Podcasts about josh no

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.

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Biohacks, Energy, and Weirdness with Josh Forti, Part 3

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.

COVID On Air #25: Scott & Josh - No Love For Labour Lost

COVID On Air

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 1, 2021 170:42

This is episode is a continuation of the ongoing conversation with fellow ECV member, Scott DeMichele. Follow Scott on Twitter: @MScottDeMichele. You can find Josh on Twitter: @mrfarden, or email the show via mail@covidonair.org COA is also on Twitter and Facebook now: Twitter: @COA_SHOW Facebook: @COASHOW Visit The World Health Network at https://www.worldhealthnetwork.global/ Please visit EndCoronavirus.org for information on ECV. ECV is on Twitter: @endCOVID19 and you can find ECV on Facebook and Instagram.

covid-19 lost labour no love ecv josh no

What's the ACTUAL ROI from Podcasting (Answer Will SHOCK You!)

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.

Our Ops Are Smooth Like A Jar Of Skippy

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.

covid-19 united states america god new york founders texas lord google apple pr americans speaking new york times seattle drop startups portland band starbucks delta advertising ipads jeff bezos cdc saas developers pacific northwest niche costco bugs smooth aws java github ask me anything trader joe tacoma macbook apple stores macbook pro nutella maven m1 elixir homebrew docker dynamo prs m2 bootstrap village voice honey badger skippy jay inslee lifestyle business redis software as a service anecdotally kinko indie hackers dynamodb patrick mckenzie m1 macbook air downtown portland ben it codespaces josh it josh yeah josh you shava ben love josh no ben there ben so josh how elasticache ben well josh well josh oh josh so micropreneur josh there josh starr josh do josh will josh cool

Live From The Indie Hackers' Backstage

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.

covid-19 god founders texas apple washington seattle startups portland kansas front delta pacific providing saas developers ama arlington loyal home depot backstage kramer ask me anything spokane javascript elixir soc rolled bootstrap honey badger lifestyle business diablo iii hacker news software as a service snohomish indie hackers ben it benas ben you josh it josh yeah josh you josh no ben oh josh well josh oh ben well ben right so austin josh so micropreneur josh starr

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.

god new york amazon internet co founders new jersey pleasure jersey mount everest stones ipods ironically c suite newark impressive mm scottsdale north pole band aids south pole montclair north jersey joe cool healthyplace podmax montclair state joe it joe you hidden entrepreneur joe get joe yeah josh it josh yeah josh you joe well josh no joe so joe how joe there josh well josh oh joe do cognex josh so joe all josh don joe did joe now

Does Thinking Still Count As Working?

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.

ceo new year founders google marketing zoom thinking startups target starbucks hack cdc saas developers educate shopify ui pta basecamp masking dealt elixir soc docker bootstrap honey badger gitlab transistor wipes g suite lifestyle business elasticsearch software as a service pagerduty apple fitness baremetrics ptsa ben it ben you josh it josh yeah josh you josh no ben so josh well josh oh ben well ben right micropreneur links write josh not

Understanding Bitcoin From a Developer's Perspective

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

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

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.

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The Atlas Shrugged Interview - Part 2 of 5

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 23, 2020 42:24

Welcome to part 2 of the 5 part Atlas Shrugged interview! On today’s segment you’ll get to hear Russell and Josh discuss being a producer and how important it is to continually create content. They talk about being a good steward over the ideas that God gives you, and how you should be preparing for even bigger and better ideas. And finally, they explain how “motion is the key”. So enjoy part two of this fun interview and don’t forget to go to tshirtsmackdown.com for your Atlas Shrugged swag! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. All right, my first question for you, is how'd you like the first part of the interview with me and Josh of Atlas Shrugged? I hope you enjoyed it. Today, I'm going to give you guys part two of a five-part interview series. We will pick up after the intro song, we'll pick up where we left off. We'll keep diving into these topics, these concepts. Again, throughout this interview, we talk about religion, we talk about politics, and we talk about all these things through the lens of the Atlas Shrugged book. So with that said, we'll cue up the theme song, we'll come back, we'll go into part two of my interview with Josh Forti about Atlas Shrugged. Josh Forti: Because what I'm trying to figure out, this is open discussion here... I am a pretty motivated, driven person. I never would've described what I was doing as greedy. Russell Brunson: Would you have thought that when you were an athlete, or thought when you were a kid- Josh: Yeah. Russell: ...no. But what is it? Josh: Well, yeah. And that's why I asked you the question. Because I don't know the answer myself. Russell: I feel the same way, because I never... it wasn't until I was reading the book, The Utopia of Greed- Josh: Yeah, yeah. Russell: ...and all of a sudden, I started thinking, all these things we're doing... we call them growth, we call them whatever, which is awesome, but it is... it's a greedy time in your life, right? Josh: Yeah. I wonder what the actual definition of greed is. Russell: Yeah. Josh: I'm going to look this up. We'll see. Definition of greed. Russell: It has a def-... negative connotation in our world today. Josh: Intense and selfish desire for something, especially money, power or food. Russell: Or food. Josh: Well- Russell: There you go. Josh: All right. Money, power or food. Russell: For me, thinking about the lens of wrestling, when I was wrestling, I had a selfish desire for, I wanted to be a state champ, I wanted to be an all-American, I wanted to be a national champ- Josh: But why? Why? Russell: Because I wanted my hand-raising. That was all I thought about, all I dreamt about. I couldn't... I'm a very obsessive person, that's why I don't gamble. Because I was like, I put a quarter in and I win, I'm broke. It doesn't matter how much I started with, it’s gone. And I know that about myself. So when I started wrestling, and I got my hand raised the first time, I was like, that feels good, I want to feel that every day for the rest of my life. And I just went, blinders on, and that's all I did, that was my... and I mean, I wouldn't have thought of it as greedy, but by definition, it's like, you need to focus on these things about yourself. Now I'm in the phase of my life where I'm coaching wrestling, coaching my kids and stuff like that, and it's different, because there's nothing in it for you, except for seeing their hand-raising and that light in their eyes go off, and it's just like, that felt way better than my own. But you don't know that until you're in that phase. Josh: Yeah. Did having kids change that for you at all? Did it help solidify or give you a different perspective on that shift from greedy to- Russell: I think... maybe not so much solidify as much as I'm experiencing that in multiple parts of my life, not just the business part. Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: A lot in part, you think about our success stories and our business are our children, the children of ClickFunnels, whatever you want to say, they're the people that have come off it. So I think I'm experiencing it now with them, and it's been interesting and fun and... yeah. Josh: How long did it take you to finish the book? Russell: I think about two months. Josh: Oh, wow. Russell: You read it way faster than I did. Josh: Well, it's one of those things... it's funny because my mom was like, have you even read the book? I'm like, what do you mean, you made me read in high school. And I went back and I was like, oh, I didn't actually read... I knew the book, so I assumed I had read it. And then I realized it was 1200 pages and I was like, I don't remember reading a 1200-page book. I feel like I would've remembered that- Russell: I got to do it right now, because Russell's going to be talking about. Josh: Right. And that's exactly what happened. So it was like, oh, we want to do this, cool. And I could've sat down and had the conversation without reading the book. Because I knew the concept, the premise. And so then I went through it and... every night, two-and-a-half speed, couldn't sleep, I'd get up and like, oh, man, it's 3:00 in the morning. Close the book, go back in there. So- Russell: Can I interject? Josh: Yeah. Russell: Because there is something you started on that I want to make sure we don’t miss, because I think it was... you started leading real good and there is somewhere I want to wrap it because it’s an open loop in my head now. Josh: Okay, okay, okay. Russell: You started talking about how you agree on the left side of social helping people, but not the way that they do it- Josh: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Russell: ...is that how you said it? Okay, so- Josh: I agree with what they want to do- Russell: Yes. Josh: ...i don't agree with how they want to do it. Russell: Okay, so, this is something that was powerful. So after I read the book, I was geeking out, and I'm like, who is this Ayn Rand, I want to see. So I started searching her and I found an interview she did on Donahue, 1980, three months after her husband passed away. And it was a fascinating interview- Josh: Oh, dang. Russell: ...she's atheist, does not believe in a god, all these things like that, so- Josh: She even made a statement about how part of the reason she wrote the book was to prove that religion was fake and to destroy all belief in any form- Russell: So once again- Josh: Super different. Russell: ...this is not the Bible for me, this is just... stimulating book that got my mind spinning. One thing she said during the interview that was so cool, because Donahue's like, "So based on this, you believe that we should all be producers and greedy and keep all our money and we should never... we shouldn't help anybody." And she said, "No, no, no, that's not what I said." She's like, "I never said that." She said, "What I did say, is that it should not be the government coming to you with their guns saying, 'Give me your 50% of your taxes.'" That's what's messed up. You think about this, if you give a gift... if someone comes to you and gives you a gun like, give your friend a gift, are you actually giving them a gift? No, you're not. Josh: Yeah. Russell: If you don't pay the taxes, they put you in jail. That's the thing. She said, "People should go and support people on their own." This comes back to... this is the whole thing we talked about before, the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, unless he yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit. Us yielding saying, "Hey, I have all this money, I should go help other people with this." That's God saying, you should not be greedy, use what you've blessed with and help other people's lives. Right? Them coming to you with a gun saying, "Pay your taxes or go to jail," is not you giving a gift. It's them taking it from you and giving it away. So you're not a better person because you did it, right? And then we get into the whole depth of... this is the government now who's the worst run organization in the history of all time, which… I won’t even rant on that. You want to trust them with the money, right? So I just want to share a practical example, because people are like, "Well, you wouldn't give money if you didn't..." whatever. Right now, I'm taxed more than 50%, so more than half my income goes to Uncle Sam. He's doing whatever the crap they do with it. Josh: Well, you just need some Cash Flow Tactics. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Shameless plug. Russell: Yeah. Anyway, I have no idea, I don't actually do my taxes. That's the tax bracket. But then you look at... when you yield to the enticing of the Holy Spirit. So there was a time when my friend Stu McLaren is like, "Hey, we're building schools in Kenya, and this is mission and we believe in it, will you help?" It wasn't greedy Russ like, "I'm going to help and this is going to be awesome." Josh: Yeah. Russell: I felt something, I was like, "Oh my gosh. That is a great cause. Yeah, how can I support you?" In that process you can see, here's pictures of Stu and Amy in Kenya, we've been to Kenya four times now. We donated money, we built schools... that is a gift, versus give us money so we can go do something with it, right? And then a couple years later, I heard about Operation Underground Railroad, and I was like, oh my gosh, and I felt the spirit saying, "This is a good cause, you should serve, you should do this thing." And I put time and energy and money into this thing. We raised multiple millions of dollars now to save children from sex slavery. And not everyone's willing to do that. Again, there's a segment of people who will... it comes back to, the natural man is an enemy to God and has been since the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever. A lot of people never get off the greed boat. But most people, as you start making more and more money, you look at anybody, you look at Bill Gates, look at Elon Musk, anyone who's making much money, what do they do with their money? Eventually they start giving it to charities or helping people... all these things, because there's that transition point where you feel that, you hear the voice, you hear God, whatever you want to call it. You should be serving more. And I think... I know that if my tax went from 50% to 20% to 10% or whatever that thing was, I would and could give so much more, and everybody could. Right now, half the money goes to organizations that... what's happening with the money? Do we know? Do we see any ledger of what's happening? No, it's insane. Josh: Even Bill Maher, who... do you know Bill Maher? Russell: I know who he is, I don't follow him- Josh: Stupid... super left, right? Definitely would not align with our political views, or your... or my political views. But even him is like, I have no idea what my tax dollars are going to. I have no idea where my millions of dollars I pay every- Russell: Isn't that scary? Josh: Isn't that crazy. It's wild. Only the government. It's crazy. Russell: And then they go like... sorry, this is a plug for OUR and Tim Ballard. Tim Ballard, I know does not take a salary. His payment for being CEO of Operation Underground Railroad and risking his life day in and day out is zero dollars they pay him. He funds it himself. All the money he makes is from his books, his speaking, other things he does, externally to pay for himself, because he doesn't want to take money from an organization saving kids. Can you say that about any of the government- Josh: Yeah. Russell: ...no, it's insane. It's... anyway. But, yeah. So for me, it's like- Josh: Somebody's going to mention that Trump takes a zero dollar salary in there. That's not what we're talking about. Russell: But for me, it's like, that's my big thing, understanding that I think there's this blend of left and right. If we're not producing, the fact that I'm going to wake up every morning and kill myself, even though I have more money than I'm ever going to need, now we have 400 plus people who have full-time jobs here... excuse me, full-time jobs here at ClickFunnels. It's 144,000 people who have active ClickFunnels accounts. Each of those people, if they had one employee, it's 144,000 jobs. If they had two to three, that means... you're looking at... it's probably half a million to a million jobs have been created because of ClickFunnels, because we get up every day and we're chasing something, we're producing, producing, producing, right? If you take away incentives of that... I'd have to lay off half my staff, which then... and then everything starts disappearing really quickly. Where it's like, if they took that away, now we can go and how much more could we do? We did the OUR... we talked about OUR and showed the documentary at Funnel Hacking Live, and since then, four or five dozen people who were in our community showed the OUR documentary at their events and made money, and it's like this ripple effect keeps growing, growing, growing, versus the other side where it's just... it shrinks and- Josh: Okay, so, I want to get non-specifically political here for a second with this and... I don't want to say play the devil's advocate, I just want to understand your thoughts on this. So the argument on the other side, if you will, the people that are more traditionally higher tax bracket, you should be taxed even higher. We want to take more of your money away because it's this. Basically, the thought process is like... listen, you have donated your money to Kenya and to Operation Underground Railroad and things like that, but guess what, there's probably people here in your own community, like in Boise, for example, right, or wherever these entrepreneurs are, that you have millions and millions of dollars, there's people that are homeless. There's people who can't afford medical payments, or there's people who genuinely need help. And so the argument is, yeah, you've given some, but you have so much of it, you could do that and be taxed higher. We could take even more of your money and your life wouldn't change at all, and we're also like... not talking about your business money, we're only talking about profit, we're only going to take that part of it away. And so the argument on the other side is, if collectively... and I'm just going to make up a number here. Let's just say there's 10,000 entrepreneurs like you in America, that have millions of dollars or billions of dollars... I know you don't have billions.... billions of dollars, we could take all that money, and hypothetically, we could solve a lot of these issues. We could tax the top 10 richest people, whatever. Why doesn't that work? Or, A, I guess it's a two-part question. A, are you... A, why doesn't that work, and B, what is your solution for that, if any? What's your perspective, your view on how that would help? Russell: Yeah, I think- Josh: Or can you not help everybody? Russell: This is the fun part, politics, right? It's tough, and I'll preface this before we dive into the actual question... it's tough because there's good on both sides and there's bad on both sides. That's the hardest thing, right? And so that's the hard thing, is you can argue both ways. Let's say me as an entrepreneur, because I only know experiences through my own self, right? Josh: Right. Russell: I know what I pay in taxes every single year. I know how much goes away, I know how much I make. And it's tough because the more... the less you make for the more you work, the less incentivized you are to keep working. If my take-home was $100 grand a year, I'd be like, why am I killing myself? I could work three hours a day and make that, so why would I keep doing this stuff? If there's no reward, then it's hard, right? It's like, what's the purpose of doing any of this stuff? And it'd be really easy to then shrink back, and the company shrinks, employees shrink, everything shrinks because there's no incentive for us to risk everything. It's a risk reward thing. That's a big part of it. How do you solve it, I don't know, I don't think the solution is the government to come in with a gun and saying, give us half your money so we can go solve this problem. I think it's, man, what are the things in you're interested in saving? What are the things that touches your heart, what are the things that you're inspired to actually help? For me it's Kenya, for me it's this, for me it's... there's other things that we give money to that I don't talk about publicly. But there's things that... what are the things that I care about? Let me focus there. Everyone's got different agendas. I had Matt Maddix, someone who I... Caleb Maddix is the father, he's super awesome guy. He came to me and he's like, "Hey, my mission is to save these kids off the streets and this stuff..." all these kinds of things. I'm like, "That's amazing," he's like, "Can you help me?" I'm like, "That's not my calling. My calling are these things here. That's your calling, dude, I respect it, I support it, I'll help give money or whatever I can do to help. But that's your calling. God gave you that. That was the thing that you were given, that's the mantel you're in charge of." And everyone's got a different mantel. So your calling might be different from mine, people come to me all the time like, "Oh, that charity's cool, but I support this." Like, good, I don't care who you support. Everyone's got different callings and they're all good. So I think we should be able to say, what's the thing that speaks to our heart that we're passionate about, and that's what we should focus our time and our energy and our money on, not... again, don't come with the guns saying, "Give me 50% because I think it should go over here." Josh: But what about the people though, that... let's pretend, and I have... guys, I love Elon Musk, I'm going to use him purely as an example. Clearly I have no idea what he does with his money. But let's pretend. So, Elon Musk and all his money... what if he wasn't charitable? Should the government, or anybody, be able to come in and be like, "Yo, you have so much money." Or Zuckerberg, or whatever. "You have so much money. We're going to... you got..." I don't know, he's worth $90 billion. Let's say he has $3 billion in liquid cash. I'm just... hypotheticals here. "You got $3 billion here literally sitting here. We're going to take that away and we're going to give you... you can have $500 million if it, but we're going to take $2.5 billion and give it to people who actually need it." Do you think that there needs to be some overriding law or power or something that's like, "Yo, you can't just hoard. You got to... if you have more than enough, you got to go and give it back." Or do you think that's a personal choice? Russell: I think it's a personal choice. Think about, how many jobs has he created? He's giving that stuff, and this is the reward for this risk and reward side of thing. And his $3 billion, let's say, what's his next thing? He's not just going to sit on it, that's stupid. For him, for anybody, right? Josh: Right. Russell: He's going to go invest in the next thing, he's going to create more jobs, do more things, to stimulate the economy in different ways. He's going to go and start PayPal, and then he's going to start Tesla, and then he's going to start sending rocket ships to space. A producer's going to produce, because they want to produce. It's the art for them. So let them create art because the byproduct of art is jobs, it is stimulation of the economy, all those things happening. And so for me, building funnels is my art. I couldn't care less about the revenue that comes from it. I need the revenue to be able to hire the teams and the people and the things that we need to be able to continue the art, to pay Zuckerberg, to show my ads on the thing. All these things are part of it. So I think, yeah, if he's sitting on $3 billion, it's just sitting there, but producers don't typically do that. They're reinvesting, they're doing stuff with it that creates more. Josh: I want you to come up with a story on the spot, go. Which you're pretty good at. But I want you to talk about that. Producers produce. I think that might be one of the... actually, I'm curious to know... I feel like that is one of the most misunderstood things about the ultra-wealthy. The people that are actually... not like, I inherited $200 million because I'm a trust fund baby. But the actual Elon Musks of the world, the Jeff Bezoses of the world, the Russell Brunsons of the world, what ultimately drives you to go keep doing more? You have all of the money. And I know... we talked about the... you want to contribute back part, but there's a million different ways you can contribute. Why do you do the things that you do? Because I feel like one of the misunderstood things is... and this is something I don't know how to explain it to people that don't know it, I told my fiance, I was like, "You should listen to Russell." Because I'm like, "I think like that." You know what I mean? If you don't understand me, maybe you could see it from somebody else and know that I'm not weird. I mean, I am, but there's other people like me, that think like this. But it's like, how would you explain to somebody that Elon Musk is going to do what Elon Musk does. He's Elon Musk. Zuckerberg, or whoever- Russell: Hank Reardon. Josh: Right, right, whoever. Russell Brunson. You're going to do what you do, because that's who you are. You build things, and the result of... because you need to build things, you need resources. So you're like, man, if I want to go build this thing over here, I need $100 million, or I need $10 million. I'm just going to go make that money, and I'm going to go do it here. And you're basically just organizing things. You're either creating or you're organizing. How does that mentality work? I don't think the average person understands that. And I think that's one of the big misconceptions of... because this goes back to the greed thing, and the reason I really don't like the word greed is because there is so much misconception about it, although I will say the definition says that it's probably that. Russell: It is a negative word... the connotation's super negative. Josh: But it's like, you don't exclusively do it because you're greedy. You did it because you don't know how to do anything else. You know what I mean? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Sorry, sorry, Alex Charfen… We can't turn it off, and we don't understand why anybody would want to. Russell: Yeah, yeah. Josh: Like that, that's the thing. Russell: If you think about it, it's creation. Why was man put on this earth? Were we put on Earth to wake up, watch TV, go back to bed? No, we have creative powers in our body, that’s how husband and wife get together and have children and create. That's the mission on Earth, we're always creating. Any of us, you get married, you create something, we need a house, where are we going to live at? And you create things to be able to get a job, to be able to organize matter, to be able to make, oh, we have a house now we can move into. And that's the thing, so many people though, they become... the word that Garrett White uses best, sedated. Where there's pain, and so because the pain, they're sedated, so they just sit in the moment of, they don't want the pain. Because the pressure is too heavy for the one point, it hurts so bad, they say, I have to stop. Versus what we talk about, over the last six years, I get destroyed, then increased capacity, then destroyed. And so there's two sets of people, there's the people that aren't producing, they're sedating, because they're afraid of the pain, nervous of the pain, trying to hide from the pain, I get that. There's been seasons of my life where I've felt pain and I just want to hide, and I have. And then there's seasons of your life, at least hopefully for most... and I wish everybody could experience it, because the opposite of it, when you're in the creation zone, when you're creating, you're doing it, it's hard, it's a different... both of them are hard, they're different hards, right? One is there's so much fear, there's so much just trying to get out of the pain, and the other one is just... you create to create, right? You can ask my team, we build a funnel, and for me, it's just like, look at this thing we created. We create a product or an event or whatever, and it's like, the creation of the thing, and sharing it with people, that's... I don't know. And I think it's the same way when I was wrestling, that was my art at the time, and I didn't want to do anything besides wrestling. When to tournaments and tournaments, I'm like, what's the next tournament, what's the next thing, kept doing that, kept doing that, my entire life, because that was the art. After awhile, you just want to keep performing what you're doing, right? And I think that if you can get out of that sedation that most people live in... I say the majority of- Josh: And I think that's the issue, that for you and I, we create. Entrepreneurs, funnel hackers, free thinkers of the world, they go out there and they create because it's like, that's what we do. Russell: Yeah. Josh: I don't think that's how most of the world operates. Russell: Yeah. Did you... initially, right, when they're born, they have that seed, that seed of whatever we call it, growth, greed, whatever, right? Something happens in life where they get the pain and they sedate because it's easier. I think that's one of the biggest problems, and I am anti-drug, anti everything that causes sedation, because most of the world, I see... especially in entrepreneurial community, where people could be doing so much more, but instead there's sedating with drugs or alcohol or weed or whatever, because it's like, let me take the pressure of myself. And man, what a tragedy. You could be producing and changing so many people's lives, but it's like, I need an outlet. The outlet causes sedation, it takes you out of your ability to produce. I think the majority of people, that's what they do. It drives me crazy, I see all the conversation on Facebook of... there's entrepreneur events where people come together, they literally... there's sessions, we talk about what mushrooms they use to hallucinate... it just drives me nuts. You guys are sedating to get out of this pain as opposed to stepping into the pain, creating and changing people's lives. So I'm very vocal, anti all that kind of stuff, because I think so many people, that's what they slip back into. One of the greatest blessings of my religion that I believe is I don't have these tools to sedate that most people use. And so my outlet is creation. If my outlet was drinking, if my outlet was drugs, if my outlet was these other things, I wouldn't have been able to produce, but I don't, so my outlet's got to be what, what is it? Production, let's create something amazing. And I think too many people let themselves off the hook and just, oh, I can create or maybe watch TV, or I'm going to go eat, or I'm going to go... if your outlet is something that sedates you, that's taking you out of your creative zone, I think most people slip back because it's easier, it's cheaper, it doesn't cause the pain. Garrett White's whole mission, Wake-Up Warriors, waking men up from that sedated state that most of our society are stuck into. That’s why I relate to him so well, because I see it in people I love, that I care about, like, you're sedated, if we could break you out of that and get you into production, you could change the world. Josh: Yeah, I think it's interesting. So, I have a coach who I think did that for me... I mean, I don't use Garrett White, which... that's an intense man, oh my word. Garrett, if you're listening, I would love to talk to you. Come on the show. I've always plugged him. Hey, if I'm ever going to get a guest... Elon Musk, if you're listening. Anyway. But I have a coach, Katie Richardson. You know Katie. Katie is... outside of my immediate family, and Leah, obviously, top three people that changed my life, Katie Richardson and Russell Brunson are two of those people that are in that top thing, right? So Katie is someone that I work with one-on-one. I don't think I was ever sedated in the sense of what you're talking about, but the opposite of sedation is being alive. Really, truly, coming alive, understanding who you are, what you are put on this earth here to do. And so the thing that I struggled with for the longest time, even from the beginning days of this entrepreneur, is right and wrong. I didn't want to do the wrong thing. I didn't want to tick anybody off, because that would be bad. Like, oh, man, you don't want to get into a fight, because that's bad. I don't want to make too much money because that might be bad. Or I don't want to say the wrong thing because it might be bad. So I lived in this black and white, is it right or is it wrong. Katie came along, and she's like, "Josh, there is no right and wrong." There is in the sense of moral right and wrong... I'm not going to go into that concept, but... universal truth, I do believe there's absolute truth. But in the sense of our everyday life, it's not so much is it the right thing or the wrong thing, it's what are you going to choose to do. But you can only know what you're going to choose if you're alive, if you know who you are, and you know what you're put on this earth to do. And that's why... it's funny, you might... I think you may know this sorry. So my brother dies, helicopter crash, beginning of 2019, kind of wrecked my whole life, ending up selling the company, sold the business to an investor, business partner took over, and Leah and I took off on our own. And it's supposed to be this four-month long trip where I was going to disconnect and figure out life and everything like that. And Christmas time, it's about a week before Christmas, and we're in the Philippines, in the middle of absolutely freaking nowhere. The nearest airport, hospital, anything, is six hours away. Absolute middle of nowhere. And Leah gets an intestinal eating parasite. She gets super, super sick. Can't sit up, can't keep food down. I'm like, oh my gosh, we're in the Philippines, middle of nowhere. So we go to the emergency room, and we get there and it's a cart... it's like a piece of plywood with two-inch foam, and there's no doors on the bathroom, no toilet seat, there's ants crawling... it's terrible, right? And so long story short, we end up having to cut our trip two months early, we lose tens of thousands of dollars in deposits getting her home or whatever. And I have no business at this point. We're supposed to be going for two months longer. I was supposed to fly home... I was supposed to come to Funnel Hacking Live, that was going to be our coming home. And I find myself in the basement of my girlfriend's mom's house, the night before Christmas, going like, "What am I doing with my life? How did I end up here?" I go through the process like, okay, I need a coach. And I go through and I interview a bunch of different coaches and I end up choosing Katie. And I'm like, "All right, Katie, you're going to solve all my business problems for me. You're going to help me make all this money, you're going to help me build this million-dollar business," and everything like that. And so the very, very first call, I'll never forget, the very first question, she's like, "All right. Vent. I know you need to." Just brain dump, vent for 20, 30 minutes straight. I'm like, "What's the answer?" And she goes, "Josh, who are you?" I was like, "Really? That's where we're going to start this whole conversation?" I just paid you 60 grand? And looking back now, that... and I do have a full circle with this. Looking back now, figuring out who I was gave me my permission to go do what I was called to do, without the fear of what anybody else thought. And I'm not trying to intentionally piss anybody off. I don't want people to actually hate me. But I'm so certain in what I'm doing and knowing who I am, that I know I'm a contributor to society. I know that I make the world better with what I do because I believe that everybody, deep down inside, God has given talents. And I believe that the thing that, whatever it is that you're good at, that you like to do or whatever, that's the talent that God gave you, and you have a choice on how you're going to go out and use that, and I believe that we should use that to serve Him. The problem is, is that I don't think... I think an overwhelming majority of the world has no idea who they are or what they're called to be. And because of that, the people like you or Elon or whoever, the producers of society, that know who they are, what their talents are, what they're called to do, things like that... you've seen my growth. You've watched me transition from this crazy little kid to this... that came by learning who I was and how I was contributing in the world and doing what I was called here and what I was put here for. So when you talk about sedation, I feel like that's the issue of, you're sedated, and so they don't even know who they are. They don't even know how to tap into it, they don't know how to understand it. Because of that, they look at someone like you, they look at someone like me, and they go, "Well, you're preventing me. You're taking away my ability to go do something, because you're taking all the money. You're taking all the opportunity. You have a category and the king of the market, so I can't go and do it then." To those people, this concept of, because you're successful I can't be successful, what is your response there? How do you interpret that? Russell: Yeah. Josh: How do you help someone shift and be like, just because I did it doesn't mean you can't. Russell: Yeah. It's interesting because... it's funny because for me it's such a foreign thing to understand that. I see that so many times entrepreneurs where, it's that mentality of there's not enough money, not enough opportunities or resources, whatever. You know this, I know this, and the bigger problem I have is there are so many opportunities, every single day... it's not that there's not enough opportunities, it's there's so many, it's like, how do you... I think when people start understanding that, look around. Learn some basic skills. The original DotComSecrets book I wrote because I'm like, if anyone took these principles, looked at any business, you could apply it and boom, it just works. It's magic. There's not a business on this... Adam’s Eye Care, I can see right there out the window... I can take DotComSecrets principles and blow that company up overnight. And so if you have these tools, you could do anything, you could sell phones, you could sell watches, you could sell books, you could sell podcasts. I think when people start understanding that, it's just education, they don't understand it. I have friends before who are like, “life's tough right now, there are no opportunities”. And I'm just like, what? There are so many opportunities, but you have to have the skillset that actually... can produce it. I think a big frustration obviously, I have, I think you have as well, is... and we talked about this a little tonight, with my kids... a lot of the things we were equipped with are school... the school system doesn’t equip you to be able to capitalize on opportunities. It doesn't, unless you're like, I want to be a doctor. Cool, this is the process, now you can capitalize on being a doctor or being a dentist, or whatever that traditional path is. To be able to walk in and make it rain somewhere, those skillsets aren't found in school. And you think about in any business, there's a couple personalities. There's the entrepreneur who starts it. Then there's the managers who are managing the people, there's the technicians who are doing the thing, and there's the rainmakers who come in and make money. If you learn that skillset... how do you become a rainmaker? How do you go in, and you can plug in any business, any opportunity, and you can turn it into money? And every door you walk past, there's opportunity. There's infinite, every human you see there's opportunity, right? People have to learn how to take the talent and learn how to market the talent. God gives us all different things. Some people... Kaelin Poulin, God gave her a gift to be able to help women lose weight. But it wasn't until she learned how to market that that it was actually now... now, the opportunity is huge. They’ve got, I don't know, 100 employees at her company, millions of women they've served across the world. Taking your God-given talent, learning how to make it rain, putting those two things together, now, unlimited opportunities. So I think a lot of times, we're given... and that's why I'm so loud about my mission, I try to share so much, because I believe that God's given everyone a calling. Says in the Scriptures, many are called, but few are chosen. Everybody's called. Everybody gets a calling. Everybody gets that tap on the shoulder. Everyone gets the opportunity. No matter where you're born, where you're... everyone gets the opportunity, you're called. Most people don't do it, or they don't know how to do it, because they have this talent, this hobby, this thing... and then what happens? They sedate, they hide, or they search. And if you search, you find the answer, and it's like, oh my gosh, now I can make this change the world. Josh: But do you think everybody has that talent though? Obviously, there's only one Russell Brunson. But I have discussions with my mom a lot. I have a great relationship with my mom. My mom always tells me, she's like, "Josh, not everybody's you. Not everybody thinks like you. Not everybody has to drive like you. Not everybody has the confidence like you. Not everybody has the..." and I'm like, you don't have to. You can do the same things, just in your own way. Russell: And everyone's got a different view of success, too. Josh: Right. Russell: One of my first mentors taught me that... when I launched my first mastermind group, he pulled me aside and he's like, "Your mastermind group's going to fail if you try to put your version of success on all those people." And I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like... it was funny, because he was in the room and he's like... I can't say names because some of you may know someone. He's like, "you see that guy, you know why he’s in the room?" I'm like, "Why?" He's like, "He wants to hear himself talk. That's why he's here. And if I try to force him to do something, he's not going to do it. That guy right there? He's here because he wants to hang out with the group and network people. You? You're here because you want to steal everybody's ideas, right?" He's like, "If you try to launch a mastermind, your goal is to build a $100 million company, you try to put that, your values on the people, you're going to make them all fail." And that was a big a-ha for me, everyone's got a different vision of success. Maybe your brother, someone, your sister... family member, may not think like you or be like you, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean they have to change a million people's lives to change the world. It could be they're a mom, and they can be the best mom in the world and they change their kid's life, that's a calling. Josh: And that's what I want you to touch on. I want you to expand upon that. Because I feel like... man, I hear so many arguments, I'm trying to figure out which one fits best here. But, "Josh, we need the plumbers of the world." Russell: Yeah. Josh: Right? We need the people who will come in vacuum the carpet. We need the people that'll just do the mediocre tasks and that are not important, and that'll do those in and out and in and out and in and out. And, yeah, that. Because I feel like... how do I say this. I believe that a majority of the people in this world are not living up to their true potential. A massive... overwhelming majority are not- Russell: I don't think anyone is, to be honest. I don't think I am. Josh: Right. Russell: Yes, so, yes, 100%. Josh: But, you're living far more potential like the average person is, right? And how I look at is, I go, hey, listen, not everybody can do what you do or what I do, or whatever. Okay... how do I bring it around so it’s more… clear? I’m going to use a political aspect of things, because I think that's something we can all understand. Hey, poor people, victim mentality people... that's a controversial... you know what I'm saying. But victim mentality people, or poor people, they don't think like that, or maybe they didn't have as good a schooling, or maybe they didn't have as good an education, whatever. They don't have the same understanding that you do. So shouldn't we help them see that they can go and achieve more? Or should they... is their version of success... what am I trying to ask? Russell: The answer's yes, we should be, and that's what we're doing. I heard some of the... before, they're like, "Well, Russell, you have a $50,000 or $100,000 mastermind group, I can't afford that, that's not fair." I'm like, "Yeah, but I also do a podcast two to three times a week, every single week for six years. I've written three books you can get for 10 bucks, or you can get them for free." There's levels of it. The thing is there's value everywhere and if you pick it up, it increases... and you actually apply it? I'm a big believer that God gives all of us stewardship over things. He'll give you an idea, he'll give me an idea, he'll give anybody an idea, or desire. Here's some desire for you. You look at these kids who are struggling, but they get desire to play basketball and then they become Michael Jordan, or whoever... the people, right, because God gives them desire, or give them ideas, or talents. I'm a big believer in my business life, as I've been doing this journey now for 18 plus years, is that I got ideas, and a lot of the ideas I didn't do anything with. But some of them I took, I got the idea, and I'm not naïve to think, oh, I came up with this great idea. These are blessings from God, he's like, here's an idea, let's see if you're going to be a good steward with it. I get the idea, and if I do something with it, He's like, "Oh my gosh, Russell's a good steward of ideas, let me give him another idea." And if I don't do something with it, He's like, "All right, let me give it to somebody else." All the stuff is happening that would've happened without... somebody would've taken it. But I was a good steward of the thing and so I got blessed with another one and another one and another one. And I think that's a big part of it. I don't think that God... I do think that He puts us all on different spots to start with- Josh: Okay, that's a fascinating concept. Russell: 100%. He's giving us ideas or desires, things like that, and He's watching, are you going to be a good steward with it? If you are, I'll give you more, if you are, I'm going to give you more. So people can go from the worst of the worst and become the best in the world, people can start the best in the world and be horrible. Because what do you do with the things you're given stewardship over? Josh: So, what you're saying here, which is actually a fascinating concept, is that... I'm going to use the idea for ClickFunnels for example. The idea for ClickFunnels wasn't yours, per se. Russell: Do you know how many people were trying to build a funnel software when we built ClickFunnels? Josh: I'm sure a lot. Russell: All my friends were. Everybody was. Josh: So you have this idea that is essentially open for anybody... anybody could go and take advantage of this idea, you just... you're saying God put this idea in your head... and he probably put this idea in 100 peoples' heads, or 500... 10,000 peoples' heads or whatever. But you're like, I was the one who answered the calling to be, okay, I'm actually going to take this idea and do something with it. And so because of that, it's not that you took it away from anybody else... anybody could've done it, you're just the one who went out and actually just chose to do it and bring it to reality. Russell: Yup. 100%. Josh: Okay. Russell: There's a... I wish... somebody shared it to me and I haven't read the book. There's a book that tells a story... there's an author who had an idea for a book, sat down and started writing it, and someone's going to know it... it's a famous book, people would know this, I guarantee someone on this chat knows this. Josh: Somebody comment below when you here it, what it is. Russell: The author's writing the book, and then stops, runs out of time, forgets about it. And then six years later, this new book comes out, becomes a New York Times bestselling book, buys the book, starts reading, and is like, "This is the book that I was supposed to write." And it was like, oh my gosh, I didn't take stewardship of the idea, I stopped, and so God gave it to somebody else. It's the same book, right, it's just I didn't finish it. And I 100% believe that. I think it could be an idea, it could be desire, it could be a million things, we all have these different gifts of the spirit, that are given to us, and they sit back and watch and see what you're going to do with it. Josh: I feel like that could give a lot of people permission to go out and do stuff, too, right there. That viewpoint. Because one of the things that I struggled with early on, which, to a certain extent, I think I still struggle with a little bit, not nearly what I used to... why me? Not in a bad way of, oh, man, why do I... but why do I get these cool opportunities? I live a pretty good life, you know what I'm saying? And I'm like, why do I get to have this conversation and not somebody else? Why am I the first person that gets to sit down with Russell Brunson and talk anything related to politics, ever? But it's like, that concept of simply because I chose to go do it. I chose to be the person that was capable of having this conversation, and became that person. And I think that because of that, what you just said right there, gives... to get people permission, you're not taking away from anybody else, and you're not inherently special. You are in your own way, but you're not... it wasn't... you're not the only person that could've built ClickFunnels. Russell: I'm shockingly average. You ask my wife, ask my parents... Russell is shockingly average. Josh: And you're actually super awkward to meet for the first time. Russell: Yeah. Josh: You know the first time... you remember the first time... I think I actually told you this, the first time I met you? Russell: Remind me. Josh: Okay, the first time I met you was at Grant Cardone’s 10X, the very first one. Russell: Okay. Josh: At the time, Grant had hired our team to do Instagram stuff. And this was super, super early on. I was dead broke. I couldn't afford to go to that conference if I wanted to. But because we were doing Instagram stuff, he gave us tickets. And we saw you get offstage and we're like, "Dude, I bet you if we run right now we can meet Russell." So we run downstairs and sure enough, there you are, coming down. And I walk up to you and I'm like, "Russell, oh my gosh, huge fan." And you're like, "Hey. Thanks." And we're like, oh, okay. We're like, "Can we get a picture?" You're like, "Um, yeah, I guess." So I go and normally when you go and take a picture, you put your arm around him, and things like that. You just literally just stood there. And I was like, I guess we're not doing that. And so there's this picture of me in… Russell: I gotta see this picture. Josh: I'll find it. I'll vox it to you. We're sitting there, I'm like... so, guys, Russell is- Russell: Is shockingly average. Josh: Is shockingly average, apparently. But back to the conversation, I remember what I was trying to ask. That was the very first time I met you. I was like, oh, man, I can be a millionaire, too. Russell: Before... I just want to... when I got started, this whole business, it was me and then I hired two of my buddies to come work for me, because they were the only people who cared what I was talking about. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And we're all working on this business, and I remember one of my buddies pulled me aside one day, and said, "The only difference between us two and you?" I said, "No." He said, "The only difference is you're in momentum, you're moving forward, so these opportunities keep coming to you because you're moving, moving, moving, moving." He's like, "We're sitting back here doing the thing, there's no opportunities coming to us because we're not moving." I think what you need to understand is when you're moving in forward, people are like, "Oh, you're lucky you came up with ClickFunnels." I'm like, "Do you know how many funnels I launched before ClickFunnels?" Over a 150. This is not 150 ads that are “create funnel in ClickFunnels, oh, that's a funnel”. It was me coming up with an idea, hiring a designer, writing a sales letter, putting the product together, putting the pages in FrontPage, uploading them through FTP, getting a shopping cart, connecting them 150 times. It took us three months on average through each one. 150 times before we came up with ClickFunnels. I was just moving forward, over and over and over and over and over while everyone else was sitting around waiting. Motion is the key. Josh: Yeah. Russell: The opportunities come. This is what I'm talking about with being a good steward. God gave me an idea for ZipBrander. Do you remember ZipBrander? No one does. That was the first idea and I was like, oh my gosh, ZipBrander. I found a guy in Romania, I paid him 20 bucks to build the software. I created, I got a thing... a header designed and a headline and a thing and I launched it, and I made 400 bucks. And then the next idea was this thing called Article Spider, do you remember the Article Spider? Josh: No. Russell: No one does. I paid someone a couple hundred bucks, I did that, I launched, I made 1700 bucks, and I was like, oh my gosh... Four Hundred Fortunes was number three. And then the next, and the next, and I could show you guys, I did this, I wrote them all... I went back in the Way Back Machine, I found all of them. Thing after thing after thing after thing. Idea after idea. The ideas pop in there, I execute on them, try and try, each one got better and better and better and better, and eventually, God's like, "All right, you're capable, you're a good steward, here's ClickFunnels, let's go with it." If you were to give me that initially, I wouldn't know what to do. It's the momentum, it's the motion that makes you worthy of the calling. And if you're not in momentum, if you're not moving forward, you're never going to get the calling. Many are called, but few are chosen.

christmas america god tv ceo american money donald trump earth bible entrepreneur new york times holy spirit elon musk tesla idea production philippines kenya paypal michael jordan scriptures definition mark zuckerberg bill gates motion russ absolute romania producers utopia boise vent bill maher grant cardone 10x versus uncle sam ayn rand clickfunnels russell brunson donahue wayback machine ftp marketing secrets front page atlas shrugged eye care tim ballard operation underground railroad funnel hacking live stu mclaren dotcom secrets katie richardson caleb maddix garrett white josh forti josh yeah josh you josh no atlas shrugged part josh how josh well josh oh matt maddix kaelin poulin josh so josh all russell it

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.

covid-19 tv amazon tiktok children business digital brand experiences target color engagement walmart lego apps commerce pinterest respond expanding ecommerce kraft ip deliver kindle targets quotes kpis picasso tim ferriss bren brown instacart toys r us intrigued kmart dtc microsoft teams digital strategies up next lean startups dsp crayons crayola experiential marketing take note youttube silly putty every kind danon salesforce commerce cloud josh it josh yeah josh no josh well stephanie yeah josh oh crayola experience stephanie it josh so stephanie oh josh for

169|Cash Flow Forecasting With Louise Delaney

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.

第997期:Do you play music?

英语每日一听 | 每天少于5分钟

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2020 1:42

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: 英语每日一听 Shirley: So Josh, I know that you like to play the guitar.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: What kind of music do you like?Josh: Mostly, I play rock but sometimes, I play pop music as well.Shirley: Cool. So who is an artist that you like?Josh: My favorite artist at the moment is Jason Mraz.Shirley: Okay. Where does he come from?Josh: He comes from the States, the US. He plays guitar and sings at the same time.Shirley: Nice, So you like to sing, too.Josh: Yeah, I like to sing, too.Shirley: Cool. Okay, do you play any other instruments?Josh: I do. I play the piano as well.Shirley: Wow, You are really very talented.Josh: Thank you.Shirley: So when you play piano, do you like to sing as well?Josh: I don't usually sing when I play piano because I'm not as good at the piano.Shirley: Oh, I see. So like guitar better than piano or you're better at it?Josh: I'm better at guitar.Shirley: Okay. Do you have a band?Josh: I don't have a band, but I hope someday, I will.Shirley: Hmm, a rock band?Josh: Maybe.Shirley: Do you have a name for your rock band?Josh: No, I haven't really picked one up yet.Shirley: What about Josh and the Jammers?Josh: That sounds okay, but it's a little long.Shirley: Yeah. JJ's Jammers.Josh: That's a little better.Shirley: Yes. In Australia, that sounds like pajamas.

australia states jason mraz playmusic jammers josh yeah josh no

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.

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163|Planning For Growth With Blair Ann Verrier

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.

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151|Keeping Your Business Sane With Brad Bulow

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2020 31:38

Keeping Your Business Sane With Brad Bulow Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land. I've got Brad Bulow here and he's an account advisor from Summit Villa and he's here to talk to us about some of the cool things that you can be doing with your books to make sure that you're keeping your mind sane. The last thing I'm going be doing is going insane in the membrane. There's lots of ways to do that with all these different things that are punching out with the government with job keep, the job seeker, all these other different things that are going on it can be lost in in translation, absolutely without having someone there to translate it for you. Learn more on keeping your business sane at dorksdelivered.com.au So Brad, tell me what have you found to be the biggest nightmare when it comes to this COVID crisis? Brad: Josh, what I have found, and thanks for that introduction and trying to make a camping thing sexy might. What I have found with the COVID-19 crisis, Josh is that clients live in Today, they're not living for the future. They're lacking some planes. They're lacking some clarity. They don't have that board chair. So there is panic. It is a tough time for business, but those that are resilient and those that have the foresight and can move and be agile, will survive and will thrive. But I think it's the also the way the government has been, it's been great the government have released some stimulus packages that are there, an asset to help businesses, but I think it's just the understanding of these packages, what's the eligibility criteria. Am I in, am I out, will be eligible in a few months time, I think that's what's created the most, the biggest uncertainty and for our clients, it's just, I suppose, leaning on someone to trust and hopefully, at some of the other that's been our function, we have developed a package and a probably to help clients through the job keeping process. and I suppose it's for a client, it's for a small fee. It's a massive value add that they can receive. So I think it's just all the information, all the propaganda, all the noise, all the noise is really just creating a massive disruption for businesses. But stimulus is there, it's there for short term bridging gap. It's something that we can't rely on forever. And I think the good businesses will still thrive and come and still be around post COVID. Those that probably were precarious pre COVID-19 one, maybe see it through, which is sad, but which is reality. Brad: It's about three weeks of saving Josh, and that's the average Australian I suppose if you're a wage employee or whether you do run your business, it is quite scary. And I think, you know, there's a lot of … I think the first industry to really be hit with, so the hospitality, accommodation, restaurant type businesses and who do employ the tourists, a lot of casual workers, I think within days there were a lot of screams in that sector of people that would not be able to pay rent, would not be able to feed their kids. That is scary. But I think that comes down to sort of the financial literacy education that we probably need to be diving more into at schools and even at adult level as well. But it is quite scary and businesses don't have the ability to sort of see it through if the client doesn't pay the bill, or something bad happens. Josh: We don't know, you don't know. What you said there about learning things at school. Oh, my God, if I'd learnt half of what I learned at school, but swap that out for half of what I've learned after school, I would have been in a significantly better spot. People aren't taught anything about money, economics, how things work, the fractional reserve, how and why banks exists, how and why debt exists, how and how things work, what inflation is, no one knows anything. All I know is that thing over there is nice and shiny. It's got a iPhone with a new number, the other end of it, so let's grab that. Even the other ones kind of maybe nearly working, let's just grab that Brad: Definitely Justin, I can't recall too much of those triggered normal trail calculus sessions I had in grade 12. And I don’t think I deal well in all of them but yeah, right. It's about a textbook and I they don’t tell you so much, a little bit loaded the stuff you get to sort of went on the run. And I think the fundamentals of accounting, and debits and credits, I think it is lost than children and even young adults in business today, you know, the foundations of what makes a good business, what makes a bad business and not living just today, but living for tomorrow as well it’s important. My brother has a business called umbilical tronic college, which is an RTO, which offers program cert twos and threes for in schools in business. And he's got he has his programs running in about 100 schools in Queensland. And I think a lot of those more of those type of courses, a lot of those sort of practical skills. And I think even going back to the Masters I think is the people doing masters, I think which was notoriously known as the veggie mess as opposed to being messy, they probably learned more. So we're dealing in basic maths and dealing currency and money and stuff. Those are people that have the common sense and are probably doing okay. But yeah, understanding in numbers is really important because I can tell a story about your finances and about you how you're tracking. Josh: I was one of those suckers that did math to be messy. So I can tell you all about it as the same parabolic equation matrices and, and shit that no one cares about. Brad: Exactly, not not a few bad. Yeah, bad results in those days as well. Josh: We deal with businesses from all from all walks of life, and we deal with some really, really smart, poor people, and some really, really stupid rich people. And now I've said that I can't say anything about what they do. But know that it comes down to your drive and action to whatever the carrot is at the end. I didn't do well at school either, I get Op 19 so anyone that's listening outside of Australia, that's 19 out of 25, one being the best. Not great. A couple of years later though, I did one of those after education material entry point, uni exam things I came up with OP two. It's a good improvement. huge improvement. Right? So, that's, that's great, but you can't always like hold on to those numbers for any of our younger listeners and shit, okay, I didn't do what I wanted to do and now where I'm at. But what I've learned being in businesses, you need to know where you're if you're a high risk or a low risk investor and how you sit with your finances. Make sure you're very very in love with your cash flow is really important. Make sure you understand your numbers, your forecasts, how long do you have until the day when you're selling something of your own or something like that just to keep your business alive? If your business isn't … you're not meant to be feeding your business your business is meant to be feeding you, and I think it's going to be a big wake up call to the COVID thing with heaps people that are going to be going shit okay we we had a great business and now it's just turn to shit either because the industry's changed because commercial real estate stropping or will be significantly older remote workers. I think it's going to be a lot of people waking up to situation Brad: Yeah, I think you're spot on there, Josh. To me, I think it with businesses and it's often not what this is as far as often an opposite bad businesses, it's cause the people running them and I have you know, we will have clients that might be in maybe lower sort of socio economic jobs right now they might be gardeners or have a lawn mowing business where their earning capacity is probably a lot lower than someone who might be a medical specialists or someone who sells properties on the coast. It comes down I think a lot of the times is personal budgeting as well. You know, I could see and working out what is success and what is wealth to the individual. Is it more time with a family? Is it more money in their pocket, is it more time to exercise? Is it you know, having a having a fleet having a having a bit of bulge in the stomach. But it comes in how you define success obviously some of the happiest people aren't the most wealthiest people but they feel fulfilled because the kids are they've sending the kids to school the kids are doing well sportingly they're living happy lives and I do see some of the more some of the sometimes more miserable people or those that are earning great money but not in careers that they like. Yeah, so I think it's really comes down to fundamentally gone back to those pieces that fall is know your limits. Know your earning capacity. If you if you want to if you need to earn 200 grand a year, don’t buy franchise that cleans windows or scrubs carpet, don't buy into the drinks it's not going to work out for you. But also going back to your point to Josh it's about not throwing all your eggs in one basket as well. It's about diversifying, If you're in a business have a backup plane, if something goes wrong with your core function. Similarly our business we do have a similar accounting and taxation is like bread and butter, but there will be there is the threat of offshoring. There is the automation, there is sort of the risk of AML Compliance fees reducing but it's about having a back up plan. For us that was Yeah, we can help clients more holistically and other consultancy services. We have an HR company, we have a well planning business. It's about if something goes wrong with something I've got a backup plan and the same thing comes to those people invest. If you've got a million dollars to invest, don’t throw it all into stocks. Yeah, yeah. When maybe you bought a property, maybe you diversify your share before it cross 2025 blue chip stocks. Don't put your house that you've worked your whole life to own outright, don't put it on the line to buy that restaurant. Because it feels like a good idea. Josh: Don’t do anything on feelings. Brad: Exactly. And also the gut tells you can't can tell you whether something is right or wrong. But yeah, seek advice and know who to trust about these things. But don't Yeah, I think it just comes down to one know your limitations from a skills and qualifications perspective. And from a financial perspective and to disdain for on the line for one little idea that you think might workout. I agree with you Josh as you said earlier you worked hard when you're young you built some discipline, you've bought a few properties at a young age which gave you a good base to grow and take opportunities and risk when they come. I think that's the same in life today. Don't leave it all to luck. Don't stop focusing on your wealth when your days are numbered when you can't work as hard or as as agile as you once did. I think it's all about planning and it's all about having a back up plan and that's the biggest thing about this COVID-19, which I think it's rise today. Have a back up plan that had that war chest had that ability to to change direction Josh: T he time is now absolutely if you want to action something action and now like you have Ray Kroc started investing and really turned over some dollars when he was 55 that doesn't mean waiting for your 55 and be like something awesome is going to happen. But are you familiar with Parkinson's Law. Brad: Not hundred percent but if give me a 15 second Crash Course. Josh: So Parkinson's Law is the amount of time and I'm probably quoting this terribly now. But the amount of time you have available will pretty much become elastic with the amount of work that you absolutely have to complete. So if you have the assignment due the day before, and you've been used to being been sitting on the desk for six weeks, and you go, shit, I'm going to create this in, you're guaranteed to get it done with the time that you've got available. But if you started six weeks ago, it would have also taken you six weeks. So it's just fills up your valuable time. And I think when you look at time, what I like to the way I look at money, and my time is I look at whatever the action is about to take, is it saving money? Is it creating money? Or is it saving time? And if it doesn't tick any of those boxes, it's not a task that I do. There's a caveat there. Brad: 100%. You got to look at yourself and your own well being. And that's one of those things my bill I think the old saying is they're busy people get things done It's 100% you’re right. And then you write if you sent yourself an hour to, to do that one thing you will take it for later. But if you gotta get four things down now you'll fit it all in. Yep. I think planning is important on one Oh, yeah, go to my desk and there are the post it notes there is the paper frittering all over the place, doesn't mean I'm not playing and I don't know where things are, but it's still not obviously a great safety bloke. But I think have you three things that you want to do on a day in take them off. Everyone loves a sense of accomplishment now that they've gone to work and they've got a few things off the desk even if only takes an hour You know, it's done. Josh: And I think literally taking or putting a line through it is more important than having it written on your computer Notepad or wherever else and then deleting it. Seeing that you had some progress I'll go through books that I like a business plans from like that every two years. I've revisit the business plan like every business owner, yeah. Brad: Yeah, hundred percent is basically one page but have it Josh: Yeah, exactly. You just have a SWOT analysis, your mission statement, it's enough. And I looked through, I achieved all those goals. I've achieved all those goals and I have a look Regional goals are like far out they've morphed and that's what it's about like again talking before we jumped on onto the podcast about setting your plans and knowing that you needed sort of just hit the ground running, don't wait until it's perfect. Brad: If you sit around and wait for the perfect you'll never it'll never get off the ground you know and it is about me in business myself I will sign earlier Josh that you know, I know I've made plenty mistakes or have learned from them. I've made some of those mistakes a couple times but yeah, my biggest priority is probably you know, having a great idea or having a what I think is a good plan but not having the right people steering that ship or working with you to achieve that ultimate goals and it's about communicating to the people that matter what those got that goal is as well so they can all go on the journey with you but everything, you need to plan for anything in life, you know, when you wake up tomorrow and go this I've got to take on a hot stock, it might go okay, but it may well not. Like most things that work out well, you got a long term perspective, a long term plan, anything that seems nice and shiny and apparently guaranteed quick win often doesn't work out. So 100% right, Josh, it's about planning. It's about giving yourself time. But it's not waiting for that perfect day, that perfect storm because opportunity presents itself and you've, you know, sometimes you got to think on your feet and take it. Josh: Anyone in business that's getting out in business today and goes, I'm going to be a millionaire in 12 months. Just stop what you're doing right now. And don't quit your job. Don't quit your job. That's something I've seen so many times that comes to us. Okay, we need to get website, online presence. I want 200 leads coming in a week Brad: And I want to see another cryptocurrency overnight success as well, because that's where I've sort of fallen low false, doing that. Yeah, it can't be easy ways to make to make money. And look, some people are fortunate that there's a lot of people that fall into that trap. Josh: Absolutely. Oh, what I was saying about the Parkinson's Law just circling back a little bit. You have this amount of time. So Parkinson's Law is more about time, but I think it applies just the same to money. I think that people that have more money that comes in somehow find a way to spend more money. And people that are living on a lower income, somehow managed to still get by and sometimes have nicer things than that's a higher income. So if you have someone down the coast property developer that's bringing in $200,000, $400,000 a year for themselves, and then they've got this car and it seems like they seem to somehow have nearly the same parity in expenses. And then if something goes wrong with them, they fall hard as opposed to someone who's like owning, I don't know, 50,000? Brad: Yeah, I think early 60,000 is the average median. Josh: Yeah. So early, early 60s to the early 60s. Seems like those people are still getting along. Still going fine enough. You know, I'm saying from no evidence, no citations perspective, just he said the pub talk but you see people's books and you see what people do. Would you say that that kind of correlates Brad: I think it 100% does, Josh. Now when it comes down to people's personalities and their profiles, how they are raises children, but I think the younger populace of today are a lot more into the consumable spin. They want that first house to be the house that their parents have worked their whole life in to retire in. I think people visit and we do have constant you know that modern collectively a couple modern $300,000 $400,000 a year and have no savings have no have nothing to really show for show for their hard work and their toil because they are living in the moment. I think a lot of it comes down to discipline. Maybe it might need yet man you gotta have multiple bank accounts or different investments where a percentage of pay falls into each week. Brad: But you're right earlier Josh said you gotta hold don't leave things to light when it comes to investing. The whole power of compounding, you have does work out that direction. $10 in you know, $10 invested today reinvested over, you know, over the next you know, 30, 40 years. I'm not smart enough to work it well that will be but more than $10 it will. It's about discipline. It's about making that little bit of sacrifice, and I think people can quite easily do that. Whether they sell a shock, forcing into superannuation, any discipline is better than a discipline, even if, yeah, worst case scenario, we're putting that X amount of dollars into that term deposit. Wanna do 1.6% right now. And yeah, which might only sort of match inflation. So I'm not saying that's an investment strategy worth adopting, but it's better than doing nothing. And in time, that might mean it might turn into a managed fund, it might turn into a deposit or a property, it might turn into a chair portfolio might turn into an investment in the business. It's about discipline, and if you get it right, yeah, I mean, if you can, that in any set 10% you save can become 15%, can become 20% that you actually recycling and putting into investments your return will be a lot much better. Yeah. When you get to that age, and if you sort of leaving in the last five years to make things work Josh: A couple of things actually on that, what do you think about the government's super pullout scheme? Brad: I'm not obviously not a fan. I think you're just stealing for yourself, I think it should be a last resort, superannuation is there for retirement I think they had made some of the conditions to loosen easy for people and tempting for people to take. But the flip side of that from a social conscious perspective understand there are people out there who can't feed their children or really don't know where the next dollar is coming from. Well, I get that from a hardship provision it's better than taking that money than the nasty fallout which could happen on that side. I'm not a fan. I would much rather see our clients in particular use other sort of stimulus measures that are out there whether it be job sake, a job keeper. The cash flow boost is a lot. There's a lot of stuff out there, which hasn't hit every button but I'm hoping most people have had some sort of financial support, but I am, I think the superannuation one was a necessity, but I'm not obviously a fan of that because that's somebody that you’ve worked for, and you're going to be paying and you are technically paying for Josh: That's completely fair enough. I agree completely unless you absolutely have to. It's better just to sort of keep doing thing. Brad: And I don't think it's also just to it's an education around super, I think not many people look at their superannuation funds as a real investment until they do get closer to that retirement age as well. And I, you know, obviously, I do have a wealth planning business, I will not declare conflict here, but I think it's about acknowledging supers for a lot of people. superannuation will be the biggest asset that they will build outside of their house and it sort of their personal successes and triumphs. So something we spoke about compounding before and the difference that you might get from a standard fund that might give you a 6% return of a life. Yeah, well for the investment as opposed to maybe the average IC return which is either 9% it will make a difference in retirement as well. So I think there needs to be better education around superannuation. It's not just something that employers putting on habits in doing and not care about, yeah, it is an actual real asset and you're only taxed 15% on money that is invested in superannuation, contributions, early tax of 15% going in as well. It's a good low tax environment and it's something we shouldn't be playing with because it is it is that that is your rainy day investments. And when you do retire, we don't want to be living on a $400 a week government pension. So if it's still around, jury's out on that, if you want that goal of being self funded bowl, yeah, treat that super as a real asset and try not to touch it Josh: Will government give me like advantages to chucking additional coin in there you could put 1000 in a match 500 or something like that? Brad: There is the government co contribution it has it used to be 1000 4000 entities, it is probably phasing and in terms of the monetary benefit, and it does only apply to people who will sort of allow middle income salary but yeah, the government is obviously has made superannuation enticing investment vehicle due to the low tax rates and, and I you know, when in saying that I have been disappointed in a lot of us that they have sort of reduced the concessional contributions capped at $25,000, where it used to be a hell of a lot more. So it is harder to get money into super so you haven't, once again, I sort of get into back into that argument that yeah, if you can avoid dragging money at a super please do so. I'd much rather someone borrow some money from a family member to get them through this little crisis than draw money in which they had no intention of contributing into. Josh: This is this is a different problem. This is this is a money problem than a business problem. The problem that I've had for many, many, many years is I've looked at what I've been earning and I've been benchmarking what I've been earning against what I had been earning, or what I've been saving against what I had been saving, not knowing at all if I was sitting in a good position because I'm cashflow positive, or what the average spreaker is doing around the place. Is it sensible for a business to be sitting cashflow positive? Sounds like a stupid question, but I'm sure many businesses out there are not. And is it sensible for a business to be borrowing money or investing your own money and is it, I guess that comes down to the risk assessment? What are you what you're investing into? Brad: Josh, it comes down to borrowing, borrowing can be a powerful tool, if you're obviously using that borrowed money to invest in the right type of asset. Also, you don't want to have high interest bearing debt, things like credit cards, pawnbroking lines. Withdrawals once again, can work. But once again, it depends on what you're using that withdrawal for. If you're going to get a return on that investment, whether it be bought, you know, use net redraw to buy a property comes into that investment. Positively good, can be good, and generally it’s good I'd rather possibly deed property than negatively geared property, even though your tax benefits might be less, you're hopefully still going to be ahead but also comes down to what is that asset as well. You might have a positive geared property that you might be getting a 5% return on investment on and have minimal debt on that is actually ground value as well. That comes down to what is the income return? Yes. But is there a capital growth return on that investment as well? And some people might tell me the last 10 to 12 years Depending where you're investing your money in terms of property, there probably has been a flat property market. Brad: I think we're talking earlier, Josh about our first properties that we bought and I bought my first property when I was 21 in the sleepy town of Brasil, Ipswich and paid 83 grand for my parents … my wife. Now Carly and I were crazy. doing such a thing. Yeah, like spending that hundred $50 a week on the loan repayment. We were out in probably earning, I don't know, $100 could bond but it was the best decision we ever made because what it created and the property market moved. We've built some equity and build a good foundation where we can sort of continue our investment journey as well. So I think although we're not going to get the massive jumps in property prices once again, it comes down to discipline, but it comes down to using debt for the right reasons. And the end of the day, Josh using redrawn on your timeline to keep pouring money into a business which isn't growing, which is stagnating is going backwards. I don't think it's a sensible thing to do. Speak to your advisor and work out well. Is it worth putting good money after bad as well? Sometimes borrowing can be good, but it's a case by case scenario. Josh: So if you if you're in a position where you had a business and it's a no we're talking about low margin businesses stuff if you're turning over 100K and you see it's good and it's after all your expenses, maintenance and all your equipment. And I'm just using this is a nice simple example. But if you have $100,000 business and you Okay, cool, it's sitting there positive everything's good. You're more than capable to go to the bank and go and grab five more lawn mowers, five more right on zero 10s hedge, yep whippersnappers, whatever you whatever you got to get, and you could then have stopped with five and then you have the debt but you got your short term debt to then grow the business obviously you do it more organically and just smash on 500% increase in your business. But if you go okay, it's already working. It's already good. Does that come down to like the risk per se Brad: Yeah. And I'm speaking to earlier today, just before we got caught up and I'm a massive advocate for behaviour profiling. We as a business off of that too. Well, cons as well and I think it's worked amazingly well for me as a decided and I myself personally what my behaviours and my personality profile is what things motivate me, what things stress me. I think it does come down to the individual but it also comes down to what you want and aspirations are as well. But for some people not employing staff and working to your own you know working to your own accord not having any risk in life. You can still be happy and earn hundred thousand dollars a year and you know me obviously hopefully they structured in a company or somewhere where they're paying minimal tax on that hundred thousand dollars, Josh, but at the same time they people do want to grow they've got an expanding family they want to you know, get the kids into a job or a business they and their wife might not work so they need to sort of put some additional funds into the family budget, maybe on another you know, on another round or on another machine might be a smart thing to do but I think a lot of it comes down to as I said before an area where I've sort of you know probably have fallen in the past is putting too much faith in people. Or not telling me to put in pretty much faith or trust in people's is picking the wrong person for the job, you know. Brad: So there might be another area you want to invest in, there might be another sideline component you want to add to the business, but have the right person, have a person who has a complementary style to you, has the same ethics and morals as you and someone who's not going to create just more headaches and more problems as well. So I think a lot of it comes down to having the investment. Is it the right investment for me, is it part of my values? Is it part of my overarching plan, but secondly, is that person someone of credibility and someone I can work with, and trust. Most often, I've seen people expand a business and the business goes south pretty quickly, because we've got people who don't have the same values as them and people who are, I suppose, not loyal and not sticking to the business but sticking to themselves and just, yeah, and then let that business down. So it often depends on the person depends on what their goals are. But often there's someone in as you mentioned before someone's earning 100 grand a year with minimal fuss and minimal complications. Feels a bit wrong to say but often they'll probably be better off sticking to that, sticking to that plan and, and a country is full of successful self employed people or people might only have one extra additional employee. why have the stress? Why complicate it Josh: I completely agree I learned many, many years ago, they're all going have the biggest IT company in Australia. I don't want that. I don't want that. Cool to say to pub, I guess. Brad: Yeah, it feels good for a minute, but not good for your blood pressure. Probably not good for any relationship you're in as well. But we define success differently. A number of great businesses that have grand or normal size and normal scale and almost reputation, but often they've had good people. And you can't get there just on your own. Josh: No, and even if you've got good people I think that you can have if you're really great at mowing lawns, it does not mean that you're really great at managing people. You could have a high IQ and a terrible EQ, and then you're not going to get a mission understand people's problems, and that then means that you might have the best business but not the best person Brad: Hundred percent Josh like said it's often use the old trading scenario they do even a fourth year finish they tried ploy works out there. Yeah, they're too expensive so they got to go around and become a contractor and then they got to around GST registration, they got to start watching their own bears, you got to start keeping an accounting file. They got to start sourcing their own insurance, they need to need to work out what's the best mobile phone deal? What software do I need to run my database? It’s all these conversations come to us and you start to think about technology. You start to think about mobile phone technicians you start to think about bookkeeping support, accountants, insurance companies, it's messy and who do you trust? Who do you turn to? What referrals do you take on board? You can complicate your life pretty quickly and look, anyone is a massively successful and created a huge wealth has probably gone through these complications and thrive, but some people just haven't got it and they make up and they set up. And I think it's important that one, know yourself and know your limitations before you sort of go on a journey that could end in tears Josh: Think of that way you're going to be and you're going to enjoy that work. And if you're not, probably don't walk that road. Brad: Know yourself, know your limitations, know what type what it takes for you to burn out, and we will have our limits and we're all wired differently, doesn't mean you're a failure it just means that you're better at other things than the person next to you. Josh: Albert Einstein said if you measure the success of a fish's ability to climb a tree, you'll think fish is stupid forever. It's been great talking with you. And yeah, it's been it's been great having on the show, and if anyone is interested in talking to Brad, we'll Chuck a link in here to his website so that you can see a bit more information, maybe get your books, and maybe make sure that you're doing the video that you should be doing. And the last question I've got for you is if they had to read something to put them in business stance after they've just had this whiplash from COVID, what would you say they should be reading? Doesn't have to be an exact book, but what should they, what resources should they be utilising? Brad: There's a lot of resources out there, Josh, and I'm not I'm not going to stick into one book in particular. But for me, it's about anything that makes you unique or different. And I know as an accountant, I'm not going to go and read textbooks on accounting or tax but I'm going to read other books that might help me in other areas that I think might be beneficial clients and give me a competitive edge. So might be around things like leadership, how to influence people, different types of selling strategies. So I'm not a massive reader, or do you like yeah, my little quote, so little bursts of inspiration. So I think it's just about knowing you as a person and just being an interesting person to converse with and just learn about the world. Read the paper, buy the fin review, just read different this read different things on myself if I'm like three kids at home and I work long hours, so it's often fall asleep after five minutes. Well, so I think, right things that inspire you, read things that motivate you. But yeah, I think just be aware, just be aware, just be aware of what's going on in the world. Josh: But just don't use Facebook as a source. Brad: No, exactly right and just yet, just be someone who's buried and has multiple interests on it. It just means you're going be able to relate to a lot more people and make life a lot more interesting. Josh: So well, Brad, it's been great talking to you. And if anyone out there would like to jump across to iTunes, leave us some love. Give us a review and any feedback you have. That'd be great. Otherwise, stay healthy out there in the COVID crisis and look forward to tuning in soon. Brad: Thanks Josh.

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147|Improving Your Business Process Flow with Pip Meecham

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.

america god american canada australia man work australian new zealand va mcdonald improving paypal windows automation holes dropbox lay gary vee pip crms ato activecampaign business processes bunnings stupidly symbian northern new south wales connectwise josh it josh yeah josh you josh no josh well josh as josh for josh on

145|Niching Your Business With Kirsty-Lee Roberts

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 3, 2020 20:01

Niching Your Business With Kirsty-Lee Roberts Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land. I've got Kirsty-Lee here and she's going to be talking to us about niching and the current position of Australia's financials. So Kirsty-Lee, tell me, what drove you to niche into the trade and construction industry. Learn more about business niching at dorksdelivered.com.au Kirsty-Lee: Hi, so I took on a business coach and it was an online program, and in there they had discussed a lot about how, if your message is targeted towards every business, you'll likely not to be speaking to any of them. They're not really going to go ahead with your services because you're very generic. So I had decided to test out my message being focused towards building and construction, because that's where my background comes from and I'm very passionate about it, and it also means that a lot of my clients are all kind of similar. They're all in the building construction trades, sole trader area. Josh: Cool. We see it all the time. Definitely have the sniper approach, not the shotgun approach. And we hear it spoken about a lot and a lot of us hear, "Oh, we got to do this. We got to do this." And then we don't, or we think we will always try to, and then we just fall back. But one of the big things that I found is when niching, it's not about turning away business, would you agree? You'd still work with other businesses? Kirsty-Lee: I do have quite a lot of clients that are outside building and construction. I just feel like building and construction is, I guess, where I'm meant to be, that's where I have the most knowledge. But I do take on, say, restaurants, mechanics, they're quite similar to building and construction anyway, makeup, artists, things like that. But it's just something that I just feel really passionate about, and I know that those building and construction and trade space businesses really need that help, so if I can provide that specialist help to them, I can help them overcome the problems that I've seen in many businesses that are quite similar. Josh: A lot of businesses, they do the voodoo that they do well, but not everyone's a bookkeeper, not everyone's an accountant, not everyone's an IT person. You can't wear all the hats, so it's good to get to nice and then you know any of the certain products and programs that they might use, like, I'm sure you've come across simPRO and things like that. It's good to know how the data is being looked at and how they would like the reporting done. I find when you're niching, it's about getting your message clear on your website and all your marketing so that the businesses that you're talking to go, "Okay, you are the right person for me." And it makes it very difficult for them to compare apples with apples because there's apples and oranges, there's someone that does everything, which means they probably do nothing well. And there's someone that does something very, very well. Would you say that your experience has been the same? Kirsty-Lee: Yeah, most definitely. So the differences between, say, restaurant to building and construction is restaurants are very hard to cashflow forecast because their sales are the sales that they get on the day. So it's very hard to predict, I guess, what their sales are going to be the next day or in a week's time, in a month's time, whereas building and construction, a lot of the work will tend to go over a longer period of time, smaller operators might have jobs for a day or two. Large operators might have jobs that go for 12 months. So with those larger jobs, you've got your progress claims, you've done your quote, so you kind of know what's involved. You can kind of forecast for the next 6 to 12 months of funding, or not so much what funding, but what monies they're going to have coming in from clients, what expenses they're going to have, because they've quoted all those works. Josh: That makes perfect sense. And people think a lot of the time, when you niche, people think, "Oh, it means you're just good at one thing," but I like to liken it to, I guess, a doctor. You go to see your GP and your GP will talk to you about any of the different elements that you have. But if you went to see a specialist, whether that'd be a dermatologist or a gynecologist or any of the other ologists, if you went and saw one of them, you would know that, they've at least studied the same things that your normal GP has and then they've just specialised further, so they're as good as someone that can manage any and all the books as well as being better in a certain area. Would that be fair to say? Kirsty-Lee: Yes, most definitely. I went into a building and construction business a couple of years ago and they were focusing on manufacturing at the time and they had just started going into installation of a particular product. And I remember I was there for maybe three or four hours, and I had said, "Can I have a look at your copy of your last BAS? I just want to see what you were claiming on your BAS kind of thing." And then the minute I picked it up and I went, "You're not claiming fuel tax credits." And they're like, "Oh, what is that? Are we entitled to that?" And I'm like, "Yeah, you've got machinery on site. You should be able to claim for your fuel tax credits for what you're using the machines for." And that they hadn't been claiming it about, I think it was about two years, the period that they could have claimed for. And that was worth over $40,000. Kirsty-Lee: So if you're going with somebody that is maybe not experienced in the field, you could be missing those little things. It would be quite similar to me going somewhere that makes wine, I would have no idea about wine tax credits, and I wouldn't pretend to know. I can research it and find out the information, that kind of thing, but if I was looking after a wine business, that could be potentially something that I missed. Josh: Yep. That makes perfect sense, and knowing those little niche things can, as you said then, it could be a world of different. 40 grand, that's a lot of money and that's something I think a lot of people should be considering. People build these awesome relationships with businesses, and one of the things that we we strive on is we tell any business that works with us. We say, "Don't just take our word for it. Go and take advice. Go and get an audit or an IT audit or a security audit or take advice from other IT companies, and bring it back to us or sit down with us at the table and we'll talk about what their findings were," because we know a lot about technology, but as you've just pointed out, there could be certain things or certain parts that we go, "Okay, we've missed that because there's some very specific pieces of software that would be great for their industry." And everyone grows by doing that. Josh: And that's something, I guess, is good for any business too, is just to get a second opinion. We ask our clients to do it, and we think everyone should be doing that just to make sure that they can see what they're doing and what they're doing is right. As opposed to continuing to do what they've been doing and not wanting to change. And in changing this company, you're talking about, saved 40 grand. That's a decent whack of money by having someone else's eyes go over their books. Kirsty-Lee: Yeah. Most definitely. It's something that if I come across something in a client's books, I might say to the accountant, "Hey, what do you think of this? Or I'm thinking we do something like this regarding this particular issue. What are your thoughts?" Just to run it past them, because when it comes to bookkeeping, I'm not the only person that has to look at your books. You've got the business owner, but then you've also got the accountant at the end of the financial year. So whatever I do affects both of those people so I need to make sure that both parties are going to be happy with the work that I've done. Josh: Yep. You're kind of the middle man where you need to be able to represent the information, and I'm sure some of the stuff that you get given is chicken scratch and you need to polish it off and make it look amazing. Kirsty-Lee: There's a lot of shoe boxes with receipts that might be faded or barely readable. Josh: Receipt Bank. How cool is that? I'll be the first to say, when I started up my first entity, which was just myself as a sole trader, this is going back 17 years now, I was doing everything myself and keeping care of everything myself and I read multiple books on making sure I was doing everything right with the GST and then I got to 13 years ago where I then set it up with a trust, the company, and I went, "Okay, this is getting way too confusing." But I was too scared to submit it myself because I don't want to stuff up, so I just didn't for two years. End result, I was losing sleep and freaking out. I'm going, "I'm going to have the government knock on my door. They're going to find me. I'm going to be stuffed." I had QuickBooks, but I had done no BAS lodgements and it was shoe box accounting, absolutely. It was terrible. Josh: I went and spoke to a bookkeeper and she said, "Don't worry about it, calm down. It's not that big of a deal. Just go through it and we'll get it sorted." It cost a few hundred dollars. They went through... And again, just the timelines on money positions, this is now 11 years ago. It costs a few hundred dollars. So it'd be a lot more now, but cost a few hundred dollars. They went through and said, okay, "Everything's sweet, it's all been submitted." I went, "Oh my goodness, the stress is gone." And that's what it's about, I guess, removing the business owner from the equations of things that they're not that great at, and putting people like yourself in their shoes, where they're able to use your knowledge and use them to the advantage, get $40,000 worth of savings, and know that they're in safe hands. Kirsty-Lee: And it's even something like the ATO. I still get nervous when I call the ATO and that's what I do on a daily basis. So as a business owner, if you're worried that you haven't got your BASes submitted and you haven't quite found a bookkeeper, accountant yet, give the ATO call and explain your situation, and then more than likely going to give you an extension to be able to get everything organised and bring everything to date. Because they're not out there to get the people that are trying to do the right thing or trying to bring their books up to date. It's those people that are deliberately not submitting it. That's the people that they want to go after and that they want to get. Josh: I'd liken that to back at school. One of the things that I wish that I did, although I do have the facade of someone that's an extrovert now, I can promise you at school I was definitely not. And one of the things I always wish that I did was ask more questions in class instead of sitting there feeling stupid. I never called the ATO in the two years that I hadn't done anything, so I'm like, "I don't want to tell them, because I don't want to get in trouble, because I don't know what I don't know and I don't want them to know that I don't know what I'm doing and then they'll be like, 'Oh, now you're going to be audited. Now you've told us.' And I'm like, 'Oh, so don't tell them.'" And then I was just freaking out more and more. Josh: As I've found out more recently, the ATO are there to help you, as you said, not there to hinder you. They want to work with you, and that was great advice. Kirsty-Lee: It's always one of those things that you get clients coming to you and they're freaking out and they go, "I haven't submitted a BAS in two years," and it's like, "Okay, one step at a time. I'm going to contact the ATO. I'm going to get that extension just so you can sleep a bit easier." And there's a very real possibility that once you submit a BAS, you're probably going to get a fine. So you just prepare them for that and go, "Oh, they'll probably send me a fine." I think the last one I saw was like $440 for not submitting on time. But then I've had a number of clients that we've submitted late or we've had to call up to get an extension for reasons outside their control and they haven't received a fine. So it's just one of those things that I think you've probably got to be a little bit unlucky for the ATO to give you a fine. If it's your first occurrence, they're probably not going to fine you. You're probably not going to have an audit. But that being said, the ATO might one day just start auditing everyone. We have no idea. Josh: Yeah, it's up to them. But I have found overall my dealings have been pretty good. I can't complain too much. They've been very lenient when I had some financial stress due to a breakup. I had expressed my concerns with them. They came to the party quite well. So I was happy with that and that was just one less stress at an already tense time. Getting to the point of you niched your business, and now we've gone into a spot where with the current pandemic and health of Australia and on a larger scale, the world, we've got businesses that are either booming or busting. And one of the patterns that I have seen is that some people have niched, but they've done it in a way that has resulted in them having all of their income gone because all their eggs are in one basket. And there's obviously good ways and bad ways to niche, and you're dealing with a single category of business, and I'd imagine when they go gang busters, you would be riding the wave, and then when they're not, you'd be feeling that pain as well. Have you noticed any of those ups and downs at this stage? Kirsty-Lee: I'm very lucky that the way that I've niched, it's a larger range of businesses. I haven't just niched to one particular area. I'm not a bookkeeper just for shop fitters. My range of niche is quite broad, so I think for somebody that has niched to those shop fitters, it would be very hard because nobody is fitting out shops at the moment. So I think there is a way that you can niche and do it successfully to your target market that isn't going to hurt you in a downtown. Say for me, a downturn would hurt me if building and construction stopped. And we're very lucky at the moment that building and construction is still at this essential service during these times. Josh: Yeah. Niching, I think, is sometimes as an example of saying before, don't be the keeper just for dermatologists. If you're the bookkeeper just for dermatologists, you're going to be in strife for it. If you're the bookkeeper for people that are just doing hair and makeup, can say straightaway, that industry is not going very well at the moment. It's about diversifying, but also niching, making sure that you're not pushing yourself into a box too much, your services and skills going in the right direction, but you're not so directed you're only talking to a single person with a single skill set. You're able to still broadly work with anyone in the construction industry, which is really cool. Kirsty-Lee: And I'm very lucky too, at this time, that I have clients outside building and construction. I have a couple of restaurant clients who I was a bit concerned when the shutdowns happened and a lot of them have been thriving because of the takeaway side of things has gone up, so they're actually turning over more than I did before. Everyone's stuck at home, ordering food out. Josh: What do you think is going to happen to the commercial real estate and businesses? When they've made that decision to pivot from being a sit down restaurant, and I've seen businesses in Tenerife and all around Brisbane that have been higher class, nice restaurants, running an upper class business, and then they've gone to doing takeaway and they've still kept some of that class there and things like what you're saying right now, they're making more money now. It would be very difficult, I think, for them to go, "Okay, economically, it's not as viable to reopen the restaurant." It has a bigger footprint. It has more insurances and they're then bringing in less money from it. Do you think businesses will change their mindsets and that this will be a big turning point or big aha moment for a lot of businesses? Kirsty-Lee: Not necessarily. Say those larger prestige restaurants that people are ordering from, they got their names from being this magnificent restaurant that you go to and you have this wonderful sit down dinner. If they went to just takeaway, they could be compromising the quality of the food, the vibe that you get from going there, so they've losing all that. But I feel like some other businesses that may be office based businesses, they might choose to have more flexible working arrangements going forward because during these times we've proven that it can work. So provided the productivity's there, there should be no reason why businesses aren't able to offer those options. Josh: I completely agree. And over the last 13 years I've grown from a garage business, then we got a storefront and we thought this is great, and then we moved into Brisbane, and we thought this is fantastic. And we did all the, I guess, in quotation marks, "traditional steps" for a business to grow. And then I went, "What am I doing? Why am I driving into business? Why am I getting all the staff to come into the same central spot, deal with traffic, deal with toll roads and parking and all the other stuff that comes with it, to sit down and then connect into other people's systems?" So it was back in 2014 that we started a remote workforce, and that worked out to be good and bad. When 2016 came around that I decided, well I didn't decide, I guess, I found that we had the systems in place to be able to monitor the KPIs and make sure that we're able to see what people were doing, and the KPIs change and adjust over time as well. It's not like they just stay the same. Josh: If you, for instance, were looking at what a mechanic was able to do, and how many cars they're able to service when they're working from a shop, and then you moved into becoming a mobile mechanic, obviously the number's going to be very different. And that's the same transition, when people start working from their homes, it's not going to be as... You're not going to be able to use the same KPIs and the monitoring and things, and you really don't want to micromanage either. You want to make sure everyone's still has that same ability to continue to work. And it's not for everyone. I've had staff that can't work remotely and they've told me, they said, "Look, I know I'm not as productive when I work remotely." Josh: And we sat down and tried to work out how to do that. But I still think any which way we look at it, it took two years for us to find the sweet spot, and we have an environment now where they can work from home or they can work remotely or whatever they want to do. Overall, we'll see massive shifts and the software to support these new ways of business working will evolve and we'll see more abilities for people to have that monitoring, create those KPIs and make sure that all the businesses and strive with a significantly smaller carbon footprint, which can only be a good thing. For you, do you go on site as well as do things remotely? Kirsty-Lee: A lot of my work is done remotely. I do meet with clients to discuss their financials. Usually one or two days a week I'll try and get out there and see as many them as I can. I don't really have any that need me to work in from their offices, which is very lucky because we've put those systems in place so that they can work anywhere, I can work anywhere kind of thing. So I'm very lucky that I do get to work from home, but even back in the day, when I had an office job, I hated going in there because people would be talking and they would distract you, I'm very much like, "Just leave me alone so I can get my job done." Josh: Yep. I'm the same. I find the most productive time slot for me is between 3:30 to nine o'clock in the morning. Kirsty-Lee: 3:30, what are you doing at 3:30? Josh: No rest for the wicked. 3:30 to nine o'clock. Very few businesses are up. Very few people are distracting me and I'm able to just get heaps of work done without phone calls, telemarketers, emails going backwards and forwards, any projects and bits and pieces that need to have any loose ends tied off on, I can get finished. In answer of your question, I've got a YouTube video called The Mirror Mindset, and it's all around the person that you are inside and making sure that when you see that person in the mirror, then they match up, but most of the time they don't. I also go through some the eating and health habits that I changed, and I have very little sleep now compared to what I used to and still seem to work on a high level of efficiency, which I can record through all the different remote monitoring and the KPI tools that we've got implemented. Is there anything else that you'd like to go through that you think would be really great take homes? Kirsty-Lee: Yeah, don't leave your ATO issues. Definitely get them sorted because you will sleep much better once you've got them sorted and you're not worrying about the ATO being on your back. Josh: Cool. I completely agree. And I know the stress and if anyone that is listening out there is looking for a second opinion on their books, it'd be very, very good for you to jump across to kraccounts.com.au, we'll put a link here for you guys to check it out. Speak to Kirsty-Lee and see what she can do for you guys. '. Kirsty-Lee: Thanks for having me. Josh: No worries. I hope you've enjoyed this, and if anyone has any comments or feedback, make sure to jump across to iTunes, leave us some love and give us some feedback and everyone stay out there, stay good, and stay healthy.

australia speak large brisbane gp kpis kpi bases bas kirsty tenerife quickbooks ato gst niching lee roberts josh yeah josh no josh cool

138|Covid Created Customers With Julie Bannister

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.

covid-19 christmas australia zoom chinese santa created customers brisbane queensland new south wales gold coast cb automating jack daniels sow bannister josh it josh yeah josh you josh no josh so josh cool

Ep 5.12 - LIVE! Breaking Down Story - The Rise of Skywalker

Keystroke Medium

Play Episode Listen Later May 1, 2020 74:27

On tonight's episode of KSM Live! CC Ekeke joins Josh, Scott, and Chuck, to share their thoughts on the most recent entry into the Star Wars saga. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Come join in the fun and share your own thoughts! *** Breaking Down Story - The Rise of Skywalker On tonight's episode of KSM Live! CC Ekeke joins Josh, Scott, and Chuck, to share their thoughts on the most recent entry into the Star Wars saga. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Hosts: Josh Hayes, Scott Moon, C. Steven Manley, CC Ekeke SPOILERS AHEAD! [00:00] Opening remarks—Dragon Award Nominations are open! [04:42] Weekly update, Quarantine Edition Chuck: Dark Devices (Jack Dark #1) is done and to the editor. Book 2 is underway. Brace Cordova #3 is underway. Dinosaur saxophone. Scott: Reaper #10 is released. Arpen Wars is being worked on. Thirteen Mercenaries is in development as well. Blanket forts, walking outside? Rollerblading in the basement. CC: Book 5 in Pantheon Saga series in development for a late spring release. DDP Yoga workouts! TP sparing. Josh: Continued work on Enemy of Valor (Valor #3). Got a contract for the short story he’s been hinting at over and over. Contract of Valor? [15:54] Sponsor: TS Hottle’s No Marigold’s in the Promised Land: A Compact Universe Novel [17:48] Main Event: Breaking Down Story - The Rise of Skywalker! Things We Liked: Josh: Beautifully shot, cinematography, CGI, backdrops was immersive in 4K. CC: Well produced visual medium; in line with the rest of the sequel trilogy. Chuck: A lot of ‘fan’ moments to enjoy. Ex. When Chewbacca learns of Leia’s death. Scott: Felt much more connected to the characters because of the time with the series. Things We Did Not Like: Josh: -The story was set up to fail before the movie was even shot (see controversy around The Last Jedi). -TLJ threw away so many promises given in The Force Awakens -TRoS had to fix things that TLJ had done and the elements placed in TRoS could’ve been set up earlier. -Lack of Payoff from previous movies/trilogies (Ex. Palpatine’s return) and even in the same movie (Ex. Chewbacca’s ship blows up). Chuck: -Trying to pack two movies into one movies to course correct from TLJ. -Full of plotholes! Scott: -Magically creating thousands of space ships for an instant space fleet! -Palpatine as Bond Villain. CC: -Emotionless story for the reader. -Faults began with TFA, but were exacerbated by TLJ’s change of direction. It was too much for TRoS to fix. -Zero stakes in the film. (Ex. C3PO wipe). -Stupid ideas against established lore. -Force Skyping was cool, but Force FedEx power? -Committed the sin: Undoing the work of the previous trilogy (all heroes became failures) -It’s the Rise of Palpatine, not Skywalker! -If you need supplementary material to explain a movie premise, the movie failed to convey that to the viewer. -Space horses riding on a ship? -Mirroring RotJ with TRoS, ramping up stakes. -Rise of the MacGuffin! -If you think about the movie, it falls apart. -Segue into Prequel Trilogy Rant (Love Story! Midichlorians!). - JJ Abrams had to do everything he could to bring the fans back that TLJ alienated. -Terrible motivations (Bad Day With Kylo?) -Rey is a Mary Sue who never needs anyone’s help. -Rey learns Force Healing from books! Jedi Nerd. No wait, she downloaded Jedi Knowledge from the Kyle Skype server. What do you want to see in the next Star Wars Trilogy. Chuck: -Go back to the Old Republic and establish the rules of the universe. A Fallen Jedi story. Josh: -No more Rebel vs. Empire story. More small scale story like Rogue One and don’t undo the rules. Character driven story. -Thrawn Trilogy! CC: -Too much returning to the well. Move forward. Show the New Jedi Order. Show more personal stories and characters. -Dave Feloni/Jon Favreau need to be in charge of the Star Wars franchise. They make you care about the characters. Token diversity is not enough to make you care. -Diversity was in SW in the EU before the sequel trilogy Scott: -Micro-level stories. -A Jedi Academy in the flavor of Clone Wars. Hot Take: -Solo was the movie we didn’t need. -The Empire was Mace Windu’s fault! [1:09:30] Closing remarks Coffee and Concepts Writer’s Journey Storytelling Become a Medium today! https://keystrokemedium.com/mediums/ Don't forget to Like and Subscribe and get involved with the mayhem and shenanigans in the live chat! http://www.youtube.com/c/keystrokemedium If you have any thoughts or ideas for show topics or if you have authors you'd like to see on the show, let us know. Visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KeystrokeMedium For all the latest and greatest KSM Gear, check out our store at: https://keystrokemedium.com/ksm-store/ Also, subscribe to Sci Fi Explorations for the best discounted and free books we come across through our contacts: http://www.scifiexplorations.com Keystroke Medium Anthologies Kingdoms of Iron and Stone - https://amzn.to/2GjbE6I Horizons Beyond - https://amzn.to/2SrJ6uX Farthest Reach – https://amzn.to/2UZINeo The Writing Dream – and How to Make it to Happily Ever After – Keystroke Medium’s first non-fiction book. https://amzn.to/2UZINeo If you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a review and rate the show on iTunes, Podbean, Stitcher, or wherever else you found us!

133 |Running the Numbers With Drue from 4Front

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.

america god australia europe china man japan advice running zoom africa board dad numbers 3d shit cowboys skype oz cfo gp brussels bas abcs r d 5d atos 4d ato gst mckinsey co smsf drue elds 4front josh it josh yeah josh you josh no our board josh well josh so josh there josh do josh all josh not josh cool

127|Interview With Author of Make a Difference Dr Larry Little

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 26, 2020 44:09

127: Interview with Dr Larry Little Josh: So, I've got a special guest with us today, which is Dr. Larry Little. Now, Dr. Larry Little is somebody who's been very, very fun part of my life and has influenced millions of people through his book Make a Difference. Now Make a Difference is all about doing just that, making a difference. And I'd like to introduce you now, Dr. Larry Little, why'd you want to make this book? Learn more about how to make a difference at dorksdelivered.com.au Dr. Larry Little Well, Josh, thank you first of all For allowing me to be with you and just to hang out and to talk. I'm so proud of you and you're such an incredible leader, and example of what that make a difference the whole concept is about. And you're a wonderful example of why I wrote the book. Because I understood that people they may be brilliant and certainly can do things from a skill standpoint, can do things from a technical standpoint that were... and they were very gifted in that area. But what happened was I had entrepreneurs and owners and people that were leaders would come to me and they would say, "You know, Larry, I had this wonderful, for instance, engineer and she was brilliant. So we promoted her and she failed miserably. We promoted her, she had a team of people around her. She had no clue how to lead a team. She frustrated the team. She was frustrated. She ended up leaving. So we lost a great engineer, not to mention we still have a need for this leader in this area." I got to thinking about that, Josh and I saw a gap and how we literally talk, communicate, engage others. And I thought we're going at this kind of in an ineffective way. So, the Make a Difference concepts began to emerge around understanding who you are but not so you can just understand who you are, but let's understand who you are so that I can then understand who others, who they are and so that I can get to where they are and speak their language. And that's the real secret if you were to take... So if you take the whole book, in a nutshell it's understand who you are, but understand how to speak the language of others. The results have been really, really exciting as I've seen relationships grow personally in business, professionally simply because people begin to understand how to connect, engage, and really speak the language of those within their circle of influence. Josh: I completely agree. And one of the things that I definitely found from the book that I got now, I was fortunate enough to have started reading the book a number of ago when you did a bit of a tour around Australia and I met you in person, which was... didn't realise I guess the golden nugget, the opportunity that had landed in my lap in meeting you and how it was the change and pivot the direction of my life and the influence that it gave to me. So one of the things that I've found is it's not just about business, and it's definitely about relationships and communication and the way that you're talking with people and understanding what's their carrot for some people, and what is the driving motivators? why do people act the way they do? I know myself, and if it's not overly obvious, I'm definitely a quite a monkey. And the the interesting thing, actually, I'll give you a bit of background on the book. So you've got different characters that you all relate to, and there's different of profiling that you can do. But this is really easy to see and understand what type of person that you are and the type of... and how you discuss different things with different people. And how you've received the information from different people. And there's different books that I've read over the years and other ones on the five love languages, which I'm very familiar with. A different type of concept, but still resonates strongly with me. And being able to understand that when I'm talking with a line and they told me something very directly, and it was impacting me emotionally from them telling me what they've told me and it was... And they've told me and then it's been shifted on, it's out of their mind. And someone might say, "Josh, you look stupid in that shirt. What are you wearing that shirt for?" And all of a sudden that's in my head every time I see them for the next three years, they think I look stupid. And whether or not it was just something silly that I did or some off the cuff comment. And in my mind they were thinking about that as well the whole time, and I was thinking about it. It had entered their mind and let their mind and that was it for them. Dr. Larry Little Great. Josh: So, it's interesting just to understand how people think about you and how you should start thinking about others. And I'd say comfortably it's affected in positive ways, all areas of my life. My communication with family, friends, business associates, anyone and everyone. The way that I present myself on stage, the whole lot has changed because you can more easily gauge the feedback of the people that you're discussing or conversing with and work your way from there. It's a valuable read. So what would you say is where are you going from here? Dr. Larry Little Well, first of all, Josh, once again, congratulations, you get it. That's exactly the purpose of the book. And books like The Five Love Languages the Make a Difference these books all have one thing in common. And that is, it's about servant leadership. It's about understanding how to get to where someone else is instead of them to get to where you are. And that means you've learned to put your sensors in when you're around lions and not be offended with their direct language. You've learned to when you're presenting, to understand who your audience is and present in that format. And all of those things are... those are concepts, principles that really are undergirded by that servant leadership model. And the servant leadership model is just, let's understand and look at leadership from a service mentality instead of a dictatorial, narcissistic mentality. Josh: Yes. Dr. Larry Little Which it really is about serving others. And that's the premise of the book. The book, there are two myths that we really have to debunk. And the first myth is that we believe everybody shares our value view. In other words, we believe that what we think is important, everybody else thinks is important in terms of emotional connection and those kinds of things. That's not true. Everybody has their own value view. The second myth is that we believe everybody views us the same way we view ourselves. That's not true. We had this narrative that we tell ourselves, and this is how, based on our personality, based on who we are that is the narrative that drives our behaviour many times. But when we become self aware and we say, "Wait a minute. You know what, that narrative is not true for her or for him," then it changes the way we connect with others. And it's that understanding that drives us to serve others. And really the crucible of leadership is your purpose. Why are you leading? Why are you doing what you do, Josh? And the answer is because... for me it's because I want to make a difference in the lives of others. I want to make a difference in their life. I want to be able to speak into that. So this is a vehicle, this Make a Difference book is a vehicle for that. And that book it's been around and it's been around the world and we've been just very excited and very humbled by seeing the difference that it's made in relationships. Because Josh, if you in this interview you had said, "Hey Larry, this book it's really good. It's helped me to be a better leader. Boy it's helped me to be really much better president, CEO of my company, entrepreneur. Boy I could really lead my people in my company now." I would really be disappointed in you and I would say, "I'm so sorry. I was disappointed in myself because we didn't achieve what I wanted for you." But if you said what you said a minute ago, that, "Hey, this has helped me personally. This book has helped me in my personal life with those relationships that are so important to me. And oh by the way, I use the concepts in my professional world as well because it spills over." Then we celebrate. Then we say, "Hey, that is awesome. I'm so excited. I'm so proud and I'm so glad that you were able to use a bit of this to speak into the lives of others." So what's next? And it's really cool to watch it. The organisation that I work with, it's called Legal Centre for Leadership and we are taking these Make a Difference concepts and we continue to coach around them. With the executive and leadership coaching. We also have make a different seminars. We have a series of those that from accountability to engaging the disconnect, those kinds of things that our trained facilitators do a tremendous job. Very excited about our products and tools that we offer to support that and assessments. And really excited to roll out in 2020 what we are calling Eagle University. And Josh, we are taking those concepts and we are building a university online where you can go and get certified as an Eagle leader by walking through these, make a difference courses and other courses and that kind of thing. We are, our team is, they're going at it. They're excited about it, and we're focused on it. And I'm so grateful they let me hang out with them. It's exciting times around Eagle leadership. Josh: That's cool. So for the people that are in the land down under, a lot of the time that we find I guess we were only a very small, I guess we're a small continent full of widespread people. Is that someone that you'll be touring around Australia with or is that something we could say and definitely jump into online for some of the online university type media? Dr. Larry Little Oh yeah, the answer's yes and yes. Definitely you can jump online. Definitely you can participate in the Eagle university in the coaching, the seminars. With that I was just over in... well I would say your neighbour, maybe, we were in New Zealand. Josh: East Australia as I call it. Dr. Larry Little Yeah, the East Australians. Yes. So we were in New Zealand and we were able to roll out some of these concepts and yes, we'll be back in Australia. We'll look forward to that. But a lot of our work from a coaching standpoint can be done virtually now. We coach leaders literally across the globe. And so to answer your question, absolutely, we can do it virtually or in person or online. So that's exciting. Josh: That's cool. Yeah. Well, it's definitely as I said, it's impacted my life and it's been something strong enough that my position has evolved as it does over the years. Over the 12 years I've been in business, I've gone from being the guy in the trenches and talking with customers all the time, to being the guy that goes out and builds a team. And then from the team now I've started influencing and leading other business owners, which is something I'm very, very dear about and interested in doing. Because it's helping not just grow my business and the way that on own my mindset, it's helping grow theirs and hopefully accelerating their growth. Instead of taking 12 years to gain the knowledge that I've gained, helping them get it in a fast paced way that allows for them to apply that to their business, grow their business. And have the maturity that they can have, hopefully sooner. One of the actual great bits of feedback that I got and only a couple of weeks ago I had someone call me up, and I'm sure he would've called you up if you had your number. But he called me up and he said, "Joshua, I can't tell you how happy I am that you book Make a Difference on to me and how much it's changed my life." He's only halfway through the book at the moment. And him and his partner, they both work together in a local plumbing business. And he took his car to the mechanic and so the mechanic he's been taking his car to for years, and he he left. And he noticed that there was something wrong in the brakes and he thought, okay I'll bring it back to him and I'll just let him know there's something wrong with the brakes. And he thought, I'll talk to him as he would because they're on a friendship basis, the working friend relationship. Dr. Larry Little Right. Josh: He said, "Oh, I know you came in and you discussed... you had my car serviced, but I've noticed that the brake pads don't seem quite right. I've had a bit of a check over some pretty technical mind and I've noticed there's only a couple millimetres left. And I know I didn't bring it in to build the brake pads, but whats to go with that?" Now the mechanic went into an attack position, got rather upset with him. And Dan, the person who took the car to the mechanic was able to diffuse the situation by not retaliating and showing his teeth, and instead understanding where he was coming from and making sure to calm down the situation. Now the relationship with the mechanic might not continue on a whole bunch because it's... he felt very, I guess... you don't feel comfortable when someone does something like that. Josh: But it showed him this mechanic that's been a local mechanic for 20, 25 years around the area, what he could gain from the learnings or from the teachings that you have. And how impactful it's been for somebody who's only halfway through your book. And I can only imagine what value they would be getting out of any of the courses and through your seminars. Dr. Larry Little Well, you know I'm really glad to hear that. It is fulfilling and I just love to hear when someone says, this is helping me in my personal life. That was the purpose of the book. And that Dan had the competency to absorb and then to put into practise how to have those hard conversations. Realise that situation, how to have a hard conversation is certainly very, very important part of the things that we talk about in the book and in our seminars. So it speaks well of your friend. And like you said that professional relationship may change and look different and not be salvaged. But the fact that he did not allow himself to engage in that personal conflict, but yet he had healthy conflict and had a hard conversation, it says a lot about him. Josh: Absolutely. And there's a book that I've read by called [Flawsome 00:15:14] and it's about embracing your flaws. Now these aren't necessarily personal flaws, but about embracing flaws that you might have had because you dropped the ball, you stuffed up. Now everyone does it. Everyone has a bad day. Everyone has an off day. And when you dropped this ball, Flawsome is all about making sure that you embrace the flaw and then overcome it. What I love about Make a Difference is it's about making sure you're understanding it from the other person's perspective so that once you aren't... you have a lot of empathy towards the situation and you're not going in with the Lion heart outset or the monkey outset or the camel outset. And I think that's such really important to do. Dr. Larry Little Well, I think that you're very wise and that is a skill and you're 100% right. You've got to be willing to fail. You've got to be willing to say, it's not about getting it right every time, Joshua. Right? It's about saying, "I'm going to try to get in those other quadrants." And when I say other quadrants, I'm talking about where are the other personalities live? And the book breaks that down. So, that takes practise just like anything else. It takes discipline, rigour and rhythm. And if we have those things and we say, "I'm going to have the discipline." Yeah. Josh, just a quick... we'll chase a quick rabbit is, one of the things I've never understood this when we start teaching and talking about this, sometimes some of those lions or camels will say, "These are soft skills. You're just teaching soft skills." And the truth is no, there's nothing soft about it. This is hard. These are hard skills. If they were so often easy, then everybody would be doing it and relationships would be flourishing everywhere and we would never have problems. Right? This takes practise and it takes it... Good news. It is something you can choose to learn and choose to grow in. Right? But it takes practise and being willing to say, "Hey Josh, I blew that. I tried that. I'm sorry. Let me back up and try something. Yeah, Josh, I thought you were lion. I was a bit direct there. Let me back up." Because you're really a monkey and I got to tell you how good looking that shirt is and how I really like it. Josh: Exactly, exactly. And it's about understanding someone else, understanding how your team's working. And I also find, and I've done a couple of YouTube videos and this one's called the Mirror Mindset. It's about understanding yourself and about also knowing a situation where you need to be present as a different person. So, being a leader is about making sure you understand your team and you have your team all pulling towards... I think the saying goes, all ships rise with high tide. And hopefully I didn't quote that wrong. Josh: The important thing is when I was very introverted at school, and very introverted for the first part of my life. I was overweight. I was picked on to a spot where I wasn't able to walk anymore. Walk any more for a couple of weeks, when I was... Sorry, bashed up would be the more appropriate term rather than picked on, physically picked on. It was a traumatic experience. And when I lost the weight, I lost 38 kilos, I was still the timid person that was still trying to make people feel good, feel happy. And the reason I believe I became a monkey or what was because everyone resonates with the class clown. Everyone resonates with something that can make them laugh. And the universal languages is the smile. And Mr. Bean did it really well as did Charlie Chaplin making everyone smile without even speaking. Dr. Larry Little Right. Josh: Now, now when you read this book and you understand the teachings of Larry, it's fantastic to sort of know, okay, when you jump onto stage, you need to snap out of the mindset that you had and the person that you was, and you then need to become this other person. And one of the things that I found that taught me a lot is people such as [WindoyYankovic 00:19:19] Jim Carrey and a bunch of other people that are very loud extroverted people. But at heart are still very introverted people and they're actors and they're acting extroverted. Now, what I found is I was able to put on different hats, depending on different situations, and more easily resonate and get my message across. If I'm talking with a lion and I know that the information they want is to be direct. They want information, but they're not looking for details, that they're wanting to pieces to get the information... to get everything done. And that also goes for myself when I'm in a situation that I can't be a monkey or I shouldn't be a monkey. Or I need to be aware of all of those traits. It allows for me to be a better person in all situations, even if it's, yeah, I guess in just all situations. So- Dr. Larry Little Well, Josh you know, you're so right. And first let me say to you congratulations for how you walked through trauma because the truth is that was a very traumatic event for you as a young man. Congratulations for losing the weight, I knew that took discipline and nobody understands that work. But I'm really impressed with the fact that you look back at that very difficult, unfair, not okay situation that you found yourself in. And in today's world would call it being bullied, and that's not okay under any circumstance. However, you chose to look at that and instead of remaining the victim, you chose to learn and you chose to grow, and you chose to overcome that and say, "I'm going to... Was that fair? No. Was it okay? No. But neither is life." Life has never fair. Life is not fair. Josh: No. Dr. Larry Little And the only thing we really get to choose is how we handle the struggles. We don't get to choose if we struggle because we all struggle. We all have things. But we do get to choose how we navigate those. And you chose to learn and to grow from a... I hate this really, but the truth is we seem to learn more from the hard experiences in our life. Not that they're okay, but if we choose, we can really learn and grow from those. And you did just that, and boy that's inspirational. Thank you for that. That's choosing to learn and grow and become a better leader and then to go into these concepts instead of becoming bitter, angry, defeated, you said, "No, no, no, I'm going to learn these concepts so that I can invest in others better, so that I can lead through serving them. So that I can understand and be self aware of who I need to be." Josh, that's great work. Congratulations. Josh: Thank you. It's obviously doesn't come with having the right mentality and making sure that you are investing in your personal development. Interestingly, actually that story has a second part where the person... there was these, about three different people that were picking on me out of a school of 1200. It was relatively low numbers, but still life impacting, isn't it? It's not about the percentage, I guess. Dr. Larry Little That's right. Josh: And so one of my first jobs was at subway, subway sandwiches, which we've got everywhere I guess. And I'm there behind the counter as a sandwich artist as it would be, and one of the bullies came in and my heart dropped. And I went, Oh my goodness. And I started freaking out and I thought to myself, no, because... I thought to myself and thought about it from their perspective, and put why are they bullying? What is going on in their life? And I feel whatever's happening in my life could only be... I've got great parents, I've had a great upbringing. I'm fortunate enough to say that I live in one of the best countries in the world, and we... and I thought what has happened in their life for them to be doing what they're doing? And I felt in my mind, it calmed me down. So I thought, okay, they've gone in a direction where they've had to lash out. And I thought they probably don't have the best family and upbringing. And I'd thought of this in my head and as I'm making their sandwich, and obviously everyone has this one thing sitting on this shoulder saying, spit in their sandwich. Dr. Larry Little Right. Josh: No one listens to this one, I hope. I hope not. I still go to subway. Obviously we're not talking about yet. So and he said to me without me saying anything and I was just smiling and being the best person that I could, and making sure that my outlook was not dropped down to any of the previous influence that I'd had from the situation. And he said, "Josh, I'm sorry for picking on you." And he said, "I'm sorry for bullying you at school." And he said that without me putting anything up, and nearly made me cry because I thought, wow, he's also matured in his mindset- Dr. Larry Little Wow. Josh: And that instantly all like... everyone's sort of... always having not miss about it. No, not about that situation, but at school. And when he said that everything sort of just felt like it was just a blanket that disappeared, and it shows the mental games that you make in your mind and how that plays and the impact that has on you, and what someone might say or do to you that changes and pivots the direction of your life. And as I said I'd be lying if I said that... I'm pretty sure when you first gave me the book, it was 2013 I think. Might have been 2012 around then. But it was, I can comfortably say that people come into your lives sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. That bully... And it's all again up to the mindset. That bully came into my life, and at the time I thought it was for bad, but then it's allowed for me to further understand how people think. So in a way it was for good. It was a hard lesson to learn. You came into my life for good. And again, that's a pivot and grown the direction of my life and how I've gone to impact things and people and that has been for good. So, it's all about your mindset, everyone... And this is again in the YouTube video I made the mirror mindset is about. When I started losing weight, I felt still overweight. My eyes saw a fat person in the mirror. And it was only after I then put on a couple more kilos that I then looked at a photo of me when I'd lost as much weight that I look anorexic. And I thought I've gone in the other direction. And so it's about your mindset and making sure that you keep in check and making sure you understand how people are perceiving you, how you're perceiving people. And know that the way that you're seeing you does not necessarily reflect the way that other people are seeing you. And we always, we're our worst critics, I'd agree. We do agree? Dr. Larry Little Yeah. There's no doubt. Well, unless we're narcissistic and then we're delusional. Right? Josh: Yeah. Dr. Larry Little But I think a lot of times that's very true of leaders and people that we are our worst critics. But perception is reality. And so you have to make sure that your perception is rational and it is real. And you had to check that even when the bully was apologising to you. You could have perceived that for him just to try to make up to you or that he had an ulterior motive, or that he wanted to get something for it. But you didn't. You took that at face value. You allowed it to be a source of healing for you. When people come into your life, when we introduced you to the concept that you had a choice to make. You could have perceived that as these are just soft skills and maybe it's good for somebody else, but you don't know what I've been through. You don't know what I've suffered. You don't know... But you didn't do that. You said, "I'm going to take those, I'm going to perceive that as something good and I'm going to use it and I'm going to apply it." And you did that Josh. And your choice, and we can never underestimate the power of choice in our life. We all have choices to make every single day. And you chose to take those concepts, you chose to use those concepts, you chose to apply those concepts. And you know as well as I do, if you were honest that took work. I mean, you've been doing this now since 2013 and you're still applying it and still using it. It's not a onetime and done. It's you've made that a part of your life and that took a lot of hard work. Josh: Right. And it's hard work. Nothing comes easy. Dr. Larry Little That's right. Josh: And a few things my father has taught me, is nothing comes easy and trust everyone until they prove themselves untrustworthy. Dr. Larry Little That's right. Josh: So, walk up to someone with open arms, not, not closed, and feel comfortable with the person that you're approaching until they show themselves to be, not the person that they first appeared to be. And that's a... Another person that's influenced my life. It's you and dad now, so- Dr. Larry Little Love that. Wow. You know, it's so true. And the whole centrepiece around the Make a Difference is that. And that's what we entitled it Make a Difference is that it's outward focused. It's about becoming self aware, yes. But becoming self aware so that we can give to others. Becoming self aware so that we can make a difference in the lives of others. And so you have done that, you've taken that and that's our goal in teaching these concepts. Josh, the truth is there are a lot of personality profiles out there. There are a lot of psychological assessments and they're all good. But seriously, there are a lot of very good psychological assessments that you can take. The problem comes when you take those tools and you get this plethora of data, you get all this stuff right? And they set it, and you try... First, you don't have time to go through it all. Second, you're not really sure what it means. And third, and most importantly, you don't know how the heck you're going to apply that quickly. So, the concepts we developed, the secret is not in a little assessment tool, that's not the the secret. The secret is well, I'll show you. So the secret is this, the secret is white picket fence. Josh: Okay. Dr. Larry Little White picket fence. So right now, Josh, even if you wanted to or not, it doesn't matter. Who you are, you're thinking of a white picket fence. You could say- Josh: I sure am. Dr. Larry Little ... I'm not thinking of one, but you are. And so that's the secret of what we do because neurologically our brains are hardwired to download word pictures very quickly and to process them very quickly. So, we use silly animal names, much love monkey, leading lion, competent camel, a tranquil turtle, so that our leaders are... And by the way, when I say leaders, I'm talking about all of us because we all are leaders. We all lead- Josh: Absolutely. Dr. Larry Little ... at least one person and that's ourselves. We only get to choose if we lead ourselves poorly or wisely. So, we wanted something that leaders could take and download quickly and apply quickly. So, the secret is in making it simple so that it can be practically applied so that then you can begin speaking that lion language to the lions in your life. You can speak the turtle language to the turtles in your life, and learn how in the world do you speak camel language and you speak that into the lives of camels. But the secret to the success of this, I truly believe is as simple as white picket fence. It's the practical application. It's the word pictures that we created because colours and numbers, our brain can't process that quick enough to really use it in the moment. Josh: Having a full letters that come back on a piece of paper without talking about the other tests. Obviously you can't really describe that or relate that to someone. But when you ask a five-year-old, "What does a monkey do, and how does a monkey look? How does a monkey react to a situation? And how does a lion look and what does a lion do and how does a lion react to a situation?" And anything that's worth teaching and worth learning should be able to be understood by a 12 year old. And I could comfortably say that being that we're related to animals, everyone knows animals, everyone loves animals. Everyone can see and see how they work together and how they can work better together. So, it's very, very smart the way that you did it. And as you said, situationally you can look and go, "Okay fine. They're that sort of person, they're that sort of person." And we've got a job network in Australia called Seek, which is you put an ad up on there to find a new employee. And we were using the make a difference test to sort of work out how they would fit into our organisation and how that would fit with us and the rest of our team. Dr. Larry Little Love it. Josh: And right from the word go we knew how we would be relating to them. And it's important too, what you pointed out earlier about engineers. And engineers may be being put into a managerial role does not necessarily mean that they should be managers. And it doesn't necessarily mean like a pay rise and a responsibility rise may not be what they're looking for. It may not be their carrot, and it may not be something they're looking for in their skillset. But if it is, it's definitely make a difference as a way that they can make it work with that position to make a difference, to there, present in the moment around that new position. Dr. Larry Little You're so right. Hey Josh, so I have a little secret and if you want me to, I'll let you in on it. You'd ask earlier what do you have? What's next? You want me to share it with you? I'm going to tell you just a little snippet about what's happening next. Josh: Yes, please. That'd be wonderful. Dr. Larry Little So, we're very excited that we knew the Make a Difference book, we felt like it had the concepts and we're so thrilled that it has helped people on an international level. That's awesome. But I knew there was something else and I knew there was, and the series is wonderful. We're glad to do that. We're so glad that, so cool what would people do that? But I knew there was something else. So, for over a year I've been piloting ideas and thinking about ideas and teaching and doing some work. And just last weekend I finished, I went in to an intensive, what I call an intensive, and I wrote a book that I believe is the sequel to the Make a Difference book. The working title of the book is called Lead to Make a Difference Above and Below the Line. Josh: Okay. Dr. Larry Little It's a different concept, but here's a snippet just to kind of give you an idea of where I'm coming from. You have to read the book to find out what above and below the line is all about. But it builds on, if you think about the DNA diagram, in the Make a Difference, it'll give you a hint. But the concepts are more around this. We talk about teams and that kind of thing and why they underperform or why there's toxicity in the team, or toxicity in a relationship. And the book centres not only on professional, but we talk a lot about personal relationships. And I think there's a monster. I think the monster attacks our relationships and attacks our teams. This monster is, I believe the reason that companies go under, that company's struggle, that relationships are destroyed. And the monster is fear, and the fear of failure, fear of being misrepresented, fear of being misunderstood. We could go on and on and I think the antidote to that fear is trust. But not in the traditional context of trust. We always talk about trust in terms of trust in a team or building trust in your relationship or building trust to be a strong... to trust each other to... Here's the problem with that. There's a huge disconnect there. Gap, if you will, and this is it. I don't think we can truly develop trust in someone else until we understand how to develop trust in ourselves. And I think self trust is something that people don't want to think about, but how in the world can I ask you to join me in a trusting relationship if I don't trust myself? Josh: Yeah. Dr. Larry Little: How can I build trust on a team if I don't trust my reaction? Josh: Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Larry Little: Yeah. So that, the book Lead to Make a Difference Above and Below the Line talks about how to gain that self trust. There an assessment tool in there about it. So, I'm very excited about it. I think it's going to... Boy, I hope that it helps a lot of folks. It was difficult to write because it kind of went down a different direction even then when I first started the concepts way back. Because I've talked and listened, and learned and I've tried to learn from others. But I think the end result is going to be pretty exciting. Josh: Well, I'm definitely pumped. I've loved your first book and I'm very interested to read the next one. It's something that I think everyone has... As I said, everyone has this demon inside themself. They're self-doubting, and I know I'm going to say I'm the worst for it. The worst for it, I guess. And I know myself, I have a team that look up to me. I have staff members that have left. And I've continued personal relationships with them. I'm still friends with them. And whenever they come to Queensland, they see me. And I sent out a something to one of them recently. And and I said, "Oh look, I'm looking to go this approach." And I said, "I'm worried about some of the directions that, some of the parts of the business are going." And I sort of brought them up to him and he said, "I've worked for five companies since you. You are the most professional company. You offer the best, most outstanding service verse any of them. You should not be worried about anything." And I felt wow, the way he's told me and how he was able to put that data together nearly made me cry to be honest. It was wonderful and I thought, everyone's got this doubt in himself and I can't do this and I won't do this. And I relate it back to the girl at school that you had the crush on, or 2009. The person you had at school, you had a crush on I guess. But the girl at school that you had the crush on, looked across you thought, Oh, I'm going to... At the right moment I'm going to go there and talk to her and I'm going to... Oh, I'm going to ask if I can say hey or hang out with her at lunch or whatever the case was. And then you didn't. And a year goes by, two years goes by and this person is saying, still do it. And you go, "No, I'm not going to do it." And then you... I'm not going to have to hang out with her. She's too pretty. She's too beautiful. And then the last day of school happens and then you finish school and you realise, wait, I'm in the same position now as I was before if I hadn't jumped on that opportunity. And this self doubt can have you lose opportunities and have you fail at I guess the butterfly effect. If you've got a small thing that just saying hello once to someone, reaching out like I did with yourself and saying hey. The smallest thing can build into a big thing for everyone involved, if you've got the... I guess not the guts, but the power within yourself to override those thoughts, feelings, and strive forward. So, I guess it's an important message. Dr. Larry Little: No, it really is. And it's revelation when someone realises that she no longer has to allow feelings to drive her behaviour. He no longer has to allow irrational thoughts, right, to define who he is or who he's not. That there is choice involved and we can learn the discipline of learning to lead through those emotions and making good choices based on that rational thought process. In fact, if you take two leaders and look at two leaders who were put in the exact same scenario of struggle. One may do very poorly that he may become a victim. He may become disassociated, he may become... Another may experience struggle and hardship and pain and so... But at the end he's grown stronger. Josh: Yeah. Dr. Larry Little: What is the difference? And so the book addresses that head on. The difference is this person understood how to lead above and below the line, understood the voices that he or she had before them. And we talk about the importance of having a grit, G-R-I-T and leading. And so I don't want to go into all of that and take out time, But I'm very excited about it. I think it's a good, I really do think it's a good sequel to the first make a difference project. Josh: Cool. And is that going to be available in Australia or online or audio books?> Dr. Larry Little: Yeah, all of the above. Right now, it's just brand new and it's actually at our... we're in the editing process right now, so look forward in the spring of 2020. And it will be, our goal is to have it hard copy, online obviously you can get it on Amazon, those kinds of things. And then also I'm going to push our team so that we can do an audio version. I want to do it... In fact, I want to do that for both of those books and create that audible experience as well. So it was a great question. Josh: Cool. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's, especially I guess for business owners, and I'm going to say I love a physical book. I love feeling a physical book. I love the paper of a physical book and you want to get many technical people saying that. But I'm in front of a computer monitor sometimes eight hours a day, sometimes 18 hours a day. And the thing that I absolutely love is stepping away from that feeling something and you can... I think you can feel more of an emotion in the book. I don't know. It's probably just someone I'm saying. I feel that there's something there that you just can't get off of a screen. And that's where I'm looking forward to getting the physical book and I think that's going to do it for me. But at the same time, business owners are busy people and some people spend half their lives driving around in cars and I'd sincerely suggest not reading a physical book while in a car driving. Right. Dr. Larry Little: Agreed. Agreed. Josh: Yeah. So, it would be good to see it as an audio book. Well, I'm really happy to have been able to speak with you and go through and hear about the new exciting projects that you've got on offer coming through in the future. And also the, some of the ones that you've got on offer now through the university in bits and pieces, and... or soon to be on offer. Is there anything else that you'd like to ask me will go through? Dr. Larry Little: I'll tell you, Josh. It's leaders like you who are truly going to successfully make a difference moving forward because you are, as our friend Brad Scow talks about the entrepreneurial journey. You're in that leadership journey of now mentoring and coaching and just be encouraged that that is a very, very influential and important place to find yourself. So it is my hope. Who knows, Josh? This is what I might ask of you moving forward. Let's have a talk. I mean, we're always looking for coaches, so you never know, and presenters. So we may have to talk offline a bit about what you're doing. But seriously our website is eaglecenterforleadership.com and we'd love to talk with whoever is listening or watching and to be able to speak into your life as a leader, to walk with you to journey with you. That's a call that we have that is bigger than any of us any one person. We have a team of around 60 or so individuals that are all committed to walking with leaders in order to help them to lead differently and help them to influence others just like you Josh. And so it's been just a real honour. Thank you for calling and inviting me to come hang out with you for a while in the land down under. It's been a blast. Josh: Any bloody time. All right. I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity here as well. And as I said, I've looked up to you and your teachings for quite some time and I've carried them through to my life and carried them through in all aspects. And also in the lives of the people that I'm influencing. And it's touching to hear the stories. And I could only imagine the stories that you would have with people that have come to you and how you've helped them out. And there's a few written in the book, but the amount you would have had from the book, I could only imagine, would be a very impressive and very humbling to have all those. We will put a link to your website in the description below as everyone does, or it will be in the article on our website or in the podcast, or whatever the method is that you're listening. There'll be some way to jump on the site and check it out. And yeah, I really look forward to speaking with you again and yeah, going from there. Dr. Larry Little: Thanks my friend. Good day. Josh: Thanks. You too.

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