pretty comfortably able to find about $350,000 worth of advantages from the government at the moment. Julie Bannister: I haven't added that up. That's interesting. Josh: Yeah. So that's the numbers that we've got too and we've been talking to any other businesses, and this was something that I went through and spent a couple of days just looking at all the different literature that's available online to see what any of the different stimulus packages include and don't include, and make sure that you're aware of them before you start stressing out thinking customers are leaving and this is happening and that's happening. Josh: Just take a moment to collect yourself, see where you're at and see what is actually available out there and you'd be surprised at what businesses are happy to help out with and in a time like now, as I said, it's about building relationships. One business, we spoke to them, someone that we buy things from, so a vendor for us and we said, "Look, we need to know, are you relaxing any of your terms? You've pretty much presented us with a bill for $3,000." Josh: And he said, "No, if you don't like it, you don't have to stay with us." And I said, "Well, at the moment we would love to stay with you, but it's an auxiliary product that we weren't using with many customers." And we said, No, we're going to have to cut you out." And he goes, "We've had 30 cancellations this month. I don't know what's going on." And I thought, "Well you're an idiot then." Julie Bannister: He needs to open his eyes and ears. Definitely, wow. Josh: I said to him, "We'd be more than happy to utilise your products more than what we have been. We definitely see value in your product. If you give us some marketing material, we're happy to promote your product to help us help you out with this situation." Josh: And he said, "Oh no, I don't have time for that." I went, "Ah well, if you're not going to invest in your customers, you're not going to invest in your relationships. You're not going to invest in your business." It's fair that businesses with that mindset will collapse. And that's again, another thing that I found in going to the BforBs was, it's not just about the business, but you have a whole bunch of other advantages where you have keynote speakers and you have people come to these groups and they talk about the importance of doing certain things in business. Josh: Whether that be setting up your business in a certain way from an accounting perspective or creating videos for promoting your business or whatever the case may be. Automating and bringing back your life, which I'm a big fan of. Julie Bannister: We do have our guest speakers and that is a great value add. And just recently, we've been having a lot of speakers talking about the different packages that the government is offering and a lot of people are doing this, but we're still giving support around your mental health and things like that. But overall, we have guest speakers who talk about marketing, sales, IT, accounting, mindset, all different topics that can help people in their business. Julie Bannister: So yes, definitely, that is a great value add. And as you mentioned, it's not just about business, the friendships people make in BforB is just, it's so valuable, you can't put a price on it. And another value add that a lot of people receive from being a member of BforB is the confidence that you build because little by little, so you might be asked to do a one-minute infomercial and that's very frightening to a lot of people. Josh: Absolutely. Julie Bannister: Yes. And then we'll ask you to do a five minute, and then a 10 minute, and many of our members who've joined and was so scared to do a one-minute infomercial, are actually doing 25-minute presentations now. So it's a confidence-building and within a very, very, very supportive environment. Yes. So that's one of the biggest benefits I believe. Josh: You were talking about some things, new things that you learned about me today. One of the things, I can't remember if I've told you this or not, but I was severely bullied at school to a spot that I wasn't able to walk and I was very introverted. I was the guy that, I'm going to call myself wicked awesome at chess. No one challenged me to that because if you're challenging me, you're probably better, but I was the guy in the library playing chess. Josh: That was my hangout. I was not confident to talk to people. I was not confident to be in the spotlight whatsoever. I was overweight and it was a battle and it was a time where something clicked and I realised that if I have developed the cure for cancer from a computer standpoint in managing and automating businesses, but I'll have that sitting in my garage. Josh: No one has the advantage from that. I'm sure someone has got a cure for cancer and it's just sitting in their garage and they don't have the voice to be able to speak, and speak and talk to people about it. And things like BforB, and being able to come outside of your comfort circle. Josh: Proud of me knowing about BforB was put onto a roadshow to talk to people about IT. It was a five-day roadshow. The first day that I did that roadshow, I recorded it because I was going to put it up on the web for people to have a look at. I watched it. I nearly threw up. I was like, oh my goodness, that's terrible. I can't believe I've done that. I've got four more days of this with no audience engagement and I've gone, oh this is terrible. This is so terrible. I was going to call in sick. I've never wanted my mum to write me a letter to say I can't come to school so much as a grown adult. Josh: I was thinking, I'm freaking out. I watched that same 30 minute video, maybe 10 times that night and I'm writing down what did I do wrong? How did I move my hands? I didn't like that. I look really nervous. How can I fix this? And I wrote down and critiqued everything. The Tuesday, I did the presentation and everyone loved it. They stood up and clapped. They gave me a standing ovation. Josh: I thought, oh, this makes Wednesday a lot easier. That's not to say I didn't watch it still, but BforB gives you exactly that power to be able to... It doesn't matter if you're a scared little mouse and you sit down. It gives you the growth to be able to talk and to know that other people are in the same boat as you. You're not just the only person that's feeling that way. Julie Bannister: That's exactly right. Yes, and that's actually the thing that rocks my boat in BforB is watching people grow and getting that confidence. The referrals, yes, because we need a return on our investment. That is still very important. But that confidence building, it's grows the person and the business. So that's so important. Josh: Yeah, well, Julie it's been great speaking with you and is there anything else you'd like to talk about before we finish this one up? Julie Bannister: We have some online meetings. As I mentioned before, we have our BforB regular meetings at the same time that we used to have our regular face to face meetings. We've got monthly networking, which is open to everyone to come on and we have a guest speaker with that one and I can share the link with you, Josh if you feel that's appropriate. Josh: That'd be perfect. Absolutely, that'd be great. Julie Bannister: Yes. And we do have our daily business, every business day from 10 o'clock till 11:30 where people can just come in and chat with us. No formal meeting, just connecting with people. So yeah. Josh: Cool. Well Julie, I'll make sure to make sure that all of our listeners out there in podcast land get those links and are able to really have a compounding growth for their business over the next few, hopefully only weeks, probably months, but likely, several months. But we'll see how they go. Julie Bannister: Definitely. Thanks for having me. Josh: No worries. And if anyone has enjoyed this, make sure to jump across to iTunes, give us a review, and everyone out there, stay good.

Business Built Freedom
137|Helping Yourself With Bob Burg

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later May 6, 2020 37:56


Helping Yourself With Bob Burg Josh: So we've got Bob Burg here today, and he's an absolute legend in his field. He's changed the way that I do business, he's changed my life. He was one of the first self-help books that I read. And ultimately it's something that I always talk to, a massive influencer for me. And I talk to all my clients and make sure that they go and read, number one The Go-Giver. They need to jump into that, that changes the way you do business. So Bob, tell me a bit about The Go-Giver. Get more tips from Bob Burg at dorksdelivered.com.au  Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/GS2jTHebvHA Bob Burg: Well it's a business parable. So it's a fictional story based on all tried and proven principles. And there's a lot of stories within the story that actually happen. But the actual work is a work of fiction. It's co-authored by John David Mann who's a fantastic storyteller and writer. I'm much more of a how-to guy. And it's a story of a guy named Joe who's a young up-and-coming, ambitious, aggressive salesperson. He's a good guy and he has good intent, but he's very frustrated because he hasn't reached the kind of success he believes he should have by this point. But he really comes to learn that the big problem, his focus is really on himself when it comes right down to it as opposed to others. And what he learns through the story, is that when you can shift your focus off of yourself and onto others. Being focused on creating or what we call getting exceptional value to everyone you meet, you realise that not only is that a more pleasant way of conducting business, it's actually the most financially profitable way as well. Josh: I have to say I completely agree. Having read your book, it would have been now, I couldn't even say how many years ago. It was many, many years ago I read. I started off with The Go-Giver and I thought, this is amazing. Jumped onto The Go-Giver Leader, jumped onto Sell me More, and then Endless Referrals, and The Success Formula. I nearly have the library. Bob Burg: Wow, thank you. That's a great compliment. Josh: I can say your teachings are amazing. And the way that that was done in The Go-Giver was a very light, easy read in my opinion. It related to lots of people and it wasn't something that you... You pick it up and you just wanted to read, you didn't want to put it down. It wasn't something that was hard to read. Bob Burg: And that goes to John, that's his writing skills. Josh: It helped. And especially in my naivety when I was first starting out in business, being able to read something like that and go, okay this sounds good. And knowing that there is good ways and great ways to do business, as opposed to the ruthless cutthroat methods that seem to be fictionalised in movies. Bob Burg: Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons there was appeal for the book, for the message. Because most human beings, they want to feel like they're making a positive difference in people's lives. And so I think what the book said is basically, yeah you can do business that way. Not only is it can you focus on bringing value to others, and not only is it going to have you feel good about yourself, not only are you going to make money doing that, but that's actually the more effective way of doing it than focusing on yourself. Because you think about this, and I often will say this in a joking manner when I speak at a sales conference. One of the first things I'll say is, "Nobody's going to buy from you because you have a quota to me." Josh: Yeah, exactly. Bob Burg: Right? They're not going to buy from you, right and we all laugh because we all know that's true. No one's going to buy from us because we need the sale, right? They're not going to buy from you because you need the money. And they're not even going to buy from you because you're a nice person. They're going to buy from you because they believe that they will be better off by doing so than by not doing so. And that's perfect, it's the only reason why anyone should buy from you, or from me, or from anyone else. And the neat thing about that is what it does is it makes it so that sales person or entrepreneur who can place their focus on that other person, placing that other person's interest first, doing what's in the best interest of that other person and being able to communicate that. That's the person who's going to be more successful both in the short-term and the longer sustainable term. Josh: Well I can say, the proof is in the pudding and I've made my business on the pudding that you gave me. Bob Burg: Oh, okay. Josh: So yeah, it worked out really well. And as you said, it should be straight-forward but it just doesn't seem to come by nature. And I know, I myself I'm very technical. My background's technical, my skill set's technical and I was the technician that decided I've got something better to give to the world. And excuse the French, but scared shitless when it came to trying to sell or talk to people about it. And your books described it perfectly, don't sell. Just show people what you've got to offer- Bob Burg: Well, here's what it is. It's not that you're not selling, but we define selling differently right? Josh: Yeah, exactly. Bob Burg: Because when you think about it a lot of people say, well what's selling? Selling is trying to convince someone to buy something they don't want or need. Well that's not selling, that's called being a thief. So what is selling? Well selling, by definition selling is simply discovering what that other person does want, does need, does desire and helping them to get it. The Old English root of the word sell was sellan, which literally meant to give. So, when you're selling you're literally giving. No, someone might say, well wait a second isn't that semantics? And I say, well I don't think so and here's why. Let's say you have a prospective customer in front of you and they want to know why. Why they should do business with you, why you're the solution to their problem, why that... Well, so you're in a sales situation, you are selling. So my question would be, when you're selling what are you giving? I suggest you're giving that person time, attention, counsel, education, empathy and ultimately extreme value. So when we look at selling that way, now we see that it's really something good that we're doing. Josh: You're helping everyone ultimately, unless you're being a thief as you said. Bob Burg: Oh yeah, sure. And that's not selling, that's being a thief. Josh: That's right. As long as you've got a good product, a good mindset, and you believe in what you're doing, and what you're selling, and what your message is I find that your customers become your best salespeople. Bob Burg: Oh, absolutely. They become your personal walking ambassadors. Josh: Correct, yeah. And it's an amazing concept, so anyone that hasn't read The Go-Giver definitely needs to jump into it. It's a must-read, it needs to sit on there on the shelf as one of the first books that you read next to E-Myth and other classics. And in fact when I first met my partner Sarah, she'd started a first business as the first set of... Backstory, met her on Tinder. I would have rather met her in a nicer way, but we live in the age that we live in. So, met her on Tinder, and the first time we caught up together she had her folder there and I caught up with her. She didn't know if it was a business meeting or a date. And I was talking to her about different ways that she could better her business. And if I don't say so myself, quite the gentleman opening the door and so on and so forth for her. And I said one of the first things you need to do is read The Go-Getter, and this copy that I've actually got here now that we've been together for a while is signed by me saying, To all your success, Love Josh. Bob Burg: That's great. Josh: So this is actually the book that I had for myself and I gifted to her. And it's come straight back, although that sounds a bit corny it's exactly the message that you're giving, you give, and it comes back to you. And it comes back to you in... I gave her a book and I got a life partner. How good's that? So it comes back to you significantly more than what you give out. Bob Burg: Well that's awesome. And I never thought of my book going along on a Tinder date, or business opportunity or what have you but I'm glad it did. Josh: So here you are. You're obviously an invite to the wedding. Bob Burg: Definitely, exactly. Josh: Yeah, just a little thank you on that one. And the opportunities don't stop when you turn off your sales cap. It's always on if you're passionate about it good things always come your way. Bob Burg: Yep. Josh: So tell me about what happens after the book, when someone's read the book what's the next steps they can do to find out how to better themselves and adventure onwards past he one-way literature. Bob Burg: Well application is always really key. And that's why in the story itself Pindar, the main mentor told Joe there was really only one condition for his mentorship. And that is that he applied those laws. Every day, that every time he learned a new law he would apply the law that day. It didn't have to be done perfectly and it wasn't a matter of figuring out exactly why or why it wouldn't work or what have you. Just do the thing, right? Just take action on it. And so we find the feedback that we received from a lot of people, bless you, a lot of people do that. A lot of people will take one law and say, okay how do I apply this? How do I do this? And then they'll work on that. I always think that's a great way to start. So you ask yourself, how do I bring value to another human being? And when you think about it we have to really understand what value is, what it means. A lot of times I think people maybe confuse price and value, and those are actually two different terms. For example the law of value says your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. But you think about it, that sounds like a recipe for bankruptcy. Give more in value than I take in payment, aren't I going to go out of business? And so we simply have to understand the difference between price and value. So what we know is that price is a dollar amount, it's a dollar figure, it's finite. It simply is wat it is, it's the price. Value on the other hand is the relative worth or desirability of a thing, of something to the end user or beholder. In other words, what is it about this thing, this product, this service, this concept, this idea that bring with it so much worth or value to another human being that they will willingly exchange their money for this. And be glad, be ecstatic that they did while you make a very healthy profit. And so when you automate for example somebody's business, and do this in a way that... What's the value you're providing? You're saving them time, you're saving them energy, you're saving them from making needless mistakes, you're making it so that they're going to make more money in their business. So I guarantee you that whatever it is you charge that person, they're getting much more in value than what they're paying. But you're making a very healthy profit because obviously with your cost of goods sold, and rent and everything else you're selling the service for much, much more than what you're having to pay to support it. And that's why in a market-based economy with every sale there should be two profits. The buyer profits and the seller profits because each of them come away better off afterwards than they were beforehand. So, that's the law of value. It's not a matter of, some people might think The Go-Giver, does that mean you're giving away your products or services? No. Does it mean you're not making a profit? Of course not. As a Go-Giver you're going to make a much higher profit because your focus is going to be on the value, the experience, everything you proved that other person, right? Not low-price, when you sell them low-price you're a commodity. When you sell on high-value you're a resource. Josh: Well that's it. Too many people, there's a podcast we did a few weeks ago on apples versus oranges, how could they possible be the same price? When people are comparing apples with apples, and as soon as you are comparing apples with apples you commoditize your business, and then the only thing you can fight on is price. And that's where you need to be able to bring that value, bring that change. So you've got value, price and cost. Bob Burg: Yeah. And here's the thing. So when you look at the price, and I think the cost is pretty self-explanatory. The price is self-explanatory, right? But when we talk about value, that can be both concrete in terms of when someone saves a certain amount of money, when you help someone make a certain amount that's fine. But there's so much more to the experience itself even, that's conceptual in nature. But here's what we've got to really understand, that value is always in the eyes of the beholder. Josh: Yes. Bob Burg: So what that other person feels is valuable about your product, or service, or doing business with you or what have you. Not what you think is of value, or what you think they should think is of value. It's about what they do. So if we're going to say to somebody, okay so how do you practise the law of value, right? Well the first thing you do is ask questions, and make sure you discover what other people find to be of value and then you go from there. Because it's not a matter of just doing things that you think are of value to others, that's fine. But what you feel is of value may not be what they feel is. Josh: Right. And then there's this disparity between your service offerings not being seen as valuable. Bob Burg: Stand-by, right? Josh: Yeah. So it's a very valuable lesson. And I know that you're big on authority building and influence, and I think that is something that could bring out a lot of value to people. Something that can show people your worth in mass without having to necessarily having to spend time as a commodity. You're able to put a resource in front of people or it's able to come about in front of them where they can see the things that can benefit their business and benefit their life. How would you go about starting off becoming an influencer? Bob Burg: So I think it's always a good thing, I'm always a big believer in defining terms so that we're all facing the same direction. So when you think about what influence even is, on a very basic level influence can be defined as simply the ability to move a person or persons to a desired action, usually within the context of a specific goal. So by definitely that's [inaudible 00:24:47]. Now that's the definitely, but I don't believe that's the essence of influence. The essence of influence is pull. Pull as opposed to push, as in the saying how far can you push a rook? And the answer's not very, at least not very fast or very effectively. Which is why great influencers don't push, right? You never hear people saying, wow that Tom or that Nancy, she is so influential. She has a lot of push with people. No, she's influential she has a lot of pull with people. That's what influence is. It's pull, it's an attraction. Great influencers first attract people to themselves, and only then to their idea. So how do we do that? So the law of influence says, in the book the law of influence says your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first. Well what does that mean? We're not talking about being self-sacrificial, or being a martyr, or being a doormat. But no, here's what we mean. Like this person who utilises pull in order to influence. That person's always asking themselves questions such as, how does what I am asking this other person do, how does it align with their goals, their wants, their needs, their desires? How does what I want this other person to do, how does it align with their values? How am I making their life better? What is a problem of theirs I am helping them to solve. And see Josh, when we ask ourselves these questions thoughtfully, intelligently, genuinely, authentically, not as a way to manipulate another human being into doing our will, but as a way of building everyone in the process. Now we've come a lot closer to earning that person's commitment as opposed to trying to depend on some type of compliance which is push, right? That's pushing ourselves or pushing our will and so forth. Josh: So say you're a small business, you've just started out and you've got just yourself. You've just read The Go-Giver and you're thinking about how can you change your methodology from being a push. I'm sure you've seen some of the pyramid schemes that are out there that have generally more push than pull from a sales perspective and they're trying to get you to on sale certain products without mentioning brands and bits and pieces. There's lots of them out there and that's always a very push, and their sales training has all been very push. How would you change someone from a push mentality into a pull mentality? And how would you change around their processes to allow for that to come to fruition and be noticed by, either their existing customers that have come about probably through getting sick of saying no, and they've finally said yes. Or how would you then change the mentality of their customer base or do you think it would be a bit more of a situation where you'd refresh the customer base? Or I guess how would you change your mindset from the 1980s this is how I'm going to be pushing something onto someone, to the 2020s soon to be. How would you change their process? Bob Burg: So I would say regardless of the field, if it's sales there are certain people who do it through push, and the good ones, the sustainably successful ones do it through pull. The ones who do it through push, and have been successful, and have been successful for a long time. They have to continue repeating the process over, and over, and over again with new people all the time. It's exhausting, it's very, very dificult. You can do it but it's very dificult to build a sustainable business that way. The ones who do it through pull regardless of the business, regardless of the industry. These are the people who typically are able to really develop a wonderful referral base, and as you were mentioning earlier people who are out there singing your praises, right? What we call personal walking ambassadors. So I think it beginning with the initial conversation. And let's say you meet someone somewhere and you're at a business social function. And you just say hello, and you say your name, and they say their name. And you ask them what they do and they tell you what they do. And they're going to probably give you some elevator speech, right? I send high-end copying machines to business that need to blah, blah, blah, right? And so forth because that's what most people have been taught to do. So you want to listen respectfully when they do it, but then when they ask you what you do which they'll probably do. My suggestion is to rather than do some elevator speech, because remember right now when this person first meets you they really don't care about you, and don't care about what you do. They care about themselves. So my feeling is just say the name, say whatever your company is, whatever you do. I'm an accountant with so-and-so or whatever. But then you're going to go right back to asking that person questions about themselves and about their business. So I have questions I call feel good questions. And those are questions that are not salesy, they're not prospecty, they're not intrusive, they're not invasive. They just make this person feel genuinely good about themselves, about the situation, and about you. And remember when you're focusing on them you're taking the pressure off yourself. You don't have to be that person who has that clever pushy line and so forth. So the first feel good question that you could ask is simply, how did you get your start or how did you get started in the copying machine business? Or selling copying machines or what have you. Or you may say, how did you get your start in the office products profession? For a little bit more elegant. Whatever it is that person does, asking them how they got their start is a fantastic way to immediately communicate value to them. Because again, value is much more than just money. It's making the person feel important, feel good about themselves. And how many people ever ask this person how they got started in their business. I guarantee no one, their own family probably doesn't ask that person. And here's you who they just met, and you're asking them basically to tell you their story, and they're going to appreciate that. I would follow that up probably with another fielded question such as, what do you enjoy most about what you do? You'll probably segue into it by saying, wow you must have had some fascination experiences. What do you enjoy most about your work? Or what do you enjoy most about what you do? Again, it's a feel good question. There's no pressure attached to it. Now when you've begun to develop a little bit of a rapport with that person, I would then suggest asking what I call the one key question that will set you apart from practically everyone else that person has ever met, and that question sound something like this. Gary, how can I know if someone I'm speaking with is a good prospective customer for you? And think about what you've done when asking that question, right? Unlike other people who are just again trying to sell their product or service right away, what have you. You have actually said to this person, not in so many words, but what you've communicated is I want to help you. I want to add value to your life. I want to make your life better. Josh: You give something to them, yeah. Bob Burg: Yeah. And they're going to really appreciate that. Now, at the end of the conversation you've got their business card, you can follow up with a personalised hand-written note which is so much better than a text or an email. Even though those are always good, but after you first meet someone there's nothing like a personalised note or card to send hand-written just saying it was great meeting you. If I can ever refer business your way I certainly will. And you've not established a connection, you've now established a relationship with this person that you can then begin to build on however you do it. Whether it's by, then you connect with that person on social media. Whenever you can refer that person to someone else, or if you know that person has an interest in antiques and you find an article on antiques. And you print it out and you send it to them and say, hey I came across this and I remember you love antiques, thought you might find... All these things you're doing, you're just creating that relationship with that person. And this does not have to take a long time, it doesn't. And what happens is when you do this consistently, okay. And you do this over time with new people on an every day basis you start developing so many people within your new sphere of influence that you've always got someone who's at that point where it's ready for you to approach them about either doing business with them directly and/or referrals. Josh: What you're saying there you need to make sure that you are genuinely listening to people. You're not just hearing them, you need to be, lack of a better word, involved emotionally in what they're saying, and listening to what they're saying, and actually action from that information. You don't want to be just hearing them and then, oh yeah, yeah. Cool, cool. You like remote control racing. That's cool. Okay, moving on. You need to be ready and engaged to build that relationship if that's what's important. And ultimately in business it is the currency that is the most important, building relationships. All ships rise in high tide, especially relationships. Bob Burg: Yep, sure. Yeah. As we say, and several of the mentors told Joe in the story, the golden rule of business, of sales, of networking what have you is simply that all things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to those people they know, like and trust. There's no faster, more powerful or more effective way to elicit these feelings towards you from others than by, and again as you said genuinely, right? Genuinely and authentically, and moving from that I focus, or me focus to that other focus where you're really looking to, as Sam one of the mentors advised Joe, make your win all about that other person's win. Josh: Yeah, 100%. It is all about the other person, and it should always be about the other person. And when people say... All the things that salesmen say. I'm not closing enough, it's all a numbers game. All this other stuff, there's always someone out there as you said that's ready to build a relationship, ready to be heard, and ready to have their story heard. And building those relationships when the time comes will come. If you're being a pushy person it's all about the numbers, and you're trying to change your three percent conversion to a five percent, or a five percent to a 10 percent when you're calling up. It's a yuckier game with a lot more negativity. It's a game that you have a lot of friction towards building the relationships, as opposed to genuinely building relationships. Bob Burg: Oh yeah, it always comes back to how you do it. If you're doing it with the, how do I serve this person? You're going to have a lot more success than if you were saying I'm going to talk at this person and try to get them to buy. Again, it's not that doing it the Go-Giver way is self-sacrificial. No. It's more practical doing it that way. Because again, are they more likely or less likely to buy from you when they can tell that you're focused on them as opposed to being focused on getting their money. Josh: And I've got to say that the solutions that you're putting in place, you've been listening to them. You understand their problems, you understand their stresses, you understand their pain points. You're able to then focus on that and make sure that you're removing those problems, not just explaining that moving to this solution is better for your business. You're hearing their problems and saying, well maybe this isn't better for your business. Bob Burg: Right. Josh: And that's fine as well. Bob Burg: Absolutely, when that happens that happens. Josh: If you've still got a perfect person there that you've been talking to, building a relationship with. They know the solutions that they offer, they know the things that it does, the things that it doesn't, the bells and whistles. And that then allows for them to then refer other businesses on when they see that there is a better fit for you, and they hear other people's problems. Bob Burg: That's right. Josh: And that's where you have your compounding effect of growth and it's really a beaut feeling. So I've been very excited. As I said, The Go-Getter changed my life. Changed the direction, and not just from a personal relationship perspective that I brought up earlier, much before that. So yeah, again thank you for that one. Bob Burg: My pleasure. Josh: I've read different books. There's one, I hope I'm not quoting the wrong name here. If I am I'll correct it with the title. I think it's called Sapiens, and it talks about how many relationships a single person can have in their life and build out from that. And they talk around the magic number of... That's weird. Bob Burg: That's Sapiens. Josh: That's the one. Bob Burg: Yeah. And he talked about the tribes back in the hunter-gatherer days were typically about 150. And that's the number, David Burkus writes about that too in his book. And yeah, I'm just trying to think of the person... Durham's or Dunham's, I can't think of what law it is. But it's that he's the person that came up and he documented that 150 per person. Josh: For anyone that's watching this, that wasn't staged there. You've got hundreds of books behind you, what are the chances the one on your desk- Bob Burg: Well the funny thing is, a good friend of mine had referred Sapiens to me about two years ago. And I always have so many books on the list to read, finally I was speaking in I think Colorado maybe a couple of weeks ago and I got that at the book store, I saw it at the book store. And I was looking for it, I was hoping to pick it up. And I started reading it and I really haven't been able to put it down. I'm about three quarters of the way through now, it's fascinating Josh: It's a fantastic book. With building relationships, and obviously all different businesses have... I guess you brought home exactly what I was bringing up in the book. And that's the rule of 150, maybe 200 people. And if you are in the business of selling items that... If you're in a business where you need to sell more items and not say a B2B business and profession industry like myself. If I have 50-70 businesses that I'm working with I'm happy as Larry, and I can comfortable have those 70 relationships. But if you're selling something that is a lower priced item you need to have a significantly higher ratio. Maybe it's 500 to 1 or something like that, and you still want to have those relationships built. And you want to have the authenticity with the relationships, but knowing that you can't necessarily have the closeness, and as they talk about the different circles of relationships that you have. You have your close intimate relationships and then it goes out from there. How do you make sure, how do you keep the authenticity? Would you suggest people using different databasing programmes to write down notes on people. To make sure if you don't talk to them for two years and then they come back to you and they said, Larry I really loved the talk that we had at the business conferencing meeting from two years ago that you can barely remember because there was too many beers flying around. And what would be the best method to make sure you are bing authentic. Would you say, Larry I'm glad we had a good chat but don't remember, what'd you say? As soon as you get home, as soon as you get back to the office write down what you remember about Larry and make sure that you can have a refresh? Bob Burg: Well I think the key with technology is to always use it to help with your authenticity, you know what I'm saying? So in other words it shouldn't be that it's about the technology, it's not. It's about the human relationship when you can utilise technology to do that. So I do want to write down what I talked about with someone and review it every so often because I do want to know, okay? But if something comes up where I happen to see that person or what have and they bring that up, and it's really not something that I do remember. No, again it depends on the contexts. Usually I'm going to say, you know what my gosh. I love you, love talking with you but I don't remember exactly what we talked about in that conversation. If you have that kind of relationship you can do that. But if it's going to hurt that person's feelings because that person maybe whatever. Well no, I'd probably just say, always love talking to you and that was great. Again, sometimes I think we go too overboard with being literal in some ways. You always want to be honest, but you also always want to be kind and tactful as well. So when technology can help you to authentically keep in touch with another person, absolutely. Totally we utilise that. Josh: Cool. That's perfect. So that's something that I know that myself, I write down as many things as I can remember about as many conversations that I had with people. And that could be whether or not they liked Chivas Regal or a dog named whatever the dogs name is. Bob Burg: Well then that's good. Because if they like Chivas Regal, and that might be something you mights end them sometimes on a special occasion. If their dog's name is Checkers and you want to be able to remember that their dog's name is Checkers when you speak. If you can remember it just because you remember it, that's great. I love animals so I tend to remember people's pets names. But that's not everybody, and there's other things about people I don't remember. And in that case you need that reminder. So no, I think all of that is great when it helps to further a relationship and it's authentic and genuine, of course. Utilise the technology. Josh: As I said, I think technology is perfect to be able to help people out. But as you said, do not overcome the personal touch. Don't use technology to be personal, use technology to get rid of the repetition. But use yourself and your power that you have, your voice that you use to build those personal relationships. Bob Burg: Exactly. Josh: And that's what it's about. The cavemen had different tools that they used to achieve their objectives. And the time has changed, the chairs we sit in are different, the offices have air con in them, but we use a different set of tools to achieve the same objectives which is awesome. Bob Burg: They're just tools, exactly. Josh: Well we're getting very close to the end here. I wanted to ask, is there any speaking events or things that you do either around the states, or within Australia or down under that are coming up anytime soon? Bob Burg: Typically at this point I travel a lot less than I used to. At 61, I just don't want to be travelling all over the place, so I limit my out of state engagements to about 20 a year now. And I try to now keep it within the states. And those are my corporate programmes that I do, but we also have public seminars that we do usually in Orlando because it's easier for people from Australia, and Singapore, and South Africa, and London and so forth to get there. And so we hold them in Orlando, which is really only a couple of hours drive for me up the road. But Orlando because it's Disney World it's easier for people to get into. So our next one is actually in late January, it's called Endless Referrals: The Go-Giver Way. We limit those to about 50 people, so it's over two days and it's very hands on. So those are the ones that will be the public ones that we'll be doing from now on. And I have so many great mates in Australia, and if I could beam myself there I would do that in a minute. But the long flight, I just don't travel well anymore, so. Josh: Well I've [crosstalk 00:46:15]. Bob Burg: I stay pretty close to home. Josh: It took me two weeks to get over the jet lag when I last entered The States. I know this is pretty bad, but give me your favourite Aussie accent. Your best Aussie accent. Bob Burg: Oh, let's see. Hey mate, lovely to see you. Love all my mates down there, and we'll have a good time no worries, no worries. Josh: That sound pretty good. I don't mind that, that's good. Bob Burg: We love Australians, we love our Aussie mates so it's always a neat thing, and it's always a joy to connect with any of my friends from the beautiful land down under. Josh: Well I had the opportunity to head over for three months last year so I was travelling all around the place. And I'd have to say it's like you're travelling to different countries with each state that you go to. Bob Burg: Oh, it's amazing I know. Josh: Where Australia is in my opinion more so not as diverse. You have parts that are definitely greener and parts that are more tropical, but overall the accent doesn't vary a whole bunch. The people mentality, that doesn't change a whole bunch. Except for obviously things such as you go into the middle of the city in New York, and you go to Sydney and there's the hustle and bustle. People aren't as friendly, but that's just the nature of the beast. And for anyone who does want to head to any of your opportunities that you've got either in-person or any of the content that you have, you've got the Go-Giver movement, is that right? Bob Burg: Yeah. General website is Burg B-U-R-G.com. The two day workshop is Endlessreferrals.com, and we also have Thegogiver.com. So we've got content all over the place there. Josh: We'll chuck some links down below, all the appropriate places depending on where this gets seen. You can jump across there and have a bit of a look. And I'd like to thank you for coming along and talking with me. And we've got this beautiful summer day in paradise here, that's why I thought I'd head outside. Is there anything else that you'd like to cover off on before we jump? Bob Burg: No, this has been a lot of fun, very enjoyable. And I wish everybody who is watching and listening, I just wish you a fantastic 2020, may it be your best year yet. Josh: Thank you very much Bob, and I appreciate you coming along. Bob Burg: Thank you.

Business Built Freedom
135|How to Set Your Pricing With Courtney Deagon

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 29, 2020 21:27


How to Set Your Pricing With Courtney Deagon Josh: We've got a very special guest for you today. Who here hasn't had that problem, that question, how do I price my item? Is it on what it's costing me plus a percentage? Do I look out into the wilderness and see what my competitors are doing, or do I somehow come up with some other equation? Get more tips on how to set your pricing at dorksdelivered.com.au Josh: It's always an interesting one and there's a lot of psychology into it. And I'd like to introduce Courtney here, who's going to talk a little bit more about how pricing works and why it's super important. So Courtney, tell me, what's the one thing you should never do when it comes to pricing? Courtney Deagon: Wow, Josh, that is such a big question. What's the one thing you should never do when it comes to pricing? One of the things that I always talk about is not just relying on your costs to set your price. And I know that it's such a common thing that's taught, especially to smaller new business owners, because it comes from cost accounting. It makes sense logically to calculate our costs and add on a percentage. Courtney Deagon: But in more cases than not, this can actually lead to business burnout and not having pricing that's profitable and even good for your business or your customers. The truth about your pricing is that your customers are going to pay, they show their willingness to pay and their willingness to pay doesn't change depending on your costs. Your customers don't care about your costs, they care about the value of what you do and what you provide. Josh: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so how do you make sure that you put the right value on that? Does that come down to the psychology, the message, or is that making sure that you're jumping into the why, or how would you start working that out? Courtney Deagon: Yeah, so the first thing that I would always encourage people to do is just to get to know your customers more. I love to tell people to be insatiably curious about their customers. When you take the time and effort to get to know people, that means a lot to them as well. That can increase your perceived value to them and their willingness to pay. Courtney Deagon: And what I often find working with my clients is usually the thing that they think people value the most isn't the thing that the customers value the most. And so they get in and they talk to them and they find out, oh, I thought this feature was the thing that they really wanted and valued. But actually it's this thing over here that I don't even talk about. It's just something that happens to be a part of my experience of working with me. Courtney Deagon: So, that's always really interesting, seeing that happen to businesses where they discover what the clients really value. When you know what your customers really value, you can then package your offerings, and price your offerings, and organise your marketing in such a way that it's so much more clear to your audience what you're selling. So much more clear to them what the value is going to be, and they're going to have a much higher willingness to pay for what you do. Josh: Cool. So I guess like you're saying, just cut through the fodder. Maybe you've looked at your client base and they happen to be full of similar sorts of people that love either going to high teas or playing a game of golf or whatever it is, it may be both. But whatever it is, if you're able to find that you're then able to gear that message and make sure that the value of this thing and the relationship they're going to be building with you, is already getting off on the right foot. As opposed to saying, I'm selling pies, and you're a pie store, saying you're selling environmental pies that are eco-friendly or vegan or something like that. It means it's not going to apply to everyone, but vegans are going to be like, "Wow, that's where I want to go." Is that what you're saying? Courtney Deagon: Absolutely. So you touched on it before in terms of the psychology. It's really important to understand that people, I feel are going to make decisions based on their perception. And perception does not map evenly to reality. You can think of the difference between an actual map like you see on Google Maps and actual reality. They're both very, very different. Courtney Deagon: Even if you try to create a reality for your marketing and advertising, the customer is still going to come up with their own perception. It's really, really important then to make sure that you understand what kind of value they're looking for, what kind of things might turn them off? Because it could be something that you're saying, it could be something in your wording, it could be something in the imagery that you're using. Courtney Deagon: But the most important thing is to take off that hat as the professional, because we know so much about our skill and about our product or service, we know so much about it, we know the impact it has on our customers and their lives. How happy it can make them, how much money it can make them and so on, our customers have no idea. All the customer knows is that they have this problem or they have this particular outcome that they really want to achieve. And what we want to do is we want to communicate the fact that we can help them meet that outcome. It's not, "Here's my product, buy my product." It's, "You have a problem. This is a solution you want. I can give you that solution. Here's how I do it." Courtney Deagon: So you start with the value first because that's what's driving the customer to you in the first place. It's not your product. There's a quote that I love that Mark Simon always says, where he says, "Nobody cares about your product." And it's a bit harsh but it's so true. No one really cares about the product. If you buy a drill, it's not because you want a drill, it's because you want a hole. Josh: Yeah, I like that one, yeah. On pricing and making sure... So let's say you've got your message, you've got that down pat, and you go, okay, I know what the product costs me. I know at least have to charge this much. And you're thinking, how high can I go? How do they perceive the value? And I guess, I'll liken it to something that I have a lot more input on actually. Courtney Deagon: Cool. Josh: So Heineken, more recently have released a zero alcohol beer. Now the zero alcohol beer, for a six pack, is going at the moment in Australia for about 16, 17 dollars for a six pack. Now, if you have a look at what a Peroni or a comparable beer would be, the beer would be maybe 20 to 21 dollars for a six pack. So call it a five dollar difference. And if you went for a less imported beer you'd be able to get it even cheaper than that. But let's work on a $16 and $20 for roundish numbers. Josh: The alcohol tax that they're paying on that $20 for that person, is getting significantly less money. The price that they're getting for that 16 it's huge. The margins are significantly more, given that they don't have to be paying any of the alcohol taxes or anything else that are going through. So, how do you think they came to the conclusion of $16? Would you say it's because people want to have that healthy, perceived look, the ability to have a beer and go for a drive possibly, or how did they find that magic number? Courtney Deagon: So I would say for a company like Heineken, they probably know a few things that I and many other pricing people don't know. They have access to the big data that I would love to get my hands on. I would love to say that Heineken took a completely value based approach, but I wouldn't say that the second. I would say that a large company like them, it would have been a mixture of prior sales data, the amount that they've been able to get for other units before. It would also depend on what geographies it was going into. They would have run some kind of research or focus groups I think. Big companies like that are huge fans of running that R&D stuff. Courtney Deagon: That's how I think they would have done it and I think that they probably would've balanced it with the profit margins that they're going for. But even then that's not really value based pricing because it's not about what they think the customer is willing to pay, it's just what they think that the customer might pay in order for them to get some kind of arbitrary target profit margin per bottle per six pack. Josh: The calculation of it, obviously as you said, they've got a lot more data than what we could even imagine. They had spreadsheets printed over the bed sheets. Courtney Deagon: Oh yeah. Josh: I thought, just from my perspective, I went, "Ah..." And just for the record, I'm all about the alcohol beer not the non alcohol beer. Courtney Deagon: Okay. Fair enough. Josh: But I could imagine the person that would be drawn to that would be, okay and no calories, or less calories. It's got about 30% less calories. So, okay, slightly healthy for me, slightly cheaper on my pocket. If you're looking at maybe millennials that might be interested in not having, because it sounds like everyone else wants to have a hangover. That's not what I'm going for. Josh: But millennials might be a bit more health conscious about what they're doing and what they're putting into their body. They might then be more geared towards that, but also they seem to be more financially incapable versus people that have a mature income and have had a career for a number of years or decades. So I think that, I don't know, I thought that that might be how they've geared into that box to say $16 would be cheaper than getting a hangover. Courtney Deagon: I would like to think they have a really smart advertising person. They're Heineken. Because one of the other things is that a 0% alcohol might also make people think that it doesn't taste as good. So that could be another reason for the slightly lower price because they want to make a distinction between the product that they're offering there and other products that do have the alcohol in them. So, that could be another thing. Maybe I'll email Heineken and see what I can do. I would not be surprised if they came back and said, "No, we can't tell you that." Josh: Because there's lots of things that you look at and you go, "Oh..." Especially when it comes to the software as a service market, which I'm sure we're very familiar with. You have a look and you think, oh okay, it's only going to cost $5 more a month for me to have a logo on a page. That's costing them nothing at all. But people are going to pay it because they want to be able to have their brand on things. If it's a form of- Courtney Deagon: They've still got the value. Josh: Exactly, and so it's very, very smart the way that that's gone. Again, the cloud, the way that the cloud has been manipulated to make everyone feel like it's going to cost them less money. It doesn't. The total cost of ownership is significantly more by a factor of 30% or more over a five year period. And so you're looking at, okay, well that is, it's costing more money but the perceived value is high and you have less infrastructure. It's interesting. How do you, short of having a huge audience to be able to test, if you're just a green field company going out, where do you start? Courtney Deagon: You can ask friends if you have honest friends, put it that way. Honest friends, ask them because they usually are pretty trustworthy. You can use companies like Conjoint.ly. That's the one that's in my mind at the moment, who do actually conduct market research. And I think with Conjoint.ly you pay per data point or something like that. Courtney Deagon: But there are companies out there where you can actually get outsourced market research. Also, even if you have a decent sized mailing list, things like surveys, talking to customers who've used your product. If you can have even 10 or 20 or more one-on-one, half hour, hour long conversations, asking really, really good questions, that will give you a huge amount of value. Courtney Deagon: But running surveys and having some statistical good questions in there next year for Conjoint.ly, questions that are specifically related to help you figure out the willingness to pay of your audience and how much they value it. But really a mixture of surveys and having those one-on-one conversations with people who have used your product, who aren't friends or your mom or your cousin and all that, is a really, really good idea. And the more people you ask, the better quality information you're going to get as well. That is a really good place to start. Josh: I'm going to ask a question. I know a lot of people are probably thinking, asking, at least it's in the back of their mind discounting. Discounting- Courtney Deagon: Uh-huh. Josh: Never discount your product, don't do it. You're discounting your product, you're discounting your business, you're discounting everything, you're going to get discounted clients. Then there's the build a discount into the product itself to sell them at a high price and then drop them down in price. Josh: And there's a whole bunch of different ideas and mentalities around the way that it works. Sell a cheap product or it will come across as a cheap product and people are going to think that you're only going to get cheap clients and... What is the best way to make sure you position yourself accordingly, or is that very industry specific? Should you write in a discounting percentage? Courtney Deagon: Yes, I would say it's not industry specific because every single industry, whether you're B2B or B2C, your customers are humans unless you're a vet, I suppose. But even then your end customer is a human. And humans perceive value in very, very similar ways. There are some psychological thinkings that are common to all humans regardless of what industry you're in. So that would be the first thing I'd say. Courtney Deagon: I generally tell people don't discount unless you know how to use a discount properly. Because most of the time companies don't use discounts very well and they use them in such a way that, like you said, it damages their branding, it damages their pricing integrity. It can make customers very unhappy. It can have the opposite effect to what you want it to have. Courtney Deagon: There's a difference as well between internal discounting and external discounting. So external discounting is where you post publicly that you're having some kind of discount sale. So say you post up on your website, we're having a 20% off sale of all of our subscription services. That's an external discount. Courtney Deagon: An internal discount might be you email your mailing list or customers who've just bought something, and you say, "Hey, thanks so much for being a loyal customer. We would love to thank you by giving you a 5% discount off this product or this service." Or something like that. So it's internal. It's limited to a select number of people who may have bought with you before, they may be leads and you're trying to generate a deeper relationship with them. But then again, I would also mark that with an asterisk of, it really depends on what kind of perception you want to create for your brand and what position you want your brand to have. Courtney Deagon: If you want to be a high end, high ticket service or company, discounting might not be the way to go, and I would use different wording like adjustment. So, as an example, if I'm constructing a proposal for someone and they have a very, very limited budget, I'll say, "That's okay. Let me know what your parameters are and I'm happy to do an adjusted proposal for you." So it's not really discounted, but I'm using different language to indicate that I'm not a company who discounts. I'm a company who will make adjustments and change what I'm offering so that I'm giving you value, and then we can come up with a price that's fair. Josh: Okay. So if you were to be looking to adjust the price, if you adjust your whole system, you've changed around from trading time for money to trading value. Okay. Courtney Deagon: Mm-hmm. Josh: And you're going through this transition, you're trying to do this for your business and it doesn't matter, I guess, if you're a plumber or you're selling cakes. Whatever the process is, if you're going through that and you've got people that are used to the previous system, how do you go about changing that for them and having them introduced to that if they're already very comfortable with the previous system? Courtney Deagon: Yeah, so every transformation starts with language. I coach people on being able to change their language around the way that they talk about their business, the way they talk about their business model, their marketing. Everything, as well as pricing as well, and how they think about it. And then as they start to tell their customers about, "Hey, our business is changing. We're doing these great things. It's really exciting." You want to talk about it in a way that you're being transparent about how it's going to benefit them, and be really clear about what the potential changes are. Courtney Deagon: When you're bringing in things like guarantees at the same time, more transparency and less risk for the customer, it doesn't become a scary change anymore. It becomes, oh my gosh, they're transforming their business into something that's going to be better for me as well as better for them. Here are all the things I'm now going to get from that. I'm going to have less risks. I'm going to have value guarantee of price, and guarantee of other things like that. Courtney Deagon: And it also teaches them what to expect from you, as well. And it shows them that you're dedicated to having a better business so that you can give them a better experience. And that just increases the perceived value even more. Josh: Right. I know that we went through a transition a number of years ago where we were charging a set price per computer, a set price per server. And then we thought, let's change this model and just charge a set price per staff member. And it makes it simple for everyone. Like, okay [crosstalk 00:15:47]. Courtney Deagon: Absolutely. Josh: Straight, easy. Then if a guy came, okay, we're getting another server. That's going to cost this much more. So that's another overhead. It's an ongoing thing. If they're getting to a spot that they need three or four servers or something like that, they've also increased their staff head count. And so it makes it nice and simple. Courtney Deagon: Absolutely. Josh: So there's a bit of psychology that I've read on the number seven. Have you heard about this stuff? Why do you want to have a 9997 drive away or something like that. What's up with that? Why do people want to end in sevens? Courtney Deagon: So I mentioned that Mark Simon before. He wrote a thesis on price endings. And you can probably google that and find it and read it if you wanted to. When you think about our brain, we're being bombarded by information all the time, right? I'm looking at you, but I can also see in my periphery the window, and there's some things over there and my phone's there. And there's a lot of information coming in at my brain at the same time, right? Josh: Yeah.

Business Built Freedom
133 |Running the Numbers With Drue from 4Front

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 22, 2020 37:56


Running the Numbers With Drue from 4Front Josh: Good day everyone out there in podcast world. We've got a special guest here, Drue, and he does some pretty cool stuff. And actually, you know what? I'm going to get you to tell me what you do, the voodoo that you do, and how that's impacting businesses around Southeast Queensland? Get more tips from Drue Schofield at dorksdelivered.com.au Drue: Yeah, thanks Josh. Nice intro. I don't know that we're that exciting. Josh: Aww, come on. Drue: But that was a very exciting introduction. We're accountants. Look, no, all jokes aside, we think we're quite personable people. Yeah, we're accountants. We're a full-service accounting and advisory taxation business or service. We deal mainly in the small to medium business space. We do self-managed super fund administration and advisory with our SMSF clients, whether they are still working, building businesses, contributing to super or they're self-funded retirees, and we also do quite a bit of work with property investors and developers, making sure they're structured well and giving them advice along the way, whilst being in a position to help our clients leverage our network. I spend a lot of time, personally, networking with allied professionals and pretty much anyone. I just like to be a conduit for business and people that are doing things and have ambition, and if I can connect you, or one of my clients, or someone with someone else that they need to talk to, to solve their problem, then that makes me really happy. Josh: Cool. Okay. So I guess you covered a couple of things there that spiked my interest. One of them was the podcast worldwide audience, in Australia, we call a small to medium business, I would have said, five to 200 employees. Yeah? Would you agree? About that? Drue: Yeah, about that. Yeah. Josh: Yeah. Where in America, anything less than 200 is small, it's backyard mom and dad shop, isn't it? Drue: Yeah, they seem to have a different view on business over there. Unless you're over 250 employees or whatever, they don't really even count. Josh: A blimp. Nothing. Drue: To a degree. I mean, I had some association with businesses and professionals over there when clients needed to utilise services in the U.S. and Europe as well. But yeah, certainly, everything's bigger and better in America. Sometimes. Josh: So one of the things that I've noticed when I've been talking with you versus other accountants, in bits and pieces that we've spoken with is, you seem down to earth, to the point, and humanable. Drue: Oh, thanks. Josh: If that makes sense. Drue: Yeah, yeah. Josh: Less robotic. Drue: Yeah, yeah. Look, accountants have a bad stereotype. Look, I like to think I'm the new wave or part of the new wave or the new age of accountants. Josh: I'm not helping the IT look! Drue: No, you look very trendy, except for the glasses that have no lenses by the way, for people out there. But no, they look really good. I was offered to wear some, but I chose not to. I'm a contact lens wearer, anyway. Drue: Look, we are. We're approachable. I don't know if fun loving is the right word, but we enjoy what we do. That said, we're serious. We give serious advice and sophisticated advice to people when they need it. We're succinct, we're to the point, we remove jargon. If a client doesn't understand what we're doing, we just go over it again and again until they do. Hopefully, not too many times, and usually not too many times. We usually get it on the first or second go, but we're not here to preach to people, we're not here to talk down to people, we're here to educate people. And if clients don't understand what they're doing and getting themselves into, you can bet your bottom dollar, that's where there's going to be problems, so we want to avoid that at all costs. We have those full and frank conversations without fear or favour. The clients know what they're doing, why they want to do it. We get a good understanding of that, and then we give the advice tailored to that particular situation. Josh: I think you listed four F's then. And I guess if everything's going right, you don't hear a fifth one. Drue: No, that's right. We won't talk about the fifth one. There's enough doom and gloom out there today and we don't need to feed any more panic or doom and gloom, I don't think. Josh: Not at all. So I can see a lot of similarities in what you guys do and what we do. We try to simplify technical problems. We try to make sure that people are able to understand and assimilate with what their end goal is. And we use technology as the fulcrum to achieve that. And in a non technical, gobbledygook, terahertz and gigaflops type words, we try and make sure it's all human understandable, readable stuff. It doesn't matter if you're a mechanic or a doctor or whatever it is, or anything in between, you're able to work out. You know there's a problem, we can see that there's a solution, and we use, as I said, technology for that. Josh: So one of the things, I know, when I first started out in business, was I was scared shitless about doing the accounting thing and doing it wrong. So I went and bought a bunch of a bunch of books and got any of the different government books that I could get on GST, and I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to read those, their ... Drue: I've read them all. Josh: They're exciting, aren't they? Drue: No, they're not. Josh: No they're not. So I'm reading all this stuff, and at that stage I was at uni reading all these books on GST and BAS, and everything else, when I'm on the train to uni. It wasn't fun and it didn't make me feel any better off, because I guess it's kind of like me trying to pretend I'm a doctor or pretend I'm a mechanic, when I'm not. Drue: Sometimes it's good to just eat the sausage, Josh, and not know what gone into it. Josh: Exactly. I agree. Drue: If you use that as an analogy. Not that we don't explain what goes into it. Josh: I like that. That's good. I've always said, "You can teach a man to fish and he'll have food for life, but some people just don't like fishing." Drue: That's right. Josh: They just don't. Drue: Some people don't like fish either. Josh: Exactly. So that's getting a professional to do the voodoo that they do, is better than you trying to do everything and wear another hat. Drue: Yeah, it's crucial. I can't underline, underscore, bold, italic, asterisk enough that it's crucial to get really good advice. Whether you're just starting out in business, or starting out doing a development, or considering setting up a self-managed super fund, or whatever the case may be. Or you've been in business for two, three years and things are going well, or you're an established business, I can't stress enough how important it is to get accurate, timely advice, from someone that wants to be a key partner in your business. I mean that's our tagline. "Your key partner in business," that's who we aim to be. I believe we achieve that all the time with all of our clients. We want to see businesses survive and thrive, and grow and flourish, and do really well. And if we can be a part of that journey and connect them to good people and give good advice, then again, as I said before, that makes us really happy. Josh: Cool, cool, cool. And I think that's important there. Key. Good advice. And knowing what's out there, one of the things that I found out about years into business, was the R&D grants in bits and pieces. Drue: Yeah, sure. Josh: Do you guys work with those? Drue: We do a little bit in that space. Those things become more technical and more specialised. What I'd rather do more so than try to do it, is we've got people we work with, people we will then refer our clients to that are specialists in that area. And then I guess that's another thing that is a benefit of myself and 4Front Accountants. If we don't know something, we're not afraid to put our hand up and say, "Hey, we've got a rough idea about this, we know enough to be dangerous, but it's now time to go and talk to a professional." Josh: Yep. Drue: And the other thing we'll do there in that situation, is rather than just push the boat out and say, "See you later, hopefully, you hit land," we'll make the connection with that person, and if needs be, we'll attend the meeting and facilitate the process. So again, we want to be your key partner, our client's key partner in business. We'll really hold their hand through that process. Drue: And R&D is a really good example. Whilst we know enough about it, again, to be dangerous and how it all comes together, there's specialists that we work with and that's all they do. R&D in grant work. So R&D is research and development. Sorry, I'm using an acronym and I should explain it. Josh: I should have as well. Drue: That's all right. Not a problem. It's easy when you're a professional and you're working with ABCs and one, two, threes, and EFDs, and ATOs, and ELDs, to just rattle things off. But yeah, R&D, research and development. And whilst I'm there, a little plug for the current government and preceding governments, that someone had the foresight to bring that sort of thing in, because that's helped a lot of our clients tremendously. And I'm not even joking, millions of dollars. Josh: Absolutely. It was a game changer for us. Drue: In real cash. Josh: We've already been developing products, already been developing integrations into LinkedIn that can speed up the process to find new clients. We've developed these different processes within businesses to be able to integrate phones in bits and pieces, and we were already doing all this stuff, and then someone told me about it and I went, "Oh shit, this exists? This is a thing? Why isn't this spoken about more?" Drue: It's an often overlooked or ill-considered thing, it feels like the ATO and the government's always here to do things to you, but when you're a small business person, within reason, it does do things for you as well. I mean, we'll probably touch on it later, but the government's just neutered some stimulus package that's aimed mainly at business and it's actually really good, and it should get things going and hopefully quell some of the fear and panic out there that business owners have. God, I've had three phone calls today and two emails last night about it already. So we're actually sending out a communication and a newsletter form that summaries things clearly, succinctly, no jargon, so that clients have one source. So 4Front Accountants clients have one source to go to, look at, and say, "Okay, great, now I understand it." And we'll get more phone calls and that's fine, we'll explain it. Drue: But going back to what I was talking about, things like the R&D concessions and grants, and those sorts of things, governments are there to do things for business, not always to business. Josh: Yeah. And that's something that I was a big mindset shift that I had around 2016, 2015, 2016, when I started going for the R&D concession. I didn't know it existed, already been in business at that stage since 2007, so I'd been around for long enough that I should have heard something out there, but I hadn't. That was kind of a, "Oh I mean all this wasted money," but I went, "Well, I'm not going out of business." All this potential. And it's only one of the things that I've seen out there. Like there's advantages to employing, there's digital business grants and bits and pieces out there. There's a whole bunch of different things where the government is giving out a whole bunch of money. Josh: There was a programe which I was involved with a little while ago that would subsidise the hourly rates of IT staff, and all sorts of things like that. And I just went, "Wow, this is this cool stuff. How didn't I know about this?" And it's just everyone has that predefined thought, belief system that they're out there to take and not give. Drue: Look, it's a symptom that we see with clients all the time. They're too busy doing it, doing it, doing it. They're stuck working in their business and not on it. And that's the sort of focus that we try to shift, and a mindset we try to change with clients that, "Hey, you need to work on your business and not in it." We've got the tools, the expertise, and the advice and products to actually help clients work more on their business and not in it. And things like that come up all the time. Drue: Now it's quite possible that your accountant that you're working with at the time knew about it and didn't tell you or may not have known about it at all. But I can assure people listening that at 4Front Accountants, there are the sorts of things that we've got a finger on the pulse with. Again, we're not experts, we don't understand those things, but we're certainly aware of them. We find out enough about it. I certainly do read about it, and I know my people at 4Front Accountants do as well. We read about it enough and know enough about it to be dangerous, and then to know who to hand that on to, so that we can explain that situation to that particular expert, and then guide our client in the right path, with the right person, so that they get the result that they want. Josh: And that's what you want to get with anyone in the professional services industry. You don't necessarily want them to be the one stop shop. You want to them to know the shops you can go to Drue: You can't be all things to all people. And when you do, you will fail, immediately. Josh: Yep. Drue: And you shouldn't be. I mean, there's specialists in every field. I mean if you've got a problem with your knee, you might start at the GP, but you'll soon be referred to, potentially, an orthopedic surgeon. The GP isn't going to be there, but he's developed a relationship with that person to know that's the best orthopedic surgeon for your particular problem. I mean, we're the same. We're not solicitors, we're not finance brokers, we're not financial advisors yet. We're not R&D grant specialists or whatever the case might be, but we've got a really good network and we spend a lot of time building relationships with the people that will help our clients, so that we can continually prove our mantra or our motto, tagline, that we are your key partner in business. Josh: That's really important. Just knowing that you've got that one point of contact and that- Drue: It's terrific when people come to you and they say, "Drue, I need this," or my business partner, Carmine Decorso, they might go to Carmine and say, "Hey Carmine, we need this," and we'd say, "Yep, sure. We know someone. We'll give them a call now. We'll connect you. If you want us to come to the meeting, we can do that as well." Josh: Yep. So where would you say you sit with businesses? Do you start at anything from bookkeepers and all the way up, like a CFO type level? Drue: Yeah, we do a lot, I mean I guess our core competency is compliance work. When people think of accountants, they think of people that will do financial statements and tax returns to a solid, accurate level. They'll complete those income tax returns to a point where they're not paying a dollar more or less tax than they should. And if they're lucky, they might get a little bit of business advice. Drue: Now, we kind of turn that on its head a little bit, insofar that we recognise and realise the compliance is important, and certainly we feel our clients don't pay a dollar more or less tax than they should. And we work really hard to make sure that things are done properly, correctly, and legally. You certainly don't want to do anything that's illegal, nor do we. Where our point difference is, we do sort of act in that external CFO type arrangement, where we like to work with our clients more often than once or twice a year. We do that through something we've termed our Board of Advice programe, where we sit down with our clients quarterly, and I like to call them 90 day success cycles, which I believe is a McKinsey & Co term, the management consultants. So again, shows you the literature that people at 4Front Accountants are reading. We're not just reading the boring textbooks. Whilst they are important, they're not terribly exciting, but we've got to go through them. I'm more interested in things that are going to help our business clients survive, grow, and thrive. But yeah, we run our Board of Advice program with most of our business clients or as many as we can. They see a lot of value in that. Drue: So what is the Board of Advice program? As I alluded to, we work in quarterly cycles with our clients. We run to an agenda. We focus on the financial performance of the business and we do some business analysis around that on quarterly numbers, usually comparing the current quarter to the same quarter this time last year. And then the December quarter that we've just finished with our Board of Advice clients now, it's really interesting, because you've got six months of data this year, and you've got six months of data from the previous year, so you can really have a really good snapshot of where the business is at. Sometimes just comparing this quarter this year to this quarter last year isn't enough. Likewise, comparing the 2019 year, we've just finished it, to the 2018 year, doesn't really tell you a lot. It's a little bit too far in the past. I always tease clients that we're not here to write history with them, we're here to make history, and that's what we really try to do. Josh: I guess one of the things that I've always thought is, "Man, okay, you'll have a good quarter, you have an awesome quarter, and then you'll have a bad quarter." And when you've been in business long enough, they can't all be home runs, can they? Drue: Sadly, not. Josh: No. Well I think you can't enjoy the good without the bad, so it really lets you appreciate the good. Drue: Your sweet and savoury. Josh: Yeah, that's right. So I think and I see a lot of people around the place that are, "Oh my goodness, you wouldn't believe what happened, the line was so long at the shops." Well, there's kids starving in Africa and you're worried about the line at the shops. Drue: They're probably buying toilet paper. Josh: That's exactly right. So you have a look at these things and you think, "Okay, you need to get a bit of reality check." And I think the best thing to do is to have the bad times so that you can appreciate the good times. And not necessarily, I'm not wishing anything upon anyone that complains about mundane and first world problems, but yeah, you definitely need to have the bad ones. But if you have a bad one, sometimes that could be something that's spread further than just your business, and a lot of people are worried about a recession and things. Nevertheless, the data that you have, that you can help businesses out with, you mentioned forecasting. Are you able to see trends across the businesses that you work with? Drue: Absolutely. We see stuff all the time. Josh: So if someone said, "Oh, I've had a bad quarter," and you go, "Look, I understand. We've got five other businesses that are in the same sector as you that are also feeling the pressure." Is that something- Drue: Yeah, it is. I mean, we're growing, we're growing all the time. And we want to keep growing. We've got fairly big aspirations as to where 4Front Accountants will land in my lifetime as a business, so the more clients we have, the more data we have. Now, obviously everything's confidential so we don't share other people's information, but we can talk about things generally. Drue: So we're seeing that with particular trade's clients, or we're seeing that with medical professional clients, or we're seeing that with Josh: Retails. Drue: Clients in, yeah, retail, whatever the case may be. You get a general feel, you work with enough clients, you just end up with, as an accounting firm, you end up with a natural cluster, because if you've got an accounting business like we do, you're dealing with a lot of different businesses all the time, and we're almost solely business these days, which is the path we want to keep going on. So you see little clusters. Drue: It's really important, though, to not have a five week view of things. You need to have a quarterly, that 90 day success cycle view of things, or that six monthly, one year, three years, five years. Now, the further you stretch out, the harder it is to plan. Josh: Otherwise, it gets a bit wonky, but at least you're walking it. Drue: You can, but you've got to have a plan. You've got to have a plan. So one of the things that's really important, I think, for clients is to do some forecasting, and then you give yourself some measurements or some numbers to measure your current performance against. Like you said, Josh, you're going to have bad quarters, and that's just how things are. It might be because of seasonality, it might be because there's a hereto incurable virus sweeping across the world, who knows? But it's important to take a longer term view of things and look at your business and say, "Okay, is there anything that's fundamentally wrong with the business now?" Most business people will have a gut feeling, that's why they are entrepreneurs and that's why they are business people, they tend to go with their gut. Perhaps more. It's sort of an intuitive thing, but I think probably harking right back to the advice piece I was talking about before, you can't underestimate the power and the value of good, succinct, solid, financial advice, sitting down with your accountant or your advisor. We're becoming more advisors than accountants these days because of the number of clients that are starting to take up our Board of Advice program. Drue: And if you do it in a logical, methodical way, with some structure, I mean all our Board of Advice program meetings that we have each quarter run to an agenda. We talk about the financial analysis of the business, sure, but there are other things that come up as well. They become a bit open slather, we like to look at whatever clients are comfortable talking about, and that sway into personal issues as well, which means you've got to have a whole subset of other networks available to you. That might be psychologists and psychiatrists or other healthcare professional people. Josh: You're offering counselling, nearly. Drue: Well not quite. Josh: You're not wanting to but Drue: Well, look, unless you're in business, you really don't understand and appreciate how much it really becomes part of your psyche, and it becomes your identity. Josh: Absolutely. Drue: And we've had clients, unfortunately, that have had businesses go under, where we haven't been appointed as advisors quick enough, and we haven't been able to make changes early enough. And it's really sad. And sometimes these aren't young people, sometimes these are well established people in their 30's or 40's or 50's where industries have changed and they've been left behind. And that's really, really sad. Drue: Now in some instances, there's probably not much you can do, but I think if you had the chance to get to them early, maybe run this Board of Advice program that's quite structured, which is almost like a mini board of directors, the way we run it, given its got an agenda, and it really does add a bit of corporate governance and accountability, which is important. It's something that I think is lacking more generally in the small business world. People sort of get their hammer and level, and off they go, and they're a builder, or they take their- Josh: All the cowboys out there. They try their best- Drue: Yeah, they are. I guess there are Cowboys out there and they do try their best, but they may not have appreciated the advice that they could get off a good accountant and business advisor. And I like to think that if our clients, and future clients, start to work with us closer with this Board of Advice program, the amount of accountability adds is tremendous. And it's going to get good results, because we're spending that time to sit with our clients and we're their professional sounding board. They can throw anything they like at us. We'll have our own insights and our own observations, which we can give advice around and make changes. And I've done that with clients recently. Drue: I had a plumbing client recently that is new to the firm, and he reported a $20,000 loss last year, and he couldn't work out why. I sat down with- Josh: I bet he pulled that coin from out of his house or something like that, or a personal asset, or that's, I guess, advice that you'd be giving. Drue: Yeah, so I've sat down with him, looked at the numbers, and he said, "Okay, well there's a $20,000 loss here." Yeah. And the businesses is now in lost territory again for the last two quarters. On a quick analysis, I've worked out that his GP, his gross profit line is wrong. So he didn't have the right numbers in there. Once I put the right numbers in there, whilst it was still bad, it made the data more realistic, and it told a better story. Josh: So gutter in, gutter out. Drue: That's right. So the issue in this particular, and this is a real life example here, in this particular client situation, he was having an over reliance on subcontractors and labour hire, and we feel he wasn't marking up the materials he was buying enough. So we did just a quick little "for example" calculation of if he replaced this person with this person and this with that and perhaps got rid of some of the labour hire and some of subcontractor at work, and replace that with a more permanent workforce, and then changed the markup he was putting on the cost of sales, we were able to turn it into an $86,000 profit. Josh: Yep. Huge. Drue: Massive turnaround. That's a $106,000 turn around. Now it's easy to say, "Oh yeah, that's great, Drue, but that's all theory. You may not get that immediately." But if you change your mindset, and you're working with your advisor or your accountant each quarter, and you're looking at those things and making that the most important thing, I always say that which is measured is that which is achieved, you're going to get somewhere near it. You might not get to the $86,000 profit the first year, but gosh, you might get $20,000 profit or $30,000. Going to be better than a $20,000 loss, surely. Josh: You can't turn a ship on a dime. Drue: No. Josh: It takes time. Drue: It takes time. And I guess the Board of Advice programe we're running, it's really helping clients to see the power of accountability and meeting and taking advice and acting on it. Josh: I agree. It's something that people need to have. And this is something ... I was talking to someone else earlier on today- Drue: And if you haven't worked out, I'm pretty passionate about it. Josh: I've noticed. Yeah, yeah. Drue: Well, I want to see people do well. I mean my parents were small business owners and- Josh: Yeah, what did they do? Drue: Builder. Dad's a builder. Had some really good success over the years, but I think he could have done better if he'd had, perhaps better advice, more frequently. And I really think any business, whether you're really successful or you're moderately successful or you're doing okay, will benefit from better quality advice more frequently. Josh: Well, I found, when I first started out in business, my uncle at a company that he was running for many years, and engineers or teachers is pretty much everyone else. So I always thought you can do anything you put your mind to, but that was misinterpreted as you do everything that you can and you put your mind to. And so that then meant when I became a business, started, I'll put in my prepubescent voice, "Let's start a business. I'm really excited to see where this goes." And then I went, "Shit, there's a lot to do." And so I had to become the marketer, the salesperson, the manager, the entrepreneur. Drue: Chief cook and bottle washer. Josh: Exactly. Exactly. All and everything of the above. So I slowly, slowly worked out that this isn't for me. And then went, "Let's stop this and start employing the right people and having the right people do what they enjoy doing," and do what brings you the money in. So that was a great shift and I've never looked back. Having the right people there to give you the advice though, and make sure you are making the right decisions is important. Drue: I think it's critical. It's critical to the success of success or failure of a particular business or enterprise. It just really is. Josh: It doesn't matter the size of your business either. I think it's critical straightaway. We go into people's networks a lot and we see problems and problems and we go, "Oh, why is it set up like that?" Or, "Why is it done like that?" And it's just because the advice that they were given was they thought they know, liked, and trusted that person, trusted the advice, and it was just poor advice. And so for all of our clients that we work with, we say, "Look, we want you, every six months or however often you feel necessary, get another IT company in here and see if we're doing the best job for you." And that gives them the full input and knowledge that we're fully transparent, we're very confident in what we're doing, and we know we're doing right for businesses. Drue: The fact that you're prepared to frank your ability with that, I'd imagine no clients do that, because they know that you back yourself. Josh: Very few. And one of them said, "Oh, who would you suggest?" And I said, "That kind of takes away from the point of it, doesn't it?" Drue: Yeah, that's not independent. If you're suggesting someone, it's not really independent. Josh: Any professional services that they have that they're employing in their business, whether it be financial advisors, accountants, solicitors, IT people, anyone that is doing something that you can't touch and feel and know that the product is good and the outcome is good. Drue: Intangible. Josh: Yeah, intangible products or intangible services, you need to be able to have someone go in there and make sure that Oz behind the curtain is pulling the right strings and doing the right thing for you. Josh: So we had someone come to us about a month ago and they were asking us if we could help them out with some of their LinkedIn marketing stuff. And I said, "Yeah, we can definitely do that. We can go through the process and do the voodoo that we do." And I bought the pricing, he goes, "Oh. Okay, we'll have a think about it." And I thought, "Oh, 'have a think about it' means you're probably going to check out someone else. That doesn't matter. Josh: Anyway, he called us back a month later. So just the Monday just gone. And said, "Josh, I need you to review what's going on with my LinkedIn." I had a look and he went with this company to go through and market him on LinkedIn. And I thought, "All right." And I had a look and they were doing nothing. They bought a $50 product. They took his scripts, and they were using this $50 product to automate the messages that were being sent out, and then charging them $1,500 a month to try and make new connections on LinkedIn. And I said, "You are absolutely been being taken for a run mate." I said, "This is terrible." I said, "The product they're using is this ... " and pointed it out here. And I said, "This is what they're using. It's $50." And that's $50 U.S. I said, "But that's $50. And then you've shown me what you've given me and all of this information, they've just entered that, copied it out of your document into these fields. Then they've just set the days of when they're going to send these messages to people." I said, This is terrible. You're really spending $1,500?" He goes, "I feel sick." I said, "Maybe $500 if they're managing everything and they're doing a phone call." For what they're doing, I said, "They're on selling a product with 30 times mark up, 3000% mark up." I'm like, "That's ridiculous." Drue: Vaporware. Josh: Yeah. And anyway, what I'm getting at is it's always important to have someone there check out what's going on. I myself have had only a couple of bookkeepers over the 13 years we've been in business, and when I got the second bookkeeper, she went, "Oh man, look what the first bookkeeper's been doing," and I thought, "Oh, well that's probably what you're going to say anyway," but it's good just to have people double check, just to make sure that your work is aligned. Drue: Yeah. It can't hurt. Josh: Right. What's the hurt in it? Nothing, yeah. Drue: Look, very rarely do we have clients do that, because they're confident in what we do and how we do it. Now, I will say often I have meetings with prospective clients. It probably starts out as a second opinion meeting, but once I start talking about what we're going to do and demonstrate that, it soon becomes a first opinion meeting, because they've become clients, which is nice. Josh: Yeah. But that's what you want. Drue: Absolutely. Josh: And that just shows when you think, obviously without knowing the relationship- Drue: And it doesn't mean their advisors aren't good, it just means they're not as good as us. Josh: Yeah. Not on the ball enough or not keeping in contact enough. And that's imperative, like relationships. We're all about automation and everything that we produce is all around automation and uptime for businesses, but we'd never suggest to automate the human touch. Now we're sitting here having a podcast together, doing an interview together. Drue: In the same room. Josh: In the same room. Drue: As humans. Josh: We can high five. Drue: Yep. Josh: That was terrible, let's try one that makes a noise. There we go. And when you look at, we could have done this over Zoom, we could have used technology, we could have done all these other different things, but that's a start and end, and then there's nothing there. And I think the world is becoming too digitised in ways that they should be humanised. Drue: Yeah. It's not as organic. Our Board of Advice meetings, we have a handful, occasionally, that are done on a Zoom or a Skype call, but for the most part, I like to do them face to face, either in our office or in our boardroom, which is all kitted out and nice and comfortable and easy to have the meetings there, or at the client's premises, more than happy to do that. But I prefer and okay, yeah, it would be quicker, it would save me half an hour, 45 minutes each way in a car. It would save the client half an hour, 45 minutes each way in the car. So okay, you'd pick up an hour, an hour and a half. Big deal. In the overall scheme of things, more than happy to go to a client's premises and meet with them or their home, if that's where they're comfortable doing it. I don't mind. Drue: But the important thing is they're in the flesh, eyeballing each other. It's seeing body language, seeing expression. Josh: You can feel the emotion. Drue: And they can see, I hope, sometimes our passion or my passion for what I'm trying to do and where I'm trying to help them get with their business. And I can see their passion or their frustration or their concern or fear or panic or jubilation that they've .... We've had an action list that we set last time and they've done it all and they'll say, "See Drue, I did it all. You didn't think I would, did you?" I'm like, "No, no, I never said that." Or where the labour a point, they look at something and they say, "Well look, we didn't get this action point and here's why." And we can sit there and we can talk about it. I don't think we will ever, ever technologize, digitise, or supersede, the human to human interaction. Drue: No. Josh: If we did, the UN would be done completely via video link, and there would be no need for everyone to fly into Brussels or wherever they do, and have a face to face meeting. Drue: No G20s, none of that stuff. Josh: It'll be all gone. Drue: If you think about bigger businesses with business deals, they still fly to Japan or to China or to the U.S. or to London, wherever it is, and they sit down. They might break bread and have a meal together, but they sit in the room and they sign the papers. And there's no need to do that usually, but there's a real human need or craving to be in the company of other human beings. Josh: There's something there that you can't feel otherwise. Drue: Yeah. Josh: When you do it over the phone, you can hear tonalities in voices, but you can't really feel the impact of that person being there. It generally doesn't go longer than the, "Okay. We've started, we've had a small amount of banter. We've spoken about it. We've concluded. We've said bye." There's not that, let's get to know the real you moments that you get when you talk and catch up with people. Drue: It's like a 5D factor, I think, I call it. So not 3D because 3D's easy on the video, and we all know about 4D now, but 5D's you're in their presence, without trying to get too spiritual, you can feel their being. And it's really good. And that's what we want with our clients. We want them to see our passion and feel our passion, and we like to see theirs and feel their passion for their business as well, because that's their livelihood, that's their thing. And as I said, toward the start, that's their identity sometimes. So they're really proud of that and we want to bask in that pride as well. Josh: Well, I guess we've been going through a few bits and pieces here, and I'd like to finish up and ask how would people go about contacting you and make sure that their business is going in the right direction and they're not freaking out, their numbers are doing things wrong. How can they get that second opinion that might turn into the first opinion? Drue: Look, the best way is to send me an email or give me a call. If you go to 4Front.net dot.as, or to Drue, and that's D-R-U-E.schofield@4front.net.au, or find me on LinkedIn. More than happy to have a conversation, cost and obligation free. We can sit down, we can talk about what you're doing, how you're doing it, what your expectations are, where you think there might be some potential gaps in the advice you're getting now, and we can give you the cut of edge, and then you can see whether you think that's something that appeals to you and that you might see value in. So yeah. Josh: A yachting term, I love that. I love that. I'm a bit of a keen yachtie myself. Is there any questions that you'd like me to ask or that you'd like to ask of me? Drue: No, I think we've covered some great ground there. Don't ask me to repeat all that, because I don't necessarily know what I said, but I just hope that people listening can get a good feel and a good sense for the passion that we have. Yes, we're accountants, and we've got a bad stereotype of being boring and maybe a bit mundane, but I hope, Josh can attest to me not being like that. Josh: Absolutely. No, no, no, not at all. I'd say you'd go and have a beer with me if I offered it after the podcast. Drue: Absolutely. Or two. Josh: Perfect, it's done. Or two. Drue: But yeah, just to finish up, we are passionate about being your key partner in business. Josh: That definitely sounds like you're on a really good business and its got legs and it's going places. I'd like to ask anyone out there, if you have enjoyed this episode, to make sure to jump across to iTunes, leave us a review, give us some love, and make sure to stay good. Drue: Thanks Josh.  

Once Upon A Gene
How Our Rare Kids Can Shape Us

Once Upon A Gene

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 16, 2020 34:21


ONCE UPON A GENE - EPISODE 026 How Our Rare Kids Can Shape Us Molly D'Angelo is sharing her adorable son's story with us who has a rare genetic disorder of obesity. People can be very judgmental and cruel. Rare parents watch their kids struggle so much and we have fear about their futures on a regular basis. We grow a thick skin, but even we are not immune to the ignorance and unkindness we can receive. Stories like Josh's help spread awareness and educate us all to have more compassion and understanding.  EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS Tell us about your family. We're a blended family with three boys. My oldest is almost 16. My middle son is my husband's and our youngest is Josh. Josh, who will be 5 in a few months, has a rare genetic disorder of obesity.  What causes the obesity disorder? Is it a genetic mutation? In rare genetic disorders of obesity, there's a lot of unknowns still. There's a lot of research being done on a lot of syndromes. Currently, we believe we've found Josh's mutation, but he is the only one with that specific variant chance. Because he's the first reported case, things are complex with regards to getting approval from the insurance company and getting services. The condition is related to Bardet–Biedl syndrome (BBS) which is in the rare genetic disorder of obesity family.  After your son was born, when did you realize something was different? We had some idea when I was pregnant that something may have been going on, but we just didn't know what. We had spina bifida come back as a possibility when we did prenatal testing, which planted the seed for us that something might be going on. My husband and I recognized right after birth that Josh was fussy and needed extra care and attention than our other boys did. It wasn't until Josh was about 6-10 months old when I got the doctors to recognize our concerns and start referring us to endocrinology and genetics specialists.  How do you combat human stupidity and general unkindness in looks and comments geared towards you as a parent and also Josh? It took a long time and lots of grace. I recall a time I went to the grocery store with Josh. At the time, he was in a medical grade stroller. I remember an older man approaching me and he used the r-word to describe Josh and relate him with someone in his family. I had to take a deep breath and consider this was someone who may be from a different generation or background than me. I shared that term wasn't one that we used anymore and I explained about Josh. I explained that Josh was very smart, knew his ABC's and 123's, even though he couldn't communicate it as well as other children. I try to use these moments as opportunities to educate. On the flip side of that, we went to the doctor today and as we were checking out, there were three lovely little girls that wanted to embrace him, they said hi and one was showing him her doll and it was so sweet. You have to take it one moment at a time, take it with grace and try to educate as many people as possible. Does Josh also have an autism diagnosis? He does. When he was about 12 months old, we had our first evaluation done. He was diagnosed officially when he was 18 months, which is the earliest marker where you can be diagnosed. The earlier we could get a diagnosis, the earlier we could get intervention and statistics show that the earlier you can get that intervention, the more helpful it is long term for your child. We went to early intervention with our local school district and then we did physical therapy through our state local hospital. Then we ended up at a private center, which is where we are now. They do the ABA, OT, PT and speech all in one location. He goes 5 days per week, only 3 hours per day right now. Eventually, I'm planning on homeschooling.  What are some of Josh's favorite things? Josh is so happy and everything makes him laugh. We didn't know if he was going to be happy because he was fussy for so long, but now he's always happy unless he's feeling sick, tired or something is wrong. He's such a joy. He loves bubbles and watching his dog and brothers run around.  What's Josh's relationship with his brothers like?  His brothers are incredible. We really worried about them and how this was going to affect them. Last year especially, we saw a big shift in coming together as a family and really supporting and taking care of each other. Before that, they stayed out of his way and if he was having a hard time or a bad day, they gave him his space. Now, they just want to be around him as much as possible and Josh looks up to them because they're big brothers and super cool in his eyes. I see a transition in my oldest wanting to help and caregive in a way. Our middle son is the same way in that he's loving and supportive. I believe we were all blessed with Josh's presence in our lives for a reason and those boys, as much as they might miss out on going to the beach or other things people take for granted, they're not missing out and they've been given a whole new experience that's going to shape them into the men they're meant to become one day. What kind of advocate has this made you? I never sought out advocacy, it just happened, which means it's my purpose and must be some type of calling that I'm meant to do. I'm a parent advocate for Josh and I have fallen into a position of being a voice for the rare genetic disorder of obesity, spreading the word in a positive format. We share our story to educate that not all people with obesity sit around and eat all day.  What do you want people to do or say when they meet Josh? When we're out and about, there's always someone who doesn't know how to act or respond. I think a lot of people were taught not to look at people who look different, but we're as a collective whole in the special needs community coming together to let people know to treat everyone how they'd want to be treated. Look at that person and say hello. And if you have questions, feel free to ask if the parent seems receptive. People with special needs are a minority and it's time for inclusion for all people. It's time to accept people for people. LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED Molly D'Angelo Instagram (@mollyedangelo) https://www.instagram.com/mollyedangelo/ LEAD for Rare Obesity on Facebook (@LEADforRareObesity) https://www.facebook.com/LEADforRareObesity/ Love What Matters on Facebook (@lovewhatreallymatters) https://www.facebook.com/lovewhatreallymatters/ Morgan's Wonderland https://www.morganswonderland.com/ TUNE INTO THE ONCE UPON A GENE PODCAST Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/5Htr9lt5vXGG3ac6enxLQ7 Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/once-upon-a-gene/id1485249347 Stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/once-upon-a-gene Overcast https://overcast.fm/itunes1485249347/once-upon-a-gene CONNECT WITH EFFIE PARKS Website https://effieparks.com/ Twitter https://twitter.com/OnceUponAGene Instagram https://www.instagram.com/onceuponagene.podcast

Business Built Freedom
128|Relationships Are Everything With Stewart Fleming

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 4, 2020 32:35


Stewart Fleming Interview Josh: All right. Everyone out there in podcast world I've got a very special guest for you today, I've got Stewart. He is from Logan, and actually know what, I'm going to let you tell me about what it is that you do in the voodoo that you do. Learn more about the interview with Stewart Fleming at dorksdelivered.com.au Stewart: What do I do in Logan? I do a lot of stuff. I'm involved in about four or five different, organisations as a volunteer. I run multiple businesses. I'm on the board of a number of different organisations in the city and currently running for mayor. So I keep myself pretty busy, man. Josh: Do you have time to sleep? Stewart: I get probably three to four hours sleep a night. Now, I'm pretty controlled to be very consistent about making sure I get at least five hours when, when possible. but look, you know, you do what you can with the time that you got. Josh: I know I've gone through periods of time where I'm going, okay, I'm going to get something down and just working. And you, you're getting no sleep, no sleep, no. So you can get used to having no sleep, and then you have that one opportunity to have an eight hour night. And you feel like you've slipped the four days. Sometimes you have to be in the candle at both ends. Stewart: I think there's also that, if you are used to running at that speed, sometimes if you have too much sleep, you get crazy tired at that point. It's like, well, you've had that now I want that four days in a row. Like, yeah, I dunno. Let's just keep running. Josh: The way the body works. So, we've been talking a lot of different business owners through this channel and, which is something that's on people's minds, whether they're saying it or not. And that is around the recession is the recession coming isn't coming. And we want to talk about how to recession-proof your business. Today we're going to be talking a bit about specifically keeping things local. So I've been running a business for 13 years throughout Logan and been in business in one way or another for, for around 20 in Logan. I've only more recently found out about a whole bunch of advantages to making sure that you are staying local, running your business within the local area that you are running a business. So what have you seen out and about around the traps in regards to a business, the overall health of the economy. What are your thoughts on that? Stewart: Logan is uniquely positioned at the moment to grow. So obviously, we're halfway between Brisbane Gold Coast. We have a very large amount of land available to us. We've got some very good infrastructure. The M1, as much as we hate being stuck in the traffic, it brings millions of cars passed. We've got train lines coming through, and access to some pretty good infrastructure at the moment. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Can get better for sure. But from a business point of view where uniquely positioned, Brisbane and Gold Coast have come from our sort of higher socioeconomic background and are starting to shrink in, as you say, this recession, the economy is shrinking and I think it's changing. And we had someone talking to the most recent chamber of commerce about going from a materialism environment to a postmaterialism environment. And what he was talking about was the idea that we start to share resources. So rather than own a thousand shirts, you might only own 30 shirts and you switch them around more rather than own a car you use over rather than own a holiday house, use Airbnb. And I know those are two right there. Two very specific examples. But the examples sit behind our mindset and the mindset is that we don't need to own everything anymore. What you're talking about doing business locally is one of the things that we were talking about at a fairly high economic level. When I started to put my hand up to run for mayor, I wanted to reach out to those that had some fairly significant influence in the economy of Logan. So some of the more significant business owners, some of the more significant landowners, some of the property developers now. Yeah, property developers. Ooh, terrible. You can't take money from them. You shouldn't be listening to them because what they understand is some really cool stuff about how things are developing now and the changing way that we're looking at. We should be looking at economies. Sure. We should be making sure we get great roads, but if we had fantastic internet, I'm not talking good internet. I'm talking fantastic internet. Would you need to leave your house to run a business? Do you need to go to an office? If you are fully automated running from home, what does that do? Can you spend more time with your kids? Can you spend more times in the local parks? This is the kind of economy that we're moving towards and Logan is set to take advantage of that because we haven't overcapitalised yet on the infrastructure that Brisbane and Gold Coast have. We're still growing. And so the reason I put my hand up from there is because, the opportunity for a there I saw for Logan needed someone that had some innovation ideas in their head. I'm on the board of Innovate Logan. It's a little group that represents manufacturers, state government, local government, chambers of commerce, and it looks at how do we get more innovation happening in the city. There's some very, very cool stuff going on, but I think the idea of more people working locally we'll reduce the load, and it also helps us start to recession-proof our businesses. Josh: Well, I couldn't agree more. You said it perfectly at the start. From a geography standpoint, we've got the Gold Coast, they've got the beaches and bits and pieces. You've got Brisbane. It's, it's, I guess the, the original, Mecca hub for working Logan is positioned in a perfect environment where it's growing from either edges. You've got all of the manufacturing and an industry coming up from the gold coast, edging into Logan, and then you've got a lot of the other industry coming from Eight Mile Plains and so on and so forth. Building up as it's coming more and more within Logan and from an investment standpoint, it's the best place, in my opinion, to buy any, house, anything like that. Because if you do have a business that is shrinking because of the recession and you need to be tighter with your dollars. The dollars go further in Logan, the dollars allow for you to achieve more things in a localised area. With investment properties, there's a hell of a lot of people that are moving to Logan because instead of buying a place in Brisbane that's gonna set you up for $1 million or more, and then you have to, you have to walk around with traffic everywhere. In Logan, you still have beautiful parks. You can still get something that's more than living on top of each other. It's at an affordable price with, as you said, that the end one there where, and at an intersection as well, where you're able to go out to Ipswich if you need to go and go wherever you need to. It's perfect, from a location and drivability standpoint. I think innovate is fantastic. Some of the other cool stuff that I've seen around the place, Substation 33, that's something that they're using to, I haven't seen anywhere else where they're up-cycling old laptops, old gear. You think you're going to throw at that record player because no one's going to use it. There is someone down there, brainy ethics going to turn that into something cool and then they're going to upcycle and start utilising that to bring more money to Logan. You probably know more about it., some of the signs that they've made out of old, old gear and they look professional, schmick as for looking at the water levels and turning on flood signs along with, they made a bucket for giving power to third world countries. These are super innovative things. I've only just started to dip my toe into some of the cool stuff that's happening around Logan that I wasn't even aware it was happening. I've been recruiting people. Okay. So I've got a friend that was in Tenerife and I was talking to him about some of the cool stuff. Substation was doing, Substation 33. And he thought, oh, that sounds really awesome. Let me check that out. And came down and was talking to them about making PCBs and all this other electronic stuff that he's building together with them. He was so interested, he moved two streets away from them so he could be spending more time building stuff. So you've got your coffee shops in bits and pieces, in Tenerife. And he's like, no let's go to something that's making a difference and actually changing around the way people's minds are working. Stephen: Yeah, we have this, and you're,100% right. Things are changing here in Logan, and I think we're on the, on the tipping edge of an absolute explosion in business in Logan. Now, we've already been growing in incredible, rate, without population, but the business opportunities that we have here, you know, in real estate, you say, buy the worst house and the best street. Well, we're on the best street. And realistically, Logan is probably the worst house in the best street. If you look at Brisbane, Gold Coast, Logan. Josh: On a 10 year plan, If you look at where Logan was 10 years ago versus where it is now versus where it was 10 years prior to that versus where it is going to be in 10 years it's all on the up and up. The worst house in the best street, so to speak. You can find a lot of bad houses and you could find a lot more before, but so many people are moving in. There's young blood moving in and it's similar to a lot of areas, I guess that did have a bit of a stigma or had had a couple of things that happen. Like we had that fence fight thing that happened years ago that was just a small thing that got blown out of proportion and overall bad things happen everywhere. One of the things that I always say, and I stand up for Logan pretty heavily off of friends who, hell, why do you live in Logan? I said, well, because if I lived in a nice house down, in the areas that you're living in, two, $3 million houses, it'd be too, too much of a reason for people to come in and break in and steal all my stuff. No one's going to come up here to do that. Obviously being facetious, but the reason why I love Logan is it takes good people in bad areas to make a change and to make an area, a good area. And you can have good people in good areas and they do nothing. But if you had these, these people that are actually the movers and the shakers, the people like Tony from Substation 33, and that the systems like Innovate where they are helping businesses locally and they are giving people the step up it really makes a difference. And, that is what it's all about. Just putting your name out there, listening to what, to what is available to help you out if you are struggling. Stewart: Yeah. We also have here one of the most giving communities I'm sure in Australia, the amount of volunteers, people that volunteer to help other people in this city is higher than anywhere else. We've got the social enterprise global forum coming to Logan. Why? Because this is where people give. It's such a given community. It's such a sense of that there is this sense of community here, but it's not integrated. And one of the things that I have done as part of this campaign is going out and talking to these various groups, finding out what their problems are. Because as a coach, that's what you do. What do you want? What do you want? What do you want as the constant question. Okay. Finding out what they want, and then talking to the next group and realising that all of these groups and whether it's a seniors group, whether it's mental health, whether it's a domestic violence, whether it's the homeless people working with the homeless, they are all working towards the same thing. Most of them have the same problems. They're not working together to solve those problems. And I think this is sort of the cornerstone of what I want to do as mayor of Logan is to create these, groups that champion and bring together the group guys that are already doing it. Like we should not be putting our hand up and saying, we're going to try and solve mental health as a council. What are we doing? What we can connect the groups that are already doing it. There are at least 13 different groups in the city, work with men's health, but then don't talk to each other. Hmm. Now if we counseled and put someone on as a men's health coordinator, and it doesn't have to be, you know, there aren't any jobs but someone has to do the administration. Because if one group tries to do that, it falls over. And this is actually what Logan together is based on, is a model called Collective Impact. 3.0 came out of California. And it talks about how you heard the cats, all of the organisations are doing fantastic things. But if you asked any one of them to coordinate with the others, it's too much. The straw has broken the camel's back. But if you have a central backbone organisation called like Logan Together, they can coordinate. They can actually do the coordination, but also they can collect the statistics. The moment we don't know how many homeless that are on the city. Now, if I talk to every organisation, I might be able to get some idea, but even then there's going to be crossovers, so we don't know how big the problem is. And as you know, you can't solve the problem unless you actually know how big it. Josh: Data in or data out If you don't have any data to work on, you can't really make a decision. Stewart: If you think the problem is 100,000 people that are homeless, you apply a solution for that amount of people. When the problem was a hundred people, if you think it's a hundred. And it was actually a thousand you've applied the wrong solution, and you're never going to get anywhere, and then you'll say, we shouldn't have even tried. You've got to find out what the size of the problem is, whether it's seniors, whether it's the sporting clubs. We don't have a peak sporting body for Logan. It’s not a hard thing to organise. Council could do that very simply because they're great organisers. The sporting club then gets representation as a peak body. I've spoken to a bunch of these sports, whether it's squash or rugby or soccer about this idea, and they're like, yeah, yeah, that'd be fantastic. We could say, would you be part of it all? We can see how it would work. Yes. The seniors groups, national centers are structuring, how do we do this? Now I've moved away from business, but the business side of it is the same sort of thing. If you've got some vertical businesses that are doing business automation or they're looking after finance for foreign companies. I know we spoke before we went on air talking about the multicultural aspect of Logan. We have access to get into 200 and over 217 different cultures. I'm pretty sure if we've got some really good to sell, we have it really big market to sell. This is the strength, man. This is, this is where I get really excited because we're doing some stuff in the schools at the moment. Mosman High has piloted a program where they're recycling all of their waste. Okay. So there was a $7,000 a month bill, now, they're making either a zero or making a small profit, or sometimes they pay $100 for it. So to outsource to ups to send that, that amount of waste to landfill 100 bucks, or they make a small profit because they're recycling the green waste, they're recycling, all the plastics are recycling the white paper. Josh: That's not just beer money we're talking about that's some serious money. Stewart: There are 17 high schools. It's now been gonna push into Mabel park. They're looking to roll it. It won't be rolling out into every school. I think, and I honestly believe this hand on heart, we could be zero waste for all our schools now. That's pretty exciting in and of itself. We're saving the planet a little bit. Yeah, but hang on, it gets cooler. The kids coming out of high school have a cert three. We could upgrade that to a cert four so they're coming out as recognized recycle experts, right. We have 217 nationalities, and I'm pretty sure that the nationalities, they are the cultures that represent all have a problem with recycling and green waste and all that sort of stuff. If we can teach our kids to do it. Then we can teach other countries kids to do it. We could be exporting recyclers. You're talking about what are the jobs are going to be, Oh no, I'm going to go big on you, man. I'm going to go big, go big or go home. If we're exporting recyclers, we are the center of recycling. If I can get the schools to be zero waste, guess what business is next. Yeah. If you get the kids that end currently in school to be lifelong recyclers, assuming they're going to live for another 60 probably 60 years, once they leave school. There are 55,000 kids in school in Logan at the moment. It works out to be about 3.3 million years worth of recycling. It's huge. 3.3 million years. If I only got the kids that are in school right now, I'm not, the ones coming in next year are the ones that left last year. Just the ones that are in there. 3.3 million years of recycling. Someone said to me, how are you going to change global warming and the certificate four at a time and seriously, no, no, and the guy that was moderating said he's running for mayor. He can't do that. I'm like, let me try. Maybe try. I honestly believe we can be the center for recycling. But that's just one of the innovations we've got in the city. As you mentioned, some safe station 33 and the upcycling and stuff that's going on there. Josh: They're replacing back to the TVs to create filaments to 3D print stuff. How sick is that? Stewart: Cool. You know there's a manufacturer in Logan that creates the nuts for nuclear reactors. If you want to build a nuclear reactor anywhere in the world, you will buy the nuts. For those nuclear reactors from Logan, how cool that is, and that is something that should Josh: There's been over the years, obviously some, some stigma around Logan and some of the different names that happen to rhyme with the word Logan. Stewart: It should be a new slogan for Logan. Is that what you're trying to say? Josh: Sounds much better Stewart: Anew slogan for Logan. Josh: I did exactly that. That is where we have these cool stories, like these nuclear nuts and the flow hive. It's been a huge, huge success or being manufactured within the Logan and that, that's something that was developed within Australia. That's been a fantastic new way of harvesting honey. There are all these really, really cool bits and things that people are doing that needs to be really pulled together to have people go, Oh wow, this is what they're doing. And we sang on recycling 200, so 217 different pods, Watts of life's ways, backgrounds and belief systems that have all been bought together underneath one roof. The spans, I don't know what the radius is of Logan off the top of my head. But it spans the theory that Logan does and, and all these different people will be eating different things and have a different idea on the foods that they're buying and the different plastics, and they're all be able to take that back to their Homeland to talk to them about how they would be able to do this. Maybe there's a, a certain enzyme within Rogan Josh, for instance, that gets broken down differently to what it would if you'd be having a kebob. And so that is what is awesome. Being able to have those many minds work to that. And that's an advantage that you, you don't have it anywhere else in Australia. We are the most multicultural area within Australia. Stewart: I don't think we've taken advantage of it though. And look, there's some, some things that I've done. I'm a businessman, but on the community focus, business matters. How are we going to do five different things? But one of the things I looked at was one of the questions I got asked was, where is the CBD? Where's the CBD? Logan, what's the center? Josh: If I had to pick a spot, it wouldn't be the bit that I would say would really represent Logan as much as I'd wanted to, but I guess it'd just be with it. The council building is, I guess. Stewart: Logan central. Yep. Okay. Right. What about Springwood? What about Beenleigh? What about Jimboomba? We have opportunities. We are, uniquely placed to have three, possibly four, possibly five different hubs within our city. Now you've got Chermside for Brisbane, which is sort of the Northern hub, and you've got Mount Gravatt, sort of the Southern hub. We had the opportunity to do the same sort of thing, and so what I did was I actually went and found a guy that's created. I managed to meet Joe Versey who set up a park road, several fair, the coffee culture. He created the coffee culture for Brisbane. Late-night coffee was not a thing until Joe came along and created it. Now Joe drives Ferrari's and he still does that sort of stuff. He was instrumental in getting James straight off the ground. He has bar spritz on Kangaroo Point cliffs and was talking recently to council about putting a zip line between the top of Kangaroo Point cliffs and the botanical gardens because he is a visionary that sees things before they exist. Yeah. I brought him down and drove him around Logan Central. We went to Springwood, Logan Central and Beenleigh and I've got his take on what do you do to create a scene? Yeah. What do you do to create a precinct and it was interesting because I've taken the ideas that he gave me and then I've taken them to the businesses in those areas and the property guys that own the land in those areas and the residents around those areas to see does this actually make any sense to you guys in front of Springwood? The Springwood hotel. The very large copper, which you can see from the highway. Yup. If there was a function there every Friday night with a live band and laser lights and spotlights and food, you've got to have food. You've got to have beverage. We would get people coming off M1 on a Friday night. I may meet my mates at the Gold Coast or Brisbane, let's meet in the middle. Let's meet at Springwood. Make it easy to get off, easy to get back on, great food, great entertainment and know it's there. Yup. You've now got a precinct. Now that precinct will grow because corporations will want to have their office workers where they can let off steam on a Friday, Saturday night if it's open longer. There's an opportunity being lean, different perspective. Logan central. The global food market at Logan central should be the entire area of Logan central. But what it was saying was you don't let just any old person come in and start stumping up. You have to foster culture. You have to get, if you want to have a food present, you get a restaurant that's already really good somewhere else. They know how to run a business and know how to market. They, they've got that bit sorted. Bring them in. Entice them in, bring a few in, and then make the local businesses come in around them and learn from them. Yep. So you're fostering local business based on the models that actually currently work. People will come for the big, big ones, and then they will also visit one of the local ones. And so what you do is you start to build this presenter and everyone wins. Everybody wins. Logan is so uniquely placed to do this sort of thing. But you've got to have someone with a vision that can drive that vision forward, and that's why I ran for mayor, not for one of the divisional seats, because the mayor is the person that sets that big vision and then brings everyone along for the ride. For the last eight years, I've been doing executive coaching, working with the leaders of TAFE or Queensland government or Domino's. Big organizations to work out how they fix their culture, and that's what I teach them how to do the culture in the council. It needs some work, right? So again, applying my skills to my schools then better serve me. Representing the people as a divisional counselor, what do my skills better serve me at the top? Trying to set the culture from the top down. Because when you try and set the culture from a mid-level, it really is hard if you've got toxic people at the top. Then what tends to happen is that they learn really good lessons about managing up, but there's a struggle and you're never going to get there until you've got the right person at the top. Josh: Richard Branson and the more close to home Dick Smith. Had the idea of the culture of a business and how it should run and that that is. Dick Smith said one day, a month, no matter what level of business you're in, you need to be in one of the stores looking and servicing the people to make sure you're making the right decisions for the right people and see the impacts and the effects of a decision that you've made. You know, just pushing paper and ticking boxes. You're actually able to see the flow-on effects and how that has affected that business with the council and with the people that, that sits within that council. There is a, I don't know if the right terms or hierarchy, but there is definitely, if you've got a, a toxic environment that will flow down and if you have a great environment, the people within the environment will promote and back up that that council or business or boss or whatever the case till the cows come home. And that's where there definitely needs to be a bit of a shift in the mindset of, of the people that are making these big decisions that are impacting the smaller guys. And definitely the smaller guys will, we'll carry that through and have a lot more respect for the location that they're in. And as I said, I love Logan. I see no issues with Logan. I'd love to see more people have the same approach and the same thought on it. And anyone that has lived in Logan, they got, you know, it's not that bad. It was Stewart: It’s not bad, it's awesome. One of the things I think we're missing though, and I'll finish up here, is that the Logan has to be the easiest place to do business. We want our economy to grow. We've got to be the easiest place to do business at the moment. Brisbane is giving a wave waivers to business. They are waiving application fees. They're doing all sorts of stuff to attract more business. We're not. Yeah. We have to not only match them, we have to get smarter at that than them. Then we have to use things like your business automation skills and get that. How do we get that into 100,000 businesses? We've got 15,000 businesses in the city, but let's say I went big, well, let's say there's 15,000 businesses. How do we get 15,000 businesses? And this is one of the things that I've learned very early on work the solution to the size of the problems we spoke before. If the solution is 15,000 businesses, and you said, I'm gonna run a workshop and you can put 15 people in it. Yeah. You've completely messed them up. What are you doing? You know, you've turned on the light. I want you to get hit the sun. How do we do that sort of stuff. And I think that's the big vision thing that I'm trying to bring into council. The guys that I'm running at currently they're all set in the past. They're talking about the 80s. They're talking about the 90s that they're, they don't realize things like, Josh: I'm investing in the yellow pages. Stewart: Drone buses are coming, you know, two years away. We'll be able to get in a little pod, a drone. We'll pick it up and we'll take you somewhere. So, uh, we were doing, uh, measuring distances. It's so crazy. Yeah. You're planning by big league, big arose and the, the. Academia will tell you that smarter roads, if you manage the roads with a different way, like you think about how to make the roads, who's carrying what lanes they're in, all this sort of stuff, you get a 30% return on your investment versus a 3% return building a bigger road. Josh: Yup. Man of my own heart. I was going to say, you've touched on a topic that, I think if we actually had smarter control of the way that the lighting for traffic flats worked without, throughout the area, along with not throughout the area being pretty, well, Queensland, probably Australia, but then also took advantage of paint. It sounds like such a weird thing to do, but that made the lanes a little bit narrow, except for, as you're saying like a heavy haul vehicles that might need the left lane. It's a wider lane. If we did things like that, you'd be able to squeeze, if you look at the road from here to Brisbane and extra lane, the entire distance along. Now, I think if you look and you said 15,000 businesses throughout Logan, if you are running events fantastic, absolutely jaw, jaw-dropping, amazing business in Logan. People would come from Brisbane to Logan, and the beautiful thing is they'd be coming to work at a time. You'd be burning those greenhouse gases. You wouldn't be burning the brakes. You wouldn't be burning in either of the, the other resources around your car and run consumables there. You'd be running a more efficient lifestyle and be able to spend more time with your family and friends. So that's, that's, that's my sort of 2 cents on that. Stewart: Look, I think if we can, if, if we can hit the goal of making Logan the easiest place to do business, the economy will look after itself and we've got to set those big priorities zero way schools. Let's try and do that. The upside is all acute, or a lot of our kids will come out with some, a little bit of an extra certificate and maybe we can export that. Like it's big, I get, it's a big dream. Josh: It carries onto their mentality and mindset at home. And that then carries through the parents and see what their children like doing and why they like doing it. And that then affects the whole community. The home is located close enough to the school. So you know that. The impact of changing around the, their mindset within the schooling system will change around the mindsets within the homes, which are change around the amount of landfill that's going to change around the amount of rubbish, It's just a carry on effect, butterfly effect, domino effect. Stewart: If we do it really, really well. We become the center that others copy. I don't want to do this just for Logan. If we do this really, really well, we can show Townsville how to do it with all your schools. We can be the template for how, who changed the planet. There's this idea of life one recycling. You're absolutely right, the parents start picking it up. But we're also starting to talk to the schools about how to get more entrepreneurship into the schools. So we've got Logan cha junior chamber of commerce kicking off. So it's how to get the kids, and not only just get them to think about it now, but provide a pathway for them to move into the adult world of business. Josh: That's perfect. And that, that's going to get it, set them up for success. As someone who went to school in Logan. Stewart: What school did you go to? Josh: I went to winder high school. While I was there, I had my ups and downs, but overall it's set me up with information, technology, and it put me into an environment or I started doing the IT work for the school. I was very, very happy to be able to automate and better a lot of the processes there and have people come underneath me and learn, learn what I had to do and, and what I was doing. And it's, it's something that is a great opportunity. Things, as I said again, that are just there that you, your kids can start doing now. It was much better for mum and dad, to be honest. I was doing the training ship instead of a friend's going off to McDonald's and having to do the backwards and forwards driving. Then you get traineeships, upskill them and all the good stuff. Is there anything else, any finishing notes, final thoughts? Stewart: No. Look lower than amazing. I really hope that whoever wins. Hopefully, it's me, but whoever went actually has the vision and that brings innovation in. If we can bet the innovation and tie that to the multicultural tie, that's the precincts, tie that to the schools. It's kind of the same thing. It's not like I'm not trying to invent seven different things just to solve seven different problems. It's the same sort of problem. Staring at the same, yeah. Rinse and repeat. Let's keep going here. I think in, you know, in three to four years, Logan will be. The place that people travel to for work. Logan will be the place that, sorry, you should've invested four years ago. We're not the worst house in the best street anymore. We're not a drive through. We're a destination. Josh: I could not have said it better. Well, it has been great talking with you and I'm really happy to have had you here. Anyone else that's listening, if you'd like this, jump across to iTunes. Leave us some love. Give us some feedback. Leave us a review. Let us know what your thoughts are. Other than that, Stay good.

Business Built Freedom
125|How to Recession Proof Your Mindset

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 28, 2020 37:20


How to Recession-Proof Your Mindset Special episode featuring business coach Tyson Sharpe. Check out Tyson's Facebook group Connect, Contribute, Collaborate: https://www.facebook.com/groups/connectcontributecollaborate/ Learn more on how to recession-proof your mindset at dorksdelivered.com.au Josh: Good morning everyone, and welcome to this podcast. Today we've got a fantastic guest with us. We've got Tyson Sharpe and it's going to be a doozy of an episode. We're going to be talking about recession proofing, your mindset. Tyson tell me a bit about what you do. Tyson: Yeah, sure. Well, thanks for having me. I always love doing these interviews and love sharing this type of stuff. But basically what I described as what I do is I help business owners and CEOs basically understand what's happening in their unconscious mind when they see these patterns of fears, doubts and frustrations arise. And so, we can have a different relationship with them. So, not only can we start to resolve those internal conflicts, but we can start having more success in business or in whatever ventures we're in, just as a byproduct of who it been. So, that's really where my work and my expertise lies. Josh: Sweet. Well, I know that it's, everything comes down to mindset. I started today with the eight suspicious transactions on my credit card and I thought no, so here we go. How's this week going to be? And I thought, you know what? I could smile off or cry. A rang through to the bank, got the transactions, looked at, had the credit card pause and then laugh. Tyson: You've got to stop sharing your details on the podcast. Josh: That's probably a good hint and tip there for anyone out there and security learn. So, if you had to go through different situations that you've seen and I think it's an imminent to the situation we're in in Australia with the recession, and that can bring about nasty thought, patterns and am I going to be successful or why are people disappearing? Why are they leaving and things like that. And it's a lot of the time not due to your own doing. How do you make sure that you have... what hints and tips would you give to make sure that you do continue on a positive train of thought in making sure that you're aware of your emotions and you keep up with your emotional fitness. Tyson: Yeah, sure. So, one piece of the awareness I would give people, and people can find this in themselves as well, is that when you have something like some uncertainties in your environment or you have some uncertainties in the future around finances or what's going to happen, whatever it may be, if you feel triggered by that, if you feel the scarcity, if you feel lack, if you feel overwhelmed uncertainty, what you have to understand is those patterns were already in you, right? So, if the recession comes or the recession's on its way or it's sort of slowly moving its way in, and that trigger you, what you have to know is that pattern was already in you. So, your external environments just triggered what was already in you. Right? So, what a lot of people will do is they'll try to solve their internal, how they feel and the uncertainty with the external results, right? So, they're like, "Oh, I just got to make more money or I just got to save this or whatever." And that's where I sort of find with a lot of business owners is they try to resolve the internal conflict with something externally. Or another way to put that as you're trying to achieve something external by filling a void within yourself. Right? Josh: Yeah. Tyson: So, if you're looking to achieve, if you're looking to get more money, more success, more fame or whatever it may be, what I find is a lot of people are doing that through an unconscious pattern of trying to solve an internal conflict, right? An internal void within themselves that they can't solve any other way because they didn't have the heightened awareness yet. And so, I like to raise that awareness so that people can actually start seeing what's going on within them and actually what's driving them, right? So a lot of people are trying to achieve success and they're thinking, yeah, I just want the best life possible. But what they don't understand is what unconsciously what's happening is they're trying to achieve at a different level because it's some level within themselves they're trying to feel enough or they're trying to feel worthy. And that's why I find a lot of people are trying to build a business based on fear, based on scarcity and based on lack, which obviously is not sustainable. Josh: So, I guess in that situation you'd be saying that maybe the measuring stick that they're using and what successes should be changed? Tyson: Totally. So, in terms of, it's not only the measuring stick, but it's also what's driving you. It's also what's giving you the fuel? Is it a push or is it a pull? Is it something that you feel like you have to do in order to be enough? Right? Josh: Mm-hmm Tyson: Or is it a pull, is it like a calling to you? Is it like when, so for example, if your internal and external world was exactly the way you wanted it, would you still have a calling to do the exact same thing right? Josh: Right. Do you wake up to do it or is it a job or is it a lifestyle I guess, is this something you would do if you were retired and you had all the time, money in the world or you found out you had a terminal illness or something like that? Tyson: Yeah, exactly. So, that's where I find a lot of people are trying to achieve because they're trying to feel that void within themselves. And that's why when they run into all the fears, doubts and frustrations, they're not too sure what to do and all of a sudden they think they need to change their external circumstances in order to feel a certain way. And obviously if you're trying to achieve something externally to feel a certain way, a lot of that can be outside your control. That's what sort of like drives people crazy, right? Trying to change things outside of their control and thinking that that impedes on how they feel on a day to day basis. So, that's the sort of awareness that I like to sort of raise with people. Josh: So, bringing awareness to the problem I think is very important. I know that I went through a darkest portion in my life, if I could call it that. And I wrote down a list of all the things that make me happy. All the things that make me sad. And one of the things was things outside of my control. And I was becoming aware of that, it allowed me to think, okay, now that I'm aware that that's outside of my control, I now know that something that makes me upset. But you can then change your emotions and change your relationship with that situation once you become aware of it. Would you say that's an approach that you would take, yeah? Tyson: Totally. So, that's the sort of what I call the first step. Josh: Correct. Tyson: So, in the business. So, everyone loves personal development, right? So, we love improving ourselves and so we love being able to reframe our thoughts and shift our state and learn how to feel better. Right? I call that's sort of first step. That's the pillar because that it's a good first step because it shows you that you are in control of your emotions and that it's actually your thoughts that lead to any emotions, not the circumstance themselves. So, that's a really, really good platform and it really sets the stage for personal development and for you to become the director of your own life. What I find what other people like my clients and my community is doing is just going that layer deeper. So, in terms of when they already know that, okay, my feelings and everything in my internal world is being driven by my thoughts and my internal pattern's not the circumstance themselves. One thing that you can start doing is when you do have emotions like fear, like doubt, like worry, scarcity, overwhelmed. When those feelings start to come up, instead of changing your emotion straight away, what you can actually start doing is starting to have a very, very different relationship with those patterns. Because what I found in my work coaching hundreds of business owners in the last couple of years is that, when these patterns arise, say a pattern of fear, so you've got the recession, you got external circumstances that are outside your control and you have this fear come up. What a lot of people do is, they avoid that feeling or they resist that feeling so they can avoid it by, like I said, by shifting your state and avoiding that feeling all by trying to change your external circumstances so that you don't feel that feeling right? Avoiding the circumstance, avoiding a situation that would make that feeling arise or they resist it. They resist it by not allowing it. So, they resist it by making it wrong. They resist it by thinking it shouldn't be there. They resist it by trying to fix it. Right? And so, what happens is when you have any emotion that arises, like fear and you avoid or resist it, it actually grows unconsciously. You're actually pushing down a side of you unconsciously. And that takes a lot of unconscious energy, but also allows that pattern to grow. So, it's almost like, if you were to have a five year old come to you, and they're running chaos, right? So, they're a bit scared. They're worried, they're fearful, and for a bit of peace, what you do is, you go and you place that five-year-old in a different room in the house. And so, you place the five-year-old in a different room, you come back to the room you're in and it feels more peaceful. Right? It feels more peaceful. But- Josh: It's not. Tyson: ... that five-year-old's still running chaos in the other room. Right? And they're probably doing it a different level, and in a different manner, because they're in a different room just running chaos. And that's what I find that a lot of business owners do, when these patterns arise is they avoid them. Right? Or they resist them. And so I find when people shift out of those patterns quickly, and they try to fix them, or they think something's wrong, they grow unconsciously. So, you can feel better on the surface with some personal development, and you're shifting your thoughts and reframing and all those really, really good tools. But unless you resolve that conflict, it's always going to grow unconsciously. Josh: Okay. And so, what would you say is the first step? Well, yeah, I guess we were talking about writing them down and becoming aware of them, but how do you know some people have had these ingrained in their life for so long that they're not even aware that there was some something like, I guess the old Hollywood scenario of you go and see a psychologist and they say all the problems stem back to your mother? Tyson: No. What should? Josh: And then how do you become aware that that's an issue? Tyson: Well, you can only become aware of what's in your conscious mind, right? So, what's coming up consciously that you can recognise are your emotions. We're genuinely pretty aware when we're fearful, when we do have this emotion of worry or stress, right? We totally do have those emotions and we're generally pretty aware of them. And so, I find it is true. A lot of your emotional patterns do come back to your childhood, right? Because we have conditioned in our lives, we have conditioned patterns that say who do I need to be and what needs to happen in order for me to be enough? Because if I'm enough, therefore I'll be loved and unconsciously love is linked to survival. So, that's why when we have an obstacle in our way between us and success, it can often feel like life and death because at some level it is to our unconscious mind. But you can definitely be aware of the emotions you're feeling and you don't actually need to know where it's coming from. It can help. You don't actually need to know where it's coming from to resolve the internal conflict, to resolve that pattern. What you actually need to do is feel it, is to feel that pattern without any resistance, without any judgement . And if you allow it to be there and not need it to leave, that's when the pattern starts to resolve. Josh: Okay. So, I guess, where do you start? I guess I know you've got a Facebook group. What are the other tools that you use or that you have to help people out with this? Tyson: Yeah, sure. I have, yeah, so many things. I've got the Facebook group and the YouTube channel and all those different things. The type of exercises or content or whatever it may be that helps people most, is helping them become aware that, so, to feel these patterns, so to feel when these emotions arise and to feel them fully. The way I sort of explain it, we'll stick to the five year old analogy. So, it's like when this patterns arising, let's say fear for example, if fear is arising within you, it's almost like an internal five of year old that's scared, right? So, for the recession, for example, recession's happening a lot of uncertainty, you're not too sure about your financial future. And all of a sudden you have fear. Now, what's actually happening is you have a pattern within you that was, I call it your five year old self, right? You have a pattern that was generally conditioned in your childhood that says, and that this pattern and his five year old within you believes that you need to have finances in order to feel enough or you need to have finances in order to be okay, in order to be safe, in order to be secure. Josh: Okay. And that could be depending on how your parents brought you up or the lifestyle that they had or other aspects like that. Tyson: There's so many factors. So, that's why I find it can help to identify the story, but it's not necessary. It's not an absolute puzzle piece to figuring out all of this, but it can help to understand that there is a five year old within you, a five-year-old pattern that does believe that something, that your financial future needs to be secure in order for you to be secure. Or you need money in order to feel enough and worthy, right? Or in order to feel safe. So, this five-year-olds freaking out. And what's emerging in the form of fear. It's almost like your internal five-year-old freaking out saying external circumstances aren't the way we think they should be. And so, the reason why this five-year-old's emerging, is so it can be seen, is so it can be heard, so it can be understood and loved. So, it's almost like that five-year-old coming up to you, right when you're in your house or whatever it may be. And this five year old is trying to be seen, trying to be heard. And that's why when a lot of people try to avoid them, or resist them, using the analogy of putting them in the other room. That's why that pattern grows unconsciously because it's not seen, and all fear will continue the more you don't want it to be there, and the more it's not seen. But fear will resolve and you can almost feel it start to dissolve within you. The moments that it's seen, the moment that it's understood and the moment that it's loved unconditionally. Another way of putting that is, fear will always resolve when you don't need it to leave. When you don't need it to leave and you just sit there and you feel it fully and you love that pattern and you listen to it, and you allow it to be there. That's when the pattern starts resolving. That's when it's [crosstalk 00:18:40]- Josh: There was just exactly what you're talking about. I might be misquoting this a bit, but are you familiar with the story of the turtle and the hungry fox about- Tyson: I'm not. Josh: It is a story told by Buddha and sorry for anyone that's listening as I'm terribly, it's terribly reiterating this wrong, but the fox sees this turtle and gets something to eat this turtle. This is going to be amazing and runs over to the turtle. The turtle pulls itself into the shell, instead of running away knowing that it won't ever be able to run away from something, the turtle in the situation would be fear as for the fox in the situation would be fear. The turtle pulls itself into the shell, not to necessarily protect itself, but to look within its own mind is the metaphor there to find and be within its own mind to be able to look outwards once the fear is gone. But battling the fee and not running away from it, was the sort of the analogy there. So, that'd be similar- Tyson: Yeah, exactly. Josh: I guess to sort of what you're sort of describing there. And it's definitely something that everyone needs to do. There's a lot of people that suffer from anxiety and I think anxiety is just, and this is again as a generalisation, it is a disease, but it's when we're not put in a situation where we're asked to grow beyond our comfort circle. You build up more and more of a problem and that's where you need to sometimes just battle up and jump straight forward through it. And that's stress. I guess another immersion, if you have stress a lot of the time it's because it's something that's important to you. You have anxiety because it's important to you. And so you need to know how to deal with that and be able to jump through those hoops so that you can overcome some of those five year old child, five year old self problems that you might have that have been ingrained into your belief systems. Tyson: Totally. I love that story. And it's true, if you are trying to solve something by running away from it, it's never going to work out. It's always going to be a downward spiral. But the moments you evolve are the moments when you know you need to look in. All the answers you have are within. And that's what a huge shift in my life has been, is when I have all this fear, doubt and frustration, and I realise that everything I want to achieve externally is internal. Every answer is found internally. And I am the answer that I'm looking for. And so, when I go in and meditate, for example, or I look in and resolve these internal conflicts, the external success is just the byproduct, all right? The excellent success in terms of the wherever it may be, the clients, the income, the Facebook group, whatever it may be. All of that is just growing just as a byproduct of the resolving these internal conflicts, because you can't help it evolve, you can't help, you're like a helium balloon that always just wants to expand and rise up. [crosstalk 00:21:54] A lot of us have the patterns that keep pushing the balloon down. So, once you resolve these internal conflicts, you naturally just float up. You naturally just move into a higher level of consciousness and a higher level of success, high level of contribution because that's naturally where we move, that's naturally where we go when we start resolving these patterns. Josh: Well, I couldn't agree more and having the best mindset and I've got a podcast and a YouTube video on mirror mindset. And looking within, because it is ultimately, it's where everything sits. The six inches between your ears is the most important six inches you have in your body. That's right. It's funny. So, yeah. Meditation doesn't have to be difficult to either. I know that you are a king spear who's meditates for a couple of hours a day, is that right? Tyson: Correct. Yeah. So I meditate. I've gone past a hundred days of meditating, two hours a day. And a lot of people freak out when they think of themselves doing the same, like how do you have the time? How the hell do you run a business and do all of this when you're meditating two hours a day. And I just find that when I wake up, I can feel when I'm in my head I'm like, I need to have this to do list. Right? Josh: Yes. Tyson: And my mind has a story of what I think I need to do in order to be okay. In order to be successful, in order to feel enough, in order to feel worthy. And then when I sit down and meditate for an hour, and I do at least an hour in the morning before I do anything, before I check my phone or emails, whatever it may be, social media. And so, when I do that, I come out of meditation knowing I don't have to do any of that. And in fact that was just a story I was telling myself. And then the actions taken moving forward, I'd just from such a guided place, it's from such a resourceful place. It's from a space of creativity and flow and that's why the success is the byproduct. When you're in flow, like you're unstoppable, right? When you're in flow and you've resolved some of your patterns and your internal conflicts and you start to love these five year olds so they can transcend, you just naturally fit into a flow and into a creativity. And you can start to feel when things feel heavy, when things feel a lot. And you can just stop moving from a place that's a higher guidance system. And that's what I find is, that's the flip that where everything sort of changes, and everyone sort of starts to notice that the answers are within them and they can just move from that place and they can be guided from that place and then they start to realise the success that they find is a byproduct. It's really just it's your own natural, it's the internal work that matters most and the external that is just the secondary gain. Josh: I would absolutely agree. I would say the best way to describe it in my opinion is everyone has experienced that writer's block is experience where you're there in front of the computer or pen on paper and you are like, honey just got to get this thing done and it might be a school assignment, might be an assessment, it might be something that's due the next day at work or, and you're just going through. I can't get it, and nothing is working. Nothing is working. A lot of the time, the amount of time that you sit there pestering your brain with negative thoughts saying, I can't get it, it's not working, I can't think of it. This is just crap, but I'm writing. Your conscious mind is passing all that to your unconscious mind and you're in 100% belief that you cannot do it, and you won't be able to do it. And then, as soon as you hit that point, which is the normally hours before it's due, or the night before, and then you have these cram sessions or this epiphany where this writer's blocks removed and you just have this huge amount of work that just comes out of you. And you think, "Wow, where did that all come from?" And as you said, it's always been within you and it's that you had this shift at a time where you went, "Okay, the negative of me not doing this work is now worse if I don't get it in because then I might not get the university degree or I might not get that promotion or whatever is at the end.” And so, the two balances of evil weigh each other out until you finally get it done. But if you meditate and if you, instead of procrastinating and having those negative thoughts, if you're, instead of spending the same time meditating, you'd find most people would have an easily an hour a day where they would be just procrastinating that they could easily be spending on meditation and positive thought training rather than sitting there not working, but waiting to work sort to speak. Tyson: Yeah, and I did this for like when I just started to, okay, I'm going to look internal. I'm going to resolve whatever patterns are emerging. I'm going to start to see, I'm just going to experiment. I actually did six hours in one day, just meditating and just in silence, complete silence, just sitting there. And that's scary to a lot of people, right? Very, very scary to a lot of people, and it was scary for me as well. And that's the exact reason why I thought I needed to do this. We live in a world where we are scared of what's emerging within us. We're scared of our thoughts, we're scared of our emotions. We're scared of just sitting there in silence. That's alarming to me, and my thought was how the hell is building a business or living the life you want, in terms of what you want to feel, and the relationships you want to have, and the contribution you want to make? How the hell is all that going to happen? How the hell is that sustainable? If I'm not okay with what's emerging within me, right? This doesn't make sense. It does not make sense if you're scared of the thoughts that are coming up or if you're scared of the emotions, like wouldn't that be something that needs to be addressed? Like wouldn't that be something? And so, when I sat down, I'm like I'm going to meditate for six hours, and I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what's going to come out of it, but all I know is I'm going to find out who I am. And so, for hours I just had all these patterns and all of these stories of like, oh my God, you're irresponsible, you should be doing income generating activities, right? I felt guilty, so much guilt come up, all these thoughts around why, I shouldn't do it. And as I just sat there, I allowed it. I realised these were just five year old patterns that needed love, needed to be seen. And one by one, all those patterns just started falling away. All those stories, all of those patterns just melted away. And then I just sat there and I just kept feeling what was coming up. And I was just a space that all this was emerging in. And then, that's when I started having the biggest levels of creativity and flow and alignment. And yet a lot of patterns came up. There was a lot of sadness, right? I opened up a safe enough space for more and more five year olds to come to be seen. And I had sadness around past relationships. I had so much uncertainty around money come up, uncertainty about business, and finance, and clients I had, and all these different things. I just allowed it to be there, I just welcomed it, I loved all of it. I just sat there and just paid attention to what these patterns are saying. And one by one I just resolved them and then they transcended, and then more came up and that transcended and what was left. It was just this infinite flow like you described, if you're, would you rather be in? Would you rather be in a situation where you're like, I have to write this blog or I have to finish piece of work. And we're there when we're grinding an hour, we're trying to finish this blog. But then there's moments when the blog writes, you sit there and you're like, "Oh my God, I have to get this down." And you're just in flow and it's like everything else doesn't matter, and time stands still and you just, you're flowing with this blog and it's riding you. And that's what I find is possible. That's what I find, if you build a business based on that energy, based on that pattern where it's just emerging and flowing out of you, then that's it. Then that's a pattern that's sustainable, that's a business that's sustainable, that's a business that will be focused on growth, focused on vulnerability, focused on love, contribution, all those things that you know you are, instead of the fear, lack and worry and fear that we sort of explained before. Josh: And you're not pushing against yourself, which is really important. Tyson: Exactly. Josh: You're working with yourself, with your own goals and your own mindset. And I would like in this, obviously as with a computer background, I would like in a meditation to defragging your brain. As you said, you've got all these distractions all the time. You've got more than 350, 400 pieces of advertisement that's sent to you every day in one form or another to try and promote someone's product and do something here and something there. You've got people talking to you about is this thing done? Is the timeline done? Do you have this other thing done? Is this thing paid? All these things are going through your mind all the time, and you don't give yourself a moment to just breathe. And defragging your brain is putting everything in order, putting things in the right place, finding those priorities, finding the things that are important and letting your brain do the walking for you. Letting your brain do the calculations for you as opposed to you trying to dictate what's meant to be happening. There's 86,400 seconds in the day and people don't give enough time to themselves. People give themselves heaps of time to their clients, their family, their friends, their social posts. Their liking, whatever they're doing at the time, but they don't give that moment to themselves where they're not off when they're asleep and on when they're awake. They need to have that moment of reflection for themselves. And what you were saying, again on the 86,400 seconds in a day, during the day, some are like, "Aw man, you're a dickhead." And they say something about it and you go, "Oh man, I'm so offended when they said that, I had so much respect for them. Why would they say that?" And then you're there pondering over that one small comment and it might've just been like an off the cuff thing that you misunderstood the tonality in their voice. Like "Oh man, how are you even dickhead?" And you go, "Ah, okay." And then you're overthinking that problem. I don't know. I'm guilty of that. I've had situations where I've thought of something that someone has said even years later when I saw them again, I'm thinking, Oh, you said that to me. And they probably thought about it, said it as a funny joke and they continued on. And meanwhile, your brain is sitting there stewing over this one thing that they've said that's changed around the relationship with that person. It changed around your and mindset and burnt away a lot more time than the 86,000 and then the 10 seconds that might've been that they said it. And it's eaten into the 86,400 seconds in the rest of your day or even onwards. So, meditation is in very, very needed in the society, and it doesn't need to be hard. I started off looking at a candle and breathing deeply, holding my breath for a second and then breathing out and doing that 10 times or looking at a candle in a dark room with no distractions. And that is, in my opinion, one of the easiest forms of meditation to just start. What would you say? Where would you start? Where would you go from, some of these? Tyson: I mean, I meditate a lot, but I'm not the meditation expert. I've really done to teach on it or anything like that. But I think meditation is a tool just for you to connect with yourself at a different level. So, that's the way I describe it. I call it the may-first meditation, where that's when I meditate, before I do anything else in the day, I'll just sit, I'll just wake up, go to the bathroom, get a drink of water, and then just sit down in silence for an hour. But I say meditation as the opportunity for you to hold the space, to allow what's emerging to emerged. So, if you just sit there in silence and you'll start noticing all these thoughts, you may notice some emotions. That's just the space. Because what you're feeling emotionally, you're feeling it. It's coming up so that it can be transcended. It's coming up so that it can be released. That's what I know a lot of people understand. If you have fear, doubt, why are you scarcity that's coming up because it's ready to be emerged. Like the five year old sees you as safe enough to approach you, right? The five year olds approaching you because he wants to be seen, heard, understood and loved. And the five year old feels safe enough to come to you, right to be seen. And that's what's happening when these emotions arise? And so, instead of seeing the patterns and allowing them to transcend, we're neglecting them, or resisting them, right? It's almost like going exactly going out to that five year old and saying, it's wrong you're feeling this way or go away until you feel better or you need to be fixed on how much is the five year old going to feel seen. Of course not. And so, I find in meditation, it's giving you the space for you to feel and for you to notice what's happening internally and transcend these patterns that are ready to be released. Transcending these patterns that are going to give you the deeper connection with yourself. Because what's trying to emerge is not you. Right? Another analogy is that everything that's emerging is trying to die. It's trying to die. It's trying to move on because it's showing you what you're not. You're not these emotions, you're not these patterns. You are not your thoughts, right? You're the space at all of that exists in. And so, when you can start to tap into meditation, you can start to sit down and start to, whether you are looking at a candle, whether you are in nature, whether you are just sitting there in your room and just paying attention internally. It gives you that space for you to start loving those patterns. Start seeing, start noticing, start to hear those patterns and allow them to transcend and feel them fully so that they can transcend. And so, I find meditation for me is more of a self-connection than anything. And so, there's many, many ways you can do it. But that's just the way I view it. Josh: Cool. Right. I'd agree it's all about becoming connected in your special way that allows for you to do that. So, I guess for anyone that is listening, that is worried about the recession or doesn't feel aligned or doesn't feel enough, I know that you've got the Facebook group, you've also got a course that people can look to. Is that right? Tyson: Yeah, totally. So, the Facebook group is Connect, Contribute, Collaborate. So, that's the group where there's a lot of online business owners there, that are looking to do this in a work, but then they're also looking to connect with one another and they're connecting to form collaborations, joint ventures, all those really cool business things. And they know that that group is a group of heart-centred business owners who are looking to transcend these patterns who are looking to use that excess creativity and flow to add more value to their marketplace. So, there's a lot of value in that group and it's a really cool group. It's so engaging, everyone's looking to find ways to do joint ventures and collaborations. And then another aspect we're doing is we're actually going to combine our resources, combine our business brains, our expertise, and we're actually going to start donating some time towards charity and some non for profit organisations and helping them build their businesses as well. So, it's a really, really cool group that's actually making a difference. And so, that's what makes me super excited about it and super excited about the people that are in it as well. Josh: Cool. Well, I'm definitely keen to see what comes with it and if anyone wants to reach out and see what some of the awesome work that Tyson does, definitely jump across that Facebook group, would be a good entry point to start on your new journey of making sure that you have a recession proof mindset, and you're emotionally attached to your goals, I guess. Well, is there anything else you'd like to cover off on Tyson before we cruise off? Tyson: Oh man, there's so many different things that I could talk about. But the main takeaway is to just notice when you're resisting, and notice when you're avoiding those emotional patterns and your life will take a complete flip in the moments when you actually start to drop the resistance to those patterns. Right? Every emotion is never the problem. It's always a resistance to it. And so if you want to really start shifting, then dropping that resistance, dropping the judgement of what you're feeling and actually stop feeling without resistance is where I would say the biggest takeaway is. So, if people wanting to do that work, then that's where I'm always looking to support and I think it's going to be a complete game changer for so many business owners, and that's just what I'm passionate about. So, that's what I would leave you with. Josh: Cool. I guess engaging and embracing. Tyson: Mm-hmm. Josh: Well, it's been lovely having you on the show Tyson and I look forward to some of the new cool stuff that will come through over the next few months. I've been checking out some of the bits and pieces on your YouTube channel and I'm sure we'll have some of our listeners do the same. So, if anyone has enjoyed this episode, make sure to jump across the iTunes and leave us your reviews, some loving the comments and any questions you might have to Tyson. Thank you very much. Tyson: Awesome, thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me Josh.  

Business Built Freedom
124|Tips for Automating Your Business With Chatbots

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 14, 2020 11:56


Tips for Automating Your Business With Chatbots Josh: So I've got Mike here from Chatbot Agency, and as everyone knows, I'm all about automation. The one thing that everyone needs to do in their business is automate, automate, automate, and he's got a fantastic product, a fantastic system, that allows for you to create something that you would never have been able to do 20, 30 years ago. He's able to create the human conversation in a digital world. Now tell me Mike, why did you get into this? Get more tips for automating your business with chatbots at dorksdelivered.com.au Mike: Well Josh, great question. I was a Facebook Ads dude. And we used to drive a lot of traffic from Facebook into landing pages, and based on the analytics and the backend material that we were looking at, at least 50% who were clicking on the ad weren't actually making it to the landing page. Obviously, because they load too slow and when they get there they're going to have to put their details in. So capturing leads meant that out of the 50% that was left there, we might end up, luckily, and this is being conservative, we might end up with 15 or 20% that might actually put their email address in. Now, back in the late 90s while mucking around with automation WeChat, we built a platform whereby we were going to put chat in there. We left that on the back burner, and then as soon as Mark Zuckerberg opened up the API for Facebook Messenger, we thought, "Wow, I wonder if this could respond the same way SMS marketing works," because we were all mobile marketers. So we mucked around for about a week and we actually got Messenger to respond back to us and we thought, "Hey shit, we're on a winner. How cool is that?" So getting back to the initial bit, Facebook Ads played a big part. So now we're able to take them from Ads into Messenger and actually start having a conversation with people and find out exactly what they really want from that business. Josh: Cool. So I guess your end goal is to turn someone without a face, that doesn't know your business into giving someone a face around your business and their business and making sure they start doing business with your business. So that'd be right? Mike: That would be absolutely spot on. Remember Josh, every transaction starts with a conversation. That's in the real world. Josh: You don't want to remove that personal touch. And that's something that I think is really, really good with the way that you've actually created your application because you're able to get the details, get the nitty gritties, the bits and pieces they need to get in a very, very human way. Would you agree? Mike: Totally, absolutely. You still have to remember, it's still machines talking, so we don't want it to make it too human. But at the end of the day, mate, if we can start bringing in tomorrow's prospects overnight, so when you start work first thing in the morning, you've got a nice bag of prospects sitting in there you just have to convert and then you can go knock off and go home at 10 o'clock. Josh: And that's ultimately what it's all about. If you've got a money-making engine that's just driving income, if you've got the ability to have a 24-hour salesperson, the ability to make sure that when you've created something and you've created a process, people are able to follow that process and you've got people falling through and into your funnel, filling up your funnel and you're removing any of the friction such as, as you said, like slow landing pages, you're removing those, you're making sure they have the least friction, a frictionless transaction, you're going to be having conversions go through the roof and as you said, like a 20% conversion on landing page is pretty good. A bad landing page, two to 6% in my experience and you're going up to 20, 22% in a very, very good landing page. So what are you finding your conversions currently? Mike: So we look at from the ad, we measure the click on the ad and we're effectively converting into the funnel between 20 to 50% of those. So if we have a hundred people click on the ad, we can put 20 to 50 those into my funnel. Josh: Okay. So that's pretty good. That's definitely much, much better. And the research that I've done and I'm going to be honest to everyone here listening in podcast land, I am a novice when it comes to this, but I will say straight away they are very good conversions. Now, if we rewind 20 years and as Mike was saying, he was here in the SMS boom and using some mobile marketing stuff. If we rewind 20 years, the effectiveness of email marketing, I would say, is on parity now with what you'd be having with Facebook Messenger marketing. Would you say I'm talking out my arse? Or where are you at? Mike: Yeah, I would say you're talking out your arse. Messenger is a new beast. So especially when we're talking mixing with Ads, putting the bot inside your website, all that kind of stuff. Obviously it's going to be a bit higher. Messenger, actually, we're getting a higher rate with Messenger that we were with SMS. Josh: Sweet. Mike: Especially when you're pushing messages back out. The read rate is somewhere between the 90 to 95% mark. So the strategies we're educating our clients on is getting them into your list, and then use Facebook sponsored messaging from Messenger to pull them back in. And that's where it's going to become a little bit different down the track because that's the way Facebook wants us to go. We believe that that's going to be way out the way what your gang did to get from SMS. Josh: All right. So hold on. You're saying that not only can you attract them through Facebook using their APIs, you're able to push them into your CRM system from the CRM system, then able to enable any other automated marketing systems that whether it be through email or anything else, is that right? Mike: Oh, absolutely. No, no. If you can pull the data in you can use any CRM you like. What I'm suggesting here is if it's in Messenger, purely Messenger in your inbox, what we're able to do is push back out to those Messenger users through Messenger. Mike: So we're getting a higher conversion rate there. So what we're able to do inside Messenger is, imagine this. You can build the best email newsletter along with the best website pushing it out through SMS. That's what Messenger is all about. Josh: And it's on an engaging platform that everyone's on. Mike: That's right. And the more you push through it as an engagement, Facebook's AI algorithm was learning. So Facebook now knows where to point the rest of the people who are thinking and talking about the same thing. Josh: So that's pretty awesome. And I'd say everyone knows what the bell curve is. There's the adoption cycle and then the replication cycle. And then the people that finally jump on at the last stage there. I would say this is something that isn't like a wait until you hear your friend about doing it. Do it now, because you want to be at the start of the adoption cycle. Mike: Absolutely. Right now, Josh, mate, the number is out. Less than 1% of all business pages have an automated chatbot. There's a lot of business pages out there. There's about 600 million, I think that's the last wacko number they've come up with. They're telephone book numbers of course. But this means there's a lot of opportunities for small business to actually stake their client the same way if you were able to state your claim in 1995 on the internet. Josh: Well, I think that that that speaks worlds of words. If you're able to get on board now and have this done for your business, you're going to be seeing huge advantages. You're going to be seeing massive, massive lead generation. Your lead funnel's going to be full, really. Mike: Oh, mate, this is the simplest lead funnel ever invented for mankind. Josh: I don't need you to go through process and bits and pieces because as everything that lives on the internet lives forever, but my understanding is at the moment it's got a reasonably affordable entry price. Is that right? Mike: Yeah. I think he used a really good number there. 2020. If you want someone to professionally build it for you, you're looking at 2020. If you want to do it yourself, you can get on there for about 20 bucks and try and build it yourself. Knock yourself out. Anyone can do it. It all depends on, okay, what's your end goal? Do you want to actually turn it into a tool and generate leads and make money and do it the right way, or do you want to try and suffer and do it yourself? Mate, the videos are there, you can do it yourself. We'll provide all those videos. You just value your time, brother. Josh: I guess that comes down to one of the other episodes we've had there on money and being frugal. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. It depends on what you charge yourself out at and making sure that you work out that's an acceptable rate. What I can say is if you check out Chatbot Agency, you're going to be able to see an amazing result with the professionalism as well as the speed to delivery, to be honest. And when you get that up, tell me, what have you seen? What's the fastest time you've seen a lead generated after you've had one of your bots be thrown up? Mike: Mate, I love telling this story. I do training for marketing people and it's basically a three or four-hour process, where we go through, we train them how to build the chatbot. So here we are teaching marketing people how to actually set up Facebook Ads and do their targeting. I assisted this young lady with putting together a real estate listing ad for her client. She must've been charging the guy three grand, but she only paid me 900 bucks. Josh: The story of my life. Mike: Yeah. So I trained her how to do it all herself and by the time she left my office and she was on the City Cat heading home, this is within an hour of running it, she had a phone call from the real estate agent going, "What is going on? My inbox is killing me. What am I meant to do now?" So that was within an hour. Josh: So there's no reason why you don't want to grow your business. You've got to jump on this. It's 2020. This is a new technology. You've got to be jumping onto it. Do you have anything else that you'd like to add before we round up this episode for today? Mike: Mate, I reckon, look, if you're a small business right now and you're not on Facebook, I suggest you do it, because it's going to be hanging around for a while now. There are so many people on the platform. Josh: It's no longer Myspace, is it? Mike: No. This has gone way past Myspace and it's probably the best platform where you can target to the right audience from interest-based, and it's actually pretty good fun. Josh: Cool. So everyone hear that? If you'd like chat bots, chat bot automation or anything like that, makes sure to jump onto Chatbot Agency and you'll be able to get some really, really cool deals thrown through there. I might even be able to get a link here, a specialised link that you'll be able to jump across and check out. It may maybe a cool deal from Dorks Delivered across to you guys. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to jump across to iTunes, leave us some love and stay good. Enjoy 2020.  

Business Built Freedom
113|Tips to Stop Customers Cancelling

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 22, 2019 6:33


Tips to Stop Customers Cancelling   As time goes on, different trends appear to emerge. One of the things that we've been seeing is people cancelling a lot. I've got someone here that I'm going to be talking to from Perfectly Beautiful. Her name's Sarah and I'm going to be talking about if she has any customers and if she's frustrated with them cancelling on her. So Sarah, have you ever had anyone cancel on you? Read more about Tips to stop customers cancelling: https://dorksdelivered.com.au/blog/482-tips-to-stop-customers-cancelling Sarah: Yes, I sure have. Occasionally, we get people booking in for phone calls and when I call them up they won't answer the phone call so pretty much that I suppose is cancelling on on us. Josh: It's a bit annoying and I can imagine when they do that, it means that you're left at a dead end. You've spent some time, put it aside. You've already diverted that chunk of your life and everyone knows time is money and we've only got time in our life and that's the only thing that has value, really, so when they cancel that and you're going to be on the phone to them for 10, 15, 20 minutes and then they don't, what do you normally do with your time? Sarah: Well first of all, I'll usually start off by sending them a text message to say that we have called and if we can arrange another time to chat with them because usually they are interested in booking, so we don't really want to lose them and just leave them alone. We do that and then usually I'm kind of in the office anyway, so I'll just continue working and doing whatever I'm doing. Maybe sometimes they'll call back because them themselves might've forgotten about it and be in a meeting or in the car at the time. We then just hope that in some way they respond back to us, which they usually do, which is good. Then we'll just give them a call back at another time. Josh: Do you think that the reason for people, maybe cancelling or forgetting to be there to answer the phone when you've booked that in, might be not as much because they're millennials, but just because we have been put into a position where we've got too many things that we're having to juggle. There's so many distractions. We're driving to work. Obviously, we've got Facebook here and we've got Snapchat there or what do you think the reason is that they're forgetting the appointments? Sarah: Well, I think because especially a lot of people I work with are brides, so they're at a stage where they're in the craziness of organising a wedding. They sometimes will organise so many appointments that they might just simply forget about it. I suppose they might be in their downtime where they're sending out their emails and doing all their wedding planning and then forget that they actually just booked in an appointment. Sometimes it's not always their fault. We know that people are always busy, but yeah. I think our life is just busy in general. Josh: I absolutely agree, brides are busy people. That's why people call them bridezilla, I guess. With business owners, it's about the same so you're also a busy person, so your time and their time is both valuable and lining that up ... I know that you've got a couple of pretty cool tools that you use in your business to try and create calendar appointments and things like that. What have you found works and what doesn't work? Sarah: At the moment, I'm using Calendarly and in their email, they can click on that to organise a time so that will actually show my availability. If I'm, myself, busy with something, I make sure that it's in there so they're not wanting a call at that specific time. Then it shows that kind of when we're both free to sit down and have a chat. I kind of usually will allow my days that I know I'm going to be in the office all day and my days are going to be quite freed up so then I can have a proper chat to them and take the time to actually talk to them and if they aren't available, then organise another time during that time of the day. Josh: Cool and obviously in life, shit happens. Sometimes people cancel. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes it all works out well. Sometimes they don't have reception or the kids are home sick and they don't have the chance to to talk to you obviously. What do you find the trend is once they've got a deposit put down? Do you find that they cancel as often or have you ever had issues with people changing around or moving their appointments or adjusting things after you've had some sort of financial money come into the equation? Sarah: No, so with our bookings we take a deposit from them so then we know that they're secured and they're locked in. I feel like this stops them from cancelling at the last minute because they already have money invested into it and they feel trust in us that we're definitely going to be there because they've also got money invested into it. We don't really get any cancellations when people have put a deposit down because they know that it's all locked in and secure and we actually get people adding on people, which is actually more of a benefit than a loss. Josh: At the moment, I know your business is still in its infancy, but in one way or another, you've been in business for awhile and you've really just gone gangbusters over the last 12 months, but at the moment you've had no cancellations whatsoever after they've put finance down? Sarah: No, I haven't. Been lucky enough. No one's had a wedding been cancelled just yet so I'm lucky that I've had to do every wedding. Josh: Cool. Okay. So I guess that goes to say that the way that you should structure your business to make sure people are not cancelling is to make sure they've got some hand in the game, make sure that they're in a position that they have something to lose so that they don't cancel. I know myself, I've had had speaking events, we've had 140, 180 people registered and we've had 80 rock up and I find nearly every time it's only the free events that have such a terrible ratio as opposed to the events where someone has to put down even something small like $10 and they're going to rock up because they don't want to see that money lost and they wouldn't have registered for the event anyway. I definitely think making sure that they've got some sort of finances in there that they're holding up their money makes a big difference and it all comes down to the person. I'm sure if something terrible happened to a bride or something like that, that you're doing makeup for, you'd be understanding of that and help them out. Yeah, I think that's interesting stuff. Did you have anything else to add? Sarah: No, that's all. Josh: That's wonderful. So that was Sarah from Perfectly Beautiful and hopefully you don't have any frustrated customers cancelling on you and these tips have helped a bit. Make sure that they've dropped some finances down. Use some tools such as Calendarly, and you should be pretty good. I would love to hear how you stop customers cancelling on you and make sure to leave some comments there in the iTunes and leave us some feedback. Stay good.  

Sales Funnel Radio
SFR 263: Campaign Follow-Through...

Sales Funnel Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 26, 2019 17:13


A marketing campaign is nothing more than orchestrated noise around your product.    Here's an example of how to keep a campaign going when everything is going well…   A campaign is about creating orchestrated noise   … that's my definition, but really that's all a campaign is.    Running Facebook ads,  that's NOT really a campaign. It can be part of a campaign, but it’s NOT a campaign on its own…   Marketing campaigns are a dying art… which means MOST people are leaving money on the table.   Think about this...   We're no longer just in the information age, we're in the attention age where the loudest, not the best, is more likely to get paid.   HOW TO TURBOCHARGE YOUR MARKETING CAMPAIGN   Recently, one of my good friends, Josh Forti, did a cool launch, and he had me come on to promo this product.    After our interview was done for the launch, he asked if he could get on my Facebook page to chit chat about the interview and do a little MORE promo around it.    I swear one of the major reasons that people don’t do very well in this game is simply because they don't know how to do the second step that Josh took…   ...which is why I thought it'd be cool to share the interview with you…   I chopped it in different places and such, but you’ll see Josh ask some very general questions…   Then kind of after each of my answers, he'd go back to, "Hey, we covered that in the playbook, click here."    That skill is a very learnable thing, and it’s one of the easiest ways to get better results in your marketing campaigns…   Because, here’s the thing…   I see people with a...   Great Product   Excellent Funnel   Good Launch   ... but then they don't follow through all the way, and it cuts their launches down.    Campaigns are broken up into a lot of parts. I plan and put all the pieces together, and then, I ask...    How am I gonna get tension?    How am I gonna leverage the followings of other people to get attention?    Once it's in the middle of a launch, how do I keep the momentum going?    Once it's done, how do I keep that pressure moving as well?    And, so I thought this interview with Josh was a great example of how to keep the pressure moving...    So, when you launch your product, or whenever you're putting your stuff out; *REMEMBER*  it's NOT just about the product or the funnel…   It's about the noise.    So you need to ask, “How am I creating that noise?”    The success of your product is just as dependent on the noise you orchestrate as the product and the offer and the sales message itself.   If no one knows about your offer, you're NOT making any money anyway.    If you can't get anyone to even go look at your sales message, your product is already dead... so why did you make it?     So I'm just giving this to you as an idea, so you can see like, "Oh, man, I should go do that."    A follow-up interview whenever you interview somebody for a product you're putting out is NOT abnormal at all.  Let’s cut over right now…   JOSH FORTI’S MASTER MOVE   Steve: On the other side of this wall here, there’s a whiteboard and I call it my "questions whiteboard."    I believe that questions invite revelation, and that's good and bad...    So…    I have to focus on answering rich people questions instead of poor people questions.    Because whatever I ask, I will likely answer.    The purpose of the board is NOT for me to answer the questions.    The purpose of the board is me to figure out which question to focus on answering.    ...because I shouldn't try and answer EVERYTHING.    It's funny you asked that;  I don't know why, but it happens in the morning….    I'm getting ready in the morning and my brain turns on, and  I'm like, "Whoa, what about this idea?”   Man, I'm not going to lie, I've run out in a towel before to write stuff down... like, “That's such a sick idea!  Oh my gosh! I should try to answer that…”   And I put it on my questions board... and I write, and write, and write…   I have a BIG list of unanswered questions that I want to pursue.    It's NOT that I'll sit down always and be like, "I have to answer this now," and just dive into my books…    But, on interviews, because it's on my mind, I'll continue to clarify the answer to that question…    I'll be like, "I think it's this."    One of my favorite things is to go back and listen to those interviews and hear myself, and be like, "...that was probably the coolest I've ever explained an answer to the question on my whiteboard.”    And so I go back a lot, and it's one of the coolest ways I figure out like, “Okay, that made sense, that didn't make sense. This was helpful, that was confusing.”    And it's only honed me in what I do more and more.   FINDING WHAT RESONATED?   Josh: It's interesting how much you can learn about certain things that you say when there are clips of the crowd, (and they get the back angle)...   ... and you watch everybody's heads go down and start writing all at once.    And you're like, "Oh my gosh, they all really liked that point."    And so it's ALWAYS interesting for me to kinda go back and listen to old interviews, speeches, or things that I've done... that got A LOT of really good engagement...   ‘Cuz I feel like you can learn so much about what people really like, what resonated and what didn't resonate.    Steve: Well, it's funny 'cuz the market literally votes, (they don't know they're doing that a lot of times), and it's NOT just with products, but even with content, (you know that)…   It's cool to see that reaction when you say something and you know it's right, you know it's helpful…   ... but you said it differently that time, and suddenly it’s the click… and you're like, "Oh, that's what you mean!"    And then you see all the heads go down, and you're like, “Okay, note to self, say it that way next time because it's more impactful than last time.”   ARE YOU ASKING POOR PERSON’S QUESTIONS?   Josh: I believe that the key to thinking different…    The key to getting, basically, anything that you want out of life is asking the right questions.   If you know how to ask good questions, you can ultimately go out and find answers, have a good perspective, and get what you want out of life.    But how did *you* learn, like...    How does one go and actually learn good questions?   How do you determine what questions you're actually gonna ask, and what's worthwhile to go study or not?   Steve:    One of the biggest filters I run things through is, does that sound like a rich person question or a broke person question?   Josh: Hmm.   Steve:    A lot of times, people try to answer broke people questions just out of habit.    For example:   I don't clip coupons. I'm not against coupon-clipping. Well, actually I am… ;-)   One of the issues is…    If I spend my time and my attention and my focus on how to save money, I will find out how to do it…    ...but I also didn't learn how to make MORE money!   I'd rather learn how to make more money and who cares how much something costs at that point?     The one thing everybody has when they start this game is a buttload of questions.  … and it makes sense why they would. Just EVERYONE has tons and tons of questions.   Josh: Right.   Steve: That's natural… but, like start writing them down. I challenge everybody to do that…    And…   Before you seek to answer the question, seek if it's worth answering at all.   Josh: Yeah. That's huge.   Steve: It will pay you in time or money.   Josh: I love that.    One of the things you said is interesting because we mention it in The Mindshift Playbook, is the habit thing…   You said, ‘Often times we just do it out of habit,’ right?   Steve: You know what's funny, I'll go teach these models, “Hey, this is a cash flow model. This is a cash flow model. This is a cash flow model…”   And what's funny is, the very first reaction people have is, “Is that gonna work for me? Am I in the right spot to do this?”    And I'm like, “Oh, my gosh, are you kidding?”     ... it ticks me off so bad. Josh: It’s like, “Does ClickFunnels work for -----?”   Steve: You know what? Of the hundred thousand monthly subscribers, you're right, you're the one it's NOT gonna work for.  It's like, “Come on! Just do it."    People set a goal, "I'm going to go do this, and I'm going to use ClickFunnels to do whatever,” and they don't allow *themselves* to break on the goal.    That's the key…   You have to break *you* on the goal instead of change the goal.    Robert Kiyosaki says that as well…    As you start moving towards any goal, you’ll have these character flaws that explode in your face.    I was probably, you could say…    Addicted to video games in high school.    I was very overweight.    I got kicked out of college.    I barely graduated high school.    I couldn't speak.    I had major anxiety issues.    I am literally the opposite of everything that I was back then because I started realizing that,    I needed to allow myself to feel some pain on the way to the goal. Pain does not mean bad, and pain does NOT mean the wrong choice. Most of the time, pain means growth.   Josh: Yeah.   FAIL FAST   Steve: When you realize, “Oh my gosh, failure is really kind of a made-up principle. It's not even a principle, it's made up...    As I start to feel that pain, I start to feel the progression of moving towards things.   I went back and counted how many times it actually took me to make one of these funnel things work, and it was actually 17 funnel tries and 17 before that…   It was actually my 34th thing that actually blew up (from age 20 until now).   Josh: That's crazy.   Steve: That's A LOT of freaking failures.    ...and most of the time, people aren't going to be able to go through that.     About 1/3 into those tries, I became cognizant that…    I was changing at a speed faster than any personal development course could ever hope to give me. Josh: Ever! And you mentioned that in the interview too. You say like,    Entrepreneurship is the best personal development course you NEVER signed up for.   I mean, like it just is, and I 100% agree with that.    ...and it's interesting what you say about pain and struggle.    I think the one thing that we both agree upon is that the struggle is there for a reason. The struggle is a good thing.    The struggle is absolutely needed to develop you into who it is that you say. So it's interesting that like, they're saying it, you're saying it. Like, it's there…   I think in today's society, we're just trained to want to avoid struggle.    Everything is convenient.    Everything is now.    Everything is easy.    Like, “Avoid this!” (Thank you, marketers, right?), but like, you know what I mean?    I feel like we're trained as a society to avoid struggle, which I think is why it's so hard for so many people.    Steve: Yeah. And, you know, I think a lot of it, (and I'm never gonna be the one that just like slams and bad mouths school and all that stuff)...   ... but you think about it, you get punished for doing something wrong in school.    But like, man…    I do stuff wrong, all the time, in business, and that's actually the thing that accelerates me.   Josh: Right   Steve: “You can't do that here, or you can't do that here.”    Or…    “What if I fail?”  *Plan on it* And then you just move forward.   Josh: Write it in.   Steve:    I find that failing ends up being an accelerant to everything else that you do   I've gone through that many failures, and because it sucked for so long, it's NOT that hard to make cash now.    I'm like, “Okay, well, I solved that problem.”   And what I've learned is that while I teach these models, and then people feel this first sense of personal development requirement that comes like…    “Oh, man, I don't actually qualify to be running my dream in the first place.”    ...as they start moving, they start to gain this self-confidence. And then, they move faster and faster and faster…   I almost want them to hit some major speed bump quickly and then see if they can pick themselves back up.    That kind of person, I love working with them.   Josh: Yeah, because people don't know how to fail. Sorry. Go ahead. DO YOU QUALIFY?   Steve: I was chatting with Russell about this a little while ago…   I was like, "Dude, when I met you and started working for you in the same room, you were totally a different person a year and a half later by the time I left."    The Russell Brunson of 3 or 4 years ago, could NOT handle what he's doing right now.    But too many times we're like, “I want my dream with the million-dollar business now.”    Man, *You don't qualify* You've gotta get some personal development going down!   Josh: What would your advice to me be, if I were to go down that route and be like,    "Yeah, I'm gonna open up a talk show where we bring on interesting guests. Maybe we talk politics. Maybe we talk about business. Maybe we talk, whatever.”    What's your advice to me when it comes to doing those interviews or creating concepts around that?   Steve: Okay, so I'll tell you one of the reasons why Sales Funnel Radio has been so successful and “The Capitalist Pig” is such a big deal to people…  It's because it actively throws rocks around mainstream ideas that others believe.    So, I was in the Army, (and y'all know that if you’re on here, right?)    I was in the Army, I enlisted and I went to become an ammunition specialist, (which I didn't know at the time meant "fancy warehouse guy." )   I was like, “Crap, I wish I would have chosen something a little different."    Anyway, a little bit through that, I was like, "I'm going to go be an officer."    So, in the middle of my officer trainer, one of the things that they do is they make you study wars, battles, lots of strategy and movements... things like that.    So you study these HUGE battles, and it's a ton of fun. I really enjoyed it.    The guy who was teaching us was ridiculously smart. He's a historian that they brought in just for officer training.   It was a whole semester of just studying wars.    What's interesting is that he taught us that wars are started over usually pretty much always out of rights...   States' right   Human rights   ... that's what wars start over.  The Civil War was NOT started because of slavery. We did NOT leave Europe because of religious oppression, but that's how we romanticize the past…   What's funny is that in the middle of a war, a lot of times, a social issue will piggyback on the war.    So slavery becomes part of the Civil War, (like right towards the last hour)...    And that's when Lincoln said, "Hey, The Emancipation Proclamation, let's go dump it in there."    The same thing with like leaving Europe, as Americans, we're gonna go in and you know what… ‘it's about religious freedom now.”    It was NOT at first. We were Britains!    And the reason I bring this up is that from a marketing standpoint, when it comes to the way I treat a message, (this is not something I normally would talk about either), but …    I look to piggyback a message on the back of a social issue.    (Not a human rights issue... because then you're seen as political)    But when it comes to really disruptive messages in the marketplace, Socialism right now is getting a lot of attention…    So one of the easiest ways for me to get a lot of attention on a show is to become the anti-something major in a social issue that's currently got momentum.    It takes a lifetime to create momentum, but I don't have to do that if I piggyback on a social issue that I'm passionate about in the opposite way.   Josh: That's super good advice.   Steve: Yeah, I would figure out what big things to talk about. I find that themed shows always do better than a general, let's just...   Josh: Let's just talk.   Steve: Yeah.    So I would find something that you find and throw rocks at it like that, and then it's very natural to find those people who are for or against to hear both sides.   You'll get as many people who listen to you and love you, as hate your guts.   Josh: Yeah, well, I think this entrepreneurship like micro-influencer game has prepared me for the hate. Holy cow, dude!   Steve: Yeah, it only gets louder.   Josh: Aww, man, I tell you what! But I've learned to tune it out.   Steve: Well, thanks for listening and thanks for jumping on here.   Josh: Absolutely, man. Thanks so much.   WHOA!    If you're just starting out you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies, right? That's also good.   But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right?    That's what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula.    So I created a special Mastermind called an OfferMind to get you on track with the right offer, and more importantly the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it.    Wanna come?    There are small groups on purpose, so I can answer your direct questions in person for two straight days.  You can hold your spot by going to OfferMind.com.    Again, that's OfferMind.com.  

Business Built Freedom
082 | Scott Aurisch NRG Boost Fitness Interview

Business Built Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2019 26:36


This is a special episode courtesy of the Dorks Delivered Youtube channel where Josh interviews Scott Aurisch about his life in business and what motivates him. Josh Lewis and Scott from NRG Boost Fitness talk about taking the plunge in business in the fitness industry. Watch this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX1YaTk2bl0&t=22s Josh: I've got Scott here from NRG Boost Fitness and today we're going to be talking about taking the plunge in business. My understanding is you've been in business for a while and about 12 months ago, you decided to go for some brick and mortar. Scott: Yeah, exactly right. I've been in the fitness industry now for over 20 years but in business for myself for coming up to 8 years, and very close to 12 months in my own premises. Josh: Right. Are you loving it? Scott: Absolutely loving it. It's probably been one of the most tiring years of my life but certainly the most fulfilling, from a professional standpoint. Josh: I think it's a big discipline thing. You get your own business and you take a plunge and you do something that you're thinking, should I or shouldn't I, and if you take the risk, sometimes against all odds, and it's not that you fail, you don't fail, you make sure you don't fail. Scott: Exactly right. You sort of get rid of that safety net and you're just forced to step up and it's an enormous growth experience and I'm really pleased that I did. Josh: That's cool. And has there been any milestone moments over the last 12 months that really stood out as a, ‘I've made it’? Scott: Yeah! Probably no one moment, just lots of little moments along the way, where, when you do take a moment to reflect back on where things were... Pretty much 12 months ago was when I was in the planning phase for opening here, which all came together super quickly. Once I've made the decision to make this happen, things just seemed to fall into place, which is something we might talk about a little bit later on, but as the year has unfolded, just sometimes when I'm training somebody that I've built a good relationship with, in some cases over the years, but in some cases, people I've just met this year, it's in those moments that I realise what I've achieved, when you make those connections with people. So that's what I mean by what some people would regard as little things, rather than big milestones, but they're the most rewarding moments for me. Josh: That's cool. Prior to running out of brick and mortar, how was your business beforehand? Scott: I was working out of a local gym and I'd been there for several years, and it wasn't that I got to a point where I was unhappy, but I did feel like I wasn't growing professionally anymore, and I just needed a new challenge that would present that opportunity for growth and freedom as well. Josh: Cool, cool. I guess you haven't looked back. You're 12 months in. What sort of aspirations do you have for the next 12 months? Scott: Yeah, I guess I haven't looked too far ahead, which is probably something I need to get a little bit better at, but certainly, consolidating what I've achieved in the first 12 months, and I think one of the keys to that is building good relationships with my client base but also other industry associates that I have contact with. So I'll definitely be looking to build on that over the next 12 months in a way that is sustainable in terms of my energy and my own health and wellbeing because, as you would know, when you work for yourself, you can get a little bit focused on the business and some of your personal life can tend to suffer. Josh: Absolutely, it can go by the wayside. Scott: Yeah. Josh: It becomes a very addictive, very addictive thing, having your own business. Scott: It certainly can, and in my situation, where I'm preaching to people about achieving balance in your life. It's really important that I practise what I preach and set the example of having a balanced lifestyle where I'm looking after myself and looking after my personal relationships outside of work as well because your business might be firing on all cylinders but if some of those other areas of your life begin to suffer, that's going to impact on you as an individual at some point, and then ultimately affect your business. Josh: Yeah, completely agree. It's all about having balance. Otherwise, the whole system breaks. Scott: Yeah, that's right. Josh: If you were to go back to the moment while you were working for someone else and you didn't have your own business, can you remember what made you take the step and take the leap towards doing everything, wearing all the hats, and doing the payroll, doing your taxes, doing everything underneath your own banner? What was the catalyst towards the move? Scott: Yeah, probably just a couple of little moments. Again, it was nothing major. There was no massive falling out with anyone at my previous workplace, but just piecing a few things together and just some little frustrations and I thought it was time to take control of things myself and when you run your own business, you get to do things your way and you are absolutely responsible for everything that occurs. So, yeah, it was nothing major and just a couple of little things and I do distinctly remember in those moments thinking, yeah, I've got to do this because there was a lot of thought that went into it beforehand but when I eventually made that decision, like I said earlier, it all just fell into place. Josh: That's cool, that's cool. You do a lot of stuff for communities, and I understand you've gone back to the school that you went to and you've helped them out. Tell me more about what happened there. Scott: Well, I was fortunate enough to be contacted by the Logan PCYC who run a lot of great programmes and one of them is called the Deep Blue Line programme, which is in association with Queensland Police, where they visit local high schools and present an 8 to 10 week programme to a group of students of various ages. I was invited to come along and speak for one particular week about the importance of exercise and nutrition and, yeah, it was pretty cool. But one of the schools I got to visit was my own old high school that I had not stepped foot inside for 25 years and it was my Back to the Future! Josh: That would have been weird. Scott: It really was. It was a really cool experience, though. The place had not changed. It had been really well maintained over that time but it was just like going back to how I remember it. And then to go back as an adult, as a professional, and feel like you're adding some sort of value to a place that played a role in your own development. It was very fulfilling for me, and I've been back a couple of times since as well. Josh: Was there any old teachers that you saw and you were like, ‘Oh, no… Sir, what are you doing?’ Scott: No, no. Very much a turnover of staff but while I was at the school office, I did look at the boards with all the photos and the honour boards with the kids' names and that sort of thing. And just to tie that into NRG Boost Fitness here, I've actually got three old schoolmates as current clients. Josh: That's cool. Scott: Yeah. So that's also something that I find very rewarding as well and makes me feel really good. Obviously, we all run businesses to earn money. Josh: Ideally, yeah. Scott: Yeah. You've got to earn a living. You've got to support yourself and your family, but for me, I think one of the keys to my success is that I don't focus on just the dollars. It's about a lot more than that. It's about personal fulfilment and things that make me happy and the fact that I've got three guys that I'd probably fallen out of contact with a little bit over the years but have reconnected with in recent years. They're now current clients, and I'm helping them improve their lifestyles. Josh: That's cool. So you've been in business for a long time, you've got your bricks and mortar now, have a rough idea of where you're wanting to go. If you were to do it all again, would you change the order of events or what would you do differently? Scott: I honestly don't think I would change a great deal. One of the things I think I got right from the outset was as professionals, as entrepreneurs, you would have to read a lot about the importance of beginning with the end in mind, having a clear picture of what you want your business to look like, and it was the clearest example in my life where I was able to come up with a very clear picture of how I wanted this place to look, how I wanted this place to operate, and doing that, and putting effort into getting those details right from the start, allowed me to almost follow that to the letter and it was amazing watching that unfold. To have ideas go from just words on paper through to, a little over two months later, from when I first decided to undertake this venture and then to actually open my doors, it was literally two months, but the reason it was able to happen so quickly is because I was clear on what I wanted and things literally just fell into place. There was no forcing or pushing. Things just sort of fell my way. Josh: That's very, very serendipitous, or lucky, I guess, or fortunate that that worked out that way. Scott: Yeah. So just to answer your question in fewer words, basically, beginning with the end in mind was the most important thing that I did and I would recommend that for anybody else looking to do anything similar. Josh: Cool. A lot of people get into business and they think, ‘Oh, in two years' time I'm going to retire. I'm going to make a million dollars,’ and have these huge thoughts of grandeur and they don't necessarily make the appropriate planning before jumping in and understanding the depth of the water and realising how deep it goes and how much is actually involved in running your own business, especially when you're starting up and you need to be the person wearing all of the different hats. You need to be the technical person, you need to be the administration, you need to be the marketer, the salesperson, you do all of the different things all at once, and as you said, you want to have a balance in your business, you want to have a balance in your life. Was there any steps that you went, ‘Oh, shit, I need to learn more about this,’ or, ‘I need to learn more about that,’ or things that you went, ‘Oh, wasn't expecting that to be a hurdle?’ Scott: Yeah. Not really. That's probably another thing I think I got right—the scale of the venture that I took on, I think, was appropriate for that first leap. But the point you make about a lot of business people taking the plunge but not realising the depth of the water they're diving into, in my industry it might be somebody that says, ‘Oh, I can run a gym,’ and they take on this big operation and then it's not until they're in it and they realise what an undertaking it is. So I was pretty happy to start with a personal training studio that's literally a couple of hundred metres around the corner from home, so it suited my lifestyle and I've been really comfortable with the size of the jump, so to speak. There have certainly been things that I've had to learn as I went along but that was the whole point to begin with—to learn new things and challenge myself. Josh: I think it's very sensible the way that you've gone about the business because, as you said, a lot of people might just go in and they jump straight into a lease but they don't have any clientele and they have no idea about marketing. They just think they get some business cards and then they will come, build it and they will come, and that's not how it really works. I think it's great that you're in the IT world, they call it agile development, where you try and make the smallest profitable item first and then you build upon that. A good example would be Uber. So you don't start with an autonomous vehicle that's driving everyone, tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles driving everyone around countries. Instead, you start with an app that allows for people to take in that step until they've saved up enough money to then be able to move onto the next ventures, and Elon Musk does the same things. Josh: And you've done the same thing in where you've built up your clientele, you've created a rapport and the message is strong and your social content in strong, and the community that you've created around your business is very strong. Different events that I've been to with Scott have been 60, 70 people upwards. Your opening day here, I don't know how many people you would have had here, it was stacks, so it shows the belief and the message that you've instilled in all the people that you have come here is very strong and the allegiance of people. Scott: Well, I think, getting back to one of your earlier questions about community, I've done things outside of here for the broader community, but I placed great emphasis on the importance of building a community within your business, in much the same way that a café might do the same thing. There are hundreds of cafes, Brisbane wide, and what makes you choose one over another? It’s generally the one where you feel most welcome and almost like it's a second home, and so that's what I try to do here, again, not in a forced kind of way but just in an organic way, and it's been another very satisfying thing for me to observe, friendships being formed and I know that some of my group members socialise outside of here, that didn't know each other previously but they met through NRG Boost Fitness and that's sometimes more rewarding than dollars. Josh: I think just, straight on the friendship situation, it's something, it's a place... I come here myself and it's a place that I feel very comfortable in, and I've brought multiple friends here because I find it's a good time to be able to catch up and see people while having a workout, as opposed to catching up and having a beer and a pizza, which is lovely as well, but it's not as great for your waistline and your health, and I can definitely say you...we, two and a half years ago, met for the first time and I told you my goals and you said, ‘That's not achievable’, in nicer words, in the timeline that I wanted to achieve it in. You said, ‘Look, see how you go’, I think, and I tried really hard, twisted my ankle, stopped trying as hard for a while, but I continued to persevere and 12 months later I achieved the goal that I wanted to, the weight that I wanted to, the percentage of body weight that I wanted to, and I'm very impressed with the results I was able to get from you. But it was not just the journey of the weight. It was also the friendship that was made along the way, and a great example would be Scott coming over and surprising me of a lunchtime and taking me over to see the jolly old Saint Nick. Scott: That's right, yeah. Coming up to a year ago. Josh: Yeah, that's right. We were able to sit on Santa's lap together which was… Scott: For the first time in probably 30 years! Well, for me, anyway! Josh: For you, yeah! And I thought it was great that you definitely went above and beyond and I don't think there would be many business owners, or especially PTs, that would do that level of commitment towards the friendships and the bonds that were created within the community, so it's a testament to the way you create your business. Scott: Thanks, Josh. Josh: I'd like to cut across to a quick video that discusses more about taking the plunge and we'll talk more about that afterwards. It's big, it's wet, it's wild. That's right. It's Niagara Falls, and if you've ever been here or any other large waterfall, you might have wondered, what would it be like to just jump in? So, there was this time when Sam Patch, who was the first daredevil to take the plunge over Niagara, all the way back in 1829. He shot to fame and his slogan became part of a popular slang. The slang was, ‘Some things can be done as well as others.’ It's a great line. You could take it to mean that our achievements are equal, or you could also take it like we are trying to do our own thing as best we can, or maybe he was telling us that we can do those things that others think are impossible. So what about you? What's your Niagara Falls? What's that big challenge that you are scared to take on? Well, let me tell you, it's often much easier than you think once you just commit to it. For Sam Patch, he was actually pretty disappointed with the crowd that turned up for his first successful attempt. There was bad weather and he'd been delayed, so he announced that he would do it again a few days later. This time, 10,000 people turned up and he cemented his place in history. So, if old Sam can jump off Niagara Falls twice, there's nothing to stop you taking the plunge. Whoa! Josh: Good to be back. I thought that was pretty good. So we went through that you can sort of see sometimes it's not the first time, the first step, but just taking the plunge and just being the person that commits to that can really make a big difference in your business. So it's cool that you've gone through and you've done that and you've experienced that firsthand and you didn't, in a sink or swim situation, you were able to swim and, if anything, swim very, very well. Scott: Yeah. Well, just one point I'd like to add to that, Josh. As any person should do when making a decision to go into business or not, you're going to come up with your list of pros and cons, and you'll have your moments of bravery and you'll have your moments of fear and ultimately, for me, it came down to a fear of financial risk and when I really thought about it, I then fast-forwarded to when I'm 80 years of age and I look back, and if I hadn't done this, what would have been the reason that I didn't and would I be comfortable with that decision? And if it was just a money thing that held me back, I think I would look back and regret it and be disappointed that I wasn't bolder at the time. So, yeah, I think it's a useful exercise sometimes, to fast-forward to when you're in your final years, will you wish that you had have taken more risks? Josh: Definitely, I agree completely. I've always looked at it like, who would you like to see standing there at your funeral and... as dark as that is, who would you like to see standing there, at your funeral, and what was the reason you were remembered? And hopefully, there's a legacy that you've left behind, whether that be children or even just a nice smile in helping someone out and that's there some memory that you've left there. So it's work your way back from there. Scott: Yeah. And it might seem a little bit dark to some people but it's an extremely powerful exercise to take yourself through as well. Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Definitely. So what would you say would be the life tip or quote that you live by? Scott: Well, there are probably a few but one that I have been thinking about recently is not being a victim in life and basically taking absolute personal responsibility for your life circumstances. I just believe that as soon as you blame somebody else or other people for your situation, is when you give away your power. Sure, bad things are going to happen in your life and some will be other people's fault, but it's how you respond to that really makes the difference. So I really try to remember that all the time and take the appropriate action. So there might be people out there who are unhappy with their job and it's as simple as changing jobs. I understand that it's scary in that moment but if you're truly unhappy, you have the power to find a better job. Josh: Absolutely. Scott: And if you're overweight, you can continue blaming this, blaming genetics, whatever the case might be, but ultimately, if you eat better and exercise, you're going to improve that situation. Josh: Absolutely. And it's all about baby steps and getting the understanding, sometimes understanding your weak points and turning them into your strengths or at least having recognition towards them so you know how to work and come out of your comfort circle, to grow into a better person, whether that be through weight loss or a change of job, or a change of marriage, or whatever the situation is, it can all make you a happier you. Scott: Yeah, exactly right, Josh. Josh: Cool. And we're going to do something here. So we're going to do a shout out. You've done really, really well. Public speaking and especially in a global audience, like YouTube, can be scary. It's all imprinted in stone forever. It's going to live on longer than us. This could be our legacy. If nothing else, this is it. Scott: Don't stuff it up. Don't stuff it up! Josh: So you've done really, really well and I really appreciate your time that you've given me today, and I'd like to see if there's maybe another business coach, leader or business that you think would benefit from having a review and that the public would benefit from hearing from. Scott: Yeah, well, certainly one of the best things I've done in recent years in terms of developing my own business expertise, for want of a better term, is I undertook an internship with a business called Create PT Wealth. I attended a free workshop. It was probably over three years ago now, and that, in itself, was a half day, full day workshop that was highly valuable and I took a lot out of that and I realised the position my business, and I'll use the term business fairly loosely because at that time it was a fairly poorly structured business, and it made me realise what work I needed to do to make a real business. Scott: So I then undertook an 18-month personal training business internship and it covered all sorts of things: business systems, marketing, the whole gamut of things. At the time, I could not afford it, well, I told myself that, ‘You can't afford this,’ but something in me knew that I needed to do it and it wasn't an expense, it was an investment in the future of my business. So that was another time where I took the plunge and found a way to afford it and what I learnt in 18 months has been a massive reason behind where I'm at today, in terms of having my own premises and being very happy with my professional life. Scott: So Create PT Wealth is the name of the business and I would strongly recommend that anybody else in the fitness industry or a personal trainer seek them out and see what they can offer your business. Josh: Cool. Is there anybody particular at PT Wealth that stuck out for you? Scott: Yeah, well, certainly both Brad and Jason were both extremely helpful, right from that initial workshop and I also had a business coach, Leanne, through that time as well, that I would check in with, every fortnight, and just have a phone conversation, and it was a good way to be kept accountable. She would set me certain business-related tasks that I would need to report back to her on in the next fortnight and that's a really important thing, is accountability, because sometimes it's easy to make excuses to yourself but when there's somebody else that you've got to report back to, I found that that really kept me on track. Josh: Definitely. Scott: Thank you to Create PT Wealth. Josh: Cool. Well, I think we should all take a deep breath and give yourselves a clap. That's awesome. Thank you very much. Scott: No worries, Josh. Thank you. Josh: Awesome. Read about the interview: https://dorksdelivered.com.au/business-tips/interview-with-scott-aurisch-of-nrg-boost-fitness?highlight=WyJzY290dCJd I hope you enjoyed the episode. Every little bit helps and a small thing that you could do, as a token of appreciation, would be to jump onto iTunes and rate and review to make sure that other people can listen and get the same helpful help that you guys had. Thank you, and keep good.

History That Doesn't Suck
Volume III Epilogue

History That Doesn't Suck

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2019 78:14


No, no, no, no--Cortes would’ve gotten his butt whooped if he had not gained lots of indigenous help.” -Josh It’s time to end Volume III: “The Age of Jackson!” We have more corrections on Greg’s pronunciation (and on fracking!), an Antarctic email (no joke), other updates, and--of course--historical analysis to tie together the whole volume. We’re talking Andrew Jackson’s presidency, the extension of American democracy, western settlement, and the Mexican-American War. Finally, we’ll end with a little hint on where Volume IV is going.

Swimfans
Episode X1 - Eyes Wide Shut & Best of 2018

Swimfans

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 24, 2018


From the director of Flying Padre!Tom Cruise can’t get it in, Alex got the test results back, Craig was ready to give up everything, and you are ready to redeem Josh? It’s a merry muthaphuckin' christmas and Kubrick is sliding down the chimney in a pool of cum with EYES WIDE SHUT!And later, we quickly recap our favorite movies of 2018!Follow us on Twitter: @SwimfansPodJosh: @amonnsAlex: @Diatron5Craig: @craigneeson

Entreprogrammers Podcast
Episode 247 “Grind It Out”

Entreprogrammers Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2018 113:50


Full house today, Everyone picks on Josh about being gone and doing some Black Friday shopping. John mentions that finally sold somethings. Josh talks about the recent Plural Sight promotion. Josh talks about the new direction Plural Sight has taking since they’ve become public, in competition with Udemy. Josh continues with the promote terms with had with Plural Sight. John mentions that Josh was on full-on dick mode with the demands or the promotion. John mention with made about 40k this past month in sales. Josh talks about work with Plural Sight. Josh talks about other sales tactics with existing clients and partners.  John talks about the strategies they worked for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Josh talks about their lists and where sales were coming in from. EntreProgrammers talk about responses to emails. Josh talks about unsubscribes and more on emails. Josh talks about the membership group from a freelancer. John talks about getting an email from a guy to workout with and meetup. Mani talks about the expectations of communications via email. More talk about nasty customers via email and replying to email. Josh talks about their actual customer base and those who actually buy. Josh shares numbers on sales from the holiday weekend. John talks about getting emails from a coaching client and their services. Chuck talks about this email list and campaign for onboarding. Chuck talks about sending invitations for chatting on Discord to listeners and hosts of the Dev Chat podcast network. Chuck talks about getting the affiliation material offers together. Chuck says with want to do an offer on Ten Ways To Learn Anything. Josh give feedback on how to implement these offer via email. John talks about a guy who did an affiliate offer using Free link . Mani shares that he was talking with John about creating a flagship product to generate monthly income. Mani mentions that this could be a Mastermind with a focus on books or book reading. Josh talk about how this idea could work based on how others in the industry do something similar. Chuck ask how Mani is going to test this idea. Mani talks about how he wants to get people behind the cause.   Thoughts for the Week John - Consistency trumps intensity Mani -   Strategies lead to results… Josh - It is important not to lose sight of what you set out to do. Chuck - Trust your gut

Devchat.tv Master Feed
RRU 027: "Why I Prefer Functional Components" with Josh St. Jacque

Devchat.tv Master Feed

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 4, 2018 43:22


Panel: Charles Max Wood Nader Dabit Special Guests: Josh Saint Jacque  In this episode, the panel talks with Josh St. Jacque who is married with two kids and with one on the way. He is a professional product manager and software engineer. Ruby on Rails got him started on his career path and journey. Check-out today’s episode where the panel discusses functional and class components, among many other things! Show Topics: 2:12 – Let’s have a conversation about functional components. 3:20 – Chuck to Nader: “What is your preference between class and functional components?” 4:18 – Nader to Josh: “What is your take on pure components” 5:20 – Who makes these architectural decisions at T-Mobile? 5:46 – Josh: It really depends on the team and the project depending on how they want to proceed. Josh mentions Angular among other things. 7:38 – Chuck to Josh: It seems that through your post you are trying to make code easier? 8:01 – Josh’s background is Ruby, and basic principles. 9:12 – Question directed to Josh about components. 11:05 – Functional components. 11:35 – Some say that functional components are faster/slower than others. 12:50 – When do you know you need/do not need a functional component? 13:15 Josh uses functional component as his default but, of course, there are different factors for him to consider. The presentational stuff is separated. Sometimes he does convert it over. 14:21 – Let’s talk through the log post. 18:15 – Digital Ocean’s mid-roll advertisement! 20:58 – The panel talks about pros and cons of the different components.  21:33 – Ruby on Rails 22:06 – “Why aren’t you using...?” I understand what the tradeoffs are and will change when that time comes. 23:03 – Is there a certain thing that you would tell them about React applications? Is it more just best practice and it doesn’t really change their learning of the framework? 23:28 – Whenever you get comfortable then start exploring another pattern. When you get really comfortable, then you might never see the tradeoffs by using other options. It’s good for a developer to always be open-minded. Keep yourself uncomfortable, and don’t have just one tool in your belt. Try functional components just to keep it fresh. 25:00 – Josh answers a question from Chuck. 27:00 – Josh talks about things to avoid, etc. 27:42 – Nader: “Have you seen the new features and possibly the new features that will be added on later?” 28:01 – Josh has started using new features and he talks about the pros and cons of these.  29:55 – Chuck to Josh: “Are there any features to the components that you wish they would add?” 30:08 – Josh: I never really have run into anything, yet, that is too frustrating. I really like that it is a little limited, and no real big complaints. I would imagine that there are good components around function. 31:42 – Nader to Josh: “Any other topics?” 31:54 – One thing Josh would like to say is that you and your team are on the same page. You don’t want to get into fights on what style you are using. You don’t want to constantly be changing the code. Use one thing at a time or it will get real messy too quick. One example of this is from Ruby: hash rockets. 33:35 – How to find Josh online...look at links below! Links: Kendo UI Ruby on Rails Josh St. Jacque’s LinkedIn Josh St. Jacque’s Medium Josh St. Jacque’s GitHub Josh St. Jacque’s Article on Medium T-Mobile Angular Get A Coder Job Sponsors: Kendo UI Sentry Digital Ocean Get A Coder Job Picks: *Charles Conference in October (UT) Frameworks Summit Podcast Movement CES Home Depot Tool Rental *Nader “A Tale of Four Components” by Pearl Latteier Nader’s Blog *Josh Video Game Soundtracks – Spotify VS Code Extension Weight Loss – Ice Cream – Enlightened

React Round Up
RRU 027: "Why I Prefer Functional Components" with Josh St. Jacque

React Round Up

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 4, 2018 43:22


Panel: Charles Max Wood Nader Dabit Special Guests: Josh Saint Jacque  In this episode, the panel talks with Josh St. Jacque who is married with two kids and with one on the way. He is a professional product manager and software engineer. Ruby on Rails got him started on his career path and journey. Check-out today’s episode where the panel discusses functional and class components, among many other things! Show Topics: 2:12 – Let’s have a conversation about functional components. 3:20 – Chuck to Nader: “What is your preference between class and functional components?” 4:18 – Nader to Josh: “What is your take on pure components” 5:20 – Who makes these architectural decisions at T-Mobile? 5:46 – Josh: It really depends on the team and the project depending on how they want to proceed. Josh mentions Angular among other things. 7:38 – Chuck to Josh: It seems that through your post you are trying to make code easier? 8:01 – Josh’s background is Ruby, and basic principles. 9:12 – Question directed to Josh about components. 11:05 – Functional components. 11:35 – Some say that functional components are faster/slower than others. 12:50 – When do you know you need/do not need a functional component? 13:15 Josh uses functional component as his default but, of course, there are different factors for him to consider. The presentational stuff is separated. Sometimes he does convert it over. 14:21 – Let’s talk through the log post. 18:15 – Digital Ocean’s mid-roll advertisement! 20:58 – The panel talks about pros and cons of the different components.  21:33 – Ruby on Rails 22:06 – “Why aren’t you using...?” I understand what the tradeoffs are and will change when that time comes. 23:03 – Is there a certain thing that you would tell them about React applications? Is it more just best practice and it doesn’t really change their learning of the framework? 23:28 – Whenever you get comfortable then start exploring another pattern. When you get really comfortable, then you might never see the tradeoffs by using other options. It’s good for a developer to always be open-minded. Keep yourself uncomfortable, and don’t have just one tool in your belt. Try functional components just to keep it fresh. 25:00 – Josh answers a question from Chuck. 27:00 – Josh talks about things to avoid, etc. 27:42 – Nader: “Have you seen the new features and possibly the new features that will be added on later?” 28:01 – Josh has started using new features and he talks about the pros and cons of these.  29:55 – Chuck to Josh: “Are there any features to the components that you wish they would add?” 30:08 – Josh: I never really have run into anything, yet, that is too frustrating. I really like that it is a little limited, and no real big complaints. I would imagine that there are good components around function. 31:42 – Nader to Josh: “Any other topics?” 31:54 – One thing Josh would like to say is that you and your team are on the same page. You don’t want to get into fights on what style you are using. You don’t want to constantly be changing the code. Use one thing at a time or it will get real messy too quick. One example of this is from Ruby: hash rockets. 33:35 – How to find Josh online...look at links below! Links: Kendo UI Ruby on Rails Josh St. Jacque’s LinkedIn Josh St. Jacque’s Medium Josh St. Jacque’s GitHub Josh St. Jacque’s Article on Medium T-Mobile Angular Get A Coder Job Sponsors: Kendo UI Sentry Digital Ocean Get A Coder Job Picks: *Charles Conference in October (UT) Frameworks Summit Podcast Movement CES Home Depot Tool Rental *Nader “A Tale of Four Components” by Pearl Latteier Nader’s Blog *Josh Video Game Soundtracks – Spotify VS Code Extension Weight Loss – Ice Cream – Enlightened

Entreprogrammers Podcast
Episode 229 "Alternate Reality"

Entreprogrammers Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2018 73:51


0:15 John talks about his 12 hour trip to Rome. John talks about starting a podcast call Mic Check. John mentions visiting only 3 countries this summer. John says he is glad there are more EntreProgrammers, because he can now sleep during the show. 5:30 Chuck mentions going to Podcast Movement 2018 and talks about the events that took place during the conference and the best take aways of the conference. Chuck talks about the new tracking research he learned about from the conference. Also some ideas on how to pull tracking numbers form 3rd party services. Chuck talks about talking to Self Publishing School for a book. Chuck talk about doing so videos for subscribers 17:00 Mani ask about downloads verse subscribers on the podcasts. Chuck talks about creating book for React, JavaScript, Python, etc., and explain the concepts in the book for newbies. Chuck talks about he idea to do consistent production launches and create a continuous incoming.  23:00 Chuck talks about talking to he audience. Mani thinks Chuck could sale the product, or a pre sale, before he makes the videos. Mani talks about transparency in the product sales and testing. Mani talks about selling his course before he makes or create the content. Mani talks more about testing before selling to the public.  29:00 Mani says to get over to subconscious fear of selling. Chuck talks about opening sponsor spots on his podcasts where he could talks about his product. Mani talks about how to use lead magnets to evaluate what people want. Chuck asks about what is in Rome for John. John says he is going on a cruise later in the week.  33:00 Mani ask about the Podia , a course software company, affiliate promotion. Josh thinks it was a disaster or did not go well for them. Josh talks about the emails he wrote  to the 86k people an no conversions and no sales on day one. Josh mention that subscription software is not reality their thing, but courses are key for them.  40:00 EntreProgrammers talks about selling 2X4s to build a hypothetical house in the entrepreneur world. Josh gives his thought a bit early. EntreProgarmmer talk about making course about how to create courses.  50:00 Josh talks about doing a test launch for another client selling more courses. Josh talks more about the courses he will be working on in August and some idea he has for the community. Mani talks about marketing strategies of other entrepreneurs and how they increase conversions and sales.  1:00:00 John talks about paying for coaching to push you ahead on a full-time job before becoming an entrepreneur. John says it depends on on the kind of coaching you do.  Mani mentions that he is working on video upsets scripts. Mani talks about he recent affiliate launch. Rc Thoughts for the Week!  John - The key to figuring out where you fuck up now, it in the past Chuck - Get out of your comfort zone Josh - It either I good Idea, or a good story Mani - Shrink the scope, keep the discipline 

Entreprogrammers Podcast
Episode 222 “Caching”

Entreprogrammers Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 14, 2018 84:46


0:15  We’re live. John is currently on a house swap vacation in 10 degree cooler weather. Josh is talking about having San Diego on his weather app and loves the weather. Mani talks about his recent launch, 600 clicks, 17 sales at 300 dollars. Mani mentions being asked to unsubscribe some people on the list. Mani talks more about the logistic of the launch and email writing.  5:00 Mani talks about a 502 error and trying to figure out the issues with the sales page. Josh gives some feedback on the Chrome feedback. EntreProgrammer thinks there is something wrong with Mani’s WordPress page. This is a great episode to learn about the HTTP and HTTPS setting in WordPress and how to correct the issue of an un-viewable page.  10:00 Mani asks if there are any other settings he needs to know about the page. Chuck explains how the security features work on the page, and also some plugin info, and how to clear the cache. Mani talks more about the setting on the sales page. Josh gives some information on Mani’s overall conversion rate for the recent Meditation product launch.  18:00 Josh talks about his email launch experience and things to look for on a launch. EntreProgrammers are still trying to help Mani refresh his page. Josh talks about replacing the Patreon income. Mani talks about killing the Caching plugin to help the sales page. Mani asks about how dollar per subscriber should work. Mani talks about deactivating the caching page. Josh talks about the caching activity on their Simple Programmer page and the SEO team starting to change things.  25:00 Chuck talks about emailing his cohost and telling them about how he was not recording podcasts for at least 3 weeks. Chuck talks about creating a media kit for the sponsorship purposes. Chuck talks about some Blubrry issues. Chuck talks about the analytics of the popular show on Dev Chat TV. Chuck talks about building out his own tracking system for podcast downloads, to track the activity of the individual shows.  30:00 Chuck talks about switching feeds or activity on the shows to get a more updated and accurate statistic of the shows. Josh mentions a tracking data system on a new letter to track data analytics on the activity on the new letter. Chuck talks more about tracking on ROI of sponsors and trying to get feedback to help ROI. Chuck talks about his issue with recording podcasts and creating content for the shows.  37:00 Mani asks about the compensation of hosting shows on Dev Chat TV. Chuck explains how this works for the Dev Chat TV network. Chuck talks about how this might be an issue with a few hosts, but not all. John mentions a book to help the people show up for hosting. The book is called. “Pimp: The story of my life.” More talks about how to control the hosting situation. Josh suggests a way to create an automated system to allow hosts and panelist to attend to call.  43:00 Chuck talks about his critical role in the podcast business. Mani thinks that Chuck’s business is scalable. Chuck talks about being the talent and getting to the place or goal. EntreProgrammers talks about bring the host in the sponsorship sales. But that is not a good idea according to EntreProgrammers.  50:00 Mani asks about Josh’s mastermind emails. Josh explains that he is going to do a paid webinar as apart of the community growth. Mani talks about how he wants to see Josh’s personal story with LinkedIn. Josh says he is going to shut down the Sublime Text new letter and merge the program with the Simple Programmer list.  1:00:00 Josh talks about how to properly transition a dead list and move into a new direction. Josh talks about how he implemented ways to unsubscribe and move forward as a subscriber. Josh talks about how he is going to work on LinkedIn projects next week and help Mani in early July. Mani jokes about Killing John in the business, then scaling the business. Josh says John is like Cornel Sanders in the business. 1:07:00 Mani suggests listening to Dan Fagella podcasts. More talks about Mani’s launch.  Thought of the Week! John - Optimize for the future or for life. Mani - Sometimes I should push through or create better systems  Josh - It important to have a big goal, to take big action. 

Church Planter Coaching Podcast
Peer coaching and the One Day Coaching Map

Church Planter Coaching Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 8, 2018 16:41


In this episode of Coaching Podcast, hosts, Dino Senesi and Jamie Limato, are joined with guest, Josh Turner. Josh is a church planter strategist for Conservatives of Virginia. Listen and learn more about the One Day Coaching Map. Additional resources: One Day Coaching Map https://www.namb.net/Resources/Participants-Guide-4.0-Refillable-One-Day-Map.pdf Survive and Thrive by Jimmy Dodd https://www.amazon.com/Survive-Thrive-Relationships-Pastor-PastorServe/dp/1434709191 Transcription: Introduction: Thank you for joining us on the Coaching Podcast. As part of the Send Network, we are passionate about equipping church planters to live out the call God has placed on their lives. Join us as we talk through healthy coaching practices and why every church planter needs one. Here's your host, Dino Senesi. Dino: Hello everybody, this is Dino Senesi, and this is the Church Planter Podcast, coaching podcast. I'm the director of the Send Network. I have two guests with me today, and I can't wait for you to talk to them, and on my right is Josh Turner, and Josh is a church planter strategist for Conservatives of Virginia. Josh, good to have you, man. Josh: It's good to be here, Dino. Thanks for having me. Dino: Yeah, and on my left is my friend and comrade, Jamie Limato. Jamie is now full time with the North American Mission Board. He is the coaching coordinator. He works in the Northeast, but he works everywhere, and if you guys have been to MAPS or heard us talk about coaching anywhere, you've been exposed to Jamie and been blessed and encouraged by that, but this is a special podcast because we are celebrating 100 one day coaching MAPS beginning in 2013, and I want to defer to Jamie a little bit about that. Jamie, you've been around for a lot of those. What kind of changes have you seen in what we've been doing for church planter coaches since number one? Jamie: Yeah. So, our training has definitely become more, it flows better, and it's more interactive. It holds more of an adult learning model, and to be honest with you, it's been great to come along for the journey to just, to grow not only as a coach but also as a trainer, and so it's been fun to be a part of it since the beginning. Dino: Well, and my friend, you have contributed a lot to the development of the material from your practical experience as a champion in D.C. and just your passion for learning. Of course, you have the gallop strength learner, so you love to learn and you've passed a lot of that wealth on to us, so glad to have you on the team, and glad to have your contributions to the kingdom through church planter coaching. So the reason Josh and Jamie are together today is because they were in the first one day coaching MAP in 2013, August in D.C., and they knew each other, but they formed a special relationship through peer coaching, and so I want to start right on the 101 level because the word coaching means everything to everybody, all kinds of things, and peer coaching may not be clear what we're talking about for everybody. So, Josh, talk to us a little bit about what's a peer coaching relationship? Josh: Yeah, so a peer coaching relationship is where, well, at first, Jamie and I showed up at the one day coaching MAP and we got paired up to peer coach each other, and so ironically, we needed each other at the time and didn't realize how much we needed each other, and so it's basically just almost like practicing on each other, asking intentional questions, and helping draw out really what's already there in each other, and I think we did that well together. Dino: Yeah, and so, but that was a different skill for you, so Jamie, when you first started that kind of relationship, how was that different than other relationships that you had? Jamie: Yeah, well, I think it was different in that, just like Josh was saying, it was intentional in that we had coaching guides that we were using, and so the goal of it was to practice asking good questions, and as you would go along in the relationship, you'd begin to ask great questions because we'd learn that the best and great questions in coaching are off of the words that the person who is being coached that they're using, and so Josh did that great with me, and that was what was incredibly different from any other relationship that I have had up to that point. Dino: And so, Josh, in this process what changed in you because you were one guy coming into peer coaching, probably was accustomed to dealing with relationships one way, and now suddenly it's like a new way, it's like trying to ride a bike without training wheels. It's probably a little awkward I would think. Josh: Well, yeah. And so what Jamie did, too, was he listened well, and then he identified areas that he could probe and push back on, and one of the things he did well was ask strategic questions about what I was going through, and then the action steps, like what are you going to do about it. What are some things you can do next week? So, anyway. Dino: So when you say strategic questions, and I'll give you a second to let your brain roll just a little bit, but kind of give me at least from a topic, what are some of the things that you did talk about, or would typically talk about in a coaching conversation? Josh: Yeah, so in this particular coaching conversation, I think and believe we were talking about staff members, just staffing, different strategies and different challenges with staffing and so Jamie would say something like, what are three things you could do this week or next week or when are you going to do them? When's the best time to do them, and so we would set a date, and then I knew that the next time we met that that needed to happen, and he was going to ask me about it, and so it was very strategic, very intentional. Dino: So high level of accountability in coaching whether you're coaching a peer or not, Jamie, we get, some of us think, some people think that we're a little bit soft. We coach guys, but talk about accountability, how does accountability work in a coaching relationship? Jamie: Yeah, so the whole goal in the coaching conversation is to arrive at an action item, and one of the ways that we do that is by asking when questions. When will you do that? And then, they might say, I'm going to do that next week. Well, when next week? And they might say, Monday or Tuesday. Well, which of those would be better, Monday or Tuesday? And so, now we start to get down to a very identified goal and an identified set of action items that help us achieve that goal, and Josh did that incredibly well all while still targeting the heart because what we were both dealing with at the time were both heart issues. Yes, they had staffing issues related to it, but really, they came down to the heart for both of us. Dino: Yeah, as you're thinking about that, I thought of a word I haven't thought of before. I think about coaching, and that's annoying. Annoying because a good coach is persistent. You know what the relationship's like. You've agreed to be in this kind of relationship, but that doesn't eliminate it from being a little bit annoying at times, but we live our lives in the aspirational level, and Eddie Hancock was training recently, and I heard him say, too many of our goals are never, ever followed up on, and so what kind of things do you think you accomplished in the relationship, the peer coaching relationship, Josh, besides just strategic stuff? What kind of personal things maybe happened for you? Josh: So, what happened with that peer coaching relationship is it became intentional as well with the other parts of my life, like being a senior pastor. I started coaching my staff. I started coming home and asking questions to help my kids get through something that they were going through, not giving them the answers, but they realized, wow, I've got the answer through asking questions it was drawn out, and then being strategic and discerning about what, as Jamie mentioned, a real issue is because a lot of the times what we say is the problem is not really the problem. So coaching helps bring that out and identify that. It really solves problems. Dino: Yeah, we like to talk a lot about symptoms because symptoms are also those annoyances in life, and some of them never get resolved because we just want the pain or the aggravation to go away without going into deep waters, deep waters of the heart. Jamie, for you, you work with systems all over North America. How important is peer coaching and how does this affect the health of coaching in a city? Jamie: Well, I would say that peer coaching is incredibly important when it comes to establishing your coaching system because you cannot become a great coach until you become a mediocre coach, and until you become a pretty good coach, and the only way you get there is through practice, and so if you want, if we want to deliver great coaching to every church planter, we need individuals who will pair up, and they'll go through the training, number one, and then they'll pair up and engage in a peer coaching relationship where they experience the benefit of coaching, but then they also are ready to begin that coaching journey of growing as a coach, and they've practiced that in safety. One of the other things that happens in our Send Network peer coaching system is we also do a peer coaching look in, which Dino, you did with Josh and I, and the result of that is we're able to get feedback on the coaching that we have done. Jamie: And so we're able to hear from someone on the outside, the things that we've done well, the things that we could improve upon, and how those things relate to the competencies that we learned at the training. Dino: Yes, and you might be happening on this podcast today, and you're a church planter. You don't have a coach. You may be in the Send system, and one day you're going to be called on by a coach. You don't know what it's all about, and you might be a little suspicious. Well, I hope you would know today that we work hard on developing coaches to be great to help you fulfill your unique kingdom assignment, so coaching is about you, on our seat on the bus and men like Jamie and Josh invest hours and hours coaching planters and developing coaches, so that you could do what God's asked you to do, and ultimately that you could fulfill the mission of God where he has assigned you, so listening in on a conversation like this, you're seeing just a little bit up under the hood about how serious we are about the great coaching part. We say, oftentimes in our training, or I'll say, we could have said, Josh, we're going to deliver good coaching or we could have said, we're going to deliver kind of good or okay coaching or mediocre coaching, and we just couldn't find a word. We wanted to put a qualifier there, and we say, let's make it great. Let's put that bar in front of us because as someone said recently in our training, it's a great commission. Surely it deserves great coaching. And so, that's really the heart behind all of this. Josh, if someone doesn't have a coach, give them some advice on how to set up a peer coaching relationship. What would you do if you were in that situation? Josh: Yeah, so if you don't have a coach, the first thing I would do is just desire to have one. I mean, and realize how important it is to have a coach, and then just find somebody to coach, somebody else, another peer, another pastor or someone else that is interested in helping coaching and get involved and just start doing it. I think that's an important thing. Just do it. Dino: Yeah, getting those coaching reps in is critical, having those conversations will not only help you in the moment, but it'll help you develop your leaders and develop disciples just a little bit. Jamie, I want you to make reference back, too, because as a planter thinks about a coach, a lot of times a planter says I've already got a coach or I've got multiple coaches. Talk a little bit about the voices and how that fits together and how that might inform a planter. What is the exact function of having a coach in their life? Jamie: Yeah, one of the things that we talk about is helping us to understand what coaching is different from. It's different from counseling. It's different from advising. It's different from teaching, and it's different from mentoring. All of those particular voices are pouring in. They're pouring into the life of the leader, and we have plenty of those as church planters, and if we thought about it long enough, we could have a long laundry list of pouring in voices, whether that's podcasts or community leaders or people in your core group or people in your small group, and the reality is, is all of those voices can become, to get to a place where it's really noisy, and you don't really know what your next step is, or if you know what your next step is, you being to compare your next step with someone else's next steps, and so what a coach is able to do is come alongside the leader and begin to draw out what God has already placed in there. And to begin to help hold them accountable to the action items that they come up with. That was what was so life giving to me in my relationship, in my peer coaching relationship with Josh, and as I've coached other planters, it's been life giving to me as well in that he was able to draw out of me what God had already placed in there, and at the time, I had lots of voices speaking in, and the last thing I needed was one more voice telling me what to do. What I needed was a voice to draw out what God had already told me to do. Dino: Yeah, I always think about the book by Jimmy Dodd, Survive or Thrive, six relationships every pastor needs. So, there are voices that are critical to you, and it's not just the coaching voice, but the coaching voice complements all the other voices, Josh, because what you're being told by multiple people eventually you have to sort it out and make decisions, so that coaching voice is critical for that. Josh, what advice would you have for a church planter based on what you've seen? What do you think, what kind of voices do they need and how would you advise them? Josh: Well, I think they need several voices. I mean, there's mentoring, there's just different avenues, there's podcasts, there's all kind of places that give advice, but I mean, as Jaime mentioned, everyone, every leader needs a good coach, and I think you say that all the time. Every leader needs a good coach to draw out, as Jaime mentioned, what God's already doing, and so I'm, I mean, I think that's key in church planting. Dino: Very good. We need a shepherd of our soul. Well, we have in the show notes, we will have six coaching guides for peers, so if you want to coach, find a friend, and check the show notes and get the six coaching guides, and this'll get you started. They're nothing dramatic. They're just simple questions that you would ask through a coaching conversation. Have an hour meeting. Let your coach, coach you for 30 minutes. You coach him for 30 minutes, and see how God uses that to help you get clarity, to reflect, get some space, and get some accountability in your life. Josh and Jaime, it's a thrill to have both of you. It's been fun, and thank God for you. Number one, you were at number one, and so we're at number 101, and it's amazing to think about all that's happened over those years of working together. So, until next time, keep coaching. Closing Remarks: You have been listening to the Coaching Podcast, a resource of the North American Mission Board. Are you a church planter in need of a coach? Visit namb.net/coaching to learn more.

Entreprogrammers Podcast
Episode 202 “I Am Leaving Simple Programmer”

Entreprogrammers Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 16, 2018 56:29


0:15 We’re Live! Chuck is coming in from Las Vegas. Big news! John says he is leaving Simple Programmer. In other words, John says he is leaving the CEO role, but still doing the videos. John says he wants to take time to try other things and take a break from the programmer world. 4:30 Josh mentions the talk John and he as and the notice things changed after the book launch and the Europe trip. Josh talks about his plans as with Simple Programmer as they have continuous growth and transition. 8:00 Josh talks about maybe keep trucking along with Simple Programmer and keep doing emails and consulting. Or work on growing Simple Programmer even further into a multi-million dollar company. Josh says he is still not sure what to do yet, but he is leaning toward growing the company. 11:00 Chuck says he sees where they are coming from. Chuck asks if they have all the processes documented to run Simple Programmer. John says Simple Programmer is built on systems and basically runs on its own. Josh mentions that some of the things are not systemized as far as John and Josh’s part of the job. 16:00 Josh and John talk about the revenue that could make if they put everything on autopilot. Chuck asked if they will be happy with this change. John talks about how his goals kept growing even when he knew he should take a break or retire. John says he is now trying to simplify things and get rid of things. 19:00 John talks about allowing himself the freedom from work and has been thinking about this for a long long time. Chuck suggests a possible sabbatical instead of totally leaving the company. John says his last book was everything he wanted to say about software development and he is done with that topic. 24:00 John talks about the possible direction Josh could take Simple Programmer, and where he could contribute to that later on. Josh talks about the 6 month cooling off period before they know what they want to do for sure, and tidy of the company for the transition. Josh says John was the traffic engine and that is where he will need help. 27:00 Josh talks about the kinds of phases he will have to plan for traffic, books, courses, and marketing to continue growing the Simple Programmer without or minimal help from John.30:00 Chuck says Josh’s plan sounds similar to what he is trying to do. Chuck says he is curious to see how things go. 31:00 John talks about maybe going to Tibet or building/programming a game. John says he is firing himself from his own company. John says Josh can grow the company in the direction it needs to grow. 33:00 Josh asks about the light going out at the CES event. Chuck talks about the Samsung and LG booths at CES. Chuck talks about the power loss and the kinds of things going on at the event. Chuck says he is looking into the traffic engine details to drive traffic to his websites. 40:00 Chuck talks about his interviews and talks at the conferences. Chuck talks about his plan for building products. Chuck talks about the processes for starting a podcast and running a podcast, as he starting a React and View podcast soon. Chuck signs off. Booth babes. 43:00 John says they have Chuck’s blessing for the upcoming transition in Simple Programmer. Josh and John talk more about the reversible changes in case things are not going well. Or if things are going great, then there is no need to reverse the changes. 43:00 John talks about making an announcement video for the company. Also, changing emails and maybe creating a customer service system for Simple Programmer. John talks about the current situation in running Simple Programmer. 46:00 John talks about instead he should be the Chief Story Teller for the company. Josh says this is an absentee own role for the company. C Thoughts of the Week John - Change your vision and identity, and then actions with change. Josh - It is worth paying the premium price.

Entreprogrammers Podcast
Episode 185 "Got This Nut Cracked"

Entreprogrammers Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 19, 2017 57:15


0:15 We're live.  Just Chuck and Josh. Josh talks about a Chrome bug that is not letting him use his good mic. Also, some tech tech about Josh’s new screen. Chuck says it is rain and he is not going to fix this leaking pipe. 2:30  Chuck says he was doing Angular Dev Summit all week, and gain some 700 emails for his list. Chuck say it was a good summit ad great talks. Chuck mentions that he is home alone with he kiddos.  5:00 Chuck talks about working with Fulcrum an automation tool.  Chuck mentions that he has a new process with his podcast production. Chuck is also working on the renewals of sponsorships.  8:00 Chuck says he is finally releasing the episode before the show notes are done, then he can catch up with the show notes later. Josh talks about maybe using  a place holder for the show notes. Chuck talks about the downward spiral with a  show note writer.  10:00 Josh ask about the Angular Dev Summit, and some general attendee questions. Chuck talks about sending a email out about the summit to those who did not show up. Chuck says he want to find some to do this leg work for coordinating the summits and conferences.  15:00 Josh ask about how the “Free Model” work this time around. Chuck says the emails he gain were worth the whole event. This is a 5% bump for Chuck’s list. Josh asks about the popularity of Angular to React. Chuck explains the difference  17:00 Josh and Chuck talk about the Angular JS, and how React is growing. Chuck says he does not have a React show on yet.  But he is working on it. Chuck talks about the mainstream support of the different programming languages.  20:00 Chuck talks about the banner issue that was not happening with the sponsors. Josh mentions hat John is flying home now.  23:00 Josh talks about the revenue and reach of the sponsorship. Josh talks about finding the qualified leads and get the customer value. Josh talks about the $6 a click. Josh talks about how is learning and reinventing the wheel for the sponsorships and sales. Josh thinks that they need to out source sponsorship sales. Maybe a 15 -20% commission.  28:00 Josh thinks this is outside of his niche to do the sponsorship sales. Chuck talks about the sales process from his point of view. Josh thinks that his would be a full time job for him, but he might have better use for his time.  30:00 Chuck talks about what a new show means for the revenue of sponsorships. Chuck and Josh talks about all the task for doing sales call and working with the CRM.  37:00 Chuck says he wants to build his own CRM. Josh and Chuck about their biggest problems with a CRMs. Josh says he want to mash a CRM with Trello.   39:00 Josh says he is looking for someone who does media sales. Josh talks about doing some experimentation with LinkedIn Ads. But they’re expensive. Josh talks about the campaign he did, and who he targeted.  42:00 Josh talks about how  LinkedIn ads work. Josh says the is probably how he was find someone to help them. Chuck says he would give an introduction to someone who does marketing for podcasts.  44:00 Josh talks about a new licensing program they’re apart of for the new book and podcasts. Next this is working on the audio book.  47:00 Chuck says he like listening to audio. Josh says he does both kindle and audio. Chuck and Josh discuss the next process of the show notes on the podcasts.  Thoughts of the Week! Chuck - Creating the process and trusting the process.  Josh - It talks some time in marketing…  

180 Nutrition -The Health Sessions.
Josh Sparks: Rights & Wrongs Of The Food Industry & Fat Loss Tips For The Time Poor

180 Nutrition -The Health Sessions.

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 8, 2017 60:26


This week welcome to the show Josh Sparks. Josh has spent the past 14 years in high growth leadership roles as CEO of sass & bide, Managing Director with Urban Outfitters Inc, and CEO of Thom Browne New York. As a lifelong health and fitness enthusiast, and with five years of powerfully personal experience with ancestral health protocols, Josh was consistently astounded at the lack of any authentically healthy dining in top retail centres around the world. Recognizing the transformational potential for a health and wellness brand founded on evidence based dietary principles, and excited by the opportunity to genuinely enhance how customers look, feel and perform, Josh brought together his many years of professional experience and personal passion to create THR1VE. Questions we ask in this episode: What are the main motivations behind the food industry? Profit? Wellness? How do we take people from thinking about wellness to actually empowering them and taking action? Has the word ‘paleo’ had it’s day? Where do you see the nutritional and health/wellness trends going? You’re in good shape. What are your fat loss tips for the time poor? Who inspires you in the health & wellness circles? Shop: http://shop.180nutrition.com.au/ This week, we welcome back to the show the awesome Josh Sparks who is the founder of THR1VE. It was always a pleasure getting Josh back on the show and we get into some fantastic topics today including, where is the food industry and where is it going? [00:01:00] Are we seeing any improvements ... Josh is in the firing line every single day with his THR1VE cafes ... What are the main motivations behind the food industry and world? Is it profit, is it wellness and why we have to be proactive and educate ourselves and know exactly what's going on so we can make better nutritional food and health choices moving forward. Josh also shares his top tips for fat loss and what he's discovered over the years and what he does and how he maintains his shape. Josh is the same age as me and, which is 43, I think, too and he's in fantastic condition, he looks after his health tremendously. [00:01:30] We also get into his recent discoveries on longevity and what he did with Dr. John Hart, who was a fellow guest on the podcast as well. We get into that topic and we also get into a whole lot more including Josh's ready-made meals and what he's doing with THR1VE and making actually good nutrition much more accessible for people that are on a budget and have difficulty with time on their hands, which is a lot of us. No doubt, you're gonna enjoy today's episode. [00:02:00] I just wanted to mention as well guys, if you do listen to our podcast on a regular basis through iTunes, please leave us a review. It takes two minutes to do, to say whatever you need to, whatever is honest, hopefully positive. If these shows are actually helping you and you get a lot out of them, a simple review, subscribe and a five star, goes a long way to helping us get the message out for other people that are trying to make the changes and find this content online, so that would be awesome. Anyway, let's go over to Josh Sparks. This one's a pillar. Hi, this is Guy Lawrence, I'm joined with Stuart Cook as always. I'll say good afternoon Stu. Stu Hello mate, how are you? Guy Awesome man and out fantastic guest today is Josh Sparks. Josh welcome back to the show. Josh Thank you so much for having me back, Gug and Stu. Guy [00:02:30] Josh, I got to say mate, you've made the next level 'cause you have now returned to the podcast. You've made like the elite few that have come on the podcast more than once. Josh That's actually been my ambition, that's been my dream. We've got a little jar of awesome up there, so I'm gonna write a note and put it in the jar of awesome. Guy Yeah, totally man, totally. Well, it's been a while, I think it's like two years almost, so it goes quickly, absolutely [crosstalk 00:02:48] Josh It's flown by. I haven't seen you guys in about that time, but it feels like not that long ago we were together doing the THR1VE conference on the [crosstalk 00:02:57] Guy You think? [00:03:00] Josh Mate, you're looking fantastic. You like reverse aging or something, I don't know. Stu There you go, that was a big royal [inaudible 00:03:06] Take that mask off, Guy and we can get into [crosstalk 00:03:12] okay? Guy Yeah [crosstalk 00:03:13] Stu Mission Impossible [crosstalk 00:03:14] Guy  [00:03:30] I know, I know. Josh, just in case ... I ask everyone on the podcast this question. I don't think I actually asked it to you last time you came on. Just in case our listeners haven't been listening for the last two years, which is probably quite a few of them, if a complete stranger stopped you on the street and asked you what you did for a living, what would you say? Josh  [00:04:00] Oh wow, well, I would say that I'm the founder and CEO of THR1VE, which has been in my life for the last four and a half years or so. I've had an interesting journey pre-THR1VE. I spent 15 years building fashion labels of all things in Sydney and in New York and then in Philadelphia. It's been a long and winding road, always focused on consumers. I've never done business to business, always business to consumer. I feel like I'm still selling to the same people, I'm just not selling them superficial surface stuff anymore. I'm selling them nutrition to actually change them from the inside out, rather than the reverse. Guy Yeah, I was gonna say, if they asked you what THR1VE was, what would you say then? Josh [00:04:30] Well, our little tagline is extraordinary health, made deliciously simple. It actually kind of is a good summary. What we're trying to do is take the best of high performance nutrition, the best of nutrition science, match it up with our chefs to make it delicious, 'cause if it's not, there's not really much point and then make it as simple as possible. By that, we mean, accessible in terms that you can get it wherever you are, whenever you want and not crazy prices, not café restaurant prices, trying to make it available to as many Australians as we can. Full Transcript & Video Version: http://180nutrition.com.au/180-tv/josh-sparks-interview/

The InForm Fitness Podcast
28 The Psychology of the Trainer/Client Relationship

The InForm Fitness Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 15, 2017 41:12


Inform Fitness Founder, Adam Zickerman, welcomes Clinical Psychologist and InForm Fitness Strength Training Instructor, Joshua Cagney to discuss the varied psychological and emotional aspects encountered by both clients and trainers and how high-intensity strength training can be a cathartic experience.We want to reward you for listening to the InForm Fitness Podcast by offering a free training session at an InForm Fitness location nearest you plus an opportunity to qualify for an InForm Fitness Prize Pack.Earn one FREE SESSION when you leave a review for InForm Fitness in iTunes, Yelp, Google+, Facebook,  & Amazon! Simply write a review and send a screenshot to podcast@informfitness.com - that's it!  For each review you leave, you will receive and entry for the GRAND PRIZE!One lucky listener will receive a personally autographed copy of Adam Zickerman's book,  Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. That listener will also get decked out in InForm Fitness apparel including an InForm Fitness T-shirt, hat, and a hoody jacket. And we'll top off the prize pack with an Amazon Echo! Click here to see the Amazon Echo in action:http://bit.ly/2InFormFItnessGrandPrizeContest ends May 31st, 2017.  Listen for more details!To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.comIf you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTenIf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com28 The Psychology of the Trainer/Client RelationshipJosh: The truth is that if we're doing our jobs effectively as instructors, that's entirely placing the clients' needs ahead of our own. We each have an innate need to want to sympathize, to want to offer our sympathies whenever someone suffers a loss or a stressful period of time emotionally, but the longterm consequence of that is we blur those lines. The goal is making sure that you know the client well enough to understand what is going to be most conducive to getting her through a really productive workout. That's when an instructor is really showing his or her metal, when they're able to put the clients' needs ahead of their own.Tim: Hey InForm Nation, can you believe it? We are already at episode 28 of the InForm Fitness Podcast: Twenty Minutes with New York Times bestselling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with the InBound Podcasting Network and I'm a client of InForm Fitness, and in just a moment, we'll hear from the founder of InForm Fitness, Adam Zickerman. Sheila Melody, the co-owner of the Toluca Lake location is back with us, and still on vacation is Mike Rogers. Looking forward to having Mike back with us next week, as we interview one of his clients from the Manhattan location, Gretchen Rubin. Next week's episode is bound to be one of our most popular episodes, and I'll explain that at the end of this one. Also at the end of the show, I will remind you of our May 2017, exclusively for InForm Nation. We have a really cool prize pack, valued at over two hundred bucks, but let's not get ahead of yourselves. Remember that voice you heard at the top of the show? That was InForm Fitness trainer/instructor, Joshua Cagney from the Restin, Virginia location. Joshua also happens to be a clinical psychologist, which is why Adam invited him to join us here on The Psychology of the Trainer/Client Relationship. Sometimes after a period of time, those who are being trained become so comfortable with their trainers, they might start to share some intimate details of their life, and the trainer, in essence, becomes their therapist. So where do we draw the line? Can this type of relationship actually help, or hurt the progress of your strength training? Let's join the conversation with Joshua Cagney, Adam Zickerman, Sheila Melody, and myself, with The Psychology of the Trainer/Client Relationship.Adam: So first of all, I've had this conversation with Josh in person, a resident clinical psychologist/exercise instructor. I was talking about — I was there giving a certification course, and many times when I'm talking with trainers, we talk about how to motivate, how to inspire, how to keep people on track. How to make them feel that, I know this is hard but you can do it anyway and stick with it. During that conversation, we were talking about the relationships that develop over time and that there is a definitely a psychology involved in maintaining these relationships and motivating your client. Then lines start getting blurred, and I hear very often, it's kind of a pet peeve of mind, and maybe it's a pet peeve of mine because I've been doing this for twenty years now and I've seen the damage, I guess. The pet peeve is when I hear that you're more like my therapist, the client would say. I come here and it's like a therapy session, or the trainer would say, I feel like I'm a therapist sometimes or I act like a therapist. People come to me, they talk about their problems, they lay it all on me, they can tell me things that they can't tell anybody else, and I get all that, but when I hear that, the hair on the back of my neck goes up a little bit. Maybe because it's my twenty years experience, and the reason that the hair goes up on my neck is just because there's a psychology involved in motivating and working with your clients, doesn't mean that we're psychologists, and that's when Josh said, unless you are a psychologist. I realized that Josh is not only an exercise instructor, which was what I was talking to him as, but I then realized that he's actually a clinical psychologist. So I guess that doesn't apply to him, he is a psychologist when he's dealing with psychology of training clients, and we have to be careful, both as clients and trainer, to make sure we're not blurring those lines, and the instructor doesn't get all full of himself or herself, thinking that they can actually solve these people's problems. I think that the client themselves needs to know what their boundaries are as well, and as much as you connect with your trainer, as much as you appreciate your trainer, as much as this trainer builds you up, not just physically but mentally, as much as all of that happens, they're not their therapist. The reason this is important to me and the reason the hair goes up on the back of my neck is because we end up, both client and instructor, we end up not doing our jobs. What we find happens during the exercise session is a lot of chit-chat going on, there's a lot of wasted time, and the workout suffered. It's a twenty-minute workout, and there's no way you can be a therapist and a trainer in twenty minutes. So then you lose a client, and this is where my twenty years experience comes in. What ends up happening is one day, the client wakes up and says, what the hell am I going there for. I'm getting bored, I'm not feeling the results, I'm feeling a plateau. It's becoming a chore to go there. Maybe the time before that, the quote unquote therapist trainer said something they didn't like, the way therapists sometimes do, and then you've got your patient not wanting to come back anymore, when they weren't your patient in the first place. They were your client, the person you were supposed to train, and now that they don't like you as their therapist anymore, they don't want to come back. So it's a slippery slope, and if you've been a trainer long enough, you've been there. If you're listening to this and you're not a trainer but you're a client of a trainer, and if you've been doing this for any amount of time, you might also relate to this trap that we tend to fall into. If you're listening to this and you've never hired a trainer, when you do, or if you do, this is an important thing to keep in mind. So Joshua, being both an instructor and a clinical psychologist, am I making sense? Am I right?Josh: I think you are absolutely right. From a clinical perspective, one of the things that's important for a therapist to understand is that we each specialize in something that's unique. So if I specialize in trauma based therapy, it does not mean that I'm a good marriage counselor, doesn't make me a good family counselor, and the inverse is true. So when we look at what the specific goal is for any kind of relationship that we have with a client, we need to keep that goal premiere in mind when we develop that relationship. There's blurred lines that come to play when, based on vulnerability and the relationship that you've built, and this is something that you commonly see in a clinical environment when you're dealing with long-term therapy, where clients will be opening themselves up in ways that make them vulnerable, exposed, and it's very easy to misassociate or misassign feelings that a client will have towards a therapist based on that vulnerability. Being in the studio isn't a whole lot different in that regard. You're in physically compromising positions, you're in incredibly intense situations under a lot of physical and emotional stress, so you feel incredibly vulnerable for those twenty, thirty minutes at a time. So the net result is, people tend to feel, when they're working out, open and extremely emotional and extremely anxious and stressed at different points, and the one person that they have contact with is their strength trainer, their instructor. So it's easy for those lines to get very blurry and it's absolutely critical for the strength training instructor to be in a position where they have clear boundaries and clear guidelines about what's appropriate, what's not, and leading that relationship. I think that you're actually really on target, I think that's pretty insightful. Whether it's twenty years of experience or whether it's something you're able to impart to people, it's important.Tim: Speaking from the client's perspective, as a client of InForm Fitness, as you mentioned Josh, it's a very intimate relationship and connection with that trainer. As you said, we're vulnerable, we're hitting muscle failure, but also the environment at InForm Fitness is conducive to building that relationship with your trainer because it's not a crowded gym. It's a very private, one-on-one situation so I guess it's incumbent on the trainer to manage where those lines are, where that blurred line stops.Josh: It is important, and those boundaries again, they're not always very clear, and there are certainly things that are critical for the client and the trainer to both bare in mind. Ultimately that is what is contributory and what is conducive to achieving the goal that my client is here for in the first place. If you have a client who walks in after having been thrown out by their spouse the night before, they're not going to be in a position, chances are, to exercise. So that may be an appropriate time to say, you're just not ready for today, and that's alright. Take a day, take as much time as you need to be able to put yourself in a position where you're ready to focus, but that's part of the boundary. Not saying, please talk to me about what it is that is going on and how can I help, but instead, staying focused on the goal and supporting the client back to what the real mission is.Sheila: Yes, people come in and they may have gone through something or they may have just received a very disturbing email or phone call or something like that, but they want to continue on their schedule because it helps them to stay feeling normal. I have had people come in and they're not revealing to me what happened, but then in the middle of the workout, you're in that really intense position, and after a couple times of exerting that, they can't hold it in anymore and they start crying because they cannot hold that emotion in anymore, because you're letting all of that energy go.Adam: This workout definitely brings out, for me and I've seen it with others, it definitely brings out your emotions. It's an emotional experience with such intensity, and if you have something going on in your life like you just mentioned Sheila, that's going to pull right on out.Sheila: We do need to be prepared to deal with situations like that, and understanding the difference between being a therapist and just being encouraging or being able to tell the difference of this person shouldn't be working out right now. Sometimes just quietly allowing them to move to the next exercise and get through it, we've had people say, thank you so much. For instance, after the last election, it was very emotional for a lot of people, and some people came in the day after. Especially in L.A, and it was like, we just took people through. They were all saying thank you, thank you for helping me to do something good for myself even though I'm really upset right now, but maybe because in L.A, everybody already has a therapist. Josh: That's different than Washington D.C. where everybody needs a therapist.Tim: For somebody who has been working out at InForm Fitness for quite some time, say with one trainer in particular. You can't help but have that relationship build. You're seeing that person every single week, you're vulnerable with them. There is a little bit of time between some of the machines and the exercises, and a good trainer, I believe, will find their client's interests and use those interests to motivate them through those exercises, so there's a connection that's made there. As in any relationship, it grows, there's ebb and flow, but do you think after a certain period of time, where it gets too comfortable, maybe it's okay or you should shift to a different trainer to kind of mix it up a little bit or start over again? What do you think about that?Josh: I think that's a healthy question to ask, but I think there is no one size fits all answer. This is really entirely dependent upon what the client is like, what their disposition is, what their needs and goals are, and then what the trainer is able to give them. So when we're talking about someone who is developing a relationship and a degree of trust, that's not really something that is easily transferable to another trainer, because we personalize that. So outside of that, when you're looking for something that's ultimately going to be most enhancing component of a relationship for a specific client, maybe it is breaking away from that personal relationship and creating something that's much more concrete and core.Adam: When you're a sole practitioner and you don't work for a company like InForm Fitness and you're the trainer, it's hard to give them to somebody else, one of your colleagues, and kind of swap out. So that's not even always an option.Josh: Particularly if your income is based on client retention.Adam: That's what you mentioned earlier before, Josh, the mindfulness of knowing when to speak, when not to speak. Knowing what to say, what not to say. They're coming in in a very emotional state. It reminded me of a client that I have whose sister passed away, and she's a client for a year. When I first met her, her dog had passed away, and I remembered how as soon as it brought it up with her, how are you doing with the dog, she'd get all teary eyed and the workout kind of suffered. Now her sister passed away about a year later, and I knew better this time. So it was interesting how I didn't say anything to her. Now here's somebody whose sister died, she comes to her workout, and I don't even give her a hug like hey, sorry, because I just know how that sets her off. It might have seemed insensitive but I think she really appreciates it because she comes in, we go in there, we work out. I don't say much, and she leaves and every once in a while, we'll talk after the workout, and I'll say next week, we'll talk about the future of her plans and stuff like that because we are friendly, and she says I'm not quite ready for this or that, she'll say. I've had a tough year. She knows I know what she's talking about, yet I've never even sent her a condolence. I know when I see it in her eyes, she looks at me when we talk about these things, that she appreciates the fact that I'm not talking about it. Sheila: I know I can be like that.Adam: This is one of those cases where you just don't bring it up. She knows you know, she knows you care, and because you care, she knows this is why you're acting this way.Tim: Well that's because of the relationship that you've build with her through the last year or so, but there might be some others that think how insensitive for them to act as though nothing has happened.Adam: Including me. I'm listening to this conversation with us right now, and I'm finally — this is like therapy for me, because I'm realizing I'm even judging myself. Like I can't believe I didn't say anything, but I just didn't feel right to say something, I don't know. Maybe it's just my own discomfort that I didn't say anything and my own avoidance. So if you're listening to this and you just listen to this podcast because you want to learn about techniques of training and health, and how exercise is related to that, so why this conversation? How is this going to help me, you might ask yourself, if I'm not a trainer or I don't have a trainer. At first, I think Josh hit on something, and that is knowing whether you should work out or not. We have somebody come in here after some kind of bad news or tragedy, and it might be too soon. I know they want to keep their schedule, I know they want to keep their routine, maybe but maybe not, you have to make that judgment as a trainer, to say to somebody, maybe today is not the day. Let's sit down, let's have a cup of coffee, no charge, let's just sit down and talk for a second and I'll see you next week. Other times, you might say to yourself as an instructor who is confronted with this particular person, say you know what, let's go in there, let's workout, let's not talk, let's just get this thing over with and do it. Let's just focus on the workout, that'd be the best thing for you. Let's face it, this is meditation. A high-intensity workout done properly — I had one client who I loved to death, he's definitely somebody I admire and has influenced me in a lot of ways. Very successful business man, has a great mental fortitude, discipline, and he knows himself, a guy I admire, and I remember him saying to me, I love this workout because it's the only time in my week that I'm concentrating on just one thing for twenty minutes, it's amazing. It's freeing for him, and I was like wow! Here's a guy who is very disciplined in his life always. He always has his stuff together, and he's saying that this is the thing that he has that keeps him totally focused on one thing and one thing only. So coming from him, that was like a big statement. So I get sometimes you might want to just do that with somebody who has all this stuff going on. I remember during a financial crisis, especially in Manhattan, I had guys that worked for [Inaudible: 00:18:53], guys that worked for Bear Sterns, coming in and I'm thinking these guys are going to cancel left and right, and gals for that matter, and they weren't. Matter of fact, they looked crappy, they looked beat up, but they came in and said, thank god I have this.Sheila: I also think it's very important to maintain — to remember that it's good to make people laugh and to feel like they're having a good time. That's how we kind of — we're like a family environment in Toluca Lake, and make people have a good time because I've recently heard, even in that Secret Life of Fat book and in some things that Gretchen Rubin's podcast and things they've done, studies that they've done about people who watch a funny movie or laugh about something, and they actually become stronger. They can maintain a little longer, so I think it's important to keep that mood fun and happy, and that's kind of what we try to do, and then the clients are competing with each other and things like that. So we try to keep that environment like a fun place so that they want to come in and they know they'll be uplifted.Adam: Good point. Levity in the face of a very intense workout can be very helpful, just not while they're in the middle of a set.Tim: Agreed. When I'm in failure, I do not need to laugh.Adam: I'm guilty of that. I think we might all be guilty of that. I am so guilty of like saying something to a client when in the middle of a set, it cracks them up and they laugh and I'm like, why did I just say that, that was the dumbest thing I just did.Tim: Agreed though. As a client coming in, I love the levity, I love the family atmosphere, that can only be achieved through connection. That's one of the reasons that I like to keep coming back, is because of that connection, those friends, that community that you instill over there at Toluca Lake and I'm sure at all of the other locations as well.Adam: Well it's important, but it's a bit of irony because it is a very intense, serious workout. Twenty minutes in and out, we're not wasting your time. It's not necessarily a coddling thing, but at the same time, we should all be excited that — first of all, as instructors we're doing incredible work and for me, it's very fulfilling to do this kind of work, very rewarding, but also it's fun. In a way, even though it's a serious workout, we're rejoicing in this fact, this idea, that we're getting incredibly strong and healthy from a twenty-minute thing. Whether it's InForm Fitness or any of the other great practitioners out there who are understanding brief intense workouts are where it's at. There is joy in that, that there is rejoicing, there is fun. We have lightening in a bottle and I almost feel like to a lot of people, it's still a secret in a way and I don't want to it to be this way, I want the whole mainstream to be understanding. In the mean time, I feel like I'm in an exclusive club, that we know something that nobody else does, but there's too much at stake to keep this a secret. So many people are not working out at all because they think they have to do everything. There's people working out too much, and listening to your advice that intensity at all costs and more is better and you got all those problems. So not only are we helping one person at a time, but wouldn't it be unbelievable if all of a sudden, as a society, the paradigm shift is what we're doing and everyone understands less is more? That would be fantastic. For the person who is listening to this that doesn't have a trainer, who is not a trainer, your emotions are important. Your emotions when you go into a workout are really important and it's okay to miss a workout if you're just not mentally up for it, that's okay. It's a once or a twice a week thing anyways, so it's not like you're not going to lose all your gain so to speak if you miss your Monday workout. As a matter of a fact, if you're an emotional wreck and you try to do it, you might lose focus, you might get hurt because you don't have the focus. It'll be a sub-par workout, it's just not something that you necessarily have to do just because it's your day and you want to keep your routine, and you don't want to think about it.Tim: So how much of this do you bring into your training when people are being certified, this component of managing the relationship.Adam: I end up talking about this stuff a lot, sometimes to the detriment of what it needs to be taught also. Sometimes two days of the workout will go by and I'll find that we talked a lot about these types of things, and then I realize oh darn, I didn't go over glycolysis with you guys did I?Sheila: One of the number one things you tell us —Adam: And that's on the test, so you need to know glycolysis here.Sheila: One of the number one things you tell us and teach us is to connect with that client. We have to connect with the client in order to understand what their needs are and to be able to design the workout for them, to make it work for them.Tim: The client, I can just speak for myself, we don't want a robotic experience so again, that's where the lines come in, the blurred lines. How close are the InForm Fitness trainers supposed to get to the clients? Would you encourage outside activities between the trainer and the client, is that something that shouldn't be approached, or is there a definite yes or no answer to something like that?Josh: I think honestly that one of the most critical things that we have to embrace at InForm Fitness, and I think this is more true than it is for conventional exercise personal trainers, is that I work with every client to teach them about mindfulness and self-awareness. This isn't just about a philosophical abstract idea of mindfulness, it is about being conscious of what is going on so that your mind controls the pattern of thought, throughout a stressful situation. So that there is judgment removed from what's going on associated with pain or discomfort, and instead, the mind is able to be focused purely on breathing. Focused on what muscles are being used, focused on the position of the shoulders relative to the hips. The goal ultimately is to create maximized performance. There's just a tremendous amount of research that's been done in the last 30 years or so about mindfulness training for top performance and top athletes. The relationship between the head and the body is overwhelming. That's something that I think we commonly understand to be true, but the mental gain, the metal component, the mental skill set of what we're trying to help InForm Fitness clients achieve is the level of awareness of what their body is doing, and a level of calm, devoid of anxiety, when they start to feel the anxiety build. When they start to feel the tension to build in their body, to be calm in the moment, to focus on letting go of the results and instead, let the results be what they are, and instead just be calm and focused on breathing, presence, and that's about it. So outside of that, I would suggest that the relationship that we build and the sort of contact that we build with our clients as Adam talks about is something that is being very conscious of the fact that we are instructors. I sort of pull back a bit when somebody refers back to me as a trainer. I'm not training anyone, I'm instructing someone on how to be calm in a time of high stress and tension. Outside of that piece, the physical benefits follow, but the mental piece has to be there at least at a basic level in order for them to build to a point, because without that, intensity can't come. In every consultation, I encourage clients to follow what I have found, and that is, this is a purely meditative and monastic time. You're in a very intimate environment where it's very calm and very peaceful, so to connect yourself with the environment such that you are focused entirely on just a handful of things, the phone, the iPad, the computer, the children, the family, the job, the dead car, all the things that are bothering us emotionally when we walk into the door, they stay at the door of the studio. They do not come in, they're not allowed. Everything in the studio is purely the relationship between the instructor and the client, and what the client is focused on doing at any given exercise.Adam: The idea of staying focused, the idea of working out when the conditions are good. Don't use the excuse not to work out every time you have a little bit of strife, then you can very easily say, I'm not in the mood today and Adam said it's okay if you're not in the mood, if you're emotionally — and then use it as an excuse not to work out. Obviously,  sometimes you have to kick yourself in the pants and pull yourself from the bootstraps and say Adam, go work out. Right now. Do it, and focus, and try to be meditative. Try to block out all of that stuff, which is exactly what meditation is supposed to be also. You're focusing on one thing, and understanding that while you're working out or while you're meditating, things break through that you don't want to have break through. Acknowledge it, move on, and keep going. Bring it back, bring it back to what you're there for. Sometimes, as a trainer, we have to understand that the best thing we can do is get out of our client's way and I think sometimes we are too empathetic. We try to be more empathetic, and we end up not giving them what they need which is a really good, kick butt workout that doesn't allow all these distractions to come in, and helping them to really focus.Josh: Adam, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think what we're really looking at when we look at the example you spoke about earlier with the client who had suffered a death in the family, where you were judging yourself by not being more empathetic, not offering your sympathies for the loss. The truth is that if we're doing our jobs effectively as instructors, that's entirely placing the client's needs ahead of our own. We each have an innate need to want to sympathize, to want to offer our sympathies whenever someone suffers a loss or a stressful period of time emotionally, but the long term consequence of that is we blur those lines. When those lines and those boundaries stay clear is when I'm placing the client's needs ahead of my own, as you did by recognizing that your client is going to most benefit from not talking about something, that she talks about probably the other twenty-three and a half hours out of the day.Adam: My wife has to know this. I have to put somebody else's needs ahead of mine.Josh: The goal is making sure that you know the client well enough to understand what is going to be most conducive to getting her through a really productive workout. That's when an instructor is really showing his or her metal, when they're able to put the clients' needs ahead of their own.Sheila: And luckily, our workout is only the twenty minutes or the thirty minutes, so you can completely focus, you don't have to think about — I have to go in there for an hour and not think about this or not think about that email, phone call, or terrible thing that just happened. So that's what's so great about our workout for anybody who is listening and want to give it a try. It's just as effective and yes, it's a very cathartic thing to just say okay, for the next twenty minutes, I'm just going to focus on me.Josh: The truth is that when we talk about — rest is a good segway — when you talk to clients that you only have to work out once or twice a week, I actually suggest to clients that you may only work out once or twice a week. It's not that you don't have to do it once a week, you may not do it more than once or twice a week. So then when they walk in with any kind of emotional stress or whatever it is that's bothering them when they walk in the door, I tell them you may not bring it in here with you. This is your opportunity to not think about it, I am absolutely demanding of you that you leave this at the door. You can pick it up on the way back out, but for the thirty minutes that you're here, you're focused solely on what it is that we're doing together.Adam: Question that comes up very often with me and clients of ours. When we talk about how you shouldn't be working out so often, like once or twice a week, and each workout is twenty or thirty minutes. How do you respond to the client that says, but I need exercise for stress relief and I'm afraid once a week for that purpose is not enough. How do you respond to that saying, I want to come three, four times a week but you're telling me not to. Part of it for me anyway, they'll say, I need more exercise for stress relief. You're telling me that I shouldn't do anything else, and I can't come here more than once and it's only twenty minutes. I don't know if this is for me.Josh: I think a that's healthy question to ask, but I think that the simple answer is something that we preach very heavily at InForm Fitness and that is creating a very clear line between constitutes exercise versus what constitutes recreation. With every client, I encourage them to walk, run, bike, swim, whatever it is that they enjoy doing that provides them some physical benefits, but that's not the primary purpose behind why they do it in the first place. People who run regularly, at some point, they cease to do it purely for the physical benefits, they do it for the endorphin rush, they do it for the stress management, they do it because they disconnect from the world around them. That's good stress management, so stress management from the physical manifestations, how it builds up our blood pressure, how it builds up muscle tension. Those are all things that we can address concretely here at InForm Fitness, but recreationally, those are the things I encourage clients to deal with. If they really want to do some good stress management techniques, get outside. Go for a walk, take your dog out, take your kids out to a park. Do something that is going to provide stress management and be recreational in the process, that's good mental health.Adam: Josh, do you have trouble separating the different hats you wear? Do you find yourself acting like a psychologist with your clients from time to time, do you catch yourself?Josh: Well yes, but having said that, I think it's more of an asset for me in the long run, simply because I'm relying on my clinical expertise and education to be able to keep clients focused on what it is that I want them to do. I let my expertise and my experience influence the way that I navigate a relationship with a client, but I never sit down and say, step into my office and tell me about your mother. That's not what we're trying to do here, but I think that the point simply is in any environment, when you're working as a therapist or as an instructor, the goal is going to be to keep the client focused on the specific set of goals. In the studio with InForm Fitness, that specific set of goals is entirely about getting the absolute best performance that I can get out of the client for a thirty minute stretch at a time, so that they're deeply fatiguing the muscles and achieving a level of intensity that is appropriate for what it is that I'm asking them to do. That environment is totally different in a correctional setting or in a therapist's office or something like that, but ultimately the drive to achieving those goals, whatever those goals may be, is the same.Adam: Like I've always said, there's definitely a technology involved in training people. Like Sheila pointed out, it's so important as an instructor to make that connection. I know plenty of instructors that are technically very good, they can put somebody through an incredible workout, but the experience overall for the client is left flat. They don't feel a connection to the person that may just seem like they're just dialing it in. As good as they are. So you can be the greatest technical instructor in the world, if you're not making that connection, if you're not figuring out how to motivate, to inspire this person to do what is arguably a very, very hard thing to do, even for just twenty minutes, you're not going to succeed. You're not going to be able to really help these people because they're not going to stick with it, they're not going to want to see you. So there's definitely that psychology that's really important, so I don't want people to misunderstand that psychology isn't involved in being a good instructor. Knowing people listening, being a good listener and hearing what they're saying, but also knowing what not to say sometimes is also very important, and just to be a listener. Not to be so full of yourself, and think that you're going to be able to solve all of their problems. The best thing you can do for them, the best thing that I think I can do for them in times is like that is to really, even more so, double down on the quality of the workout at that moment, and even pull back more from a friend position. Almost like a tough love type of thing saying hey, let's go there. This is for you right now, let's just go in there and do it. Even if you're training yourself to maybe have that same attitude sometimes and let it go. When you sit down at that machine or you pick up that barbell, take a deep breath, visualize, let it go, and do the job, be in the moment and do the job.Tim: Many thanks to InForm Fitness trainer and clinical psychologist Joshua Cagney for joining us here on the InForm Fitness podcast. Hey, if you're in or around the Washington D.C. area and would like to have Joshua as your high-intensity strength trainer, head on over to informfitness.com, click on the Restin, Virginia location, and request Josh. You'll also find six other InForm Fitness locations across the country, and you'll see Adam's blog, InForm Fitness Videos, and every single episode of the InForm podcast there at informfitness.com. Okay, next week: author, award-winning podcaster, and happiness expert, Gretchen Rubin joins us here on the show. Gretchen has a new book coming out titled The Four Tendencies: Learn How to Understand Yourself Better, and Also How Influence Others More Effectively. Utilizing the Four Tendencies framework as mentioned in Gretchen's book, we'll discuss how those tendencies might affect how you approach your workout, and why exercise is an important component to happiness. And one last thing before I let you go. Remember, here in May 2017, we are giving away a personally autographed copy of Adam's book, Power of Ten: The Once a Week Fitness Revolution, InForm Fitness apparel in the form of a hat, T-Shirt, and a hoodie jacket, and a device to listen to all the InForm Fitness podcasts, Amazon books, Audiobooks and more, using the Alexa voice service. I'm talking about the Amazon Echo, and if you haven't seen the Amazon Echo yet, check out the link in the show notes for a full description and even videos explaining what it does and how it works. This is a really cool prize pack, worth over two hundred bucks. Okay, so what do you have to do? Step one, leave InForm Fitness a review here in iTunes or on Facebook, Google Plus, Yelp, and even Amazon. If you do, you'll receive a free training session at an InForm Fitness location nearest you. Step two, take a screenshot and email your review to podcast@informfitness.com. That will be your entry into the grand prize drawing for the all the items I just mentioned, so here are the rules. You can only receive one free training session for your review, however, you can get an entry into the grand prize drawing for each review that you submit, thereby dramatically increasing your chances to win. For instance, if you leave us a review here in iTunes and then one in Yelp and Facebook, you only get one free training session, but three free entires into the grand prize, but you better get on it. You must emails to us by 11:59PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, May 31st to qualify for the free session and the grand prize. The winner will be announced on our Monday, June 5th episode here on the InForm Fitness podcast. So good luck, and thanks again for joining us. For Sheila Melody, Mike Rogers, and Adam Zickerman of InForm Fitness, I'm Tim Edwards with the InBound Podcasting Network.

Entreprogrammers Podcast
Episode 165 “Random Dude”

Entreprogrammers Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2017 65:44


Episode 165 “Random Dude” 0:15 John mentions looking at book cover designs, and not sure about the design or creativity. Josh describes the designs and issues and challenges with the book cover. John talks about the 99 designs contests for the book cover.  John talks about using 99 designs for a lot of projects and how they should be sponsors.  6:00 Chuck chimes in on his thoughts on the contest of using 99 designs. Josh mentions using Facebook ads to promote the book. Josh think a cover with a photo is more usable for the real book cover. Josh says asking people what they like is usually the best bet. John mentions the colors people pick and other things that are pleasing to the eye. Honey badger and Unicorns… 13:00 Chuck talks about trying to figure out his launch sequence. John ask where he is at in the process. Chuck talks about his crazy number of 75K with the upcoming conferences and sponsorships.  16:00 Chuck talks about launching a book at the end of May. John say it does not have to be finished to do a pre-sale. At Chuck’s current pre-sale of 1500 dollars, Josh suggest having more to offer.  Josh suggests a 10 week course, or releasing content overtime, to create value.   22:00 Chuck asks how he can package the product into a 500 dollar product.. Chuck mention the beta package paying 300 dollars. John says not to write a book, unless you are going to publish on Amazon.  27:00 John says you have to ask yourself why you are writing you book. Josh suggest doing video to gain an audience. John compares this to a gym membership service.  31:00 John talks about doing a running with Manny, and running 9 miles with him. Chuck talks about needed carbs, badly. Chuck is doing the Keto diet.  Josh talks about finding things that have too much protein calories. Chuck talks about his experiment with the Ketogenic diet.  37:00 John talks about the night and day body fat percentage. Josh talk about reaching out to Red Gate. Josh talks about using BlueTick.  41:00 Chuck talk about have a VA find people who sponsor podcast. Josh talks about how Blue Tick does what he needs it to do.  45:00 John talks about growing the pool of audience and sponsorships. Josh mentions sponsorships. Chuck talks about his plan for the funnels, cold groups, podcast sponsorships.  49:00 John talks about reaching out to DPD. Chuck asks why Josh’s WordPress guy never got back to him.  52:00 John talks about possibly getting an interview with MJ De Marco or Millionaire Fastlane. John is looking of a personal  stylist or image consultant.  1:05:00 We need 4 people for another EntreProgrammers Sub Group Mastermind podcast at:  EntreProgrammers.com/apply Thoughts For The Week  Chuck - “How You Do Anything,Is How You Do Everything…” John - There is nothing that is difficult in life…   Josh - “It’s important to know what you enjoy…”  

Entreprogrammers Podcast
Episode 123 “Cake and Burritos”

Entreprogrammers Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2016 122:07


Episode 123 “Cake and Burritos” 2:00 We’re Live! Josh is upset with Apple and hates change. EntreProgrammers discuss wireless headphones. John argues that new technology is forcing us to move forward. 11:20 Derick is impressed with the Apple Magic Track Pad. John mentions they need to start a new show doing tech reviews on their technology.  14:30 John mentions that the Patreon was a success with 1500 pledges. John talks about how the Pateron is similar to a Kickstarter, and you need some momentum to make is work.  20:00 Josh joking says they should open source Simple Programmer. John gives us a peak of the new Simple Programmer logo, and the runner up logos.  27:00 John gets some mic technique instruction. Going back to tech talk for a minute.  29:00 Derick is shares that his Watch Me Code team is growing, and working with a new video editor. Derick talks about planning work with Mark, the “marketing guy.” Derick is working on reorganizing the email content with Mark.  35:00 The EntreProgrammers talk about linking others video content on their Youtube video channel, in order to get people hooked. Derick shares that he is a bit overwhelmed with hiring several people and working on the marketing material.  40:00 Derick talks about helping create a workflow for his video editors, and making sure they understand how to adapted Derick’s video editing style. John talks about getting a system in place, then upping the content production.  43:00 Josh shares how he likes to set up a  workflow with his VA. Derick wants to get to the point where he does not have to worried about the tasks that his VA doing for him.  49:00  Josh talks about working with VAs that are flaky or not coming through on projects. Josh shares the ideal qualities for a VA.  53:00 John asks for feedback on a real estate course he is creating. John asks if he should be or not using the H.265 video encoding. Josh shares some news on the new Dropbox update.  59:00 John talks about a passive income bundle which is the real estate videos he recorded in an afternoon. Josh talks about buying into John’s passive income course ideas. Josh says he is going to end up in jail because on this new real estate project.  1:04:00 John talks about a video by JP a spiritual life coach, and having a bunch of laughs. Josh shares that he did something easy for work, that might have a big impact. Josh moves a button and is instantly a genius.   1:13:00 Derick says that he got a new Watch Me Code customer. John suggests getting their addresses and write them a handwritten note, as a thank you.  The EntrePrgrammers talk about ways to collect their mailing address without being creepy.  1:20:00 Josh mentions that they need to get paid for reporting bugs in DPD.  John is talking at the  California Code Camp.  John shares his new strategies for is talk, and wants to be more interactive with the audience. 1:26:00 Josh talks about platforms for webinars and his strategies for having a live event. John mentions doing a calendar invite in order to have people aware of the event.  1:32:00 John shares more stats on his new health program. Josh is impress with his scientific findings on how fat molecules are converted into energy. John talks about still gaining muscle weight while in a calorie deficit.  1:40:00 John talks about having some sweet goodies during this work out, diet program, and scientifically describes the process. We need a human achievable version of this workout and diet program.  1:49:00 The EntreProgrammers discuss more diet and exercise. Josh mentions he want to try John’s diet and workout plan. John talks about the science of fasting.  Thoughts for the Weeks Derick - Don’t bite of more than you can chew Josh - It’s easy to go looking for more, when you’re not using what you have.  John - This too shall past..

Chasing Creative
Episode 15: Being a Creative Couple with Josh and Stasia Haroldson

Chasing Creative

Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2016 63:01


We're chatting with creative couple and hosts of the Our First Drink podcast Josh and Stasia Haroldson about what it looks like to be in a creative partnership with your spouse. Join us as we talk about the relationship dynamic that comes from working on a shared project, tips for any creative collaboration, and being yourself on social media. Here's where you can find Josh and Stasia Search your favorite podcast app for “Our First Drink” and visit www.ourfirstdrink.com. You can also check out Josh and Stasia on Instagram. Here’s where to find Abbigail Website: www.InkwellsandImages.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/abbigailekriebs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abbigailekriebs/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inkwellsandimages/ Here’s where to find Ashley Website: www.BrooksEditorial.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/brookseditorial Instagram: http://instagram.com/brookseditorial Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/brookseditorial Quotes from the episode “We’re both balancing the podcast with more traditional 9-5 jobs, so it’s been an interesting balance trying to make time for the creative pursuits we have while keeping our careers at the center for us.” --- Stasia “Is this something you would do even if nobody paid attention to it?” --- Josh “If it’s a hobby or a creative pursuit, it just needs to be something you would do because you’re compelled to do it, even if no one cared.” --- Josh “It’s just awesome to have things to look back on that you made that are your own.” --- Josh “We give the best of ourselves at work. The person we want to spend the most time with and we care the most about doesn’t get to see the best version of ourselves.” --- Josh, quoting Stasia “That’s the cool thing about podcasting. You get to have these deep conversations.” --- Josh “Before these couples even get into [their creative project], they recognize their complementary skillsets.” --- Stasia “If I have to pay taxes to the federal government with anyone, I’m glad it’s with you.” --- Abbie “The last thing social media should ever be is a point of contention.” --- Josh On growing an engaged social media following: “Don’t be a jerk.” --- Josh “By being yourself, you’re more inclined to connect with the people you want to connect with.” --- Stasia “I just really try to share authentically the stories that I care about.” --- Josh “I use Instagram as a very curated version of how I see things.” --- Josh “You Instagram is your space to do what you want with it.” --- Stasia “Ultimately you have to understand what that means. If being you is that you just want to share what’s important to you, you also have to know that it’s okay if maybe your account doesn’t grow, or maybe you don’t get the same numbers other people do. But that’s okay, because the people that do come through are really quality people in your life.” --- Josh “I put myself in this box of creative versus not creative. This year, I basically said I’m not going to think of myself this way anymore.” --- Stasia “I just wanted to let myself out of my internal noncreative box I had put myself in.” --- Stasia “You almost have to give yourself permission to let yourself explore [your creative passions].” --- Stasia “Your creativity can look wildly different from someone else’s, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t count or it’s not valid.” --- Ashley “There were always some topics I never used to write about because I was afraid of what would happen if I did.” --- Abbigail Mini Book Club Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert Will It Fly? by Pat Flynn A View of the Lake by Beryl Singleton Bissell The Long-Shining Waters by Danielle Sosin Roots & Sky by Christie Purifoy The Anne of Green Gables series

The Drama Teacher Podcast
Talking About Issues Through Theatre

The Drama Teacher Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2015


Episode 139: Talking About Issues Through Theatre What motivates you when it comes to your students? For Josh Adell, a teacher out of California, it was the time and time connection between teens, violence, and mental illness. Being a drama teacher, he wanted to theatricalize this issue. The result was an experience that sparked incredible conversation about an often silent issue with students, parents, administration and the community. Talking about issues through theatre is powerful. Show Notes Educational Theatre Association Blog The Butterfly Queen Episode Transcript Welcome to TFP – The Theatrefolk Podcast – the place to be for Drama teachers, Drama students, and theatre educators everywhere. I'm Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for listening. Welcome to Episode 139! You can find any links for this episode in the show notes at theatrefolk.com/episode139. And I'm going to start this episode with a question. What motivates you when it comes to your students? For today's podcast guest, Josh Adell, a teacher out of California, it was the time and time connection he was seeing between teens, violence, and mental illness. And, being a drama teacher, he wanted to theatricalize this issue and the result was an experience that sparked incredible conversation about an often silent issue with students, parents, administration, and the community. I think talking about issues through theatre is such a powerful thing and I also wanted to start off with a quote from a blog Josh wrote about his experience. “Talking about mental illness through theatre is a life-affirming exercise that can help lead to mental health. For some, the experience can be life-changing.” Let's get into some more talking with Josh Adell. LINDSAY: Today, I am talking to Josh Adell. Hello, Josh! JOSH: Hi! How are you? LINDSAY: I am awesome, and you? JOSH: I'm doing great! Thanks! I'm excited to talk. LINDSAY: Ah! That's always a good start, isn't it? JOSH: For sure. LINDSAY: Tell everybody where you are in the world. JOSH: Well, I am in North Hollywood, California. I teach at a private school called Campbell Hall and we are a K through 12 school and I teach in the high school here. I teach three levels of theatre courses and I direct two main stage plays a year – one in the fall and one in the spring – and I oversee an evening of student-directed performances as well. LINDSAY: Awesome. That's a full plate! JOSH: It is, it's a full plate, and it keeps me really busy for nine months. And then, for three months, I spend time in my pajamas getting ready for the next nine months. LINDSAY: And it takes three months, doesn't it? JOSH: Oh, totally. It really does, absolutely. LINDSAY: Talk about how you landed into teaching. What led you to follow the path of drama and education? JOSH: Well, I loved my high school theatre department. I grew up in Dallas, Texas. I went to high school at J. J. Pearce High School which is actually in Richardson, Texas. I just fell in love with theatre. I was a drama kid and it really saved my life and just gave me a home and it was what I wanted to do. The day after I graduated high school, I started my very first teaching job teaching theatre to five-year-olds and also teaching a marionette puppetry class to kids and I had no clue what I was doing at all but it was very telling of which path I would go down I think that I started at 8:00 in the morning at the Richardson Recreation Center the day after I graduated high school. LINDSAY: I've got to tell you; that's diving in deep. That is a choice in the making. Right after high school, not acting, but teaching. JOSH: Yeah. LINDSAY: I love that. JOSH: Yeah, it was an incredible experience and I just felt so deeply passionate about those little five-year-olds and I wrote them a little play and they performed it in the park.

The Flipped Lifestyle Podcast
QA 73 – Josh Bauerle Answers “Can I Write off Health Insurance Costs on my Taxes?”

The Flipped Lifestyle Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 9, 2015 7:57


In today's Q&A, we are helping Preston figure out health insurance as an entrepreneur and how it can help him save on taxes. Do you have a question you want answered on our podcast? We would love to help you! Click here to ask your question! [Tweet "Learn what to do with health insurance costs on your taxes with @CPAonFire"] Resources Mentioned in this Episode Today's expert is Josh Bauerle from CPA on Fire Today's question is from Preston from Graphic Design Blender Last time Josh was on Flipped Lifestyle Let's dive into this week's question! JOCELYN: Hey y'all! You're listening to an Expert Q&A with S&J. Today's expert, Josh Bauerle of cpaonfire.com Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work. We're your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us, each week, as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside-down, by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? All right, let's get started. SHANE: What's going on guys, welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle Q&A with S&J. We have another Expert Q&A for you guys today; we have an awesome guest on, his name is Josh Bauerle, and he is from cpaonfire.com. Josh, welcome to the program. JOSH: Thank you, glad to be back. SHANE: And you may remember Josh, we had him in a long episode talking about running his online business. His wife was on with him, a great episode, we'll put that on the show notes and today we have him on to answer a tax question because Jocelyn and I are scared to death to answer anything about accounting and taxes. JOCELYN: And for good reason. SHANE: For good reason, okay? So Jocelyn, do you have a question for Josh? JOCELYN: Yes, and it is from Preston, and Preston is from graphicdesignblender.com, and says, “Hey guys, you all are so inspiring. Congratulations on all the success; I have a question for you, one of the biggest fears I have faced from quitting my job is losing our insurance. How did you guys bridge that gap? Also, will buying private health insurance save me anything on taxes? Can I write that off?” SHANE: And this was a huge question that we had too because we were teachers, the State was basically – our jobs were paying for our insurance and we had no clue how this would impact us or the taxes. So josh, why don't you tell Preston a little bit about that and how switching to private insurance can impact what he pays on taxes. JOSH: Absolutely, and you guys have been much better experts at the part about getting private insurance, but I'll go over the tax benefits here. So, this is actually one area that is actually a huge benefit to be an entrepreneur. So typically, if you are going to get private insurance, the only way there can be a tax deduction is to write them off in what they call ‘itemized deductions' and medical expenses are super-hard to take as an itemized deduction. Basically in the simplest terms possible, they are going to reduce it by 10% of your income, and then you can only take the amount over that. So, if you made 100,000 dollars, they would immediately take off 10000 dollars of your insurance costs and then you can only take the amount over top of that. So that's if you are an employee. As an entrepreneur, if you have a business that makes money, you can write off those insurance costs against the revenue in your business, all right? So, let's say that you made the same 100,000 dollars, as an entrepreneur you paid 20,000 dollars in insurance, and now it's gonna look like you made 80,000 dollars instead of 100,000. SHANE: This will save you a fortune really, ain't it? JOSH: It is and one key here to remember though is that's if you made money in your business. So if you are showing a loss in your business, you are not going to be able to write that off. SHANE: Wow, so you can't just start a random business and not make a dime, and actually claim anything for your health insurance stuff. JOSH: Exactly,