Podcast appearances and mentions of mark let

Get ready for part two of our Retirement Cash Flow series! This time, we're diving into the income side of the equation. In our first two episodes, we tackled the ins and outs of your expenses in retirement. Now, it's all about understanding the crucial role of income analysis. We'll uncover the secrets of guaranteed income versus the uncertain stuff and shed light on the consequences of retiring without a clear income plan. Don't worry if you're feeling lost - we've got your back with practical solutions and expert guidance. Tune in and take charge of your retirement cash flow!   Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Welcome into this week's edition of the podcast. It's Retirement Planning - Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth, back with me again to talk about mastering retirement cash flow. So we're going to dive into the income side of the equation here a little bit on these things that we need to discuss, and go through this crucial role of income analysis. And we'll talk about, hopefully, some ways to highlight some points to think about when it comes to making sure you've got that cash flow taken care of. Because clearly, we've got to have income in retirement when we're no longer getting those paychecks. So that's on the docket this week on the show. Once again, guys, thanks for being here. John, what's going on buddy? John: Oh, not too much. Just starting to get this Florida heat hitting me and we're only about a month into it, but I think I'm already tired of it. Mark: Already tired of it? Yeah, you got a ways to go if that's the case. What about you, Nick? How are you doing, my friend? I know you're doing a little moving. Moving's always fun, right? You getting that all worked out? Nick: Yeah, yeah. Well, luckily the move wasn't too bad, but pretty much settled in and I got a little bit of break from the heat in July after going up north for a little bit, like I tend to do during the summer. Mark: Oh, yeah. Although it's been hot everywhere. It was probably hot up there too, wasn't it? Nick: It was, it was. But it was, for sure, cooler and the humidity less. Mark: Yeah. That's the kicker. Yeah. Nick: We definitely had some warm days for sure, but I do enjoy being able to go on the fresh water up there, because I don't do fresh water in Florida. And it's not like I go to the beach that much anyways, but the water at the beaches here right now is just insanely hot. It's not even worth going in. Mark: It's like you get in the bathtub. Nick: Yeah, yeah. It's ridiculous. Mark: You think, "The ocean! I'm going to cool off." No, you're not. But yeah, well, good. I'm glad you guys are doing all right. So let's get in and talk about this cash flow thing here a little bit. Why is understanding income, guys, in retirement critical for the stability of your financial strategy, and what could happen if you don't have that clear picture? Nick: Yeah, so I was actually having a conversation with a client earlier today and really kind of emphasizing ... We emphasize this with our clients quite a bit, that it's super important to have income. Obviously, income is king in retirement, but not completely in lieu of liquidity, of having other funds. So this one client had good direct income sources and then had a decision to make on a pension, on whether to lump sum, roll over or take it as an income. And because of the overall financial strategy, for her it made sense to take lump sum, roll it over into an IRA. And that would kind of give her the balance of having assets that she can dip into, versus just a stream of income that would limit her on other things. Creating that balance is different for every single person, but we really try to emphasize trying to make sure that you understand the different forms of income, and balancing that with making sure that you have access and accounts that are invested, but are also liquid. Mark: Yeah, okay. I mean, that makes sense, clearly. And so, when we're thinking about the stability of income streams, John, what are some examples of different sources? I mean, there's some that are pretty obvious, but we want to make sure we have more than just one, clearly. So what are some of the things to think about? John: Yeah. You definitely want to analyze where the money's coming from. I know the last podcast, we were talking about expenses, and that's really where you start, is getting to understand, "Hey, how much am I spending?" And the next step is, okay, now that I'm spending this, where's my income coming from to cover those expenses? And you want to make a clear picture of understanding what your income sources are, because the biggest risk going into retirement is making sure you do not outlive your money. And part of that is understanding, "Okay, where is my income coming from? And how do I make sure that I maintain my lifestyle without running out at age 80 years old, and now all of a sudden I'm looking to get a job at 80." Mark: Yeah, nobody wants to do that. So we're talking pensions, right? IRAs, 401(k)s, social security, annuities, so on and so forth, things like that. Is it advisable to try to rely more heavily on one versus the other? And I think for many years, John, people would kind of say, "Well, social security's going to make up half or more", but I don't know that that's the reliable source we want to go with anymore. What do you think? John: Definitely not, no. Especially with ... Not that anyone's done this yet, but a lot of talk of updating the social security program, cuts and things like that. You definitely want a good balance of retirement income sources, because if, let's say, there was an update to social security, you'd want to have something in your back pocket where you can say, "Okay, that's okay, that's not going to affect me too much. I can pull from this income source." Nick: And things like understanding ... One of the things that we walk people through as far as if they're taking distributions from their retirement accounts, as they're leading up to retirement, going over the whole concept of a safe withdrawal rate, being around 4%, maybe 4.5%. Rates are a little bit higher, but we don't know how long they'll stay that way. That helps people get a little bit of a grasp of how much money they can take from their investments safely, and look to make sure that any other sources kind of fill in the gap. Mark: Let's talk a little bit about some of those guaranteed sources versus non-guaranteed, Nick, I'll let you kick this off for a second here. What is a guaranteed income and what's the difference between that versus non-guaranteed? Nick: Sure. The way that we would look at something such as the term "guaranteed income", although there are issues with social security for the most part, we look at that as a guaranteed income source. That may be something that we toggle down as far as the percentage that they would receive, but we would look at that as a guaranteed income source. If they implemented an annuity strategy, dependent upon the type of strategy that it is, that could be considered a guaranteed income source. That would be something. It's always important to point out to them that, although the history is pretty strong for insurance companies, when it's an annuity, the guarantee is provided by the insurance company itself. So that's something that's important to know. Pension plans are usually considered pretty safe and a guaranteed source of income. Mark: Yeah. I mean, non-guaranteed is going to be ... I mean, when we think about a normal 401(k), right, where we're just pumping money away, but unfortunately, if you've got it weighted in the market or things of that nature, it's not necessarily guaranteed. If you're risking it, by having exposure to the markets, then that's where that non-guarantee comes from. Correct? Nick: Correct. Yeah. For example, the conversation I had earlier with the client as far as ... Because the question that she had was exactly that. Like, "Well, hey, if I do this lump sum rollover, is that guaranteed like the pension is?" And of course the answer is no. But I also did kind of point out to her, and this was somebody that doesn't have a spouse but has kids, that, hey, this single life option is guaranteed for your life. But if you pass away within five years, you haven't even gotten close to the lump sum balance and nothing would pass onto your children. So that's something else that can come into play, where the word "guarantee" can be tricky, because it can guarantee certain aspects, but not others. Mark: Right, yeah. And so John, listeners have probably heard of things like paycheck versus playcheck, right? So if we're talking about explaining, and as you mentioned, we did some expenses on the last show. If you can walk through some of the ways that we might do that. I would think that we would want to try to use our guaranteed income sources to cover, which would be our paychecks, to cover all the have-to-haves in life. And then we use the non-guaranteed, possibly the playcheck side, as the fun items. I guess every situation is different, but is that a simple way to break that down? John: Yeah. So your paycheck would be associated with your fixed expenses, the things you need. Your necessities, things that you really need to make sure that are covered. Taxes, groceries, things like that, that you cannot do without. Mark: Rent. Electricity. John: Yeah, exactly. Your playcheck is obviously, as you mentioned, discretionary income, your wants. Let's put it that way. And what we do when we're doing the plan, and everyone's situation's different of course, but we'll have a lot of people that, let's say they're very conservative and they just say, "Hey, I want to make sure that my paycheck items are covered on a guaranteed basis. That no matter what, I want to make sure I have this covered, so I stress a little bit less about what's going on with the markets." And we can adjust the plan to basically make sure that happens for them. And then what we end up doing is, anything that's tied to fluctuation, whether it's the market or anything else, or rents, then it'll be the playcheck scenario where, "Okay, this is going to cover it." And let's say where that comes into play is, if a year is down in the market or interest rates drop, well, all right. Maybe that specific individual might not do as much in discretionary spending in that given year. Mark: Yeah. And Nick, maybe depending on how you've saved for life or how your setup is, maybe you have a pension or not, there's a possibility that you could have your paycheck cover everything that you need in retirement, or most of it, and you're really just using those accounts that you've built up, your 401(k) or your IRA or something, as something to leave to heirs. So I mean, there's lots of options out there, lots of strategies. It just really comes back to, what have you done and what kind of a saver you been, and so on and so forth. Nick: Yeah, that's absolutely correct. And for clients that we have that did retire with maybe a substantial pension, and they've been a really good saver, and they don't really dip into those investments, we definitely put together ... And their main objective is to leave money, we can work together and put together strategies to try to do that as efficiently as possible and that sort of thing. Mark: Yeah, because a lot of people will say, with RMDs for example. I mean, I can't count on one hand or both hands how many advisors I talk to that have clients saying, "Yeah, I got to take this money out for the RMD and I don't need it. What am I supposed to do with it?" But you have to do it, right? Nick: Exactly. So it's like you got to take that hit from a tax perspective, but the money could always be reinvested, it can go into a different sort of investment vehicle. There's a way to continue to have it grow. Some people will use RMDs to fund a permanent life insurance policy, to kind of shift money from a taxable inheritance to a tax-free inheritance, that sort of thing. So it just kind of depends upon, just like anything else, the overall situation and the factors that are specific to their plan. Mark: Gotcha. Well, John, let's finish off with this. So, any strategies for maximizing, maybe some non-guaranteed income? Because we often think about, or hear, John, stuff like, "Hey, get your social security maximized, run a social security analysis, make sure that you're getting all that you can there." But how do we do something similar, I suppose, in the non-guaranteed space? John: Yeah. So this will be where, I'll give you a scenario. If we're doing a plan for somebody and all they have is social security and there's no other guaranteed income, and let's just assume this person's conservative, and they have a decent nest egg where we could look at it and say, "Okay, what we could do is, from the investment portfolio, whether that's a 401(k) or IRA or a Roth IRA, whatever it is, we could pull some money out of there, put it into one of these annuity companies that provide a guaranteed income", and of course, disclosure based on their paying ability. Mark: Sure. John: And from that we can say, "Okay, here's your social security. And based on the plan, we feel that together we come up with this number, you should have x amount of guaranteed income on top of social security." And we can basically take a chunk out of the investment portfolio and put it into one of these annuity products to give, in essence, some guaranteed income. And what that typically does, it'll provide the person with a little bit of peace of mind where they say, "Hey", back to that scenario of paycheck and playcheck, "I know that my paycheck items are now covered and I feel a little bit more secure about what's happening." Mark: You're kind of creating your own pension. John: Exactly. Mark: Yeah. Okay. And again, for some folks, Nick, that's where the strategy might play off. Because some people, obviously, especially when you think about the annuity term, some people are game to learn, some people are very hesitant because they've heard whatever it is that they hear. But it could be an option for folks who don't have a lot of other resources to tap into, especially if you're going to do something like a fixed index where you're going to tie it to an indices. And that way you're kind of experiencing some of the upside, but you're also having some of that protection on the downside, so that it's not quite as non-guaranteed as it could have been if you just left it straight in the market. Is that fair, is that accurate? Nick: Yeah, annuities are always a subject that can be ... Mark: It's a hot topic. Nick: Maybe volatile, yeah, hot topic sort of thing. And the way that we tend to approach the subject is, there are so many different options when it comes to annuities. There's kind of dividing up the decision-making process between strategy and then implementation. So what I mean by that is, oftentimes, integrating in an annuity strategy for somebody can make sense to really dovetail into what John talked about. "Hey, we've got an income gap that's needed of maybe $15,000 to $20,000 a year, and hey, we can carve out this amount of money and cover that." And then we'll see issues arise in the implementation, where the advisor that they had worked with uses a product that is maybe super expensive or the guarantees are not good, or it's been misunderstood or mis-sold, or the sales charge period's a really, really long time. So the implementation is poor, and that oftentimes sets off the red flags and that sort of thing. So just like anything else, we would look at it and we tell people upfront, "Hey, this might be a strategy that makes sense for you, it may not. We think our job is to explain to you how it works so that you understand it, so that you can say yes or no. And then we move forward with whatever you feel comfortable with." Mark: Yeah, so sometimes you may have to create some alternate sources using life insurance products or different things that are out there. But again, each situation's going to be different, so you want to identify what kind of income sources you need and then where you're going to be getting them from. So if you need some help, as always, make sure you're talking with a qualified professional, like John and Nick, before you take any action on anything you hear from our show or any other show. You always want to see how it's going to relate to your unique situation. Obviously, we're all affected by the same kind of things; we're going to have expenses in retirement, we're going to need income in retirement. But how you break that down and how you're able to utilize the things that you've done through your life, are going to be different from person to person. So, get yourself onto the calendar, have a conversation with John and Nick at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. That's where you can find them online. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google, or Spotify, whichever podcasting platform app you like to use. Guys, thanks for hanging out. As always, I appreciate your time. For John and Nick, I'm your host, Mark, and we'll catch you next time here on Retirement Planning - Redefined.

SYNOPSIS: As Jesus’s life-mission turns to Jerusalem, we begin to see fruit where you wouldn’t expect it and a lack of fruit where you would have expected it. What does the response of my life tell me about the condition of my worship?

Welcome to "Remy's Roundtable," your go-to Florida theme park podcast! In today's episode, our dynamic crew dives into the mysteries of why "Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift" doesn't get the recognition it deserves in the movie world. We also have an unbelievable tale of a black female bear who managed to sneak her way into the enchanting Magic Kingdom! But that's not all – Remy has something special in store as he extends a heartfelt apology to our amazing listeners. Plus, join him for his segment, "This Day in Disney History," where we take a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Remy and Jen keep you up-to-date with all the latest theme park news and updates right here in the Sunshine State of Florida. You won't want to miss it! And last but not least, prepare for some laughs as Mark brings his unique flair to the show with "Mark Let's Roast the Roundtable." It's a rollercoaster of emotions, insights, and laughter that you won't want to miss on "Remy's Roundtable"!

For a fascinating, inside look at the criminal justice system and the work of one of America's most prominent trial attorneys, check out this interview with ames J. Brosnahan, a veteran of more than 50 years of experience in both civil and criminal trial work.During his notable career, Brosnahan regularly undertook complex cases that were about to go to trial. He has tried, to conclusion, 150 cases that have ranged from anti-trust to wire fraud and from patent litigation to white collar crime and murder. Some of those cases made national headlines, including those that helped provide important First Amendment free speech protections.Brosnahan is named among the top 30 trial lawyers in the United States, according to the Legal 500 US. A lion of the trial bar, Brosnahan is one of the most respected and recognized trial lawyers in the United States. Recently, he completed a book on notable trials from his career, "Justice at Trial: Courtroom Battles and Groundbreaking Cases," now available at Amazon and other booksellers.The interview was conducted by Bob Gatty, host of Lean to the Left and co-host of the Justice Counts podcast, and Justice Counts host, legal thriller author Mark M. Bello. The episode also will stream on Justice Counts June 5.Here are some questions we discussed with Brosnahan:MARK: Welcome Jim—it's an honor to have you on the podcast. Before we talk about your writing, I'd like to talk about Professor Chemerinsky's forward. High praise for your memoir from the famous law professor. There is a lot packed into those two pages, but I was struck by two comments he makes. I'd like your reaction to them: 1. Practicing law requires hard work and attention to detail-many lawyers work hard. But it also requires creativity-Chemerinsky considers you and your team very “clever,” the term he uses. How much of your success is related to hard work and how much to creativity? For young lawyers out there, after learning what they need to know to pass the bar, how do they develop these creative skills the professor talks about? 2. Professor Chemerinsky talks about a topic near and dear to my heart. At that is, essentially, the bad rap lawyers get. He points to you as an example of how an ethical lawyer and decent guy, (you) can also be highly successful. That being a successful lawyer requires “bad behavior” which is patently false. We can chew gum and walk—can you please talk about being successful and ethical at the same time? BOB: The book reveals that you were diagnosed with rheumatic fever and a possible heart problem at age 3, confined to bed until you were six. Your connection to the outside world was a radio with Jack Benny and a window that looked out onto a driveway where you could see kids playing. Do you remember those days, and do you think they played a role in shaping the adult you became? MARK: Like Chemerinsky, my favorite legal quote is “Justice, Justice, Shalt Thou Pursue.” Having read your book, alongside might be: “Sometimes, doing your best is your only reward.” I love that lesson for young lawyers.BOB: Tell our listeners about the Secody Murder Trial-you had only been a lawyer for 18 months and you have this major murder trial involving the native American community. Tough case for a young guy. MARK: As a side note, I was struck by your voir dire in that case and want to hear more. How does a trial lawyer get a potential juror to admit bias on voir dire?BOB: In the book, you indicate that you were influenced by Cecil Poole, Melvin Beli, and other prominent trial lawyers. You worked under Poole, who was the first African American US Attorney in the United States. Obviously, mentoring was important in your career. Is it still? BOB: In 1966, you switch sides after how long as a prosecutor? Tell us about the transition from prosecutor to criminal defense and civil plaintiff attorney?MARK: One of those cases involved representing two young black activists in the Oakland California poverty movement. Tell us about the case. What were they accused of? Why were they prosecuted? And what was the outcome?BOB: I'm an old newspaper guy. In 1968, at the age of 34, you handled a 1st Amendment case that literally would decide the fate of daily papers in America. Or, was it really an anti-trust case? There was a similar issue in Detroit when the News and the Free Press entered into a joint operating agreement. Tell us about your case and the outcome.MARK: In 1978, you take another 1st Amendment case, this one centering around the movie Born Innocent, starring Linda Blair of “The Exorcist” fame. Interesting issue in that case. The plaintiff attorney argued “People who see movies are inspired to act out what they see,” and argued for censorship. Lots of publicity in this one. Tell the story of an attempt to prove what you refer to in the book as “negligent imitation.” BOB: You were a prosecutor—prosecutors have a lot of power in making decision about whether to prosecute or not prosecute, what you call in the book “The Power to Ruin Lives.” How did you deal with the power and what do you recommend to young prosecutors just starting out?MARK: I've often said that if the government really wants to go after and get someone, they can and will. One of the most interesting cases in the book for me was Steve Psinakis case. Ronald Reagan is often cited as an example of a so-called “good” Republican president. While he may have been an effective president, he was far from a good guy. My favorite quote in the chapter? “President Reagan wanted a conviction of a US citizen as a favor to a corrupt, foreign dictator.” The year is 1986, I believe. Tell our listeners the story, please?MARK: Lots of great quotes in the book. I can't seem to get away from them. “Specialization, so prevalent today, can limit a lawyer unnecessarily.” But isn't that advice in conflict with “Jack of all trades, master of none?” What do you tell a young lawyer today about specialization?BOB: Another quote from the book: “Preparation for trial requires a complete immersion into other people's lives while at the same time trying to preserve an objective view of the case.” How does a trial lawyer do that?MARK: Another quote I like in the book is “Trial lawyers are essential to enrich democratic reforms and social progress.” Why do you believe that? Many people would say “get over yourself.” What do you say?BOB: Last quote: You say: “I have always thought of the United States Supreme Court as the legal conscience of our society.” Do you still feel that way with today's court?MARK: At the request of Lawrence Walsh, the special prosecutor investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, you agreed to handle the prosecution of Caspar Weinberger, the US Secretary of Defense under Reagan and Bush one. Before you could try the case, President Bush pardoned Weinberger, an event with caused you “post-pardon depression.” So, how did you really feel?BOB: Were you able to strike a healthy work-life balance? What did that look like? What would you recommend to young lawyers today? MARK: How would you compare civility among lawyers today compared to during your early years of practice?BOB: If you could travel back in time and give your 25-year-old self some advice about career and life, what would it be? Any regrets?MARK: Let's talk about judges. The judge is against you. The rulings aren't going your way, and you are feeling a hostile vibe from the bench. What do you do?MARK: The USA PATRIOT Act, mass surveillance of Americans by the federal government, and the transformation of the FBI into an counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cybersecurity agency are all things that happened in the last 21 years or so. As a lawyer and an American who cares about civil liberties, do you think these changes have brought some harm as well as enhanced security?BOB: We hope your memoir will be a bestseller. Where can people find it and what's next on the horizon for James Brosnahan?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-lean-to-the-left-podcast--4719048/support.

For a fascinating, inside look at the criminal justice system and the work of one of America's most prominent trial attorneys, check out this interview with ames J. Brosnahan, a veteran of more than 50 years of experience in both civil and criminal trial work.During his notable career, Brosnahan regularly undertook complex cases that were about to go to trial. He has tried, to conclusion, 150 cases that have ranged from anti-trust to wire fraud and from patent litigation to white collar crime and murder. Some of those cases made national headlines, including those that helped provide important First Amendment free speech protections.Brosnahan is named among the top 30 trial lawyers in the United States, according to the Legal 500 US. A lion of the trial bar, Brosnahan is one of the most respected and recognized trial lawyers in the United States. Recently, he completed a book on notable trials from his career, "Justice at Trial: Courtroom Battles and Groundbreaking Cases," now available at Amazon and other booksellers.The interview was conducted by Bob Gatty, host of Lean to the Left and co-host of the Justice Counts podcast, and Justice Counts host, legal thriller author Mark M. Bello. The episode also will stream on Justice Counts June 5.Here are some questions we discussed with Brosnahan:MARK: Welcome Jim—it's an honor to have you on the podcast. Before we talk about your writing, I'd like to talk about Professor Chemerinsky's forward. High praise for your memoir from the famous law professor. There is a lot packed into those two pages, but I was struck by two comments he makes. I'd like your reaction to them: 1. Practicing law requires hard work and attention to detail-many lawyers work hard. But it also requires creativity-Chemerinsky considers you and your team very “clever,” the term he uses. How much of your success is related to hard work and how much to creativity? For young lawyers out there, after learning what they need to know to pass the bar, how do they develop these creative skills the professor talks about? 2. Professor Chemerinsky talks about a topic near and dear to my heart. At that is, essentially, the bad rap lawyers get. He points to you as an example of how an ethical lawyer and decent guy, (you) can also be highly successful. That being a successful lawyer requires “bad behavior” which is patently false. We can chew gum and walk—can you please talk about being successful and ethical at the same time? BOB: The book reveals that you were diagnosed with rheumatic fever and a possible heart problem at age 3, confined to bed until you were six. Your connection to the outside world was a radio with Jack Benny and a window that looked out onto a driveway where you could see kids playing. Do you remember those days, and do you think they played a role in shaping the adult you became? MARK: Like Chemerinsky, my favorite legal quote is “Justice, Justice, Shalt Thou Pursue.” Having read your book, alongside might be: “Sometimes, doing your best is your only reward.” I love that lesson for young lawyers.BOB: Tell our listeners about the Secody Murder Trial-you had only been a lawyer for 18 months and you have this major murder trial involving the native American community. Tough case for a young guy. MARK: As a side note, I was struck by your voir dire in that case and want to hear more. How does a trial lawyer get a potential juror to admit bias on voir dire?BOB: In the book, you indicate that you were influenced by Cecil Poole, Melvin Beli, and other prominent trial lawyers. You worked under Poole, who was the first African American US Attorney in the United States. Obviously, mentoring was important in your career. Is it still? BOB: In 1966, you switch sides after how long as a prosecutor? Tell us about the transition from prosecutor to criminal defense and civil plaintiff attorney?MARK: One of those cases involved representing two young black activists in the Oakland California poverty movement. Tell us about the case. What were they accused of? Why were they prosecuted? And what was the outcome?BOB: I'm an old newspaper guy. In 1968, at the age of 34, you handled a 1st Amendment case that literally would decide the fate of daily papers in America. Or, was it really an anti-trust case? There was a similar issue in Detroit when the News and the Free Press entered into a joint operating agreement. Tell us about your case and the outcome.MARK: In 1978, you take another 1st Amendment case, this one centering around the movie Born Innocent, starring Linda Blair of “The Exorcist” fame. Interesting issue in that case. The plaintiff attorney argued “People who see movies are inspired to act out what they see,” and argued for censorship. Lots of publicity in this one. Tell the story of an attempt to prove what you refer to in the book as “negligent imitation.” BOB: You were a prosecutor—prosecutors have a lot of power in making decision about whether to prosecute or not prosecute, what you call in the book “The Power to Ruin Lives.” How did you deal with the power and what do you recommend to young prosecutors just starting out?MARK: I've often said that if the government really wants to go after and get someone, they can and will. One of the most interesting cases in the book for me was Steve Psinakis case. Ronald Reagan is often cited as an example of a so-called “good” Republican president. While he may have been an effective president, he was far from a good guy. My favorite quote in the chapter? “President Reagan wanted a conviction of a US citizen as a favor to a corrupt, foreign dictator.” The year is 1986, I believe. Tell our listeners the story, please?MARK: Lots of great quotes in the book. I can't seem to get away from them. “Specialization, so prevalent today, can limit a lawyer unnecessarily.” But isn't that advice in conflict with “Jack of all trades, master of none?” What do you tell a young lawyer today about specialization?BOB: Another quote from the book: “Preparation for trial requires a complete immersion into other people's lives while at the same time trying to preserve an objective view of the case.” How does a trial lawyer do that?MARK: Another quote I like in the book is “Trial lawyers are essential to enrich democratic reforms and social progress.” Why do you believe that? Many people would say “get over yourself.” What do you say?BOB: Last quote: You say: “I have always thought of the United States Supreme Court as the legal conscience of our society.” Do you still feel that way with today's court?MARK: At the request of Lawrence Walsh, the special prosecutor investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, you agreed to handle the prosecution of Caspar Weinberger, the US Secretary of Defense under Reagan and Bush one. Before you could try the case, President Bush pardoned Weinberger, an event with caused you “post-pardon depression.” So, how did you really feel?BOB: Were you able to strike a healthy work-life balance? What did that look like? What would you recommend to young lawyers today? MARK: How would you compare civility among lawyers today compared to during your early years of practice?BOB: If you could travel back in time and give your 25-year-old self some advice about career and life, what would it be? Any regrets?MARK: Let's talk about judges. The judge is against you. The rulings aren't going your way, and you are feeling a hostile vibe from the bench. What do you do?MARK: The USA PATRIOT Act, mass surveillance of Americans by the federal government, and the transformation of the FBI into an counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cybersecurity agency are all things that happened in the last 21 years or so. As a lawyer and an American who cares about civil liberties, do you think these changes have brought some harm as well as enhanced security?BOB: We hope your memoir will be a bestseller. Where can people find it and what's next on the horizon for James Brosnahan?This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4719048/advertisement

Sharing his journey on this week's episode of Leadership In Action is a local entrepreneur who takes pride in a job well done. With a knack for entrepreneurship, he started his first landscaping company in his early teens. Welcome to the show, Chief Executive Officer at The Difference Landscapes, Greg Cuoco! Host Mark Stiles interviews Greg to learn about how he got started as an entrepreneur, the importance of transparency with employees, and what the future of the landscaping industry holds.      Takeaways: For Greg, starting a business meant the freedom to control the direction and growth in a way that he wanted to. When Greg was looking to make a switch, his background in landscaping made owning a landscaping company a promising venture.  Buying a company has advantages, but finding the right company is a full time job. To successfully find one to buy, you need to build strong relationships with business owners, so when it comes time to sell, you're the first person on their mind.  Landscaping offers many benefits for potential business owners. With a contract based clientele, you build up a steady stream of recurring revenue. Landscaping is also recession resistant, as most residential clients will continue paying for services.  When starting or buying a business, it's important to play to your strengths. If you're great at sales, you want a team that can excel operationally. Establish a role that lets you utilize your skills, and enable your team to fill in your weak areas.  To build a strong roster of employees, you need to focus on building relationships and being transparent. Don't sell dreams. It won't take an employee long to realize it was a false bill of goods, and to start looking elsewhere for employment.  When looking for an industry to purchase a business in, trades based industries are rife with opportunities. There are many owners who are looking to retire, but few of their kids want to take over. Because of this dynamic, there are many trades businesses available.  AI is revolutionizing businesses, and landscaping is no exception. For landscaping, AI could calculate a quote, and send a potential customer a personalized outreach at the click of a button.      Links:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorycuoco/  Website: https://thedifferencelandscapes.com/      Quote of the Show “Ultimately what it comes down to is relationships.” - Greg Cuoco Ways to Tune In: Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leadership-in-action/id1585042233 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2t4Ksk4TwmZ6MSfAHXGkJI Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/show/leadership-in-action Google Play - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGVhZGVyc2hpcGluYWN0aW9uLmxpdmUvZmVlZC54bWw Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/4263fd02-8c9b-495e-bd31-2e5aef21ff6b/leadership-in-action YouTube - https://youtu.be/MK-sbxwxlX8   Transcript:   Mark: Hey folks. Welcome back to Leadership In Action, your Boston Chapter of Entrepreneurs Organization local podcast. I am really excited today to talk about some forward thinking trades, especially the landscaping trade and where that is going in the future. Today's guest is a local entrepreneur. Who takes pride in a job well done. He started his first landscaping company in his early teens. He's a leadership legend who knows how to motivate teams and drive effective results. He's the Chief Executive Officer at The Difference Landscapes. Please welcome Greg Cuoco. Welcome to the show. Greg. Greg: Thank you. Appreciate the introduction. Mark: Let's go right into it. Why did you start your business? Greg: Yeah, so I've always had the, uh, entrepreneurial bl bug in me ever since I was a kid. Um, always looking for ways to, um, make money. Um, I started my first landscaping company just in my neighborhood. One of my, um, neighbors actually approached me. Uh, they needed some landscaping, uh, and some snow shoveling done. So, uh, it just started from there. I did a great job. Word of mouth, got out, ended up doing my whole neighborhood. Uh, then I went to college and, you know, was on the track to go, you know, corporate. I was in corporate for a while, but, I was never a yes man. Um, I never kind of just went with the flow. I've, I've always wanted to have more. Um, and I always was trying to, uh, strive for the best and make everything, um, The best it possibly could, and definitely ruffled some feathers with some of my input, uh, at some of those, uh, meetings that, that, that were done. And, you know, I just wasn't succeeding in the corporate life and I was, I was always kinda knocking my head against the wall of why it wasn't working out. Um, and I actually got fired from every single job that I've had, uh, in corporate. And I kinda went back to the drawing board and figured out, you know, I don't think this is right for me. Um, and I didn't want to have, uh, something else in control of my destiny and my growth. And so I ended up looking for, um, a business to start and I said, Hey, you know what worked for the past of me? And it was, it was landscaping. And so I was, you know, going around. I just, I would just talk to entrepreneurs and. Basically asked him what was the best way to go about this. And I ended up running into a family friend. He owns several bars in Boston. Um, and cuz that was another thing I wanted to do too, is potentially to open up a, a, a bar as well. So like, talking to him and he was telling me, Hey, why, why would you wanna start something? Why don't you buy something? And a light bulb really went off in my head, you know, because the. Hardest thing is, is the time it takes to build something up. And a lot of people, they're, you know, a 10 night, a 10 year overnight success. Uh, and, and it takes a lot of time to build that. And so that's the one thing, you know, we all have, is a limited amount of time. So I actually end up looking at buying a company. And so I just networked like crazy cuz a lot of these businesses aren't advertised for sale because they're scared they're gonna lose their customers, they're gonna lose their employees. So it's all, you...

This INSTA HEART ATTACK!  We nearly made it through half an hour without "poo chat". Mick clearly doesn't want a girlfriend anymore. Do you want the good news, the bad news OR the "semi-good news"? STATISMICKS - how many decisions Refs get wrong per season...RESULTS ARE IN!  The HAPPIEST SONGS IN THE WORLD...according to science! Move over Ferris Bueller - Mick's worried about his mechanic. We tried to save Terry Campese's political career...AND FAILED!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gamers on their way to a convention run afoul of violent criminals on the run.  Can they use their "skillz" to survive? [warning - some violence, language, and mature situations] Written and Produced by Julie Hoverson Cast List Abby - Beverly Poole Mark - Brian Lomatewama Justin - Mathias Rebne Morgan Brianna - Lyndsey Thomas Tyler - Michael Faigenblum Clark - Brandon O'Brien News Report - Gwendolyn Gieseke-Woodard Man - Bill Hollweg Music of DARKEST OF THE HILLSIDE THICKETS!  used with permission Show theme and Incidental Music:  Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com) Recorded with the assistance of Ryan Hirst of Neohoodoo Studio Editing and Sound:   Julie Hoverson Cover Design:  Brett Coulstock "What kind of a place is it? Why it's a van on a road in the middle of nowhere, can't you tell?" _______________________________________ EXIT STRATEGY Cast: Mark - Game Master, in a wheelchair Abby - strategy girl Justin - the driver, Mark's brother Brianna - nurse, dating Tyler Tyler - wiry LARPer, dating Brianna Clark - a criminal Thug - another criminal SOUND     FOOTSTEPS OLIVIA      Did you have any trouble finding it?  What do you mean, what kind of a place is it?  Why, it's a car on a stretch of road in the middle of nowhere, can't you tell?  MUSIC SOUND      INSIDE CAR NOISES SOUND     Music plays on the radio SOUND     "BING" FROM THE DASHBOARD SOUND     Justin turns down the stereo JUSTIN     We're riding E.  [up] Eyes peeled for a gas station, everybody! MARK     Hey, Justin, remember when it used to be sooo cool to cross the state line? JUSTIN     Yeah - some things just lose their charm as you get older, little bro. MARK     And can drink legally in your own state... ABBY     Don't drink and game.  It dulls your edge. JUSTIN     You've got enough edge for all of us, Abby.  BRIANNA     [slightly off, giggles] I would too. TYLER     [slightly off] That is so great.  You are so great. ABBY     You do realize we can hear you? JUSTIN     Keep it clean back there.  I'll lose my damage deposit on the van if it comes back stained. BRIANNA     Ew!  We were just-- TYLER     [defiant] I was just telling Bree that if she ever got possessed by a demon, I would totally kill her. BRIANNA     [squeaky] Isn't that sweet? ABBY     [baffled] Yeah.  [whispered] What do you think brought on this declaration of undying love? JUSTIN     Tyler brought his DVD player.  I think they're watching Evil Dead. ABBY     Oh. [that explains it] MARK     You guys are all going to help with the "Super Five" tournament, right?  I can count on you? ABBY     Well-- MARK     Well? ABBY     [hesitant] I was checking, and the final round of the "AfterBlast" championship is in the same time slot. MARK     [excited] You really think you have a chance? ABBY     Hell yeah.  I plan to kick ass and take names.  MARK     That rocks.  JUSTIN     I-- I noticed you were the only - um - ABBY     Discernibly female? JUSTIN     Yeah, that - name on the semi-finals roster.  ABBY     Yup.  Time to represent. MUSIC JUSTIN     Pit stop! MARK     Man, you are this close to losing your deposit. JUSTIN     Shit.  Your chair's packed! BRIANNA     I got you, Mark.  SOUND     DOOR SLIDES OPEN, SHIFTING SOUNDS AS SHE GETS OUT SOUND     FRONT DOOR OPENS BRIANNA     Come on, then. TYLER     [teasing, going off] No groping my girl, now. MARK     Hey!  My hand slipped.  Once. BRIANNA     Girl. [snort]  I am a woman. [grunts as she gets Mark on her back]  OK, hold on.  Tyler, got the door? TYLER     [off] Getting it! SOUND     QUICK FOOTSTEPS ON CONCRETE SOUND     DOOR OPENS. MEN'S ROOM SOUND     FLUSH, STALL DOOR OPENS MAN     Hey!  You can't be in here! BRIANNA     Puh-lease.  I'm a nurse.  Almost.  [sarcastic] And you should get that looked at. MUSIC AMBIANCE     NIGHTTIME ROAD, VERY QUIET MUSIC VERY QUIET ON THE STEREO JUSTIN     [quiet] Hey Abby? ABBY     [quiet, tired] Hmm? JUSTIN     Just wanted to see if you're awake. ABBY     Really?  Nice of you to check. JUSTIN     Well... I'm not sure how much farther it is to the motel, and I was starting to fade a bit.  Help keep me on the road? ABBY     [half yawning] Sure.  What's on your mind? JUSTIN     Any chance you and I - you know - sometime? ABBY     [half a laugh]  I've sworn a blood oath not to date any man who can't beat me in a fair game of AfterBlast. JUSTIN     Really? ABBY     Something like that.  No offense, OK?  You're nice.  But we're kind of different worlds. JUSTIN     I used to game--  ABBY     Used to.  You traded in your dice for the corporate world. JUSTIN     It's not that bad-- [sudden change]  Whoah. ABBY     What? JUSTIN     Nothing.  Just - there's headlights behind us.  They weren't there a minute ago. ABBY     Must have come round a corner.  SOUND     CREAK, TURN ABBY     [turned to look] Hmm.  How fast are we going? JUSTIN     Why? ABBY     They're catching up.  Should I wake everybody? JUSTIN     Well...  if there's a crash, they're better off asleep.  Relaxed.  It's a fact - why drunks walk away more often-- ABBY     It's still coming.  Can we get off the road?  JUSTIN     There just isn't any place to go!  The ditches are ... gaping black chasms! ABBY     What's our speed? JUSTIN     Seventy.  So far. SOUND     GROWLING ROAR, GETTING CLOSER ABBY     How much can you push a minivan? JUSTIN     Don't know.  It's a rental. ABBY     All right. [thinking]  Turn off the headlights. JUSTIN     What?  ABBY      There's a good moon - the road is straight as far as I can see right now - can you hold the wheel straight while you're blinded? SOUND     ROARING REVVING APPROACHES JUSTIN      I... guess-- yes. SOUND     HEADLIGHTS TURN OFF JUSTIN     [heavy breathing] ABBY     Once our eyes adjust, we can look for a turnoff - in the dark, with the headlights, we won't see it until it's too late.  JUSTIN     Does that work? ABBY     I don't know.  Yes!  There, to the left, a road. JUSTIN     We're going too fast! ABBY     Start the turn early, and run in at an angle.  It should work.  MARK     [half asleep] Yeah, the roll factors are considerably less-- JUSTIN     Roll factors? MARK     "Street Wars," core manual.  The turn gauge modifiers. JUSTIN     Whatever, here we go! SOUND     SCREECH MUSIC AMBIANCE     OUTSIDE SOUND     TICKING OF THE ENGINE MARK     I'm suitably impressed. JUSTIN     Thanks.  Me too. ABBY     It worked! JUSTIN     A flat tire-- ABBY     Just one. MARK     --is not bad, all things considered. ABBY     [encouraging] Besides you missed the ditch, and the car didn't even flip. MUSIC SOUND     ON THE ROAD AGAIN TYLER     Doesn't this whole thing remind anyone of a movie? JUSTIN     Movie?  What, Texas Chainsaw Massacre? ABBY     Wo!  We do have the right carload for leatherface. MARK     Hey, Justin, don't pick up any strangers, kay?  I don't wanna be the first to die. TYLER     No....  OK, think.  A brother and sister in a car, in the middle of nowhere-- BRIANNA     [helping] In the middle of the day-- TYLER     Run off the road by a huge spooky truck--?  Hmm? MARK     That wasn't a truck.  ABBY     It wasn't? MARK     While you guys were watching the road, I watched it go by - It was big and square-- TYLER     A truck. MARK     No.  Better than that - I saw words on the side. BRIANNA     A truck? MARK     [sigh] Nope.  I must have made a perfect success on my perception roll, though - it was an armored car.  JUSTIN     In the middle of the night?  In the middle of nowhere? ABBY     Radio.  There must be something. SOUND     RADIO ON, SURF CHANNELS, STOP ON AN AD MARK     I like N-P-R. ABBY     News channel, bub. [Moment just listening.] JUSTIN     OK, enough with the ads - give us some news. TYLER     If this was a movie, the minute we switched over, the news bulletin would come on right then.  Cheesy, eh? BRIANNA     It's just a genre convention - a way of condensing all this boring time spent listening to-- JUSTIN     Shh. SOUND     TURNS VOLUME UP NEWS     ...the third armored car hijacking this year, and the second one with fatalities.  Three security guards were injured in the attack-- JUSTIN     Wow.  We should call someone. ABBY     Already on it.  SOUND     CELL PHONE BEEPS ABBY     Damn.  No reception. NEWS     --two are in critical condition.  Pursuers lost the car in a high speed chase when the hijackers realized they were being tracked and dumped the onboard GPS at the side of the road.  JUSTIN     Well, the motel must be close.  They'll have a phone. NEWS     Police believe that one of the hijackers may have been injured in the attack... SOUND      CLICK RADIO OFF - no music here MARK      I thought we were supposed to reach it by ten? JUSTIN     Well, with all you small bladdered people, we had a lot more potty breaks than I allowed for.  And, o'course, getting run off the road...  Changing the tire... TYLER     There was that. BRIANNA     Think your Uncle Joey'll give us a discount for coming in so late - half the night, half price? TYLER     I'll ask him.  [yawns] In the morning, though. MUSIC SOUND     CAR, SNORING FROM ALL BUT JUSTIN SOUND     BUMP, THEN CAR PULLS TO A STOP JUSTIN     [trying to stay awake noise]  Holy crap, I think we're here. ABBY     [waking]  Mmm?  Oh good... JUSTIN     One moment and I'll go and check in... ABBY     No, I'll get it.  Gotta pee anyway.  Small bladder.  [yawns] All that. JUSTIN     [receding] I didn't mean.... SOUND     CAR DOOR OPENS AND SHUTS SOUND     FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL, DOOR, BELL JINGLES ABBY     Hello?  Hello?  SOUND     RINGS DESK BELL SOUND     DOOR OPENS SOMEWHERE ABBY     [calling]  Look, I'm sorry to be coming in so late!  We had car trouble.  Can we get a room?  [beat]  Hello?  SOUND     FLUSH OF A TOILET ABBY     [needs to pee] Oh, jeez.  [deep shaky breath]  Hello? SOUND     DOOR OPENS CLARK     Hey.  Sorry about that.  I was catching a few.  You want a room? ABBY     Yeah, my friends and I - if you have a room with a couple of queens, we'll be fine. CLARK     Uh, sure.  Probably.  [looking around]  Nobody really here, tonight. ABBY     Could we have the one out on the end, then? CLARK     Don't see why not... um... ABBY     Says here it's room 14. CLARK     There you go.  [unconvincing laugh] So tired my eyes won't focus. SOUND     KEY SLAPPED ON TABLE ABBY     How much? CLARK     Oh, pay when you leave.  ABBY     Hmm.  Are you Joey? CLARK     Joey who? ABBY     [sharp intake of breath, then faking being ditzy]  Sorry - you look a lot like the cousin of a friend of mine.  CLARK     I get that a lot. SOUND     FOOTSTEPS, DOOR OPENS ABBY     Oh, can I use your bathroom?  It's kind of an emergency. CLARK     [too sharp] No!  I  mean, sorry - no can do.  Absolutely against policy.  Too bad you didn't get a room closer in, eh? ABBY     [flat, suspicious] Yeah. SOUND     DOOR SHUTS, JINGLE MUSIC SOUND     HOTEL ROOM DOOR SHUTS, FEET STUMBLE AROUND, BAGS DOWN, ETC. SOUND     BODY FLOPS ONTO BED JUSTIN     I am dead.  As driver, I call a bed.  SOUND     WHEELCHAIR ROLLS MARK     I'm with you.  SOUND     FLUSH BRIANNA     I suppose Abby and I should share the... other...? I thought she said the room would have two beds? SOUND      DOOR OPENS ABBY     That clerk didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.  Did you park right next to the door Justin? JUSTIN     [half moan] Yes.  Why? ABBY     I have a bad feeling about all this.  TYLER     Any chance it has something to do with all the spooky movie talk in the car? BRIANNA     And the guy who ran us off the road? ABBY     Maybe.  JUSTIN     Well, unless you're ready to drive - and pay for the extra insurance - We're not moving from this spot until I wake up. ABBY     But the clerk - there was something wrong there.  Really.  God, for a chance at a spot hidden roll. MARK     [more awake] Describe him. BRIANNA     [groans]  Come on - it's beddy-bye time! MARK     Abby's got good instincts, Bree.  You know how hard it is for me to fool her. ABBY     That's just in game.  I'm not-- JUSTIN     [half asleep, but trying]  But you are the only girl-- BRIANNA     [half-hearted] Woman. JUSTIN     --to make it into the ... strategic final thingee-- ABBY     Ok.  Shit I'm tired.  [long deep thinking breath]  He wouldn't let me use the bathroom.  He didn't try and hit on me.  Didn't know which number room was the one on the end.  Didn't ask how many "we" were.  Didn't know which rooms have queen beds.  Didn't ask for a credit card. TYLER     So? He's dead tired too.  Big whoop.  It's [looks] 2 freaking 55 in the morning. MARK     Jeez, folks, we've had sessions which went long past 3!  What's wrong with you? JUSTIN     [muttered into the pillow]  Getting old. MARK     Yeah.  You 25-year old over the hill codger, you.  Abby, what would you do now?  ABBY     What? MARK     This is the scenario.  Right here.  What would you do? TYLER     Sleep. BRIANNA     Seconded. JUSTIN     [Snoring] MARK     Assume it's unlikely we can drive out of here - at least not conveniently.  How would you secure the room? ABBY      [perking up]  We could set watches-- TYLER     [mumbled] Screw you! ABBY     I can't watch all night.  Adrenaline is only good for so long. MARK     That guy struck you that bad? ABBY     Yeah.  I'm probably just-- MARK     Let's assume otherwise.  We have a map - of sorts - on the door there.  Take a look. ABBY     I - well, I got the room on the end, since we'd have a better chance of seeing or hearing anyone coming.  MARK     [chuckles] ABBY     I can't help it.  I'm already in strategy mode.  Ok, the room has windows at the front and back and a bathroom that abuts the next room.  No windows in the end wall.  If we could keep an eye either side-- SOUND     FEET ON CARPET, CURTAIN PULLED ASIDE, THEN WHIPPED BACK INTO PLACE. ABBY     Oh, shit. MARK     What? ABBY     God, I hope no one saw the light.  MARK     I'll turn it off.  Let them think we're asleep.  SOUND     CLICK OF SWITCH MARK     Now? ABBY     It's the truck - car - whatever!    The one that almost ran us off the road! MARK     [gasps]  Are you sure? ABBY     Come and look! MARK     I believe you.  We need everyone if this is a real situation.  Shit. ABBY     There's woods - cover - right out back.  If Tyler was up, he could go look. MARK     He's not going to be up any time soon. ABBY     I know what will-- I'm going to take a chance and get my other bag from the car.  I'll see what I can see.  MARK     I'll try the phone-- ABBY     No! MARK     Why? ABBY     Switchboard - I saw a switchboard in the office.  MARK     Shit.  Major "notice," though.  Good one. SOUND     DOOR OPENS MARK     Abby? ABBY     I'll be careful. MARK     [encouraging] I'm glad it's you. SOUND     DOOR SOFTLY CLOSES MARK      Shit.  SOUND     A moment of just snoring MUSIC      CREEPS IN, JUST A BIT MARK     [snorty, "almost fell asleep" noise]  Abby?  What time--?  Shit.  SOUND     WHEELCHAIR SHIFTS MARK     [urgent hiss] Justin!  Wake up, dammit! JUSTIN     Wha--? MARK     Wake Up! SOUND     DOOR OPENS QUICKLY, FEET COME IN, DOOR SHUTS AGAIN MARK     God!  You nearly gave me a heart attack! ABBY     Sorry - I spotted someone out in the parking lot, just after I got in the van, and I didn't want to move again until it was clear.  JUSTIN     [almost awake] What's going on? ABBY     I'll get Tyler up. MARK     Go for it.  I doubt you'll have much luck. ABBY     Ah, but I have a secret weapon - I always pack a sixer with me to gaming cons.  SOUND     SLOSHING OF LIQUID MARK     [almost drooling] Energy shots. ABBY     Un-huh.  It may take a minute or two, but we'll get everyone up and running. MUSIC TYLER     All you had to do was shout "Bob! Bob is coming!" and I woulda been up and running without the taste of ass - Bob was the demon in the larp last weekend, and man was he-- MARK     Shush.  EVERYONE     [Murmurs of assent] MARK     Let's assume this is not a drill. EVERYONE     [a bit undecided murmurs] ABBY     I know there's something odd here.  I feel it. JUSTIN     Are you sure you're not just jittery about the tourney? ABBY     Probably am, but that doesn't make me think I'm wrong. BRIANNA     [Still groggy] What do you want us to do? MARK     Tyler, are you up for something that could be really dangerous? TYLER     Hell yeah. BRIANNA     [cautioning] Tyler? TYLER     Well, how dangerous? MARK     Abby? ABBY     Out the back window of the room, I think I saw that armored car that nearly ran us down.  It's parked in a dark spot.  If it's really the one, and there's any chance it's the same one that was stolen, there's a good chance we've walked in on a den of thieves.  We need to know.  Can you get within range of it and have a look? TYLER      Gimme a second. SOUND     FEET. CURTAIN MOVES BRIANNA     When you say "really dangerous"--? MARK     They already killed a couple of guys during the holdup.  I can't see them hesitating at shooting a few more bystanders. BRIANNA     Tyler? ABBY     Bree, I've Larped with him, and if anyone can really sneak, it's Folemon. BRIANNA     But that's his character! ABBY     In live action games, there are things you either can do or you can't, and sneaking is‑‑ TYLER     [voice slightly different - "in character" as Folemon]  I spy the brigands' carriage.  I will hence and reconnoiter. BRIANNA     Be careful. TYLER     Fair maiden, with you to return to, I cannot fail.  [kiss on hand]  Douse the lanterns, lest my shadow betray me! MUSIC SOUND     LIGHT TAPPING NOISE, WHICH GOES ON THROUGHOUT JUSTIN     What are you doing? ABBY     What does it look like?  I'm checking for trap doors. JUSTIN     You're joking. BRIANNA     Didn't you see that movie Vacancy?  There was a trapdoor in the bathroom floor.  ABBY     That was so annoying.  They were so stupid about that. JUSTIN     About what? ABBY     Did you see the movie? JUSTIN     Well, no. ABBY     They could have easily blocked the hatch.  But they didn't and ended up fighting guys popping up out of it. BRIANNA     They couldn't block it - they tried.  There wasn't any heavy furniture. ABBY     [derisive laugh]  What do you call this? SOUND     DULL THUMP JUSTIN     A mattress. ABBY     Have you ever had to move one?  From a dead lift?  And if that's not enough, the trapdoor was right next to the tub - you just soak the damn thing and no one - not even Schwarzenegger-- BRIANNA     Well, back in his prime-- ABBY     Is going to be able to shift it. JUSTIN     You ...actually ...thought about this? ABBY     [matter of fact] It's what I do.  SOUND     KNOCKING BRIANNA     Lights out - it's the door.  SOUND     SCUFFLE OF MOVEMENT BRIANNA     Tyler? ABBY     Folemon! TYLER     [muffled] I return triumphant! SOUND     DOOR OPENS AND QUICKLY SHUTS AGAIN, LOCKS TYLER     And, I have a prize! SOUND     TAP ON SOMETHING METAL SOUND     LIGHT CLICKS ON JUSTIN     What the--? MARK     No, that's good.  If we can get to the authorities, we can prove we saw the damn thing. JUSTIN     You coulda taken a picture - you think they're not going to notice a missing license plate? TYLER     [chuckling, full of himself] I think they'll have other things on their mind. ABBY     Oh, god, what did you do? TYLER     I had my thieves tool handy-- JUSTIN     What? BRIANNA     Pocketknife. TYLER     So I hobbled their horses. ABBY     We need to go now. JUSTIN      You did what? BRIANNA     He let the air out of their tires.  Tyler, sweetie, speak English so I can stop translating. TYLER     Hey, what?  They won't be able to come after us-- ABBY     But they will know someone was spying on their truck.  They might not notice the plate, but--  aagh! TYLER     I was... um... in the zone?  My character would have-- MARK     Understandable.  Let's deal with it.  Were there any other cars out there? TYLER     Not out back.  MARK     Justin? JUSTIN     What? MARK     Any other cars out front? JUSTIN     I didn't notice.  Sorry. MARK     See what happens when you give up gaming?  You lose your edge.  You remember anything Abby? ABBY     Not in the parking lot.  I can take a look. MARK     Hold off.  What do we have for weapons, if it comes to that? JUSTIN     Jack Shit. ABBY     Torchiere for a club.  BRIANNA     No - no heft. ABBY     We can wire the doorknob as a last resort - give someone a bitch of a shock. TYLER     Shh! [They all do.] SOUND     SLIGHT CRUNCH, MIGHT BE FOOT ON GRAVEL MARK     Posts. SOUND     VERY QUIET MOVEMENT ABBY     Uh-uh. BRIANNA     shit. MARK     The front? BRIANNA     Movement. ABBY     Window?  Door?  BRIANNA     Distraction.  [starts moaning, loudly - very sexy] ABBY     Stay out the way of the window.  BRIANNA     Uhh!  [whispered] Watching. [Up] Ohh! TYLER     [joins in] JUSTIN     You won't be able to hear-- ABBY     Neither will they! SOUND     WINDOW SLIDES OPEN WITH A PROTESTING SQUEAL ABBY     Shit.  If we're going out this way, we're doing it sharp and hard. MARK     Out front? TYLER     [still groaning] BRIANNA     Someone's right outside.  Ohh! Just a shadow.  Ohh!  Peeping or about to try something.  Ohh! JUSTIN     This is insane.  This does not happen in real life. MARK     Look, bro- you can play along, and worst that happens is you look like an idiot with the rest of us, or you keep saying it can't be real and maybe take a bullet.  Why not play along? JUSTIN      Shit.  What do you need me to do?  I am not joining that party. [Moans continue intermittently] MARK     Can you see what's at the top of the closet? Usually if there's access to an attic space, that's where it would be. JUSTIN     Sure. MARK     And you're tall enough. JUSTIN     No problem.  [suddenly serious] If this is some psycho situation, you know I won't let anyone get you, right, bro? MARK     Shithead.  Get everyone else out first!  I'm the burden - now get in the damn closet. SOUND     CLOSET DOOR OPENS ABBY     You're not a burden.  MARK     Physically, I'm a drag on the party. ABBY     Mentally, you're the only one keeping us together.  So you can just shut up. MARK     OK, shutting. BRIANNA     He's making a move. MARK     Shit.  SOUND     KNOCK ON THE DOOR BRIANNA     [loud] Ooh!  Oh, shit!  Huh? TYLER     [loud] What the fuck? MARK     Abby?  Where are we? ABBY     Tyler, get behind the door. Ready to slam it if you gotta. TYLER     Check. SOUND     KNOCK AGAIN ABBY     Brianna, the torchiere, stay below the window, trip anyone coming in. BRIANNA     On it. SOUND      KNOCKING INSISTENT ABBY     [trying to make up her mind] Door - wall - wall - door.  Shit! [deep breath, then calling out] What? SOUND     SHIFTING FURNITURE CLARK     You all right in there? ABBY     What? CLARK     I heard a noise. JUSTIN     [whispered] See?  Normal. ABBY     No.  At the very least, he's peeping.  No way he'd hear anything from the office.  [up]  Everything's fine.  We were watching a movie.  MARK     Good one. JUSTIN     Oh, this is idiotic. SOUND     WALKS, UNLOCKS AND FLINGS OPEN DOOR TYLER     Hey! ABBY     No! SOUND     GUNSHOT, BODY DROP JUSTIN     [screams in pain] SOUND     DOOR SLAMS CLARK     [screams in pain] ABBY     Bree, can you get the lock, without getting in front of the door - it's crap, but-- BRIANNA     Done.  Justin - is he--? SOUND     LOCK FUMBLED SHUT JUSTIN     [sounds more annoyed than hurt] I'm shot. ABBY     At least now we know it's not a drill.  SOUND     GUNSHOT, WINDOW SHATTERS ABBY     Down! SOUND     BODIES FALL, WHEELCHAIR RATTLES AND TIPS MARK     Get him.  I'll cover Justin. SOUND     CAUTIOUS STEP ON BROKEN GLASS ABBY     [scream, distracting him] SOUND     FEET TURN ON THE GLASS, GUNSHOT ABBY     Bree! BRIANNA     Yaaaah!  SOUND     THUMP - BODY DROPS CLARK     Yowtch! ABBY     Sit on that bastard.  Tyler, check for backup? SOUND     HEAVY CRUNCH ON GLASS CLARK     [Whimper] TYLER     On it. SOUND     CAR STARTING TYLER     Oh shit - he's in for a surprise.  Front's clear. JUSTIN     You seem to all be ignoring the fact that I've been shot. MARK     I've been applying pressure. JUSTIN     To my mouth. MARK     oh, yeah, I was supposed to be stopping the part that got shot, not the part that shot off, right. ABBY     Brianna, swap - you take a look at Justin, see if we can move him.  I'll hold down the ...fort. TYLER     Fart. [Snickers all around.] CLARK     [Moans, then grunts when Abby turns him over] SOUND     CRACKLE OF GLASS UNDER HIS BODY ABBY     Need something to tie him with.  TYLER     Gotcha.  Thieves tools to the rescue again. SOUND     RIPPING FABRIC - GOES ON FOR A WHILE BRIANNA     Tyler, toss me your flint and steel. SOUND     CATCH, THEN FLASHLIGHT COMES ON BRIANNA     Looks superficial.  I was hoping I knocked you down quickly enough, but I wasn't sure. JUSTIN     I've been shot. BRIANNA     Yes, but not badly.  I'll bandage it in a second. TYLER     Here's your fifty feet of rope... ABBY     Check the back? TYLER     I am fleet enough to be in all places at once. SOUND     ENGINE STOPS TYLER     Oh. ABBY     [grunts as she ties a knot]  OK, shithead.  Talk. CLARK     What? ABBY     Well, we have your gun.  And a pocketknife.  You want to choose which one I do you over with? CLARK     What?  I was just-- ABBY     Shooting in through our door? CLARK     I thought you were - TYLER     Shut up. ABBY     No, let him talk.  I want to hear this. CLARK     Nothing. ABBY     Oh, well.  How many friends you got out there? CLARK     None. ABBY     So that's Christine out back?  Or are you Knight Rider? CLARK     Ow!  No - No!  Stop! JUSTIN     Let me.  I'm the one he shot. CLARK     No!  There's just the two - and B-Ball's shot. ABBY     Anyone else? JUSTIN     Is this what you were doing? CLARK     OWWW!  No, no one! ABBY     What about the real clerk? CLARK     Oh - um - ABBY     Right.  We need to dump this guy somewhere. TYLER     Out back?  ABBY     Chances are, we can get out the front. JUSTIN     Chances?  I don't want-- ABBY     No worries.  Tyler - eyes on the back until I signal, OK? TYLER      Sure thing. BRIANNA     What now? ABBY     We do what we have to do.  Mark, you ready to take a chance? MUSIC SOUND     OUTSIDE - DOOR OPENS SOUND     WHEELCHAIR BUMPS NOISILY OUT THE DOOR ABBY     No shots.  Good.  We're moving out.  Justin, you're behind me and the chair - get your ass into the car and start it.  We'll pile in, peel out, and worry about belts and seats later. JUSTIN     Are you sure this is safe? ABBY     Nope.  Tyler?  Got the rear? TYLER     Got it. ABBY      Bree, you're first in.  I'll cover you. SOUND     GUN CLICKS READY BRIANNA     Check.  Hold tight! SOUND     WHEELCHAIR GRINDS ALONG THE GROUND TYLER     He's coming!  ABBY     Everyone - Move!  Justin - get it in gear! JUSTIN      Yeah... SOUND     JINGLE OF KEYS, THEY DROP TO THE GROUND JUSTIN     Shit! ABBY     Dammit!  Bree, get your ass to the other side of the car! SOUND     HEAVY FEET RUNNING ON GRAVEL TYLER     I'll-- SOUND     GUNSHOT ABBY     You'll go.  Move it.  I'll cover you.  [solemn] Don't fumble the keys. TYLER     I won't. SOUND     RUNNING FEET TAKE OFF ACROSS THE GRAVEL, snatch up the keys. SOUND     GUNSHOT ABBY     [Gasps as she shoots]  Damn, that's a kick. SOUND     GUNSHOT SOUND     CAR DOOR OPENS ABBY     Yessss! SOUND     ABBY SHOOTS SOUND     SIDE DOOR SLIDES OPEN ABBY     [yelling] Stop shooting at the crip, you scumbag!  You'll be sorry! SOUND     WHEELCHAIR MOVES SLOWLY, ODD FOOTSTEPS AS ABBY CROUCHES BEHIND IT ABBY     Nice to have friends, isn't it? SOUND     GUNSHOT ABBY     [yelling] You really should stop that!  THUG     [evil laugh] ABBY     I told him. TYLER     Come on! ABBY     Bye-bye SOUND     WHEELCHAIR PUSHED, ROLLS SOUND     GUNSHOT SOUND     GRUNT OF PAIN [CLARK] SOUND     RUNNING FEET SOUND     CAR REVVING SOUND     JUMP SOUND     GUNSHOT, PINGS OFF METAL OF CAR TYLER     [grunting to pull her in] Come on! SOUND     CAR MOVES, FEET DRAG BRIANNA     Here. SOUND     GRAB, DRAG ABBY     [grunting] SOUND     DOOR SLAMS SOUND     TIRES SPIN IN GRAVEL, CAR ZOOMS OFF ABBY     [sigh] OK, whose lap am I in? MARK     Mine.  Sorry about that. ABBY     Hey, we're all here, no one got shot-- JUSTIN     I did! MARK     And we had to dump my chair... ABBY     No one got killed, and we're back on the road.  I'm gonna feel like shit for the tourney, but who gives a crap?  [giggles] [All join in the hysterical relieved laughter.] MUSIC SOUND     OUTSIDE ROAD - MORNING NOISES ABBY     [waking up noises, suddenly awake with a gasp] MARK     [whispering]  Shh.  It's ok-- SOUND     RUSTLE AS SHE TRIES TO SIT UP ABBY     Was it - It was a dream? MARK     Hell no.  But once you passed out, we figured you deserved it.  Let you sleep. ABBY     Oh... MARK     Hey Justin?  When's the next bathroom? BRIANNA     And a phone. JUSTIN     Like anyone's gonna believe us.  BRIANNA     You did get shot. TYLER      And I still have my trophy. SOUND     PING AGAINST METAL OF LICENSE PLATE MARK     Shh.  Abby's out again.  ABBY     Hmm?  [rousing herself] Like hell!  Justin?  Crank the music!! END  

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E28 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to the wonder science based paganism. I'm your host Yucca. Mark: and I'm mark. Yucca: And this week we have a really interesting topic. We're gonna be talking about. Religion in general, what is religion? What purpose does it have? And also looking at how naturalistic paganism differs from the, the big three in Western society. Mark: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation because these are questions that I've spent a lot of time researching and thinking about parti. When I was first pulling the threads together, that would become Ethiopia paganism. Obviously when you think about, well, why do people have religion, then you have to start asking yourself what is a religion, right. And everything sort of tumbles downhill from there. It's very interesting. Yucca: Yeah. And you'll certainly get different opinions on what a religion is. We were talking about before this, how there are some folks who will say that they'll define religion in such a narrow way that really only Christianity, Judaism and Islam fit into the category. And they'll kind of ignore the rest of the many, many different possibilities that humans have, you know, just today, not even thinking about what we've had in the past and may have in the future. But we're gonna be taking a little bit more of a, a broader perspective on that. Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, for those religious scholars and anthropologists of religion who focus down on a very narrow, definition of religion that only slots to those. Kind of major movements throughout the world. To me, that's begging the question. I, I think what we ought to be looking for is what are the human needs that are being met and by what kinds of mechanisms and how can we generalize about that into a definition of all of those kinds of behaviors and needs. And crystallize that down into a definition for what a religion is that that's been my approach. Yucca: Right. Mark: So let's get into it. Yucca: Yeah, we should say before though, that we will be comparing a lot to those big three that we've been talking about and that's, you know, it's not to be picking on them or singling them out or anything. It's just that the societies that both mark and I come from are very steeped in these. These are the Christianity has really influenced and shaped so much of our cultures in ways that we're aware of it in ways that. often, you know, unaware of as well. Mark: Right because we are so. Inured to them. They're so normal to us that it doesn't even occur to us that it's possible to live any other way or to think any other way about the world. Particularly we're going to be talking a lot about Christianity because that's what the really dominant religion in the United States where both of us live, but. A lot of what we're saying could also be applied in areas that are dominated, say by Islam or by conservative brands of Judaism or other faiths that share these kind of general characteristics. So it's not to pick on Christianity particularly. It's it's more to say this is what we're most familiar with and what we see. Creating the subtext for the over culture of where we live. Yucca: Mm-hmm right. Mark: So let's get into it. Where, where should we start? Yucca: Well, I think with, you know, what a religion is and the purpose of a religion, right. And those two are kind of blurred together. Right? Mark: Right, right. And of course, depending on what religion you are, you'll have very different answers for that. Because if you ask a Christian, what the purpose of their religion is, it's salvation, right? You're, you're supposed to follow these rules and. Cate yourself to this God, and that will get you a ticket to heaven with various terms and conditions applying depending on what the faith specifics are. Yucca: The particular sect within there. Yeah. Mark: Right. But when we look at a, in a broader sense not religious specifically, worldwide. And over time we can see that what religion has done is provide certain things for populations of people. It's given them a sense of shared values. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: It's given them a sense of community and connection with one another. It's given them a way of making sense of the calendar in terms of celebrating a, a set of seasonal holidays around the course of the year. And it's answered big questions that That people ask, like, you know, why am I here? What am I here for? What's the purpose of living? What is, what is the nature of the universe even, Yucca: I mean, it's, it's creating the context, right? It's how do we understand our context, us, our relationship to community and the world. Mark: right, right. And. As we look throughout the world, we can see that people's spiritual expression. Does those things for them, no matter what kind of spiritual expression it is, even in monastic communities, their communities, right. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: Um, very, very rare to find people who are so monastic that they, you know, essentially go to a cave and do their thing by themselves. Because humans are social creatures and mostly we like to feel connected with each other in some sort of shared. Enterprise, right. Some way of organizing our society so that we can eat and we can be safe and we can be happy as best we can. So. When I was studying all this stuff and, and I really went down the rabbit hole into brain structures and how the brain evolved that I won't really get into now, but the appetites of the various systems of the brain map, pretty, pretty well onto the things that religion provides. Right. And. considering all this stuff. My conclusion is that a religion is basically a combination of three things. The first is a description of the universe or a cosmology, and that can be heaven and hell in purgatory and the, the, the world in between, or it can be a wheel of karma that you're trying to get off, or it can be. The, the narrative described by science, which is the one that we subscribe to the, the description Yucca: shifting and changing. Mark: yes, Yucca: Yeah. But we've got several standard models that we're working with at the moment. Right. And those get challenged and they change slightly. And. Mark: right. But there's. There's a fundamental belief underneath that, which is that science, that the universe is a material set of processes, which are governed by laws and that those laws are consistent throughout the universe. And that we can understand them. and learn to be predictive of what's going to happen in a given situation, based on our understanding of how those material processes work. That's a very, very different understanding than a, you know, super mystical Christian view where, you know, the mind of God is unknowable and we, we just never know what's gonna happen because anything is possible. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: Yeah. So. Cosmology is the first piece. The second is the set of values. Every religious movement. Every spirituality, coalesces around a set of things that things that they think are right and wrong, things that they think are sacred and to be protected and revered and things that they, that they think are profane or or worthy of disrespect, not necessarily the last one, but definitely the first one. And that's important because part of the way that you build community is by having people of like mind, right? I mean, we talk about a pagan community and you know, you're not gonna find any group that's really much more diverse than that. But the one thing that we do have in common is that most of us share a set of values around. Independence around personal sovereignty, around consent, around equality around inclusiveness. And of course there are exceptions to these rules, but they are not the rule. They are the exception. Yucca: Right. Well, and, and those particular qualities or properties when there's exceptions. It's usually there's one or two exceptions, but then the others are held, right. Mark: Right. Yucca: Kind of like a metal in chemistry. Right. You have all these properties, you remember in chemistry class that made you memorize, like, oh, it's conductive and it's ductile and all the, you know, there's but there's a few exceptions, right? Mercury is liquid at room temperature, but it's still a metal, but most of the others they're, they're solid at room temperature. Right. So it's like that. Mark: Yeah, exactly, exactly that. So you've got your cosmology, you've got your set of values. And then the last is a set of practices. And this is where a religion differs from a philosophy, in my opinion, UN under my definition, because a philosophy can have a set of values and a cosmology, and you can talk about 'em all day long, but that's not the same thing as a a. As a religion, which has holidays rituals, observances modes of dress dietary restrictions, in some cases, all these kind of strictures around behavior and, and prescriptions of behavior. That go into a, a ritual practice. And so when I was creating atheopagan, this is the model that I used. The cosmology was the easy part because all I had to do was point to science and say, listen to them. The values part, I spent a lot of time on thinking about what the definition of the sacred is. And I came up with the four sacred pillars and then the 13 principles, which are ethical principles for. Best to live our lives. Yucca: Which we have episodes on. We should revisit that soon. Actually. I Mark: We should. Yucca: We really should it's but because I think that would've, we were still the beginning of 20, 21, or we might've still been in 2020 when we did those, but the, yeah. Mark: It's it's been a while. So the idea there, and this, this is something that was a little radical for the pagan world because the pagan world, people tend not to wanna be told what to do. They're very, very. know, reactive to the idea of anybody controlling them. So there's very little in the way of developed ethics in most of paganism at least modern Neo paganism. Yucca: Right. Mark: And I feel like lets us off the hook for having to be ethical people. We do have responsibilities to the earth. We have responsibilities to one another. We have responsibilities to future generations and we need to conduct ourselves in a manner that's consistent with that. And then there are also principles that just have to do with how to be a happy and a good person like Humor and perspective, for example, you know, being able to find the humor in things and being able to laugh at yourself are ways to stay humble and there are ways to enjoy your life and to be able to deal with hardship in a way that that lightens it to some Yucca: Mm. Mm. Mark: So that was the value system, the four pillars and the 13 principles. And then came practices and that's where the paganism part really came in with the wheel of the year holidays daily practices, observances of the cycles of the moon rituals, just for whatever purposes we need them for like a job search or. Recovering from grief or Rite of passage to become, you know, to go from being a teenager, to being an adult, for example. And the pagan community really what's the word I'm looking for? Excels really excels at that aspect of religiosity because we're encouraged to create our own rituals and we learn to be really creative and effective at transforming consciousness through the use of ritual technologies. Yucca: Right. Mark: So. Yucca: We're often described as the religion of doing right. It's about what we do. And there, of course is the belief component. But the, the, one of the things that unites pagans often is what we do. Not necessarily what we believe. Mark: right. What they call an ortho religion as opposed to an oxic religion. Right. Yucca: yeah  Mark: this is very different than many of the. The predominant Christian sex that exist around us because they have prescribed rituals. I mean, the sermon may be different every week, but the ritual itself, the mass, all that kind of stuff. It's the same all the time. And it it's very carefully stipulated. Exactly. You need to do at a given time of year and the priesthood don't have a lot of flexibility in that. Whereas in paganism you may not have priesthood at all, which we don't in atheopagan. Yucca: Right. Well, I mean, anyone can become a cleric if they, if they wanna go to the website and sign up so that you can, you know, perform marriages legally and that sort of thing. But, but we don't have anything where. Anybody is in a higher position or any sort of hierarchy, Mark: That's right. Yeah. The idea there is everybody should have the. To marry other people or conduct funerals or whatever, if that's what they want to do and provide that service to the community. But being an atheopagan cleric is a service commitment. It's not an elevation in status. Yucca: Right. Well, you're not from a different cast. Mark: No. And you're, and you're not a gatekeeper of secret knowledge or, you know, special rights that only you can do or any of that stuff. We don't have that. Some pagan traditions. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: and that's, that's what they do, but it's not what we do. So that's what I think of when I think of a religion. And what I'm always looking for is can you think of any religious traditions or spiritual traditions that don't include those three things? Yucca: No. I mean, I can think of. The one thing that I can think of that isn't, that doesn't usually get listed as a religion, but has, well, no, some of the, some of the philosophies kind of start to. Blur into that with particular practices. Right. But then they don't come along with Cosmo. I'm thinking of stoicism for instance, but stoicism doesn't come along with a, with a cosmology, but it comes a you've got values and practices, not necessarily holidays. So, but in terms of something that is seen really as a religion all of the ones that I have exposure to. Seem like they've got something there. Now many of them don't have, there was something that you didn't say, and that was God's right now that may be included in some people's cosmology, but we don't think that you have to believe in a God or a deity to be, or the supernatural at all, for it to be a religion. That's just one particular flavor of cosmology. Mark: right. And it's the kind that has ended up dominating the religious spiritual space for thousands of years. But that doesn't mean that it's the only way to have a spirituality, which I mean, some people try to debate with, but we've got thousands of people that are practicing this thing. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: tell us that it's not spirituality or not religion? Yucca: Or it's just spirituality at a certain point. Like I, for me, it becomes like a, okay. Fine. You can say we're not a religion, but I mean, we are like, you could say that we're not, but we are in, you know, we have legal status to say so as well, Mark: That's true. Yes. We, we have been recognized by the internal revenue service as meeting the characteristics for a religious nonprofit organization. So,  Yucca: paperwork. Mark: there, there is that. Yeah. I think one of the things. Religion and spirituality that it's always important to bear in mind when we talk about this stuff is that there are no universally accepted definitions for either of those terms. Yucca: right. Mark: And very learned people with lots of letters after their names, who specialize in these things, disagree, vehemently about what they need. So it's. It's not really our job to try to resolve all that. All I know is that of all of the spiritual or religious traditions that I have been able to learn about worldwide. They've all had a cosmology, a set of values and a set of practices. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: And in many cases that cosmology is populated by one or more gods or spirits or sacred powers of one kind or another. I'm thinking about the African diasporic religion with the law and I, I know very little about this, but those, I don't know whether those are considered gods or whether they're considered to be, you know, powerful spirits that we, we create arrangements with through our own ritual behavior and offerings. But all of those are. Stories that we tell ourselves about the nature of the world. Right? And that's what a cosmology is. Science tells a story about the nature of the world. Just like all those other ones do. The difference is that science uses evidence and analysis and critical thinking to, to support the claims that it makes. Yucca: Mm-hmm well, and one thing about the cosmology is that it seems to often reflect the political and social structures that the people. And I dunno if this is a chicken or egg sort of situation, but that the people are in, right. So if we are looking at Christianity and we're looking at the development of it and what parts of the world it came from and what the political structures were at those time periods. Well, you know, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, the words even have, have carried over, right. People refer to God as the Lord. Right. And this would've, this is coming from a time period where people, you know, we had very defined. Cast system where we had the peasants and the Lord and you know, different names depending on what culture. And I think that that's probably one of the reasons that it has one of the many reasons that that particular religion has been falling out of fashion the recent time is because our political structures are moving from. That there's the, the nobility and the peasantry. I mean, on some levels we have this extreme gap that's happening as well, but we just don't, but there isn't the loyalty to it. Right. We're not loyal to our one percenters. We have very different feeling towards them. But that in the, in the past, there was, there was a reason to try and keep your, the, your peasants or country people. Having a sense of obligation and loyalty to the nobility. Mark: Right. And I think it bears saying that that's not a coincidence. I mean, the religious systems that have been chosen by ruling classes in order to maintain the the. Their power is not an accident. Constantine chose to convert the Roman empire to Christianity. And in the process, he redefined so much of Christianity into an authoritarian religion that you were supposed to submit to. Yucca: Right. Mark: The and at its root. Almost all flavors of Christianity are still that ENT. They, they poit a ENT relationship with the divine or the sacred that we're supposed to bow down. And there's something wrong with us that has to be cleansed. And we have to seek salvation in order to get this stain off of us. All of that works very well if you're the king. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Right. That works really well. If you get to decide who gets the thing that washes off the stain and who doesn't and if you're collecting the taxes, right? Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: So a symbiotic relationship between between religion and political power has existed in almost all places at almost all times. I mean, I would say the same thing about Buddhism. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: Because in the case of Buddhism, the entire belief is life is suffering. Learn these mental techniques so that you can suffer less. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: That's great. If you live in a completely authoritarian, totalitarian state, it it's not, you know, stand up and fight. Instead, it's sit quietly and learn these techniques that will help you not to suffer under this, you know, deeply unfair and oppressive system. Now in modern times many Buddhist, especially in the west have adopted strongly political positions and they advocate that out of their values of things like loving kindness. And that's great. But when we look at the history of where it came from, I think it's fair to say that once again, it was a choice that worked really well for the ruling class. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Paganism is very different than that. Paganism is religion with agency. We don't see ourselves as. Sinful or inherently damaged. We don't see ourselves as needing absolution of some kind of sin. Yucca: Right. Mark: We see ourselves as beautiful and luminous and flawed and problematic, and everybody has their trauma and damage that they work to recover from. And we all work to lift one another up as best we can. In order to achieve the, the actualization of ourselves as individuals and as a community. Yucca: right. And we see ourselves as natural and part of this world. Mark: Yes. And this world, is it for us, not an afterlife that you're trying to qualify for, or that you're afraid of. You know, there's, there's none of that extortionary model going on there. Some pagans do believe in some kind of an afterlife, but not to the extent that they're willing to you know, Have a miserable life in this life so that they can go to VHA that that's that's. Yucca: Right. Mark: That's just not the way that we approach these things. And I, I have to say just as a caveat, I'm generalizing about pagans. Now. It's very hard to generalize about pagans. There's probably somebody out there who's suffering for Valhalla, just, just to make me wrong. But generally speaking, what I'm saying here in my experience is what's true. Yucca: That reflects my experience as well. Yeah. So we're making some big, big generalizations. That's it seems to be the general case. Mark: So we really need to talk about this sin thing. It is profound. How impactful and damaging it is to people who live in societies that are dominated by the idea that people need some kind of spiritual washing in order to be okay. Can be I mean, And it permeates so much of our society. I mean, I, I think about Jewish mother jokes. Right. And they're all around guilt and you know, sense of, you know, I'll just sit here in the dark. Well, and then I'm gonna feel guilty because I wasn't sufficiently kind to my mother. Right. Idea that we should be living with guilt and shame and that our bodies are dirty and that sex is dirty. And all of those things, we are just so awash in that, that we can't even imagine a society that where it isn't. So even for those of us that are living our lives, Explicitly not to be that way. We are still inside ourselves, struggling with some of that same shame, some of that same body consciousness, because we were steeped in it, growing up in this culture. Yucca: Right. Yeah. Even, even coming from families that were pagan families or were atheists, right. It's just all around us. Right. Mark: right. Yucca: I mean, I can tell you as a child, how many times I heard someone go, Ew, that's so wrong. Right. That's just wrong. Right. Just about normal, you know, human things, right. Or, you know, you showed your shoulder. Oh, no Mark: Oh no. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Oh God. Yeah. And just because of, I mean, I was raised in an atheist household but. An extremely Sort of sexually phobic household, Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: shameful. I mean, I never even got the talk, right. A, a book appeared on the coffee table for a week and then disappeared. And apparently that was supposed to tell me about sex, but I never read the book, so I kinda missed out on all that. I had to figure it out later. But yeah, you know, lots of shame, lots of just the usual kind of Protestant stuff. So that's one way that the pagan approach and particularly the non theist pagan approach really differs from these predominant religious movements that dominate. Our society. Yucca: Right. Is that we're choosing to not use that framework. Right. Although it's something that we have to be conscious about because we're surrounded by it. We are, you know, we, we, it's part of the history that so much, so many of us come from that we can often fall back on it without even realizing that that's what we're doing. Mark: right. And there can be added dangers because if you're sex positive, for example, but you haven't really got your mind around consent. Yucca: mm-hmm, Mark: And you still haven't figured out that you're still steeped in patriarchy. Well, then you become an abuser, right? You become someone who's who assaults people. So it's really important for us to internalize all of these things as a package, you know, recognizing the ways that things are distorted and rendered unfair and iJust. In our culture so that we can be conscious about how we conduct ourselves, even in the context of being sex positive. Yucca: Right. Mark: This I think is, can be said to be. The big failing of the sort of sex free for all of the late sixties, early seventies. It was still very male dominated and the whole idea of consent culture hadn't really rolled around yet. Yucca: Right. Mark: So there were a lot of women who ended up having experiences that they did not want to have. And Hopefully, at least we in the pagan community have learned since then. I've been encouraged to see so much emphasis on consent and and integrity around relation relationships and sexuality in the pagan community. Yucca: Yeah. You know, that was something that I was so delighted to see at the sun tree retreat where consent, and I'm not even talking about sexual consent. I don't know. Maybe people were doing that. I didn't wasn't involved in any of that, but, but it just feel like may people, it was just so normalized where people, you know, asked permission to give a hug. Right. And I had my, my. My oldest child with me there, and nobody touched her without her permission. I watched over and over again, and that's not something that happens in our normal culture. People just think that they can touch a kid without the kid's permission. They might ask me as the parent for my permission, which is somewhat bizarre to me that. I mean, I appreciate asking the parent, but it's actually the kid who it's their body. Right. Whether you can, you know, pick them up or hug them or hold their hand, or, you know, you ask the kid. And that was something that, that just was so normalized at the sun tree retreat was just delightful to be around like, oh, I just feel so safe with all of these people. Like everybody is really respectful of that. And it was just, and it wasn't awkward, right. Because the first time we try and start making changes in a culture, it feels weird and awkward, Mark: It does. Yucca: right. To be like to stop and ask before you touch somebody, if it's okay to do so. But, but we've made that not awkward. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that was lovely. I, I really appreciated that too. You, you touch on a subject that I think is another major difference between the mainstream religious traditions and. Hours, which is the possessory model Yucca: Right. Mark: because in UN under patriarchal religion, children are possessions and women are possessions of men. Yucca: yeah. Mark: And I mean, that's just all very awful, but in my opinion, but that's. The way it rolls and that possessory model extends to the entire rest of the world where life becomes something where of wealth or goods or particular desired things becomes the purpose of living and. And worst of all, in my opinion, land ownership, Yucca: Hm. Mark: I, I have a real problem with the idea of land ownership. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: I, I don't think a human should own anything that outlives that that's, that's going to be around for billions of years after they're gone. And I know that that's the model that we have and, you know, that's how capitalism works. Everything is a possession. Everything is a commodity to be bought, but in my own experience if land is in the commons and we're all responsible for taking care of it, and we have an, an internalized reciprocal relationship with the earth, I think we just end up in a much better. World, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: but of course that's just a thought experiment on my part. They were, they were doing it here in the Americas before settlers got here. But Yucca: It depends on which group, but yeah, right there was, there were, there were and are many, many different tribes. Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a whole nother topic. That'd be interesting. There'd be a lot to, to sort out with that.  Mark: I mean, it's, it's tough because you have well-intentioned land stewards. Right. And you, you want them to be able to be the people that are managing lands because they're doing it well. Right. Or at least they're trying to be doing it well, like the national park service which sometimes does it well, and sometimes does it not so well, but it's Yucca: we're private folks. Right? Right. Like I work with a lot. I mean, myself, I'm a landowner and I have a lot of, and I work with other landowners and in working on restoring our ecosystems and, you know,  Mark: Yeah. Yucca: there's also, there's a. There's also a, a risk when things are sometimes what everybody is doing, may not always be the wisest thing to be. Mark: Yeah, fair enough. Yucca: There's, you know, there's certainly certain, you know, health or so-called health and political movements that are happening right now in certain places and not in others. And some that I look at and I go, whew, I. I think you're off. I think you're really off. I don't think that that's what the sciences is that there really isn't good evidence for that. I think the science is being misrepresented and yet things are being forced in one way or another. The part of the world that I'm from. We, we have had traditions here for hundreds of years and had people come in with very strong ideas about what we should be doing with public lands and not, and, you know, killed very old traditions. Right. You've got people coming in and thinking that that you shouldn't be that cattle on the land is bad. Just universally, no nuance there. Right. And then peop and then the people who've been doing it for hundreds of years, can't do it anymore. And their, you know, their livelihoods and their culture and their traditions have just been taken away because people came in and who were outsiders? Frankly, right. They come in from Northern California and from all these other places and go, you're doing our way now. And then they split anyways, they're gone. Most of the people who made those who made those rules, aren't even here and leave the, the destruction in, in their wake. So I, I hear on the one hand what you're saying that I think that it's a, that it's a very tricky matter, Mark: Well, I agree. I agree. And it's always. Once again, you know, the, the other big aspect of the over culture, other than the religious overlay and all the sort of value pieces is capitalism. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: And it's very hard for us to imagine any other system than capitalism because we're steeped in that too. And it's a fair question. Well, if you're not gonna have capitalism, what are you gonna have instead? Yucca: and how are you gonna transition there Mark: Right. And how are you gonna get there? And that's, it's a legitimate question and I don't claim to have all the answers to that. What I know is that, you know, especially here, you know, watching what happens here in California, where we're so populated, you know, every, every. Get rich, quick developer wants to grab parcels on the edge of cities so that they can throw up some kind of quick, make a buck project and then head out of town. They're not gonna own it. They're just gonna throw it up and sell it. And, you know, we lose a lot of farmland that way. We have whole huge sprawling cities built on top of some of the finest farmland in the world. Yucca: Right. Mark: So. I don't know. Yeah. Yucca: a pretty impressive fault line too. Mark: Yes. Yucca: I might not be the, just putting that out there might might be maybe someplace that you might wanna reevaluate where you're putting large population centers. That's another question looking at well then where, where do you put large populations that Mark: Well, you D well, you don't put 'em somewhere where you don't have any water. That's that is where I would start. Yucca: that's a, and that's gonna be a problem in the area. We are look at it with the developments going up here and going, but there isn't you're you literally will not have water in 15 years. Like, what are you doing? Right. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So, Mark: Yeah. We're gonna see suburban ghost towns. I'm sure. In places that just simply can no longer serve water to the, the people that they're under contract to. Okay. But we're, we're a. Yucca: off the field. Yeah. And, and I should say, I did mention, you know, I. I actually do level folks in Northern California, but that was, that is one of the specific areas where we've had issues, where people come from a very different cultural area, very different attitudes, access to resource and money. And then, you know, come here, make a bunch of changes and then split to the next new, cool place to be in. And. Know, those of us who were just kinda left behind, like, oh, thanks. that? Okay. You just you know, tripled our property taxes and priced out of our own town and destroyed our livelihood stake. So yeah. Mark: Let's go back to religion. Yucca: Religion. But the, the attitude, some of those attitudes, I think. They come out of our, what we've been talking about with the religious cosmology and the political systems, which informed those cosmologies Mark: Yes. Yes. I really think that's so, the, the very concept of democracy struck right at the heart of the domination by Christianity of the west. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: Um, the, because of course the. The core principle of political rulership in Europe anyway, was the divine right of Kings, which was a declaration that was made by first the Catholic church. And then, you know, church of England and whoever that the Yucca: Jesus said give onto Caesar. Is that where they were getting it from? Mark: I have no idea, honestly, I don't, I don't know where it comes from, but there was some kind of I rationalization and that, that if your king is cuz God wants you to be king and therefore the structure of our society unfair and oppressive as it may be is God's will. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And the idea of democracy really strikes. The, the foundations of that. And as problematic as the founders of the United States were in so many ways and as Yucca: Even for their own time period at many boy. Mark: yes. In, in some cases, even for their own time period nonetheless. What they chose to do in setting up the United States was really very radical at the time. Now it it's not radical anymore. It needs a refurbish, but at the time and of course it was an inspiration for the French revolution. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: Which was also seeking to overthrow specifically the domination of not only the royalty, but of the clergy class the, they, they very much called out the churches as being culpable in the oppression of the people. Yucca: Yeah, it's a really interesting time, period. Mark: Very. Yucca: I mean, I think most time periods are interesting, but there's, there was so much change. Happening in the Western world at that point. Mark: Yes. Yes. And unfortunately what ended up happening was that they ended up with a dictator, but eventually they became a democracy and now Francis in reasonably good shape overall in terms of actually having a functioning democracy, of course, they've got a weird fascist part of their country that wants to vote. Marine Lappen. But other than that, but I, I digress. I digress, Yucca: gone on one tangent already. Mark: right. Let's okay. Let's leave it there. So when we talk about paganism, really what we're talking about is a, a radically different way of understanding ourselves, our relationship to the world, our relationship to our society around us and how. We envision an ideal world, all of those things. And it took me a lot of years to kind of soak up all of those things because you know, a lot of it, it's not like there's a book, there's no secret text in paganism. That'll just tell you, well, you know, here it is, this is, this is how we understand the world. And that's part of the reason why. You know, it's good for us to do a podcast like this to sort of spell out, you know, this is how we have come to understand living as pagans in the United States confronted with the issues that all of us confront. Yucca: Right. Well, and we should, at this point, say we do not speak for all naturalistic pagans. We don't speak for all athe pagans. We're, you know, We can talk about general themes that we see in most people or most atheopagan. But, but again, we're two people, right? And that's a, that's another big difference is, you know, we're mark. You're not the, you're not the Pope of, of atheopagan. Right. Mark: I'm the Nope of atheism  Yucca: And, you know, there is a, there is a atheopagan society council. And, but again, we don't have the that's that's like you were saying, those are positions of service, right? That's that's, those are jobs that we're doing to try and help the community. Not because we're bossing and making decisions for everybody else. Mark: And that's a part of the core values of paganism is that we value diversity. And in valuing diversity, that means that we have to acknowledge that we're not all going to get into lockstep in March. Now hopefully we can agree about some common ideas and you know, proceed from there in order to help improve our world and to have good lives. But we also have to acknowledge that there are gonna be people on the fringes that disagree with us about core stuff. And they're still pagans. Yucca: Yep. Mark: They're still, you know, they're still doing rituals and maybe they're worshiping gods or, you know, observing the wheel of the year, whatever it is. You know, we're not, we're not trying to gate keep people who don't fit our model. Yucca: Yeah, well, and there's, there's a good cautionary tale about being in lockstep. There's a bridge in R. Which is a city in Southern Spain, and it has a very famous, beautiful bridge. And it's the stone bridge. It's amazing. It goes across this huge Gorge, but it's the second bridge that was built because the first bridge that was built, they went across, there was a procession. I think it was Simon. And they, the bridge collapsed because everybody was in step when they went across the bridge Mark: So they hit the residence frequency of the bridge Yucca: it collapsed. Yeah. Mark: it to death. Yucca: Yeah. And so when they rebuilt the bridge, they built the most overdone, its beautiful stone bridge. It's huge. Really look it up. It's just amazing. But Mark: It's gorgeous. Yucca: okay. Yeah, I lived there for a year. So walked across that bridge, you know, every day just stunning, but yeah, the first bridge came down and that's not, you know, there's warnings about other bridges. They tell you don't do that. When you go across, you know, you have to, don't be in step. Mark: The Romans learned this they, they had outstanding orders that their legions had to break step to cross bridges. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and it's still a military thing today. You know, if you're gonna cross a bridge, you do not March across because you never know if you're gonna hit the wrong frequency and knock your bridge down. Yucca: So, bring that back as a metaphor of, you know, I think it's probably a pretty good thing that we aren't all in step with each other because we could, you know, we could hit that wrong frequency. So Mark: Yep. Yep. So what else did we have on our, on our Yucca: You know, Mark: of things to talk about? Yucca: we had to put as a category to talk about specifically how we differ from Christianity. But I think we've really been covering that. We kind of woven that in. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention specifically about that? Mark: Not, not that I can think of except insofar as acknowledging religious trauma. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: A lot of people arrive in both atheist spaces and in pagan spaces, having really been wounded by their experience with mainstream religions. Because they've been told that they're valueless and that they're tarnished and that they're That, that their only value is as a servant of God and that they're sinful and all those things. And in many cases, and particularly people that are marginalized you know, who, who can suffer greatly at the hands of mainstream religion. And I just feel like. It's important for us in the pagan community to acknowledge that this is happening and to do what we can to provide resources for people so that they can heal. When I've attended atheist conferences, what I've seen is a lot of angry people who just wanna argue against religion Yucca: Right, Mark: and, you know, having never been. A Christian or, you know, a member of any of those religions. I don't have that injury. And so my question is always, okay, well, so we're atheist now. What, Yucca: right. Mark: how do we live? How do we be happy? What's important. What, you know, what do we do? Yucca: Right. Mark: So, I really encourage our listeners. If you feel like that woundedness describes your situation, there are organizations and we can put a link in the show notes for people who are recovering from religion to get help and you know, really welcome you to our communities, if you choose to be in them. And Hope that you will find yourself feeling better about that stuff soon and able to move on into a better part of your life. Yucca: Right. Well, and that's also something to emphasize that we don't believe. What we do is necessarily the best fit for everybody, right? We're not worried about converting anyone. You know, we wanna be welcome welcoming and inclusive and invite, but certainly we have no interest in trying to go and. Make you believe the way we do or change your opinion on this or any, you know, this is, you know, this is by, this is a at will thing that we're doing, right. You're invited to join us and we'll love if you do, but if you don't, that's fine. Right? Mark: As, as, as people have sometimes said, if you don't like it, you can't have any Yucca: And so, well, This has been a good conversation. Mark: Yeah, I think so too. Thank you, Yucca. I really enjoyed kicking this around with you and I imagine we'll get some interesting feedback as always you can reach us@thewonderpodcastcuesatgmail.com and thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week. Yucca: By everyone.    .

Before you sell your company, even the odds. This episode features guests Mark Achler and Mert Iseri, authors of the recent book, Exit Right: How to Sell Your Startup, Maximize Your Return and Build Your Legacy. Exit Right demystifies how to conclude the startup journey, a perfect complement to our podcast, which focuses more on the exits of larger middle-market companies. As Brad Feld states in the Foreword, “Mert and Mark set the roadmap for how entrepreneurs and business owners can proactively manage the process of getting to a successful exit along the way”. As Jeff says at the start of the interview: Mark and Mert cover so many great informative topics in the book. There is a wealth of tips to guide business owners through what can be a tumultuous process, getting through the exit. There are also so many topics we align with: relationships matter most, planning for wealth, time kills all deals, and the importance of following a best-practice process.  In this podcast episode, we focus on three topics with a lot of meat to each:  FAIR, Mert and Mark's framework for a successful exit, (3:00)  The“Exit Talk” and how we suggest that all companies adopt this practice with their board (15:00), and Who is involved in the Exit Talk and why? (28:00) What is FAIR? Why does it lead to the best transactions? (3:00) Mert: What we realized as we started to gather stories and experiences from M&A bankers, lawyers, serial entrepreneurs, etc is that the real question isn't, “Let's find out who's going to pay the most.” The real question is, “What's the right home for this business? What's the right home for my people? What's the right home for the vision? Who is going to serve our customers the best?” Our view of an exit went from being a short-term transaction to a long-term partnership. The term “exit” is a poor word choice.  You're not really exiting anything. If anything, it's the beginning of a brand new relationship. So when we ask ourselves, “What makes a great home for a startup?” we focus on these four elements that make exits great. FAIR. Fit, Alignment, Integration, and Rationale.  If you have all four of those, it just so happens that you've also found the person who's willing to pay the most for your business, because they will realize the long-term value and they'll price the deal accordingly. Fit is the cultural fit between the two companies. Amazon and Zappos are a great fit. Time Warner and AOL, are probably not a great fit. It's easily described. Can you sit next to this person for four hours and not want to kill them by the end of the meeting? Can you actually make decisions without written rules? Are cultural values aligned? Are the DNAs sort of similar, cousins to each other between those two companies? Alignment is about being aligned with your co-founders, board, and shareholders in terms of the direction of where you want to go. The acquiring company also must be aligned.  We almost always dismiss the alignment that we need from all sides of the table. This isn't two sides looking at each other. This is two sides looking in the same direction. Integration has to do with the plan for how these two companies will come together. We've seen so many examples of this plan of integration being done as an afterthought. It's not just product and sales integration but people integration, finance integration; many, many layers. And all of these stakeholders have different agendas that need to be individually managed.  Rationale. Can you explain to your grandmother why this acquisition makes sense? How are we going to deliver more value to our customers as a result of this partnership? How is two plus two equal to 100 in this context? Mark: There are profound financial implications to the FAIR framework. Let's take Integration. Integration is the ugly stepchild. People always say, “Oh yeah, we'll deal with integration afterward.”  Turns out that in many transactions, it's not always 100% cash. Sometimes there's an earn-out for future performance. If you're not integrated well (you don't have the resources you need to execute your plan), there are some significant financial implications to the earn-out. Then there are the financial implications to Rationale. Transactions are typically based on looking backward using a multiple. When you create a rationale that says one plus one equals a hundred, if it's a strategic investment, you take your product and we plug it into the larger company's sales force or the larger company's customer base. What could we do inside the larger company? What's the impact of your product on the larger company? The way to maximize value is not looking backward as a multiple, but looking forward using the rationale. Strategically, why is the combination so valuable? If you can get everybody aligned around the rationale and the financial implications of that rationale, that's how you're going to drive a better price for an exit. Mert: No one's going to just sit down and tell you, “This is our rationale.” You uncover it. You unearth it over years. That's why we urge entrepreneurs to put their party dresses on. Talk to many competitors. Talk to strategics. Get out the door. You need to build this trusted relationship over time with fundamental questions. How can I help? How can I help you push your agenda forward? How can I help my customers? This is what great partnerships really look like. We're not saying go share your financials with your competitors or give away all your IP to a larger strategy, but you need to be that trusted partner that advances the mission on all sides and creates a situation where everybody wins. Mark: We wrote the book about exits, but it turns out that the decisions that entrepreneurs make at the beginning of their journey have an outsized impact at the end of the journey. Even though this book is really about the exit, there is really good advice there about the beginning of the journey as well. Jeff: That's exactly right. This book is really about the journey.  All of the steps on the journey influence the end. There's so much wisdom in the book and insights about all the things that you can do to proactively get to the right end. Management meetings are oftentimes the first time that business owners meet their potential acquirers, whether they're competitors or strategics, or investors. But the longer that relationship can be developed, the more that you can uncover in terms of the shared common goal of what can we do together. And the best valuation and the best terms will just naturally evolve. What is an “Exit Talk”? How can founders use it to reach alignment in their boardrooms? (15:00) Jeff: The Exit Talk really struck a chord with me. Let's encourage clients and future clients to have these discussions and this thought process through the FAIR framework to really think ahead. Sometimes we as investment bankers get brought in late in the game. But most of our transactions and our best relationships really span years. We get to know the business, the goals, and importantly the people involved, the operators, the owners, the founders, and the investors. Some of these relationships for us span a decade or more. We give them advice on how to grow their companies. This concept of an exit talk is missing from my perspective. Exit discussions are often secretive or clouded in secrecy. It is a very small universe of folks within a company that knows that a transaction is imminent. It's rarely discussed openly among the senior leadership team until late in the game. What you guys propose is proactive. Through your work and sharing your work with my future clients, I'd like them to embrace this philosophy. I love this quote that you said, “Instead of fueling the awkwardness of the exit topic by staying silent, we are putting forward a new norm that we believe the entire industry should adopt, which is the Exit Talk.” Mark: This is one of our favorite topics. But before we dive into the Exit Talk: We are such big believers in trust. Every deal has its ups and downs. It has its emotional turbulence, it's the journey. Trust is the lubrication that gets deals done through to the conclusion. I just wanted to put a fine point on that topic of trust because it permeates everything we do. The Exit Talk.  It turns out that there's a stigma to talking about exits. CEOs are afraid. They're afraid that if they bring up the topic of an exit that their board and their investors are going to think their heart's not in it. They've lost hope. They've lost faith. In the Venture Capital or Private Equity world, we have a time horizon. When you take our capital, you take our agenda, and you take our time horizon. We're looking for X return over Y timeframe. And if you're in year one of a fund, we've got plenty of time.  Let's go build and grow. If you're in year 10 of a fund, we've got to start returning capital back to our LPs. With the Exit Talk, what we're proposing is that once a year, maybe your first board meeting of the year, you have a regularly scheduled annual talk where the CEO, without fear of being perceived as their heart's not in it, can talk about the exit. The reason it's so incredibly helpful is that you have the luxury of time. If you had 18 months or two years, you have the luxury of saying, “Who's going to be the most likely acquirer? Is it going to be a strategic acquirer? And why? Who is it and why would they want to acquire us? Or is it going to be a financial buyer and what are they looking for? Are they looking for top-line revenue?”  If we're going to sell to somebody who really cares about growth, we may invest a little bit more heavily in sales and marketing. If it's somebody who is more financially oriented and really cares about EBITDA, we might tighten the ship and focus on profitability.  It gives you the luxury of time to get your intellectual property in order, make sure that every single employee has a signed agreement, and make sure that trademarks and patents are filed appropriately. Get your data room pristine. If you have the luxury of time, you can optimize and present your business. And you could take the time to find the best bankers and attorneys who really are going to represent you well. Mert: An outcome of this talk doesn't necessarily have to be “we're ready to sell, or we're not ready to sell”. It can also be an opportunity to start prototyping some of the theories around how you add more value to your customers. This is a great centerpiece for what we believe an exit should be reasoned around. This will help our customers faster/better than what we could do on our own by just raising more money or gathering more capital or resources. For instance, if you are going to have a strategic alignment with a larger company like Google, but you're not ready to sell, it's still an opportunity to start a relationship. Maybe we work on a mutual customer together. Maybe we create some content together where we tell our stories and we share our wisdom with theirs. You want to start charging up that trust battery over time. When you are ready, you are a known entity. The reality is these M&A (Corporate Development) leaders want to buy companies from trusted entities. They don't want an egg on their face either. They want to know the company that they're investing in. They're not viewing this as an acquisition, they're really viewing it as an investment. They want to know they can trust you. They want to know that you can go the distance. It's a really difficult thing to do to create that kind of trust. You're not going to rush through trust. You're going to build it incrementally over years. Even the identification of a strategic partner when you're not ready to sell is extremely valuable because that's an opportunity to generate a relationship. Find out what their priorities are. See if your solution helps move those numbers forward.  Mark: We're big believers in empathy. We have an empathy framework. There are three rules of empathy: 1) It's not about you. It's always about the person sitting across the table from you. 2) Do your homework.  Deeply and truly understand what's important. Mert just said, “Go listen to the quarterly earnings report.” They're going to tell you what they care about. 3) Bring a gift, add value. When I say bring a gift: what can you do? If you're an industry leader, provide some thought leadership about where the market's heading. Share new bits of technology. Not only can you gain knowledge about their strategic direction, you can also share knowledge and be thought of as a trusted thought leader.  If you take those empathy rules and apply them to building relationships over time, that's how you're going to earn trust. Jeff: I love the idea of a trust battery and charging that up over time. You can't do that overnight. You can't do that in one management meeting. You can't do that in a really compressed timeframe. You really need to start early and think about what you can bring to the table. What can you bring as a gift to add value to somebody else so that they can see the value in what you are bringing?  That's really the roadmap that you guys layout in your book: what steps can we take proactively to get to the best outcome. Who is involved in the Exit Talk, and why? (28:00) Mark: Let's separate out the annual exit talk from an actual transaction process. The exit talk is a board of directors-level conversation. Maybe you bring in one or two top lieutenants into that conversation, depending on the relationship between the CEO and maybe one or two C-suite members. But that's a board-level, strategic conversation that's not for the whole company. (For an actual transaction process), there are lots of different ways of handling it. My own personal opinion is that there is a dance that takes place starting as an aperture that broadens over time. One of the challenges with telling any employee about a transaction is human nature. “What's that mean to me? Am I going to have a job? Am I going to get fired? Am I going to become rich? What are my stock options worth?” One of the challenges is that not all deals happen; deals fall apart all the time. So the team has to have their eye on the ball. For the CEO, when they're going through a transaction, it can be all-consuming.  We've seen instances where companies started slowing down, missing their numbers because the CEO was distracted and not focused on running their business.  The way I think about it is starting with the CEO and the board, keeping a really tight circle of information. And then as the conversations start to broaden and deepen in a transaction, then people are going to start the due diligence process.  Make sure your C-suite is involved and your executive team is involved. The people who are going to be part of the due diligence process, obviously you're going to have to inform them. I don't think it's a great thing to just wake up one morning and say to your entire employee base, “Hey, guess what? We just got sold.” There's a middle ground someplace in that continuum. Try to keep it confidential through most of the process. As you start to get to certainty you need to start opening it up so it's not a surprise to everybody. Mert: There's one major stakeholder that hasn't been discussed and I just want to bring that up, and that's your family. Most founders overlook that and think of this transaction as a business event. This is a life event. Your family is a humongous stakeholder. We want to highlight that this is a critical component of whether an exit happens or not. What's happening with your family is just as important as what is happening with your board and other stakeholders. Mark: I couldn't agree with you more. It's not just us, it's our families and our loved ones too that have a stake in this. Jeff: It goes for all key constituents, starting with the family and then moving down to the board members and the C-suite and figuring out what's the right communication style and method and frequency. These things are really critical decisions that most folks don't really spend the time thinking about. Mark: One of the questions we ask CEOs is: when you're done with the transaction, will your employees come back to work for you in the next company you start? Will your investors want to invest in you in the next company you start? Will the biz dev lead of the large company who goes on to the next company, are they going to want to buy your next company? I think what many entrepreneurs fail to understand is that the relationships you build and your legacy live on way past the deal and the transaction.  We're big believers in servant leadership and that the best CEOs don't view life as a zero-sum game. They make sure that they take care of their customers, their employees, and their investors. They try to find the balance of supporting all relationships over time. ABOUT OUR GUESTS While a successful entrepreneur may exit a handful of companies in their lifetime, large buyers close deals all the time. Without decades of experience in mergers and acquisitions, founders don't have the tools they need to get the best results for themselves, their teams, or the new parent company. Through dozens of interviews with M&A leaders at the biggest Silicon Valley acquirers—as well as attorneys, bankers, and founders who have been through the trenches—Exit Right delivers the hard-earned lessons that lead to successful exits. From negotiation to valuation to breaking down a term sheet, managing legal costs, and handling emotional turbulence—this unparalleled guide covers every critical aspect of a technology startup sale. Learn where deals get into trouble, how to create alignment between negotiating parties, and what terms you should care about most. Above all, learn how to win in both the short and the long term, maximizing your price while positioning your company for a legacy you can be proud of. Author Biographies An early employee of Apple and Head of Innovation at Redbox, Mark Achler has been creating and investing in tech startups since 1986. Today, he is a founding partner of MATH Venture Partners, a technology venture capital fund, and an adjunct professor at the Northwestern Kellogg School of Management. Mert Iseri co-founded SwipeSense, a healthcare technology company acquired by SC Johnson in 2020. Prior to that, he co-founded Design for America, a national network of students using design thinking to create social impact, now part of the IBM Watson Foundation. He is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence at MATH Venture Partners. Socials Mark Achler Mert Hilmi Iseri Book About the hosts Gina Cocking serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Colonnade Advisors. Gina began her career in investment banking at Kidder Peabody, was an analyst at Madison Dearborn Partners and an associate at J.P. Morgan & Co. She was the Chief Financial Officer of Cobalt Finance, a specialty finance company. She went on to become the Chief Financial Officer of Healthcare Laundry Systems, a private equity-backed company for which she oversaw the successful sale to a strategic acquirer. Gina served as the Line of Business CFO – Consumer Banking and Lending at Discover Financial Services. Gina serves on the Board of Directors of CIB Marine Bancshares, Inc. Gina received her BA in Economics and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Jeff Guylay is a Managing Director of Colonnade Advisors. Prior to joining Colonnade in 2000, Jeff was an investment banker at J.P. Morgan in the firm's Mergers & Acquisitions and Fixed Income Capital Markets groups in New York. He also spent several years in J.P. Morgan's Chicago office. Jeff has over 20 years of M&A and investment banking experience and has served as lead execution partner on over 25 M&A and financing transactions at Colonnade. Jeff received an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a Master of Engineering Management from the University's McCormick School of Engineering. Jeff received a BA from Dartmouth College and a BE from Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering. About the Middle Market Mergers & Acquisitions Podcast Get the insiders' take on mergers and acquisitions. M&A investment bankers Gina Cocking and Jeff Guylay of Colonnade Advisors discuss the technical aspects of and tactics used in middle market deals. This podcast offers actionable advice and strategies for selling your company and is aimed at owners of middle market companies in the financial services and business services sectors. Middle market companies are generally valued between $20 million and $500 million. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider leaving us a short review:

There are certain age milestones where you should really pay attention to your retirement planning progress. On this episode, we'll look at the most important birthdays as you approach retirement and cover the exact things you should be checking off your to-do list at each age. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey, everybody. Welcome into another addition of the podcast. This is Retirement Planning Redefined, with John and Nick and myself, talking investing, finance, retirement, and birthdays.   Mark: We're going to get into important birthdays in the retirement planning process. As we get older, I don't think any of us really want birthdays, but these are some things we need to know. They're pretty useful. Some of this is pretty basic. Some of this stuff's got some interesting caveats in it as well. So you might learn something along the way. It can go a long way towards that retirement planning process.   Mark: We're going to get into that and take an email question as well. If you've got some questions of your own, stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com.   Mark: John, what's going on, buddy? How you doing?   John: A little tired. Got woken up at 2:00 in the morning with two cranky kids.   Mark: Oh yeah.   John: So if I'm a little off today, I apologize.   Mark: There you go. No, no worries. You get the whole, they climb the bed, and then you're on the tiniest sliver?   John: I got one climb into bed, I think kicked me in the face at one point.   Mark: Oh, nice.   John: Another one climbed into bed missing out on the other one, because they share a room. Then I had the sliver. I woke up almost falling off the bed.   Mark: There you go. And usually freezing because you have no blankets.   John: Yeah, yeah.   Mark: That's usually the way it goes. Nick's sitting there going, "I don't know what you guys are talking about."   Mark: What's going on, buddy. How you doing?   Nick: Yep. No. Pretty low maintenance over here.   Mark: Well, that's good. Hey, don't you have a birthday coming up?   Nick: I got a couple months still.   Mark: Okay, a couple months.   Nick: Yeah, I just got back from a trip a few weeks ago. Some buddies that I grew up with, a group of us have been friends for a really long time, I guess, going back to middle school. We're all turning 40 this year, so we rented a house in Charleston, and all survived.   Mark: Nice. There you go.   Nick: Yeah. It was good.   John: This is how you know Nick's turning 40. He came back with neck pain.   Mark: Exactly.   Nick: Yeah.   Mark: Hey, when you start to get a certain age, you start going, "When did I hurt that?" It's like, "I didn't even do anything." Yeah. You don't have to do anything.   Mark: Well, you know what? That's a good segue. Let's jump into this.   Mark: We're going to start with age 50. I turned 50 last year. First of all, the thing that sucks is you get the AARP card. I don't know about all that. That's annoying as a reminder that you're 50.   Mark: But the government does say, "Hey, let me help you out a little bit here if you need to catch up on some of the retirement accounts, help building those up." Talk to me about catch up contributions, guys.   Nick: Yeah. Essentially what happens is when you hit 50, there's two types of accounts that allow you to start contributing a little bit more money. The most basic one is an IRA or a Roth IRA, where the typical maximum contribution for somebody under 50 is 6,000 a year. You can add an additional thousand to do a total of 7,000 a year. The bigger one is in a 401(k) or 403(b) account, where you're able to contribute, I believe it's an extra 6,500 per year.   Nick: This is also a good flag for people to think about where, hey, once that catch up contribution is available, it's probably a good time, if you haven't done any sort of planning before, to really start to dial in and understand your financial picture a little bit more. Because if you talk to anybody that's 60, they'll tell you that 50 didn't seem too far back. So that's a good reminder to dig into that a little bit.   Mark: Yeah. It adds up. It's not necessarily chicken feed. You might hear it and think, "Well, a thousand dollars on this type of account over a year, or 6,500 on the other type of account, whoopedidoo." But if you're 50 and you're going to 67, let say, for full retirement age, and we'll get to that in a little bit, that's 17 years of an extra seven grand. It's not exactly chicken feed, right?   Nick: No. It's going to be big money down the road.   Mark: Yeah, exactly. So that's 50.   Mark: John, talk to me about 55. This one's really similar to 59 and a half, which most of us are familiar with, but most people don't understand the rule at 55. So can you break that down a little bit?   John: Yeah. We don't see people utilize this too often, but an example would be let's say you're 50, 55, 56, and for whatever reason, you leave your current job. You have an opportunity, at that point...   John: Let's give a bad scenario. You get laid off. If you didn't have a nest egg saved up in savings, there's an opportunity to actually access some money from your 401(k) plan without penalty. What you'll do is, basically, you take the money directly from the plan, and you just have it go to your bank account, and the 10% penalty's waived.   John: Now, some people need to be careful with this. Once you roll it out to an IRA, this 55 rule here, where the 10%'s waived, ceases to exist. It has to go from the employer plan to you directly in that situation. It's a nice feature if someone finds themselves in a bad situation, or they need access to money, and the 10% penalty's gone, but you still have to pay your income tax on that money [crosstalk 00:05:03]   Mark: Of course. Yeah. That caveat being, it's only from the job that you've just left, right? It can't be from two jobs ago kind of thing. It's got to be that one that you've just walked away from, or been asked to leave, or whatever the case is. That's that caveat.   John: Correct.   Mark: It's basically the same rules, Nick, as the 59 and a half. It's just is attached to that prior job. But 59 and a half is the more normal one. What's the breakdown there?   Nick: Yeah. Essentially what happens is, at 59 and a half, you are able to take out money from your qualified accounts while avoiding that penalty without any sort of caveats. One thing to keep in mind is that usually you're taking it out from accounts that...   Nick: For example, if you're currently employed, the process of taking it out of the plan where you're employed can be a little bit different, but it's pretty smooth and easy if you have an IRA or something like that outside of the employer plan.   Nick: One other thing that happens in most plans, for people at 59 and a half, is, and we've seen it a bunch lately, where a lot of 401(k) plans have very restricted options in fixed income and those sorts of things, where most or many plans allow people to take inservice rollovers, where they're able to still work at their employer, but roll their money out of the plan to open up some options for investments outside of the plan.   Nick: That's not always the best thing for people. Sometimes the plans are great. Fees are really low. Options are great. So it may not make sense, but oftentimes people do like having the option to be able to shift the money out without any sort of issue.   Mark: Okay. All right. So that's the norm there. You got to love that half thing. You always wonder what the senators or whoever was thinking when [crosstalk 00:06:56]   John: Finally, they got rid of the 70 and a half [crosstalk 00:06:58]   Mark: Yeah. They get rid of that one. Yeah. We'll get to that in just a minute as well.   Mark: John, 62, nothing too groundbreaking here, but we are eligible finally for Social Security. So that becomes... I guess the biggest thing here is people just go, "Let me turn it on ASAP versus is it the right move?"   John: Yeah. So 62, you're now eligible. Like you said, a lot of people are excited to finally get access to that extra income. You can start taking on Social Security.   John: Couple of things to just be aware of is, any time you take Social Security before your full retirement age, you will get a reduction of benefit. At 62, it's anywhere, depending on your full retirement age, roughly 25 to 30% reduction of what you would've gotten had you waited till 66 or 67.   Mark: They penalize you, basically.   John: Yeah.   Nick: Yeah. Actually, if you do the math, it ends up breaking down to almost a half a percent per month reduced.   Mark: Oh wow.   Nick: Yeah. It really starts to add up when you think about it that way.   John: Yeah. We always harp on planning, so important if you are thinking about taking it early, once you make that decision, and after a year of doing that, you're locked into that decision. So it's important to really understand is that best for your situation.   John: Other things to consider at this age, if you do take early, Social Security does have what they call a earnings penalty slash recapture. If you're still working and taking at 62, a portion of your Social Security could be subject to go back to them in lieu of, for a better term, [crosstalk 00:08:27]   Mark: It's 19,000 and some change, I think, this year, if you make more than that.   John: Yeah.   Mark: Yeah.   John: Yeah. Anything above 19,000 that you're earning, 50% goes back to Social Security. [crosstalk 00:08:36]   Mark: Yeah. For every two bucks you make-   John: 5,000 goes back to Social Security. So that's really important.   John: Something that I just want to make, last point on this, is that earnings threshold is based on someone's earned income, and it's based on their own earned income, not household. That comes up quite a bit, while people say, "Well, I want to retire and take at 62, but my husband's still working. Am I going to have a penalty if I take it?" The answer is no. It's based on your own earnings record.   Mark: That's where the strategy comes into play too. Because if you are married, then looking at who's making more, do we leave one person's to grow, as we're going to get into those in just a second, to grow towards that more full number.   Mark: Again, that's all the strategy. It may make sense for one person to turn it on early, and the other person to delay it. That's, again, part of the strategy of sitting down and talking with a professional, and looking at all the other assets that you have, and figuring out a good move there.   Mark: Nick, let's go to Medicare. 65 magic age.   Nick: Yeah. Actually, my dad turns 65 this year. So we've been planning this out for him. He is a retired fireman, so he has some benefits that tie in with his pension.   Nick: One of the things that came up, and just something that people should think about or remember, even if they are continuing to work past 65, is it oftentimes makes sense to at least enroll in Medicare Part A. You can usually enroll as early as three months before your birthday. The Medicare website has gotten a lot easier to work with over the last year or two.   Nick: Part A, the tricky thing is that you want to check with your employer, because usually what happens for the areas that Part A covers, which is usually hospital care, if you were to have to be admitted or certain procedures, it's figuring out who's the primary payer, who pays first, who pays second. So making sure that you coordinate your benefits. Check in with HR, if you're going to continue to work.   Nick: If you are retired and are coming up on that Medicare age, make sure that you get your ducks in a row so that you do enroll. Most likely you're going to start saving some money on some healthcare premiums.   Mark: Technically, this starts about, what, three months early? It's a little actually before 65. I think it's three months when you got to start this process, and three months before and after.   Nick: Yep. Yeah. You can typically enroll three months before your birthday, and then through three months afterwards. There can be some issues if you don't enroll and you don't have other healthcare, at least for Part A. There can be penalties and that sort of thing.   Nick: Frankly, with Medicare and healthcare in retirement, this is a space that we typically delegate out. We've got some good resources for clients that we refer them to, because there are a lot of moving parts, and it can be overwhelming, especially when you start to move into the supplements and Advantage plans, and all these different things.   Mark: Oh yeah. And it's crucial. You want to make sure you get it right. A lot of advisors will definitely work with some specialists, if you will, in that kind of arena. So definitely checking that out when we turn 65.   Mark: Again, some of these, pretty high level stuff, some of this stuff we definitely know. But we wanted to go over some of those more interesting caveats.   Mark: Let's keep moving along here, guys. Full retirement age, 66 or 67. John, just what? It's your birthday, right?   John: It is your birthday. That's the time that you can actually take your full Social Security benefit without any reduction, which is a great thing to do. Then also that earnings penalty we discussed earlier at age 62, that no longer exists. Once you hit your full retirement age, 66 or 67, you can earn as much as you want and collect your Social Security. There's no penalty slash recapture.   John: When that happens, people have some decisions to make. If they're still working, they can decide to take their Social Security. I've had some clients that take it, and they use that as vacation money. I've had some other ones take it, and they take advantage of maxing out their 401(k) with the extra income. Or you can delay it. You don't have to take it. You get 8% simple interest on your benefit up until age 70.   John: So full retirement age, you got a lot of big decisions to make, depending on your situation. But you want to make sure you're making the best for what you want.   Mark: Definitely.   Nick: Just as a reminder to people that that 8%, and you had mentioned it, but it does cap out at age 70. So there's no point in waiting past 70, because it doesn't increase any more.   Mark: Right. Thanks for doing that. It wasn't on my list, but I was going to bring it up real fast. So yeah. People will sometimes email and they'll say, "Hey, I want to keep working past 70. How's that affect Social Security." It's like, "Well, you're maxed out, so you got to just go ahead and get it done." You can still work if you're feeling like it. Your earnings potential is unlimited, but it's just a matter of you're not going to add any more to it. So I'm glad you brought that up.   Mark: John, you mentioned earlier, they got rid of the other half. Thank God. The 70 and a half thing, just because it was confusing as all get out. They moved it to 72.   Nick: Yeah. Required minimum distributions, as a reminder for people, are for accounts that are pre-tax, where you were able to defer taxation. 401(k), traditional IRA, that sort of thing. At 72, you have to start taking out minimum distributions. It starts at around 3.6, 3.7% of the balance. It's based on the prior year's ending balance. It has to be taken out by the end of the year.   Nick: An important thing for people to understand is that, many times, people are taking those withdrawals out to live on anyways. So for a lot of people, it's not an issue at all. However, there are a good amount of people that it's going to be excess income.   Nick: Earlier mentioned, hey, at age 50, really time to check in and start making sure that you're planning. One of the benefits of planning and looking forward is to project out and see, hey, are these withdrawal going to cause you to have excess income at 72, where maybe we're entering into a time that tax rates could be higher, tax rates could be going up, which is fairly likely in the next five to 10 years. So if we know and we can project that, then we can make some adjustments to how we save, should you be putting more money into a Roth versus a traditional, and how we make adjustments on the overall planning.   Nick: So making sure that you understand how those work, and then the impact that it has on other decisions to take into account for that situation, is a huge part of planning.   Mark: Definitely. Those are some important birthdays along the way. You got to make sure you get this stuff done. 72, there's the hefty penalties involved if you don't do that. Plus you still got to pay the taxes. All this stuff has some crucial moments in that retirement planning process, so definitely make sure that you are not only celebrating your birthday, but you're also doing the right things from that financial and that retirement planning standpoint along the way.   Mark: Again, if you got questions, stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. You can drop us an email question as well, if you'd like. That's what we're going to do to wrap up the show right now.   Mark: We got a question that's sent in from Jack. He says, "Hey, guys. I've thought about meeting with a financial advisor to plan my retirement, but I've never used a budget or anything like that before. So I'm wondering, should I budget myself for a couple of months before I meet with a professional?"   Nick: Based upon experience, putting expense numbers down on paper is one of the biggest hurdles for people to get into planning. But with how this question is phrased, I would be concerned, because it's kind of like the situation of starting a diet. You start a diet. You're going to eat really good for two to three weeks. You're trying to hold yourself accountable. You're functioning in a way that isn't necessarily your normal life.   Nick: One of the things, as advisors, that we want to make sure that we understand are what are you really spending. It's great to use a budget, but if you're budgeting to try to look good in the meeting, which we've seen happen, you're painting a false picture, and you're not letting us know what the finances actually look like.   Nick: So I would actually say to put down the real expense numbers in place, let's see what it really looks like, and then if we need to create a budget after we've created a plan, then that's something that we can dig into.   Mark: Yeah. John, let me ask you, as we wrap this up, sometimes people associate seeing a professional financial advisor with a budget. Also, people have a cringe to the B word. They think, "Well, I don't want to live on a fixed budget," or something like that.   Mark: That's not necessarily what we're talking about, right? That's not probably what Jack is referring to. He's just trying to figure out, I guess, more income versus expenses, right?   John: Yeah, yeah. The first step is to analyze your expenses. That could be what he's referring to as far as, "Hey, should I take a look? Should I get my expenses down before I meet with someone?"   John: I'd agree with Nick, even if that's what you're looking at, versus the budgeting, I would say no. I think the first step is sit down with an advisor, because they can assist in categorizing the expenses correctly based on today's expenses, versus what expenses are going to be at retirement.   John: I think it's important just to get going rather than trying to prep. Because we've seen a lot of people that have taken ... They've been prepping for years to meet. That's years where they haven't done anything, and they've, unfortunately, lost out on some good opportunities, otherwise, if they just said, "Hey, I'm going to sit down first, see what's going on."   Mark: Yeah. It gives you that built-in excuse.   John: [crosstalk 00:18:26]   Mark: It gives you that built in, "Well, I'm not quite ready." Well, you might never be ready if you play that game. Especially a lot of times when it's complimentary to sit down with professionals, have a conversation. Most advisors will talk to you, no cost or obligations. So why not right? Find out. Just get the ball rolling. That's the first step. It's usually the hardest part too.   Nick: Yeah. One thing that we typically tell people is that we are not the money police. We are not here to tell you that you can't use your money the way that you want to use it.   Nick: The way that we view ourselves, and what our role is as an advisor, is to help you understand the impact of decisions. Whether those decisions have to do with spending money, saving money, whatever, it's to make sure that you understand the impact of your decisions so that you make better decisions. That's it.   Mark: There you go. Yeah. It's your money, at the end of the day, your call, but certainly having some good, well, coaches in your corner, if you will, advisors to help advise, that's the whole point. But I like that. Not the money police.   Mark: All right. That's going to do it this week, guys. Thanks for hanging out. As always, we appreciate your time here on Retirement Planning Redefined. Don't forget. Stop by the website.   Mark: If you need help before you take any action, we always talk in generalities, and try to share some good nuggets of information, but you always want to see how those things are going to affect your specific situation.   Mark: If you're already working with John and Nick and the team at PFG Private Wealth, fantastic. Then you already have a lot of this stuff in place. But if you have questions, or you're not working with them, or you've come across this podcast in whatever way, or maybe a friend shared it with you, definitely reach out and have a chat. pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe on whatever podcasting platform app you like to use.   Mark: We'll see you next time here on the show. For John and Nick, I'm your host, Mark. We'll catch you later here on Retirement Planning Redefined.

Mark 14:12-16, 22-25

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com White Wine in The Sun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q   S2E22 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host Mark.  Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And it is time for Midsummer. It is the summer solstice coming up and we're going to talk about that today. Yucca: Exactly. So. What it is to us in our particular bioregions and our particular practice. And just about it in general.  Mark: Yeah. I mean, this is one of those holidays that doesn't actually exist in the over cultures calendar of holidays. The, the, the winter solstice is pretty well-represented by all of the various winter salts to see holidays that happen around that time. But with the exception of the American Memorial day, we don't really have anything that  Yucca: Cool. 4th of July, sort of.  Mark: Yeah. Okay.  Yucca: Yeah, I think 4th of July. know it's a little bit later, but it's still kind of in that same time of year summary, holiday  Mark: Yeah, enjoy, enjoy the long evenings. That kind of thing. Yeah. You're right  Yucca: but it's still a stretch  Mark: right. It's not  Yucca: I mean, Christmas and winter solstice right there. Right.  Mark: And it's not like in some European countries where Midsummer is a big deal and you have all kinds of traditions that go along with that. Yucca: Who is, is it son, Juan they're in primarily Catholic countries. There is a St stay which involves a bonfire. On the solstice. And sometimes there's a tradition of the students burning their old papers and things like that at the end of the year to celebrate that the, that. the semester, the year's over.  Mark: Okay. I wasn't aware of that, but that's very interesting. Yes. I mean, this is another fire holiday very closely associated with building a big fire, which frankly I think is just an another excuse to build a big fire. I mean, people. People don't need much of an excuse to build a fire and have a big party around it. But this is another one of those. So we're going to talk about how we conceptualize mid summer or the summer solstice what we call it, how we envision it in the cycle of the year, the wheel of the year and the various cycles that we track. How that may vary from bioregion to bio region what kinds of rituals we do in our practices and that we're aware of that other people might do and stuff like that. So let's dive in. Yucca: Yeah. So question number one. Is it actually mid-summer for you?  Mark: Yes,  Yucca: it is. Okay.  Mark: It is, I consider the beginning of summer to be the Mayday holiday. And yeah, that's just so that the names Midsummer and mid-winter will otherwise they don't work. Yucca: But in terms of, in your bioregion region, your climate, has it been summer for awhile?  Mark: oh, yes.  Yucca: Yeah. Okay.  Mark: Yeah. For quite a while. And the, the transition in my region is very noticeable because all the Hills go from being green, to being gold, all the grasses die. And so, you know, you have this kind of golden brown color instead of the green of the winter growth. And that happens right around may day. So, it begins right around may the eighth. So that's kind of the beginning of summer and it extends and it's completed. The Hills are completely brown except for the green Oak trees. By the time we get to the summer solstice.  Yucca: Hmm.  Mark: How about you? Yucca: Well, definitely not. Mid-summer as in the mid point of summer for us, this is the beginning of summer. We, I live at a very high elevation, so dry, dry desert, but high desert. So 7,000 feet, I think that's a little over. 2100 meters somewhere in that range. So very high up. So really summer press doesn't begin until June to beginning of June is the beginning of summer feel. The last week of may, may be may is one of those months that can really go either direction where it's literally freezing the night before. And then it's very hot the next day. So this is the start of summer. And we've got a very, very short growing season, but this is when things really are getting into their groove in terms of the life coming back from the dormant period from the new life emerging. And it's a very brief period that we have in the middle of the year where we might have some green. We don't, we're, we're gold most of the time of the year goals and lots of red earth and all of that. And if we're lucky, it has not been the case for a while now, but this is the beginning of our monsoon season two. So the monsoons, really will pick up a little bit more, you know, fingers crossed in, in the coming months of, so June, July, August, it's been being pushed back a little July, August, even into September. But when the rains come is when the life that's just been hiding in gray and down below, just pops up into existence just into visibility. And so. There definitely isn't a sense of maturation yet, but everybody's still, everybody's getting into the groove. Right. And finally we're out of the, the freezes. So, but you still got to take a sweatshirt with you wherever you go, because it'll drop being high up. We'll drop back down into the fifties or so at night, usually. Mark: And you consider that cold. Yucca: Well, if your day was 90, Mark: Well, that's true. Yucca: right? If you were at 90 and then you went down to 50, but no, in the winter we get down into the teens, we get freezing and very cold in the winter, but it, but it's a pretty big drop between, you know, you're in a tank top during one part of the day and then putting your sweater on for the rest of the day. So.  Mark: huh. Huh. So, how do we understand this holiday in terms of the cycles of the wheel of the year? What is, what is its place? In our, in our. Symbolic understanding of it in the, the ritual celebrations that we do. Yucca: Hm. Yeah. Well, one of the things we've talked about before is our different approaches to. The wheel of the year. And for me, that approach, I'm looking at the seasons and then the holidays being the midpoint of those seasons is kind of the celebration as a representing different ecosystems or types of life, which are really, really critical for our own survival and for our, our experience of. The biosphere, which of course is much huger than, than we can even begin to imagine. We just live on this very thin little layer and we only occupy a very small part of that layer anyways. But the first summer is about. The arthropods for us, it's about the insects and   arachinids and myriapods and all those little jointed legged beings with their armored shells and lots of celebration, especially for the honey bees and the ants and all of those little creatures. It's that time of busy work that they are doing.   Mark: I, on the other hand tend to, I tend to think of the wheel of the year in two different dimensions. The first of which is the more kind of Wicca consistent, traditional understanding of the wheel of the year as the agricultural cycle. Right? So the holidays reflect food production at different times of the year. And. In the case of this particular holiday that makes this the holiday of doing nothing. This is the holiday of leisure because everything's planted, everything's growing. Nothing's ready to harvest yet. And it's time to just kind of sit around with friends and drink some beer and have a barbecue and, and go to the beach and just enjoy those long, comfortable days. And I consider those to be sacred activities at this time of year. It's it's important to have a time when, you know, you're just taking it easy. And, you know, storing up some energy for when you're going to have to work like crazy to bring the harvest in later on  Yucca: Mm.  Mark: the other dimension that I think of the wheel of the year along is kind of mapping the arc of a human life. So I think of birth as being equivalent to the, the birth of the son, the coming back, the return of the sun, starting at the winter solstice. So what, by the time you get to the summer solstice, you're kind of in the fullness of adulthood, right? I'm not. Not the sort of urgent, energetic learning, still kind of wide-eyed young adulthood of, of Mayday or bell Tane, but established, you know, building a family building career the, the kind of adulthood where you can enjoy agency. Right. You're, you're fully empowered to do all the things, you know, because you're well past 21 and now you get to make choices and you have to make choices and it's a time to just sort of reflect on, you know, what's it like to have power. What's it like to be able to make those decisions for ourselves and to plot out what we're going to plant, what we hope to harvest so forth. So, this summer solstice is a time of year when I honestly have fewer kind of formal rituals because the rituals are things like lying in a hammock with a Mohito.  Yucca: Sounds like a great ritual.  Mark: yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I think it's a very good thing for you. And so that's, that's the sort of thing that I look to do at this holiday. How about you? Yucca: Well, I think partly because what's happening in our climates is so different. It definitely is not a leisure time for us because it really is still that beginning. You're still getting. In the annual cycle, you're still getting the plants in the ground, right. You're still working it's that there and in the agricultural cycle. I mean, our cycle, our growing season is so short. I don't know. Perhaps people who live in a longer season might have more time, but there's never a time that you're not doing anything except the dead of winter. Right. That's but the rest of the time of the year, you're busy as can be with what's going on. But when it comes to the celebrations, it's for us, one of the really big times of the year. So it's up there in, in the celebration and awareness around it, as much as the winter solstice is. So it's like these two halfs of the year for us, the winter solstice and the summer solstice which we have playfully Called Hafmas. So there's Christmas and then Hafmas, which is, haf is Welsh for summer. And we use a lot of Welsh in the, in the home, but when you write it in English, it's H A f because the F is just, just a single V it's only if it's two F's. So it looks like half, like half the year. the split of the year and half. So the, the half year celebration. And so there's, it's also the time of year that we're outside at night a lot, even though the night's short compared to other times of the year, it's just so much more pleasant to be out. In the middle of the summer, around a campfire, looking at the skies and, and in the next few coming weeks, we're going to have some wonderful meteor, shower opportunities and all of that. And then we also do gifts this time of year as well. So we do gifts both sides of the year and the kids are really into that.  Mark: I'm sure. Yucca: yeah.  Mark: Well, that's great. So it does seem like there are some commonalities. I mean, it was interesting. I. I was reflecting when you were talking about how other than the dead of winter, you really don't have a dormant time in, in terms of planting and agriculture. And it occurs to me that where I am is so benign that people actually grow gardens through the entire winter. They they'll grow winter squash and leafy vegetables and stuff like that. And you know, maybe you get tagged by a freezer too, and you lose some stuff, but certainly in a greenhouse you can grow stuff all year round with no problem. Yucca: Have we talked about it before you and like a zone nine or.  Mark: I don't know what zone I'm in, honestly.  Yucca: You mentioned, you could get away with what most people would call a fall garden or a spring garden  Mark: Oh, for  Yucca: during the winter where you've got your, like you're saying your leaf fees and your, all your brassicas and things like that.  Mark: Yes, absolutely. And people do and you know, they're, they're putting in tomatoes by April  Yucca: Hmm.  Mark: and Getting tomatoes by July, right. You know, the early tomatoes. So, you know, the kind of a traditional meal for us around this time of year is the caprese salad response Sorella and the really good, fresh heirloom tomatoes and the basil leaf. And then you drizzle it all with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and it's just awfully good. Really really good. And just super, you know, fresh that's, that's kind of the quality of everything right about now, you know, peaches are coming into coming into ripeness right about now. And there's, there's nothing more than the taste of a peach. That is the summer to me. Yucca: Yeah. Oh, oh, that just makes me hungry thinking about it. And I like the texture on the outside, the little, little bit of fuzz as you bite into  Mark: Yeah. Everything about  Yucca: underneath it. Yeah.  Mark: Perfect. Peach is about the ultimate food. If there really were a thing that was the food of the gods, I think it would be a perfectly ripe peach. Yucca: Yeah. Now they're in the, for us, they're in the grocery stores, but none of our, our fruit trees are bearing yet.  Mark: Okay. Yucca: Right. There's some that survived are late. Frosts have got their little, little green fruits just starting to grow that are about the size of a gumball right now, but we won't get those fruits for another month, at least on the earliest of them.  Mark: Wow.  Yucca: So  Mark: Wow. And, and, and that's, that's probably like plums and cherries, like those kinds of fruit or. Hm. Yucca: Well, we get a lot of the stone fruit do fairly well.  Mark: Oh, good. Okay. Yucca: The apricots are the ones that do the best and in my particular area, in fact, there'll be so many, we get those little tiny ones that people are asking you to come take them away because they drop and they make all those, the little squish. Yeah. Everywhere. Yeah. And then we, you know, apples and some Of those ones do very well. But everything has to be adapted to being in a very dry condition, dry, and then the very cold in the winter. So it's kind of both extremes.  Mark: Sure. And I imagine you you have a lot of competition from birds and other wildlife for the fruit. Once it becomes edible Yucca: Yes, certainly. So, I mean, there's a lot of things that you can do tricks the, the birds aren't so bad. Depending on where you live in, in the area where we are now the biggest problem with having an orchard is that it attracts bears and the bears will try and climb into your tree and they'll break your tree to get to your  Mark: Right, right. Yucca: the birds, you can usually you discover like a branch or two, and then they're pretty good at sharing, but the, the bears not so much  Mark: Yeah. Yucca: havoc. Yeah.  Mark: So how about rituals? Why don't we talk about some of the rituals that we might do at this time? I do have one that I do every year. There's actually an article about it on the atheopagan ism.org blog. I have a broom that I call a sun broom. And it's a handle made from Oak, a piece of Oak that I found in a nearby state park. And I bind, I cut wild oats, long, tall, wild oats every year and bind them onto this handle to make a broom. And they leave that out in the. Summer solstice sun all day long until sunset. So it soaks up all the sun. Right. So then if in February, when I'm feeling really kind of discouraged by the darkness and lack of light and all that, I can take that out and wave it around and feel better. Yucca: Yeah. that's great. Hm. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Well, we don't have any specific rituals like that quite yet. I think that maybe over the years, those might start to develop some for me, it's always been just this moment, taking a moment for the awareness. And of course like to S to set my alarm just for the moment of the actual solstice which of course could come at many different times of day, depending on the year. But, but long walks if you have a labyrinth or can make a labyrinth nearby, I think that there's just something about being out in the middle of the hot. If you're taught where you are, but the middle of the long summer solstice stay and taking that, that moment set aside, just to be aware of the, the continual cycle that conduct continual progression. We also Put up and it's evolving every year, getting more and more complex. But kind of like a summer Garland that has the big looks like a honeycomb almost cut out. So it looks like so instead of having like a, like a tree that we put up the celebration and put, you know, B related art and big cutout, The arthropods and spend some time studying the, the, just watching, like, if you've got a nearby little ant mound or big outman Mount, those are just hanging out with them for a little while.  Mark: That's great. I was just remembering something and now it has left me again. What was that? Yucca: it was a Garland related. Or  Mark: It wasn't either of those. Probably my ADHD brain went just somewhere else on something that only, that must be related in an associated way, but I could never track down what the path was.  Yucca: Was that moment? solstice.  Mark: I like to do that too. I like to know exactly when it's going to be an observed that that's happened as well. Oh, I know what I was going to say. This year is actually going to be a really special celebration for the summer solstice on the 20th because my ritual circle is going to get together in person. For the first time since COVID and I'm really looking forward to that. It's going to be just amazing to see everybody.  Yucca: How wonderful. That's great.  Mark: Everybody's vaccinated. And  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: over to my circle. Brother's house in Napa, and we're going to drink a bunch of wine and eat seared meat.  Yucca: Sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. That, that the community and this sense of, and that in person ness of the community is really that's wonderful.  Mark: So meanwhile, elsewhere in the world on, on the other half of the world it's coming up on the winter solstice. And we thought we'd talk about that for a minute. Maybe contrast what's happening there. You know, for our friends that are in the Southern hemisphere Yucca: just a reminder on that. There's often a missed perception that the summer solstice is when the earth is closest to the sun. And that's not the case. There are some planets that have very elliptical orbits in which their seasons. Are caused at least in part by the distance from the star, but that's not the case with ours. Ours is caused because of the tilt of our planet relative to our orbit around the plane of our orbit around the star. So it's going to be reversed depending on which hemisphere you're on for one hemisphere, it's going to be the summer solstice for when it's going to be the winter and the other way around.  Mark: right, right. Yeah. So, because the earth has now tilted the Northern hemisphere towards the sun where we get more direct sunlight and longer days. The opposite is Yucca: our position is such that we are tilted in that way, the earth isn't within a human timescale, wobbling back and forth.  Mark: no, not at all. It's it's processing around around a tilted axis. Yeah. So meanwhile, in places like south America and South Africa and Australia and New Zealand they're coming up on the winter solstice. Which is I would imagine a little frustrating for those that follow more traditional pagan paths because they get bombarded with all this stuff about you know, it's summer, it's summer solstice. It's Letha, it's, you know, in, you know, here's all this, here's all this, this stuff about, you know, Holly Kings and goddesses and Kings and all that kind of stuff. That makes no sense for where they are at all. But if you strip all that stuff out Yucca: I was going to say the folks in Brisbane, I think they've been having a really cold snap for what they typically have this time of year that, you know, they're putting on sweaters and that's quite unusual for that area.  Mark: huh. Yeah. Yeah. So,  Yucca: And of course, the other side of the year, too, when, when the Santa clauses out and yet it's the middle of summer,  Mark: Right. Yucca: summer solstice was Santa Claus and reindeer.  Mark: Which in gendered, my favorite Southern hemisphere Christmas song, which is called White Wine in the Sun by Tim Minchin. And it's a very moving song and it's also a non-theistic song. Not just in the sense of not having any gods in it, but it's, it's like goes into his disinterest in in theistic stuff. He's, he's very funny, but also very moving it's. We'll we'll put a link to the YouTube video in the, in the notes. It's a wonderful song. Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: Let me see. Yucca: So mark, have you ever spent any time in the Southern hemisphere?  Mark: I haven't, I've never been south of the equator. Yucca: I have not either. It's it's a dream. I want to go and. And see the other half of the sky and the other half of the earth.  Mark: yeah, me too. I'm particularly interested in Africa and south America. For some reason, I don't know, Australia has always struck me as being so similar in many ways to the American west that I just haven't. I mean, culturally, obviously not, it's obviously totally different. But in terms of the geography and the land shapes and the aesthetics and that kind of thing, it just looks very similar. So it hasn't drawn me as much.  Yucca: You know, interestingly, it's one of the places I'm very drawn to. I'm very, you know, I am very happy with where I live and it's home, but that's, you know, and when people ask, oh, well, if you had to move somewhere, right, where would you go? And even never having been there, there's just always a, well, well, I Really loved the look Of the Outback and of course. there there's a lot of different areas, but there's just something about it that just calls me  Mark: Oh,  Yucca: and weirdly Greenland as well. Very, very  Mark: Really, really attracted to Greenland Greenland and on, up into Cape Breton and those kind of far Northern Newfoundland, those far, far Northern areas in Canada. I'm also very attracted to along the Atlantic seaboard. But I think that some of that may just be, because there's so much contrast from where I am here, you know, I, I just, I like to go somewhere where things are really different,  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: and experience what that's like. Yucca: Well, I talked about this before, but we do have an invitation out to folks who anyone who'd like to come on and talk about their wheel of the year. That is, you know, from a Southern hemisphere perspective or a tropical perspective or, or, you know, maybe a polar perspective that would just be, be amazing.  Mark: It would be so  Yucca: will be interested in that.  Mark: We would, we would love to do that. Also, I wanted to announce because it's on the blog and we've been talking about it in the atheopagan Facebook group, but we are having a non-fixed pagan gathering in 2022. It'll be in Colorado Springs, Colorado in the United States, which is quite central for people who are Canadian or Mexican or from the U S and it's on March. I'm sorry, May 13th through 19th, 13 through 1913 through 16th.  Yucca: I think, Yeah. Let me Mark: Yeah. 13th through 16th.  Yucca: So that's a Friday through Monday.  Mark: yes, it's at a retreat center called love 40 and It's going to be beautiful. It's just, it's really amazing. We've raised enough in deposits in tickets so far to put down the deposit for the retreat center  Yucca: Just tucked into the Ponderosa Pines and. Mark: Beautiful view of, of Pike's peak and some national registry national historic building registry buildings on the site that are in the kind of classic rustic style including one called the Ponderosa lodge, which will be our meeting place for our activities. So it's pretty exciting. And there's all the details about it or that we have so far are on the atheopagan ism.org blog. And we, if you're interested in meeting other people of like-mind and gathering around a fire for rituals and doing workshops and just hanging out.  Yucca: and we'll be there.  Mark: Yep. We'll be there. We will be there. So don't let that frighten you though. We, we, we aren't harmful and it'll, it's actually going to be great. It'll be the first time we've ever met.  Yucca: Yeah.  Mark: so that'll be exciting. So, if you're interested in that at all, do go to the blog and find out more about it and keep watching that space because as we know more about what the event is going to entail, we'll be publishing that stuff there. So, I'm really excited about this. I think it's just going to be so much fun. Yucca: Yeah. And I feel, you know, Giddy just thinking about it. It's very,  Mark: Huh. Yucca: Yeah, it's, it's, it'll just be amazing to see people and especially after the year and a half or at that 0.2 years, that we'll all have had and,  Mark: right, right. I mean, especially after all of the, the shut downs of COVID and all that kind of stuff, and we have nearly a maid to plan for it. Well, yes, everything else. it's it's not  Yucca: What a year,  Mark: Yeah, at least the election worked out. Okay.  Yucca: Just need to get worried about midterms.  Mark: yes. Yes, but let's not. Go there right now. So this has been a great conversation. thank you Yucca, thank you so much. And to all of our friends out there listening wherever you are, I hope that your solstice, whichever one it is is wonderful and enjoyable and that you have a lot of wonderful things to eat. Yucca: exactly. And if there's anything that you want to share with us about your traditions or questions, suggestions that you have for the podcast, you can find us at. Mark: thewonderpodcastqueues@gmail.com. So that's the wonder podcast. All one word Q S. At gmail.com and we welcome your feedback and your questions and any input that you have so that we can make this thing better. Yucca: Well, thank you, mark.  Mark: Thank you, Yucca. Have a great week.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E04 TRANSCRIPT:   ----more----   Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host Yucca. Mark: I'm Mark. Yucca: And this week we are already talking about this February holiday Imbolc or Candlemas River Rain. Is that right? Mark: Yes. Yucca: Or for us Second Winter, Nos Gwyl Fair. It's got a lot of names. Mark: Yes exactly. It seems that the cross quarters always accumulate this big pile of names, whereas the solstices and equinoxes just usually have one or maybe two. But this is this is a pretty important holiday for many pagans. And so we'll be talking about what it means and what kinds of ritual practices we have associated with it and what our metaphorical associations are with it. And this marks, the last of the solar holidays that we are doing a podcast about For the first time, this is the eighth. We started at the Spring Equinox last year. And so we've come all the way around the Wheel of the Year to the February Sabbath. So that's pretty exciting. And thank you for taking this journey with us. We really appreciate our listeners and we're glad you're here with us. Thank you. Yucca: Yeah, thank you. And. the emails that we asked for some last time and got several responses from all of you. And that always is just incredible and wonderful. And we really appreciate that. Mark: Yes. Yes. And your ideas are really helpful to us. So keep them coming. Yucca: Yep. So we've got several that we've been able to put onto the list for that. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So let's start. What's going on in your climate? Mark. Mark: In my climate, what I have, I've usually named this holiday River Rain, which is the festival of water. And the reason for that is, is that it is usually raining torrentially at this time of year . January and February are the wettest months of the year. And all of the Hills have turned green. Occasionally we'll get a cold Arctic storm and there'll be a little dust of snow on the tops of the mountains. But it's generally about rain, everything greens up and the creeks are all fendering then there's just that sort of inward cozy staying in at home kind of feeling, but not the same as at Yule because. It's evident now that the light has returned quite a bit, the days are definitely longer. The the sunrise is definitely earlier. So. It's a time to notice, Hey, the years getting on. And even though it may be a little early for say, planting a garden or something like that, because we're still likely to have freezes it's a time for planning and getting your tools together and learning whatever skills are necessary to approach the work of the coming year. How about yours? What's happening in your environment? Yucca: For us, this is the coldest time of the year. I am in a desert, but we're a high desert right at 7,000 feet. And so we get real extremes at every night is freezing. And most of the days will come up above freezing, but it's still pretty bitter and we're moving towards the wind. There specially in the next couple of months, there'll be a lot of wind that we'll get that really accentuates that feeling of coldness and bitter. is Second Winter for us. It's not spring. Spring is not in the air. There's nothing springy about it, except that change in the light. So there's a beautiful quietness. There's a sense of waiting a little bit what you're talking about with the planning. It's still winter. We've moved away. It's not Yule anymore. But. But there's still a restfulness this time of year. And I think in some ways, this is perhaps the only restful time of the year for what's happening in my climate. All the other times, there's always this growth happening in the rains coming and the harvest and the planning and all of this stuff. But now it's just quiet and cold and waiting. And actually it's probably not picking up on the mic, but it just started to hail here. It was snow a moment ago. We'll get hail all the way until June actually, but not much will stick we'll get a little bit. And then, because we only get about 12 inches of precipitation total throughout the whole year. So, so I hear the night, the wind and the hail coming down and it's chilly it and cozy. So, yeah, Mark: Nice. Yeah, it's like, this is actually the coldest time of year for us too, in that it, we do get some freezes at night occasionally but what that means, I mean, the days are still. I mean even the cold days are in the high forties. And the warm days. I mean, especially now with climate change, we just had a week ago we had a day in the seventies. It was ridiculous. And of course people love the warm weather, but at the same time, it just feels really creepy. It's just so wrong for this time of year, but finally this week we're getting some good rain. I don't know if I mentioned this. We're supposed to get about nine inches this week. Yucca: Good amount. Mark: It's yeah it's a good amount. Yeah, rain and so Everything is greening up. All of the fresh green grass is springing up and the bare dirt. So the Hills are all turning green from the gold that they were with the brown grasses. It's still not quite time for wild flowers which this is where I actually see real spring starting. I consider this to be the beginning of the spring season. But it's usually a few weeks into it that we started having the wild flowers come up, which is when I start looking towards the Spring Equinox. And I don't know whether you know this, but California, when it was first encountered by white settlers, was this dazzling display of wild flowers before the European grasses were introduced. And what was here were bunchgrasses rather than carpet, grasses and. Yucca: Than your sod formers. Mark: Yes. And a tremendous volume of different kinds of wild flowers. So there are tons and tons of native wild flowers here, and there are still places where you can go that are carpeted in California, poppies or paintbrush, or, other plants like that. So it can be a very beautiful time of year as you get into March and April. So. We've talked about this before. Besides the metaphors and symbol systems that I associate with the Sabbaths that have to do with the climate and the agricultural cycle. I mean, traditionally, this holiday is the holiday of getting your tools together, sharpening your agricultural tools and figuring out, how your garden's going to get planted this year and laying in seeds and all that kind of stuff. But beside that, I also map the Wheel of the Year on to the cycle of a human life. And so this sabbath. I associate with infancy, kind of the infant toddler sort of range of human life. And because this is the time when you're accumulating lots of knowledge and skills that you're going to then use later on in the cycle. Just as babies do with this incredible, information flood and figuring out how to use their bodies and just how to navigate this world. So that's really interesting too. I mean, I know that a lot of pagans associate this holiday with the Irish goddess Brigid. And they, there's a tradition where you make a little baby Bridget and put it in a cradle as a part of your ritual for the year. And I do something very similar. Although what I call the little corn Dolly that I make rain baby and the rain baby is a witness. To all of the Sabbaths going forward from this time until we get to Hallows or Samhain. And when the rain baby is burned in the Samhain fire to call the rain back. And then the cycle begins again at at River Rain or the February Sabbath. Right. So that's, those are the sorts of things that I associate with this holiday. There was someone in the Ethiopian Facebook group who termed this holiday Brightening. And I really like that term because it's so much more universal. I mean, anybody in the Northern hemisphere is going to experience that the days have gotten longer since the winter solstice. So I may start using that more, but for my own local regional celebrations, it's still all about the water for me. How about you? What do you associate in, how do you celebrate. Yucca: Another name that you'll often hear is Imbolc, which. I don't speak Irish, so I'm probably not pronouncing it correctly, but that's how I hear a lot of the other folks with pan American-ish accents pronouncing it. And that I believe comes from the lambs milk. This is the milk of the sheep. But for us, there is a parallel there because we celebrate along with what is happening seasonally in our land. So this is Second Winter for us, but we also look at each season at some part of the larger ecosystem that really influences our life. There are some of the holidays in which we celebrate the main terrestrial biomes, like Yule we look at the forests, specifically, the pine forests and those evergreens and on other side of the year, we've got the grasslands that we're celebrating. This is for us, the time of a celebration of our hooved companions. So of our bovine and caprine companions, who we rely on so deeply. For so many things, not just us as a family, because as a family we have a bovine based diet. But also as as the connected back to the grass biomes, they're such an important role. Whichever, whatever part of the world, whether you're looking at your Buffalo or any sort of wherever you are that those large grazers have such an important role. And this is a time when we're really honoring that role, but also honoring that they are, that there's, that, that exchange that we get. The milk and dairy and everyone in my family were all lactose and casein tolerant. So that's a thing that we consume a lot of it and enjoy, and the meat and the furs and all of those products. And so this is a time of honoring that. This is a time of year to just these past weeks where we order our animals for the year. They won't be ready until later, but thinking about that relationship and that tie that we have on this very on a symbolic level, but also on that just really down to earth exchange of body. So that's a big focus for us. Mark: Sure. Sure. And that falls again into that theme of planning for the future, of looking forward to what the need is going to be and anticipating that need and then planning for it so that it will be met at the time that you encounter it. Yucca: And a lot of ways, this is the pre-dawn. Hours. It's still night. kinda, it's almost morning. I mean, it's the, we call it the am, but I'm someone who gets up before dawn and has a few moments before the Sun gets up and that quiet period that planning and this time of year feels like that. And it also is similar because that's the coldest time of the day. And for us, this is the coldest time of the year as well. Mark: Sure. Sure. So the Equinox then would be dawn. Yucca: Yes, I think so. That would be dawn, but still it's not time for annuals to get going yet. Annuals do not come until after may day for us. Our last frost is the average is the 15th. Annual season is short and get at it. Mark: I I did a backpacking trip in grand Tetons once way high elevation. And obviously much wetter than where you are, but you know, very high elevation. And I was there in August and it was spring. There were wild flowers everywhere. It was just spectacular. But it was very clearly a place that had been slowed way down by cold temperatures and high elevation. So, and, there were still many patches of snow on the ground and so forth, so a wonderful trip. And it reminded me that the window for wind spring is very short for some places. Yucca: My my brother is a Yellowstone ranger and the last few years we've gone back and forth about, he's got this little postage stamp of a yard to work with and he wants to grow things, but not only does everybody eat it, but there's just no time. I mean their season has even, especially cause they're in between those mountains. So. Mark: Right, right. Yucca: so much shadow the folks farther North at, in higher elevations. There's just so little time. Mark: Yes. Yeah. He might be able to do root .Vegetables. Yucca: that has been radishes pretty much been all. That's been working out Mark: maybe potatoes. Yucca: potato maybe. Yeah. I mean, potatoes take, it depends on your kind take awhile, but the radishes I think have worked out too, because fewer animals eat them because they've got the space to them. But yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So petty ways. Mark: Yeah. So one of the things that I associate with this time is the ring of a sledge hammer on an anvil. I've done back when I was, still not believing, but basically circling with people in a kind of wicked esque sort of way. This festival was the festival of Bridget. And she is also the goddess of the hearth. She's got us have a lot of stuff. She's got us a fire and the forge and poetry craft childbirth. It's yeah, it's pretty, all inclusive actually. Yucca: I suspect that there were more figures that got folded in. Mark: Probably so, but I have a little anvil maybe eight inches long. But it's in the shape. It's in the traditional shape of an anvil and a small, like two pound sledgehammer. And we've done wonderful rituals where we've hammered out like hammered chains together. We had chains with an open link and we've hammered those together in order to seal the magic in right. Of what we were doing. One year we threaded colored ribbons through the the chains to symbolize the different things that we were planning for the coming year. And we did that all together so that everybody was connected by the ribbons. And then we cut them. So everybody could take their own little loop of chain with ribbons home. And I still have a couple of those. There's something very potent about that ringing sound and that, that action of the hammer on the forage. And so I like to do something at this time of year that involves that. I talked about making a corn Dolly for the rain baby this year, and I think I'm going to try to make her a little miniature key for her belt on the anvil, which is the key to the future. So that's what I'm planning on doing with that particular piece? I just, I like the way that it echoes back to sharpening sides and hammering out agricultural tools and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's there's something very visceral about it about, that, that work with the hammer and the anvil. I highly recommended if, I mean, you can get one of these little anvils for quite cheap, actually like Harbor freight hardware or something like that. They come from China and they're not very good, but but they worked for ritual purposes and actually my partner Nemea was taking an art class for a while and did some jewelry-making and the the instructor got all excited about our anvil and polished up parts of it to make it work properly and all this kind of stuff. So it is a functional tool. So the other piece that I'm thinking about in terms of Brightening is, and of course this is a complete accident, but it just happens to be true that we. have a new administration now in the United States. And it is not made up of petulant tantrum, throwing resentful children. It is made up of adults who appear to have the public interest in mind and to have competencies in the jobs that they are being appointed to. And that's a huge change. And of course it's less than a week old. And I know that there are things that are really going to make me angry over the course of the next four years. But Yucca: and that we can't get lazy. We've got to keep on them. Mark: yes. Yucca: you. Yeah. Mark: Yes. If there are things that you want to see, I mean, at least we know that there are open ears now to hear. That are willing to be convinced that something is in the public interest. If we can make that argument effectively and who are willing to do things that are in the public interest. So. I have felt a tremendous lightening over the course of the last week. I did not realize what appal the past administration had really cast over me every day, looking in the paper, I would flinch. Over, ho what are they doing now? And I'm not having that experience now. And it makes a huge difference. So that's another form of Brightening that's happening in certainly in my life. And I think in the life of many others right now, Yucca: I've certainly been experiencing that. It's similar to, if you've been next to a really loud noise for a long time and you've tuned out their consciousness, you're not consciously aware that it's there, but when the noise goes away, like there was that truck that was sitting next to you next to your house for hours. And there were the fumes coming out and the rumble of it, and then it drives away and it's quiet all of a sudden. And your shoulders drop about two or three Mark: inches. Right, right. This whole stress thing, just flushes out of your body. Yucca: Yeah. So definitely share that. And it's a big relief. It's. Mark: it is. And I mean, it's not like we had four years to spare in working on issues like climate change, we, we needed every instant that we can possibly work on it. But rejoining the Paris climate accord, and re-engaging with the international community around this issue and making it one of the top four priorities in the administration is it's just such a shift and it's. .. Know that what we're going to get are going to be half measures because that's what our system is designed to deliver are half measures. But even those half measures I think could be profound. Yucca: That's the part that, that I found myself getting teary the other day, looking at it and going this isn't. Yeah, everything that's in here is an everything I wanted, but my goodness, somebody is doing something Mark: Yes. Yucca: it's something's happening. Mark: And science has returned to its rightful place as the authoritative voice for how to direct our policies. Yucca: Yeah. I liked that. That was the symbolic reason behind putting Franklin of painting of Franklin up in the oval office. Mark: Yes, exactly. So Yucca: I found it very interesting. What was picked for the symbols of what was, what's going to be in the backdrop of all of those press releases and shoots and all of that. Mark: right. Yup. And he got rid of Andrew Jackson and Winston Churchill and that's all fine by me. Yucca: So yeah there's a lot of real interesting parallels right now between the season that we're in on the Wheel of the Year and some of what's happening in the world around us Mark: Yes. Yucca: that, not just around us, that we are a part of. Mark: this time of year. I've always found this time of year to be a very hopeful time. It's like, if Yule is the time when you dream of the new. Then River Rain or Brightening is the time when you plan for it and hope for it. And then you start to implement it after it warms up enough that's practical and you can start to work your way around the cycle. And Yucca: Seed catalogs are going out. Mark: the, certainly our seeds are selling out left and right. Yucca: are. Yeah. Mark: My my organization that I work for is going to do a plant sale in April. And so we have volunteers who are going to be growing starts for us, and we had to rush to get our seed orders in for those plants. Because so many things are just being sold out. So many people who are stuck at home now are gardening, who weren't gardening before. It's actually noticeable in the market for seeds. Yucca: And just a quick note for folks in most places you can buy your seeds with EBT. Mark: That's right. Yucca: they're set up to do it, you can get your seeds that way. Which makes sense, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: that's to help you with food and that's what seeds are for. Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, you can't buy seeds for like Dahlia's, but but for food crops, he certainly can. And And it's actually a super efficient way to generate food for yourself. Yucca: And is efficient. So cost-effective efficient and gets you a little bit, probably healthier in most cases and gives you a little bit of that connection with the rest of nature, which is something that in our modern lifestyles, we often struggle with having that connection. Mark: Just getting your hands into the dirt and breathing those microbes, getting that feeling of wellbeing that comes from engaging with soil in that way. All of that I think is super beneficial. Yucca: I have several large flower pots when I say large, they're like, Two foot flower pots that we brought in to the, we brought our other house plants into the kitchen for the fall, but I just brought some that were just soil so that the kids can actually get their hands down in and dig around. And the day they were showing me that they had found the little roly polies. Pill bugs are so bugs and that they're just a little itty-bitty and getting their hands in there and smelling that. And, that's a trick by the way of something that if you, especially, if the winter's really tough for you bringing some soil in and keeping that soil alive throughout. The winter, you just water it. Like you would water a plant just a couple of times a week, give it some water and then you've got something to stick your hands into and smell that yeah. Smell and Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All of that is good. Very good. There's such anticipation at this time of year. It's all coming, but it's not happening quite yet. And There's something that's very wonderful about that. I mean, on the one hand, you can plot your schemes and, draw your diagrams and, pull all your tools together and all that good kind of stuff. But as you say, there's also an opportunity for a lot of rest. You can do that. And then you can take a break and there's nothing that suddenly demands that you go running off to work a 12 hour day under the Sun, because there is no 12 hour day under the Sun. And actually in my work, this this fits very well with that model. I'm a fundraiser I'm in charge of fundraising for a food bank and January and February are the they're the fallow times in the fundraising season. People do lots of giving at the end of the year. And so you don't ask them for awhile and you do your planning and you do your analysis of what your numbers were last year and what all that tells you about what's happening with your programs. But it's once again, and once again, it's a time to just assess and plan based on that. And so it all tucks together very neatly in my world. And I have to say that, especially since last Wednesday I'm feeling good. Life is feeling good. Yucca: Yeah, that's so interesting that it follows the agricultural year so well Because this is the hunger gap time, right? This is when you might still have a few of your winter squash leftover, but. They're going pretty quickly. Right. And you're not making your spring greens yet. For the most part. There's a few lucky climates that are, but most of us are not getting anything fresh from the garden yet. Mark: Sure. So you're looking for that. Ewe's milk Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and waiting for the chickens to start laying again, which is why eggs are associated with the Spring Equinox. Yucca: Yep, exactly. Which we'll talk about in a few weeks. Mark: Yes, we will. Yucca: but yeah. Mark: Yeah. It's a little bit different in the fundraising cycle because it culminates in December, whereas the agricultural cycle, really the big harvest time is September-ish. Yucca: That's true but you're still feasting into that Mark: Oh, yes, Yucca: Right. There's lots of get together. It's dark. Goodness. What else do we do? Mark: Let's eat everything before it goes bad. Yucca: that's right? Yeah. That thing with those, the the squash, you gotta eat those, right. That's. We were talking about eggnog a few episodes back, Mark: right. Well Yucca: use up those eggs Mark: Yeah. Pile in those calories because you're going to get skinny by the time March rolls around. Yucca: yeah. And alcohol is a good way of preserving things. So add alcohol to everything. Right. That was the thought. Mark: Right, right. So what else. Yucca: So other traditions this time of year is a time where we do maintenance on things like our going back to the bovine and caprin connection. Like we brush out our lambskins that we have. Right. Brush those out any of the furs the big bedding things that we have, our quilts and blankets and all of those things, getting those cleaned up and that you were talking about the sharpening of the tool, Mark: right, right. Okay. Yucca: And if you are doing management on forested properties and you're in a wetter area, This can be a good time to be getting in there when you're starting to get more light, but the ground is still frozen. So you're not going to do as much damage if you pull your truck in there to out a particular stand or do some sort of maintenance. So there are some outdoor activities that are really well suited to this time of year where it's cold, but you still have light to actually work by. Mark: Sure. Sure. Yeah. Although, I mean, where I am construction has really pretty much ground to a halt by now because of sediment, runoff. Every, everything has to be weatherized and. hardened against rainy erosion by the 15th of October. And I believe it's the 1st of May, when those regulations then. Turn off Yucca: So it's actual regulations. It's Mark: Oh yes. It's not just best practices I'm here. And I'm proud to say that I had a lot to do with this in my County. We have a vineyard development ordinance and that got expand it into an overall erosion control ordinance. That affects everything because we have endangered salmon bearing streams here. And sedimentation is one of the worst things that can happen to a salmon bearing stream. They just, they choke to death. So yeah, so th once again it's another case of, there are people with their blueprints and their plans and their budgets and all that kind of stuff, but they're probably not going to get going very much until later in the spring. Yucca: Strategize, what orders things are happening in. And Mark: Right. Exactly. So that is the February Sabbath, whether you have a name for it, of your own, or whether you call it in bulk or ewe milk, or Bridgid or Brightening that is that's our overview on what it is and how it works and what the metaphors are. And of course, all of this is to the point of leading richer lives better connected with nature. Having more of a sense about the profound slow changes that happen around the course of the year that color everything about our existence and yet which somehow we're able to ignore a lot of the time. So it's about being more aware and more connected. And therefore more happy and more wise, and able to spread that out into the world to make the world a better place. So it's a, it's an ambitious agenda, but this is the time of year for ambitious agendas. Yucca: And it's worth it. Right. Mark: Absolutely. Absolutely. It is. Yucca: Thank you, Mark. Mark: Thank you, Yucca. Great conversation. Thanks so much.

It was January of 2020 in Birmingham, Alabama. Jeremy woke to a noise in the middle of the night and went outside to investigate. He could see three men coming out of the woods behind his house. One of the men had something in his arms. Jeremy told them to stop, an altercation ensued, the man dropped what he was carrying and all three ran off. Jeremy walked to the edge of the woods to see what the man had left behind. It was a horse, a small foal. When Jeremy got closer, he realized the foal had wings. Today on the podcast, Mark sits down with Jeremy Richter, insurance defense lawyer, author, and host of the Lawyerpreneur podcast, to discuss his writing, the importance of attorney wellness, following your dreams, and some of his own stranger-than-fiction stories.      Transcript: MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE:        Okay. Hello. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm very pleased to have join us today on the podcast, Jeremy Richter, and he is an attorney, a shareholder in fact, with Webster Henry at their Birmingham, Alabama location. So Jeremy, first off, welcome. It's a pleasure to have you join us. JEREMY RICHTER: Well, thanks. I'm really happy to be here. MARK:        My interest, folks, in having Jeremy join us today is not so much in terms of what he's doing with his practice in Alabama. It's what he's doing in addition to his practice. And, boy, is there a lot of stuff that this guy has got going on. I mean, it's just... So, Jeremy, before we jump into some of this, I'd love to have you just take a few moments and share a little bit about yourself. What do people want to know? What would you like us to know, perhaps? JEREMY:            Well, let me tell you how we got to where I am as far as all the things outside of my daily billing that I do. So I'm an insurance defense lawyer here in Birmingham, and I started practicing in 2012. I've been at the same firm the whole time. In 2016 I had about four years under my belt, and my mentor, who I was hired to work with, and it's almost exclusively who I worked with, he had always involved me in his marketing efforts, but he was a very extroverted, gregarious person who loved going to conferences and in talking to tons of people, and that's not me. And so I realized fairly early on that that did not play to my strengths and I needed to figure out how to be able to market myself in a way that was achievable over the long-term, and something that I could just continue to pour time and effort into that wouldn't deplete my reserves of energy. And so, I have always been a writer and I started a law blog where at the outset I blogged about appellate decisions in Alabama that affected my little insurance defense world. After about six months of that, I started wanting to write about other topics, and I had one particular idea that I guess was the catalyst for everything that came afterwards, about three things that associates can do to be better associates. And so I wrote about that. And after that, I started writing a lot about practice management ideas and case management and relationships with clients, and it was all coming from a perspective of, "Look, I'm only four years in." Five years in at that point. "These are the things I'm learning along the way." I'm not positioning myself as some guru because there's lots of folks who have been doing this a lot longer than me, but I wanted to help the people who are coming behind me to maybe graduate that learning curve a little bit more than what I had. And so that's what I started doing, and then I formed a relationship with some folks at the ABA Journal and wrote for them. And then the ABA published my first book and since then I've published two more books, one in each year in 2018, '19 and '20. And I started a podcast this year. And then actually this will be totally new to anybody, I guess, that's not immediate family, I am one chapter away from finishing the first draft of my first novel that I wrote. MARK:        Awesome. And what is the topic of the novel? Is it law-based or is it completely different? I love it. JEREMY:               Actually I don't read legal thrillers. I mean, I have, in the past, and there are some real titans who have built their names in that. MARK:      Right. JEREMY:              But, no, it's totally off... It's a contemporary fantasy book that takes place in Birmingham, and it's about this little family who lives south of Birmingham and the dad, as far as he knows, is living in a normal world as the rest of us know it. MARK:        Uh-huh (affirmative). JEREMY:                And then some really weird things happen and he figures out there's a whole bunch of things that exist in the world around him that he had never known existed. And it all got started on this really bizarre dream that I had one night and wrote it down and it kind of went from there. MARK:      I have to come back to this. I find this inspiring in some ways. It's very interesting. You and I have a lot more in common than I would have guessed initially. It's great. But you started out talking about moving in this direction, in terms of blogging and then evolving a bit here, initially, just to market yourself. JEREMY:                Yeah. MARK:       Was that successful? Did you have the results that you looked for or hoped for? JEREMY:                 It was successful, but not in the way that I expected. When I started writing about appellate decisions in Alabama, I thought, "Well, this will be a way for clients to find me and my firm and for us to establish our expertise." MARK:        Yes. JEREMY:               And while that was true, and it did that, my insurance clients weren't my readers as it turned out. It was other lawyers who were coming across these things and dealing with them. And even folks in my own firm would say, "Hey, I was looking up this topic and I came across your blog. Let's talk about this random thing." And so, in that way, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be from the outset. But what it did do is allow me to get more involved in industry organizations like CLM and DRI and present at conferences. It gave me the confidence in my practice areas to make those presentations and also to reach out to people who were attending those conferences and say, "Hey, we don't know each other really, but we're going to be at this place, and if you are looking for additional counsel in Alabama, I'd love to get together and meet." And so between that and other relationships that I've formed in communities that I've become a part of, I can say with certainty that I have business relationships now and have obtained clients that wouldn't have been the case without it. So it formed differently than I expected, but it absolutely had the result that I wanted. MARK:        Okay. And then what took you into becoming an author in terms of writing the books? And share the... I think you have three out, right, in terms of law- JEREMY:                 Yeah. I do. MARK:        Feel free to share the names and just a little bit about the books and... JEREMY:                Okay. So the first book that I wrote that the ABA published is called Building a Better Law Practice, and both it and the second book I have thought of, from their inception, as almost like a devotional for lawyers. The topics are fairly short. Most of them are somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 words. They can be read in five to 10 minutes a day, and it's really practical, grounded ideas, suggestions, advice for lawyers. And I think it's particularly useful for younger lawyers about managing your clients and your caseload and your practice itself, and growing those things so that you establish your expertise, you can handle your work better, more productively, more efficiently, and get more out of your day. And so, the first book is Building a Better Law Practice. The second book is called Stop Putting Out Fires. And then this year I wrote a book called Level Up Your Law Practice, and about 40% of the book focuses a lot on mindset. It's not something that I was particularly comfortable with because it put me in a place to have to be more vulnerable in writing and on paper than I really cared to be. But I thought that it was an important topic because we deal with... And look, when I wrote most of it in 2019 and early 2020, I had no idea what 2020 was going to be. MARK:         Yeah, right. JEREMY:               But we deal with so much adversity on a daily basis that if we don't focus some attention on making sure that we have mental and emotional health, then we aren't going to be able to do the work that we do over the course of 30 years without having to come apart. MARK:      Yeah. Yeah. You are preaching to the choir on this one. I absolutely agree with you. This whole attorney wellness movement is so, so critical. And again, the pandemic has really underscored just how important this is. Did the act of becoming an author... Again, did you accomplish what you had hoped to accomplish with this? How did it impact your practice? I mean, I find for instance that as I... I've been writing for, oh, gosh, 25 years now, and it's just, the more you do it, I find it enhances me. I learn a lot and it makes me just better at what I do, but I'd be curious about, again, the experience of writing. Again, did it accomplish what you had hoped it would? How did it impact your career? JEREMY:              I think that the answer is, yes, it has helped me. There's a lot of times that I don't really know what I think about something until I have taken the time and energy to write about it. And so it has helped me become more focused on efficiency and productivity, which is something that is important to my clients that I do well since they're paying me by the hour. And also, with my firm, they certainly want me to be productive. And then all of the... I've done so much writing about client relationships that it's really... I've had to live it. MARK:         Yes. Right. JEREMY:               And so, I've had to focus and learn about what do my clients want so that we can have a better relationship, not just for this one particular case, because things might go well or poorly on one individual case. But how can we have a relationship that can withstand any adversity and that we're communicating effectively enough, both about the good things and the bad things, that there's a trusting relationship that hopefully is going to last a career. And so the writing has helped me be a better lawyer because it's helped me focus on the things that I need to do to be successful. MARK:        Very good. Before I get to your non-legal writing for a moment, I did note, too, that you're involved in a book for children, moving in this other direction. Can you fill us in a little bit about this whole project? JEREMY:             All right. So, in March I posted on LinkedIn, because I'd seen... It was probably late March when I posted this because I'd seen that people have been locked down for a few weeks and there were a lot of really interesting, innovative things that I was seeing lawyers do on LinkedIn to help, whether it's communicate with clients. At that point Zoom was still pretty novel. I think in a lot of ways, we're all really well acquainted with it now, but at that point, most of us hadn't engaged with that medium before. And so I just saw a lot of things, and so I posted, "Hey, if you're doing anything interesting, let's share it and encourage each other." And a lawyer that I knew, Becky Lee, she's an intellectual property lawyer in Atlanta, we're a part of an online lawyer community called Lawyer Slack, LawyerSmack. MARK:  Yes. JEREMY:                And so, she posted that she had just written a children's book idea. And so I reached out to her directly and said, "Hey, I want to hear more about this. Have you got a publisher?" Like just curiosity at this point. And she said, "No. All I've done is written the text for it." And I said, "I want to publish this through my publishing imprint that I use for my own books," because after that first book with the ABA, and we had a good relationship and I really enjoyed it, but I realized that I wanted to have a lot more control over the final product than- MARK:  Yeah. JEREMY:               ... what is able to be done through a traditional publisher. And so I formed my own publishing company. And so she and I talked about it and she was interested in doing that. And so the book that she wrote is called, Do You Draw Pictures? And it's a picture book for kids who are basically four to eight-years-old, introducing them to what intellectual property is, what are patents and trademarks and copyrights, because there's so much misinformation [crosstalk] in pop culture- MARK:  Oh, absolutely. JEREMY:               ... that she realized there's a need for just a basic introduction into what these things are. And so it uses really fun illustrations to just introduce these ideas, and now we've got more ideas for a whole series of books that she plans to write. And then the illustrator is somebody that she's known for years and years, and they were in a band together back in their 20s and he's a cartoonist. And so we have a whole series of books that we want to do for kids that talk about whether it's contracts or first amendment stuff, or just introducing them to ideas that they are going to engage with as they get older. MARK:  What I love about this, and I want to comment on it more here in a little bit, you're an example of something that I have been sharing in terms of a personal story in our podcasts. It's a two-part series right now and I will probably add to it over time. I just refer to it as Listening To Your Life. And there's a lot that I hear happening here that you do very, very well in terms of listening. And so I want to come back to that in a moment. The non-law related book, is this a continuation of the evolution of your writing? I mean, what took you in this direction? JEREMY:               The answer to the first part is, I'm not really sure yet, but I have written creatively ever since really I was in high school. I was one of those dark, brooding, angsty teenagers, and so I wrote a lot of poetry back then, and then that kind of fell off in my 20s. And then I didn't write any fictional stuff for a long time. And then a few years ago, I learned about this really messy part of my family history several generations ago that nobody ever talked about, and I thought about it and did some research about it and started writing a novelized form of it that occurs in the 1940s, or I guess in 1940, where my grandfather who grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas, which is a mid-sized town out in about two hours northwest of Dallas. It was the midst of the depression. There was no jobs, and so he goes to work for one of the Civilian Conservation Corps camps up in Colorado, where a lot of young men who couldn't find work, the government, the Works Progress Administration under Roosevelt was hiring them to build state parks and national parks. And so he goes to do that. While he's gone, his father kills his stepmother and then himself. And it was just... Nobody ever talked about it. I didn't learn it until well into adulthood, but I thought that there could be a historical fiction novel. Like, this is that sort of thing. So I started writing that and it got real heavy and I've kind of laid it by the wayside for almost a year-and-a-half now and haven't touched it. Then I had another idea for a novel that I wrote a quarter of, and that kind of fell off. But then I just had this dream back in January of 2020 that was really weird. I'll go ahead... The story is, it was me in the dream, certainly, heard a noise in the middle of the night and went outside to check it out. And there were these three guys coming out of the woods from behind my house, and one of them was carrying something in its arms and I couldn't quite tell what it was. And so I told them to stop and they did, and there ended up being an altercation and what they were carrying was this Pegasus, a winged horse. MARK:  Right. Right. Yeah. JEREMY:               And so, then, they run off and there's this horse laying in my driveway that has wings. And so I take it into the woods to find its mother. And so I had that dream and I wrote all of that down and I had some other ideas that popped up over the next several months and I would write those down. And then in mid August, I figured out, "I can tie all these things together and this can be a novel." So, in August I just started writing and I've been writing almost every single day ever since, writing this story out. And I've just had as much fun doing it as anything else I've ever written, which isn't to say it's been easy. It certainly hasn't, but it's been just really rewarding and fun, and I've just thoroughly enjoyed the process. And I want to do more fiction writing like it, so we'll see. But I also have more non-fiction stuff that I want to write. My podcast that we've mentioned is called Lawyerpreneur, and it's about lawyers who are doing interesting and innovative things, some within the practice of law, others who are doing it in maybe a legal tech or things that are related to law. And then some people who have gotten out of law altogether and just have their own businesses and are doing interesting things. That Was a book idea before it was the podcast idea and I knew that I was going to have to do all of these interviews to be able to get what I wanted. I was having a hard time making myself do the interviews because I just don't like reaching out to folks like that. So I thought, "Well, if I start a podcast, I have to do it." And so, here we are. I started it at the end of March, been doing it for about eight months now. I've done over 30 interviews with lawyers, and it's been really interesting and rewarding. And if for no one else, it's certainly been rewarding for me to talk to all of these folks who are just pursuing dreams and ideas that are really... It's really cool. MARK:  Let me respond to some of this. I hear all kinds of things that I just underscore why I wanted to spend a little time together. You talk about the writing being hard but very fulfilling, and trying to do the podcast and the difficulty of reaching out. I get that. But to me, I like to say, and I've said this to my kids over the years, life begins once you push beyond your comfort zone. A lot of people don't want to do things because it's too uncomfortable and they never really challenge and grow. And in my mind, life begins the exciting, rewarding stuff when we take those risks. And you're a great example of how you have continued to grow with this. I also like the fact, referring to listeners back to this, listening to your life podcast topic that I've been doing, I also hear that you do, in my mind, as I see it, listen to your life. You have these things, these opportunities. You're on LinkedIn and you see... Here's an opportunity. I think so many people have these opportunities, whether they're small, large, and they don't even take the time to recognize or think about, "What can I do with this?" And it certainly seems like your practice is, we're successful. That you're a better attorney. I mean, that's what I'm hearing, that you have improved your skillset, lecturing, writing, intake, all these kinds of things. But the big takeaway for me, just spending a little time together, it's circling back to this wellness thing. It seems to me you're a very well-rounded individual and happier and healthier as a result of pursuing these other interests. It's a full life. I have worked with so many lawyers over the years, literally. I've worked literally with thousands of lawyers, but the number of them that do nothing other than just focus on law and never have what I would call a full life. The excuse I hear at times, they'll say, "Law is a jealous mistress," and that becomes a limiting thing. So, to those of you listening out there, I love Jeremy's story and it seems like, Jeremy, there's so many exciting things ahead of you. I'm excited to see where all this goes. Before I sign us off on this, do you have any final thoughts? Anything else you'd like to share? And I'll just give you a minute. I mean... JEREMY:      Yes, sure. Something I thought of while you were talking there, is that all of this is a choice. If you want to pursue other things and have a more fulfilling life than just work, you have to make the choice, but then you have to continue making the choice. MARK:  Exactly. JEREMY:                All my writing, I have done basically between the hours of 5:00 AM and 6:30 every day. And that's when I could make the time to fit it, because it's not going to just happen. You're not going to have the time. If you don't choose it every day, then it's not going to be there. And so whether it's hobbies that you've put to the side, or whether it's something else that you want to pursue and see what you can create, you've got to make a conscious decision and continue to make it to cause those things to happen. MARK:  Yeah. Yeah. Very, very good. Well, it's been a pleasure. To all of you listening, again, I hope you found something of value today listening to Jeremy's story. I want to leave you with the thought again, because I so firmly believe it. Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone. You'll take risks, folks. It's worth it. I really believe that deeply. So, again, thanks for joining us. If you have additional topics or some feedback, questions, concerns on risk management, ethics, you don't have to be an ALPS insured to visit with me. Please don't hesitate to reach out. My email address is mbass, M-B-A-S-S, @alpsinsurance.com. Thanks for listening folks. And again, Jeremy, it indeed has been a pleasure and I look forward to seeing what other things come out. I want to take a look at that non-lawyer book when it's published. That sounds quite interesting, so, thanks again. JEREMY:              Well, thanks so much for having me on.  

Find Mark's podcast here: https://nyafinancialpodcast.com Learn to buy a business: https://www.BusinessBuyerAdvantage.com Join my email list and learn more at https://www.DavidCBarnett.com Related Article: Creating your own financial resiliency. Mark Willis, host of Not Your Average Financial Podcast, comes back to discuss whole life insurance policies again. I was so intrigued last time that I went out to learn more and have decided to buy a policy myself. This is a liquidity tool that any entrepreneur can leverage for greater success. But how can it be all unicorns and rainbows? How can these things keep going up with all the financial crisis all around? I put the tough questions to Mark… Let’s listen to him answer: https://youtu.be/SpaLbbCnqnw Learn how to buy a successful business at https://www.BusinessBuyerAdvantage.com Book a call with me at https://www.clarity.fm/davidbarnett Stop missing my videos and other news. Join my email list here: https://www.DavidCBarnettList.com

Over the 3 years following this global recession spurred by COVID-19, we'll see a spike in bankruptcies, business dealings gone south, divorces, and all kinds of other unfortunate situations that may result in lawsuits. Those parties may turn around to blame their lawyers. Plus, lawyers and their staff are more likely to make mistakes right now in these high stress times. So, how do we brace for impact? Communication and kindness may be the best medicine. ALPS Underwriting Manager Leah Gooley and Mark Bassingthwaighte discuss their concerns, thoughts, and practice tips to help you prepare for the post-COVID economy. Transcript:  MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Once again, I'm so delighted to have as my guest, Leah Gooley, who is the underwriting manager. I don't know if all of you know this, Leah is in Missoula, in the beautiful historic building, and I telecommute. I've been telecommuting for many years over in Billings, so maybe I should ask real quickly, are we still having a beautiful day in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana? We're getting into August here, but I could see a little light coming in. LEAH GOOLEY: It's beautiful and sunny, a little cloudy, but I'll take that over the snow that we know is coming. MARK: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I really wanted to have Leah join me for a conversation. I'll be honest and say, and I don't know about you, Leah, and I suspect many of our listeners might feel similar to what I'm about to say, but I am tired of COVID-19 news. LEAH: Amen. MARK: It's just, but COVID-19, and what has happened in terms of not just a legal profession, but to everybody, has changed some things. We were talking prior to going into this, in terms of internal to ALPS, some general concerns looking at virtual practice firms and trying to just work through, do they represent unique interests? Is there something different? We've been having some interesting discussions about that, and then COVID-19. Boy, now teams, like everybody we insure, is a virtual firm and I thought it'd be fun to do just sit down and share some of our thoughts, concerns, and even some practice tips. MARK: That's what we're going to do, folks. We're going to start out just trying to identify some of the concerns that we see in general. Leah, perhaps I'll jump in here and start this, but feel free to come in at any point. Really, I think it's becoming quite clear, not just here in the United States, but globally, we are in a recession. Who knows how this is going to continue to evolve, but that's important because if you look historically at the numbers, claims are going to spike for about three years post-recession, in terms of legal malpractice claims. And then, they'll start to return slowly to normal, about five years out. We are anticipating not just here at ALPS, but within the industry that there's going to be a spike in claims. MARK: I would anticipate, too, that we're going to see a spike in severity. Some things to be concerned about, and we're going to try to visit why, but I think my initial thoughts is to what drives some of this, you think about business dealings and bankruptcies and divorces and all kinds, but when business dealings, in particular, go south and look at all the companies suing their insurers for the business interruption coverage that on most of these policies isn't there, desperate times call for desperate measures. They're going to turn into and try to blame lawyers and some of these claims, if nothing else, all the care's going to be involved in trying to defend these where we are contractually obligated to. I think that's almost a given, lawyers and staff are going to make mistakes in high-stress times. MARK: Boy, are we in a high-stress time? This rapid move to cloud computing to telecommuting from home, policies and procedures have changed, maybe not completely thought through. It was a very rapid adjustment, so I think there's going to be just normal missteps that occur. In addition, I think just again, the stress itself we're all under. I'm surprised, I would guess this is true for you, Leah, in terms of your own neighborhood, but we have a number of people in the neighborhood that I truly, I mean, not trying to overstate it, are almost in a daily state of panic, out of fear of what could happen, not wanting to catch the virus and things, and when so much of our energy is being devoted to just trying to go to the grocery store without exposing ourselves, I think that's a concern. MARK: At the same time, your clients are under the same stresses, the same thing. Are they going to question their own decisions down the road? Why didn't you prevent me from doing this stupid thing that I did? There's a lot of stuff going on here. I'm also going to talk about the closures of courthouses and all the changes in just the local rules, court rules, procedures, filing deadlines, being extended. There's just so many things up in the air, very difficult to stay on top of. Finally, another thought I have is, I had a call this morning from another lawyer on the East coast, sharing some concerns along these lines. Basically it's, "I'm owed a lot of money, but they don't have, everybody's been furloughed that they can't pay it." Here's another conundrum, how aggressive do you get with collection actions? Do you even try, because we all know particularly fee suits, bringing about often malpractice, counterclaims and whatnot? There's just a couple of thoughts of mine, just right off the top of my head coming into this, so that's your risk manager's response. How about an underwriter's response? What kind of concerns do you have? LEAH: Along those same lines, we tend to see, like you had mentioned, claims starting to spike about three years into the process. This pandemic is new. It's a culmination of a lot of different stressors for both working from home, adjusting quickly, which frankly, the law profession has trouble doing because they're meaty and it's a very weighty, important system of ours. And so, having to make this quick transition, both through the courts and individual law firms, and then like you had mentioned, customers and clients trying to adapt to those changes as well, while balancing working from home, their kids, and trying to manage their businesses under stressful time. We do anticipate certain trends within certain areas of practice. You can imagine divorces may be on the rise as well as marriages, like you said, and then, folks looking back. Overall from an underwriting perspective, trying to see where you sit individually, where your area of specialty lies, and sticking to that area of specialty, knowing how some of those changes come about, and how you can adapt to that in this pandemic. That's a really important aspect to all of this. MARK: Yeah. One of the things I think is worth noting for our listeners, I brought up this whole point of, we can anticipate due to stress, financial stress, fear, all of the things going on, that missteps will occur as a result. I can share, and I would assume you may have had one or two more conversations than me, but our claims attorneys are already seeing claims that are missteps that occurred post this work-from-home transition. We are already seeing these types of claims start to come in, not unexpected. MARK: Let me jump. I think we've set the stage reasonably well, but what's more interesting to me, and I would anticipate our listeners is, these virtual practice/work-from-home risks that we see, what are your thoughts in terms of trying to manage that? Maybe come at it from a concern and a management piece. I could anticipate for instance, because I know we've talked about this in the past, but supervision. What's your concern with supervision and what are your thoughts about if I'm a law firm wanting to be insured? What can I share? What helps ease your mind? You see where I'm going? How can I present as a good risk in light of this change? LEAH: Yeah, that is a great question. Supervision amongst law firms has always been a hot topic for underwriters. This isn't a new issue, but it's certainly more prevalent now that COVID has moved more folks to working from home. Supervision in general, it's just knowing what you, your partners, your associates, your employees are doing on a daily basis, and understanding that if there are questions, if you're a collaborative law firm, that you have the ability to reach out and talk through those issues and not feel like you're on an island, like you need to make a decision in isolation, and so, that expressing how you typically manage either those daily conversations, you manage the big picture conversations that happen for your firm. That kind of thing is interesting for the underwriter and important, I think, for us to understand that you are cognizant of your risks in the firm that way. MARK: Am I incorrect in what I hear you saying, at least to some degree here, is are we really talking a little bit about wellness, checking in and trying to keep people connected? Is that where you're focusing with this checking in daily or it's a procedural thing? Maybe it's both, I don't know. LEAH: Yeah. Yeah. I would see it as both, kind of two prongs your wellness, and that's a great point to bring up., That there's the wellness for individual attorneys really is just keeping everybody connected and engaged and it has to become more of a top of mind activity amongst the firm. The other side of that is the supervision and making sure that the work product itself is available for conversation. Perhaps you set up Zoom office hours, if you and your staff are spread across, so that they know a specific time that they can get ahold of you, or you have with your team a specific daily meeting time that you're going to check in and answer questions, or even just engage in that office chit chat that you normally don't get to when everybody's working from home. We miss that. MARK: Yeah. Yeah. I love that you brought that up because I have been, as you know, telecommuting. I'm 300 and what, 50 miles away from the mothership here, and longterm telecommuting can work some people and for others, it really doesn't. I think one of the reasons that it doesn't is this connection piece, the water cooler conversation, or sharing a cup of coffee in a break room or those kinds of things. That was a hard transition for me. What was so interesting, the shift to work-from-home in my world, in terms of just me personally, was a nonevent. I'm already there, but the company's response was night and day game changer for myself and a few others that have been longterm remote employees, because we are now far more engaged. MARK: You and I are having this discussion. Everybody hears the audio, but we're watching each other. We're on Microsoft Teams. That we have used, I think, as a company in a very effective way, to maintain engagement amongst the Alps community in terms of the workforce. As a risk manager, I absolutely agree with you. I think supervision is important from this connectivity piece, this wellness piece. And, might I add, the challenge with this supervision wellness angle is that when we aren't together day to day, it's a little more difficult to really, unless we're using video and having some regular conversations to understand, if you and I share office space, you're going to pick up that I'm depressed or that I'm struggling in person much more quickly and more easily. And so, I think it's important if this work-from-home goes longterm and maybe permanent for some, we need to keep these issues in mind. MARK: I now switch back. In terms of process, I described this as the accountability problem, and I just invite lawyers, from administrators and those in charge in terms of internal processes, do you need to review and perhaps even redesign what you're doing? We had a situation I learned about where everybody left, worked from home at a law firm, but FedEx was still coming, and so, what they did is put a cardboard box outside a locked front door and a sign, 'FedEx drop and pick up from here' and a little arrow. There are envelopes in here for FedEx to pick up. Now you know there are confidential information in there. You just sit here and go, what are you thinking? I get the panic that that might need to happen for a day or so. That's what the best idea. I'd like to see something else, but that cannot be permanent. MARK: I invite folks that are listening again, to think about your calendaring process, the mail process, client communication, file documentation. Are we really keeping all of our files current? Are we maintaining client competences? For instance, fold this over into a professionalism piece, but you have to have a workspace that the kids aren't running back and forth in the background in the PJs and having a water balloon fight while you're trying to meet with your client. That just can't happen. It's a professionalism issue, but it's also, they can't and should never have access to the home computer that you're using for work, those kinds of things. There's some thoughts on trying to manage some of this. Do you have other things that you'd like to add to this one? LEAH: Well, let's talk about what you had said, reinvisioning what your processes are. As you look at that, you've moved as a firm, say to a part-time work-from-home, due to COVID. Maybe you want to continue that, maybe that makes sense for your firm. And so, it's a good opportunity for you to look at what new technology is out there, what new opportunities you have to create efficiency for your law firm to meet your client's needs. And then, also just making sure as you make those shifts, that that tech technology training takes place, that people are really comfortable with it. Again, circling back to the wellness. Are you able to use it and actually see each other on Teams and have those connections and feel comfortable in a client meeting to be able to communicate what you need to communicate to them? Keeping top of mind on all the new stuff coming out, just rolling out, based on COVID. There's so many new opportunities every day. MARK: Yeah. Yeah. There really are. I've got to do a jump shift here. You know me, I go off on these tangents at times. I love the comment about, again, looking at processes, but also reviewing and trying to understand the technology. More and more I've been talking about, lawyers are to understand the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology. We're always very good about the benefits, risks aren't so as obvious, and you really need to take some time. It's just by way of example, and it's just trying to underscore the importance of reviewing your processes and really looking at everything. Let's say you and our adverse attorneys representing adverse parties, and we're in a meeting and we're all talking, I set this up, I can control whether people are recording this from the platform, but people can also just put up their phone and record. I can't do everything to prevent things from being recorded. MARK: It's just one crazy example of, we need to think through the ramifications of what we're doing and the technology, how we're using it. Hear me clearly. There's absolutely nothing wrong and it's not incompetent or anything to use Zoom or Teams, but we have to understand the benefits and the risks and address them. Same might be with a collaborative calendar thing that's out on the web. It's about just trying to maintain client confidences and maintaining the privacy of the data and whatnot. MARK: I'd like to take a moment and share a couple of specific risk management tips that are important to me. If you have other tips to add here, please, please, again, jump in. MARK: I want to share just, again, some obvious things that come to my mind from a risk perspective. This hopefully goes without saying, but I think we see this all the time. COVID in situations like this, in terms of recessions and whatnot, you're going to see this type of claim go up, and it's really dabbling. Please don't dabble or do a quick jump shift, do a new practice area. I have spoken with attorneys that are very intentionally moving right now and very aggressively, into the bankruptcy space, for obvious reasons. Some are doing this, again, it's a jump shift, and know absolutely nothing about it, or very, very little and others are very, very intentional about it and really taking their time and developing processes and procedures, getting mentors, and really coming up to speed in a very appropriate way. So, caution, jump shifts, dabbling very dangerous. LEAH: Mark, I'll comment on that. MARK: Please. LEAH: That is an area that we see so many claims come out of competent, smart attorneys who just have taken a case or taken on an area of practice that they don't get the full spectrum of it. It's definitely ripe for either missteps and just missing something because it's a nuance to that practice. I absolutely agree with you on that. MARK: It's one of those things. We just don't know what we don't know, and that's the problem on the dabble. I also would strongly encourage you, more than ever, to determine upfront if clients can afford your services and also thoroughly document your scope, because more and more, it's not face-to-face in the same room having conversations. We need to be clear. If I'm interviewing you and you're interviewing me in terms of price, a potential client, and I'm potential lawyer here, we really to understand. Leah, can you afford this? It's not a discussion over my hourly rate. Here's what this divorce might cost or what this bankruptcy might cost, and these are some variables, and I'll give you the best effort that I can to give you some accurate parameters, but then this is what I'm going to do and what I'm not going to do. MARK: I think now more than ever, these are key, key things to do. Again, I brought this up at the very beginning, I would not get aggressive in collection practices right now. Maybe to really underscore this, a lot of lawyers will say, "I did good work, got a good outcome, I deserve to be paid now more than ever." I don't care. It's completely irrelevant. That's a given, let it go. The only issue is, is there any money out there to get? A harsh reality is, a lot of these people with furloughs and everything else, there is no money. They're not paying the rent. You think you as the lawyer are first in line? That ain't happening. It's roof and food for the kids. They're a top priority right now. I would not get aggressive with collection actions. MARK: I'm not saying walk away. I'm just saying let's be reasonable about, because you can put people in a corner, and then the counterclaim is coming. Of course, make sure that everybody's aware of changes in relevant rules, regulations, and laws, so that we don't blow some filing deadlines just because we're out of the loop. I would also add that clients should be made aware of changes that might impact their matter. So don't overlook keeping clients informed, but because it's their matter. LEAH: What a great idea. MARK: You need to allow them to meaningfully participate, that kind of thing. There are some risk tips that I have. Do you have anything that comes to mind from your end that you would want to add or think about? LEAH: Yeah. Just drafting off what you just said, basically, considering those kind of client needs and taking those steps to make sure that they're met, being clear about what response times need to be now that people are maybe working different hours as they're virtual or working from home, a little more flexibility, whether folks want virtual meetings or in person, and how to manage those risks, specifically, just being open and up front about what your clients need. The other big thing, it's not new that attorneys take their work home. That's definitely not a new phenomenon, but with some of these more flexible arrangements, just being clear about securing client information that you bring back and forth, even laptops and hardware, software issues that you might have, being just top of mind on that stuff. MARK: Well, and I appreciate that. Let's look at that a little more in depth. What we're really getting into is just cybersecurity, cyber liability, that whole issue. Let me share, well, before I do, do you have, again, from an underwriting perspective, are there, because we also sell cyber liability insurance to lawyers ... LEAH: We do. MARK: Are there risks? Does this situation, in terms of COVID, work-from-home, virtual law, all this stuff, does that change your risk analysis at all? Do you have any concerns that come up? LEAH: Well, certainly one of the big ones is that the home systems just are not as secure as often office situations are, when it comes to hardware routers, all of those setups, personal devices, like your cell phone, just may need to be reexamined. We had talked before about looking at your internal processes, and it's a good time to look again at your cyber processes as well. MARK: Yeah, yeah. Understand folks, there is a difference between trying to secure systems and protecting and maintaining data. Those are actually two different things. There's a lot of overlap, but not entirely. I'm going to come back to this here in a minute, but you talked about home systems, and just to underscore that point, can I share to our listening audience, home routers, as an example, often they are older devices. They have not ever been appropriately set up, meaning the default password hasn't been changed. You can get these default passwords off the routers in seconds off Google. You just figure out what kind of router it is. It's typically 'admin' or some silly thing like that, encryption hasn't been turned on, et cetera, and cybercriminals know this, and they are taking real advantage of this. MARK: We need to think through, we typically don't have IT support dealing with our home systems, but now that the home systems are the primary system, we need to think through this and make sure that the steps that we've taken to secure the perimeter of the work environment, of the office network, et cetera, now extends to the home environment. That security piece needs to be in play, but that's not enough. Getting back to privacy of data, how many of us routinely at home, work with shared devices? My wife and I each have our own phone, but we use each other's phones at times. If we're out, "Here, can you just do that?" We share home computers and it's kids having to do homework, maybe need to get on Dad's computer or Mom's computer. MARK: What have you done to protect client confidences? In a perfect world, no family member, unless they are employed by the firm, should have access to any of this equipment period. It just really shouldn't happen. So, think about personal use and who's using all of this to try to maintain. One of the things that I'd like to talk about, too, that I think a lot of lawyers don't understand, let me ask you this. I hopefully I'm not putting you on the spot here, Leah. My guess is not. If I'm a law firm and I go out and this is not going to be unique to Alps, I'm just going to use Alps as an example. I go out and I buy this cyber liability policy for my firm from Alps, does that insurance cover all these devices that people have in their homes that are using personally for work? Does that coverage extend? LEAH: Such a great point. Such a great question. That's dialing down. Do you know what your policy covers? Have you read what the policy language specifies? Typically there's going to be carve-outs for personal devices, because they're better covered somewhere else. There could be certain requirements. One of the big ones is out-of-band communication when it comes to wire transfers. You're required to double check, pick up that phone and call whoever it is that told you to wire the money to a certain area. You have some of that responsibility, and that's an important to know that on the front end. Absolutely. What a great question. MARK: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So folks, I don't want to put anybody here in this extreme panic. Policy language is going to differ, but generally, these policies cover equipment that is either owned by or leased for law firm purposes. That is not what a home laptop is, or the home cell phone, or the home iPad, and all these other things. Now, if a personal device was the pathway perhaps into the network and the firm's network is breached and something happens, every carrier, these policies, there's a lot of the tail to them, but I have trouble seeing how an insurer wouldn't be stepping up for that one. The real concern is if the attack is limited to, and this is happening, which is why I'm having this conversation, to the home systems, so if I'm a hacker and I break in, Leah, to you as an attorney at a firm, into your home laptop, and I steal everything. I don't need the network anymore. MARK: You've got all this stuff on your laptop, and- LEAH: What a great opportunity. MARK: -and then, you turn around and say, "Well, I have cyber coverage for this." No, you don't. The firm has cyber coverage for firm equipment. This isn't firm equipment. It's just something to think about, just to be aware of. It gets back to thinking through your practices and procedures and your processes in light of these changes, so I would obviously encourage IT support to address any concerns. And even just said, talk to your IT support person. "Here's what's going on in various homes. What do you think we should do? What are your concerns? Can you help us?" Just take it a step at a time. Other thoughts, other concerns that you have here, I don't want to take up too much of your precious time, but ... LEAH: Well, I think these are excellent, excellent tips that you've brought up, and a lot of really thought-provoking information for firms and attorneys to mull over, especially if folks are considering doing more of a longterm flexible work-from-home situation. Yeah. MARK: Yeah. Can I end with this? If firms are going to think about really extending at least a part of the workforce perhaps, more of a full time work-from-home remote, which in my mind is a little bit different than a virtual practice, but I think from a risk perspective, really not a whole lot. Initially, is just the fact that we have work-from-home folks now, is that an "Uh oh," for an underwriter in terms of just that fact? LEAH: That's a great question. No, if you have a virtual practice or somewhere in that spectrum, from virtual practice down to a flexible working from home environment, again, it's not something necessarily that is new to the industry. It's just more prevalent now with firms. And so, knowing that the attorneys are looking out for some of these pitfalls, cognizant of what they need to do to mitigate, that's really the important stuff that underwriters want to know. MARK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's important for folks to hear. It's a great place to end on, because in my mind, there's nothing wrong with work-from-home. It's not the tool, it's what do we do with this situation we find ourselves in. LEAH: Exactly. MARK: If we were really concerned about all these changes, we wouldn't want to insure new young lawyers that just hang up a shingle, because they don't know what they're doing. You see where I'm going? You don't have 10 years experience to be this computer geek, have this high tech system at home. The insurance industry, we are comfortable with the change. LEAH: You bet. MARK: What becomes important is, how do you respond to the change? Are you responsible in managing these transitions, and then following through and adjusting ordering processes? If you're thinking long term of staying in this space in full or in part, I really encourage all of you folks to take some of the things that we've raised here to heart. I've been telecommuting for 10 years. I love it. I won't ever go back. I'm assuming Alps will allow me that, extend that privilege, that I could stay out here, but it's not the work-from-home environment that's a concern. It's how we are all responding and dealing with the work-from-home. So, that's my final word. Leah, do you have any other closing comment or anything else? LEAH: Well, I appreciate some of these concrete tips. I can see how they'd be so helpful to take advantage of, and just circling back to the root of all of this is the wellness, and making sure that you have what you need as the attorney and the connections that you need within your firm and your clients. What a great top priority to have. MARK: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely agree. Well, Leah, thank you so much for spending a little time with me and the audience today. I hope you've had some fun. Look forward to doing this again. We periodically get together. LEAH: Absolutely. MARK: It'll be awesome. I look forward to the next one. Before I sign off, I do want to update anyone that has listened to an earlier podcast called Listening to Your Life. It's a little bit of a story, of a challenge my wife gave me, and just share some thoughts about what was happening. Basically, I've been doing a lot of bike riding, and there was a challenge to ride 1,200 miles by the end of summer, which is defined as the end of September. It's all started at the beginning of the COVID stay-at-home situation here in Montana. But, as of today, which is what, the 12th of August, I'm at 1,421. LEAH: Whoa! MARK: I am rocking it and I've upped my goal. Now I'm going to try to hit 1,750 by the end of August or September. It's been a lot of riding, a lot of fun. As we near the end, or shortly after the end of this, I'm going to come back and do another little podcast on Listening to Your Life and some learning to the whole process. But for those of you that are monitoring all of this 1,421 as of today, it's a lot of miles, but it's been a great experience. So, I will say goodbye to all of you. If you have any thoughts, concerns, issues you'd like to discuss in future, or perhaps you're in a podcast, don't hesitate to reach out to me at mbass@bassatalpsinsurance.com. Happy to try to help in any way that I can. Thanks again, folks. Thanks, Leah. Goodbye.  

We are using personal devices for work (and working from home) more than we ever have before. These are both big risk factors as cybersecurity threats have soared during the pandemic. So, how do we make security sustainable and not live life at the hackers' mercy? ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with Sherri Davidoff, CEO and Founder of LMG Security and the latest addition to the ALPS Board of Directors, to give you some practical advice in guarding your data like the gold it is. TRANSCRIPT: Mark: Let's rock and roll. Hello. Welcome to ALPS in Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I am really excited about our guest today. I have heard her speak and have read a book about her. And let me just share, our guest is Sherri Davidoff, the CEO of LMG Security. And I believe, Sherri, that is short for Lake Missoula Group. Is it not? Sherri Davidoff: It's true. We're named after the lake that we're sitting at the bottom of. Mark: For those of you, it's worth looking up in Wikipedia or Google or something to get a little bit of history of Lake Missoula. That's a whole nother story. But Sherri is a noted speaker, trainer, white hack, excuse me, white hacker, and author of the recently released book, Data Breaches, Crisis and Opportunity. As a recognized expert in cybersecurity and data breach response, Sherri has been called, and I love this, a security badass by the New York Times. I just think that's fantastic. Mark: She has conducted cybersecurity training for many distinguished organizations, including the Department of Defense, the ABA, the FFIEC, the FDIC, and many more. She's also a faculty member at the Pacific Coast Banking School and an instructor for Black Hat, where she teaches her data breaches course. She is also the co-author of Network Forensics: Tracking Hackers Through Cyberspace. It's a Prentice Hall publication, out in 2012. And this is a noted security text in the private sector and a college textbook for many cybersecurity courses. Mark: Sherri is also a GIAC certified forensic examiner, a penetration tester, and holds her degree in computer science and electrical engineering from MIT. She has also been featured as the protagonist in the book Breaking and Entering: The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker Called Alien. And so welcome, Sherri. And I can say I love the book. Sherri Davidoff: Thank you so much, Mark. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Mark: It was a lot of fun. It was a good read. Sherri Davidoff: Good. Mark: What you and I had been visiting about in terms of just having a conversation today, obviously in light of all that has happened in recent months with COVID-19, global pandemic, and this fallout of a very rapid move into working from home did not overlook lawyers. Many, many had to immediately jump and try to figure out how to make this work. And it seems some were pretty successful at that. Others, there were a few struggles, but they got there. But what I really want to focus on is the security side, the security piece of this. Mark: I think remote security is exposing not only lawyers, I think businesses of all shapes and sizes, to unexpected or perhaps a broadened way, broadened their risk, their exposure just because we have at times home systems. And I guess initially, would you agree, is the remote work setting a concern for you? Sherri Davidoff: Well, absolutely. There's an expanded attack surface now that so many people are working remotely. And I'd say that's for two reasons. Number one, because many people have moved to the cloud, or have started logging into work remotely, and therefore poked holes in their firewalls and things like that in order to facilitate it. And everybody did what we needed to do keep going and to keep business up and running. And that's fine. I'm here to tell everybody it's all fine. Sherri Davidoff: Our goal is progress and not perfection. But now's the time to step back and think, "What do we do?" And start cleaning things up, start thinking about, "How do we sustain this potentially long-term?" Because I think remote work has been here for a while and has definitely ramped up, and is here to stay. And the other reason why the attack surface has expanded is because a lot of people are using personal devices for work more than we ever have before. Sherri Davidoff: And so all of a sudden, you have sometimes very sensitive data on your personal device that you also share with your kids, or your friends, and you play games and this and that. And there's a different risk level that we have in our personal lives versus what's appropriate when we're handing this very sensitive information, so we have to balance those issues. Mark: Yeah. I like sort of two comments here, briefly. Initially, I like that you're saying lawyers haven't done anything wrong, in other words, by transitioning. It's so tempting to try to scare the bejeezus out of everybody and say, "You're not doing anything," but they did what they needed to do. And now is the time because I think you're absolutely right, this work from home evolution in terms of the rapid rise of it, is here to stay in a lot of ways. And so now it's time to say not, you've done anything wrong, or you're bad, but let's try to fix it. Sherri Davidoff: How do we make it sustainable and not get hacked all the time? Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I want to come back to here a little bit down the road, but I do really appreciate the comment of personal devices. And I think that's worth exploring a little bit. Where I'd like to start, if we may, and I don't know if you agree or disagree with this, but even again today, I have come across additional articles talking about an exposure that is I think for so many, flying under the radar. And that is simply the wireless access points, the routers and whatnot that all of us typically have in our homes. And do you feel, is that an overblown risk? Would you have any thoughts about some basic things that staff and lawyers should be thinking about? Sherri Davidoff: Well, it depends where you are. I used to live in the middle of Boston, and there were a zillion people around my house all the time. Now I live in the middle of Montana, and wireless security is always important, but less of a concern. So first of all, consider physically where you are and who might have physical access to that wireless network. And absolutely, your network is only as secure as the devices that are on it. And we've seen time and time again that if a computer gets infected, it will try to infect all the devices around it. So if you have a neighbor that starts using your wireless network, and they happen to have a computer that's been infected, that could absolutely cause risk for systems on your network as well. Mark: Very good. And thoughts about, are there any just practical steps you think folks might be able to take to minimize that likelihood? Sherri Davidoff: Sure. Well, as we were talking about ahead of time, there have been a number of vulnerabilities in common routers and wireless access points. So step number one, make sure that your software is up to date, your firmware is up to date on those devices. And you can do that either, sometimes they have an app that's paired with your smartphone, so you can update it that way. Or you can go into the device itself in the administrative interface and do updates. So every now and then, sit down, have a glass of wine, whatever, update your router. It's fun. It's easy. And change that password. Make sure that the password is not a default, that it's secure, it's not your phone number or your address, because guess what, people know that. Sherri Davidoff: And also that the name of your wireless network is something that does not draw attention to you, that it's a little bit under the radar, boring. Make your network look boring. Mark: I like that. I like that. Sherri Davidoff: Really slow wireless, that's what you should call it. Nobody will want this. Mark: I think your idea of maybe having a glass of wine to do this isn't a bad one because there have been times where I've been trying to do some things in terms of ... I take security very, very seriously because I've been telecommuting, and boy, there are times when certain things aren't as easy as they should be. And just instead of throwing the computer, you could have a little sip of, just relax. Sherri Davidoff: Yeah. Well, risk is your job at ALPS, so I could imagine it's something you take seriously. Mark: That's right. That's right. For a moment, let's just say that I am a lawyer. I'm the owner of a small firm, couple of staff. And we have made this transition out, and everybody's at home for the time being. May or may not be coming back. We'll just see how this all evolves. But as the owner of this small business, what kinds of things really should be on my radar that may not be? What should I think about? Sherri Davidoff: Yeah. The number one thing to think about right now is two-factor authentication. And I know that's a big word. I cannot even tell you how important that is because we're living in a world today where all of your passwords have been stolen, just assume that, because if you get a virus on your computer, it's going to steal all your passwords first thing before you even know it. And you're not fooling anybody by keeping it in a Word document with a totally different name. I know that it's there and so do the criminals, and they're just going to grab it. Sherri Davidoff: The other thing is if you reuse passwords on different websites, and one of those websites gets hacked, criminals have automated tools that will try your password in a zillion other websites. It's called credential stuffing attacks. And Akamai, which is a big tech company, reported that there were 61 billion credential stuffing attacks just in the past 18 months. So assume somebody's going to steal your password. You're not going to know about it because that company may not even know they have a data breach. Or if they know, maybe they'll report it to you six months to three years later. Sherri Davidoff: And in the meantime, you need to protect your accounts. The FBI recently reported that the number of business email compromised cases is going up because of coronavirus. Scammers are using tactics to try to trick people out of their money, so they're breaking into email accounts. They're finding examples of invoices, or payments, or things like that. And they're saying, "Oh, due to coronavirus, that bank account is being audited, and I really need these funds. Please send it to this other place." Sherri Davidoff: So you should guard your email account like it is gold because it is. You have valuable information in it. And remember with lawyers, information is your business. Right? If it's valuable to you, or if it's valuable to your client, it is valuable to a criminal. They can leverage it somehow. So protect that email account like it is gold. And your email account can also be used to reset your password on anything else, and the criminals know that, so they're after your email. Mark: That's a great point, that really is. Can you take just a moment or two and explain just a bit more about what you mean by two-factor authentication? I'm not sure that everybody in our audience, I think a lot do, but I know that there are more than a few that really don't understand. And I assume we talk about this, you're really saying we want to use this if we can in any and every setting, so email account, bank account. Sherri Davidoff: Yes. Cloud, you name it. Mark: Cloud, right, right. But can you just share just a little bit more to make sure everybody's with us? Sherri Davidoff: Absolutely. This is my favorite question, Mark. Thank you so much. So two-factor authentication is what you need to know. Authentication means how we verify someone's identity. So online you might have your identity verified with a password. Passwords are dead to me now. In the real world, you might verify your identity with your driver's license. Right? Two-factor authentication is when you use more than one method of verifying someone's identity together. And it makes it a lot less likely that your account will be broken into. And you might not know it, but we use two-factor authentication all the time. I don't know if you can think of a place where you use two different methods of verifying yourself. Mark: Well, the one that comes immediately to mind to me is just a debit card at the ATM machine. Sherri Davidoff: Yes. I'm giving you a prize. I have to rummage through my swag and drop it off at your office. Absolutely, yes. You're the only person I have ever worked with who's gotten it right off the bat. But yes, your debit card. And when ATMs first came out in the '60s, they did not all have a pin number associated with them. You were in England, you'd get your punch card. And if you lost that punch card, some criminal could pick it up and get your money. And it actually took over a decade before all the ATMs in the world had pins. But now, if you had a choice, if your bank said, "Oh, you don't need a pin on that ATM card," how would you feel about it? Mark: I would have a problem with that. Sherri Davidoff: You'd have a problem with it. And it's going to be that way on the internet pretty soon. People will be like, "Really? You don't have two-factor authentication? That's so dangerous. I can't believe it." Mark: Yeah. Sherri Davidoff: I can give you some examples of what you can use for two FA if you want. Mark: Sure. Sherri Davidoff: Okay. So when you're logging into your email for example, some of you are probably familiar with the case where you get a pin on your phone. Right? You log in, it sends a pin to your phone. That's better than nothing, but it's not the best because those are not encrypted. I don't know if you've heard of simjacking attacks, where attackers can take over your phone, or they can get your phone number sent somewhere else, so those are not the best. Sherri Davidoff: What's better than that is an app on your phone, like Google Authenticator, which is free, or Microsoft's Authenticator. And it'll show you a code that you type in. Or even better, it'll just pop up a message that says, "Do you want to authenticate, yes or no? Is this acceptable?" And so you type in your password and then you hit yes, or you type in your code, and then you get in. And so the criminal actually needs your phone and your password in order to get in, and that is so much safer than just a password. Mark: And I want to follow up. You had talked as we started this discussion a little bit about they're into your email and they're capturing your passwords. One of the things I want to underscore for our listeners is that you don't know they're in your system monitoring and capturing all this stuff. I still run into a lot of people that say, "Well, I've never been hacked because the computer still works." Nobody's going to send you a thank you card for doing something silly and saying, "We've been in. And thank you, we got all this." Mark: But you made the comment about passwords. And one of the things that I hear from time to time as I talk about password policies, long passwords, passphrases, complex passwords, those kinds of things, and the pushback you always get. How in the world do I remember all this? And your comment of a Word document is absolutely not the way to do this. But I have talked about password saves. And one of the questions that comes up from time to time is, well, here I am putting all this information into a file. And sometimes these safes, I have one, Iron Key, that's a jump drive. But they're also cloud-based. And what are your thoughts about the security of that? Because I had a lot of pushback of people saying, "How in the world can that be safe if they're hacking in?" Mark: I certainly have my thoughts about it. But I'd love to hear from your ... I mean, you do the pen testing. How reliable are these password safes in terms of helping us try to be as secure as we can? Sherri Davidoff: Yeah. So you're probably thinking, "Well, why would I want to put all my eggs in one basket?" And then hackers know they're going to attack that basket. Right? Mark: Exactly. Sherri Davidoff: The reality is that it's more complex than that because first of all, that basket LastPass, Dashly, OnePassword, you name it, they are especially designed to be hardened against attacks. For example, they're resistant to the common attacks. They're constantly researching it. And if they autofill a form for you, they're using different hooks in the operating system that make it harder for the attacker to grab that compared with a regular web browser, for example, so that's the first thing. Sherri Davidoff: The second thing is I use password managers not just for their ability to store passwords, but for their ability to generate passwords. And that's perhaps even more important. You need a unique password for every single website, maybe not the really junky ones that you don't have anything important in them. But most people underestimate the importance of an individual account. Ideally, you want a totally different login for each website because you never know which website's going to get hacked. Right? Sherri Davidoff: And the human brain is not designed to remember 20 billion passwords. I mean, it's probably all we can do to remember three passwords. And so then you get people picking the password fluffy1984, like their dog and their kid's birthday, which people can totally guess, or spring2018bicycles, and then that changes to summer2018 when you have to change it. The hackers are onto you. They have automated tools that will automatically try different variants on your favorite password that they have already captured. They'll put an exclamation point at the end. They'll put a one, and then a two, and then a three, and then a nine and a 10. Sherri Davidoff: And they'll change spring to summer and 2018 to 2019. So those ways that people modify their passwords are not very secure. So use your password manager. Use two-factor authentication on it if it's in the cloud. And if you hear, LastPass, for example, was actually hacked several years ago. And what happens in that case is you want to change at least your master password if [inaudible 00:21:58] passwords. Sherri Davidoff: But it is so much better than keeping your passwords in a file on your computer because people get their computers infected so frequently. And that's the first thing that goes out the door. The criminals are automatically stealing your files, and then you won't even know you've been hacked until your money's been missing, or a spam email goes out to all your clients. Mark: So what I'm hearing then as the owner, I need to be really concerned about authentication and protecting passwords, strong passwords. Are there other concerns that come to mind as the owner? Sherri Davidoff: Ransomware. A lot of attorneys are hit with ransomware. Ransomwares steal your information often before they hold you for ransom. And that's the thing that a lot of attorneys don't think about because I've seen many law firms even put up out of office messages that say, "Hey, we have ransomware. We'll get back to you tomorrow." That's not cool for your clients. Mark: No. Sherri Davidoff: That means chances are their data was stolen too. And the trend that we are seeing in 2020 is that criminals have started to realize that people have better and better backups. And if you don't pay them the ransom to get your data back, they will threaten to publish it. And in that case, you've got two options. You can either say, "Okay, we'll pay the ransom," in which case, they could come back to you in six months and say, "Pay us again or we'll release it again." You can't trust them. Sherri Davidoff: Or you don't pay the ransom, and all your data's published. And what does that mean for your clients and your relationships and your status as an attorney? So you really need to protect yourself with ransomware. And you do that with two-factor authentication, super important. Mark: Yes, right. Sherri Davidoff: And making sure you have a secure method to connect to your data. So for a lot of people who have just poked holes in their network and they're going through RDP, remote desktop protocol, that's not a secure way to do it. There's other better ways to do it, like using a VPN. Or you can, if you choose to store your data in the cloud, there are some benefits to that, especially if you use two-factor authentication. Mark: Let's talk a little bit about this. And for those of you listening, if you're not completely sure, VPN stands for virtual private network. And we're really talking about disguising our location at times, in terms of what servers, when I use my VPN for instance, I am picking servers in Canada and other parts of the United States. I can go all over the world if I wanted to. So you're hiding your location a little bit, but it's also encrypting the data stream, so that's what we're talking about in terms of any remote connection. And I think it's particularly important in the wifi space. Mark: But there are a lot of free VPNs available and a lot of other just tiered pricing of all kinds of things. Do you have any thoughts about is it unwise to use the free VPNs as opposed to spending a little bit of money? I hear at times the VPNs that are free, they may be monitoring and monetizing the information they're learning about what you're doing. But I truly don't know. Do you have any thoughts on that? Sherri Davidoff: In general, there's no such thing as a free lunch in our society. Right? If you're not paying for a product, you are the product, so they say. So I would be careful about that. In general, I would get an experienced IT person's advice when you're setting up your VPN. I wouldn't do it on your own because if you make a little mistake, again, it's all your data on the line. There's some pretty serious consequences. Also, consider if you really need a VPN. Are you just trying to get into one computer? And if so, is it just a certain type of data that you need? Sherri Davidoff: Personally, I am a proponent, I've become a proponent of using the cloud. And I was a slow adopter. Being a security professional, I was fairly conservative about it. But you have some really strong options like Microsoft Office 365 is a great option for attorneys. There's a lot of compliance. There's a lot of regulations that they adhere to, and you can get them to sign off on that. There's other providers as well that are very good. And again, if you're using that two-factor authentication, they have some very advanced security features built in. They are maintaining that software, so I think it takes a lot of the pressure off of small and solo practitioners to just use the cloud. And then you don't have to worry about somebody remoting into your whole computer. Mark: One question that comes up every once in a while from lawyers as they start to think through some of the things we're talking about, but in the context of ransomware the cloud, they're learning. And I think for the most part they have as a profession, have a pretty good understanding what ransomware does at a basic level. And it can infect the network and this kind of thing. But I think some believe one of two things, but first, the cloud one is if I put things in the cloud, I'm safe there because there's this break. Would you put that to rest? Sherri Davidoff: Yeah. I mean, if you can access it, so can criminals. Right? Mark: Oh, yeah. Sherri Davidoff: Especially because often we see people click on links in phishing emails. Their computers get infected. And the criminals will even install ransomware in your cloud drives, like One Drive. If you can get to it and a criminal has access to your account, then the criminal has access to it. And there are times, in fact, I have a little video example that we took in our laboratory, where criminals will deliberately remote into your computer and use your computer to break into your bank accounts or your email accounts because you have your password saved there. And you don't have ... You've clicked trust this computer, so it's way easier for them than trying to break in from Thailand, or Russia, or wherever they happen to be. Mark: And I want to respect your time here, Sherri. The stuff you're sharing is just awesome, awesome stuff. I want to just take a few moments and shift a little bit now. So we've talked about some really good security things that lawyers, business owners, firm leaders need to be thinking about. And of course, all of this needs to apply to everybody. But let's talk about the home place. So what do I need to think about in terms of making sure my employees do, or understand? Do you have concerns about what the individual is actually doing in their own home? Sherri Davidoff: Yes, of course. A big issue that comes up is sharing of computers, so you need to have a clear policy as to whether it's okay to share computers. Is it okay to have certain types of documents on their personal computers? Remember that personal computers are much higher risk. You are likely to get a virus on a personal computer, especially if multiple people are sharing that. So whenever possible, keep work documents on work systems, or systems that are just used for work. And again, the cloud can help you with that. Sherri Davidoff: For example, you can allow people to access documents in the cloud and prevent them from downloading those documents. And it's all well and good to tell people that. But ideally, you want to actually implement that control and prevent them from a technical measure. We also see people emailing documents to their personal emails, and now it's totally out of your control. It's up in Google somewhere else. You may have violated some policies, especially if you deal with health information. You might've violated some regulations just by putting it up in Google, or violated your client's privacy. So mainlining control of your data, especially during these times, is absolutely critical. Sherri Davidoff: I think I would be remiss if I didn't mention mobile device management software, so if you have people using personal devices, you can deploy what we call an MDM. It's a piece of software that allows you to have some level of control over that personal device. So if that employee leaves, or if the device is stolen, it'll wipe your data from it. It can require that there's a pin or a passcode set on that device, even though you don't own that device. It can require antivirus software, and that's another one. If you do nothing else, require antivirus software. And you can buy it for employees to use on their home computers if they're using those for work. Mark: Yeah. The takeaway for me, and there are a lot here, and we can talk about this for hours. Maybe I could. Sherri Davidoff: I've been talking about it for 20 years. Mark: But I do like, when I think about our confidentiality rules in law, I do think saying we really ... You can't use a home computer for work that the teenage kids have access to in the evening, and the gaming. That's just victim here on the forehead if you ask me. So it underscores the value of saying, "If you have the financial wherewithal, let's supply our employees and staff and associates, whoever may be involved here, with company-owned equipment," because we can enforce the rules. We have control over that. I really like that. I but I also think that there's value in having some policies and then thinking through some of the issues that you just identified. And let's have written policies that staff are well aware of, so that if they are constantly breaking the rules, which is so easy to do because we trust our personal devices. Do we not? Mark: We seem to trust our personal devices a little bit more than work devices, whether it's because we know we're not being watched, if you will, in terms of just when you're on corporate device, they have the ability to monitor what's happening to the device, that kind of thing. I don't know what it is. But I think having a policy allows you to, well, not monitor, but hold people accountable. Sherri Davidoff: Absolutely. Mark: And say, "Look, if you're not doing something." Sherri Davidoff: Yeah. A policy's a great first step. And remember, progress not perfection. I do recognize, especially right now, a lot of people just don't have any other option besides using personal devices. And if you do that, again, that next step is to create a separate account at least. So you're not sharing the same account as your kids or as the other people you're working with. And if you can, having a separate device for work is definitely the way to go if you are able to do that. Mark: Well, Sherri, it's been a pleasure. I want to share with our listeners that Sherri has made available some remote work cybersecurity checklists for employees and managers. And this isn't live yet, but when it will be, you can click right there and have access to these. They're excellent tools. And Sherri, thank you very much for making that available to our audience. For those of you listening today, I hope you have found something of value. And if you have an idea of a topic that you feel strongly about that you think others would enjoy hearing, or you have a speaker that you'd be interested in seeing if we can have join the podcast, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. My email address is mbass, M-B-A-S-S, @alpsinsurance.com. Mark: And before I close, for those listening to the mileage score, you have to go back to earlier podcasts. I'm up to 700 even as of today, so I'm getting there. That's it. Thank you all. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye.

This week the vassals are joined by philosophy academic Clif Mark (@goodintheorypod) to discuss his new podcast “Good in Theory”, Drew discovers what the true meaning of platonic is, and Amish calls out Plato for ripping of Confucius.  ______ Based out of the Duchy of Toronto, Drew Picklyk and Amish Patel serve as vigilant vassals of the Late Capitalist West. Join them as they look into the cultural insanity that surrounds us on a daily basis in an attempt to find some common ground amongst all warring factions. 

Do you feel like you're living on another planet right now? There's a reason. Humans are social animals and social distancing and isolation is not our normal here on Earth. Mark sits down with his son Tristan, and Carmel Johnston, two crew members from NASA's HI-SEAS IV study to learn what is required to survive and even thrive during an extended mission to Mars and how we can adapt our own behaviors to stay happy here on Earth. Transcript:  MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Welcome. You're listening to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager here at ALPS, and today we're going to have a little fun, do something a little bit interesting. Believe it or not, I'm going to try to make some connections between Mars and all of these stay-at-home or stay-in-place orders all over the country. Now, how are we going to do that? I guess saying Mars is a little bit misleading. We are going to talk about a Mars simulation and I am so pleased and excited to have two very special guests on today and honestly both of them are very special people in my life and in the life of my wife. The first is Carmel Johnston. MARK: Carmel is quite an outdoorsman. Boy, trying to get her to do a podcast can be a bit of a challenge, but just because you never know where she is. I was watching this morning, a YouTube of her as she was doing a TV show in Australia of all places, but she also spends quite a bit of time now in Glacier National Park, another place that is near and dear to many of our hearts as folks in Montana. Carmel has a background from Montana State University, a master of science in land resources and environmental sciences. And now she is the Utility Systems Repairer and Operator at the National Park Service. And actually, Carmel, you're going to have to explain, is that the same position in Glacier? CARMEL JOHNSTON: Yeah, so it's called Utility Systems Repair Operator, but essentially it's a water and wastewater operator position so, all the water that people drink we create, and then all the wastewater that happens afterwards, we treat before it is given back to the earth. MARK: Okay, very good. And I'll explain a little bit more about Carmel here in just a minute. The other guest that I'd like to introduce is someone that goes back in my life quite a few years. We first met in, I believe it was, Tristan, wasn't it 1984 if I'm remembering correctly? This is Tristan Bassingthwaighte and Tristan among, and again, like Carmel, these two, you can find them all over the world at different times. Of note, Tristan received his Masters in Architecture from Tongji University in Shanghai, and then went on to complete his Doctorate of Architecture from the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Tristan has done all kinds of things, but my interest in having him visit with us today is, some of what he does is, how would you describe it, in terms of the different, I'm losing my words here, Tristan, but what type of architecture ties in here? TRISTAN BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: I specialize in the design of habitats, research bases, even you could say, drilling platforms, the areas people would go on earth or in outer space that are isolated, dangerous working environments, confined environments, and then how to understand the social and psychological issues that occur with people there, being removed from family and society and walks in the park and fresh coffee, and trying to address them architecturally, so that we could say, live on Mars for 10 years and not have everybody go crazy or something along those lines. MARK: My senior moment was extreme environment design. That's what I was struggling with, just every once in a while recall isn't what it should be. While you listeners might be wondering why I have these two guests visiting with us today and what Mars has to do with stay-at-home orders. Both of these folks were participants in a Mars simulation. It was, what is called HI-SEAS IV, and it was a 366 day mission, and Carmel was the crew commander for this mission and Tristan was the crew space architect, and they really have all kinds of stories and insights and experiences to share. But this was a project between NASA and the University of Hawaii, and they literally lived in a very small space for 366 days, never being able to go outside on the side of, it was Mauna Loa, if I'm remembering correctly, but Carmel, could I have you just share a very brief little background in terms of what this experience was about? And Tristan, of course jump in anytime. TRISTAN: Hmm. CARMEL: Yeah, so we were the six participants of the Hawai'i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation Mission Number Four and that consisted of the six of us living in a 1200 square foot dome on the side of Mauna Loa for the year, and like you said, we couldn't go outside unless we were wearing a space suit and we lived off freeze dried, dehydrated powdered ingredients for the year unless we were able to grow our own vegetables, and we were the guinea pigs studying the effects of isolation and confinement on all of us and out of all the different tools and techniques that people have thought of up to this point for dealing with those psychological aspects of confinement. MARK: Yes. Yep. Very good. And Tristan, maybe you can share just a little bit when we talk about isolation, there were six for those of you listening, a total of six individuals participated in this year long mission and I believe it's to this day, the longest isolation experiment run yet here in the States anyway, but there's isolation, too, in terms of communication and Tristan, could you share a little bit about that? TRISTAN: Yeah. When you actually go up there, you find you've got your row of laptops so we can all do our work and research and everything. You've got several electronic devices like iPads and everything to do quizzes and surveys, enter the various information for the experiments we're doing, write about how we feel, et cetera, sort of tracking our emotions and reactions during the course of the year. But also there's a viciously delayed internet that only allows access to a few research sites because that's what we were doing. Phones don't work. TRISTAN: There's no real time communication with anybody that's not in the dome. So if I was going to say, write an email to grandma, I could compose the whole thing and send it off and it would be held in an ESSA server for 20 minutes and then delivered to her. So, all of our digital communications that people focus on these days are light speed delayed the way they would be if we were actually on Mars. So, you're very, very, very removed from everybody physically and in terms of communication and every way you can imagine. So it's not just, oh, you're in a tent but you can hang out on Snapchat if you want. MARK: Very good, thank you. When you guys signed up for this and got selected in terms of what you were thinking it would be like versus what you ultimately discovered, did you know what you were getting into? TRISTAN: Yeah, I would say I had a fair idea because I was actually applying to this near the tail end of my Masters research and the Masters research was also on [inaudible 00:08:24] environmental architecture, sociology, psychology, and I only found HI-SEAS because I was trying to research analogs that were on earth and then honestly, just ask some of the participants questions and that accidentally turned into applying. MARK: How about you, Carmel? CARMEL: Yeah, I think we knew a lot about what we were getting into, but there's definitely a component to it that we had no idea how isolating it really would be. And several of us had done previous analog simulations before, not to that length of time, but two week simulations here and there, and each simulation you go through whether it's HERA or MDRS or HI-SEAS or SIRIUS, any of those, they all have different components to it. And so, ours was the delayed communications. You had unlimited amount of data to be dropping data packages if NASA needed to send us something, but it would be delayed and it would be in the say, constraints of how they would actually send data to Mars. CARMEL: Whereas other ones it's, oh you have unlimited real time communication but you only get a certain amount of data per day or per week or something. And then every simulation space suits are different and the different things that you're testing are different, which is great because we're compiling all these resources of the different aspects of isolation and confinement, and then, the ultimate test is going there. And so, hopefully if we practice all these different components to it here, then it will it make easier for actually getting there. MARK: Maybe, I'm just going to take a tangent for a quick second, in light of our listening audience here and I really didn't explain what HI-SEAS stands for. It is the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation. So it's H-I dash S-E-A-S, if you ever want to look something up and see what HI-SEAS is all about. Was it hard? CARMEL: Oh yeah. MARK: How so? CARMEL: I would say that it, well, up to this point, it's been the hardest thing I've done in my life, but that is barring that my parents are still here and so when they go, that'll probably be the hardest thing I have to deal with. But having a lack of communication because our connection to society and our friends and family is humongous and each one of us, Tristan will tell stories about his friends that fell off. Each one of us had friends that wouldn't write back or they'd forget about us until the Martian came out, and then all of a sudden we get a lot of emails and people saying, "Oh, we're thinking of you." And you're like, well, where were you two months ago when I really needed you to respond back to an email? CARMEL: And it's kind of the out of sight, out of mind concept of as soon as you're gone then people forget because you're not in their regular life all the time. And we were just stuck up there doing our research and it was very easy to feel disconnected from the people that we cared about the most, which made us feel like, well, maybe we don't mean that much to them or you start playing all these games in your head about why people don't respond back. It's probably because they have kids and they're living their lives. But to you it seems like, well, this is really important to me. MARK: Tristan? TRISTAN: Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. I had all sorts of people that kind of vanished and dropped away. I mean, half of our relationships these days seem to be over email or text anyways. So, you'd think they'd be able to keep up, but it kind of gave you a good opportunity to, healthy or unhealthy, coping mechanisms can help get you through some stuff. So, it was a chance to pick up some hobbies and try and focus on work and do some other things as well, but you definitely feel it. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). How did you make peace with that, I guess? How were you able to move forward? Because nobody at the end came out crazy, ready to be hospitalized. Nobody died, in terms of, you didn't kill each other, that kind of thing. So how'd you do it? TRISTAN: I think the big thing for me was a string of tiny little fun victories mixed with a few larger goals over the course of the last eight months perhaps. So, Carmel and Cyprian got really into trying to run a marathon and I thought that was the worst idea ever because who wants to run forever? That just hurts. And eventually, Carmel talked me into it and I ended up doing that. So I mean that was a, what did I do, like two and a half months of training to actually get up to that? CARMEL: Yeah, I don't remember having to talk you into it. I think you were like, "Hey, I think I could do this." And we were like, "Well, make your training plan. You can totally do it." TRISTAN: Yeah. Yeah, something like that. So, you start to run and everything and then I think she and Cyprian were coming by every half hour leaving treats on the treadmill and spraying me with water bottles and stuff. So, you've got your camaraderie on the inside and then when there's not some massive thing that you're working on or accomplish that day, Carmel and I invented the pizza cupcake, a lot of fun, small things that like, "Oh, this is today's victory. I have changed the culinary world." MARK: Can you, Carmel, just share for everybody listening again what running a marathon in a dome looks like? CARMEL: So, we have a treadmill there and at the beginning of the year, the treadmill was kind of adjacent to the window and then we found that Cyprian kept falling off of it because he was looking out the window, and so we put it in front of the window and then at least you had the same Mars landscape to look at while you're running, but for the most part you have to watch a lot of movies because running a marathon in general is pretty time consuming depending on how fast you're grounding. Either way, it's a lot of movement and listening to movies or watching movies or listening to podcasts or something, it's kind of the only way to take away from the monotony of one foot in front of the other for so darn long. MARK: Yeah, and for those listening again, can you appreciate what they're sharing? They're running marathons on a treadmill and trust me, this isn't a state-of-the-art brand new high tech thing, in front of, I wouldn't say a window, my memory is it was the window, and it is about the size of maybe a large pizza pan. It's just a circle and you're looking out at volcanic rock. There's nothing out there. So, just trying to put that in perspective. Crazy kinds of stuff. Did you want to share? Go ahead. I think I cut you off. CARMEL: Oh, you're okay. Sometimes there were clouds so that really broke it up and made it a little change of scenery. But yeah, it was pretty monotonous the whole time when you're running, but at the same time, that's the thing that's breaking the other monotonous cycle of your life, which is research and cooking food and being around the same people all day every day, and so that's actually kind of an escape is doing something pretty monotonous. It's funny that way. MARK: Let's shift gears just a little bit. These stay-in-place orders really are having an impact on people. I've been talking with some lawyers in recent weeks, several of whom work in the domestic relations space and they're reporting tremendous increase in families, whether it's just some abuse kinds of things going on to just divorce. People are getting a little crazy and stir crazy. A lot of people I heard in Paris for instance, you're not allowed to exercise outside now and I'd love for you guys to talk about what going outside meant for you, both in terms of how it was done and what it meant for you, but Michigan has just issued an order forbidding contact now with friends and family in terms of extended, you are not to go out and visit with anybody. You can only interact with people that are in your physical home. MARK: Now, of course, I guess you can say hi or smile at somebody at the grocery store. But that's a different thing. So, in light of the challenges, so many are having to face, that have never dealt with anything like this, and for some it's going to be four to six weeks. Others, it might be eight to 10 weeks, nothing like 366 days. But perhaps through the context of sharing your stories, how you survived and things, you could share some tips and insights into how people going through these stay-at-home, stay-in-place orders can again, come out the other side without too many bruises and nobody's killed each other. So, I'll let you guys chat here for a little bit on that. TRISTAN: Yeah well, I mean part of it is this is being forced on everyone, where as we got to volunteer. So we had to begin ours with slightly different mindset, which helps out. But I think, when you go into something like this, the problems that occur sort of, I mean you, you can imagine them being created because you're stuck inside and can't leave and there's no communication, whatever. But really, wherever you go, like when you go on a vacation, your problems are waiting for you when you get back because you were just on vacation. And when you go into isolation. You're just taking your life and your problems with you. So, I would argue that the people who are getting to spend a month with their spouse and then realize they can't stand the way they chew food and they get divorced, probably had other issues, it was likely not the the quarantine them split them all up. TRISTAN: So if you're going to be stuck somewhere and you can't go to the bars and hang with all your friends and do the normal life distraction stuff that defined your existence before all of this, you're going to, whether you realize it or not, meet yourself in some ways and realize where your priorities lay, the character traits that you actually enjoy and hate about the people you're living with. Even start to ask existential questions maybe. I know in the last like couple of weeks I've been like, what am I doing with my life and trying to just figure some of that stuff out again because I've got the time now. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's great. You're so spot on. Carmel. CARMEL: Yeah, I think that's really well put, especially because we did choose to be isolated and so, it takes a special kind of special to even want to do that. And I mean honestly, isolation isn't for everyone and we know that because there are only certain people that volunteer for isolation studies or to go to other planets or to live on the ISS or go to Antarctica. Not everyone's volunteering to do that because it just doesn't mesh well with them, and you see people who choose to overwinter in Antarctica year after year. They enjoy it or they are at least able to get through it because that matches with that personality. So, having this forced upon everyone in the world right now really is kind of taking a lifestyle choice for some people and making it a mandatory lifestyle. So, finding coping mechanisms, things that help you make your life as easy as possible for where you are at right now is probably the best step for a lot of people because they might enjoy certain aspects of it, but they definitely aren't going to enjoy everything about it, as we did as well. There are certain things I miss terribly about the dome and then there are some things I'm like, I never need to go back there again for others. MARK: What would you say you missed? I find that interesting. TRISTAN: Oh, the food. CARMEL: The food. I actually kind of do miss the isolation because we were up there and you could just get so much work done and you didn't have a lot of distractions in some ways and I had a treadmill that I could run on most of the time because a couple of weeks ago they took away the gym at work and so now you're forced to exercise outside except for that it's snowing all the time, and they closed the park and they closed the reservation and you literally can't leave a one mile square radius anymore. And so, I'm going a little crazy for other reasons right now. MARK: You raised the term coping mechanisms and I think that's a good, can we explore that a little bit and just have both of you talk, what were your coping mechanisms? What really worked for you and if there was something that you tried and didn't, I'd love to hear that as well. TRISTAN: Yeah, I mean, I would say, part of the reason that we had said food was such a great thing is because Carmel's mom actually taught her to cook very well and I got to be sous chef two days out of the week inventing new things or learning how to make old favorites, whatever. We actually pulled off a super respectable salmon eggs Benedict, a double layer chocolate cake, the aforementioned pizza cupcakes. We made Swedish meat, no, not Swedish meatballs, oh, what were the meatballs we made? Italian meatballs or something and they were actually better than the meatballs at the restaurant we went to when we all got out. So it was a bit of a playing around and creative aspect there. MARK: I was working on my dissertation while I was there so I had some of my personal work as well. Some of my best selling tee shirts, I came up with the ideas and drew them while I was up there because I had the time. You sort of have the option between say, for people going through isolation now, you can do something that is numbing like getting through your favorite series or watching Battlestar, all four seasons, over the course of two weeks and you're sort of pausing yourself as a person in your life while you enjoy something. Or you could say, well I'm going to do something productive or creative and actually find ways to engage the part of yourself that wants to learn the language or an instrument or start doing art or becoming an incredible bonsai Shaffer person. One of those will actually let you survive a year and one of them will let you get through a couple of weeks. TRISTAN: So, I think we're actually going to start to see as these stay- at-home orders carry on, more problems, because a lot of people are doing the numbing route, where they're investing heavily in say, television or whatever, something that's sort of a passive hobby, instead of something that actually lends meaning to what they're doing and helps them feel like they are progressing. MARK: Following up on that, I get concerned, too, about alcohol abuse. If there's not, the numbing kind of thing, just to kind of get through it and it's so easy to just casually increase and increase and increase and what becomes after dinner or before dinner beverage or two, you have a little bit at lunch, you have some in the afternoon. What the heck? I've got another beer or so in the fridge to get the nine o'clock movie and on and on. Carmel, how about you? Your thoughts. CARMEL: Yeah, I think, I have lots of thoughts. I've been thinking about this for five years now. I think right now it's okay to acknowledge that it sucks. Nobody's really having a great time right now and it's okay to say, this is not where we wanted to be and it's changing everything and it's hard, but what can we gain out of it? And it's okay to live in the grumpy mood for a little bit, but then the thing that's going to bring you out of it is planning and having a goal for the day, or I had one person who was retired, they told me the other week, I have at least one thing I have to accomplish every day, even if it's just making my bed or it's stacking firewood or something else. I have to write on the list, I did one thing every day because then once you do one, it'll be find, you'll start doing a bunch of other things, but if you sit in bed first thing in the morning and start watching a show, then it's six shows later, you're like, hmm, I guess I'm kind of hungry now and I might make something or I might just eat leftovers. And so having things to do in your day that need to be done that day is actually helpful because you have a drive and a reason to go. CARMEL: And I'm so thankful that I am still working right now because I have something that makes me, I mean, I would be not getting out of bed otherwise, but you know I have a purpose and I am contributing every single day right now and that gives me a lot of fulfillment knowing that I am still able to do this and I'm not forced to be at home because that would be extremely challenging for anyone to be told, you can't go to work, you're still getting paid, but then you're like, well heck, what am I even contributing right now? So, as Tristan said, coming up with workouts or a craft or a hobby or something you want to master that gives you a purpose for every single day. It's very easy for all your days to run together and to not know what day of the week it is, but if you have something that keeps you going forward every single day, that's a longterm game plan versus a short term plan. MARK: I obviously vicariously went through this experience just as a parent and trying to stay in touch and so I kind of lived the experiment as an earthling. It seemed apparent to me that two coping mechanisms that were very, very effective, and I think not only for the two of you, but that became effective and helped others in the dome, and that would be the use of humor and the ability to get outside. Now, I want to underscore for people listening, getting outside of the dome is not like you get to walk through the air lock and take your tee shirt off and get a little sun and go for a run up the hill. You're in spacesuits, you don't get the fresh air, the sun isn't on your skin for 366 days. Either both of you, if you would just share some thoughts about the importance of, did that matter? How did it matter, in terms of humor or just a change of scenery? TRISTAN: Yeah, I mean the big thing is it's a new stimulus. So, instead of the treadmill to try and escape from whatever's going on or doing our work or our hobbies, you actually can go over the landscape. The physical exertion is, while it has the same unpleasantness as jogging for a long time, it can at the same time feel cathartic and like you're moving your body because you are, so it can help meet some of your exercise goals and help you workout some stress. TRISTAN: But we were lucky enough that, I don't know if it's on the entire mountain, but we had several in the local area we were allowed to explore, but we had lava tubes so you could schedule an EVA, and do all this paperwork and get everything set up, and then the next day, you suit up and go outside and your teams and everything. And instead of just walking around on a barren landscape, which can be beautiful for its own aesthetic reasons, you're getting to wiggle through strange holes and cracks and find giant house-sized volumes under the lava that are totally empty or have a little skylight at the top with a shaft of light and trees and it's dark and a little scary but super pretty, and just this really wonderful fun exploring thing. And that was a massive stimulus and change of pace compared to whatever was going on inside the dome because we had dozens of these lava tubes and pits and everything that you could explore. MARK: Very cool. Carmel. CARMEL: Yeah, I agree that those are probably, I'd say humor, going outside, and exercise are the top three mechanisms for keeping yourself sane while you're there. Tristan was the diffuser of almost all situations we had when anything would get tense, he'd crack a joke about something and we'd be laughing and then everything would be better or at least, it would be better than it was before. And so, one of the most valuable roles you have in a crew is to have humor, to maintain humor around a situation. You can be serious and get your work done, but being lighthearted for certain things is absolutely necessary because if you can't laugh about it then you're going to be in a world of hurt later. CARMEL: And I agree, going outside was huge and we did have, most of our EVAs were, our extra vehicular activities, [inaudible 00:30:28] outside. We put on our space suit and most of them were meant for doing geology research or lava tubes or the different tasks that the research team had for us to do out there. But sometimes it was just to go have fun because things would be so tense. You're like, I just need to go outside and maybe walk in a straight line because you can only do like 21 steps in the dome before you have to turn and round a corner, and you can't just keep doing laps. You have to go back and forth and just go outside and use your long distance vision and stretch all your muscles and you can even just run down the road if you wanted to, just totally different than being inside, and so mixing up that, like Tristan said, the stimuli of being indoors versus outdoors was really, really important. MARK: Yeah, I'm finding that's what's helping me right now. Now I telecommute so a stay-at-home order isn't quite the same impact for my wife and I than with other family situations perhaps, but I've been getting out. Since the stay-at-home, Tristan, you might be impressed here with your old man. I put 150 miles on my bike since the stay-at-home, just get outside, you can still socially distance. Nobody's within six feet of me, but I'm pedaling like crazy, and it's just been good. It really does make a difference, even just in mood. CARMEL: Fresh air is super good for everyone. That's got to be good for, if you are sick, having some fresh air go through your lungs and if you're not sick, helping keep yourself healthy and moving strong. MARK: Well, I feel like I've taken a lot of your time here and I so, so appreciate your willingness of both of you to share a little bit with the ALPS audience. Before I let you go, do you have one final tip or comment you'd like to share in terms of just, this is your chance to say it again, people that are just trying to make it work and figure out how not to go stir crazy. A final thought from each of you. TRISTAN: Yeah, I mean, I'd say the biggest is you've got the time down to let your vices squeeze you. So try and balance that out with less immediately fun but more longterm productive goals because it sucks now. Nobody wants to go and work out for two hours a day or do that paperwork that's lying around but actually producing something instead of just indulging in something will make four weeks feel a lot more like four and less like 10. MARK: Yeah, yeah. Carmel. CARMEL: I like that. I like that a lot. I also think, finding more than one thing, because one of my downfalls in the dome was that running was my thing and then anytime the treadmill wasn't available, whether it was power or it was broken or whatever, I was a wreck because I just didn't have the ability to do my one coping mechanism, and so having a whole suite of them, whether it's painting or you have some online videos you could do or a whole variety of things that make you happy and are helping you and can be productive at the same time, that would be good because if all of a sudden the gym closes and then it's bad weather outside. Then now you're like, well, what am I supposed to do? And you have all this stress or anxiety built up that I can't get rid of. You need to have a whole suite of things you can do in order to be able to relieve that. MARK: Yeah. To that, I would like to add in terms of the comments both of you shared. Just as a family member that was on earth during this whole experience, I would like to underscore the importance of social connectivity that both Carmel and Tristan talked about earlier in this podcast. We can't necessarily go out and meet friends at the local brew pub or something and have a nice evening, but there are alternatives, and to try to just call a little bit more, talk on the phone, do some Zoom meetings with family. We've done a little bit of this with some of the kids and that's been a lot of fun. MARK: So, don't underestimate as well, the value of staying socially connected. I think that can make a big difference. Well, that brings the podcast to an end. To those of you listening, thank you very much for taking the time. I hope you found something of value and please don't hesitate to reach out to me at ALPS. It's m bass, mbass, B-A-S-S @alpsinsurance.com. Happy to try and help in terms of any questions, concerns you might have on ethics, risk management, or even just getting through a stay-at-home order. That's it, folks. Have a good one. Bye bye.

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

Do you work because you want to or have to? Have you ever considered investing in land to generate enough passive income that exceeds your fixed expenses? Today, I am talking to Mark Podolsky of Frontier Equity Properties. Mark’s passion is investing in land, creating wealth efficiently, and helping others develop their inner geeky entrepreneurial spirit. He’s known as, “The Land Geek,” for buying and selling thousands of raw and undeveloped land deals. Also, he’s the author of Dirt Rich, a guide to building a passive income model in land investing. You’ll Learn... [02:40] Beat Friday Blues: How and why Mark became a land investor.  [05:40] Breaking Down Passive Income Model: No emotional attachment to land and distressed financially.  [07:26] Property Checklist: Due diligence to confirm ownership, back taxes, no title breaks, and no liens.  [08:25] Buy the property free and clear, and sell it in 30 days or less.  [08:40] Neighbors: Built-in best buyers to protect privacy, views, and expand holdings. [09:09] Other Options: Sites with specialized buyers and sellers of raw and undeveloped land (i.e., Craigslist, Facebook, Land Flip, Land Moto).  [10:00] No renters, rehabs, renovations, and rodents; exempt from erroneous real estate legislation.  [10:48] Price Point of Fixed Expenses: Typically, $10,000 a month in passive income.  [12:05] Operating Entity: Spend a few hours a day on land investing business, and automated software/virtual assistants do the rest.  [14:35] How to get started? Everything is hard in the beginning. Embrace the suck. [16:00] What Mark loves about land investing? No physical inventory, no competition, inefficient market, one-time sale, and passive income.  Tweetables Core Business Philosophy: Happy customers guaranteed. Raw land is the best passive income. There’s nothing not to love about land investing for passive income.  True Wealth: Work where you want, when you want, and with whom you want. Resources The Land Geek Dirt Rich by Mark Podolsky Frontier Equity Properties The Land Geek Podcast Warren Buffett’s Margin of Safety Land Moto Land Flip Dodd-Frank Financial Regulatory Reform Bill Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) S.A.F.E. Act FortuneBuilders Robert Kiyosaki Zig Ziglar GeekPay DoorGrowClub Facebook Group DoorGrowLive DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrow Website Score Quiz Transcript Jason: Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers, to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your business, and life, and you’re open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you’re crazy for doing it, you think they’re crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I’m your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let’s get into the show. Today, I am hanging out with Mark Podolsky. Mark, welcome to the show. I’m going to read your bio here because we want to qualify you and then we’ll let you brag a little bit because you got to do a little bit of starting out here. Today’s topic (for those who are just tuning in) is land investing for passive income. We’re going to learn how to use land investing to create a passive income stream. Mark J. Podolsky (AKA The Land Geek), is widely considered the country’s most trusted and foremost authority on buying and selling raw, undeveloped land within the United States for almost two decades. Mark has been actively investing in real estate and raw land and has completed over 5000 unique transactions. Mark’s company, Frontier Equity Properties, LLC, is an A+ rated Better Business Bureau real estate company. Mark has achieved this level of success largely due to his core business philosophy, happy customers guaranteed. Mark is the host of one of the top-rated podcasts in the Investing Category on iTunes, aptly titled The Best Passive Income Model and The Art of Passive Income. He is also the host of The Land Geek podcast: Work Smart. Earn More. Learn How. Mark, there you go. Give us a little bit of background on you and how you got into this land investing. Mark: Let’s rewind to 2000 and imagine me fighting traffic, 45 minutes in the car there and back, micromanaged, stressed out at an investment banking job, working with private equity groups specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Jason, it got so bad for me that I wouldn’t get the Sunday blues anticipating Monday coming around. I’d get the Friday blues anticipating the weekend going by really fast and heading back to work on Monday. My firm hired this guy and he’s telling me that as a side hustle, he’s going to tax deed auctions, he’s buying up raw land pennies on the dollar, he’s flipping them online, and he’s making a 300% return on his investment. Jason, I’m looking at companies all day long and a great company has 15% EBITDA margins or free cash flow. Great company. Average company is 10%. I’m looking at companies all day long, less than 10%. Of course, I’ll believe him. We go to New Mexico. I do exactly what he tells me to do. I’ve got $3000 saved up for car repairs so I can only buy $3000 worth of land. I buy 10 half-acre parcels, an average price of $300 each. I put them up all online and they all sell 30 days later from an average price of $1200 each. It worked. 300%. I took all that money, I went to another auction in Arizona (which is where I live) and again, it’s 2000. There’s no one in the room, there’s no competition, I’m buying up lots, I’m buying up acres for nothing. Over the next six months, I sold all that property and I made over $90,000 cash. I go to my wife, and she’s pregnant. I said, “Honey, I’m going to quit my job. I’m going to become a full-time land investor.” She says, “Absolutely not.” So I worked land investing part-time and it took 18 months for the land investing income to exceed the investment banking income and then, I quit. I’ve been doing it full-time ever since. Jason: It’s so easy, anybody can do it? Mark: Yeah, I wish. I wish it was so easy. It’s a simple model but anything worth doing in life is not easy. What I could do is I could walk you through the model and then, odds are you’ll just stop the podcast and quit doing what you’re doing and start land investing with me, but that’s okay. That happens a lot. You want me to walk you through it? Jason: Yeah. Mark: Jason, where do you live? Jason: I’m in Santa Clarita, California. Mark: Okay. Let’s imagine that you own 10 acres of land in Texas. I go to the county treasurer and I get a list of people that owe back taxes. Sure enough, there’s Jason Hull in Santa Clarita, California, $200 in back taxes on this 10-acre parcel. Jason, you’re advertising two things to me. Number one, you have no emotional attachment to that raw land. You’re in California. The property is located in Texas. Number two, you’re distressed financially in some way. Because when we don’t pay for things, we don’t value them in the same way. And you haven’t paid your property taxes. As a result, the county treasure keeps sending you notices saying that, “Jason, if you don’t pay your taxes, you’re eventually going to lose your 10 acres to a tax deed or tax lien investor. What I will do is I would look at the comparable sales on that 10-acre parcel. I’m going to take the lowest CUP and I’m going to divide by four. That’s going to get me what Warren Buffett calls a 300% margin of safety. I’m going to actually send you an offer of $2500 on that 10-acre parcel assuming that the lowest CUP is $10,000. I send you an offer for $2500. Now, you accept it because for you, $2500 is better than nothing and you haven’t gone out to look at the property. You just don’t care about it anymore. In reality, 3%-5% of people accept my “top dollar offer.” Now that you’ve accepted the offer, I’ve got to go through due diligence or in-depth research. Number one, I got to confirm you still own the property. Number two, I have to confirm the back taxes are only $200. Number three, I have to make sure there have been no breaks in the chain of title. Number four, I have to make sure there are no liens or encumbrances. I have this whole property checklist and it goes on and on and on. If it’s a property deal that’s worth less than $5000, I’ll actually close it directly with my team in the Philippines. We’re hooked up to an American title company. I pay $11 for due diligence. They’ll give me a whole property report. I’ll get the GIS maps, the plat maps, aerial maps. If it’s an area I don’t know, I’ll have somebody go out there, stamp on the property for me, take a video and shoot photos throughout the property checklist. What are the neighbors doing out there, what’s the road like, all these things. Everything checks out and now, I buy the property from you for $2500. You get $2300 of it, $200 goes to the treasurer, and now I have that property free and clear. I’m going to sell this property 30 days or less. The reason I’m going to do this is I have a built-in best buyer. Do you know who it is? Jason: No. Mark: The neighbors. I’m going to sell that to the neighbour saying, “Hey, here’s your opportunity. Protect your privacy, protect your views, expand your holdings, know your neighbour.” Oftentimes, the neighbors will buy it. If they pass, I’ll go to my buyers list. If my buyers list passes, I’ll go to a little website you might not have heard of called Craigslist (10th most traffic website in the United States). I’ll go to an even smaller one. It’s called Facebook buy-and-sell group and marketplace. And then, I’ll go to these platforms that specialize in buying and selling raw land, landmodo.com, landandfarm.com, landsofamerica.com, landflip.com. It goes on and on. Now, the way I’m going to sell it is I’m going to make it irresistible. I’m going to ask for a $2500 down payment. I get my money out on the down, within (let’s say) six months of that. I’m going to get a car payment, let’s say $449 a month, 9% interest over the next 84 months. Essentially, I’ve got a one-time sale, I have passive income of $449 a month, 9% interest over the next 84 months, no renters, no rehabs, no renovations, no rodents. And because I’m not dealing with a tenant, I’m exempt from Dodd-Frank, RESPA, and the SAFE act (this onerous real estate legislation). The game that we play is can we create enough of this land notes where our passive income exceeds our fixed expenses and then we’re working because we want to, not because we have to. The beautiful part about all of this is 90% of it is automated with software virtual assistants. It’s great. Jason: What is the price point of fixed expenses typically? Mark: For most people, after you earn about $10,000 a month in passive income (that’s $120,000 a year), you’re in pretty good shape. Now, we have some clients who are doctors and lawyers. I have a client. He’s been working with us for 10 months. He’s at $15,000 a month passive and he just went from 5 days a week at his law firm to 2 days a week and he’s spending the rest of his time with his dad who needs help working with him and the other two days doing what he wants to do. We have so many clients that once they hit that point, they retire their spouse. They quit their job. They do what they really want to do in life because the whole idea of this is that we can always make more money but we can’t get more time. For me, true wealth means you wake up and you don’t have to be anywhere. You work where you want, when you want, and with whom you want. That’s really the goal of doing all this. Jason: Love that. What else do people typically ask you about this? When you say it, it sounds really easy. It sounds like something that maybe anybody can do, but it’s like starting a part-time job if you start getting into this. Mark: It is. It is an operating entity. We ask our clients to spend about an hour or two a day doing this. That will move the needle because with our virtual assistants and our software, it’s pretty automated. We actually have automation software for marketing. We can automate our craigslist and our Facebook postings with a posting automator. The only two things that (as CEO of your land investing business) you, Jason, actually have to do, is county research because if you get that screwed up, that whole thing falls off the rails, so you have to pick a good county. From there, you’re going to make sure that you get your pricing right, so you might want to work with a VA, train them, and show them, “Hey, look. Here’s our lowest comps dividing by four. We need a response rate of 3%-5%. If it’s under 3%, our offer is too low. If it’s over 5%, let’s get nervous. Why are they selling us their property? We might have to renegotiate.” We have our metrics in there.  As far as the rest of the process, you can get virtual assistants to do our due diligence. You can get an intake manager that can actually talk to your sellers (because that’s a big time-suck as well). From there, you can close. We like to use Simplifile accountings, so that we can record our deeds online, so I don’t have to go and do a lot of whole paperwork that way. Once we own it, again, we have an inexpensive virtual assistant getting us through GIS, all the neighbors information, uploading that to our software, sending out our neighbor letters. There’s an API with lob.com, which does our mailings. On the backend of it, we use a software called GeekPay.io that is a set-it-and-forget-it system on collecting our money. We get our down payment via credit card and then we get our monthly payments via ACH. It does all the amortization. It does all the calculations. It charges fees but it does it through notifications. If that ACH bounces, it will charge the credit card on file. We went from an 8% default rate to a 4% default rate. I personally worked two hours a week in Frontier Properties, doing the kind of volume that we do. Jason: Sounds great. That’s pretty incredible. How hard is it for somebody to get started with this that’s new? Mark: It’s like anything in life. Everything is hard in the beginning. You know what’s really hard, Jason? Learning to read. We don’t remember it. We forgot how hard that was in the very beginning but you had a good teacher, they broke it down for you step-by-step, and you are with other people. It was just a thing, like everyone can do this and you’re just expected to do it. It’s the same kind of thing. What happens is we’re so ingrained after all these years of schooling that you have to achieve what you achieve, to go back and embrace beginner’s mind and embrace the suck. It’s hard. If you can do that, if you can be comfortable being uncomfortable and you have some grit, you can be successful in anything in life, whether it’s my land investing niche or growing your doors. It doesn’t matter. Nothing worth doing is easy. Jason: It sure is nothing worth doing is easy. The challenge is if somebody is going to choose into doing this, choose into doing property management, or choose into doing any business, they have to fall in love with this. They have to get excited about this. Help the listeners understand what do you love about doing this? Your clients that get involved in this, what do they love about it that’s different from other entrepreneurial ventures that they get into? Mark: The main reason that people like this model is number one, there’s no physical inventory. Number two, there’s little to no competition. If you go on HGTV or the DIY Network, you’re not going to ever see me on Flip This Land. The before pictures is raw land, the after pictures is raw land. It’s not going to be much fun to watch me in front of a computer. If you go to [...] meeting and there are 100 people in that room, 99 of them are house flippers, landlords, or wholesalers. You and I are the only land guys. Number three, you have an inefficient market. I’ve got a hedge fund manager that loves this business because he’s like, “Mark, there are very few inefficient markets left out there. Nobody knows the value of raw land.” Now, that can be very frustrating in the beginning, but it’s also very exciting once you get your arms around it.  No physical inventory, no competition, inefficient, and then you have the fact that it’s a one-time sale and then the passive income versus let’s say I flip a house. I make $20,000 on a flip. I have a new problem. What do I do with my $20,000? I can’t put it in the bank. It’s not going to earn anything. I have to keep redeploying that capital. Once we get to let’s say $10,000 a month of passive income, what our net worth? How long would it take you to have an investment of $120,000 a year at say 2% interest in the bank? That’s over $3 million you and I would have to save. How long, Jason, would it take for you to save $3 million? How long would it take anybody to save $3 million? Jason: I probably would never do it. Mark: Yeah. 12-36 months, you can have that kind of cash flow and then your bankers are really happy with you because your net worth is over $3 million. The fact that—I’m not proud of it—I can’t even screw in a light bulb. I tried to flip a house once. I am not interested in physical things so the subs come out there. I meet the subs. They don’t show up. Just the capital outlay, I started with $3000. My buddy, [...], started at $800. You’re not going to ever get knocked out of the game in this niche. The dollars are just too small. If you go into multifamily housing, you do one bad deal and you’re done for 10 years. You’re BK or you’re just a pariah in the investment community because you lost all your investors money. This is not like that at all. You have an easy entry point, you have no physical inventory, you have no competition. You have a one-time sale on passive income. You have an inefficient market. There’s nothing not to like about it. I think what’s interesting is if you go to a party and you tell people you’re a land investor, they’ll yawn. It’s not sexy. Definitely not sexy. Maybe you lie and say you’re in multifamily housing. Jason: I don’t know if that’s super sexy sometimes either, but yeah. Mark: I mean it depends who you’re talking to. Jason: How do people get started in this? It sounds interesting. My interest is piqued. I’m sure some people listening are interested. How do they get started with this because I’m sure there’s a fairly steep learning curve? There’s got to be a reason why everybody isn’t doing it. How saturated is this? Mark: It’s not saturated at all because again, it’s just not sexy. It’s not conventional. The marketing budgets of the people that are in the house flipping world like Robert Kiyosaki or FortuneBuilders, that’s really where people thought to. Land investing, you have a mental hurdle for people where they think, “Well, I’ve never bought land.” We all know everyone needs a place to live. Nobody needs raw land. You don’t wake up today and say, “Boy, I really got to own 10 acres today.” Jason: That land that nobody is using and nobody seems to want. That land. Mark: Right. It’s a marketing business. You have to interrupt somebody’s day, pique their interest, and make it irresistible. I’ll tell you, after over 5200 deals, I’ve never been stuck with a piece of land. You buy any asset, 25–30 cents on the dollar, there’s someone else on the other end of that deal. Whether it be a piece of land, a car, a trinket, it doesn’t matter. The market is the market. So to get started, I would say you’ve got to learn from somebody who’s done in. For example, let’s say you and I are going to go to Mount Everest together. We’re going to climb this big mountain. Jason: We’re not just going to wing it. Mark: Yeah. You’re going to someone who’s done it a million times and they can tell you the best routes quickly, efficiently, and safely to do it. That’s what you want to do. You can start with that. In fact, for the listeners, I would say that I have a $97 course that I’d love to offer them for free. If they just go to thelandgeek.com/launchkit, they can go ahead and get that course for free. Start there and then see if they like it or not. Jason: Their time investment is 1-2 hours a day? Mark: If that, yeah. It depends if they’re using tools or not. It also depends if they have a scarcity mentality or abundance mentality. A lot of people, when they start doing this, they think they can penny-pinch their way to wealth. They don’t want to use the tools that are out there.  Jason: “No, I’ll do it myself. I’ll watch 120 Youtube videos and figure out how to do it myself.” Mark: Yeah, and you can do that. But again, my whole philosophy is that I can always make more money. I can’t get more time. So, anything that’ll save you time, I’ll invest in. Jason: I say something very similar to my clients. That makes sense. Anything else anybody should know before we wrap this up and how can they get in touch with you? Mark: If you have that mindset that Zig Ziglar says, “If you'll do for the next 3–5 years what other people won't do, you’ll be able to do for the rest of your life what other people can’t do.” You’ve got to get your reps in and you have to embrace the suck. Again, nothing worth doing in life is easy. It might be a simple model, but it’s not easy. You have to take action at some point  Again, the best way to get a hold of me is thelandgeek.com. I’ve got an audio book. I’ve got a book on Amazon called Dirt Rich if you want to just read about it and hear my story as well. It got really good reviews. People seem to like it. It’s not because I’m such a good writer. It’s just that they like it. Jason: Nice. Perfect. Look for the book, Dirt Rich, or check out thelandgeek.com. Mark, this is interesting. I think it’s a new idea that people certainly haven’t heard of this before on the DoorGrow Show. I appreciate you coming on and hanging out here with me. Mark: Jason, thank you so much. Again, I apologize if you’re just going to quit your business and go [...] with me. Jason: I love what I do so. Mark: See? There you go. You can do both. Jason: Both. All right. Maybe I’ll get a few people from this show that are wanting to do both. There you go. Mark, thanks again for coming on the show. We’ll let you go. Mark: Thanks, Jason. I appreciate it. Jason: If you are a property management entrepreneur and you enjoy the show, be sure to like and subscribe. If you’re watching this on Youtube or on Facebook, be sure to share it if you would. We would appreciate that. If you’re in some property management groups, we’d love to see your comments. And if you’re on iTunes, give us a review. We would really love to get that feedback. We’re putting out this content for free. We would love a little reciprocity, people. That would be really sweet of you. I would appreciate it greatly. It helps us get the word out and make a difference in this industry.  If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to grow your business, add doors, you’re struggling, you’re feeling that there’s a scarcity in the industry, there’s no scarcity in property management right now. 70% are self-managing. There’s plenty of opportunity. Reach out, talk to us, and let us help you see how you can align your business towards more warm leads and stop spending so much time trying to go with cold leads, time keepers, and time wasters. The people that are at the very end of the sales cycle are the coldest, crappiest, most price-sensitive. Those are the people searching online. They’re the leftovers that fall off the word-of-mouth table. Come sit at the table with us. We’re DoorGrow. We’ll talk to you soon. Check us out at doorgrow.com. Bye everyone. Until next time, to our mutual growth.

Featured in the hit Gimlet Media podcast, ‘The Habitat,' Dr. Tristan Bassingthwaighte, architectural designer, space researcher, and resident of NASA's yearlong Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) mission, sits down with his father, ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte, to discuss the stress factors associated with isolated, confined, and extreme environments and how to create support systems and wellness systems strong enough to survive a year in space.   Transcript:   MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Good afternoon podcast world. This is Mark Bassingthwaighte. I'm the risk manager with ALPS. Welcome to the latest episode of ALPS in Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I've got a treat for you today and honestly it is very much an honor and a privilege to introduce our guest today, because there's a family relationship here. This is our oldest son, Tristan Bassingthwaighte, and Tristan has an interesting story to share. We're going to talk about and just have a little fun. At the end, trust me, there is a message here that that relates to the practice of law. But before we jump into our conversation and share why we're interviewing Tristan, Tristan, could you just take a little time and share whatever you'd like to share about yourself for our listeners? TRISTAN BASSINGTHWIAGHTE: Yeah. I am originally from Montana as well. I've spent the last 10 years or so living in Hawaii and around the world, have three architectural degrees with a focus in space architecture and extreme environmental design, design t-shirts on the side just for fun, and as part of my research for the doctoral studies, got to live in a simulated Mars base for a year for NASA. MARK:                  Very cool and that's what we're going to talk about and when Tristan talks about his experiences, I have caught up with him and and Singapore where he was doing an internship, I caught up with him and Bangkok, which what were you doing? TRISTAN:             A spring study abroad. MARK:                  A study abroad spring study abroad. That's right. He's been in Copenhagen, did a year in Shanghai. But we're here to talk about this Mars simulation. Tristan, can you give us a little background. Who runs this simulation? What are we talking about in terms of the name of the project and a little background? TRISTAN:             The simulation itself is called HI-SEAS. It's for the a Hawaiian Space Exploration Analog and Simulation. It's run by UH with a partnership of 10 to 15 other universities around the world. NASA actually gave the program about $17 million to do a series of simulations studying social and psychological aspects of long duration isolation, confinement, essentially trying to find a way to pick a crew for an actual Mars mission that will not self-destruct, remain happy, sort of soft topics, people research. MARK:                  Yes, yes. As a dad, I remember finally over the years and I can recall when you were even a wee young when running around the house, you would say things like, "Dad, I'm going to be an astronaut someday," and "Dad, I'm going to go to Mars." I guess technically with all of the things going on with SpaceX, who knows what's going to happen here. But in your own way, you've already done it and it's just an interesting path. Can you tell us a little bit more about how did she end up here? What got you into the program? How did this all play? TRISTAN:             Honestly, it was a giant almost mistake. I was doing research while living in Shanghai for my masters on extreme environmental design and I came across the blog of a Jocelyn Dunn who was the science officer for HI-SEAS 3. While you can't do any direct communication, because at the time she was in her situation, you can leave comments on blog posts and they can respond. I asked her a bunch of questions since it was related to my research. She got back with her actual mission email. I got a bunch of fun stuff, good data, and she suggested that I was interested enough, maybe I should give a the next mission a shot. TRISTAN:             I said, "What mission?" I had no idea that was going to be a another one. It turned out that it was out of my home university back in Hawaii, so I just kind of applied on a lark. Did all the sociology tests online, did the Skype interviews, talked to the psychologists, and got it all narrowed down. Then was quite surprised when they invited me to the wilderness survival in Wyoming. Went out there, we did a week in the bush, and they picked the final six and I made the cut. I found out later a lot of the people who were also selected for crew specifically told them they wouldn't go without me. I went from not knowing that HI-SEAS existed to be locked in the dome at about three and a half months. MARK:                  That's crazy. Yeah. For those of you listening, this turned out to be, and I think still holds true to this day, the longest simulated mission run. Am I correct? TRISTAN:             It's the longest NASA Mars simulation mission run. They've got one or two longer out of Russia in China, but they were extended isolation experiments, not so much mission simulations. MARK:                  Yes. This project again, listeners, we went 366 days. TRISTAN:             Yeah, we got it on a leap year. MARK:                  Yeah. Really. I want to underscore one point. You shared a comment here about the delay talking to the person that initially got you interested in this. As a parent, when Tristan was on Mars, quote unquote, there is a delay. You cannot have real-time Skype or real-time email or anything. You can send an email and it takes 40 minutes because that would be the amount of time a signal would normally take to go to Mars. TRISTAN:             Yeah, round trip. MARK:                  Everything about simulation, they really did everything they could to to make it feel very, very real. It's just an interesting process. What was your role? TRISTAN:             I came in as the crew architect, essentially, so more of a research role than anything because the Hab was designed, but while in there I was conducting research on how people were reacting to the environment, how we might be able to change it for another series of experiments. I also managed all of the EVAs, paperwork, and was one of the de facto head chefs. MARK:                  Oh, yes. Which I gotta say can as a Dad, growing up Tristan wasn't known in the house or within the family as a, as a culinary wizard. He has a younger sister who actually went to the Culinary Institute of America in New York and is an extremely talented person in the kitchen. But it's been nice that Tristan has since really developed some skills, so I'm proud of that as well. TRISTAN:             Unfortunately, mostly with dehydrated foods. MARK:                  Well that's true. Actually, you should share a little bit about that. What was it like in terms of can you give us just a quick overview of what day to day life is like in this dome? I mean, in the amount of space? Can you take a shower? Do you have personal space? Can you just give us a sense briefly of the environment? TRISTAN:             Yeah. The downstairs, the entire area might be 1000 to 1100 square feet, so a very small home with another maybe 400 square feet up top. Each crew member essentially got their very own closet to sleep in. It's about the size of the bed and that's it. You can have a shower, but you get two minutes of shower water per person per week, make it quick. MARK:                  Yeah. Can you explain why there's only two minutes worth of water? TRISTAN:             Yeah, you were just not allowed to use it. essentially There's only so much water on the planet you would be able to use. It would have to go through $1 million water recycling machine. It's just part of the keeping supplies as efficient as possible. MARK:                  Yeah. That's playing out out. Was their recycling going on? Yes. TRISTAN:             Oh, yeah. MARK:                  Certainly there were water deliveries, but it is very much limited. There were some interesting stories where systems didn't necessarily always work. So food? TRISTAN:             Yeah, food. We have a shipping container full of high quality survival rations. The stuff you'd see online where it's like an old coffee can with say chunk salmon, but it's like $85 for that can because once you put hot water in, it's pretty freaking good. Like, the whole time I was in school, Grad school, everything, like call it that nine year period, in the dome with the dehydrated survival food was the best I ate. By a long shot. I made double layer chocolate cakes, mole sauce, enchiladas. I invented the pizza cupcake. MARK:                  Yeah. Pizza cupcake. Oh, man. Okay. Now you're talking. Of my kind of grub. It'd be fun. How did the sort of day to day tasks as opposed to the research? I guess I'm still trying to get a sense of what it was like to be in the dome socially, because that's really what this whole experiment was about. Was there a lot of camaraderie, a lot of stress, a lot of just, and what did you guys do as a group? Because there's just the six of you for 366 days. No real time. You have no connect. You have no Internet access in terms of being able to browse and say is Earth's still with us? TRISTAN:             No phones. MARK:                  Yeah, no phones. How did that play? TRISTAN:             You do a lot of stuff together because you have to. We had maybe 15 official experiments and then maybe 10 of our own that we're just doing for our own personal research. A lot of those were extra vehicular activities where you would be doing well-coordinated group, trying to do stuff in caves or out with cones, just traffic cones we had taken out, and navigating the lava inside. Inside, there's a team building exercise where your trying to maximize your personal score and the team's score, and it's sort of testing how an individual will favor themselves versus the group with various scenarios. It's all pretty subtle. TRISTAN:             Outside of that, there's definitely, I wouldn't call it a schism so much, but there's always the person, say, at work where you get along with them the best. They get your humor, whatever else, and they'll be your go to lunch person for example. There was definitely that in the dome as well. MARK:                  Just on a smaller scale? TRISTAN:             Yeah, on a smaller scale. Yeah, exactly. You know, you're talking about the social aspects of life there. The first thing you have to do is remove all of the social interactions you might have a family because they're not there anymore. You don't have the ability to be an uncle, or a brother, or an aunt, or anything of that sort. You don't have lovers or dating relationships. It's just you have your coworkers, so your society has become massively simplified and now you're trying to fill the social gaps that have been created with the people that you're with. MARK:                  Yeah. I want to come back to that, but we're sitting here talking and I want to explore the EVAs a little bit as well. But you know, my apologies listeners, I do think I've made an assumption. We haven't let people know where you are. Where is the dome and let's just describe that a little bit, because that plays into the importance of what happened, and where all this is, and why this study took place where it did. Can you fill us in? Where is this? TRISTAN:             Yeah, it's a geodesic dome, so just a half sphere, like a half a buckyball, covered in tarp and it is up on a quarry that's about 80 to 100 foot elevation from sea level, halfway up Mount Loa on the big island of Hawaii. Just barren old lava flows as far as you can see. Some of them are the really smooth a lava flow that looks like frozen syrup and you can run around and on it, others look like peanut brittle from hell. Incredibly difficult to get across. I went through like four pairs of hiking boots. MARK:                  Yeah. I recall I had to help buy a pair. Because they do these resupply missions and so if we learned that that one of the astronauts and most of us are taking care of our own family members, if you will, although you can send things for anybody if you really wanted to. But it takes some time, so we would buy a pair of boots, and it gets sent, and then when the resupply mission approaches Mars and drop some stuff off, so that's how they got through some of this. MARK:                  I can assure you, I was out with my wife when they returned to Earth. We were at the Hab when they came back and got to explore this area. When Tristan shares that this is some rugged remote crazy places, I'm telling you, it is. We've talked about caves. These are lava tubes they are exploring. MARK:                  I assume why, I don't assume because I know, but again to share with our listeners here. You talk about being restricted to the dome and then we had these EVAs. This is not put on a tee shirt and a pair of shoes and go explore. Can you describe this a little bit? TRISTAN:             Yeah. If you want to get outside and it's not for a normal mission thing, because I mean we've got all of our regular EVAs. Let's say I just want to go for a walk, essentially. I would need to create a sort of EVA plan, so like a map and a list of activities where I'd like to go, what I'm doing, and a time for it. I have to submit that to mission support and they will approve or deny it. They usually approve it. MARK:                  There really is, again, there is their mission support. These are people on the ground. There's these delays. It's just like dealing with mission control if you're on the moon, except much further out. TRISTAN:             Much farther. MARK:                  So there are all these time delays. TRISTAN:             Yeah. If I'd like to go outside, I won't even get the basic yes or no for maybe 25, 30 minutes if they're watching their email in that moment. It will normally take several hours. MARK:                  So it's approved. TRISTAN:             Yeah. Yeah. Let's say it's approved. Then the next day, because it's definitely not going to happen the same day, I need to get at least four people together, including myself, so that I've got a buddy to go out with me, I need a Hab comm person to man the radio and monitor where we're at, and then a scribe who will work with Hab comm to write down what we're doing, when we did it, important bits of the conversation to send all this data back since, since it's part of the experiments and if you are actually on Mars, you would of course need to do this as well. Then you need to put on a simulated space suit or the Hazmat suits, wrap your shoes and duct tape and other protection, because it is a very rough. MARK:                  It is like glass. TRISTAN:             You need to set yourself up with a camel bag, a headset that goes around your neck or your ears and hooks into your walkie talkie, and get your fans all set up to keep you cool. That takes about an hour to 90 minutes. Then you've got to go into our little airlock, which is between the habitat and our storage container, which is where all our old supplies are and just count down from five minutes, wait for the pressure to simulate getting pumped out. MARK:                  Right. Decompression. Right. Right. TRISTAN:             Then you can go inside. Then you of course have to follow your mission plan, and take pictures, and do all the rest, so it's still work. If you want to go for a walk, it will take you 24 hours and a lot of camaraderie. MARK:                  Yeah. What I'm hearing, if you even just have, you know some times, I think just day to day regular work, every once in a while something stressful happens, or again you just need five minutes, or you need to see to go out and calm down, or relax, or just take a break and things. This is a day's work. TRISTAN:             Yeah. MARK:                  Okay? How did that impact you and your colleague? TRISTAN:             You have got to do other things. Like say exercise, we probably did an average of two to five hours a day just to resist cabin fever more than anything. Get out the stresses. You can shout into a pillow. You can talk calmly with a person driving you crazy, because if you get into an actual argument going to be awkward for quite awhile. It's hard to repair a relationship when you can't escape each other and calm down. While you could, say, go to your room, you can still hear everybody in the habitat or you could go hang out in the shipping container, but then you're just standing next to a bunch of crates of food in the dark. There's not really like, "I'm going to go to the cafe and relax for a bit." You can put it on the VR headset and look at a beach, but you've got to set up the computer. It's not easy. MARK:                  Let me share a story. I can share. Now, Tristan is certainly someone who's in great shape. Prior to his time in the dome, I never knew him to be much of a runner. I mean, he certainly would work out and do things, but this guy was not what I would call a hardcore runner in any way, shape, or form. You ran a complete marathon in the stone on a treadmill. This was not the world's most sophisticated, high tech, brand new kind of piece of equipment. TRISTAN:             Soviet Russia, for sure. MARK:                  I just share that because, again, I think it's important to understand what we're really talking about here. I mean, to work out on this crazy treadmill with, am I remembering correctly, just one window, which is a small little window to look outside? TRISTAN:             Yeah. The size of a medium pizza give or take. MARK:                  Yeah. Okay. The size of medium pizza. You can run on the treadmill and look out that window. I just think, to me, that struck a chord with me in the sense of, wow just to try to make things work, this is how far you go, and you run a marathon. You know, there was a lot of joy, and pride, and probably working to this. I mean, I think it became something of a goal for everybody to have these kinds of accomplishments. Before I get to some final questions, I want to give you a moment or two. Are there any just sort of interesting stories, anything you'd like to share? Something kind of fun or unique about the whole experience? TRISTAN:             Yeah, I think some of the most interesting parts of it, I mean, were of course like what you found you could get through or how you might react to stress. I have very little doubt that given the right crew I could definitely do it for real. I mean, you're going to suffer a lot but I mean it can be worth it. Marathons are never comfortable but they're always worth it at the end. But I was quite astounded by the geography out there that you don't see typically. TRISTAN:             If you're just standing at the dome and you were looking around, it looks like a bunch of lava flows and rocks. It's barren country. MARK:                  It is very barren. That's right. TRISTAN:             In my time there I discovered completely on my own, or with Carmel or Cyprian, just out looking. MARK:                  Fellow astronauts. TRISTAN:             Perhaps 50 lava tubes, some of them with caves inside bigger than a house. Skylights with beams coming down, two stories, and a little patch of plants growing out. Weird undulating, just smooth caverns moving through the countryside. One of them, we hiked underground for maybe a kilometer and then popped out the other side. We got to map these things and just see the most ridiculous geography you can imagine under there with stalactites of frozen lava, and crystals, and all these things. Surreal. MARK:                  Yeah. That actually in some ways, would it be correct to say that these experiences of really exploring in so many ways, it really is just a foreign landscape, you know? Very few people live in this kind of landscape. There's obviously people in Hawaii that are quite familiar with it. Would that become something of a sanctuary just to go out, and see, and explore some terrain that's just very, very new and very, very different. TRISTAN:             Oh, yeah. I mean, we actually ended up doing a great deal of lava tube exploration mapping sort of additionally that we weren't required to do right, but we just enjoyed being underground so much. Once you get in there, you're out of the sun, your suit cools down. The geography's amazing. Cyprian and I actually repelled down a skylight and found a little cave and crawl to the back, and there was a sort of a hole in there about the size of a lounge chair or whatever. With our flashlights and everything else, we could not find the bottom sides or top. It was a black hole and do an endless abyss. We both said, "Let's not come back here." MARK:                  Yeah. Oops. Wrong footing. Yeah. TRISTAN:             Definitely. It'd be cool to go back with like real climbing gear and a team and see what's up because- MARK:                  Or maybe fly some little- TRISTAN:             Yeah. Put a drone down there. MARK:                  A drone down, yeah. TRISTAN:             But I feel like if I had fallen into that I'd still be falling. Yeah, I don't know what it was. MARK:                  Wow. That's very cool. I'd be curious, would you do it again? TRISTAN:             I would absolutely do an experiment of that nature again. At the time of my life it was perfect for finishing dissertation. MARK:                  It just worked, right. TRISTAN:             Yeah. Right now, working freelance, paying off student loans, it wouldn't be a quite so in keeping with my direction, but if I got hired as a space architect for is SpaceX for example and they needed the crew to do a six month to practice this stuff, yeah, of course. MARK:                  I see where you're going, but let me take that even further. Okay. You've had this simulated experience and let's SpaceX or one of these other companies really does get it together. The equipment's there and they're going to send a crew up. I don't know if it's 10, it's 20, I don't know what these early crews will look like. I think you would agree with me that these early flights, the first manned flights, even if they have stuff already on Mars in terms of robotics and a little fuel or water already there waiting and that kind of thing. I think it's pretty much a given that this would be a one way trip. Would you disagree with that? TRISTAN:             Yeah. It's actually probably safer to do it and than it would be to a sale to America way back in like the 1600s. MARK:                  Oh, that's an interesting. Okay. TRISTAN:             Yeah. Like, you're going to go and the ship design will either have it so that when you land there's already a robotic craft that has been waiting for you or you will stay a full year and make some more fuel and then come back, so it'll either be like a three year round trip or like a five year round trip. But as long as you don't have a crazy equipment malfunction or a solar flare that kills everything on the way out. MARK:                  Yeah. See, that's the radiation piece of this and the low G environment for extended period of time, I still think there's a lot of medical things we don't know. TRISTAN:             Oh, there definitely is. Yeah. MARK:                  That's getting on a tangent here for a moment. But I guess what I'd say, so you've had this simulated experience and Elon calls up and says, "Hey. I saw the podcast." There's a podcast it, it's called The Habitat if you want some fun. Six episodes. I encourage you to take a look. That's a lot of fun too. MARK:                  It's just, "Tristan, we've heard about you we, we'd like to get an architect up there and just have some experience to help with future design. We want to see what it's like to experience the transportation space as well as a livable space out there, so you're the guy." Would you go? TRISTAN:             Yeah, yeah. I would not hesitate at all. That'd be the life's dream, essentially. MARK:                  I take that at face fat cause to be honest, if they offered and said your dad has a slot too, if he wants to go. It's like, "Honey, I'm going. Would you like to come?" TRISTAN:             Yeah. MARK:                  Because you and I are just those kinds of folks. I've a great unknown and the call to go and see and experience that. I get that. Thinking about that, however, in light of the simulation you did go through, are there learnings or takeaways that you have? I know NASA and these university had been processing data and and I don't think as of yet there's been any formal reports released. There's just so much data here to process. Where do you come out with this experience in terms of will the crew using the inline space like example, make it in terms of the social dynamics? What are the challenges? What do you take away from the experience? TRISTAN:             You are going to have a two major obstacles to get over and the main one is the fact that you're in this small space with people, so it's going to be who are you taking with you? If you're going to actually go on the real mission, you would go through a great deal more selection than I went through. More tests. You would probably do three months completely isolated on a mountain with your crew to try and find out where friction might exist, and there would be shakeups and changes for probably five years leading up to the mission. The crew who and end up sending is probably going to be rock solid. MARK:                  The best of the best that just, yeah. Yeah. TRISTAN:            They can read each other's minds and they all admire and respect each other. They know when to shut up. They know when to speak right. It'll be a flawless crew. After that, you have to realize that if you put any person in a barren and white room for long enough, they'll go insane and start talking to themselves. You need environmental stimulation, you need social stimulation. If you can build a small craft to get there or a large base once you're there using robotics or whatever else that's able to, as much as possible, simulate the social and environmental complexity of your life on Earth, you will be happier. That's it. If you can just not sell your soul for mission success, and remember who you are, and what makes you able to last. This isn't a marathon. This is running around the world over a year. If you don't stop and take care of yourself, you're going to break. MARK:                  Yeah. That's kind of where I want to go here in a little bit and wrap all this up. I've had the great pleasure and opportunity to speak with some of the people that designed the mission and some of the researchers. Tristan hasn't shared this yet, but I can share what became a very important, I think, not only for Tristan, but truly for the entire crew, one of Tristan's contributions was just to bring a sense of humor. Any comments on how humor played into ... Would you agree that that that was an important component to kind of keep yourself and everybody? TRISTAN:             Yeah, absolutely. Ultimately at the end of the day, stuff's going to happen with people who are being in transient, or an environment that wants to kill you, or a shift that's not working quite as well, or all of the pancake batter runs out and now we've got to eat healthier stuff for two months until the resupply comes. You can't control any of those things, but you can control how you react to them. MARK:                  Exactly. TRISTAN:             If you have to choose between levity or getting really down about it, one of those is going to lead to a better income. If you watched The Martian, Mark Watney's stuck up there for a long time so he starts making light of himself, and talking to potatoes, and asking goofy questions. That will save you, you know? MARK:                  Yeah. What I liked about it, because we had some conversation via email and there's some other ways that we were communicating that we can't get into right now, but in turns to just that there were different technologies being tested throughout this simulation. But one of the things that I started to see just as somebody monitoring and watching a little bit, you guys quickly had to get to the point of where we can't control this and life's too fricking short, and so instead of getting upset, you had to try to find other outlets to include. You know, if it takes a day to get outside to walk you do that, or you has some fun, practical jokes a little bit that are harmless, and those kinds of things. MARK:                  Let me, as we start to wrap this up and I want to sort of tie it back to some earlier comments you made, would it be fair to say to that an important takeaway would be really beginning to understand the importance of support systems? I recall hearing from all of you in different ways that it was surprising who stayed the course throughout the entire 365 days of trying to remain in contact and who said they would at the beginning and then just drop the Earth, or off the map, or radar, whatever you want to talk about here. Could you share just a comment or two on the value of support systems? TRISTAN:             Yeah. I mean, there's sort of a especially an American cultural thing where, for men especially, we're on an island and Russ supposed to like need or desire anything for anybody. Those are typically the types that end up in the woods by themselves in a cavity. MARK:                  It's the classic right stuff. When you think about the early astronauts, you know? TRISTAN:             Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. If you think of not Neal, called Buzz Aldrin. Like he's got a hell of an attitude, he absolutely knows his stuff, extremely cock shore and independent type of person. MARK:                  He's Frank Borman too, same kind of guy. TRISTAN:             Yeah. Same kind of guy. When it comes to we need to put you in this tin can full of dynamite and throw you to the moon, can you handle this, those are the types that are going to be able to do it right. Admire the hell out them. That's amazing. MARK:                  Yeah, it is. Absolutely. TRISTAN:             You do not want to go on a nine month camping trip with that guy because he's going to make the best fire, and he's gonna cook all the best food, and his bow line is going to be better than everybody's, and eventually that sort of confidence, whether it's a deserved or not, becomes incredibly abrasive. When you start getting into a mission length for anything from living at sea to going to Mars, you need people who are emotionally empathetic, who can listen as much as they can take care of you. Maybe they are hot shit, can do whatever, but they don't need to toot their own horn. They're self confident about it and don't need praise. They will see problems before they're developing and take care of it when it's just a gentle issue versus requiring a massive fix. MARK:                  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well in kind of closing from my own perspective, I'd like to share. I was earthbound dad. My wife and I, we took the time to resupply and we took some time to interact with the astronauts in a simulated environment that was being studied and tested. There were all kinds of things we did. It became very apparent to me that support systems, both internal to the environment that the simulated astronauts, simulated Martian astronauts were experiencing became very, very important, but so did support systems on the ground. Then there was this other component, which we've kind of been talking about just a little bit from the importance of even if it takes 24 hours to get approval, but you need your time to go out and experienced something, to get away, to have a break. You talk about learning to cook, and eating some healthy food, and investing in exercise. MARK:                  My takeaway is just, I walked away from that saying, "Boy, here we are taking people and putting them in an extreme environment, in an extreme stressful situation, and seeing what happens." Thankfully we can do it here on the ground because if this thing goes ballistic in space and somebody just decides I've had enough and opens the door in space, everybody's dead. On a Martian volcano, or I'm sorry on a Hawaiian volcano, that's not the true outcome. MARK:                  I think as I look at practices, legal practices, and the life that's so many attorneys lead, I just think there are a lot of takeaways from that experience that are relevant to all of us. I encourage you, if you're listening and find yourself in a stressful situation at work to look to your support systems, to try to emphasize, if we already aren't, behaviors that lead to wellness and behaviors that work for you. I'm not trying to suggest you go out and learn to run, and get a treadmill, and do a marathon treadmill. We can ride bike, go fishing, you can learn to cook, whatever floats your boat. MARK:                  But I do think my observation from everything these six folks went through was just to say wellness and support systems are far more important than I ever really honestly realized. That has impacted me ever since. I'm very, very proud of all the folks that went through this and was able to be there when they returned to Earth. It's something I will never forget and I just lived it vicariously through my son, you know? MARK:                  Tristan, before we close out, is there any final comments you'd like to share? Anything else? I do really appreciate your taking a little time here with that. TRISTAN:             Yeah. No. I mean, I worked in a firm for nearly two years before going freelance with design and architecture and know what it's like to be in a very stressful environment where your boss doesn't super appreciates you, and you're working 75, 80 hours a week, but being paid for 40 and everybody kind of does it because, you know, we're professionals and it's a pretty unsupportive, toxic culture. I would say that a quote I enjoyed, and it applies, call it the riches of your self-life or your intrinsic value, that sort of thing, is try not to be the richest guy in the graveyard. You don't need to be the most successful guy at work. You don't need to be the CEO. You don't need to have everybody like you. If you just get by, take care of yourself, take care of the people that matter to you, and have a good life, you won already. You don't need to be in a Mr. Work guy and everybody's go-to person, especially when they're not taking care of you either. MARK:                  Right. Right. The way I've said that over the years, it really isn't. Whoever has the most toys doesn't win. At the end, it's not about toys. It's about the experience. Well Tristan, I really, really appreciate your willingness to take the time and sit down and have a chat with dad, but to also allow all these other folks that are listening to be part of our conversation, so thank you very much. MARK:                  To all of you listening out there, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast and found something of interest or value to it. Please, as always, if any you have any topics of interest or other folks that you'd like to see if we can interview at some point, please don't hesitate to reach out. My email address is mbass@ALPSnet.com. Thanks folks. It's been a pleasure. Bye bye.  

I don't think there is a topic we're more passionate yet equally in the dark about as CRO. For every dollar a business spends on Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) they get nine back – which is a staggering statistic. You immediately see ROI if you use a CRO expert who is good at what they do. There is an entire user journey that happens with CRO, and those businesses that embark on the journey can massively grow their business quickly. Jon MacDonald is the CEO and founder of The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization firm. The Good uses data science to help brands turn their traffic into customers by tracking everything on their site and using the data they collect to come up with solutions for growth. Some of the world's largest companies convert their website visitors into buyers through their services. Jon is here to talk to about this little known powerhouse toolkit for both buyer and sellers. Episode Highlights: What Jon looks at before starting a CRO project for a client. Where CRO fits in for buyers and sellers in the e-commerce space. The four key areas of data to be looking at to optimize e-commerce conversions. Why CRO gets ignored so often. Helpful dashboard elements for the three types of online businesses: e-commerce, SaaS, content-based sites and how those elements improve business. How microgoals can add incrementally change your flow. What CRO advice Jon has for someone who may be getting ready to sell a business. Where The Good gets their information and what they do with it. AB testing tools Jon recommends for a new business owner getting started. How much time an entrepreneur should spend studying and preparing for a good CRO approach. How CRO practice can increase asset value exponentially for sellers and buyers. The benefit of working with an outsourced CRO team. Transcription: Joe: Mark, one of the things that we see happen often is people—we go to these events that we sponsor, meet some amazing entrepreneurs, and sometimes in little pockets of them you hear people talking about their top line revenue. It's really not what the focus should be. In many cases, it should be about their gross profit, their processes, and what they do to optimize and maximize their bottom line revenue. Because ultimately that's what the value of these businesses are based on. And as I understand you had Jon MacDonald on from The Good talking about CRO; Conversion Rate Optimization and how important it is to drive that up and what a great return on investment that can be. Mark: Yeah, that's right. I don't think that there's a topic I'm more passionate about yet equally horrible at than I am CRO; Conversion Rate Optimization. It's such a phenomenal field and when we look at what you can do using CRO techniques and methodology with a business it's rather remarkable. In fact, Jon quoted me a statistic in here that for every dollar a business invests in conversion rate optimization on average they get $9 back which is really, really amazing. I know that in the past I've hired a conversion rate optimization expert. And they cost a lot of money, right? So I was paying out I think like $2,000 a month. But you know what the first thing they did was? They saved me like $6,000 a month in advertising costs. Joe: That's incredible. Mark: I mean it's a net win. You're immediately seeing an ROI if you have somebody good at what they do. And when we think about CRO oftentimes we think okay we're going to change the color of this button bar, we're going to change the title on this, we're going to increase our sign-ups. What Jon and I talked about quite a bit more is the fact that CRO is much, much bigger than this. There is an entire customer journey, there's an entire user journey here, and there are all sorts of points along the way where this journey can be optimized and can be made more efficient for our clients. I know I've talked to clients in the past who have grown businesses massively by just spending literally years doing this and their traffic doesn't substantially change. But their revenue changes and their bottom line earnings change as well. It's a discipline that most of us ignore; low hanging fruit for almost all of our businesses. We should be doing it. Jon and I got to talk about some of the methodologies that you need to implement in order to really get going with some CRO optimization of any business for that matter. Joe: I think it's going to be a fascinating podcast. I'm going to listen to it myself. Before we jump to that folks be sure to tell us what the movie quote is. Send us a note so we can give you a shout out on the podcast. Alright, let's jump to it. Mark: Jon thanks so much for joining me. Jon: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Mark: If you could can you provide a quick background on yourself to all the listeners? Jon: Sure. So I am CEO and founder of The Good. We are a conversion rate optimization firm. Now what that means is we help brands to convert more of their existing website traffic into customers. So we do that through data science. Helping brands to track every click and movement that's happening on their site and using that data to understand where people are dropping off in the process, why they're not converting, what's engaging and not being engaged with, and how to solve those problems. Mark: That's great. CRO is something of a—I wouldn't say a hobby of mine, I'm not very good at it but it's something that I'm fascinated by. I love the idea of being able to grow and sometimes pretty significantly grow a business without adding more traffic and scrapping forward for that more traffic but basically by improving that customer experience to the point where everything just kind of smoothens out and it just opens up more traffic internally but with the revenue of course; the conversions and everything else. Now in my understanding with your firm you guys have done some work with private equity firms as well that are coming into an acquisition of a web-based company and want to find some of those opportunities. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe some of the scenarios that you've looked at there? Jon: Yeah. So typically when you're buying an e-com company the first thing you're looking to do is optimize the return on the investment you've just made. And that's why a lot of folks end up with us. Typically these brands have a lot of traffic coming in already. They're spending a bunch of money to drive traffic to the site but perhaps that's just not converting at the level they'd liked or they're not seeing as high of a ROAs or return on ad spend as they would like to see and they see that that's an opportunity for optimization. And that's typically how we end up starting those conversations. It's not unfamiliar with us. A few brands we've worked with have increased their conversion rates, gotten their ROIs up and then made an exit right after. So it happens on both sides. Brands who are looking to make a purchase and or have made a purchase come into us to help them to kind of optimize a little bit and then also companies who are looking to improve their site and optimize it as they get ready to sell and want to increase the value of their company. Mark: I often think that the CRO portion of a marketing mix is one of the items I think it's ignored the most often and is often one of the lowest bits of hanging fruit. And one of the things I think people forget about; I forget about it myself but CRO actually has kind of a double whammy effect for you, right? I ran an experiment on another business that I owned outside of Quiet Light Brokerage for getting people to sign up and I know my numbers pretty well. I know that every person that signs up even though they're signing up for free the value of that client is about $10, right. So I said okay I want to increase these free sign-ups more. But the result was I did increase the sign-ups, I did increase that conversion rate pretty significantly but the other benefit of that is that my cost of acquisition dropped. So not only was I getting more out of what was being sent to me but my advertising dollars dropped at the same time. And so I had this double effect of seeing an increase in my ROIs on both sides just from focusing on one thing. When you're talking to somebody who is preparing to sell; let's say it's an e-commerce business, what are some of the areas that you start to look to see where can you—what are you sort of tracking at a CRO project? Jon: Well, the first thing is are they tracking the right data? True conversion optimization should not be about going down a checklist of best practices. You can find those and Google those online and I can tell you that really the most effective way to optimize a site is to base it on every click and movement of your specific sites visitors and to make data back decisions on those actions that are being taken. So the best way to do that is to make sure you're tracking the right data. Now, of course, you want to follow GDPR and all of the other privacy regulations that are in place. So all the types of data that you really should be tracking are done in aggregate meaning it's not personally identifiable information. And really you don't need personal identifiable information. But there are really four key areas of data that you should be looking at. The first of course is Analytics. If you're looking to sell you're likely going to have Analytics and the buyer is likely going to dive into those Analytics. So if you're looking at something like Google Analytics out of the box let's be honest here it's meant to help you buy more Google Ads. So it's not that helpful in terms of optimizing your site. Now the best way to do that is to build some dashboards in Google Analytics that are more focused on conversions. And also make sure that you're tracking the right events on your site to get that data in. So that's one of the first places we look. The second pieces of data are interactions on your site in terms of content. So looking at things like heat maps; where are mouse movements happening around the site, click maps where are people clicking on a page, perhaps they're often—we almost always find that people are clicking on things that aren't clickable, and that's a good indicator that they should be. So it could be as simple as that. You know we also want to look at scroll maps; how far down the page are they going. We do eye tracking as well to understand what people are looking at and how long they're looking at that content. Lastly—well third I should say you want to do what's called user testing. So we've just talked about all these quantitative pieces of data that really tell you what people are doing. But it's really hard to get the why behind that from all of that data we just talked about. So user testing comes in and helps us understand why. Now, this is where we send people to the site who match the ideal customer profile and we ask them to complete tasks. And while they're completing those tasks we are recording their screen and their audio and we also have trained these people ahead of time to talk out loud about the experience that they're having. So they're going through a site and they're saying hey I'm trying to find this page and I can't find it in the navigation or understand how to get to that content that I'm looking for, I don't understand what the value proposition is here, or just common struggles that they might be having. And that really kind of coincides with the numerical data to tell us not only what they've done but also why they're doing that and it gives us some context behind that. And we really we do what's called remote unmoderated user testing. And what that is is a software tool we use usertesting.com most often. And what that means is it's a piece of software that lives on their home computer that allows us to collect all this data so they can do it in the comfort of their own environment as opposed to somebody standing over their shoulder. Now we've done both. We've been optimizing sites for over 10 years now and we've done both. And what we found is that we get much better data when its remote unmoderated. The people are comfortable and they don't feel pressure to come up with something on the spot and always be telling us what they're thinking. We just find it naturally happens when it's remote and unmoderated. So that works a lot better. The last piece of data is A-B testing or multivariate testing. This is where you say you have 100 people coming to a site, you can segment those visitors and show 50 the current version of a page or even small change on the site, maybe moving content around on a page, or adjusting some headlines things of that sort. And then you would show 50 the alternate page and you test some metrics out of that to understand which one is doing better; the page that exists or the changes that have been made. And we can get really large tests like changing entire pages or we can go really, really small like just changing one headline and seeing what the differences would be and then stacking a lot of those tests and the variations of those tests to truly understand how to optimize each step of that funnel again based on data. So instead of just guessing and launching those changes with this piece of data you're actually letting the consumer's actions, your specific sites visitor's actions and tell you what should be done to permanently change on your site. Mark: Okay. So I think that explanation was just great. I love the framework that you set up here but I think you just explained why CRO gets ignored so often. And that is there is a lot of stuff to set up here and to configure and I just let's start right at the beginning with Analytics. You're right right out of the box how useful is Analytics. It's interesting. You get to see how many people are coming to your site. You can see what pages are popular and some decent information out of the gate. But really Analytics starts to blossom when you start building dashboards and segments and everything else. But getting into that; I mean that's kind of a discipline in and of itself. Jon: Of course. Mark: I know we could probably talk about this all day and different dashboards for different types of businesses, what are some things that are some useful elements with a dashboard that somebody might want to consider building? And I want to break this up into maybe three different types of sites. And if you don't work with any of these types of sites that's fine, just let me know. But e-commerce would be one, SaaS would be another, and then content-based sites that are really looking more for that user engagement and reading and how much are they digesting the information. So what are some dashboards that you would recommend people look into for each of these? Jon: Well, there's a couple built into Google Analytics that get ignored pretty quickly. On all three of these sites it would be helpful. But the first is page flow. What is the flow that people are taking through the site? And most people ignore this because in Google Analytics the view is one where it shows the funnels but then has lines drawn between them and it looks extremely complicated at first. So most people see that, they get overwhelmed, and they leave and don't really pay attention to the data. But there's so much rich data there you can dive into. And you don't have to do anything other than have the snippet on your site. So it's not requiring you to set anything else up necessarily. So that's a great place to start. For e-com businesses we often find one tidbit; a lot of companies no matter what their size is when they first come to us one of the first things we always check is do they have the e-commerce tracking engaged. It's one button to turn on and off. So many brands don't have that turned on and they lose so much rich data that Google automatically starts sorting through and looking for. So for e-com just having that turned on could be amazing. And it's so easy. Now in terms of metrics that we're looking for on e-commerce conversion rate in terms of to purchase but also what are the other metrics that you're looking for? We call them micro conversions; things that you know people are doing that influence that purchase. Is it signing up for an email? Is it where they visit certain pages on your site? So we know that if they are visiting or even just like a great instance of this is if they're visiting a product detail page but then they click to read more of the user reviews. That's always a great indicator because what we find is consumers who read reviews convert much higher. Because often consumers are going to trust the content that's in reviews much more than what the brand even says about their products because it's coming from people like them. They also; for a clothing site for instance or shoe site, it's really helpful because they will use that to better understand sizing, especially relative sizing. So a medium runs a little larger you're probably going to want a small things of that sort. That's really, really helpful for people who are really there to dive deeper and answer specific questions that are all buying questions. Mark: Let me stop you on that real quick because let's say that you start measuring these micro goals. What does that give you? I mean I would imagine a lot of the people that are taking those actions already have a high user intent. Jon: Right. Mark: In my head I'm thinking okay let's say sizing options, you said I want to increase the number of micro-goals of people checking out the different sizing options. Does that really increase each individual user's intent or you're really just more making the flow easier for those that are already there? Jon: Both. If you're finding that out of 100 visitors that 50 of them are looking at sizing and of that 50, 25 convert you really want to try to influence that metric. So if you know that people are looking for sizing then make that information surface at higher so it's easier to find. Now people only visit websites for two reasons. This is outside of Facebook or anywhere that you're just trying to maybe perhaps spend some time; kill some time. Now they are there because they have a pain or a need and they think that your website can help solve that pain or need. And two once they realize that it can or they believe that it can, they want to do research on how to convert as quickly and easily as possible. And that means that they've done that research and now they're ready to purchase. So you need to make those two things as easy to do as possible. Now it sounds pretty simplistic but understanding as you go deeper on those what people are looking to research and then surfacing that information as high as possible is really important. So making that as easy to find and do that research. So if you know that people who convert always are looking for sizing information but they have to go into the reviews to find it. That's a problem. So instead make it easier for people to understand what size they should wear. And if that's the case they're going to convert much easier. And then when they're ready to convert it'll make that checkout flow, that conversion process as easy as possible. And when you look at lead generation sites which is the second one of this one that you've mentioned, it's the same thing with form completions. We often work with companies who have made it very easy for somebody to come to the site and do research about what particular products or offering that that company has that aligns with their need. But we also see at times the consumers come to the site and they're looking at the home page and the value proposition is not clearly stated. And so how many times have you been to a B2B service page website and you look at it and you said I have no idea what these people do. So that can be a big challenge; just understanding is the consumer in the right place and allowing them to do that research. But then once they get to the form they're asking for a ton of information that isn't really necessary at that first step. So they might be asking how many employees do you have, or what industry are you in; all these things that could have been filtered prior to them filling out a form by just saying this product is best for people who have this many employees, this much revenue, this industry, and things of that sort. So trying to help people understand if they're in the right place and how to convert as quickly and easily as possible can apply to both e-com and lead gen. Mark: That's helpful. Let's go on to one of the other ones here and that's the scroll maps and click data. A, where do you get this sort of information? Do you have any servers that you recommend? And then B, once you get in what do you do with this information once you start to get it? Jon: Yeah. So Hotjar is likely your best fit. Now there are tons of different heat mapping softwares out there right now. Crazy Egg is another good one. There's a few of us who—we find Hotjar has the most reliable data and also for the cost has the best benefits. So I believe it's about $9 a month and it's totally worth the data you get back for $9; easily a large return on your investment there. Now, what should you do with that data? Well, Hotjar will let you track again all the mass movements that happen on your site and give you a heat map of those. Now for those people who aren't familiar with the heat map it just shows you from red to—and then cools off from there; so red, yellow, green, blue, and then the lack of colors where people didn't use their mouse at all on a page. So it allows you to really look at that and say where are people interacting. Now, a quick tidbit on this; on desktop, your eye will follow your cursor. So heat mapping is not so much about the cursor movement as it is about a good indicator of where people are looking and what they're engaging with on your page. Understanding just where a cursor is going on a page is not as helpful. So that's a better way we think to look at it is what content are people engaging with. And that's what's really helpful there. Now, what can you do with that data? Perhaps you find that there is a piece of data that you had found earlier that people really engage with every single time they purchase. Well it's really helpful to surface that content up higher on the page and then track whether or not people are engaging with that over time; so testing that by understanding what content to engage and moving that content to a different area of the page and then looking at the heat map to see if it's being engaged with. Mark: So let's move on then to A-B testing and this is a personal pet peeve of mine because all the tools out there just feel—at least that I've used feel expensive and kind of shoddy and maybe I'm not using them right. Are there tools that you particularly recommend? What do you think about let's say Google Optimize as a free option there? And we'll start with that. I would also like to get into setting up experiments that actually make sense. Jon: Right, of course. Mark: Let's talk first about the tools. Jon: So there are a numerous number of tools for optimization as you mentioned. It's pretty common now to try to sell a whole optimization platform; so one tool that can do everything. The great thing about Google Optimize is that it doesn't do that. It focuses just on running those tests. And it also integrates extremely well with Analytics so you can pull segments out of Analytics that you've set up and run tests just for those segments. Now it is free and it does have some limitations in the sense that you can run a limited number of tests at the same time. There are some ways to get around that. I would be happy to chat about that with anybody at some point but really the idea here is Google Optimize has come a really long way over the past year. It has in terms of pure testing the same functionality as a platform like VWO or Visual Website Optimizer which is another one that I would tend to recommend if you want to get over the number of tests limit that Optimize has VWO is a great tool. It works extremely well for the testing side. It has a whole bunch of other functionality that at The Good we don't typically use. But if you're looking for a full platform it could be okay. And then if you're in the enterprise space Optimizely is really the gold standard. They were the first really solid tool. They made a shift about two years ago to focus exclusively on the enterprise side. So we still have some clients that are on their legacy plans from five to six years ago that are paying 200 bucks a month. They don't offer anything like that anymore. It's now probably closer to 10,000 a month just for their platform. But if you are looking to optimize every experience; your mobile experience, and your app experience, and your desktop or web experience as well Optimizely is really where you'd want to play. But you need to have the budget and the traffic levels especially. This is another thing and I think most companies tend to want to jump into running testing but they don't have enough traffic to do it. And they sign up for something like VWO and start paying the fees for the platform and they aren't seeing the results very quickly. That's where it can get frustrating. You really need to make sure you have enough traffic to be able to see statistically significant results in a meaningful timeframe to get the return on that investment. Mark: What would you recommend for sites that have low traffic amounts? Jon: I would recommend playing around with Google Optimize but running bigger tests. So what do I mean by bigger tests? Try changing an entire page content; don't just change one piece of content on a page. So the bigger the test the quicker you're typically going to see some results positive or negative. Now it's hard to get fine-grained but testing even bigger tests like that you will see increases in the key metrics that you should be tracking like conversion rate, average order value, things of that sort that really are going to drive impactful meaningful improvement for your brand. Mark: Yeah, that's great. I've noticed the same thing in the testing that I've done there where—and this leads to the next segment that I wanted to talk about that and that is saying that meaningful tests where the whole sale page changes. I just ran a test on another business I own where we did a whole sale page difference and the lift was significant. It was almost definitely the conversion rate on a completely different page design. When you're setting up a new test especially if you're coming in cold and say that you bought a business and you're now working on different ways to be able to grow that business that you just acquired, where are some places that you would typically start with testing? Let's assume that there is enough traffic there to be able to run more of this fine-grained sort of tests. Would you recommend some of these bigger tests to begin with or maybe a more nuanced approach? Jon: I would typically recommend a little more nuanced approach that is based on the results from that user testing. So by starting; I mentioned four areas and I mentioned the A-B testing last because the other three are really going to help you determine what you should be testing. And that's almost as important as running tests at all. So if you are going; there are so many brands that we see that just sign up for these platforms to run tests and start running tests and they just randomly cherry pick ideas to run but they don't have any hypotheses behind them or data to back those up. So really again understanding the data has to come first so that you can make some data back decisions about what to test. Now, what's going to be impactful? I'll tell you that if you start reading general articles online about testing the first thing they're going to say is things like button colors, or maybe a headline change, or image change. Those very rarely actually move the needle. So you need to find that balance between a whole site or a page change and changing one small element on the page because it's in the middle where you're really going to see the results. But also the best way to be thinking about this is the testing needs to be a three or six-month plan. So that doesn't mean that you should expect one test to run that long but you should be thinking okay I'm running this test to make what learning do I want out of that test; positive or negative change? That's fine but you should always be learning something. In fact when a test doesn't have the outcome that we want here at The Good or that we were expecting I should say we don't call it a failure; we call it a learner. Because we're always learning something out of that. That will influence what the next test is that we want to run. And then you continue to stair step that. Conversion optimization should really be thought of as an iterative compounding effect over time. There's nothing that you're going to change on your site that is going to double your conversion rate overnight short of massive discounting. And I just call that margin drain. That's not an optimization. So you really want to be thinking about this in small incremental gains. That each test is going to help you get that will have a compounding effect over those three to six months. And so impactful tests are ones that you know are building the foundation for a larger change that you would like to see. Mark: Talking to about this it seems so clear that you're setting this up into almost two distinct steps, right? The bulk of what you suggest of these four suggestions really relies and rests first on having good data and a good data framework for understanding your site and your business and knowing what sort of metrics you want. And once those metrics are set up then you can take a look and say okay well let's look at this or what would happen if we were to change this micro goal? Does this micro goal really have a correlation with revenue or is it just something that we're kind of seeing right now? Maybe there is no correlative effect. Maybe we can increase a micro goal and it doesn't change anything at all. But I think the challenge then becomes not necessarily how do you run a really great A-B test but how do you set up a really good framework of data and data collection and those dashboards as well. What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who's thinking about their business and saying okay I know I need to get data on my business, I know I have Analytics set up maybe I turn on the e-commerce tracking but I've not ever created segments. I don't really know how to use segments; 10,000-foot view, what's a way that we can instruct the entrepreneur here to just start understanding what they need to start setting up for a good data framework? Jon: Well I mentioned the other three areas besides A-B testing and you don't have to go super deep on those. I know there's—you could. As you mentioned earlier we could spend a whole hour just talking about each of those individually perhaps. I think you need to start somewhere but just having that data tracking in place and then paying attention to it; look at it once a week spend; set an hour side on your calendar, just spend an hour once a week looking at that data. You will start to see trends. You will start to see things that help you to better understand how people are engaging with your website. And just giving that that hour per week will put you miles ahead of the competition because you're going to start to see those trends and the actions that people are taking on your site. And you'll start to have empathy for how they use your site. Now I often like to say that it's really hard to read the label from inside the jar. So many site owners or brands or e-com managers what they do is they build the site and all the content and the navigation for them because they know the product. But what happens if somebody comes in via Google to search in a topic. Google thought that site might be the best answer they send them there. They're missing all of that knowledge about the products they sell. So when they go to the navigation and if it's not set up appropriately the consumer has no idea what they're looking at or how to figure out what product is the best one for them. So that's another way that user testing can really kind of help. It's brief empathy for the end user and helps you see it from that perspective as opposed to somebody who built the site or is on the site every single day. So I think two things; one, just have the data and look at it and you'll start to build up that empathy. And that's really going to help you understand what you should test and where you should go from there. Then secondly you can really start to dive deeper. You can then say oh I want to run scroll tracking on these pages because I'm finding that people aren't reading this type of content that's further down the page and I want to verify that. So you start to post questions. It's not about the data; it's really about asking the right questions once you have that data in place. Mark: You're echoing exactly what I heard at Traffic & Conversion this past year. I went to a CRO talk and one of the bits of advice that he gave was to start with the questions that you want answered because then the reports will build themselves. If your question is how many people are signing up for this email list and then taking a second action well now you know the report that you need to build there is a report that shows just that information. The other thing that you're saying that I think is fantastic and this is the trend in marketing in 2019 and frankly it started I think as early as 2017 and has been building steam and that is this personalization; both of the user experience but also in the way that we think as far as marketers and the internet is no longer just a big cold faceless place. Let's start putting a face to those numbers that we're seeing in Analytics and understand those are real people, real eyeballs and what is their experience like. And what you said you have some empathy for the user and what they're going through because then you can start asking those questions and building the reports. And then once you build the reports, you've answered the questions, now you can start forming the thesis of okay this is what we're seeing as far as the answer to this question. Now finally once we get all this in place lets A-B test. Does that summarize it? Jon: Yes; very, very well. Mark: Awesome. Alright, let's talk about wins. Jon: Yes. Mark: I could do your job. Jon: I'm looking forward to it. Mark: I know that for a fact. Let's talk about wins. Let's talk about some of the—without getting and divulging clients or anything like that, let's talk about this is what you want to put on your site as far as the testimonial because it's eye-popping and then also the realistic sort of wins that you would see say over six to 12 months from a CRO campaign. Jon: Yeah. You know on average we see about a 9:1 return on investment. So for every dollar that's put into conversion optimization on average, you're going to see about a $9 increase in revenue. Now there is not one single metric that you can do that's going to have a bigger impact on your site than focusing on conversions. But I think the industry of conversion rate optimization gets shoehorned often into that one factor which is conversion. We've talked about a lot of different metrics today that really need to be improved and optimized and that all goes back into conversion optimization as a whole. Of course, average order value, cart abandonment rate, we talked a lot about ROAs and return on investment of ad spend. I think in a lot of that is what needs to happen there. Now specific wins, I have a bunch of case studies up on our site. They're public so I'm happy to talk about some of those. For instance, Easton Baseball; if you don't know who Easton Baseball is they make aluminum baseball bats mainly and softball bats. About 99% of college swings are done with an Easton baseball bat. They pretty much own baseball bats for Little League. And if you're a Little League player you're going to use one of their bats. Now, having empathy for the consumer; what we found when we came into their site was you go to their product page and it would be a wall of bats. Now if you imagine what a bat looks like online and you see a whole bunch of them. You have no idea what the differences are, right? And they're just maybe different colors but you really don't know because you can't feel the weight difference or really see how the size differences of the bats online that well. And especially if you're a parent with a kid in Little League, you have no idea what bat you should be buying. And we did a bunch of user research and what we found was that consumers were coming to the site to buy a bat for their kid and they would buy the bat take it to practice and had spent a couple of hundred dollars on this bat and then the umpire tells them they're not allowed to swing with that bat. Now the reason is that all these different Little Leagues have certifications for their bats and if their bat does not have that certification stamp on it you can't use it. Also, either your kid swings for the fences or he's just trying to get on base. And there are different types of hitters, and different bats fit with different types of hitters. There are also different price points that parents want to spend. So there's some that might want to spend $100, some are willing to spend 500. It really varies. Using just those three metrics what we found was that so many parents are buying the wrong bats that they were getting frustrated and there was a high return rate. They were calling customer service quite a bit. Well, what we did after learning all of that is we built up bat finder. So instead of having parents navigate through all these bats and look at all of them and spend time trying to figure that out, they simply just answer three questions and those three questions kicked out three or four bats for them. And so these are the ones you should really look at. Now once you got to those bat pages they often had; Easton had put in a ton of technical terms that were branded around what the bats did. So I can't remember the names exactly but instead of just saying this bat reduces sting because with an aluminum bat if you hit it really well and you're hitting for the fences you can sting your hands really bad. And Easton has some wonderful technology that eliminated that bat sting and still let you get the great pop of the bat to hit it over the fence for a home run. Well, what we found was they had branded that term instead of just saying it reduces bat sting they came up with some random term for that. And consumers didn't know what it meant. So we helped them solve that problem. And that was found through user testing and just having empathy for what the consumer is going through. So we fixed those two things on their site and they saw over 600% increase in revenue year over year and their conversion rates skyrocketed. I think it was 187%. And you know when you think about it just having a little bit of empathy and making those two small changes can have such a big impact. And that's really what conversion rate is about. It's understanding what people are doing, what they're not doing, and how they're engaging, and using that data to then inform what should be changed and tested on a site. Mark: Yeah. And just to put this in terms of acquisitions; bringing it back to really the subject of this podcast here, I want people to think about this in terms of what I mentioned earlier on the podcast. If you're seeing a 600% increase in your revenue which is phenomenal you're also seeing a reduction in your cost of advertising to acquire a client which means your bottom line margin is actually probably improving more than that 600%. And that's an assumption on my part. But let's for the sake of argument just say that it also is increasing by 600% at a minimum, it might be even increasing more. And now you're taking the multiple approach of maybe for an e-commerce business 3, 3.5, maybe 4 and you can start seeing how much you're growing the asset value of a business that you own; maybe you acquired or you're preparing to sell. You are seeing significant gains in that asset value of what you're hanging onto to the point where the numbers really become kind of silly to even say it because it doesn't sound believable. But that's the low hanging fruit of CRO is the money that you said 9:1 investment to payback ratio. That's phenomenal and for preparing to sell or buying and trying to grow a business asset value you're not only getting that 9:1 you're getting the multiple on top of that as well. That's phenomenal. Jon: Yeah. And I've specifically mentioned Easton because it's a public knowledge but after about 18 months to two years after we helped them optimize their site and then moved in and help them optimize their mobile as well for even larger gains there they did sell to another private equity firm and had a very good return on their investment there overall and that was almost entirely fueled by the digital side and the effort they'd all put in there. Mark: That's awesome. Where can people learn more about you and more about your company? Jon: Sure. Yeah. So The Good you can find us online at TheGood.com. That's just TheGood.com and you can sign up for our insights there. So if you liked a lot of the tidbits and helpful tactics I talked about today we do produce one great article per week about learning. There are no sales pitches involved it's truly just educational content about conversion optimization; things that you can take home and do to your site and start thinking in this way. We fully recognize that it is really hard for one person to have all of the skill sets at their company to do conversion optimization. I think you talked about this earlier when you said hey you just mentioned all these things and that's the challenge most people have around optimization. It's true. It's really hard for one person to do all of that. And so we try to help educate as much as we can around all of this type of things. But TheGood.com is the best way to get a hold of us. Feel free to email me directly if you have questions. I'm happy to answer questions that come my way it's just jon@thegood.com. And I do try to read and respond to every email. So I will do my best. Mark: Yeah. That's great. And as far as the task list, I mean you're exactly right. The fact is CRO is a mix of being somewhat of a data scientist and there's also a technical side to it as well being able to get all the integrations right and then there's also the creative side as well to understand how to really understand the user testing and how that empathy and then be creative with the tests and ask the right questions. It's very difficult to find somebody who can master all three of those skills and those abilities. So working with an outsourced team; I think CRO is one of those things where doing it alone is probably not the best approach unless you're just really, really some sort of a renaissance man who can have these multiple disciplines. Thank you so much for coming on Jon. This has been an awesome discussion I'd begin maybe because I just love CRO but I appreciate you coming on and sharing some of the tips. Jon: Well, thank you so much for having me, Mark. I really do appreciate it. Links and Resources: The Good Jon's Email Hotjar Optimizely

Active shootings can happen anywhere, even in law firms. What can attorneys and their staff do to prepare and protect each other in these kinds of scenarios? Mark sits down with active-shooter response expert, retired U.S. army sniper, and Montana-licensed attorney Alain Burrese to discuss law firm safety tactics and active shooter protocol. Transcript:   MARK B:                  Good morning podcast listeners. What a beautiful day here in Montana, and welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager here with ALPS, and today I am most excited to have as a guest Alain Burrese. Alain is quite a guy; we've had — I should say, I have had — the privilege and pleasure to work with him a number of years ago. In fact, Alain, if you recall, we had an experience in Las Vegas (for work), but we had a lot of fun doing some consulting down there. The topic that Alain and I are going to discuss today is really, in my mind, a very, very important topic. Also one that I wish we didn't have to talk about, but in this day and age we do, and it's looking at active shooting situations. Before we get into this, let me tell you a little bit about Alain. Alain is a former U.S. Army sniper and sniper instructor at the 2nd Infantry Division scout sniper school at Camp Casey, South Korea, a former U.S. Army paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, fifth degree black belt, [inaudible 00:01:29] instructor, author and producer of numerous books and DVDs on self defense, to include, Survive a Shooting: Lifesaving Tactics and Strategies to Survive Active Shooters and Other Terrorist Attacks. And I could just go on and on. He's a certified active shooter instructor, has trained more than 4,000 people, and on top of all that, if that's not enough, he's a licensed attorney here in the state of Montana. So Alain, it is such a pleasure to have you join us. ALAIN:                  It's a pleasure to be here with you, Mark, and I have fond memories of our trip to Vegas too and we're down there helping a bunch of law firms be safe in a different kind of environment when we are down there. MARK:                  Yes, that's absolutely true. Risk management and best practice, those kinds of things, a little less emotionally tense. Alain, I really wanted to talk with you because as you and I, and I'm sure everybody in our listening audience is well aware of, there have been in recent times quite a number of mass shooting situations that have made the news, not only nationwide but some of these certainly worldwide. What people don't hear as much is the shootings that are smaller scale, perhaps. It's not commonplace, thankfully, but in this day and age there are occasionally shootings that occur in even small law firms. Disgruntled ... client or an adverse party, you know, can come in at times. You'll see these occasionally in a divorce situation, and it can be anything. So I do think it's, it's worth talking about active shooting scenarios. These small situations, again, they don't make the national news, but we certainly, we've had an occasional situation like this pop up in our own book. You read some of these in the journals, in terms of, [inaudible 00:03:32] Journal and some of our industry publications. But Alain, where I wanna start, are there really things that attorneys can do, or staff, to survive these kinds of shootings? If I'm sitting in reception or an associate of law firm or something, can I realistically do anything? ALAIN:                  Mark, there are a lot of things we can do. It's interesting that you talk about law firms and the active shooters. We have the big active shooter events, and most definitions of active shooter is somebody that's just trying to kill random innocent people with no other crime. But we have a lot more shooting incidents where that could be a gang affiliated, where people shooting each other for gang related drug related issues. But we also do have a lot of shootings and attacks, sometimes it could be with a knife or something else, that are more directed, and law firms could be a very good target for that. Like you said you have disgruntled clients, something went south, and especially domestic issues, and something didn't go the way they wanted it to and the attorney is to blame. So they're going to come in specifically to attack that person or maybe that person's staff or maybe the entire office cause they blame everybody there. [crosstalk 00:05:02] There are things we can do to increase the law firm safety and to decrease the amount of damage a potential person like that could inflict on people. MARK:                  Well Alain, let's start perhaps with prevention, are there steps that we can take in anticipation that something like this might happen? ALAIN:                  One is recognizing signs. Awareness, and I teach awareness in all of my programs, is number one. And being aware of that potential former client, current client employee, that maybe is something wrong with that employee. Maybe just a former employee because they were fired, recognizing some signs that something's not going on right with that person. And those signs could be a depression, the significant event the life, which a lot of things involved in law offices are very significant to people's lives. It could be a fascination with weapons or explosives. So if you're seeing something that's just not normal with a person ... we're here in Montana, a guy goes and buys a new hunting rifle, big deal. Everybody has firearms up here in Montana. But if there's this weird fascination that's just not normal, and we sort of know what baseline normal is for our environments, maybe that person needs to be watched a little close. Ideally, we can get people help before something bad happens. Remember the national news a couple of years ago with his father that found the daughter's diary and then ended up turning her in and thankfully they were able to get that young lady some help before she did what she was writing about in the diary, which was going to kill a lot of people. MARK:                  Yeah, that's a great point. I mean I'm here, I love it, Alain. And since I'm already learning all kinds of stuff. I never even stopped to think about- awareness obviously, very, very important, but you're identifying potential shooters, people that are going to- can go make some very, very wrong decisions, that I wasn't even thinking about in this context. That is really good stuff. So awareness becomes, it sounds like, a key thing to keep in mind from a preventative standpoint. Are there any other kinds of things or is that pretty much the- ALAIN:                  How you have your facility laid out. One way in, having controlled access to places helps prevent these things. So if there's only one way in, and it's monitored somehow, that's a little bit better than people can come and go in a lot of different places. Having a communication system set up. Somebody comes in the front door that's bad, is wrong, can that be communicated to people throughout the office? Having ways to lock down, so people can lock down their offices and stay safe in rooms. Being prepared with- some people are gonna keep firearms in their office, that that is an option. If you do that, I hope that you have the proper training in both safety and use of the weapon that you have.                                 I teach fire extinguishers as improvised weapons, because they're in almost every building, any public building we're going to find fire extinguishers. Reflex Protect is a great nonlethal option that people are starting to use. And then knowing where your exits are for you to be able to escape. Cause your basic things that you can do is you can escape, you can barricade and lock that person from getting to you, or you can defend yourself by physically attacking back and stopping that shooter. Those are your three options if a situation actually happens. So being prepared to do any of those and all of those is what you want in your plan. MARK:                  Yeah. It's been interesting, with the consulting work over the years, I have gone into law firms that sometimes have key card access or a doorbell, and they have to, you know, see on camera before they push a little button that lets you in. So there are firms that have taken these kinds of steps already. Let's talk about these three options that you've identified. Whether it's, somebody that has pulled out a knife, somebody that has come in with a gun and is threatening. If you will, when the bullets are flying, can we take a little further this discussion about what, what do we do as individuals to try to survive this? You talk for instance about escape versus attacking and trying to defend. I would assume that, I guess I'd say, how do you evaluate in these kinds of settings what your best option is? ALAIN:                  Sure. In the programs I teach, I put those in a triangle, with each, "Escape, deny, and defend," the points of the triangle, versus the linear "Run, hide, fight," which is the national program. Because it's not all linear. You can't say, well first I will escape. If I can't escape, I will deny. If I can't deny, then I will defend myself. You don't always have those options. Say we're in a big meeting room. If I'm in the very back of the room beside a door and someone comes in the opposite end of the room through that door, I could probably escape out this back door. If I'm the person sitting closest to that front door where the person comes in, I don't have that option anymore. So you're going to immediately go to defending yourself and try to take that guy out. So that's why it's sort of a triangle. You have to do one of the three, but which one you do will be determined by where you're at in location to the threat, what the threat has, your environment. All of those factors are going to come into play of which is going to be the best. MARK:                  Okay, sometimes- ALAIN:                  Of course-                          Go ahead. MARK:                  Well I see. Can we talk about each of these individually? You talk about, okay, so my first and best choice if using the conference room situation, I can try to escape because that's the easiest, fastest thing to do, and safest, at least for me as I'm hearing. Does escape always mean find the closest exit, for lack of a better word, and just run, just go for it? Is that- ALAIN:                  Often, that is. Getting out of the kill zone. Now it could be running away. It could be going out a window and running. It could be dropping down and crawling behind something until you get a place to run. But getting out of the kill zone, and as far away as possible. If you can do that, great. But sometimes that's not an option. You might be a caretaker of somebody or be with somebody that can't escape with you. So again, it is a great option if available. MARK:                  This whole conference room example, and thank you for bringing it up, it just brings so many kinds of ethical dilemmas in my mind, which is, what we're all about here. I'm always writing and trying to talk in a lecture on ethics. Is there, what are your thoughts ALAIN, about, I am the guy getting closest to the door, but I'm a senior partner, and I have staff and colleagues and things that are more in between. Is always the best answer for me to try to escape, or is there, do I try to help as many others escape, too? You see what I'm trying to get at and- ALAIN:                  That that is going to vary from individual to individual. I know that if I was on a job working security, my reaction would probably be different than if I was at the mall and a situation happened and I was with my wife and daughter, and would be different if I was alone. There are some people that are natural, to use David Grossman's term, sheep dogs, the protectors. They're going to try to help other people and stop threats. Not everyone has that inside them, so I'm not going to fault anybody because they escaped and didn't help others. It's inside certain people. I think some of us, though, are going to help more and that's just the nature of us. I would like everyone to help everyone else, but we know that that's not always going to be the case. If you're the closest person to the threat, whether it's a knife, a shooter, whatever, probably the option is, you're going to be the one that has to fight. If not, you're probably going to die. Sad as it is, I can't give you strategies to keep everyone alive. In these situations, people will get hurt and people will die, but we can reduce the number of people that are killed. MARK:                  Let's talk about that then. I think I'm pretty confident in saying it's the other two angles, or corners of your triangle here. Escape may or may not be an option, one or two get out. This other corner is "deny". So even if I, I think school shootings are a great example, perhaps where a teacher could deny access in some fashion, which is where I think we're going here, to try to protect the 30 students in her room or his room. Can we explore, what does "deny" mean, and how, particularly in the context of a small business like a law office, what are your thoughts about, how do we do that? ALAIN:                  It can be as simple as locking a door and keeping that person out through a good solid locked door. It can be barricading. It can be getting behind some type of cover, cover being something that will stop bullets where concealment might hide you, but it doesn't stop bullets. Something that will deny that person ability to hurt you. Now, with a knife wielding subject, picking up a chair and holding that chair between you and that person so he can't get close enough to cut you, is a way to deny him access from hurting you. So different weapons, different threats, there are different ways to deny that threat from hurting you. MARK:                  Great. Again, I'm always learning something from you, ALAIN. I never even would have thought, hey, let's just pick up a chair. What a great example. Okay, I like that. When I think about bad actors, I always have in my mind that these people are experienced and understand how to use a weapon, and that that may or may not be true. But I look at somebody like myself and I'll say, honestly, I've had one opportunity in my life where I've gone to a shooting range and had somebody give me a little experience in how to fire a hand gun. So I've done that for probably 45 minutes in my whole life. Trust me, I am not trained, obviously, to handle weapons. So it seems to me that I would be, for lack of a better description, out of my league. I don't know how to respond. Does that mean that I really should never try to attack? Does it mean I'm completely screwed for lack of- what can I do? I'm untrained and I'm against somebody that may or may not have real skillsets with the weapons they have brought to the table here. So is there something an average person like myself could do, if I'm forced into no other option? ALAIN:                  There a couple things. One of the things, empty handed- I don't teach anybody to go straight on against a shooter or a knife welder and take the gun or take the knife away from the person. That's not realistic. However, from the sides or behind, you can, and lot of times what I teach is if you have a group, the first guy grabs the arm and the weapon and just forces it to the ground while the couple people behind tackle the guy, and you just sort of swarm and jump on top of him and pound on him until you have the gun or the knife or whatever away from him. That has been successful. People have done that and stopped people. But we also, one of the reasons that's why I joined Reflex Protect, is that gives a nonlethal response, because you can spray the guy in the face from ten, fifteen, twenty feet away, and that stuff gets in the eyes, it starts burning, it's going to stop the threat. If you can spray a Windex bottle, you know, or whatever wasp spray kind of thing, you can spray Reflex Protect. It's so easy and it gives you a nonlethal option as well for untrained people. MARK:                  Okay. I also liked your earlier comment of just the, the fire extinguisher. Never would have thought of that either. ALAIN:                  Fire extinguishers are good. And all of these, I like to teach, where you're going to ambush the bad guy at a doorway or at a corner, coming from the side, coming from the rear, rather than a head on, straight on to a person that's armed. MARK:                  Okay. This situation plays out in whatever way it plays out, and I'm going to assume that we have somebody if not more, that's wounded and or has been killed. What happens next? The attack is over, the attacker has run, the attacker has been mobbed and is on the ground. We've got the guy. What's next? ALAIN:                  Couple things. One, it's important that everyone has some basic first aid training, and there's new programs called Stop the Bleed. It's a national program. We have instructors here in Missoula. Actually, I'm going to be a certified instructor here pretty soon with Stop the Bleed, just increase my knowledge, and then having some supplies on hand,. Having a medical kit that also has tourniquets, pressure bandages, that could stop severe bleeding. That's a good thing to have in your car and have individually, too. Not just for shooters or people with knives, car accidents, anything that's massive hemorrhaging, you can save a life if you can stop that bleeding. Having tourniquets, pressure bandages, things available, and people that know how to use them, can save lives. MARK:                  Is that the most important thing that you can do then, to save somebody who's been shot or injured? Is that what you're getting to? ALAIN:                  Usually, yes. If it's a chest, you're gonna need a chest seal. If it punctured a lung, that sucking chest wound. So that would be good to have in your kit as well. But from bullets, if it's in the limbs, it's probably, you're going to die of hemorrhaging if you don't stop the bleeding. In the chest, if it's a sucking chest wound, you're going to need that. Elsewhere in the torso, stuffing the wound, wrapping it, controlling the bleeding until the professionals get there. Because if they're not dead already, if they're alive, it's the loss of blood that's most likely to kill them. So stopping bleeding, treating for shock until the professionals take over, gives you the best options of saving lives. MARK:                  Obviously the professionals are going to show up, in terms of emergency personnel and the police. Is there anything that we need to know in terms of, what do we do or not do with- I'm particularly thinking about police, in terms of interacting with them. Any thoughts about that? ALAIN:                  Make sure- it's going to be chaotic for you. It's going to be chaotic for them. So make sure you are not mistaken for a threat. If you do have a firearm, it should be put away or put down and not in your hands. Whether that's your own, or one you took away from the bad guy. You want to be able to show open hands when the law enforcement shows up, so they don't mistake you. I'll say this about Reflex Protect, too, because it looks, and it fires, it has a head on it that's like a firearm, sort of a trigger mechanism, I want to put that down, too, because law officers, they don't know what's in your hands unless they're empty, and that's what they want to see. Listen to them, do what you're told. They may treat everyone as a bad guy until they know for sure ... don't get offended, that's part of their job. Just listen to them. Do what you're told until the situation's over. MARK:                  Okay. I should have brought this up a little bit earlier, talking about Reflex Protect here, and just for our listeners, out of Montana anyway. We're in bear country here and do a lot of hiking and you may be aware of what we call bear spray, and people over the years carry these cans of bear spray out in the wilderness, and it's sort of a wide field pepper spray and it can be very, very effective. But what you're talking about Alain, if I understand it correctly, is we've kind of taken this technology or this approach up a step and this is a stream that you can target specific areas. The center of the face, as an example, and it's a gel like product, but what we're talking about is a nonlethal chemical device here that just tries to stop a person from attacking you. Am I describing it accurately? ALAIN:                  Exactly. It shoots out in the stream like wasp spray, and the benefit, it's not pepper spray, which contaminates the entire room and every- if you've ever been in a room where they shoot pepper spray or even outside with bear spray, everybody in the area is gagging and coughing. This uses a CS based gel. It's the Presidia Gel, with the active ingredient of CS. It only affects the bad guy, and nobody else in the room will be affected or contaminated, which makes it safe to be used inside of a hospital, inside of a school, inside of a church, inside of a law office, anywhere inside. It's not going to have that affect that pepper spray has. MARK:                  Right. And just as an aside, a number of years ago when our kids were lot smaller, one of my boys found a can of pepper spray, and we had friends over for dinner and their kids and they're all playing around, and he just later on looked like "Daddy. It just, the voice in my head said push the trigger and see what happens." And he emptied a can of pepper spray in our family room. So I have firsthand experience with that, and it does impact everybody. And cleaning that up, ooh, what a mess. Well, listen, Alain, it really has been a pleasure. Just, some great stuff that you've shared and I hope that we have some listeners here that really take it to heart. It seems to me there are things we can do, and I love just even being aware of what's going on, and having the courage to try to find appropriate help if necessary. But before we go, I do want to give you a chance to share any closing thoughts. The floor is yours. ALAIN:                  Certainly. The most important thing is I want people to be aware and be safe. I wrote in my book that it's the most important book I wish you didn't need to read. And I wish I didn't have to talk about this, but we saw just a little over a week ago, twelve people killed. Again, another shooting where 12 innocent people killed. So it is important to not be paranoid, but to have a plan to practice safe habits so you can enjoy life safely. Both at work, at home, and wherever else you are. If you want more information, my book has been called one of the best on the topic, it's over 350 pages of solid information to help you, and that's at surviveashooting.com or amazon.com. And if you want a nonlethal way to defend yourself in your office or your home, reflexprotect.com, and you can learn a lot more about that product. MARK:                  Perfect. Thank you very much. Well folks, for those of you listening, I hope you found something of value today. Boy, I sure did. Just great stuff. Again, I appreciate your listening, and if you have any thoughts, ideas, interests, in terms of topics or other folks you'd like to hear from, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. You may email me at mbass@alpsnet.com. So that's it. Alain, thank you again. Folks, have a good day. Bye Bye.

Are we seeing a plateauing of Amazon? Those who think that any type of e-commerce conducted outside of Amazon is a dead-end are dead wrong. Today we welcome back Andrew Youderain to discuss his third annual State of the Merchant Report for 2019. If you've never read or heard us talk about the report, it's a comprehensive report of all things e-commerce that comes from Andy's exclusive database of real entrepreneurs, all running physical product e-commerce businesses. With more than 400 qualifying merchants completing the questionnaire, the report covers an array of important topics including growth and conversion rates, profitability stats, advertising ROI, and even one surprise question about ways our members would fulfill their biggest indulgences. We'll go over all the questions, responses, and the surprising trends in e-commerce for 2019. Episode Highlights: What is providing the best return on investment in terms of advertising? The facebook marketing factor, why it's so different, and how can be tricky. A shout out to email marketing as a very valuable and viable advertising tool. The reality of advertising fatigue and the big three – Google, Amazon, and Facebook. The typical store owner makeup and whether dropshipping is coming to an end. Surprising gains in manufacturing of original merchandise. The impact of the new tariffs on the surveyed businesses. Does everything seem to be growing? We discuss general growth rates in the e-commerce industry. The surprising thing we learned from the survey this year regarding Amazon. The place for premium and niche products. Andrew's top three takeaways from the survey. A rise in Chinese sellers on Amazon and what that means for e-commerce merchants and counterfeiting. Andrew's view on the FBA nexus and the state to state tax impact for his community of clients. The fun and surprising final question in the survey. Transcription: Joe: Mark back in Savannah I think it was 2016 was the 2nd time I ever went to eCommerceFuel. In a great location because I could drive there and it was a beautiful, beautiful location. And I was so proud because I brought copies of my e-book some would call it a book called 10 Steps to Selling your Amazon Business and this is back in '16. We're talking years ago. And so I thought I was at the forefront of things. And then Andrew does his presentation at the beginning of eCommerceFuel events which was really the state of commerce back then and what we've had him on the podcast about what this podcast today is about. The 1st thing he talks about is how few of the eCommerceFuel attendees are using Amazon; like less than 10%. And it was a very small part of their business and that Shopify and other channels were much, much bigger. And I was slightly mortified. But then the next year, the biggest growth I think in 2018 that we saw—actually it was at '17 because we stated e-commerce from Andrew in 2018 and the biggest growth factor was Amazon. And now that you've had him on again I think that that's changed a little bit, right? Mark: That's right. In this year's State of the Merchant Report from eCommerceFuel, they've found that this is the 1st year that non Amazon e-commerce stores outpaced Amazon as far as new sales channels which is pretty amazing when you think about the impact. The quote directly is this was the 1st year non Amazon sellers grew faster than those on the platform. So there's more growth happening off of Amazon among their members than on the Amazon platform. That's pretty remarkable to hear that because it feels like feels like everybody's on Amazon. And we've often preached this idea of having diverse revenue streams and making sure that you're being multichannel with your revenue streams and platforms but you and I know a lot of Amazon sellers that have gone all in on Amazon so that they could just focus on the growth there to get as much sales blossomed there as they can because it's easier to do than trying to manage multiple channels. Those who think that outside of Amazon e-commerce is dead; it's not at all, not even close. There is a couple of other interesting things that came out of this report and I'm going to let Andrew really get into some of the things that he found impressive. But one of the things that that stood out to me was the effectiveness of Facebook as a marketing channel. It seems like everyone we talked to always says Facebook is such a great marketing channel and if we could just figure it out and what my experience has been is that everybody's trying to figure it out. Which means it's really difficult to actually do. I think those that have “figured it out” are doing well. But among the people that responded to this really lengthy survey that Andrew puts them through Facebook ads came in as the 5th most effective sales channel or advertising channel that people were reporting. And the ROIS, the media in ROIS was a full point lower than the next highest. And again we'll let Andrew talk about some of these things because I'm sure he has more insights than I do into the report itself. From just a general like where are you in the market as an e-commerce business or when you're looking to buy and identifying the right trends and the types of businesses that are going to be around for the next several years a report like this is just invaluable, right? You get to see where a business is going, where the industry is going, and maybe where the next opportunities lie. Joe: Yeah and it comes directly from the eCommerceFuel membership database. As far as I understand it Andrew sends a survey out and collects all of this data and all of this information so it's from real entrepreneurs down in the trenches running their businesses; physical product e-commerce businesses. So if anybody is out there that is looking to grow their business outside of Amazon this report can help. If anybody's buying a business and wants to take it beyond Amazon this report can help. If you're on Shopify and you want to learn the other channels, what number 2, 3, and 4 are before that 5th one that's most effective being Facebook this report can help. And it comes from Andrew. There are very few people in the industry that are as good character as Andrew and the folks at eCommerceFuel. Mark: Oh I was just about to say that now. A shout out for the good guys Andrew is certainly one of those. So let's get into this discussion between Andrew and I on this report and find out what some of the insights he [inaudible 00:05:59.2]. Joe: Let's go to it. Mark: Andrew, thank you so much for coming back on to the podcast. You were on last year and we talked about the awesome report that you guys do over at eCommerceFuel; the State of the Merchant Report. And this is where you survey a lot of the members of your community which we've talked about here on the Quiet Light Podcast, Joe and I talked about it quite a bit. One of our favorite conferences, one of our favorite communities out there for high revenue e-commerce store owners; it's a fantastic community that you built there. And you do this report every year. It's a really good pulse of what's going on in the world of e-commerce. So thank you again for joining us. Andrew: Yeah thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And good work with the podcast. I'm enjoying the Quiet Light Podcast. I kind of love your episodes and yes you're putting up good stuff; you and Joe. But your episodes seem to have just a tiny edge on Joe's. I don't know maybe it's just in my mind but regardless you guys are doing awesome, awesome stuff. Mark: Yeah I'm just going to record that. I'm going to put it on a loop and I'm just going to send it to Joe a few times so he can hear that over and over again. You need to submit at some point we've been adding these movie quotes to our intros at random so you need to listen to those and tell us what you think it is and we'll give you a shout out. I don't know what they are myself so I'm excited about this. I'm excited to talk about this year's report because you always come out with just some really fascinating bits of data. And I'm going to start with one that I've run across a decent amount because I think it really speaks to a lot of buyers are thinking about when they're evaluating an online purchase and also sellers who are looking to scale their business and this is what is providing the best return on investment at this point in terms of advertising? Facebook is often quoted you know if we could just unlock Facebook and this is something that I want to get into a little bit here but your report showed some surprising numbers with where the most value is and where some of the lowest hanging fruit is for advertising. Andrew: Yeah so there are a couple of things that are new this year. I wanted to take a look at what merchants are using the most in terms of promoting their business; so what's most popular and then also what's the most effective because often those are not the same thing. And so you look at the most popular marketing channels and we just ask people what are you using and in the number of popularity 1st was email marketing, 2nd Facebook ads, 3rd was Google AdWords, 4th was SEO, and 5th was Instagram. And so then we—of course, it was a popularity—to get a sense of what was most effective we looked at okay, of the people that are using every single one of these things we asked about which, how many, what percentage of them ranked that specific one as the most effective? And the one that came to the surface wasn't even the top 5 that we talked about. The number one most effective marketing channel reported by merchants was Amazon Ads. Over half of people running Amazon Ads said it was the best highest ROI marketing channel to use, number two is e-mail marketing, three was SEO, 4th was Google AdWords, and like a distant 5th not even like a close 5th, but a distant 5th was Facebook Ads. And another thing that we explored was the average return on Ad Spend for Facebook Ads versus Amazon and Google and they had the lowest return on Ad Spend at 3.4 compared to Amazon at 4.6 and Google at over 5. And they're increasing of the costs on the Facebook platform were growing up the fastest as well; almost 20% versus 16 for Amazon and 10 for Google. So that was kind of the Facebook—I think a lot of people, so many people are doing it and it's easy to have like almost some fear of missing out if you're not doing it or if you're doing it like you're not getting the secret when everyone else is. But I think it's a harder nut to crack than people like to admit. And those were some of the numbers based on the advertising. Mark: Yeah there's a lot that I want to get into on this here and let's see if I can remember all of it but I want to 1st talk about the Facebook ads because you put it in that way; it's a tough nut to crack. And I wonder if that's really maybe some of the secrets that's going on behind these numbers with the EBIDTA ROIS and also the effective marketing channel. We've had Ezra Firestone on the podcast here before. He's a friend of Quiet Light Brokerage. He obviously is a big advocate of Facebook advertising. I've seen some other people who have been doing Facebook Ads with a lot of effectiveness but and this is the big caviar, it takes a while to figure that part out. And a lot of these guys have gotten there where they're seeing these ROIS of five plus, they've taken months—literally months and lots of dollars down the drain to really get to that point. I'm wondering and maybe you looked into this a little bit with the survey; did you look into people that have tried Facebook marketing and maybe gave up after two or three months because they couldn't get it to work or did you not look that deep or ask that deep of a question? Andrew: Yeah I didn't go quite that deep. And it's always tough designing the survey because it's already like 50 plus questions and I'm trying to balance—making sure we get people who get all the way through it with you know what are the critical things we get. So sadly I didn't get that kind of data. A lot of the kind of the fox and the stories behind people getting into Facebook and having a hard time with it are more anecdotal that I hear from people. And so sadly yeah I wish I had some good numbers and data behind it but it's more anecdotal than anything else. Mark: I mean look there's a couple of things on here on your top; 5 Amazon Ads, e-mail marketing, SEO, and Google AdWords. So let's go through here with Amazon Ads, SEO, Google AdWords; those are all high intent advertising channels, right? So if somebody goes online and says buy shoes or buy cheap shoes or best running shoes; that's a really high intent search, Facebook Ads not so much of a high intense search, e-mail marketing side if they're on your list that already a warm contact. So it shouldn't be too surprising that we're seeing that but the other side of this too that I would say is like if you're looking to create a market and let's say you have kind of an odd channel, maybe you take a spin on a new type of ice cream scooper that doesn't get stuck ever. So the ice cream never gets stuck in that ice cream scooper and you've invented this and you're going to sell it; well nobody knows that it exists. So it might take a while to build that market and so Facebook Ads might be a good source for that because you can have that proof of concept and really kind of educate the marketplace. But it's also going to take a little bit more work to get people to really peak their attention. Andrew: Yeah Facebook is just a totally different mindset for advertising. It's really great if you're good at targeting if you're good at—the way you build a funnel is just totally different. It's more so about you get to be able to catch people when they're doing something else, get their attention, pull them off the platform or engage them for a while and then pull them off versus being able to drive a sale short term. I think it's a longer term game and just a different mentality you need to have if you're going to do it well. And targeting too with Facebook I think is getting trickier [inaudible 00:12:57.7] that some of the targeting the traffic that Facebook had been sending hasn't been converting as well for some members and some people I know. So that's a big part of Facebook performing well as them sending you people that are based on their intelligence they know are going to work well. So yes it's interesting. Mark: Yeah talking to crack I think is the best way to describe it. So I do think it's a viable source but you've got to have the right type of product and you really have to know what you're doing with it and be patient. I mean that's just a lot with these; Amazon I'm not surprised at all, still a very young marketplace so I think we're still seeing kind of those numbers equalize out. Talk about a high intent marketplace and high intent searches so I think that makes complete sense they're number one on the list. And let's give a shout out to email marketing probably the old man in the room there, right? Andrew: Yeah although it's funny I think about if you look at email and even email it's still of course you know the number two most effective marketing channel and it's still highly—super valuable but I feel like even probably it's getting harder. I think advertising, in general, is getting so much more difficult because we've had so much of it—a part of it is fatigue; just advertising fatigue. And you've got three main giants who control so much of it and they're kind of squeezing all of the juice out of it they can with rising ad prices but even my email inbox I don't know about you Mark but I'm way more ruthless now with my email. I've got a ton of filters set up. I have used like unroll.me to unsubscribe from a lot of stuff because you have to. Because I'm looking to change my email address in the next couple of months to just have a team address to really focus on because it's—the levels most of the messages coming at us are increasingly just –they just keep going up and up and up. And so I don't know, it would be interesting to see if anything comes up in the next two, three, four years where—that it makes it able to get through all of that noise. Because it's getting—just any advertising, in general, is just getting a lot harder because there's just so much out there. Mark: You know I really think it comes down to the personalization. Email marketing, you're right I mean email it's a complete mess and now I use Gmail, we use Gmail, Google Apps throughout Quiet Light Brokerage and they tab everything down in that promotions or updates or forums tab. And I'll tell you what I don't look at promotions ever. Basically, its spam light is what it is and so you just throw all that stuff away. I go through it every few days and select all and hit the archive. Coming through that though like having personalized messages, very, very hyper focused hyper personalized messages I think that's really the only way that people are going to be able to survive with that email marketing. That's tough, that's not easy to do. Andrew: You know I agree and I think—you know I did a podcast with somebody earlier this year and they have an antiques business and every week they send out an email on Saturday and at the click through rates are like 25%. I talked to him about how he was doing this, I mean trying to get some secret out of it and there wasn't any secret. It was that he spent hours and hours and hours on an email that was totally unique and it was amazing deep interest level to the customers and people open it. And like I look at the email that we have that goes out to our private communities [inaudible 00:16:34.2] it's not nearly as good as his is but just that so much smaller group only about a thousand people but we're able to get it. It takes a lot of time to put together but it gets generally open rates of close to 50%. Mark: Let's move on here to another thing. I want to talk about the anatomy of a store owner. You put together a really nice simple graphic on the link to the report and I will link to this report here in the show notes and we'll also throw it into an email as well. So people listening to this take a look at the email coming through from Quiet Light Brokerage but I want to talk about the makeup of the store owner. Drop shipping seems to be kind of on the losing end of things these days. Andrew: Yeah I feel like it's had some pretty strong headwinds for the last couple of years. And this year the number—every year we ask and we look at what percentage of store owners is a certain type of business model; drop shipping, manufacturing, private label, hybrid, or reselling products. And this year the number of drop shippers that reported got cut in half. So only 8% of people this year down from 16% last year were drop shippers which is a pretty huge—just a massive cut. And if you look at the number of manufacturers that we're reporting that reports for the survey that was up by almost a 3rd by 32%. So it seems like a lot of those—this has been a couple of narratives that have been talked about for a couple of years now but it's really playing out in the numbers. Mark: Yeah I think so as well. What's funny though is we had somebody on recently to talk about drop shipping and they were killing it. They were doing a great job with drop shipping. So I feel like it's one of these areas where for a while there were Ad Sense sites, a pretty number of Ad Sense sites all over the place, a bunch of those got wiped out and the general thought was this is kind of a dead business model. Well, I've seen some of them come by and those people that actually survived through that and how they got some strong, strong businesses. I feel that way with drop shipping a little bit. Like if you can survive these head winds you've got something good. Andrew: It's funny you say that Mark because when I looked at the revenue growth by business model and the income growth by a business model guess who was leading the pack on both of those metrics? It was drop shippers. And I think what happened is exactly like you said there's a little bit of a Darwinism at play here where a lot of the herd got thinned out and the people that were left were able to make it work well. And I think you're actually right it definitely can work in some models. I think it's much harder to get the things to all align and get a model where it works well for reasons that—I guess I don't want to get into on the show right now but if you can get it right I mean it's a great business model because no inventory, no upfront cash, no cash flow issues, location independent. If you get it to work right it's a pretty good gig. Mark: It really is but it seems to be so dependent on the product and also your relationships as well because obviously, the problem with drop shipping is competition. It's so easy just to spin up something and compete directly with you and you get the sort of you bicker with a sort of marketplace of every product that is exactly the same, same images and everything else. It's tough to work in that area. On the flip side—so like I like to think about this on a spectrum. On one side we have drop shipping where you can see the products sometimes you get into reselling which might be a little bit of a step away from that drop shipping where you're still doing with some physical product but it's not yours. And then you go all the way over to the other side of the spectrum and you get these unique manufactured products, some of them private labeled but the most extreme would be hey I invented something or I've created a product and you're seeing some pretty big gains in that area. Andrew: Yeah I mean the number of manufacturers like I mentioned was up a 3rd this year. If you look at also not just the number of people that are doing it but the benefits that they're seeing and the pay off, so we tracked gross margin, net margin for those—for all these different types of sellers and manufacturers and by far the largest gross margin at 53%, the highest net margin at 21% and those were up year over year too for each category. I think the gross margin for manufacturers was up from 45% percent up to 53 and the net was up as well. So yeah I think manufacturers are—it's a harder business, there's less of a roadmap, it's more capital intensive, it's more stressful but if you're able to crack it more and more people are going that way. It's really the only way I feel like you can play on Amazon these days because if you're going to try to go resell someone else's product on Amazon you're going to get destroyed. And it's where a lot of people seem to be going and getting paid for. Mark: Yeah I think all those things that you talked about; the stress, no roadmap, everything else there's a flip side of that. It's defensible, right? Because there's no roadmap you're not going to have everybody saying oh I know exactly how to do this. It is difficult to do and figuring out how to get that manufacturing [inaudible 00:21:21.3] done is tough. Did you ask people and if you only have just kind of from what you've heard in the community obviously China I would guess would be the number one sourcing location for most people manufacturing, what other countries are you hearing from some of the members on the community that—where people are sourcing products? Especially when we're recording this—I don't know when we're going to air this episode but when we're recording this we're staring down potentially more tariffs going on with China. Obviously, this is going to impact everybody selling from China so finding other sources would be great. Have you heard of any other countries that seem to be emergent? Andrew: That's a great question and the honest answer is no. I mean there are people in Asia—I hear occasionally about people sourcing in Taiwan which depending on who you ask is China or isn't. Vietnam is another one that comes up but apart—and you know some people I know occasionally hear their source from India or make their things in Canada or someone I met with recently is building some footwear in Mexico. So there definitely are some other places people get certain things but in terms of a potential runner up to China that could even remotely start to be an alternative to where people are manufacturing 90% of things I don't think of someone who's pulling away or even you know accelerating at all. It's kind of just a whole bunch of a lot of different options all over. So not really an emerging source for manufacturing that I'm seeing. Mark: That's a little disappointing but not surprising. I mean wouldn't it be great to have something on this side of the ocean where we could maybe just pull up from Central America instead of having to—I talked to some of these store owners and they're talking about three months plus lead times where you're committing capital and then that goes on the ocean and it takes—I can't imagine how difficult that would be. Andrew: Oh yeah it would be really hard and you know it's one thing we did ask this year was did tariffs impact your business and granted I know we're talking you and I are both in the States, I know a lot of people listening aren't in the States but probably the vast majority of 85% or so of respondents for the survey are US based or 75% rather but we asked did tariffs impact your business this year? And over a 3rd of people, the 36% said the tariffs meaningfully hurt their business this year. And like you just alluded to they are only getting more from slapped on. So it's a big deal and it'd be nice to have a silver lining; maybe be that sourcing out of some of the countries closer to us maybe, maybe get a boost. Mark: Yeah that'd be interesting. Hey if anybody has an idea on where we can craft and not let me know. That'd be great to get that part out. Let's go to like some of the Sunday news here and that is everything seems to be growing. You know I started Quiet Light Brokerage right before we hit that great recession so a lot of my entrepreneurial journey has been slogging through a difficult economy. It seems like from what we're seeing we're in a bull market right now. Andrew: It seems really strong. So we—looking at growth rates over time, and again these are the average merchant—the average e-commerce store owner reporting for the survey was right around 3 million. So that's relatively small when you look at the macro economy, if you look at e-commerce trends, in general, they're probably could be growing closer to 20% plus or minus but for this segment of store owners if you look at the growth trend over 3 years, 2017 it was about 25%, last year it jumped way up to almost 37%, and this year it's down a touch to 36% but still meaningfully about the same. So revenue growth is good, income growth has also remained real strong and if you look at the conversion rates too and it's just continued to go up the last two years. I mean the conversion rate we're looking at this year was over 3% up from 2.60% last year. And in terms of like our earlier margins are up so all in all for store owners things are good, growth is good, margins are good, the conversion is great and it's kind of a boom time is the right word. But it's definitely—things are robust and healthy out there for stores in this segment. Mark: Yeah that's fantastic. One of the surprising things that I've seen from the report and we talked about this last year and I know Joe tells me and we mentioned this in the introduction to this episode here that the very 1st eCommerceFuel Live that he attended he brought a book on 10 Steps to Selling Amazon Business. You asked at one point to raise your hand if you're selling on Amazon and it was only a small portion of the room that did so. And he was thinking oh man I completely missed the mark bringing this book. Well, we've seen this number increase over the years although this year from—unless I've got [inaudible 00:26:19.5] I'm not reading this backwards, it looks like you have a decline in people that are selling on Amazon and an increase in people that are not selling on Amazon. Is that really what you're seeing? Andrew: Yeah I wouldn't say a decline but I would say a plateauing of something in the report that I wrote I call it like a plateauing Amazon—I hesitate to use the word peak Amazon because every time that I think that they've peaked anything they blow up and accelerate to the moon. But looking at like three examples here, or three data points; if you look at the number of merchants who just sell on Amazon or they don't. A couple of years ago 49% last year, it was 55% so a fairly meaningful jump. This year that number barely budged; it went from 55.2% to 55.8%. So up a little bit but wildly decelerating. Along the same lines if you look at group sales from Amazon last year, two years ago they were up really sharply and this year they barely budged; 27.6 to 28.2% of the total sales that all of the merchants generate coming from Amazon. And this is maybe the most surprising number. If you look at just the revenue growth of stores that sell on Amazon versus don't last year stores that sold on Amazon grew faster than stores that didn't. And this year stores that don't sell on Amazon actually grew faster than stores that do by a small margin which is just really, really surprising. So I think that there's so much here. We could do a whole episode on I don't think Amazon is going anywhere, I think they're going to be shaping the e-commerce landscape for the next 5 to 10 years. But I do think a lot of merchants are starting to really struggle with counterfeit issues, with increasing fees, with loss of control, with feeling like they're totally beholden to Amazon, and a lot of host of other issues. And they're not getting off the platform but the number of merchants that are saying hey yeah let's go hitch our wagon, go to Amazon and sell there—and some people are just deciding to leave the platform altogether. So one of my predictions and here I'm almost certain that it could be wrong because I'm going out on a limb is that next year is the 1st year we see the percentage of stores selling on Amazon actually decrease year over year. So we'll see when that happens. Mark: Yeah that's interesting. I wonder if shopper's behavior is changing at all and just again you just can't draw any conclusions from this here but I know for myself I've become more of a diversified shopper than I have in the past. I still use Amazon probably like 4 or 5 times a week, I'm still a really heavy Amazon shopper but I'll actually look around a little bit off of Amazon as well. And if I get the chance to order directly from a store I do so. Now that's probably just because I worked with so many entrepreneurs that have these stores and I know the benefits for them. But there's something nice about that specialization, right? If you think about the big box stores and how they couldn't specialize in any sort of gear but if you want something high end and specialized, it makes sense that there is somebody that actually does specialize in that. It's pure speculation on my part of course. Andrew: No. I think you're absolutely right. I think we're going to see in the next 5 years a real hollowing out of e-commerce where you have Amazon; if there's something you'd know you want to buy it's more of a commodity or a fairly inexpensive product that I think Amazon is going to be the place you go to get it quickly and cheaply and efficiently. But I think for anything else, for merchants I think the place to really thrive and survive over the next 5 years is to have a premium product or a very niched product; ideally, one that you manufacture. Like just for example yesterday I called up and I was in the market for a nice bike rack for my vehicle. And I went into a lot of research and the company I ended up buying it from I ended up talking to him on the phone for 35, 40 minutes. They custom manufacture in the United States, they ship that to me and it's that kind of thing. They have an incredible product and they don't sell on Amazon surprisingly because they don't need to. Because everyone that wants the site or this product they go right to them and they don't want to give up the marginalized control and guessing. And I think those are the kind of merchants that are going to do really well in the next 5 plus years. And I think that's kind of the best place to be going forward if you're not going to be on Amazon. Mark: Yeah. I would agree 100%. I think just from a long term sort of defensibility mindset and that's what I've seen and I actually see it on Amazon as well, the companies that are doing really, really well long term Amazon really care about their products. And they're spending a lot of time on that product development cycle and doing their research and trying to make sure that they have something that's a high quality product. But then they're also looking outside of that as well and becoming specialists in that space which makes a big difference. With everything that you surveyed here was there any one or two things that really stood out to you as being surprising this year or would inform you if you were an owner of an e-commerce business yourself that you would definitely want to take action on? Andrew: I think the big things were the massive shift and we kind of touched on this but the massive shift of people going away from drop shipping and into manufacturing. And the benefits financially that those manufacturers we're seeing. That would be a big one. The other one was the Facebook ones we talked about where Facebook Ads really are definitely at the back of the pack especially relative to their popularity in terms of effectiveness. So those would be probably two of the big things and then in terms of Amazon just I think it still makes—it can make sense if you have a great product that's proprietary. It doesn't—if you do it carefully I don't think you shouldn't go on Amazon but just the fact that so many people are kind of hitting the brakes on that or at least new entrance in saying aren't rushing in as head long as they were before I think is pretty telling. So nothing new there Mark that we haven't talked about but three things if I was in the middle of kind of defining strategy or starting it from scratch I think would be things I would think really carefully about. Mark: You said earlier in the episode here with advertising how much more difficult it's become. And I generally think that what we're seeing with the Internet and Internet based businesses and we've been seeing this pretty much since the time I started as an entrepreneur 20 years ago now is this maturation of the businesses where I think they're all getting more difficult to do. And you look at this and you think oh man that's such a bummer. I know I talked to some friends who are entrepreneurs back in the early 2000s and we kind of reminisce about the quarry days of Amazon was a thing of the website waiting for the movie dance to happen and now all of a sudden they're making gobs of money. But what do we learn from all that? We learned that dries up and disappears pretty quickly. The people that are surviving are the ones that are embracing some of these challenges and looking at them saying I'm going to build something really sustainable, a real product and they're doing great. They're doing really good. And that bears out in some of your numbers. Andrew: Yeah and one thing—it absolutely, absolutely does and I think one thing for you to touch on in terms of Amazon and in terms of sourcing in more of a macro level, if you look at one of the things we asked it was what are your most common struggles, what macro changes are you seeing, and what are your future plans? And one of the macro changes that came up the 1st time this year on the top top list was the number of Chinese sellers that were coming into Amazon. And I think I saw a stat today that 40% of the top Amazon sellers in 2019 are Chinese sellers versus 26% two years ago. And so A. on one level you have just a lot more competition directly from factories who are the low cost provider. Which isn't a bad thing for consumers in and of itself but it's harder for merchants. And if those sellers don't have the same kind of quality standards; some of them do, some of them don't, and you also run into problems. But you also have a lot of—one thing I've noticed is a lot of counterfeit issues. This has been in the news. We've had a number of members in our community who have had problems with this when they had a product it got knocked off and then these people—you know a lot of overseas sellers started selling this product directly in competition with the original manufacturer which was really problematic because the quality wasn't as good. And so consumers got it and it really hurt the brand because they assumed it came from the original source when it didn't. And so you see I think this also ties back into Amazon and why people are getting a little bit more careful about that platform is because there are some meaningful counterfeit issues out there that again going back to the difficulties of manufacturing that merchants are having to face that weren't really as much of an issue two, three years ago. Mark: That would be interesting to see what happens with that platform. And also I'm going to touch on one last bit of the report here that you spent some time on and that is the impact of politicians and judges and we've covered two areas; we were already talked about tariffs briefly and how many were impacted by that. I think the other big elephant in the room and it's been there for several years and we've talked about it a ton here at Quiet Light Brokerage and that is the FBA Nexus. Do you have Nexus, are you filing those sales taxes in different states, and you still have a very small percentage [inaudible 00:35:49.6] to the speaking of your community that was paying those sales taxes. I think 21% is what I'm seeing is that right? Andrew: Yup that's correct. So the percentage of sellers who have Amazon inventory that is filing for sales tax, [inaudible 00:36:04.0] sales tax in any state that they have “FBA Nexus” whether or not you agree that [inaudible 00:36:10.1] Nexus. Yeah only about a quarter of merchants are submitting sales tax to those states. Mark: And do you have any idea why such a small percentage? I mean obviously nobody wants to pay taxes and that it's a pain to most people. I've run into sellers who make the argument that it's really not—oh there's no legal basis for it. Andrew: I think it's a couple of things. I think one it's it is potentially disputable whether or not and again this is something I need to personally do a deep dive on but from the very—this is where things get dangerous when I talk but from the very little I know I don't know if it's—I don't believe it's that very crystal clear, there's a whole lot of present presidents that said yes this does definitively give you Nexus. And it could be a state by state issue as well. So I think that's part of it. I think the 2nd part of it is thinking about—so because it's a gray area you can have more people who start thinking on a risk basis. What are my risks I submit? What are my risks if I don't? Also relative to the workload because it's not just about the tax; I mean if it was mostly about the tax and the administering this and the managing of it was really easy and you didn't have any you know long term liability or exposure to being audited I think most merchants would say hey it's a little inconvenience but let's go ahead and let's set this up. You can snap your fingers I'll collect the sales tax; it's not a big deal. If it is a federal level it's much easier to do. I think you'd see that number jumped to 25 to 50% plus but that's not the case. Like you've got—it's hard to administer. You potentially open yourself up to dozens, hundreds, maybe even theoretically thousands of different municipalities who can audit you. You run the risk of getting on a sales tax agency's radar to come after you and maybe it wasn't before. So I think those are some of the reasons why people are not exactly thrilled at the thought of jumping in and waving their hand at taxation seasons saying hey here I am I'm not sure if I'm actually legally obligated to do this but come check me out. Mark: I completely get it. I get the risk versus reward analysis and frankly if I were a seller I would probably be among that 75% that's not collecting. Not that that's what I would advise here in my role because I know that if you do want to sell you got to be doing that right. And most buyers are looking at that and saying we want you to be paying those taxes. We don't want that to come back after us [inaudible 00:38:31.9] later on. But I mean from my opinion I think it's pretty legally shaky ground to say that people do have that Nexus. But the best practice from a selling standpoint would be to be filing so we do—I mean that's our default position here at Quiet Light is that you should be filing for sure without a doubt. But I would love to see this resolved within the next few years because it as if Amazon sellers don't have enough things hanging over their head. There's this potential like you said of being audited by the state of California or all of a sudden getting a bill for seven, eight, nine years of tax—what a mess. They need to get it together and figure this part out. Andrew: There's a little bit of encouraging news [inaudible 00:39:16.5] different sales tax issue we're talking about the FBA Nexus tax issue but the wayfarer versus South Dakota Supreme Court case that opened up the doors for states to tax inbound orders to their residents even if you don't have Nexus in the state as a whole opened up a whole other can of worms. And California I believe just passed some legislation that increases the threshold for—I think that the term for that is economic Nexus. They bumped that up meaningfully to half a million when before it was really low at like 100,000 and 200 transactions. So there's a little bit of encouraging news on some of that fronts and I believe there's been maybe half a dozen other states that either followed suit or are in process of doing that but its sales tax right now in the United States is just an absolute disaster. And I agree with you, I think we really need something at the federal level to clean it up because it's just a nightmare. I know people and I know you have to Mark that have sold their business not entirely based on but this definitely was a large part of the calculation thinking through I don't want to deal with this. I don't want to deal with the stress. I don't know with the liability and this is making business harder than it needs to be and I'm ready to be done. Mark: Yeah absolutely. Alright, we got to get to the most important metric that you've got and then wrap this up because we're actually long already with the episode. And you know what it is, it's your KPI the thing that you're focusing on the most. And in the past, you've learned stuff about your community rather be attacked by a swarm of angry bees and a bear and you say that they're crazy. I don't know the bear sounds pretty scary. But this year you asked what luxury gift would you pick; unlimited use of a private jet, $300,000 in annual income, a monthly lunch with anyone, or a tropical island and a house. So that 300k of annual income is that like forever? Andrew: That's forever. Yeah and I think overly weighted this one. I should have been all stench here with the annual annuity that you got because 2/3 of people picked the 300k income which yeah it's hard to argue against that. That's a pretty sweet little set up for life but like 10% picked the jet, about 13% picked the monthly lunch with anyone. That was my pick. I think like you can—I mean to be able to sit down once a month with the likes of U.S. presidents, heads of state, Nobel Prize winners. I mean you can't buy that. I think that'd be cool. Mark: Do you have to buy lunch? Andrew: You do. I should have included that. That was probably what the deal breaker was. Mark: Right. Because it's got to be a pretty nice lunch if you're going to have lunch with these guys. You're not just going down on like [inaudible 00:41:45.4]. Andrew: That's a good point. And then the last one was a tropical house, about 30% of people picked that. But yeah I mean to me this is I feel like it's going to a cornerstone—I suppose we can lead with this one actually Mark. I think next time maybe we mix things around and lead off of the Kardashian performance. Mark: You like to always put the best content at the end so that people will listen all the way to the end. Because where would your day be today if you hadn't learned that most people would take 300k annual income over a monthly lunch with anyone. I actually think you make a pretty valid point there. That would be pretty valuable. You can't buy a monthly lunch with anyone. That'd be tough. Andrew: Buffet—I think you could buy lunch with Buffett for—I don't know it's in the millions I think to have lunch with him. And he's just—I can imagine he's a pretty cool cat but yeah to build it up monthly with anyone; that's pretty cool. Mark: Yeah that is pretty cool. Alive and dead? Andrew: No, I don't think—I think it has to be alive. I didn't put that in there. If we had some inane abilities to be able to resurrect people, that would be pretty sweet. I'd put that in there too. I probably would have bumped it up a touch but I don't know, that 300k was pretty [inaudible 00:42:53.4] people. People like their cash. Mark: I think I could probably make 300k a year with some inane abilities. I'd be like one of those fortune tellers but I'm pretty sure I could spin that off into a pretty desk. Andrew: I know you could too. Mark: Hey thanks so much for coming on; tons of really good information. Go check out eCommerceFuel.com and the State of the Merchant Report. We will link to it in the show notes. We will be sending out an email to every one of our subscribers here on this. If you're not a member of the community are you taking applications right now Andrew? Andrew: We are. Yes, we are. Mark: Okay. If you're not a member of the eCommerceFuel community and you are an e-commerce seller you definitely need to check them out. I don't recommend a lot of groups. I don't recommend a lot of people or sites. We do so very stingily here at Quiet Light Brokerage but eCommerceFuel is one of our favorite groups out there. So please do check them out. Anything you'd like to end with Andrew? Andrew: No. I think that maybe two quick things; one if you want to check out the report directly its eCommerceFuel.com/2019-report that'll link you right to it. And then if you happen to be a podcast listener which I'm guessing you are, we also do a weekly podcast, sometimes twice a week on e-commerce, e-commerce news, store owners, kind of cutting edge just whatever is happening in the e-commerce world and strategy. That comes out weekly as well so if you're interested in that you can check that out [inaudible 00:44:15.2]. Mark: Yeah and you guys also sent out really good emails. I know we talked about email marketing and there's not a lot of people I feel add value to my inbox. I think you guys do a great job of adding value to my inbox. So definitely check out the community, check out the podcast and the report. And once again Andrew thanks for coming on. I look forward to having you on next year for the 2020 State of the Merchant Report. Andrew: Yeah. Thank you, Mark. I appreciate it. It's always fun to come on and great work with what you guys are doing in the online space with businesses. It's always fun to talk and I appreciate the invite. Links and Resources: Andrew's website State of the Merchant 2019 Andrew's Podcast

One of the misconceptions people have about Quiet Light is that we do more e-commerce than content transactions. Fun fact, our top two transactions ever have been content and SaaS deals. Our guest today, Bruno Bornsztein, is a web entrepreneur who has conquered the content domain via his two websites, Curbly, and Mandmade DIY. Bruno is what we like to call an “old school” entrepreneur, someone who successfully combines his own web development expertise with entrepreneurship. Equal parts content creator, developer, businessman, and design aficionado, Bruno got his start during the wild west days of the influencer platform. Nowadays, he's in the process of launching a new SaaS product to make success more fluid for influencers. Episode Highlights: The starting up of Curbly, the monetization, and the changes the site took on over the years. At what point the site started publishing sponsored posts for large companies and how these companies found him. We delve into the world of influencer marketing and how Bruno built a brand, rather than an individual, that then became the influencer. We discuss how influencers should pull back from the spotlight rather than build that personal brand that cannot operate without their personal daily input. The metrics that exist to measure the influencer impact. Bruno talks about his transition from a content site to building his Influencer Kit Saas tool and the phase the product is in now. The potential challenges in scaling The Influencer Kit quickly to meet market need. The target clients for The Influencer Kit tool. Transcription: Joe: Mark, one of the things that I think is a bit of a misnomer here about Quiet Light is people think that we do much more e-commerce physical product business brokering than we do content. And in fact the largest transaction I've ever done, the top two have been content and SaaS. And I understand you had a friend of yours, Bruno from one of your Mastermind groups on to talk about both that … just both content and a new SaaS business that he's got from his own content site. Can you chat about that? Mark: Yeah of course. Yeah, Bruno … the guy is an old school entrepreneur and I'm doing air quotes right now for old school because in the world of the Internet is there an old school yeah? But in my opinion, he's old school because the guy started out developing his own stuff. When he started his first business Curbly.com which is a home improvement blog. He developed the code himself, designed everything, and then he was writing the blog post as well. And now that he's transitioning into a new SaaS product called InfluenceKit he's once again developing the code on the backend and doing pretty much everything on his own and lives in that world of web development plus entrepreneurialism. A super, super smart guy when it comes to that side of it. So he and I actually … this podcast is really just he and I catching up online and walking down memory lane. But there were a couple of things that came out of this that I thought were fascinating. And one thing that I love about his business Curbly, and there's a couple of other guys that I talked to here local to me in the content world, is they're treating their businesses like influencers and they actually talk about it as influencer marketing. And I don't know about you Joe but I … when I think of an influencer I think of that 21 year old model wearing sneakers and putting them on Instagram and getting paid just to post wearing those sneakers or is just like that right? The personality based influencers. But what these guys are doing is they have their blogs which are completely irrelevant to their personality and I'm not … calling it a blog might be a little bit meaning because it has so much more content than that but these sites are influential. They have lots of followers for what they're doing and large companies are coming to them and paying them to use their products and write about those products through to their sites. So when you look at a content site we often think well how do you monetize that? Well there is AdThrive, there's Google AdSense, and maybe you charge for advertising but these guys are generating quite a bit more money by getting these sponsored posts. So Bruno and I talked a lot about that. We talked about how did he get into this in the first place with these sponsored posts, how did he attract some of these larger advertisers which are obviously paying quite a bit to have these sponsored posts. But then we talked about his next venture which is getting into that SaaS base. He realized that these companies that were paying him to do these sponsored posts, they wanted good metrics. They wanted to know how many people were clicking on the post and viewing them, how many people were sharing these posts. And so he develops offer internally for that reporting, now he's developing a full on SaaS product and we talked about how do you grow a new SaaS business the right way because everyone thinks … and I'm sure you've seen this Joe in the SaaS community, you kind of have this idea of all right you create your product, get the right fit, and then just scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, right? Well, not always right? And he wants to make sure that he scales the right way and has a really good product market fit. Joe: Yeah I think doing it slow and doing it right is much more important than trying to get big … too big too fast because you make mistakes and lose good customers along the way because they'll go somewhere else. I love the sounds of this because as you said most of the content sites that we've brokered are using AdSense and AdThrive and things of that nature. Even the largest one that I did was and there's not a whole lot of sponsored posts that are driving revenue. So I think that's fantastic and I love the off shoot of an entrepreneur telling his story or her story about how they had another business, in this case, the SaaS product to serve those customers that were doing sponsored posts. So I think it's great. Let's go to it. Mark: Hey Bruno thanks for joining me. I really appreciate you taking the time here for a quick conversation. You and I are local to each other. We meet up once every few months with a couple of other guys and just talk shop so it's kind of weird to be talking to you. Bruno: I know we should almost just get together in the same spot, right? Mark: That would have been good planning on my part and you know I don't do necessarily great planning all the time. So we have a little tradition here at the Quiet Light podcast where we have our guest introduce themselves. We like to say it's because you know yourself better than I do but really it's just because I don't do show prep so— Bruno: Sure. Guess what I didn't do any show prep either so I think I could probably introduce you better than me. So my name is … as you know my entrepreneurial, Bornsztein. I'm a local St. Paul guy like you are. And my background is in publishing online and web development. So I'm really a web developer who got into running digital content sites for a long time. So what that looks like is I launched a blog called Curbly.com in 2006 and another blog called ManMade DIY in 2010. I ran those for 10 years or more and in the last couple years I've been focusing on a new project called InfluenceKit which is a Software as a Service product that's targeted at digital influencers, content creators, basically people like who I used to be. Mark: Right now you come from this kind of old school or what I consider to be old school Internet entrepreneur. And I used to fall in this category. The first business that I built online, I built the code and I built it in Pearl if you can believe that and I didn't know a lick of code but I figured it out. You're still doing that to this day though, right? I mean like InfluenceKit it's a SaaS product you're building; we'll talk about that in a minute. You're doing most of the development on that. Bruno: Yeah I'm the lead developer for InfluenceKit. I was also lead technical person for my content sites which was good and bad. There's upsides and downsides to being technical like that. I like you, learned to do a lot of this stuff a long time ago when the way that you were to do web development was usually do source. So a lot of things I learned was just by looking at another site, looking at the source, trying to pick apart how it worked. Fortunately, that process has gotten a lot more easier now so there's a lot more resources out there for people to learn how to become web developers. But yeah I definitely like being involved in the technical side. I think the challenge for me is figuring out when to disengage from that and how much I should be involved and how much I need to try to delegate. So that's definitely something that I'm working on. Mark: Yeah. Alright so I want to start out and I want to break this conversation into two parts, I want to talk about InfluenceKit and what you're building there in the SaaS realm but I want to talk also about Curbly and ManMade DIY is that right? Okay. You and also I know some of the other guys that we know have a model with their content sites. I think a lot of people when they hear content sites are just thinking okay I'm going to put something up. I'm going to put on pass a bad network and just kind of run from there but you guys do quite a bit more. Tell me a little bit about starting up Curbly and maybe the beginning story of that and then what its primary means of monetization has been over the years. Bruno: Yeah it's actually kind of an interesting story because it wasn't really intended to be a blog. The way Curbly came about was this: I was doing freelance web development; I took a contract building a social network, this was in 2005. This was before Facebook was publicly available to everybody.  You still had to have an EDU address to get in. And this network that we built was intended to kind of like compete with that in some sense. After that project was done I had some time on my hands, a little bit of money saved up, so a friend of mine and I decided to build something and being the sort of non-strategic person that I am we just kind of … it was a little bit random; I had bought a house, I was working in my house that was kind of an area that interested me so somehow without a whole lot of forethought we came on this idea of a social network for home improvement. The idea that Curbly was meant to be was a social network UGC site … User Generated Content site that all was focused around the home, design … I'm remodeling my kitchen here's pictures of what I want to do, I'm looking for ideas for my bathroom does anybody have some? It sounds a lot like a site you've probably heard of which is House. House is that. I think we wanted Curbly to be House, we just didn't really know it at that time. So what ended up happening was Curbly sort of organically transitioned into something else. When we started the site we built it really quickly in about six weeks, the MBP of it. And the first thing was well we don't have any content on here how are people going to want to like join this social network when there's nothing there. So we just posted for it; freelance writers on Craigslist and had people start kind of seeing content. And that was not because we wanted to be a publisher or a media company but because we just wanted something on the site. But over the first three or four years it just kind of … I realized that there was a business model there and that was easier actually than trying to become House. And for a variety of reasons turning into House just like didn't happen. But I learned that actually there was a way of generating high quality content for a reasonable price using freelancers and in monetizing that. So yeah over the course we were really lucky with Curbly. I think in our first month we went from zero to 250,000 patrons a month. Mark: Wait, wait halt. What? How did you do that? Was it all organic SEO or were you keying in on other—? Bruno: No it was luck. We got to be lucky, we got on Dig, we got on … remember Dig? Mark: I remember Dig. I got Dig to the front page maybe twice in my life. Bruno: We got on Dig, we got on a few other things; Life Hacker it was a big blog back then and they posted a link to one of our project that somebody posted. Yeah, it was just lucky. I talk about this a lot … like sometimes if you would ask me at the time in November or December 2006 after Curbly had been live for two months like how things were going I would've been … I would think I would have said uhh I don't know, it's okay not great. And I just think I talk to a lot of like younger entrepreneurs about this a lot which is that at the beginning it's really hard to know whether you're succeeding or failing especially if you don't have any experience. So the way I'd phrase that is success or failure look the same a lot of times when you're just starting out. And it's really about experience and context. So at the time, our goal was to build House, right? And so we wanted 250,000 users to sign up to Curbly because that's … active users was the metric we were looking at. And because we didn't have that, because we weren't seeing that it was kind of like what are we doing wrong? It's not working. Not really appreciating that we had actually been really successful in another way that we didn't understand.  So I think for anybody who's … is entrepreneurial but maybe hasn't done a lot of things before just remember that you maybe … it may be very difficult to disentangle whether you're succeeding or failing you just don't … you might not have enough experience to really know the difference. Mark: Yeah I know with Quiet Light it was the same thing. For the first five, six, seven years of Quiet Light I did the same thing and people would ask me like well what are your plans and I'm like I don't know I might just make a boutique and not really do much more with it or I might just kind of wind it down over the next few years. But I just kept kind of going and going and going and it wasn't until I really went to hire Jason on initially, Jason Yellowitz, that I was kind of like there might actually be something here that I wasn't expecting. But you're right, success and failure do look the same. At the beginning at least they can look the same. When did you start taking on these sponsored posts and just to be clear for everyone listening you do have like AdThrive and stuff like that that you monetize through but a big bulk of your revenue is coming from getting sponsored posts from major companies like Home Depot and other large companies that are looking at your traffic, at your audience and saying we want that audience so we're going to pay you to test this product or to be able to feature this product in one of your DIY stuff. When did you start making that transition? Bruno: Yeah 2009 was the very first sponsored thing that we ever did. So that was very early on. It was with a fabric company who I won't name but it was kind of a failure for a variety of different reasons. But it was the first time we got paid just to create content on behalf of a brand. And then it ramped up. So I would say in 2009, 0% of our revenue was sponsored content or influencer marketing [is what it's called now and 100% was … you know the rest about probably 95% was programmatic display ads and the rest was affiliate links. And then back then it was even okay to do text links. That quickly went sour but there was a period where it was okay to have text links on your site. And then probably by 2016, 50% of our revenue became sponsored content. So it did sort of take a little while to ramp up. And it took a while before we started seeing interest from established brands and agencies. But definitely by 2012, 2013 you are starting to get pitches from PR agencies, brands, ad agencies that were interested in partnering with you to talk about their products. Mark: So what changed for those agencies to start recognizing you? Did you have to do outreach for that or was it really just them picking up on the metrics that you guys were supporting at the time? Bruno: You know I think a little of both. I definitely started doing … being proactive once I saw that there was an opportunity to make real money there. And so definitely being proactive, reaching out to people even just replying, you know we always got … as any kind of publisher, you're always going to get a lot of press releases and inquiries and people that want you to talk about their thing. So by proactive, I even mean just replying to those and saying like hey you know we're not necessarily going to cover this product this month but if you're interested in sponsored content we have these opportunities. So just being like a lot more responsive and offering that. I think on their side they didn't really start seeing metrics until much later. Even today a lot of influencer marketing happens with very little metric reporting which is something that InfluenceKit is trying to change. But I don't know that it was that they started seeing big metrics I think it was that the people that were working in those organizations were more digitally native. Like they understood that landscape more. In 2009 I mean I … in 2009 I had people who didn't know what a blog was. There were still people who are like what's a blog, why would I … how do you make money on it, how would you … why would a company pay to have their content on it or whatever? By 2016 that wasn't happening anymore. Everybody knew what a blog was. Everybody knew what social media was. And so the idea that a brand would want to communicate with your audience just made more sense. They understood that like okay blogs are a real thing. They have a real audience. They're communicating … they're able to communicate your message and help you get your branding out there. And so I think it just became a little bit easier to convince them of that. Mark: Yeah it reminds me of … do you remember Darren Rowse from ProBlogger? Bruno: Yeah. Mark: He was kind of the big guy who was making all the push of saying you know what these blogs you can actually make a lot of money with them. Bruno: Yeah. Mark: A bit at the forefront of this movement. We're getting in this weird, wild world of influencer marketing something which I know very, very little about personally. And I think one of the interesting observations here … and I'm sure a lot of people listening are kind of like well yeah, of course, Mark just kind of get with the program but it's the idea that I think influencers I think that Instagram person, right? Up on Instagram on and it's the person themselves and they're making sure that all the pictures have the same colors in them and fit the 3 by 3 matrix that they want to have so it looks all nice. But Curbly itself was the influencer in this in this situation. Bruno: Right. Mark: So you built a brand that was an influencer. Bruno: Yeah. Yes. So Curbly always was … Curbly never had a … it was never a personality driven site and that helped us in some ways and hurt us in some ways. But yes in our case it was much more about the site than any individual person contributing to the site. Because our site was driven by people like freelancers and a few staff people that were creating the content. But in general yeah there is much … you do seem more of like the individual sort of pseudo celebrity influencer although there is a lot more out there than just that. There are a lot of sites out there that aren't so tied to the individual that's running them that's really more about the content that they create and the audience that they are able to pull together. Mark: Yeah [inaudible 00:18:39.7] anything about like the other guys who are now over [inaudible 00:18:42.4], right? Totally the same sort of thing where they can do that and be a full blogger pro as well right and all the brands that he and Lindsey have as well which is so influential for what they do. Bruno: I think a lot of bloggers and digital content creators that I talk to this is a topic that comes up because in terms of selling sponsored content it can be easier if you are sort of a known personality. But in terms of actually having that be your business not … first, not everybody wants to do that because it is difficult to have … to be that kind of an influencer you really have to expose so much of your personal life and really be vulnerable and that's not for everybody. Not everybody wants to do that. And then just from a … strictly from a sort of business strategy point of view, it's not always smart to make the business so reliant on you. You may be a huge Instagram influencer bringing down a lot of money through your influencer contracts but what do you do when you want to sell that business? That's a really hard business to get out of. It's a really hard business to cut back because if you want to say like scale back your work or you have a family or a kid who's going to take over that role? So I have talked to a lot of those types of influencers about like how can you sort of start to pull yourself back. How can you supplement your business and make it a little bit more sustainable and not so reliant on you as a person? Mark: Yeah absolutely. That's the same advice that we would give anybody out there is that I totally get the appeal of a building a personal brand. And I think a lot of people start with that in mind. Like I'm going to build a brand around myself, I'm going to be the celebrity. But then you get to the point where like this is a lot of work and I've been growing it for five years and I'm tired of posting my life for the public to see every single day and so how do you convert that over to an actual business? It can be done and I've seen a few cases where people have done it but it's a process. Bruno: It is and I just think it's something that … you know because so many of these businesses do start off as hobbies or side projects it's not something that people think about right away but I think it is important to think about. You need to start thinking about it as a business, building a team that can support you. If you need to be the face of the brand okay that might be fine as long as you are thinking about it and I'm also thinking about how that might affect your ability like you said to sell a business or change your involvement in the business. Mark: Yeah. Alright, let's talk a little bit about the influencer marketing side of it and the metrics and just kind of moves into what you're doing now with InfluenceKit. You said it yourself there's not a lot of metrics that were necessarily expected from the people or even deliverable for the people that were paying for these sponsored posts. What have you done there and maybe through Curbly or that you just kind of learned over the years that's really helpful for somebody paying for a sponsored post to start to key in on in terms of those metrics. Bruno: Yeah I mean really where this came out of was like I said around 2016 we started doing a lot of sponsored content. And the first problem we had was just producing it efficiently. Not even reporting on it but just like honestly making sure that we did everything we promised we would do. I mean I know it sounds kind of silly but when you're doing … I think that we were probably doing three blog posts a day on Curbly, we're doing something like four or five sponsored projects or campaigns a month on Curbly. That's just a lot of moving parts. Like did we … are we supposed to do Instagram for Home Depot and how many pins were we supposed to do and what was the blog post supposed to include and is it cap is it the Home Depot or just Home Depot? I mean these are all little details but it makes of a difference when you start working with those brands because they expect a level of professionalism and you want to deliver that. So that was the first problem it was like okay we just don't have a good system for this. And that's kind of where the precursor to InfluenceKit came. It was just an internal tool that I built to help our team. Just to help everybody keep on the same page, what we have to do, when is it due, did we do it; simple right? And we used that. We used that tool for a long time. We used it both for our sponsor content but also for our editorial planning. It was great. It was really helpful. Then at 2017, 2018 I started thinking like man, we're just not doing a very good job of showing these sponsors their ROI of what we did for them. Like they're paying us money, we're getting good deals, we're getting as much money as we think we should be getting, we're creating this really good content but that's kind of where it stops. And I realized that that was a weakness. And so then I started looking at well how can we report, how can we go back and report on this? Doing it manually sucks and I'm somebody like if I do something twice I never want to have to do it again. Like once I've done something twice I'm like okay I should build something. So that's where InfluenceKit came out of. And it really just lets you automate the reporting piece of that process. So that for us, when we're doing, say four sponsored campaigns a month each of those campaigns might have four or five separate deliverables; things that we have to deliver back to the brand and report on. That's 20 different things. We can just dump those on to InfluenceKit and send the brand a report. So yeah I mean that's kind of where we're at now. The industry as a whole is really kind of still up in the air, people are starting to ask for a lot more metrics but not all. And that's kind of part of my mission with InfluenceKit is. I want to see every blogger doing this. I think it's to their benefit and I think that the biggest benefit is going to be when the industry realizes that there is reporting on this stuff they're going to start opening the floodgates. And by that I mean there's going to be a lot more money coming in and available to do this kind of stuff because they can actually measure the results. Mark: Let's talk about InfluenceKit … and I love the transition here. You've been doing content, sponsored posts, all these and then internally like you said if you do something twice you want to build a tool for it and you started building the tool and it starts evolving and the next thing you know you have on your hands what could easily become a SaaS application which is what you are really focusing on right now. So you just finished an [inaudible 00:25:03.5] you just finished a kind of an introductory like get in the door sort of program with InfluenceKit for a limited number of people and you're in the testing stage with them right now is that right? Bruno: Yeah so we're essentially in a sort of like a pre-launch phase right now we're letting in a very limited number of people. And that's really … that's not because you know we're snooty or anything it's just there's we're a very small team. It's myself and two other co-founders. And I think that we want to get it right. We're trying to figure out and I think all SaaS apps probably deal with this but what's the growth rate that we actually think we can achieve and we actually can support. I think that there might be a little bit of a misconception that you just like want to grow as fast as you can as soon as you can like just grow, grow, grow, grow. I don't know but I don't want to do that you know. I want to grow this business at a rate that is sustainable that we can actually keep up with. I don't want to be working nights and weekends right now. So yeah we are … where we are is we're letting people in. We're kind of testing out the product with them making improvements and changes based on early customer feedback and then figuring out okay now what? Like we think we have product market fit, we spent about six months kind of convincing ourselves that that's the case and now it's like okay well how do we figure out how to grow and like I said at what rate we want to try to grow at. Mark: So a couple of questions that can come to mind here, I'll ask the easier one first and that is you talked about not wanting to necessarily just grow as fast you can, scale as fast as you can. What are some of the restraints that you're seeing that if you were to open it back up and … our of millions of listeners are listening to this podcast and they start knocking on your door and they're like hey we want in Bruno, we want in. What are some of the challenges that you guys would have in scaling quickly? Bruno: Oh man I would say first of all let's just back up and obviously it would be a great problem to have that million and millions of people— Mark: It's a good problem to have millions of listeners as well. Bruno: You know I'm not like that and so I don't want to just make that assumption. Obviously, we need to work really hard still to even have that problem. But what are the scaling problems? I think the first scaling problem would be people. SaaS apps at least ours, I suppose I should speak for everyone but ours are still pretty heavily dependent on people. You really need to support people, you need customer support, you need onboarding. There's still a lot of time that goes into it and so that would be the first problem. Then with that comes a bunch of other problems like scaling an organization so that you're building … yes, you're building a product but you're also building a company. And in some sense, the company is like the more important product because if you can build a good solid organization then you'll do other good things and good products will come out of that. So we're really trying to be conscious of that like okay if we suddenly had to hire three customer support people how would we do that? How would we train them? How would we all stay on task? So I think scaling up people would be a big constraint. From a tech point of view for sure, there are some things we'd run into as well. InfluenceKit, in particular, relies on a lot of API's so … and for the non-technical people that just means we have to go out and grab stats from a bunch of different sources; Facebook, Instagram, Google Analytics. All of that takes server time. All of those API's have rate limits. Whenever you're building software you know doing something at a small scale and then just like growing it to a bigger scale is not as easy as just … it's not like we multiply things linearly. Things get way more complicated, way more difficult to debug. And that's not to say that I'm not excited about solving those problems; I am. But yeah I want to do it in a sane way. I think if we were to suddenly add … if we were suddenly to triple our user base like in a month I would be spending a lot of late nights doing things that I don't want to be doing. Mark: I totally understand that. Building the organization side I think is really important. Whenever you're scaling anything at all having that foundation to be able to scale on is crucial because you will just completely buckle under the weight of growing rapidly. Who's the client for InfluenceKit? Who are you trying to target? Obviously, digital creators would make sense but it's not just mom bloggers. Bruno: So we think of our customer as professional bloggers. I know that when we started out you kind of mentioned when you think of influencers you think Instagram and for sure you know that's legit but as we talked about and we talked about this a lot who we can picture as our customer it's somebody whose primary platform is content creation on a website that they own and their social platforms are supplementary to that. And when I say professional I mean like if they're making their living off of this, like they're supporting their family. They might even have an employee or two. We look at it anywhere from there up to what you might consider more like a small media organization; a site that has five or 10 or 20 employees. Beyond that, you don't think about that really as our market so much because at that scale there are other tools for those people and you don't really want to swim in those waters. So that's really who we think about and the interesting thing is that we've started hearing from a lot of agencies and brands about this. Really not our plan but what's happening is influencers are sending reports to their sponsors; the people that are paying them and then we're hearing from them saying we could use this. A great problem to have, it's a little bit like of an existential mini crisis for us because we're all in front … we come from this background, we're bloggers, we set out really with a mission to build a tool to help empower people like us and we don't want to just like pivot and start serving a completely different market at the same time. I mean when you have people asking to use your thing and who wanted to pay you, you need to listen. So we're trying to navigate that and see how we can do it. Mark: Alright that sounds like a really good problem to have and sounds as well like we maybe pivoting down the road into matching influencers as well. Not to plan your path for you but it just seems like a natural extension that might be happening as well. Cool. Well, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast here talking about some of these things and I think we probably could have broken this up into two because just thinking about all the questions to deal with on the sell side. If I ask another question now we'd go on for 15 more minutes. Bruno: Okay. Mark: So I'm going to stop it now and I'm going to say I want to have you back to check in as you get past that kind of first initial enrollment and talk about how things have all been in this influencer space. I love the idea and just thinking about influencers outside of the Instagram model, thinking about it more in terms of a brand and just kind of this story is … well, it's fantastic so thanks so much for coming on. Bruno: Alright. Yeah thanks for having me. I'd be glad to come back and chat with you here on that episode. Mark: Alright. Looking forward to meet up with you. See you again soon. Bruno: Alright sounds good. Thanks, Mark. Links and Resources: Curbly Mandmade DIY

Good news from Mark - Let the children come to me - Mark 9:33-37, 10:13-16

Panel: Mark Ericksen Josh Adams Special Guest: Edgar Pino    In this episode of Elixir Mix, the panel talks with Edgar Pino who talks with the panel about the latest version of Ecto! They discuss Ecto’s new features and how easy of a transition it was to go from the previous to the newest version. Edgar Pino is a software engineer who currently resides in Utah! Check out today’s episode! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job!  1:04 – Mark: Hello! Please give us your background? 1:16 – Guest: I have been in Elixir for the past year or two and I have been living in Utah. 1:48 – Mark: I love the nature and state parks. Winter is coming, so I hope you are ready! 1:58 – Guest: Winter...hopefully it will be great! 2:20 – Panelists and guest go back-and-forth. 2:30 – Mark: Let’s talk about your blog posts about Ecto. What are your new announcements? 2:52 – Guest: Our new version was released a few weeks ago. 3:32 – Panel. 3:38 – The guest talks about the old and new versions of Ecto. 4:03 – Panel: What is new and how is this going to affect me (the new version)? 4:11 – Panel: The transition was pretty painless for me. The only change was the breaking-up of the adapter ad also the timestamp bit. That was it. 4:34 – Panel: Yeah that micro-timestamp surprised me for a second, but it wasn’t that bad after all. 4:52 – Guest: Yeah it was painless for me, too. 5:19 – Panel: Edgar can you talk about the change and what they did with the timestamps? 5:32 – The guest answers the question. 5:54 – Panel: Elm opted to use the micro-millisecond, too. Time zones aren’t a thing. 6:24 – Mark. 7:08 – Panel: My tests are the only reason why I care about the millisecond. 7:21 – Mark: With the upgrade don’t do what I did. Mark talks about how he updated and the issues he had. 8:47 – Guest: Pattern matching? 8:53 – Mark: Yep that sort of stuff. I didn’t need to do it and it was a learning experience. Edgar, please give us an introduction to the blog posts? Why did you want to document it? 9:18 – Guest: I always used Ecto with Phoenix but started learning Ecto by itself. I jotted down notes that I thought was interesting. That’s how it started. 10:17 – Mark: See links in the show notes. Using a gen to use the repo – this is one thing that I didn’t know was an option. 10:46 – Guest. 11:01 – Mark asks a question. 11:10 – Guest: Not really PHP applications but listening to web messages and hot topics but you are doing the database and serving data... 11:40 – Guest talks about Ecto and the different versions and features. 12:09 – Mark chimes-in. 12:23 – Panel: Yep – it’s under the hood and it’s for business logic and doesn’t have a web piece. Stop writing tings for the web – it’s a fad. 12:50 – Mark: It’s an umbrella and saw this through the Phoenix generators. 13:54 – Guest talks about web applications. 14:06 – Mark: Let’s talk about schema and databases? 14:23 – Panelist chimes-in. 14:51 – Panelists and guest talk about schemas, apps, and more. Check it out here. 16:13 – Guest: You will get the data and pass it in as a structure and... 16:23 – Mark: Here is a map of what I’d like you to do on my behalf. It goes to a chain set and I will turn it into a string and this is why it’s failed. 17:25 – Panel. 17:31 – Mark: It’s not hard and it’s pretty easy. Let’s talk about blog posts.  18:10 – Panel. 18:22 – Mark: I use Absinthe in the library in Elixir to support GraphQL. 18:50 – Panel. 19:06 – Guest: The total number of results and only once did I need a more complicated thing. 19:34 – Mark: I haven’t had a need for those. 20:01 – Panelists and guests talk about the hypothetical situations where and how they would use certain features for said situations. 20:23 – Guest: You don’t have to understand right out-of-the-box. 20:40 – Panel: Have you used stored functions as meta-columns in an Ecto schema? 20:48 – Panelist explains. 21:24 – Guest: I have used them in the past and now I don’t. For me it was hard to debug – maybe it’s just me. 21:43 – Panel: I was introduced to them through a colleague of mine. 21:53 – Mark chimes-in and talks about him being a DOT NET developer. 22:18 – Panelist chime-in, too! 22:50 – Mark. 23:16 – Panel: It was an awful time and not a good idea. 70 pages! Debugging it was hard. 23:35 – Mark: That experience was apart of that burn that I had before. I wanted to stay far away from it as far as I could. 24:00 – Panel: When I was doing it in DOT NET we didn’t have migrations. 24:12 – Panelist continues. 24:32 – Guest: I wonder if... 24:37 – Panel: It’s just a sequel – it’s not just an Ecto specific feature. 24:48 – Guest. 24:53 – FreshBooks! 26:01 – Mark: Edgar you were interested also in HOW Ecto was built. What experience did you have? 26:21 – Guest answers the question. 28:22 – Panel: No you typed REPO there. 28:30 – Guest: Whenever you save or make an update it’s a method. Unlike Ecto you have to all it something else. 28:47 – Panel: Hey let me get those article posted and someone did it in Loop and that is a lot of queries. 29:03 – Guest: Yeah that’s a good point. 29:45 – Mark: Something I’ve noticed is that they talk about performance improvements and better memory usage. Go read about it- it’s great. They talk about HOW Ecto is working and what is behind the scenes. 31:15 – Mark: Another feature that I have seen is UPSERTS. 31:50 – Guest talks about UPSERTS, too. 32:34 – Mark: Say I have a system that has 3 servers and it’s rolling updates (it will take down one and put up the new code, etc. and it will cycle) one thing they added was a lock on the migration table. I don’t know if you’ve had this – once it hits production data it is slow. Mark continues. 33:20 – Panel: I think it was just luck of the draw. 33:30 – Mark continues. 33:57 – The guest talks about his experience with the above-mentioned scenario. 34:20 – Mark: I like that you both have had goo experiences with your upgrades. I want people to be excited and know that there are great features out there. 34:49 – Guest: Yes, I have found that the blog post is helpful. It’s good to get adapted to the new changes. 35:17 – Panel: Yeah I normally don’t have teasers up to the actual upgrade. 35:28 – Panel: The community is nice and people made a good effort to communicate and help people. They did a GOOD job of helping people to feel comfortable within the transition from one version to the next! 41:37 – Ad: Lootcrate.com END – CacheFly! Links: Ruby Elixir Elixir: GenServer GenServers Elm JavaScript Visual Studio Code React Edgar Pino A sneak peek at Ecto 3 Ecto Active Record Pattern Repository Sponsors: Loot Crate Get a Coder Job! Fresh Books CacheFly Picks: Mark Plex Josh This Erlang Life Guest Ecto Documentation! Edgar Pino – My blog!

Panel: Mark Ericksen Josh Adams Special Guest: Edgar Pino    In this episode of Elixir Mix, the panel talks with Edgar Pino who talks with the panel about the latest version of Ecto! They discuss Ecto’s new features and how easy of a transition it was to go from the previous to the newest version. Edgar Pino is a software engineer who currently resides in Utah! Check out today’s episode! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job!  1:04 – Mark: Hello! Please give us your background? 1:16 – Guest: I have been in Elixir for the past year or two and I have been living in Utah. 1:48 – Mark: I love the nature and state parks. Winter is coming, so I hope you are ready! 1:58 – Guest: Winter...hopefully it will be great! 2:20 – Panelists and guest go back-and-forth. 2:30 – Mark: Let’s talk about your blog posts about Ecto. What are your new announcements? 2:52 – Guest: Our new version was released a few weeks ago. 3:32 – Panel. 3:38 – The guest talks about the old and new versions of Ecto. 4:03 – Panel: What is new and how is this going to affect me (the new version)? 4:11 – Panel: The transition was pretty painless for me. The only change was the breaking-up of the adapter ad also the timestamp bit. That was it. 4:34 – Panel: Yeah that micro-timestamp surprised me for a second, but it wasn’t that bad after all. 4:52 – Guest: Yeah it was painless for me, too. 5:19 – Panel: Edgar can you talk about the change and what they did with the timestamps? 5:32 – The guest answers the question. 5:54 – Panel: Elm opted to use the micro-millisecond, too. Time zones aren’t a thing. 6:24 – Mark. 7:08 – Panel: My tests are the only reason why I care about the millisecond. 7:21 – Mark: With the upgrade don’t do what I did. Mark talks about how he updated and the issues he had. 8:47 – Guest: Pattern matching? 8:53 – Mark: Yep that sort of stuff. I didn’t need to do it and it was a learning experience. Edgar, please give us an introduction to the blog posts? Why did you want to document it? 9:18 – Guest: I always used Ecto with Phoenix but started learning Ecto by itself. I jotted down notes that I thought was interesting. That’s how it started. 10:17 – Mark: See links in the show notes. Using a gen to use the repo – this is one thing that I didn’t know was an option. 10:46 – Guest. 11:01 – Mark asks a question. 11:10 – Guest: Not really PHP applications but listening to web messages and hot topics but you are doing the database and serving data... 11:40 – Guest talks about Ecto and the different versions and features. 12:09 – Mark chimes-in. 12:23 – Panel: Yep – it’s under the hood and it’s for business logic and doesn’t have a web piece. Stop writing tings for the web – it’s a fad. 12:50 – Mark: It’s an umbrella and saw this through the Phoenix generators. 13:54 – Guest talks about web applications. 14:06 – Mark: Let’s talk about schema and databases? 14:23 – Panelist chimes-in. 14:51 – Panelists and guest talk about schemas, apps, and more. Check it out here. 16:13 – Guest: You will get the data and pass it in as a structure and... 16:23 – Mark: Here is a map of what I’d like you to do on my behalf. It goes to a chain set and I will turn it into a string and this is why it’s failed. 17:25 – Panel. 17:31 – Mark: It’s not hard and it’s pretty easy. Let’s talk about blog posts.  18:10 – Panel. 18:22 – Mark: I use Absinthe in the library in Elixir to support GraphQL. 18:50 – Panel. 19:06 – Guest: The total number of results and only once did I need a more complicated thing. 19:34 – Mark: I haven’t had a need for those. 20:01 – Panelists and guests talk about the hypothetical situations where and how they would use certain features for said situations. 20:23 – Guest: You don’t have to understand right out-of-the-box. 20:40 – Panel: Have you used stored functions as meta-columns in an Ecto schema? 20:48 – Panelist explains. 21:24 – Guest: I have used them in the past and now I don’t. For me it was hard to debug – maybe it’s just me. 21:43 – Panel: I was introduced to them through a colleague of mine. 21:53 – Mark chimes-in and talks about him being a DOT NET developer. 22:18 – Panelist chime-in, too! 22:50 – Mark. 23:16 – Panel: It was an awful time and not a good idea. 70 pages! Debugging it was hard. 23:35 – Mark: That experience was apart of that burn that I had before. I wanted to stay far away from it as far as I could. 24:00 – Panel: When I was doing it in DOT NET we didn’t have migrations. 24:12 – Panelist continues. 24:32 – Guest: I wonder if... 24:37 – Panel: It’s just a sequel – it’s not just an Ecto specific feature. 24:48 – Guest. 24:53 – FreshBooks! 26:01 – Mark: Edgar you were interested also in HOW Ecto was built. What experience did you have? 26:21 – Guest answers the question. 28:22 – Panel: No you typed REPO there. 28:30 – Guest: Whenever you save or make an update it’s a method. Unlike Ecto you have to all it something else. 28:47 – Panel: Hey let me get those article posted and someone did it in Loop and that is a lot of queries. 29:03 – Guest: Yeah that’s a good point. 29:45 – Mark: Something I’ve noticed is that they talk about performance improvements and better memory usage. Go read about it- it’s great. They talk about HOW Ecto is working and what is behind the scenes. 31:15 – Mark: Another feature that I have seen is UPSERTS. 31:50 – Guest talks about UPSERTS, too. 32:34 – Mark: Say I have a system that has 3 servers and it’s rolling updates (it will take down one and put up the new code, etc. and it will cycle) one thing they added was a lock on the migration table. I don’t know if you’ve had this – once it hits production data it is slow. Mark continues. 33:20 – Panel: I think it was just luck of the draw. 33:30 – Mark continues. 33:57 – The guest talks about his experience with the above-mentioned scenario. 34:20 – Mark: I like that you both have had goo experiences with your upgrades. I want people to be excited and know that there are great features out there. 34:49 – Guest: Yes, I have found that the blog post is helpful. It’s good to get adapted to the new changes. 35:17 – Panel: Yeah I normally don’t have teasers up to the actual upgrade. 35:28 – Panel: The community is nice and people made a good effort to communicate and help people. They did a GOOD job of helping people to feel comfortable within the transition from one version to the next! 41:37 – Ad: Lootcrate.com END – CacheFly! Links: Ruby Elixir Elixir: GenServer GenServers Elm JavaScript Visual Studio Code React Edgar Pino A sneak peek at Ecto 3 Ecto Active Record Pattern Repository Sponsors: Loot Crate Get a Coder Job! Fresh Books CacheFly Picks: Mark Plex Josh This Erlang Life Guest Ecto Documentation! Edgar Pino – My blog!

Multiple streams of income bring more value to your business. One stream of income people often forget about is email marketing. Today's guest Ken Mahar, founder of Email Broadcast, has been in the sales and email marketing arena for many years. Business owners nowadays are quick to find an expert in other media marketing channels, but when it comes to email marketing, they often implement it unprofessionally, ignoring the potential for campaigns to generate income. Ken's company sets about optimizing your email marketing strategies by carefully preparing them months ahead and sticking with them, therefore nurturing that ongoing relationship with the buyer. Email marketing is the dinosaur of digital marketing tactics, yet remains one of the best. Ken has over 18 years of email marketing experience, going back almost to the dawn of the online space. Ken's experience, along with the expertise of his team, helps clients launch and maintain successful email marketing campaigns. Today he's sharing some of the mistakes people make and valuable ways to avoid those mistakes. Episode Highlights: Common mistakes people often commit with their email marketing strategies. What content planning takes place between the firm and a client before starting a campaign. How Ken helps clients bring a lead through the funnel. How often he refines the client's automation processes and tracks the campaign's performance. The importance of segmenting your audience. How personalization is important – to a degree. Tips for learning how to implement the technical side of an email campaign. Why outsourcing the email marketing side of your business can pay off. The importance of grabbing that email address! Why business should always offer something that people want (and not something they don't). Transcription: Joe: Multiple streams of income bring more value, right Mark? Mark: Absolutely. Joe: All right. One stream of income so many people forget about because it's hard, you have to learn things and it seems so old school is email marketing. But I understand you just had Ken from Email Broadcast on the podcast and he talked a lot about the benefits of email marketing. Mark: Yeah. One of the things he started out with in the call which I find to be just really poignant to so many entrepreneurs is we are really quick to hire people that are specialists in Facebook marketing or AdWords or different paid media but when it comes to email marketing a lot of us just say I'll take care of it. And then we make it like this after thought, right? It's kind of out there or is like okay we're going to send out a couple of broadcasts e-mails. In fact, the number of people I talked to that own businesses and we talk about their different marketing mix they tell me oh yeah you know if we would be using our email list that would be a huge opportunity for growth but we just haven't really done that yet. It's staggering the number of people that are doing this. And I think the reason why we are not necessarily using our email lists the way we should is because it's actually kind of tough to do. It's easy to send out a broadcast to our list of potential clients or customers that are signed up for email notifications. But it's really hard to actually sit down and say okay I'm going to segment that list. I'm going to set up automation sequences. I'm going to set up follow up sequences to these people. And I'm actually going to be intelligent about how I'm emailing my list. And so much of us just kind of give it this kind of head nod of like okay we're doing something with our email but it's not really optimized. And Ken from EmailBroadcast.com, that's what his group does entirely. They help people set up an email automation sequence, email broadcast like editorial calendar months in advance so that you're intelligently talking to your customers and your newsletter subscribers in a way that could actually nurture those relationships. One of the tidbits that he gave me which I absolutely loved was this idea of going to a conference. How many of us collect just dozens of contact cards at conferences and then what would we do with those? Maybe we send out an email after … maybe; most of us don't,  saying it was nice to meet you but what Ken does is he takes all of those and he drops them into a sequence with his email system. And so we talked a lot about these ways that we can look at email marketing in probably a more sophisticated way than most of us are doing. And if nothing else this is a pitch to saying you have an email list but you probably aren't using it the right way. And so I thought it'd be good to have him on since this is all his firm does to talk about some of the mistakes that they see in how entrepreneurs are running their email lists and what we can do to start to actually implement a few changes today and actually start utilizing that email list more appropriately. Joe: Yeah, I think people that are running their own internet businesses or buying one and wanting to grow it should seriously look at this. You know I've probably done a thousand valuations over the last six years and there are only a few … a tiny little handful, a fraction of a percent of people that focus on that and it makes a difference. Michael Jackness is one of them and he now travels around the country, actually sometimes the world giving presentations on his email marketing campaign that he does for one of his coloring books. It really is something that you can and should do and the customers actually when it's done right they appreciate it. When it's done wrong it's a problem. We are imperfect ourselves in this regard Mark. I think you've sent out some emails in the last few weeks where I get it and it says that it's … it's to me, to joe@quietlightbrokerage and still says it's dangerous, right? So doing it on your own even though it's coming from Quiet Light to a Quiet Light email address stuff like that can still happen so I think doing it on your own is … it's a gamble. So hiring somebody like Ken unless you've got the resources to really study it up and do it is a pretty smart idea. Mark: Yeah I mean just to bring it up into different sections; you have the technical side which is what we were running into. I had to setup the SPF and the DKIM records- Joe: What? Mark: Yeah right. Joe: I'm so glad you do that and not me. Mark: Exactly. So we had to go there but then you look at okay you have an email list but you don't just treat it as one big blob of people that you're talking to. You need to actually set up and start to segment that list. And then how are you actually interacting with these people. These things multiply. So if you segment your list into four segments which isn't that much. And then you would consider okay these four segments are going to get distinct emails and there's going to be an eight email sequence between this four segments. Now you have to write 32 emails in order to get all of these sequences in place. And then you have to measure and go back and do these and continually improve. It's a lot of work and honestly the fact that we're doing a lot of this on our own as entrepreneurs, is it a good idea? Maybe … maybe not; maybe it's the time to hire somebody out but I think if nothing else think about it. Think about what you're doing and how you're using your email list. Are you treating this audience as one big blob of people and sending them all the same message? If so you're leaving a lot of money on the table. Joe: I agree. If you can get a 2 or 3% lift in your discretionary earnings because of email marketing as long as it's a profitable lift; it's important. That adds a lot of value to your company. Jackness I believe you a little 50% of his revenue for his website comes from his email marketing campaign so that's something serious to consider for people that have the right type of product. So let's go to it, let's see what Ken has to say. Mark: Sounds great. Mark: All right Ken thanks so much for having me. This is Ken Mahar. Did I pronounce that right Ken? Ken: Yup. Mark: Awesome. Thanks for joining me. You come from EmailBroadcast.com so this is going to be an episode really focusing on email habits, some of the mistakes people make with email marketing, and we'll also wrap into this episode hopefully things that maybe what you should do from sell side to be able to prepare for selling your business and making sure that that part of the business has good opportunity and is well set up. But let's start out real quick, Ken, if you can provide everyone just a background or a bio on you. Ken: How much time do we have? I'll try to keep it short I guess. I'm Ken Mahar. I'm the founder and CEO of Email Broadcast. I've been running this company for 18 years so back before email marketing was really even a thing was when I got started. I actually have a sales background and I used email marketing for my own sales efforts. I found it to be tremendously helpful and successful. Itched it to some other businesses that I had worked for before, I'm saying you should guys really do this and then they're like we don't know how to do it so I started serving them. So yeah my background in sales is everything from retail to business to business. And then I got into inside sales for a high tech firm, I took over a territory. It was 11 states. We sold direct and through the channel. So I've kind of done everything there is in the sales arena. And the reason that I am still running Email Broadcast is because I found that email marketing is one of the best channels to impact sales. And so I kind of combined my expertise in the sales arena along with delivering email marketing from my entire team. We have the technical aspect; the writer's, the operations and all that stuff and then I do my part on the sales and the strategy part. So I guess that's a quick background on me. Mark: You've had the company for 18 years? Ken: Yeah. Mark: Holy cow man that's ancient in the world of internet businesses. You've seen a lot. Ken: Yeah. In fact I thought about naming my business Constant Contact or they ever existed and I just thought that sounds a little too aggressive so I didn't do that. But Email Broadcast is a pretty good name. Mark: Constant Contact aka we're always going to be in your inbox is really really what we're saying. Ken: Exactly. Mark: All right; pretty cool. You've seen a lot, 18 years is a long time. I've been online for about 20 years myself … actually, 2018; 20 years. I've been online for 20 years. I started my first site back in 1998 so that's a really long time; cool. All right, email marketing; there is a lot that goes on with email marketing and I want to get from you some of the common mistakes that you see people do with email marketing. Everybody knows that you should be doing it. I know here at Quiet Light we recommend pretty heavily that people establish a good list and use this as a channel to acquire more customers. Primarily because out of all the things, all the customer acquisition channels that are available out there email is one of the only ones that you actually own and have the ability to control. Google you can't control. AdWords you can't control. Facebook you can't control. Amazon you definitely can't control. Email you can, so let's sort out some of the common mistakes that you see people make with their email marketing strategies. Ken: Sure. Yeah, I think strategy is a good place to start. I think the big picture that I see people make mistakes around is thinking that email is about them. And what I mean by that is they look at email as just another channel for them to promote and to use their sales messages. When in my mind email is more of a relationship builder and a two way communication channel. And so I see a lot of people these people do a lot of mistakes made … in a strategy where people say okay let's talk about what we want to do in our next sale and our next promotion and us, us, us, us, us, and it just becomes a channel for commercials. And if you think about it email is a media channel. And in media channels you should have content that people are interested and excited to hear; whether it's educational or inspirational or whatever. And then you might have a commercial message every now and then. But if you are only commercials how long would you listen to that radio station? And people treat their email like that. They just promote, promote, promote, and they don't add any value to their audience's lives. So one of the big paradigm shifts that our clients go through is to realize this isn't about you, this is about your audience. What do they want to learn? What are they into? What inspires them and to get them to think in that perspective. So I think that's a pretty big mistake. What else? I think the second biggest strategy mistake I see is that people think that copy writing is email marketing. And they say oh yeah we need to get an email out, we haven't had one for a while. Let's get one out today and let's make it really good. And that's just a terrible, terrible strategy because the chances you'd be coming up with a great idea, creating great, well written, well researched content; actually having something so valuable to your audience that they're willing to forward it to someone … you know one of their friends, getting your … making sure that every single link works, making sure that it's grammatically perfect all like in 24 hours is just a recipe for disaster. So we look at it and go you should be planning this stuff out weeks or months ahead. My team is already done with November and we're scheduling December messages right now. And we've been working on the November stuff for a while already. So planning ahead and having like an overarching strategy is a big mistake that people make. Mark: Let me go back actually to your first point. Mark: Yeah. Mark: We had Mike Jackness on the podcast several episodes ago and he talked a little bit about their email marketing that they do. They see crazy open rates of 30% plus on their stuff and they're emailing their members almost every single day. So it's a pretty heavy and intense email marketing strategy but really the key behind what he's doing really isn't a surprise. And he's trying to offer ridiculous value with every single email so that people look forward to it. And your point about making it all about you, there's a great BuzzSumo article where they analyzed 100 million headlines to see what got shared the most. I love this blog post. I actually go to it once every few months just to revisit some of the concepts in this. But one of the big things that they do there and I found that these headlines is that headlines that get shared, the headlines they get opened, the emails that get opened are the ones that promise something to the user. Who is the person that's actually opening this? Is there a promise in that headline? And when you decide with this headline I'm going to promise something to the user that's a much better reason to open it up. Nobody really cares about your big news for the day all that much but they do care about what they're going to get if they're going to open that email. Ken: Yeah, it's funny when people put on their email marketing hat they're like … they disconnect from their own mind about what do I want in my own inbox, right? Mark: Right. Ken: It's something that I would really appreciate in value and go wow that was really good. And in fact, that's kind of our litmus test where we ask ourselves is this so good that you would forward it to a friend? And if that's a yes then you're probably on the right track. Mark: Right, so you got to start with that value prop, make it into something about the other person and let your subscriber know what are you going to get from this is email. If you take the time to open it if you're going to take the time to click it if there's a link in there you've got to get something in return and you got to make that promise up front. I'm sorry to step all over what you're saying. Ken: No, it's okay, and I think … and this is a really important point. So it's you take a page out of Gary Vaynerchuk's book right? Jab, jab, jab, right hook. Of course you're doing email because you have a strategy in mind and the strategy is you want a return on your investment right? But you need to think about the ratio, and 3:1 is a good ratio. Do you give, give, give between each ask or are you ask, ask, ask, ask, ask and maybe give once in a while, right? Mark: Right. Let's talk about that strategy of you guys just finished November and for a reference, for people that … because this probably won't actually air until maybe first day of November, it's October 25th today. So we're not even done with October. You guys have finished out your planning for your clients all the way through November. When you're planning that out are you looking at sort of like this rhythm to the emails as far as … like you said give, give, give, sell, give, give, give, ask, or is it also kind of moving along with holidays? What sort of planning are you doing on behalf of your customers to plan that far out in advance? Ken: Right. Yeah, so that actually opens up another great strategy idea that I think people blow it on. One of the first things we do when we onboard a client is we come up with … in fact I got a meeting in about an hour on this where we come up with 50 to 100 different content ideas before we even get this campaign started. So we have this giant treasure trove of content ideas. Once we learned about the audience we think we know who they are. We think about what would be important to them. And we come up with a lot of ideas. Some of them are just plain nuts but we document everything; we put it in a document. And so as we work with our clients, the November emails aren't just planned, they're actually planned, executed and already scheduled. So they're in the can just waiting for the days to tick by until they get released. So we actually started working in November last month. So yeah probably another big mistake that people make beyond if like not thinking of content ideas ahead is not planning for email work. And it is weird people will just kind of go oh dude I tried to sneak it in between something else because that is blocking out real time and saying this is an important part of my business, it's a huge channel for me. I've got to schedule time for this and they continuously under estimate how long it takes to write brilliant copy, have a copy edited, come up with great images, get it scheduled, think about how they can enhance it. And it's one of those things that if you put it aside for a second and then you come back to it you have fresh new ideas, a fresh perspective and you can always make it a little bit better. So scheduling that time, getting on a rhythm, and doing it ahead of time is big paradigm shift for a lot of people. Mark: Yeah let me ask you, I don't want to divert too much from kind of the thread we have going here but in the world of email marketing, we have a couple of different concepts as far as when people receive emails. Well if you start off at the very first contact with somebody who just joins your email list they might automatically be put into a campaign where they're going to get different emails at certain times versus your … maybe your entire block of subscribers where you might just be sending out broadcast to those subscribers on a regular basis. I want to ask you a little bit about that. How much emphasis do you like to put on one versus the other? In other words if I come to EmailBroadcast.com and you have a lead magnet there and downloadable resource or something else, how long are you going to put me in a pre-defined process where you're going to lead me through an arc and trying I guess funnel marketing right here but bringing you down that funnel to a certain point versus taking me out of that campaign where I've got this ready written emails that everybody else has received earlier and now I'm in your general kind of flow into your general broadcasts. Ken: Yeah well, I'll speak to exactly what's happening right now on our campaign. So we have a year-long champion going on right now that is a story format. We have some brilliant writers … in fact actual published and award winning authors and so we've tapped that and we've written out a fictional story about a guy who owns an RV lot and has a huge competitor move into town and is trying to figure out how to handle it with his marketing. And so right now when you sign up on our email list we kind of thought of it as kind of a Netflix situation where you binge on episodes until you get caught up. So right now when you sign up you get an email from us once a week until you're caught up and then we do a monthly broadcast. So I'm not sure that completely answers your question but it still kind of depends on when you join but I think we're in episode eight or nine right now. So for seven weeks in a row, you would get the next chapter of the story and then once you're caught up it comes out monthly. Mark: Yeah, that makes sense. So it sounds like again when you're planning out your broadcast schedule here for November and December as you go get into those months you really need to think about the fact the person that's been with you now through that time they've already been through that. In this case a year-long journey, that's pretty significant and they've already had that exposure to your company. And so you're going to write and create that general broadcast strategy with that in mind that these are not people completely new to who you are. Ken: Right and then what we've done is we did have an interruption in the story, like a commercial interruption like the old school radio shows or something. But we had a message on like July that was like hey here are a couple of things you might think about and there were something promotional. There was a blog post. There was a different value ad but it was just kind of a little interruption in the normal sequence. So if you think about it we actually planned … the emails that are going out on November and December we planned last year; last fall when we outlined our storyline and figured out what chapters were going to go when. And so right now we're working on our 2019 campaign which is going to be all different. We've been working on it for a month and a half or so and we're kind of finalizing our strategy around that and so we hit the ground running in January. Mark: Yeah so much of marketing and I don't think really matters what the format is whether it's AdWords or Amazon Ads or email marketing, so much marketing seems to be this idea of measuring, refining, repeating. So you're going back and you're taking a look at what worked, what didn't work, you're testing things against each other. How often is your team if you have a client on board and you've drafted this this kind of initial sequence that people are going to get when they enter into one of the many different funnels that you have set up. How often are you going back and refining that for them? Ken: Well, we look at it monthly. It's part of our process where … it's on our checklist to go and review the automation for instance. So if we've built an onboarding series or a welcome series for a client we look at it monthly and we kind of track the numbers and we start and we look at it. If it's not performing to our expectations then we'll think about tweaking it. And so we'll dig in in the messages and think okay what are people on the activity that we are getting what are people most interested in? Which of these has the best open rate? What clicks are … what things are people clicking on and maybe we should refine the message a little bit. So we look at it once a month. There's a danger at looking at it too much. It's like looking at your stocks every single two hour period, things go up and down and so you want to avoid the small sample bias and look at it over time but we look at it monthly. Mark: Okay. Let's talk a little bit more about some of the mistakes people make. I'm going to throw one in and then you tell me if I'm spot on or if I'm off base here. I would say one mistake that I see is people taking a one size fits all approach to their email list. So everybody gets the exact same emails regardless where they came from. Ken: Yeah and a good example of that is we are on boarding a new client in the cosmetic medicine practice which serves 90% females but we are … and so part of our strategy is that we're going to ask people to identify their gender when they sign up for our email list. And if they do say that they're male we're going to have a completely different first message for them making them feel very welcomed as a man in what is otherwise a woman dominated consumer market. And we think that's going to be a big deal. It's going to grow their practice through male audience without much effort at all. So yeah not segmenting your audiences is … you're right it's another big mistake. People think oh I'm just going to broadcast to everybody. Okay well, there are certain messages that are good for that and that maybe most of the time but really you should be thinking about your email lists thinking about what segments can I target. For instance, another example we have a large furniture retailer in Louisiana, Arkansas in Texas and we came up with this idea that we should target the people who have their private label credit card. And we also identified another sub market of people who are on their … so private label credit card is for people with pretty good credit and then they also have a kind of a buy here pay here market. So we get a different message to each of those segments. It turned out combined they were only 7.8% of the list but in one message to each of them we ended up driving $430,000 in new sales for the weekend for just that one segment. So by targeting a message just specifically to them with a specific offer that was really relevant; that we had huge response. Mark: That personalization is a huge issue right now. I saw one thing that was really cool. It was somebody who is qualifying their email subscribers before they signed up through a quiz. And the quiz was kind of fun and it was actually in the cosmetics field. So it was what's the shape of your face? And it just had cartoon characters. It wasn't offensive or anything like that. What's the shape of your face? What's the tone of your skin? And they went through probably about six, seven questions but then you were able to break out into this really cool like super segmented this is a female with this skin tone with this shape of face with this size of eyes this sort of thing and you can really cater the messaging. And this was more than … they were doing email marketing but also some other recommendations that is super super cool. Ken: Yeah, the danger around that … well, not the danger but the recommendation is don't ask for anything you're not actually going to use. So a couple of things around like I see a blast for last name in their email sign up forms and I think that's like one step too far of getting a little too personal a little too quickly off the bat. And unless you'd actually have a use for somebody's last name why are you asking for it? Even … but also people take that in the wrong direction as they say here sign up for our email list and all they ask for is the email address. Okay well, that's not enough, right? It's like at least get their first name because if you don't you're giving up on a huge personalization opportunity with putting peoples name in the subject line and addressing them by name and actually creating a relationship. When you're saying give me your email address what you're really saying is I'm going to blast you like I do everybody else on my list and I don't really care who you are or anything about you. So there's a check for your listeners if you're only collecting email address you're doing it wrong. Mark: Yeah and I'm going to make a plea here as well, this is turning into my great show here but one of the things I can't stand with email marketers when they're … when I get on a list is the hey buddy buddy sort of approach that comes without me even knowing who you are. Like there's a point where you got one of the so corporate and stiff to the point where it just feels stale and separate. But if you come in and pretend like we went to college together that's equally off putting to me. I want to have somewhere in the middle where I can get to know you a little bit and again kind of test out to see do you have value to offer. But I guess that's where that copywriter comes in, having a copywriter who's done thousands of these emails before. Ken: Yeah, and I would actually say that I would rather somebody do that if that's really their authentic voice and that's really who they are where they want to be buddies with you and if you're not ready for that then fine get the hell off my list. I think that's a better approach than trying to please everybody. You know I'd dig into authenticity around email marketing, it's one of the things that we really drive home with our clients is to say I want people to know who you really are not who you're pretending to be. So if you've only got six people on your team let's celebrate that. You're feisty and small and responsive and adaptive versus trying to pretend like you're some mega-corporation. But yeah everybody's different and you have to realize that. So really you should concentrate on attracting the people that you want to attract. Mark: Yeah. Ken: So if that's important to somebody that they'd be buddies with you and you didn't like that then maybe they did themselves a favor by not winning your business; who knows. Mark: Yeah, absolutely the authenticity is definite. I see sometimes with these people also lack of authenticity trying to win me over by being a little hokey. But if it is authentic to me then well so be it. The rest of the people buy me dinner first. So I want to shift gears really heavily here because I want to get to this before our time is up and I want to talk about the technical side of this. Ken: Yeah. Mark: This is just the hairy issue. There's a lot of systems out there. We use drip marketing at Quiet Light Brokerage. I like the system but we also have an external CRM which means we need to get these two things to talk to each other. What tips would you have for people on that technical side? I know that's really an open ended question but I'm going to have to throw it in your part as far as just the tips of working with the technical side. How much effort should people be putting into that sort of that technical side setup? Ken: Yeah, this will tie back into the strategy question too. One of the most under-utilized aspects of email marketing is the use of automation. When you can define what your sales process is and know where people are falling out of your funnel or use an automation series to take people from not step A to step B but from step D to step E. You know there are all kinds of opportunities to use email to kind of leverage your time. Basically having the platform do what you would do if you had a million hours in the day and all you did was write emails all day. Setting up the platform to do that is important. But you're right that does take some technical integration stuff. So my tips, I would say work with the bigger players in the market is probably a good tip because they've been around for a while. They likely have the integrations for some of the bigger … so if you're trying to choose an email marking platform and a CRM go … I wouldn't go with a guy that's brand new yesterday because he probably doesn't have a very well developed API and it's not a plug and play situation. So if you're trying to save yourself some headaches go with bigger players in the market that have been established that have an API that already potentially connect. Look at the integration possibilities. But I'd also say that it's generally worth it, right? There may be some pain involved in trying to figure it out but don't give up. Get help, hire somebody and figure out how to get those things integrated because it can really make a big difference for you. You mentioned the CRM right? So we've got ours dialed in so I can fill out a single form and it populates both my email marketing to start a drip series but it also sends that exact same data to my CRM to save me from double entry. So yeah integration is the key. There is a lot to integrate; getting your sign up forms cracked on your website, getting the email thing dialed in, connecting your CRM. We're going to be connecting in a medical records system for this latest client that we did and getting an API expert on that and we have that in house so we do not have that problem but it's important. Mark: Yeah, so when we get into the actual set up of these things … I have another company that I own, I know those folks that listen regularly probably know about it but we use a lot of automation on our email side there. And even with that I mean you talked about the multiplying effect here, right? Let's say that what you are going to segment your audience into just three different segments and then you're going to set up automation sequences with a series of 10 emails in each. Well now you're writing out 30 different emails with different email copy and on top of that you have your broadcast emails that are going to go out. And on top that may be some other campaigns and you have to try to make sure that these things don't duplicate where people are receiving multiple emails because they're accidentally subscribed to two different campaigns within our system and then figuring out how to make all the technology work together. So this is the part where I'm going to just make this quick pitch for the stuff that you guys do over at EmailBroadcast.com which is you guys do all of this. You are the full service sort of provider for this email automation of marketing right? Ken: Yeah, I have a team of people and I think that's the key thing because each of my team members is a specialist. So I have an engineer that thinks in bits and bytes. I have copywriters. I have a sales strategist which is me. I have an operations manager to help keep things on track and then an account coordinator. We designated an account coordinator for each account so they truly understand who our client is, what their business is, what their goals are, what they're trying to accomplish, and can really feel like a member of their team. So in effect, we are an email marketing department. Imagine a Fortune500 firm that had an entire department to handle email marketing. Well, we are that but for much smaller businesses who can get us for the cost of a part time employee. So yeah we handle everything from strategy to the copy writing, to the design, to the engineering, the mobile optimization, integrating it with the CRM, integrating it with medical record systems, setting up all the automation. Making sure things aren't overlapping and you have people getting multiple stuff and somebody looking at it; somebody thinking about your campaign a month in advance. Thinking about the seasonal stuff like Q4 for us is heavy so we've been thinking about Q4 since July about how we're going to get ready, which of our clients are going to want to do extra messages. That's the value we add. We're the people that you wish you had an entire department … and I think this is a different … I think this is an important point because some people go okay great this email something I'm going to outsource and I'm going to look for that one guy. Well, I've been doing this for 18 years and I'm not even that one guy. I'm not … I can't be the best copywriter, the greatest sales strategist, the engineer to integrate everything, the operations manager to get it all done. I mean maybe that person is out there but you're certainly not going to get them for a song. And so I think dividing the labor … you know divide and conquer and having each person in a team that's used to working together is a great solution. And a lot of people don't realize that this kind of solution is out there. They think that email marketing is something they have to do on their own even though they struggle. They've written the messages a bit inconsistent, the branding is not where they like it, they're doing stuff last minute, they know they're abusing their audience's trust, they have low engagement, they're like hell and they know there weren't any other options. So we are out there. Mark: Yeah, fantastic. Regardless of whether or not somebody is going to use an outsource solution like what you guys offer which would be like an outsourced email department as you said it is something that I think people need to really pay attention to that aspect of the business. And you're right, I look at a lot of businesses … I look at the health of a lot of businesses and see where they're putting their time and efforts. And sometimes I see this really just beautifully built out Facebook campaigns, this really beautifully optimized Ad-words accounts, but it's only been on a rare occasion where I see that applied in the email world. And when I do see it applied though it tends to be sort of a cash machine, right? All these other customer acquisition strategies are able to just funnel in there. And once they funnel in there those people are in because the systems are set up and ready to go. It does take time to plan. It does take time to refine. It does take time to go back there but this can be one of the biggest customer acquisition channels for pretty much any business that's out there. So I think the work that you guys are doing is awesome. I love some of the tips that you had in there. I know that there are a lot more tips that we didn't cover. I mean on one of our conversations you talked about hey what are you doing with the conference cards that you get? Do you actually follow up with them and is it just kind of one quick follow up or do you drop them into a sequence of some sort where they end up getting a series of emails; that's brilliant. There you go, look at that you- Ken: I just attended a conference so I'm holding up a fan of contacts that I have and I … you know we walk or talk. I put these people into a segment in our email list and we've already emailed them twice which is more than anybody else who went to that conference has done. We have a third message already scheduled so yeah that and we advise people about their offline activities. Like we have customers … I had this customer one time, he literally interrupted my … our phone call to take a call. I only heard his part of the conversation. He sat there for five minutes helping this person out, they sell this rooftop tent deals and I'm like how many conversations like that do you have a day and he's like I don't know 15, 20. I go how many people are you getting emails from? Zero. I'm like wow okay huge opportunity for you. Ask for their email address after you just spent five minutes helping somebody. They're going to give it to you. Put them on your list and now you've got a chance to market to them and then they'll buy a tent. So yeah there's a lot to email marketing and I hope your audience takes it to heart and really goes after it and figures out how can I add value? How can I make this amazing? And don't worry about the immediate payoff. Trust me it'll it will pay off in the end. What can I offer people that come to my website to actually get on my email list? If you're saying sign up for my email okay you need to rethink that. What value is there? People don't know what your email is. They probably haven't defined how often it goes out. They don't know what they're going to get in return and so sign up for our newsletter you know who wants to do that? But if you can give me the top five tips in selling my business in the next year oh okay yeah that's why I came to your website, that's what I want to know about. So that's the kind of thing you need to offer. Mark: Awesome so if people have questions about this or just want to bounce ideas off with you how can they reach you? Ken: Yeah, ken@emailbroadcast.com the phone number is 805-316-3201. And if you want a little branding tip or just have some fun call that number just to listen to our auto-responder. It's pretty funny that we put together. You could go to our website at EmailBroadcast.com and on there there's a pretty easy to find that you can schedule a 20 minute call with me free of charge just to be asked about your email. I can give you a couple of ideas, find out if … work out something that might be right for you but kind of get your head in the right direction. So hopefully that helps. Mark: Yeah absolutely. I'm actually going to call that number because that's a pretty good tease to get them to call the number. Well put links to that on the show notes page so feel free to go to the show notes page and you'll be able to see those links as well as contact information for you Ken. Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Ken: Thank you, Mark, it's been a pleasure and I hope everybody here is reinvigorated to do great email marketing. That's why I exist in the world, to get people to up their game around email marketing. Good luck. Links and Resources: Email Ken Mahar Email Broadcast Website Call Email broadcast @ 805.316.3201  

Change is scary, and yes price trends do matter in the online marketplace, particularly if you are in the market for buying or selling a business. Today we're discussing the frightening possibility of tighter margins, particularly for Amazon businesses, as a result of the most recent US government tariffs on Chinese products. Here at Quiet Light, we get a lot of questions from buyers regarding what we can expect from the Amazon marketplace now and in the future. The reality is that entrepreneurs need to learn to see these changes as par for the course as well as opportunities for growth. The internet today is so much different than it was 11 years ago when we started Quiet Light Brokerage. In fact, we started the same year the first Iphone came out  – to give some perspective on just how much things can change! When it comes to the geopolitical nature of e-commerce, specifically as it relates to the US, who better to bring in than a Canadian? Today's guest, James Thomson, is a Partner for BuyBox Experts, a managed services agency specializing in marketplace management for brands, manufacturers, and resellers. He was formerly head of Amazon Services, the division of Amazon responsible for recruiting tens of thousands of sellers annually to the Amazon marketplace. He's crazy knowledgeable about everything Amazon. We're talking all about the tariffs and their potential impact on the e-commerce marketplace. Episode Highlights: What tariffs are coming out and what tariff trends are going to affect business? Impact on first party sellers. Ways to work with and around these tariffs. How the manufacturers in China will see that they can suffer too. The length and scope of the tariffs' impact will have a lasting effect over time. Parallel imports may happen eventually, creating retail arbitrage. The foreseen impact for third party sellers. How the tariffs are creating more incentive for Chinese manufacturers to become sellers and sell products directly to customers in the United States. We discuss the consequences for Amazon sellers holding inventory. How Amazon monitors expected sell through rates to deflect inventory increases. Things sellers should keep in mind in order to keep their buy box percentages up. Indicators that there may be opportunities for competitors like Target to swoop in in certain spaces as early as the end of this quarter. If the tariffs prevail, one year from now will be the time when the retail increases will  show. What countries might be viable alternatives to China as suppliers and when to start investigating those avenues. The people who end up capitalizing and doing well in situations like these are the ones that look at these problems as opportunities. Transcription: Joe: So Mark I just launched a listing a couple of weeks ago. It's under contract already, multiple offers, it went very quickly. Actually, it's a re-launch because when we launched last year it didn't sell because of flat trends on the top side, slightly down on the bottom side and we pulled it. And the owner of the business implemented all the growth opportunities that he wrote about and now business is up 27% so it went under contract very quickly. So for those people that are listening that don't think that trends matter they definitely do because eight months ago no one wanted to buy this. Eight months later it's under contract in what was literally like four days. And I can't say the price of course but the thing that I wanted to touch about in regards to that is that he's importing products from China and the potential tariffs have changed since we last listed the business. And so we addressed that in the client interview. We're trying to stay current with it and he has a person through his manufacturer that helped him with the proper coding of the brands. And there was a slight increase in terms of the landed cost of goods sold but it was so minute it really had no impact on the discretionary earnings or profit. And I think that this is a topic that we need to address more and focus on in our client interviews and make sure that the sort of scary possibility of tighter margins is really looked into because not everything is going to have an increase and those that do it may be so small that is a very tiny percentage of that landed cost of goods sold. Now you just had an expert on to talk about it, our old friend James Thomson, right? Mark: Yeah absolutely when it comes to US issues and the geo political nature of e-commerce specifically as [inaudible 00:02:27.4] the US who better bring in than a Canadian? So, James Thomson, he is the first account manager within Amazon's marketplace. He's the co-founder of Prosper Show. He's a principal owner over at Buy Box Experts. The guy … I mean he's crazy knowledgeable about everything Amazon. And so we've been getting a lot of questions from buyers both on deals that are under offer right now and also from people just kind of trying to understand the landscape, what are we looking at here with Amazon in the future. So I thought let's go ahead and bring somebody on. Let's talk about it. Let's kind of dissect this. And he said a couple of things which are really really important about this and I'm not going to give all of it away because I need to tease of course so that people can actually listen to the entire interview but a couple of things. One, the nature of business is always changing. I mean the Internet today is way different than what it was when we started Quiet Light Brokerage. I'm actually just … I'm putting together a presentation right now for Ungagged coming up here soon early November and I'm taking a look back to when I started Quiet Light Brokerage. We started Quiet Light Brokerage the same year that the iPhone first came out so … I mean that's how much things have changed in just 11 years. Joe: Wow. Mark: I know right. So I say that this Quiet Light Brokerage was the biggest event of 2007 followed shortly after by the iPhone of course. Anyway let's get into the point here, James and I talk a lot about why are the tariffs in place, what is going on with these tariffs, what is the future of it look like, how is it going to impact e-commerce business owners, what's the hope of the US government with these tariffs. And I'll cut to the chase there the hope is that people start buying from other countries and most importantly what should you be doing about it. And on one thing that I'm just going to say here, I reiterate this at the end of this discussion with James. These sort of changes need to be looked at as opportunities among people who own businesses, among entrepreneurs. I've been an entrepreneur for 20 plus years now and the nature of the internet is constantly changing. Those who are looking at these changes and saying there is opportunity here, I have a great opportunity here to be able to adjust to the changes, find a new problem and solve that problem they do really really well. They're the ones that are absolutely killing it. Those who take a look at stuff like this and get all scared they end up leaving and not continuing onto the world of the Internet, their entrepreneurial career. So this is an interesting topic, very relevant to our time right now. Definitely, take a listen to it and then James also offered an email address if you have any questions for him to be able to speak about it. He's got a couple of really practical solutions that you can implement right away to be able to absorb some of these costs both in working with the factories and manufacturers in China but also just some very simple things that you can do on your side with your product launches and your products coming out to be able to pass this cost on. I'll say one more thing and I know I've talked a ton here; I'm kind of all around the place here. And I think it's really important to understand that everybody is facing these problems. When your costs go up 10% it's not just you, it's all of your competitors are seeing the exact same things. So it's a matter of how do you absorb those costs, how do you plan to be able to compete with that, how do you address your Amazon account so that you're not getting … losing your buy box share so on and so forth. Pretty simple stuff but you do need to have a plan. Joe: Yeah and I think you and I have been around long enough that we know it's not the end of the world, it's just another hurdle that an entrepreneur needs to get over. Get over the hurdle. And knowledge is power. If you learn about it, focus on it, and if and when you decide to sell your business you'll have that knowledge and you'll be able to address and tell people how you addressed it. And for buyers, same thing learn about it. Not every category is going to have an increase in tariffs and increase in cost of goods sold. So James is very bright, one of the smartest guys in most of the rooms he's in so I am looking forward to listening to this myself. Mark: James welcome back to the Quiet Light Podcast. James: Thanks for having me, Mark. Mark: All right so let's start off with just a quick introduction as to who you are. You have been on the podcast once before. I'm going to let you introduce yourself as far as your background … especially your background with Amazon and Prosper Show and Buy Box Experts. James: Right. Well, I'm James Thomson. People may know me as one of the co-founders of Prosper Show which is an educational event for large sophisticated third party sellers on Amazon. I am also the partner for Buy Box Experts which is an advisory and account management company at sports brands on Amazon. And I spent almost six years at Amazon doing a number of third party related responsibilities including running Amazon services and being Amazon's first FBA account manager many many many years ago. So thanks for having me back on again. I'm looking forward to talking about the ever increasing challenges of being a successful seller on Amazon. Mark: Well, I'm going to admit this is a show that I have been sort of dreading to do. James: Yeah. Mark: But it's really necessary and I know we've been starting to see more and more questions on the whole issue of tariffs. Before we jump into it real quick I am just going to give a shout out to Prosper Show. We go to a lot of shows at Quiet Light, Prosper show is awesome. If you're selling on Amazon and you're looking for a show where you can actually learn things and make good connections check it out, Prosper Show, what we're going to be there next March probably with all the booth and all that so. James: Thanks Mark, thanks. Mark: The thing is I'll make it for you because it's worth making. And also I don't want to talk about tariffs but let's talk about tariffs. And as everybody knows we've had one round of tariffs slapped on a lot of products coming from China, 10%. There is a threat of more tariffs coming out in January. And I'm going to fess up publicly to everybody to say I've really been kind of putting my fingers in my ears and saying I don't want to know about this, please make it go away. Let's get everybody up to speed on this as far as the tariffs that are coming out and what the general political landscape is that we need to be aware of in moving forward. James: So just to be clear I'm Canadian. I don't vote in the United States. I don't get to decide who does or doesn't make decisions around the tariffs that are going to be charged. But for folks that haven't been paying attention Mr. Trump is dealing … or has decided to enter into a tariff war with the Chinese around basically what dozens and now hundreds of products that are manufactured in China will be slapped with rather significant tariffs when they're imported into the United States. As many the people listening in today will know these private label sellers gosh we have a lot of stuff made in China that ends up being consumed and sold here in the US. So I work a lot with private label sellers who are saying gosh I thought I had the opportunity to make some decent margin being a private label seller but now that my products that are coming in from China with this extra 10%, 15%, and possibly 25% tariff depending on what specific type of product you happen to make, gosh that's an awful lot of money and I can't really absorb that long term without it destroying my financial situation. So what do I do? I think to tackle this problem we should split it into two parts. There are going to be those companies that wholesale products to Amazon. We'll call that the vendor central relationship and then there's all of the companies that are using seller central to sell those products themselves; two very different situations. Let's start with the … either one is really very easy but let's start with the vendor central situation. If you are a brand and you are bringing products in from China and you're turning around your wholesaling to Amazon … not surprisingly Amazon doesn't buy price increases and they don't really care about your profitability. That's your problem and so if you're now faced with an extra 10 to 25% COGS … 10 to 25% of higher COGS, absorbing that amount unless you're making insane margins most of us can't absorb that kind of money. And so the question then becomes A. can you get your manufacturer receipts absorbed? Some of that in cost reductions and we've definitely seen some situations where some of the overseas manufacturers are willing to make certain price concessions, especially if the North American sellers are buying the inventory in time to be able to avoid some of that initial tariff. So if you're prepared to load up on some of your inventories, if you load up on your inventory now then next year are the first lot of x-tiles and units your Chinese manufacturer may absorb some of that extra cost. Because the reality is the Chinese manufacturers they're also going to suffer through this. It's not just the American brands, it's Chinese manufacturers that also recognize that there isn't going to be as much demand unless they absorb some of this cost. Mark: Yeah and let me just make a point here real quick. I mean the goal of this and the Trump administration has been pretty clear, the goal of this is to get China to change some of their policies towards the US. And so they're literally trying to disincentivize business owners importing from China you know a lot of these 1P and 3P as you put it, the vendor central and the other people selling through Amazon to buy from other countries. And so they're going to make … through these tariffs they're just making business more expensive for everybody. And ideally, there is going to be this internal pressure from the Chinese manufacturers on their government to be able to change some of the policies of the US. That's kind of big picture. James: The problem is … and I speak anecdotal experience, I live close to the harbor in Seattle and I see all the used tanker ships come in and more than half of them come in from China. So if I think of all this product that comes in that we consume here in the United States is being manufactured overseas if more than half of that's being created in China the reality is our overall cost of buying stuff, whatever it is … plastic stuff, apparel, whatever … it's coming from China. And so unless some of these other countries can very very quickly not only ramp up production but more importantly identify themselves to companies here in the United States that otherwise buy from China, unless they can do that and find a way to say hey come and make your products over here instead of in China, the reality is this is going to take a while and some of this pain around higher costs is going to affect both the manufacturers in China, companies here in the United States, and of course consumers in the United States if in fact some of those costs overruns or pass through as higher resale prices. Mark: Right and just to be clear I'm not a geopolitical expert by any means but China has been pouring money in subsidizing their manufacturers for a really long time to be able to ramp up production levels that can provide basically manufacturing services to the entire world. That's why their economy has really been juiced up to where it is today. So for people to look elsewhere to other countries it's going to be darn near impossible for somebody to find prices that can be matched in other countries that may be seeing this as an opportunity. And even if a country does pop up for a particular industry it's going to take years for the capacity to be able to grow up to the level where we really need it to grow up to. James: Yes. Mark: So this is a problem. Let me ask you a question on this real quick and I want to get into specifically how Amazon is treating this as well. You started to get into it. I think it's going to be an interesting conversation but isn't this going to affect everybody the same way? And at the end of the day I mean it's the consumers that you would think are going to be left on in vague. If there's a 10% tariff on Blue Widgets, all the Blue Widget sellers have to pay that 10% tariff. James: Yes. Mark: So eventually their cost is up so they're going to have to raise the prices as well. Is this really going to impact the businesses themselves in that way since they could in theory pass that cost on? James: So there are a couple of things here, and different people go to market on Amazon with very different distribution approaches. So if you are buying product overseas, bringing it in into the United States and turning around and trying to wholesale it to Amazon through a vendor central account, Amazon has made it clear they do not accept price increases. This is your problem Mr. Brand; you need to figure out how to absorb this. So what I see happening is some brands will say gosh this is inconvenient right before Q4 our biggest time of the year. Some of these brands will say you know what, as much as we hate to do this we will suck it up and we will absorb this cost. And so many of these manufacturers will end up with much much smaller margins while Amazon continues to have the product at the same price that it had and some consumers won't see a price increase on those items. Unfortunately … and that's fine short term but long term these manufacturers are going to say unless I can find cheaper sources of manufacturing elsewhere I'm no longer going to carry these products or I'm no longer going to sell them to Amazon 1P or I'm actually no longer going to sell them anywhere on Amazon; that's one option. There is another type of distribution model that's very common on Amazon which is the product diverter, and I'm not passing judgment on the product diverter, the reality is there's a lot of product diverters on Amazon; companies that gray market source products. And so the opportunity for companies to go and proactively can parallel import and bring in products from let's say Europe that came in from China nut they're now coming in from Europe … I see an, potentially in some categories there will be a significant increase in parallel imports because somebody can buy that product in another country and to the extent, they're not necessarily answering all the questions correctly about where these products are manufactured there will be more opportunity and more incentive for companies to do parallel imports. Again so as to be able to bring products in at a cheaper price than what they would otherwise be paying if they bought directly from China. Mark: Is that illegal or do you literally have to be lying on your forms in order to be doing this parallel importing? James: Oh please deter, I'm not suggesting that anybody does this. I'm just saying I fully anticipate this is going to happen. Mark: Sure. James: And so if the other thing is if the tax … if you can ensure the tax has already been paid at least once there may be opportunity for you to capitalize on nonetheless being able to re-import it back in and be able to source it. Brands don't like product diversion and so knowing in there will be an issue there for brands long term having their products … basically, people capitalizing on retail arbitrage across borders and getting cheaper prices in one place so as to capitalize on that. What is more likely is if there is a price discrepancy in another country and you can buy the same item in Europe for 10% less than you can here in the US, some folks may decide to … depending on the math, it may decide to start buying stuff indirectly just because they can capitalize on price discrepancies in order to make things work. The logistics are more complicated but in the end, they still need to make some money and they're prepared to take on these extra logistic steps just so they can make some money. All of this is short term because in the long run if a brand wants to continue to wholesale on Amazon they have to make money. That's what … it's why we're all here. And so what I anticipate happening is some brands are going to stop supplying certain products and they're either going to go and find production in other countries or they're going to find completely different products that don't involve China at all. And so that will mean that some products that we as consumers rely on … and I think for example all the Q4 toys that get sold in this country, the vast majority of them are made overseas and a huge proportion of those are made in China. And so it will be interesting to see specifically in the toy category what happens because with Toys R Us going out of business this year, there's been a lot of discussions that some of the other brick and mortar retailers are going to be very aggressively going after Amazon. If Amazon for some reason in most of the toys that Amazon gets come from 1P, if those manufacturers for some reason say you know what we can't make any money selling you these products we're not going to sell it to you because you're not prepared to take a price increase, we may have a situation where Amazon actually runs out of stock on an awful lot of top selling toys. Which is bad, bad, bad for Amazon. So I think the toy category of all categories is the one that may push Amazon short term to accept the fact that it is going to have to absorb some higher costs in order to have inventory on absolutely critical selection in Q4. Mark: Interesting, so let's move over to the 3P and I have also some questions maybe about competition to Amazon which hopefully we can get to but let's move over to the 3P. What's the impact that you see and I know we're all crystal ball in here but what's the impact that you see for 3P sellers? And 3P for anyone that doesn't know this would be FBA merchant fulfilled, anybody that is not selling vendor central but still selling through [inaudible 00:18:43.2]. James: I'm going to separate 3P into two groups there's the resellers and there are the private label sellers. If I'm a private label seller and buying stuff from China I make the decisions myself on what pricing should look like. So if I have to raise my prices 10% to maintain my margins I can choose to absorb some of that for competitive purposes. But I always have the flexibility of saying I'm going to raise my prices. An important … a very tactical issue, let's say that you're selling your product for $25 today on Amazon and you added list price information into the Amazon catalog, you can't just raise your price from $25 to $30 to cover your extra price. You need to also increase your list price because otherwise, Amazon's going to flag you in selling products significantly above the list price and also press your Buy Box. So you've got to make both of those adjustments at once. As it relates to resellers the question becomes if you're buying from a distributor or a brand here in the United States that you're then turning around and reselling who's splitting the cost increases there? And that's going to differ widely on brand by brand. Some brands may already have a lot of inventory here in the US and they say well we're just going to ride this out and hope this tariffs disappear sometime in Q1 or Q2 in which case they're willing to … you know if they're using some kind of a lifo … I'm sorry a phyto model of inventory there may not be any price increases at all for wholesale pricing. And so the retailer can turn around and continue to sell the product at the same price. The problem is all you need is one competitor in the same space on Amazon the whole price is tight and not move prices up and if they've got lower prices and they're still doing the right thing with organic search and driving traffic they may end up with a higher proportion of total traffic on their products. Granted it's very low margined traffic but it is nonetheless higher traffic. And so the question is how long is any particular reseller prepared to take lower margins for the benefit of higher traffic which isn't necessarily high quality business. Mark: I mean in defense here we see this happen anyways where we have people come in and try to break into a market and will purposely go low margin just to be able to break into that market. But this is kind of who could hold off the longest with the higher prices. James: So there's been a very important development this week with Mr. Trump getting out of the postal shipping rate agreement with China. There was a significant subsidy that the United States was paying for overseas companies to ship products one order at a time into the United States. A lot of these individual orders today don't clear customs with any customs payments. And so if you got a 25% tax for example on those products, if they're brought in bulk but there's no tax on the individual orders, you don't also want to create a situation where there's that much more incentive for example for Chinese sellers to send products one at a time in the United States by removing some of these price subsidies on the shipping costs that will help to balance things a little bit. But you still have a situation where a Chinese seller can send an individual order into the United States and realistically most of those orders are going to get through without customs being applied on those on off envelopes and boxes. So in many ways, the tariff only creates more incentive for Chinese manufacturers to become sellers and to sell products one at a time in the United States. And so that continues to be a challenge. Mark: Let me ask you about a tactic that I've seen sellers employ here in trying to get ahead of potentially … I know there's threats of an additional tariff being imposed here coming January so possibly increasing the tariffs even more. And I've seen some sellers bulking up on inventory because of that; trying to get ahead of that. It has kind of a cascading effect though from what I understand if you're a 3P and especially using Amazon's fulfillment services. Does Amazon look closely at the amount of inventory that you're keeping with them and are there consequences for maybe having inventory sit on their shelves longer? James: No it was early this year Amazon evolved the way that they designed how much FBA capacity every seller has. And it has to do with the sell through rate of each individual skew that they choose to put into FBA. If you're selling a product that sells a thousand units a day, Amazon will let you put as much of that in as you want. If you're selling a product that sells one unit a month you can't load up five years of inventory. Amazon actually won't let you put that in the FBA all at once. And so as much as a seller wants to ramp up their level of interest they hold in FBA, Amazon will cap it based on their expected sell through rates. So if you happen to sell products that sell fast enough you're not going to be putting more than six months of product into FBA, great you may load up a little bit more. But if you start bringing in pallets and pallets more than you'll ever sell in the next six months, Amazon's going to put the kybosh on that. And you're going to have to figure out where to hold that inventory. So I think it's a system that basically corrects itself. I think it's worth a seller today if they're planning on doing this in the next four to five weeks they should create an FBA shipment right now to see if Amazon even allows them to put whatever level of incremental inventory into FBA. They may well say sorry we don't have that space because your expected sell through rate doesn't by any means justify the load of inventory. Mark: And I know a lot of sellers are using even a 3PL of sorts just to store Amazon inventory that they are eventually going to ship off to Amazon and that's … if you're not doing that and you store inventory for anywhere longer than a few months I think because of the storage rates you can get much better storage rates elsewhere but that's something to look at. James: So to that point if you do have to bring in an awful lot more inventory and hold the inventory so as to bypass the expected additional duties that come likely in January, one thing we may see is an increase in the number of sellers that decide to start using seller for full prime. And that's a mixed bag in terms of whether it's a good thing for sellers, in some situations they may be able to use the higher shipping costs that come with seller for full prime that may be adequately smaller to offset the expected cost of having to pay another 15% in a tax on imports. But you know we may see some … in certain categories we may see more sellers deciding to use seller for full prime in part because Amazon says you can't send that much stuff into FBA but you know we'll have to have to see what happens. My view is I don't see this tax staying in place indefinitely. I see this is a game of chicken between two countries. And quite frankly I think the United States has more to lose than the Chinese do because the Chinese low cost production capabilities in China will continue to be there even if those costs are a little bit higher now that there's tax added to it. And so reality is we Americans, we like cheap stuff and so if you go to the source of cheap stuff … and so I suspect at some point that there will be some counterbalancing that happens and it's a matter of how long can people hold on without going out of business. Mark: Yeah. Let's talk about the Buy Box a little bit. You touched on this earlier about things that you may want to watch out for if … when your changing prices on your site. What are some things people should keep in mind if they do decide to pass on some of those costs to the eventual customers at the end of the day? What are the things that they should watch out for so they don't lose their Buy Box percentages? James: Well the first one is you still … when you offer your product you want to make sure that it's at or below the list price. So if you're having to increase your price over whatever the current list price is today then you want to make sure that you can update the list price information. If you are a reseller of someone else's products and they haven't updated the list price then you're going to be in trouble because you can't sell that $30 item for $35 when the list price is 30. And if the manufacturer controls the list price or you as the reseller don't have brand registry ability to go in and update the list price you're going to be in a situation where you don't have the buy box because you've had to sell the product in a price above the list price. So start that conversation now if you don't have the ability to change the list price on a product you resell have that conversation now because you need to get that information updated. Otherwise, the brand is going to lose out to any other brand that has the ability to update their list prices. So even if the brand you're reselling doesn't want to do this you need to explain to them listen if you don't do this everybody that sells your product is going to be in a situation where they can't win the buy box which means the consideration of your brand or other brands is going to be significantly hampered. Mark: That's good advice. Let's move on to Amazon and their adjustments that they might be making on their side and also possible competitors. And I'm thinking Wal-Mart here who has been pretty aggressive in trying to eat in Amazon's market share. I don't know how successful they've been with their two day shipping on anything, no membership fees everything else. You've already described how Amazon is right now at least probably pretty unforgiving as far as price increases on them [inaudible 00:27:44.9] side. James: Yeah. Mark: Do you see any opportunity here for some of these competitors and even if it's not one competitor maybe that fragmentation of Home Depot taking care of their pit space and actually increasing their presence target doing the same, Wal-Mart doing the same, and have you seen any indication of this yet? James: Well what I have seen … I go back to the toy example, what I've seen is that both Target and Walmart are aggressively looking for ways that they can win in the toy space this Q4. And it only takes one or two of the big toy companies to tell Amazon 1P that they're not prepared to send any shipments unless there is some modification to the pricing. Unless that happens … oh, I'm sorry if that does happen then I think it could be a very painful Q4 for Amazon in a category that they actually absolutely need to win. But the problem with Amazon is they usually win anyways. The reality is if they can't get it directly from the distributor or the manufacturer they find a secondary source. They go and find a distributor that will unload a product at low margin, Or they will do parallel imports. So I think if these duties remain in to place for 12 months it's going to be next November or December that the pain is really felt by brands. Because right now a lot of them already have inventory, they already brought in to the United States. While they may have paid 10% extra duty it's not 25% duty but at the time you have long term 25% duty that absolutely is going to impact what their retail prices look like. So as bad as it may be coming out of this December if that tax remains in place for another 12 months that's when companies are going to have to say okay we're going to have to discontinue certain skews. We're going to have to launch new versions of the existing skews under different UPCs so that we can have new list prices on these items. I've seen situations already with some companies where they're already loading the 2019 version of an item with very slightly modified packaging but that's the product that's going to replenish the 2018 version that they're very soon going to run out of and have no plans on ever replenishing as long as the tax is in place; i.e 2019 version cost 25% more retail because everybody has to continue to make money doing this. Mark: Okay one of the things that we've been trying to educate people on especially in this e-commerce space there's a lot of people out there that want to find a couple of evergreen products that are just constantly bringing in cash. And then there's always the question of well how do you handle competition? When we brought it up time and time again now on this podcast where look good product based companies come out with new products on a regular basis and so that's actually … it's something I haven't heard before. That's a great way to be able to address this is come up with a 2019 version or a slightly different model version which your cost can absorb that new price and be able to work it out to the price that self. Last thing I want to talk about, let's assume that this does last for a while, you know a year or more. The intended effect is for US importers and retailers to move and look for other countries. So what are some of the countries maybe that people can start looking into. And I know it's going to vary industry by industry but what countries might be viable alternatives to China if people want to start looking at and look for manufacturers in different places that could possibly replace their current supply? James: I don't know how much I knew I can add to this. I mean a lot of the companies I know they look in Thailand and Vietnam today. Some of them look in Laos. I know the Southeast Asian countries, a lot of them have low cost production but they're not necessarily known for the sophistication of bringing together manufacturers the way, for example, Canton Fair does. And so I see an opportunity here for … let's say I'm the business development government organization in Thailand or Vietnam to the extent of they can put together a major event that will attract thousands of manufacturers and thousands of overseas buyers, I mean I see that as being rather significant. If you can spin up a Canton Fair like event or even a very small verison of that in one of these other Southeast Asian countries. Part of the challenge here is visibility. There already is an Alibaba that helps people find every Chinese manufacturer. Is there a similar concept in Vietnam and Thailand? To this point, it's nowhere near as visible and so it becomes something that basically has to be centrally organized either by large associations of manufacturers in country or potentially the government. And so if one of those countries is able to step up and do something like this and create visibility that will help. But let's be honest even if I said to you your product can be made in another country basically the same way starting today you're still looking at six months of testing and small minimum order quantities to verify and make sure that you have got the right payment structures in place. And so I would challenge everybody who's listening today if we're looking at a 12 month or a long term situation with this tax being in place you've got to start these conversations in January figuring out where is my alternative source going to come from. Because it's going to take time to work through and figure out am I really getting the same quality? Am I really getting the same delivery promises and so on from my overseas manufacturers that are now coming out of a different country? Mark: Yeah. So I've been an entrepreneur now for going on 20 years and the way … I would just like to close out here because some people might be hearing this and saying oh my gosh this is so incredibly scary. And what I want to say is this, these things happen. These things happen in business. The conditions change all the time and the people who end up capitalizing and doing really well are the ones who look at these problems as the opportunities that they are and figure out the way to make it work. There will be people who drop out. There will be people who do not pay enough attention to this and don't make the right moves. And so when we see these things rather than getting all scared and actually ironically enough this episode is probably going to air right around Halloween. I think we're going to publish it the day before Halloween and do our email newsletter advisory the day after … so you know a good timing for that. But to understand that there is definitely opportunity here. I think there's a couple of really good tactics. I think James you brought up just one simple one was just bringing up a new version of products that have and make them a 2019 version. That's a really simple type that we can have to see what's going to happen. And then also just have your ear to the ground as to where you can also find other products. So this has been really really enlightening. James, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people reach you if they have questions about this or honestly your work for consulting with Amazon sellers is unparalleled so if they have other questions even unrelated to this where can they reach you? James: I can be reached at info@buyboxexperts.com. All those emails go directly to me. And I appreciate your time today Mark. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on. Again James is one of the best in the business by far. Prosper Show check it out and then if you have questions feel free to reach out to me and I can do an intro or [inaudible 00:34:40.8] James. Thanks again for coming on. James: Thank you, Mark.   Links and Resources: Email James BuyBox Website Prospershow James's LinkedIn James's Book on Amazon

I've seen Ezra Firestone speak at events, online, and in his “how to” courses. But until I got to chat with him one on one for 30 minutes about work/life balance, did I realize he's the next Tony Robbins (OK, of the ecommerce world, and without the banana hands.) No kidding, Ezra is inspiring and full of passion. And he does what he does (rock 30 million a year in revenues without breaking a sweat) while giving back to others, focusing on family, and taking care of his health. If you're are a corporate exec wanting to live the ecommerce lifestyle, Ezra's approach is spot on. If you are an ecommerce owner and want to be the “navigator” of your business instead of the jack of all trades, listen and try to really hear what Ezra is saying. It will make a difference in your business, your bank account and your family life. Episode Highlights: Highlights from Ezra's unique upbringing and how he grew up with e-commerce. We follow the journey of his professional life from poker to yoga to where he is today, earning thirty million per year in revenue. Ways the apprenticeship model can be beneficial to young entrepreneurs. Ezra reveals the pivotal moment where he understood the freedom he could achieve from acquiring a skill and mastering it. How Ezra found his “mastery” in e-commerce after trying several things. Every type of e-commerce business requires the same kind of marketing. All the marketing that goes with the product: before, during and after is what smart marketers need to focus on. The easiest business to run at scale is the physical product in e-commerce. The importance of going premium in e-commerce. There are buyers for every level of the market. Why Ezra chose not to sell on the subscription model. Using consistent ongoing marketing content in customer communication can generate revenue by sending the customers back to the website over and over. Ezra describes how he made the transition from driver to navigator. The importance of setting boundaries. Work will fill the time that you give it but it is necessary to scale in order to create balance. Balance as an entrepreneurial leader allows you to give the autonomy to those around you to step into roles that they can be motivated to succeed at. Ezra runs his business based on the practice of permaculture. Serve the world unselfishly and profit, that is his philosophy. Transcription: Mark: I saw an ad on Facebook the other day Joe and it made me think of our guest today. The ad was for anyone … any guy who has just a regular hairdo like I do and it was a man bun attachment. You could actually buy a man bun attachment to put on the top of your head if you wanted to have a man bun. Joe: Don't say his name now, don't say his name. Mark: I want a minute here and think who in the industry … in the world of marketing is known for his man bun? Joe: You know when we had Syed Balkhi on the podcast I actually went out and bought myself a Florida gator hat to wear during part of the podcast. I seriously thought about going on Amazon and ordering a man bun and putting it on for this podcast. That's what I wanted to do. But you know what I don't know the guest well enough. I've seen him at events and we were a host, we're not a sponsor on his last event. Today we're on this podcast is the first time I really got to sit down and talk with him for 30 minutes or so. I guess we can say is name now is Ezra Firestone. If you don't know his name where the hell have you been? Because essentially he is … in my view he's the Tony Robbins of the e-commerce world without the banana hands if you've ever seen Shallow Hal. He's very impressive. When he starts talking you just sit back and listen and you go “What? Really, wow that's incredible. That's incredible.” He's so full of energy and so passionate about what he does that you would think that he works all the time. And that's kind of the takeaway from this podcast for me. There are lots of great insights to how to run a more effective e-commerce business in different channels and philosophies that someone like Ezra applies. And look he's doing 30 million dollars a year in revenue growing month over month and does incredible things. He does not get out of bed … well, I shouldn't say bed; he does not start his day until 10 o'clock in the morning. And that doesn't mean he works until 10 o'clock at night. He works maybe till 5 o'clock unless he's out doing events; like he's going to be at Blue Ribbon Mastermind next week which is just incredible … doing 30 million a year in revenue and not working 40 hours a week; a really impressive guy. Mark: Absolutely you know I have a confession to make. You know these courses, these e-courses online that are super expensive, I usually look at these and I'm like yeah who in the world would ever pay for this? So my confession is this, I've actually bought one before and it was one of Ezra's. It was on Facebook Marketing which is a little bit off from what you're talking about. But I can honestly say it was worth every single penny. I think those who have actually gone to Ezra's events and listened to his advice bought one of his courses and have followed him. He's big. He's known because he's a real deal. Starting work at 10 AM is an awesome testament to the idea of this work life balance and making sure that we're working so that we can live our lives. We're not living so that we can work our lives. That's awesome. I want to hear this because right now I'm working so much and Joe I know you are too. So hopefully you did pull away a few things from this as well. Joe: I did. I did and people don't want to hear you and I anymore so let's just go to Ezra. Mark: Let's go. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe Valley from the Quiet Light Podcast and today I have Ezra Firestone on the line with me. Hey Ezra how are you doing? Ezra: Happy to be here man. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I love doing stuff like this. Joe: So so glad to have you here. You and I have … we've been to a couple of events together, I've been to your Smart Marketer and Blue Ribbon Mastermind but we've never had a half hour to talk to each other so I'm loving the fact that I got your crew to schedule this. So thank you first and foremost, I know you're a busy guy. As I mentioned earlier we don't do a fancy introduction so for those that don't know who you are if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your background that'd be fantastic. Ezra: Sure. Thanks. I am currently sitting in a presidential cabinet room, so that's my current location in the world. Joe: For those listening and not watching, get online and look. Ezra: Yeah get up take a look. This is actually an off … my wife and I bought 76 acres of land about 20 minutes from here that we're intending to sort of develop and build a home on and have kids on and stuff. We're renting this home and the person who lived here before was like some kind of a lawyer or something. And this room … it's all cabinets and for me for some reason that is confronting. Like I don't know why but I walk into this [inaudible 00:05:02.0] in my office and I love … I love it. I love that I have a space where I can work but all the cabinetry it kind of freaks me out because it's very not … much not my vibe. So I'm like putting in plants, I've got like a skateboard over here. You know I'm kind of trying to make it feel a little less intense. Anyways a little bit about me business wise is I never went to college. I went straight from high school to New York City to play poker for a living which I did really well as a teenager and into my early 20's. I was really fun but eventually, I sort of came across the concept of not trading time for money and began looking at building systems to generate revenue and resource for me without my direct time input all the time and sort of fell into e-commerce. Because you know e-commerce was really coming up in society at that time. We're talking 2004, 2005, 2006. It was my first years in e-commerce and I've been fortunate enough to grow up in this industry. And this was a time before events and before podcast and before this industry was … everyone, when you said you were an Internet marketer they thought you were into porn or gambling. Joe: That's right. Ezra: It was not looked at as a good thing. And so long story short is I've been doing e-commerce full time for about 13 years. I have grown and sold several companies. I currently have four different brands that generate about 25 million a year in revenue and 70 employees on my team around the country. And I'm just a guy. I'm just some random guy who loves this stuff. I really really love it and I think timing wise I came into it at the right time and fell in love with it at the right time and have been putting my full energy and attention in the direction of online businesses and e-commerce in particular physical products. Although I do have other business models e-commerce is my most successful model over the last decade. Joe: That's impressive. First and foremost the fact that you didn't go to college and you went right to life and you're a professional poker player. I don't tell my kids this, as I mentioned before I've got two boys, 14 … oh almost 15 and 17, some of the most successful people I know didn't go to college. One of the guys I worked with up in Portland Maine, Rob Graham if you're listening, absolutely one of the most successful people I know and he just … he got it. He worked hard, he was smart, he used common sense and intelligence which you have to have a combination of so kudos to you. Ezra: Thanks, man. By the way, you can't give me too much credit for that decision. There were no colleges that would take me with my problem. I just didn't fit the mold. I sort of always had this idea, you know I haven't … I had an alternative lifestyle. I grew up in an intentional community in the Bay Area of California with flower children hippie parents and so I kind of had some alternative views on life from my upbringing. And one of them was that the school system really felt like a system that was farming me into a model … into a workforce that I didn't want to join. You know sitting at a desk for eight hours a day and then you'll be trained to go sit in the cubicle eight hours a day. And I believe that in life you get what you want from people who have it. That's how … you find someone like you Joe and you learn about how to sell businesses from someone who is doing that. And I have always sort of believed in that apprenticeship model. And you know I looked around at college, I mean I attempted to get in, nobody would take me but there was like nothing there for me you know. The teachers didn't have anything that I wanted. I couldn't really see a future for myself there and I was a very good hustler. I always had little businesses and I was the guy at school … I almost had, I would have to go on to those stories but I always had something going on to make money because we weren't rich. We grew up without much means and I always had this goal of generating resource so that I could use it for causes that I found noble like taking care of my family and taking care of my community and participating in the world in ways that you can only do when you have access to resources. So I always kind of had my attention on that and yeah I fell in to entrepreneurship sort of because of that. Joe: So if people are reading in between the lines and the threads and lines here, we've got somebody that … you used the word hustle, you know I think the harder you work the luckier you get. You take from people who have it, in other words, you associate from … or with people that they can help you and you're in turn helping them it's never a one sided- Ezra: Totally. Joe: -you would think. And the noble cause is giving back. I have to ask though when you give the visual of 76 acres that you and your wife have bought, you're going to build a home and when … I just what state are we talking about? I keep hearing New York and Hawaii but I think you're up in New York. Ezra: Yeah so I live in upstate New York now, about two hours north of the city and I grew up in Hawaii and California. Moved to New York at 18 to play poker and just fell in love with the East Coast. I met my wife when I was 20 and this is kind of where our life is and where our community is and our friends are and just sort of I'm a big fan. I love it, it's a really really good place and yeah we got our problems, we got ticks and we've got the winter and like there are things you know. But it's like anywhere you go there's going to be stuff. Joe: Well you can have your events in the southern regions of the country so that you can get out of New York when it's 10 degrees and 18 inches of snow out there. Talk to me about that transition that you had from okay online poker or playing poker up in New York is not cutting it and you wanted to step into the e-commerce world, did you … was there a day, a moment, a person that you met that made a difference and you said okay this is the path I think I'm going to try it? Ezra: Totally. I think that entrepreneurs, in general, are chasing some form of freedom; financial freedom, location freedom, freedom of where they can spend their time and they're running away from pain in general. And then you kind of reach different levels of entrepreneurship that I'll talk about in a minute as I've gone through all the phases of like I started … my wife didn't like the idea of me being out all night sleeping all day under fluorescent lights with a bunch of degenerates just eating Butterfingers and just being like a New York City underground poker scene guy. I mean that is not an attractive package so she wasn't to excited about that so I took what I call a square job where it was one of my first ever jobs where I actually worked for someone else running this yoga studio in Manhattan. And this was at a time when Bikram Yoga was still in its heyday. It just kind of like we're talking 2007, I was running this studio. It was the biggest Bikram Yoga studio in Manhattan. I was the manager, the youngest manager. I was 21. I ran the whole thing and this was before everyone found out that Bikram was a creep and a rapist and the whole kind of Bikram thing fell apart. It was sort of as yoga was going main stream in society and that was a really fun gig being in service that … you know in the world service running a studio. But man I would be there 60 hours a week and I didn't like not having the … not being able to have choice in where my time was spent. And so that was the initial sort of pain point that pushed me towards man the poker gig was better than this because I had more flexibility of where I've got to put my attention. And I think that in life what you put your attention on grows and what you ignore gets smaller. You put your attention on your health it gets better, if you ignore your health it gets worse. If you put your attention on your relationship it gets better. If you ignore it, it gets worse like … just where you're directing your attention is everything. And I think that really as a human being the skillset you want to develop is the skillset of mastery which is simply the willingness to put your attention in one area consistently over time. Pick up the instrument for 30 minutes a day after a month you're better at it. It's a willingness to place attention and direct it consistently over time and I think that … so I kind of was playing poker for a living and I met a guy. Now, this guy was a really fascinating guy and he was a coach and a coach of coaches before coaching was mainstream. So now you know about relationship coaches, health coaches, life coaches, business coaches, coaching has really penetrated society as a mainstream concept. Back in '04, '05, '06 it really was not that big and this guy was an early life coach. He'd started the International Coaching Federation one of these things he started that was a life coaching sort of governing body. And the thing about coaching is there is no real governing body, any schmoe off the street can call themselves a coach and start charging. And that is both good and bad, right? You end up with access and to opportunity for people but also some people are you know schmucks and not so good at it or they're selling you stuff … you know they're not qualified. Anyways long story short this guy … we're talking '05, he was selling business opportunity information products, e-books, digitally delivered courses, DVD sets, and these were how to become a life coach, how to start a life coaching business, how to make your own money and have a practice as a life coach. And the way that he generated visibility for this offer was with the search engine optimization which was the traffic source of the day for internet businesses. You would rank on Google and you would buy query based traffic from Google Ad Words when someone typed in a search query like how to make money he would show up. And so I taught him how to play poker and he taught me search engine optimization. And that was like my first foray into … you know this guy worked from his laptop, he was making a bunch of money and I was like men his life and his production cycle is a much more effective production cycle than mine. If we're looking at like we both have the goal of generating wealth, the way he is doing it is far more appealing than the way I'm doing it sitting behind a desk selling people water and coconut water and being yelled at about how we don't have any towels. It was like your hustle is smarter man you got to teach me this. So I taught him how to play poker he taught me search engine optimization. I ended up taking over his business and running this life coaching information product business, learning about things like landing page optimization and conversion rate optimization, sales webinars, and product launches, and upsells, and just like traditional direct response internet marketing as it relates to the sale of information. And this was really where I cut my teeth as a marketer and I love that business. It was a lot of fun. And ultimately once I had developed the skill set of the ability to generate visibility for an offer which was not that hard back then, it was buying Ad Words and doing article marketing, link building, and SEO, I thought to myself man selling information is wonderful but it's got a couple of downsides which is you're reliant on a single influencer. You are only as … you only have as much value as the next month's cash, it's not … you can't sell the thing. It's not an asset, it's a cash flow business by its very nature because it's built around, in general, a particular persona and you can't ever sell that. And there's a number of reasons why I wanted a different model and I tried a whole bunch of them. You know I had a seven figure services agency. I currently run a multi seven figure software as a service business. I did coaching and consulting. I did development for people. I've done all kinds of models and e-commerce appeals to me as the number one model and has been my most successful model and the model that I've enjoyed most for a number of reasons and I'll go through those now. I don't even know if this is the answer to your question. I'm kind of rambling. Can I tell you about why I like e-commerce? Joe: Keep going, please I love this. Ezra: So if you look at the three main areas that result in a business's success … now I will determine a business at scale as a business that's doing between half a million and a million dollars a year and has at least three employees and consistent processes. I'm going to label that as “scale”, so being someone who has run probably 10 different business models, you know affiliate marketing … I've done everything in the last 15 years or so. At scale, e-commerce is my favorite for a number of reasons. When you look at what I believe to be the three things that you've got to have in place to scale a business there's … the first one is product. You need supply chain; you need the ability to produce this product at scale in a way that is not going to take over your life. So if you look at e-commerce, I literally sell tubs of goo. Okay this is not a tub of goo this is a stick of goo but basically, it's a plastic stick there's some goo in it. I mean and you can see here on the visual this is very very good goo, it's handmade goo. Joe: It's like fantastic all natural goo. Ezra: Yeah, it's really really good but it's like I got a tub and I got some goo and I got some labels right? At scale I buy more tubs, I mix more goo and I have more labels. Now let's look at product and supply chain at scale for software as a service which are also sold at scale. Software as a service I need front end engineers, back end engineers, QA's, I need to actually be creating new code and updating the product and integrations all the time. Like the product is morphing every single week; it's not the same product. It changes every week and then whatever I change breaks and then once I develop the product I have to document what I did for the people who are actually using it. And then I have to train and now we move into the second pillar; support. So you have a product you want to ask me something about that product? Joe: I want to point out that the products that you have in your hand also they get used up and reordered and auto shipped so it's a key differentiator between selling a water bottle [inaudible 00:18:06.6]- Ezra: Hey smart marketer all right. Joe: -versus a tub of goo. Ezra: [inaudible 00:18:12.7] is I mean obviously subscription based revenue things that are consumed is really really phenomenonal. If you look at information marketing the beauty of the product side of selling information is you create it once and then you don't have any more cost of goods. Every time I need to buy another one of these it cost me six bucks. When I create an informational course, I create it once and I can continue to sell it but the product goes bad after about six months to a year because it's outdated information. It's not self-help. I mean I sell very specific here's how you run Facebook ads that might need to be updated every six months. So it's very hard to keep that product up to date. Services, I struggled with the product side of setting boundaries. I had a multi seven figure consulting agency doing advertising for e-commerce businesses back in '09 and my problem was always around where does the service end? People would ask me for more. I would then do it like I just didn't have a … I wasn't good at boundaries and so I found that product very hard to fulfill on and as much as I had a very hard time. And this is maybe not other people's issues, I had boundary issues and it's therefore I failed as a services agency and I did well but like the model was not super profitable because I could not figure how to set boundaries. So as far as the product goes e-commerce has been the easiest one to scale without my direct involvement. And I'm looking for the ability to generate wealth and resource and have the most pleasurable model possible. And when you look at the most pleasurable models to run for me it's e-commerce. Let's talk about the support side because as your business scales you have to engage with and support your customers. And with software as a service, those support people need to be very high level. They need to understand the software, the highest level and be able to talk to customers about it. It's way more intense than support for e-commerce where it's like what's in the product, can I get a refund? You know I mean like the support is not anywhere near as high level for e-commerce. So if you look at I have a 1.5 million dollar a year in annual recurring revenue software as a service business that I launched about 24 months ago it will be about 2 million this year and 20 something but the point is that business at 2 million dollars a year has double the amount of employees that BOOM! does at 20 million dollars a year. Double the amount of employees at only 2 million a year because I need people for the product; i.e. front end, back end, engineers, QA people, project managers, I need more support people for the number of customers than I do for BOOM!. So support is something that you have to figure out and support on the agency's side if you're running an agency is very difficult because you got to get on the phone. You got to talk to people; you got to show them results, you're the punching bag when things don't go well. It's very difficult to be … do services well and on the support side it can be really tough. So support for e-commerce is easiest for me in my experience of every model that I've been involved in. And then the one thing that e-commerce requires is marketing. Every other model requires marketing as well, that's sort of the third pillar right? Product, supply chain, support, and marketing; I mean really this is like what we are doing at the end of the day. I mean there's other stuff but like everything kind of is an offshoot of one of those. So the marketing side which is storytelling, sales funnels, content, copywriting, social media, all this kind of stuff is what I excel at; that's my real specialty. It's one of the reasons why every model that I've engaged in I've done some kind of well at because I understand how to comment on a collective experience. And so this is my frame for it. I feel like every business that I have is serving a particular group of people who are having a collective experience and my goal as a marketer is to comment on that experience in a way that resonates with that particular group of people who's having that experience and then push them in the direction of my products ultimately. And so the example you know this product line is sold to women over 50 who are all having the experience of aging and everyone telling them that that is wrong. That's the group of people and that's the collective experience they're having and then I comment on that with my marketing. And so that for me is the same with every business. Every business requires the same kind of marketing; creating videos, amplifying them via advertising, creating sales funnels and technology stacks that push people through a 60 to 90 day sales cycle with retargeting, and then once they buy having content marketing and engagement to keep their attention and then up sells and cross sells after they've consumed with constant content post purchase all of that stuff. And so since that is what I excel at is the marketing side and then I'm looking for okay you know and some people struggle with that but that just happens to be my particular skillset. The model that I am most in love with and I think is the easiest to run at scale is physical product e-commerce because the supply chain is easy and the support is easy and marketing is the same level of difficulty as any other business at scale. Joe: That's a good point. You know I never thought of it. I was at a Mastermind a year and a half ago, someone got up on stage, talked about importing from China and she went into such detail about how important it is to determine the thickness of the corrugated box when you're importing from China. For when it's on that container ship, when it gets to UPS, when it gets to the fulfillment center and all of it … I got to tell you I practically fell asleep and said to myself I never ever want to own any physical products e-commerce business again. Ezra: Don't import from China. I don't. Joe: Don't import from China. I didn't. I had nutritional supplements and it's all US based. So I think it's the ideal business model if you're an e-commerce is something with a consumable product recurring revenue that is manufactured here in the United States. Ezra: I would agree and I would also argue that if you look at e-commerce you might as well go premium because there's buyers for every level of the market. Let's say you have supplements that cost $10 a bottle versus supplements that cost $90 a bottle. I'm always going to sell the $90 a bottle. The reason is it's about the same level of difficulty to generate the sale. And if you go premium you have much more margin that you can then reinvest back in to better product, better score, and better marketing. And so I fall more and more … and you look at the companies that are scaling, Purple Mattress like a lot of these companies have discovered all birds shoes for example by $90 … $5 a pair, it cost them like 10 bucks, they got $80 of margin to spend on growing the brand. So I really believe in premium, consumable … and it doesn't have to necessarily be consumable but line expansion, so if you are selling water bottles also have water bottle coolers and you know what I mean like [crosstalk 00:24:25.2] expand the line but- Joe: And an expansion of that line that is something that can be shipped on a continuity basis. Ezra: Yeah, ideally for sure. I mean listen I don't sell subscription. There's no subscription in my brand though 40% of my revenue comes from repeat customers. Joe: So why the choice not to sell subscription? Ezra: Well, you don't necessarily need to actually have someone on a credit card ding every month to have a high level of repeat business. All you have to have is really good marketing. And my particular demographic is afraid of subscription. And as much as they've experienced a whole bunch of people not letting them off subscription when they get on subscription … so I get all questions every day like is this subscription? Can I cancel my subscription? People don't want to feel obligated, they want to come back and buy when they want to buy. And my view point is that you can have … and my experience is that you can have a recurring business model without actually having people on subscription programs like I do with this product if your products are worth it. Joe: And the product in your hand and this is from experience, not everyone's going to go through that product in the same amount of time. And so that 30 day renewing charge to the credit card is going to be too quick for some, just right for others and too long for others. So you're an expert at reaching out to them and giving them what they need is hey it's time to reorder at click, reorder … that's your … instead of auto shipment you're reaching out to them with I would assume an automated email campaign or through a messenger or something like that. Ezra: Well, we do consistent ongoing content. So we're always sending out videos and articles and so we could generate a lot of revenue just from sending people back to our website. Joe: You mean you're helping customers? Ezra: Yeah, we're adding value to their lives by commenting on the conversations that they're already having. Joe: So to the newbies out there listen to that, adding value to their lives by helping them with the information that they have and making their lives better. That's ideal marketing right there. Ezra: And every six weeks we run a sale event. And I would say about 70% of our revenue from repeats comes from those sale events every six weeks with those sale events and 30% comes from just the random content emails. Those sale events work a lot better when the audience is engaged in ongoing content. So then when we do ask them to buy something, they've been hearing from us, they've been engaged with our content, they've seen our videos on Facebook and their feeds that are just interesting fun videos that are about beauty and help and stuff like that. And then they see this oh they're having a sale, I like these people, I know these people, I engage with their content every now and again. So the ongoing content strategy actually acts as a supporter of our ongoing sales. And when you do the sales every six weeks without the ongoing content they don't work anywhere near as well. Joe: You know it's almost like you just said how do I help more people not how do I sell more product. Ezra: I want to do both but yes. Joe: By doing the first you're doing the second. So it's more of a mature, seasoned approach to growing a brand where you're helping more people and generating more revenue. That's the end result and I'm saying this in a way that sometimes I see businesses from all shapes and sizes, we're doing four to five valuations a week and there's a team of eight of us here at Quiet Light and so we see a lot of different variations of businesses. And the toughest ones to sell are those that are just trying to make a quick buck. They've built a little … slapped their brand on it and they're to get it out there and they're going to get eaten up alive by guys like you in time. They can make a little dent but it's not going to last. What you're doing is something that I think is going to last and eventually will build a much bigger value and someday have a lifetime … if you ever choose to a lifetime event sale where you can say okay I'm done. I don't really ever need to work again but it sounds like you're full of passion, you'd probably be working for a long time. Ezra: Yeah, I feel like if you like what you're doing and you're enjoying it and you have a nice balance … because the problem that most entrepreneurs experience at some point and I can recognize this from across the room at an event and everyone goes through it at some point in the entrepreneurial journey or at least my experience has been like everyone I've talked to and I've talked to thousands of entrepreneurs that have gotten to this place at some point which is burn out. Joe: Yeah. Ezra: They're overwhelmed, overstimulated, they've taken on too much responsibility, and they feel at the mercy shackled to their production cycle … shackled to their business operation. And you know my big transformation in the last two years has been going from driver to navigator. So you know I spent my career driving on the road, taking turns, doing everything and as I've scaled I've seen that really like my most valuable skillset is that of the person who navigates the ship. If you're on the road making the turn you can't see the mountains in the distance. And so at some point you have to make the transition or at least part time the transition to a person who is setting strategy, who is reviewing what's going on, who's going out and meeting new people and bringing in deal flow, who's actually like holding the container and the vision for the operation. And then reviewing what the team is doing and delegating responsibility and giving autonomy and freedom to the people around you to step up in the roles like lead copywriter or lead advertiser or lead project manager or you know all the stuff that you might be doing yourself. And I think that when you are able to do that it affords you the ability to relax a little bit and kind of have a little bit more space for your business. The other thing I will say that people don't do enough of is set real clear boundaries around their work life. Because as an entrepreneur, particularly as an internet entrepreneur your business is with you at all times. I've got my cellphone on my hand but if you … you know it's like your wallet, just always with you and so you don't end up with separation between your life and your business. And when you look at the people who are burned out you find that oh they've been ignoring their bodies and their health. Oh, they've been ignoring their relationships and their intimacy and their connection and their social life and their hobbies. Oh, they've been ignoring like the home front. Like it's … the burnout stems from lack of balance between production cycle and other cycles. And work will fill the time that you give it, it really will. It will fill whatever time that you give it. So I don't actually put my attention on work until about 10 AM and I stop around 5:30 or 6, that's my time frame. I wake up, I move my body, I meditate, I hang out my wife, we have breakfast, we do our little morning thing. It's super fun. A couple of hours in the morning where I'm just partying and having fun and then I start out my work day and I'll work for a couple hours and then I'll have lunch. I'll put in a couple more hours and then I'll stop and that'll be it. And I'll enjoy my evening and my … I do that four solid days a week, sometimes five, and sometimes I don't work at all Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, sometimes I do and it's like you might think oh like my business is to crazy I can't actually do that. I promise you if you do not start working until 10 and you stop at 6 everything that important to get done you will get done. And that's so much working time that is your whole life man, 10 to 6, four days a week it's like you are asking too much of yourself if you're trying to put more of that in your production cycle. And then look I understand that sometimes you've got to run 14 hours a day for four weeks in a row because you're doing a product launch. It's like okay … cool but that … it's a marathon, not a sprint. [inaudible 00:31:25.8] explain this thing you're going to fail. And I can tell you that as someone who has gone through the stages of entrepreneurship from working off the couch with a full time job moonlighting the business to now running an eight figure set of brands with 70 members and a lifestyle that I really really enjoy. I've been there and you really … if you don't set the boundaries and don't set the container it will not exist and the work will permeate your entire existence and you will have no separation from it and you have no relaxation and no space. And a lot of times your best ideas come when you're not working. When you have space and you're enjoying yourself. It's like it is necessary to scale to set constraints around your work life. And people are unwilling to do this because they feel it will be a detriment to their success. But actually in my experience and the experience of everyone who has done this that I know it works the opposite. Joe: And a lot of folks that come from the corporate world when they're putting in 50, 60 hours a week traveling all over the world and they just want to get out of the rat race and they want to be an entrepreneur. And they buy an online e-commerce business and they feel like they need to put in 40, 50, 60 hours a week. And I said look the guy that you're buying it from has been working 15 hours a week, you've got some learning to do so just maybe cap it at 25. But don't work to the point where you're trying to fix things that are not broken, just learn. Go to events, go to Smart Marketer and things like that. You just don't have to work that much and you've worked so hard that it's time to take care of your own health and wellness as well. Ezra: And I think that totally and like hey go for it put in a full eight hour day or 10 hours a day multi work weeks as you're getting in to the game but like at least have the goal of setting some boundaries and containers around your work life because you will be a happier person. And like what is the point of all of this? Is the point just wealth creation because mine certainly is not. I would love to generate as much resource and I'm using resource as a lingo word to describe generating wealth so that I can then direct that resource towards causes that I find noble. Take care of my community where I grew up, take care of my family, provide a lifestyle for my wife that she's really excited about and our family, do other things that are … that have meaning to me like saving lands and all kinds of stuff. So not a lot of people have figured out how to generate resource, everyone is failing at this. Everyone thinks that success is the goal and they're running in the direction of success and most people are failing at it and most people are miserable. And it's like the goal … fun is a much less popular but more fulfilling goal than success. So if you can figure out how to have fun and enjoy yourself which means setting fucking boundaries around your work life and having hobbies and having a social life and taking care of your body you will have more success. You're guaranteed to be a winner if you're chasing a good time and fun. You're not guaranteed to have fun if you chase success. So it's like what the hell is the point? What are you doing person? I want to grab you by the shoulders and smack you around and say listen, stop it. Focus on enjoying your life. And yes but obviously focus on the production cycle and the success. Joe: We're not talking about being poor and happy we're talking about a combination of both [inaudible 00:34:37.5] which are successful businesses with recurring revenue models and a very happy and healthy home life. I think it's amazing that you really generally don't start work until 10 unless you're out at an event to a sponsorship or something like that and then you're walking away. Do you actually put that device down and walk away; that phone that's in your hand? Ezra: Oh yeah. There's no phones in the bedroom dude. Turn off the computers, get off the digital medium. I mean you're shackled to it, man. You're on it all day every day, give yourself a freaking break and all of a sudden you feel better and life is better. And you hop on in the morning and you respond to the emails and the slacks and then you start creating. I kind of use my morning time for my creation, strategy, content you know I create a lot in the mornings and then like throughout the rest of the day I'll be … I'm at a place in my business now where I have a lot of reviewing and talking to people about what's going on. And my job is a lot of like sort of directing, hey okay yeah this is good let's move it over here. I'm doing a lot of like kind of holding and sort of directing things and if you don't have the visual of my hands [inaudible 00:35:39.8] but … and that I find is so easy to do in the later parts of the day. And in the early parts of the day, I do my creation. Joe: Creation as in … you like, what does that mean you're? Ezra: Well creation as in like for me- Joe: Like creating content? What is it? Ezra: Yeah. Well for me it's like thinking about marketing campaigns, looking at strategy, thinking about what we should be doing, thinking … anything that involves thinking of new stuff or doing new stuff or like you know I do a lot of … for my SaaS business and my information marketing business I do a lot of content creation and blog videos and webinars and sales videos and writing scripts. And I do a lot of creating things and also creating strategies. And I find that that is easiest for me in the early parts of the day and then in the later parts of the day reviewing stuff that other people did, talking to them about it, directing things just a little bit. I know it doesn't require as much focus. I mean it's still focused but it's not like I don't have to be fully locked in I could kind of be doing other stuff and you know. Joe: I got you. Hey, you mentioned the word meditation I want to jump right in to that if you don't mind. Just are you up and meditating every day? Did you read a number of books? You've been doing it for a lifetime; I would imagine based upon the way you grew up. Ezra: Yeah I mean you know this hippie commune that I grew up on was not what you think of. It wasn't like crunchy granola, everyone meditated and you know we didn't have animals. It's very different than what you think. It wasn't one of these places where you had to subscribe to some ideology to be a part of it. A lot of these intentional communities in order to get in them you have to be a … you have to hold a certain set of viewpoints. I describe the difference between an intentional community and a cult in these ways because a lot of people are like oh you grew up in a cult like the group of … any time you get a group of people living somewhere with different viewpoints people call it a cult right? So let's just let me give you my description for this, from my perspective a cult is something that is easy to join and hard to leave. An intentional community is something that is very hard to join and very easy to leave. It's like hard to get in to the party and then if you want to go at any time you could get out of here. That's sort of the difference between those two models. And particularly in the place I grew up it wasn't like built around a hey you must believe these things to live here. It was like a bunch of hippies who sort of wanted to step away from traditional mainstream society and focus on how to live pleasurably in a group and do cool things like run charities. And yeah I mean there was definitely some alternative viewpoints and they definitely teach courses on things like communication and relationships and all kinds of stuff. It's a really really cool place but meditation was not like a part of my life as a kid. I was just like … I went to normal, I went to high school normal school. I was a normal kid. I just went home to a different place than most people and I didn't go home to the suburbs. So you know I kind of came across meditation through my wife. She was a yoga teacher when I met her. And she was all into this sort of Eastern philosophies and stuff. And we go through phases where we will be meditating 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night and then we won't do it for a couple months. We kind of like … I think that people think that they're failing if they don't stick to their routines. And it's like routines are meant to be broken. Part of the fun of having a routine is breaking it and coming back to it. It's like the goal is not to just do the same thing all the time. You notice if you work out and you do the same work out over and over your body gets used to it. So we go through phases where we'll do it a lot and we won't do it that much. I do find that when we are doing it I feel better. I feel clear and I like it. And you know when we restart we'll start with just like 10 minutes in the morning, and then maybe like 15 minutes, and then we're like 20 minutes, and I actually found this really cool meditation seats on Amazon. They're like a tiny little plank with a cushion on it and two short little legs and you kneel on them. And man they've been awesome because they keep you upright. But yeah I like meditation; I'm a fan of it. And I think that really it's less about the specific formula that you subscribe to and more about the intention to take time for yourself and take care of yourself. Have a bath in the evening, pay attention to what you're putting into your body, move your body. It's like … it's more about the intention of wellness rather than the particular formula that you are subscribing to for wellness has been my experience with it. Joe: Yeah. Ezra: Because … different strokes for different folks man. Different shit works for different people. Joe: Absolutely. We're running a little short on time but I can talk to you for another hour and a half but I want to talk quickly about the helping that you do in terms of the Smart Marketer. Because the people out there listening they've heard you mention a few different things. I first met you at the Smart Marketer conference in Austin last year, I was just at Blue Ribbon with you in Denver which is your Mastermind group and then I think you're going to Capitalism next week in Austin as well? Ezra: Brand Builders, are you coming? Joe: Brand Builders, yes we'll be there as well. Ezra: Hey, maybe we could actually talk to each other in person. Joe: I know, how about that? That'd be awesome wouldn't it? But you know with Smart Marketer Mark actually bought your Facebook program but you know I'm constantly talking to people about what they're doing within their e-commerce businesses and where to go what resources to look at. Can you just talk briefly in terms of what you do and what programs you have in there and what resources are available for those people that are listening that are e-commerce folks that want to grow their businesses but at the same time do it in a shorter day like yours is. Ezra: For sure let me introduce to you the concept of permaculture. Are you familiar with that concept? Permaculture, it's a farming term. Joe: No. Ezra: What it means generally … what kind of the high level meaning is to reuse all of your resources to their greatest benefit; so capture the rain water, water the garden, take the chicken shit use it for your compost. Reuse of resources. So I spend all of my time with my focus on innovation in the direction of e-commerce and I do a really good job at it. And then with Smart Marketer I document whatever is working and I share that with my community of business owners through my free blog and through educational courses where I have how we run Facebook ads or how we do conversion optimization on our website or how we run project management for our brand or how we run social media for our brand or whatever. I have all these different courses but what they are is they're a direct documentation of what's worked for me and my brands. I then take the money that I make from Smart Marketer and I reinvest back into the e-commerce businesses. And in my e-commerce businesses I'm also developing software. I'm developing things to make them function better. So anything that works really well I open source that and share it with my community of business owners in the form of software as a service. Any money that software as a service brand makes I dump back in to e-commerce. So all of these things sort of work together. The e-commerce is the heart that pumps the blood to the information which then takes revenue and puts it back into e-commerce which then lets me do developments which then I use for my software as a service brands so kind of all works together and Smart Marketer, in particular, is do and then document. And I only have two products, I have digitally delivered courses … digitally delivered educational courses in the forms of videos, PDF's, and handwritten notes on what they are that teach you the things that I have found to be most effective. Paid amplification, how to run Google traffic and Facebook traffic to your website, project management, how to run your e-commerce business with systems and processes at scale and hire people, social media, how to have ongoing content and engagement for people who bought from you in the past. I have all these different courses and they're on my website but I have digitally delivered educational courses and I have a Mastermind. A Mastermind is only for million dollars sellers basically. If you're doing 500 grand minimum most people are doing five million, 10 million, etcetera … then this group is for the high achievers; the people who have really made it. It's a more intimate intense program where it's like very high level 100 people all really kicking butt. So I have that Mastermind and I have the digitally delivered courses. And that's all Smart Marketer is. It's just my personal journey being documented and open sourced for business owners and thankfully for me, I think again timing was a big issue … a big thing here. I was the first you know. I was the kind of first e-commerce influencer and as much as I started a blog about my e-commerce journey before people were doing it really really and it got real popular early on. And I've kind of continued to put energy towards it because I love doing it and I feel really fortunate that people care about what I have to say. It was like really awesome that people want to hear this stuff because for me it's like you have to be a total nerd to be interested in this. It's like kind of dry content, it's not like … it's not dry but it's like if you're not into internet businesses you're not going to be interested in this blog. I mean yeah I talk about relationships and lifestyle and stuff like that too and that's fun but I think that like the real sort of core to base of subscribers are internet business owners and e-commerce business owners, and so that's that model. Joe: That's fantastic. I'm always impressed when you speak. I'm always impressed with your energy, your enthusiasm, and the fact you'd really really trying to help people more than anything else. And it comes back to you. It's not like you're doing it for free and whatnot. Then you're not trying to earn a living for you and your family and whatnot. Obviously, you are but you do it in a manner that is beneficial to others that comes back to you which I commend you for. Ezra: Serve the world unselfishly and profit; that's my motto in business. Joe: And you came on here not even knowing fully what we were going to talk about. It wasn't a pitched Smart Marketer or any of your services. Really it was to talk about work life balance which you laid out very very well. I loved your journey. I love your approach. I love your philosophy. And I'm really hoping that people go back and listen to this again and actually read the article that will be produced from it as well so that can really hone in on what you do and focus on it to, maybe get out to see you at some of these events that you put on and get to Smart Marketer and get better at what they do. Ezra: Thanks man, and I would totally share this. Let me know when it comes out I'll put it out. Joe: Absolutely. Thank you for that. We'll put it down and I'll put all the details on how to reach you and how to reach your courses and whatnot down on the show notes. And I will reach you when we get it wrapped up and ready for the world. Listen to it and watch it and thanks for your time, Ezra. I appreciate it. Ezra: Thanks man, talk to you later. Links: Smartmarketer.com Free Facebook Video Ad Training Full Course Selection Blue Ribbon Mastermind Ezra on Twitter Ezra on LinkedIn

If you want to know the value of your business and where it comes from, do the work. Take the time to collect the data, then hone in on what is the right fit for your company. Prioritize figuring out what makes your business tick in order to grow a sustainable brand. The bulk of Babak Azad's body of work lies in growing the Beach Body brand from 100 million to over 1 billion in revenue in eight years. Now working as a consultant in marketing for multimillion dollar businesses, Babak and his team focus on customer acquisition, retention, and the power of customer experience. Babak is here today to talk to us about building a lasting brand by helping business find a few channels that work well and hitting those home. Episode Highlights: Babak shares his unique way of looking at customer acquisition in every type of business he touches. Why business metrics are not as difficult as people think if they start with the basics. Start somewhere and then refine over time. The importance of knowing what a good customer is worth in any business. The things business owners should be tracking at a minimum. Look at the levels and the patterns. Get things right for a few to start off before rushing around trying to scale up too quickly. It is crucial to your success as a marketer to seek out and hone in on the best channels for your business. What your strategy should look like once those channels have been targeted effectively. Use service marketplaces such as Fiverr and Upwork to find small ways to find qualified staff to collect crucial data. How Babak helps clients discover the right intersection of branding and direct marketing then infuses that with customer sustainability. Why it is so important to start taking care of the customer. Hear Babak's 4 pillars of brand building. Transcription: Joe: So Mark I know that amongst all the Quiet Light Brokerage, Jason is probably the fittest. But I occasionally do get my butt kicked by someone online with beachbody.com. Most recently a young lady … I can't remember her name but I keep going back to it. I love the program and I love the story behind Beachbody's success. Because as you know I'm an old radio spot ad, radio infomercial, TV infomercial guy and that is where Beachbody started; I believe. And you had them on the podcast is that right? Mark: I did. Yeah, I think pretty much everybody has heard of Beachbody at some point or another. I mean it's a huge brand; huge name. I was able to talk to Babak Azad. He was the Senior Vice President for Media and Acquisitions; really fancy title, big companies … that comes with the big companies are fancy titles but his role at beach body was to figure out their customer acquisition strip. And this is what he does now. He's no longer with Beachbody. He did leave a little while ago. He's now with Round Two Ventures and they help e-commerce companies eight figure or nine figure, primarily e-commerce companies hone in on their customer acquisition strategies. What was great about this discussion is seeing as at scale, seeing what a … somebody who's in charge of a business that when he came into to Beachbody they were doing 100 million dollars in revenue annually. That's a lot of money. Joe: It's a lot. Mark: When he left in just a few years later they were doing over a billion dollars in annual revenue. Joe: Wow. How long was he there for? Mark: I don't know. I would have to take a look to see but it wasn't more than a few years. So he's really responsible for the explosive growth. I mean again a lot of people have heard about Beachbody or remember hearing about them. Way back when I was in college which unfortunately is too long ago now, so I remember hearing about them then. Now I mean everybody knows Beachbody. Everybody knows the brand and that was because of his customer acquisition strategy. We talked a lot about what that was and we talked a lot about problems and mistakes he sees especially in seven figure e-commerce businesses and even eight figure e-commerce businesses as they're trying to grow. I'll leave some of the mystery for the actual episode here but a couple of things that I pulled away from this that I thought were really good; one, he said that if he comes across a company and they have more than four main acquisition channels that he's guaranteeing they're wasting money and that they are completely … not doing what they should. Some people get all worked up and you know they think oh I need to be on Pinterest, I need to be on Instagram, I need to be on Facebook, I need to be here or there and everywhere. And he said that's not how it works. He said find a few channels. He says it should be no more than four. Ideally, it should probably be maybe three or even two to start. And do those well and just milk those for what they're worth. Really hit those homes. That was one thing that I really pulled away and the other thing I pulled away was his emphasis on data collection. And I run into this problem since that I own all the time as I always want the data collection to be perfect. And then I get kind of lost in the weeds, right? You get all the state in front of you. You have your analytics. You have all this stuff coming in and you're like what do I do with this? And his response was what I've heard from so many other successful entrepreneurs, just start doing something with it. You know he said go out and hire a college kid, go out on Upwork and have them put it into Excel and start analyzing the data. He said the data will start bubbling up from that by itself and start giving you insights and then that can direct you into what you should actually be collecting; a fascinating conversation from somebody who's done some pretty big time stuff. Joe: Yeah. It sounds like the data will speak to eventually. And even though when he left it's a billion dollar company I think that the lessons that he's learned along the way are incredibly valuable for those doing six and seven figures in revenue. You know a few weeks ago we had Ryan Daniel Moran on the podcast and he said: “find your customers”. Find your customers and then send them to the least half of resistance to ordering. So it's going to be interesting to see how those two things jive with … back in what he said here in the podcast. Let's get to it. Mark: Absolutely, let's go. Mark: Babak Azad thank you for joining me. Babak: Thanks a lot Mark, glad to be here. Mark: Did I butcher your name? Babak: You did not. You did it well the first time. Thank you. Mark: We literally just rehearsed this. We rehearsed it and then I hit record. I'm like I'm so going to screw this thing up. Cool, I … thank you so much for joining me. I know you and I talked about a year ago for a piece I wrote on entrepreneur.com and I'm super glad to have you on the podcast right now. We have a little bit of a tradition here at Quiet Light where we have our guests introduce themselves because hey you're better at knowing what your background is than I am. So why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself real quick? Babak: Sure. I live here in LA with my wife and two boys. I started out as a math major investment banking business school. I kind of came from that route. I started a magazine here in LA which failed miserably; best 25 grand I ever lost. I needed some humble pie, what I read that point of my life and then spent eight years in Beachbody. So the bulk of my professional experience was there; built analytics and then oversaw media and customer acquisition. So P90X, Insanity, 21 Day Fix, Shakeology, all that. Those efforts are for eight years and we kind of had a nice clean 10X. I already got there at 100 million so there's already substantial scale; really I obviously helped to push that thing to over a billion when I left three years ago right when my second son was born. The simple version of it, I have to start something, the team fell apart really quickly and then I started working on building a consulting business. So that's what I do right now; help generally seven and eight figure businesses, sometimes nine on … heavy on marketing, support around customer acquisition, retention, and analytics and really much more recently heavily infused with customer experience and really how to … I'm leading to writing a book about it too but really just the power of customer experience that's very much consistent with performance marketing approach but also really layering in building a lasting brand. That's really where my focus is today and I love what I'm doing. I have some great clients and yeah … so I'm having a good time with it. Mark: I love that you lead with the fact that you had a magazine startup that failed and then you just kind of glossed over the fact that you were part of the team that grew Beachbody from 100 million to a billion dollars. You know just a small footnote in your career history there. Babak: Yeah it's a … you know I have a … I appreciate all the experiences. You never want to go through those negative ones. I think we all have gone through them and just … I had to say I'm not sure I'm as humble as I need to be at times but [inaudible 00:07:25.5] as I mentioned it was an important thing of learning what it's like. I've been really much more of an analyst at that point. And then yeah I mean Beachbody was awesome. I had a great experience and … but it was time for me to go. You know eight years was a long time there and I grew a lot. I met my wife through one of my best friends there and [inaudible 00:07:41.6] me up for kind of this next chapter that I'm in right now. Mark: Cool we're going to be talking today about customer acquisition and also building a brand and some of the lessons that you pulled away from Beachbody and are now doing at Round Two Ventures is that right you're doing this at Round Two? Babak: Correct. Mark: Okay. I will link to Round Two Ventures and then your personal blog in our show notes and anything else that you want us to link to in the show notes. But … so we're going to talking a little bit about customer acquisition, lifetime value, and this intersection of branding. You have kind of this unique way of looking at this customer acquisition strategy, maybe we could just kind of start with kind of a general look at your philosophy when it comes to customer acquisition in the e-commerce but also in the SaaS world. You know I think metrics, being really metric heavy on customer acquisition and lifetime values, this is really kind of a SaaS world sort of conversation but you take it towards e-commerce and towards every other type of business as well. Babak: Yeah it's funny because I started really with physical products and given that distinction which I mean physical products, we sold DVDs and multi-vitamins at Beachbody. And that's really where a lot of my real marketing and just … I would say professional experience came from. And so this distinction of physical versus info versus SaaS really was nothing I ever really considered until I started frankly getting out of that world and talking to other folks. You know when I was at Beachbody and then started to learn about this but yeah I mean … so first off I was a math major but you know I wrote a piece a bunch of years ago saying business metrics are not college math, [inaudible 00:09:12.7] barely high school math. And I think that's the first thing is … I think I know a lot of people who are intimidated by the metrics or surely daunted by how do you do it or their systems. And you know I'm a firm believer first just to start with something. I think Peter Drucker you know said what you don't measure doesn't get better and so with the opposite is very much the case. That what you do measure, what you report on, what you send in an email or whenever it's your phone because it's fun to mine you just start to pay attention. So there's always a bit of grounding of just the basics in fundamentals. And that's really I think my approach. I'm not a shiny bright object guy. I believe that if you get the basics and fundamentals then much of what you need to do starts to take care of them itself. But really when it comes to customer lifetime … I mean I look at e-com and frankly all of the businesses, you know fundamental is I grew up as a paid media guy in marketing. And I think it's evolving over time but you know from a Beachbody and beyond heavy on TV, heavy on digital, you know that was what I knew. And certainly one of the core 10X. If you're going to run paid is you've got to know what a customer is worth. You know people sometimes ask like what's a good CPA? It's like I don't answer that question because I don't know your business. I don't know what a customer is worth. You know are you … do you have business constraints around needing to be casual positive on day one, on day 30, ideal business goals. There's so many factors that come in so this but really my belief is … and I just don't know any other way is especially when you're running paid media you need to know what a customer is worth because you need to know how much you can afford to pay for them. That sounds really basic and fundamental and hopefully for a lot of folks that is. But you know that's the core of it because ultimately it's how do you know if you're going to spend more or less? How do you know if your numbers whether in Facebook or otherwise are good or not? You have to have some of that measure. So a lot of the core work that I do with folks … and really I'd write about and all that is really if you're going to be running paid you need to understand those basics around customer acquisition. And then again start with whatever you have even if it's all customers that's … you're not dissecting by ad said or by Facebook versus Google. Just start somewhere and then you start to refine this overtime. Mark: All right. I love these conversations because I go into them sometimes not knowing what I'm going to ask and then after the first two or three minutes I've got a list of questions. So let's start with basics, you said start with the basics and fundamentals. What are those? What should somebody be tracking at a minimum? Babak: So let's assume [inaudible 00:11:39.2] whether you're a SaaS business, info product, physical product you know certainly from a from a traffic side the core stuff of spend, click through rates, CPC's, [inaudible 00:11:50.5], cost per click, conversions, cost per acquisition … whatever that means for you; for some folks, that's if your lead gen versus you're loop driving to an order. Those are just conventions and so the philosophical stuff and the strategic stuff applies to both. Certainly, you want funnel metrics, how many people hit your site whether it's landers or blog pages … you know get through the funnel and so whether you have one step or a five step process I would say again start with … if you have GA set up or you have others tools set up, what kind of just basic tracking of how many people are hitting pages, what's your conversion rate, average order value, and then ideally over time … and whether it's someone converts on day zero or beyond, what is the value of those people over time. So I generally try to look in ice sized chunks of day one … day zero, day one to 30, 31 to 60, and then beyond. And depending on your risk profile, your business goals, all those things you may determine how long you want to look out and how much you want to apply towards customer acquisition. Mark: Let's talk about that a little bit here because this is something that I've run across a few times recently. You know looking out over these different strata of periods of time; zero to 28 and then this kind of second up to maybe around 60 days; why are you taking a look at that? And you're taking a look at this in terms of the value that client is going to bring to you right? Babak: Right. Mark: So why break it out into those different groups? Babak: Well first and foremost depending on the business goals and constraints, that can oftentimes going to define how you're going to approach managing. Let's say … I mean I'm going to talk about paid media for a moment, that's going to manage that because if you look at … if you need to be breakeven based on credit terms, cash flow, whatever that is; if you need to be breakeven by day 30 or day 60 then you need to know what that customer is worth. And so based on a margin basis not just certainly on a revenue basis but on a margin basis you need to know how much you're making by day 30, by day 60 cumulative and that's going to help to define what your CPA targets are. And then it's … again for me, there is no right and wrong whether you're managing to a breakeven, to a margin percent, and if you are just revenue driven and you've got venture funding and you need to be driving those are not for me to say. And I never have a perspective of right and wrong … it's those are personal and business decisions but you need to understand that. And then frankly once you have some of these base lines then it's a matter of how do you start to improve those things over time. So if you know what day one, day 30, 31 to 60 then presumably someone in your team whether it's the owner, the single person, or someone on the team is spending time testing to say how do we actually start to drive this and improve that. And again different models you may need to look at 180 days, you may look at a year … I mean I work with folks that have a one year break even because they can afford to do that; some folks breakeven on day one. And so different businesses and different models can allow for that and some it's much more difficult. So you just have to understand the nature of your business and then what kind of things you're trying to constrain with. Mark: Yeah, by the way, some example … so something that I've run into in a business recently where we had a solid lifetime value number, and we were able to calculate it pretty well by taking a look at customers that had … this was a subscription based business, we took a look at customers that have canceled over the last six months and looked at their average lifetime value. And you know the number was something like I don't know $130, $140 but the average ticket value for any single sale was maybe about $30-35. What we found was that there was these whales and there right? These whales in there that were spending $3,000 and it took them years to be able to get to that point. So when you take a look at that lifetime value analysis we say okay that they might be worth $140 or $130 whatever the number was but was in order to do that you need a couple of these whales to wait for three, four years before you can actually get that value back. Babak: Right. Mark: So we had to kind of take a look at that from that kind of strategic way [inaudible 00:15:50.3] okay actually what are we getting from clients on average in month one and then in month two and then a month three and beyond that. We're not going to care too much about the lifetime value because it's going to take too long to recoup that cost. Babak: Right. Yeah and some businesses may not be able to afford to wait that long for those whales to kick in. And really then it means A. you're managing your risk in a certain way. Again, whatever is appropriate and then you're basically operating at a higher margin than maybe you could operate if you could tolerate that and maybe you want to take some of that and spend it into media. But if you can't wait that long and there's just too much risk and it's too small of a percent and too inconsistent then that may just be the way you run it. I think I get in some ways the same question when you're first starting, it's … that's great if you have five years of data and you have a much more sophisticated and robust [inaudible 00:16:37.1] data in your business. But if when you're just starting you probably need to start more conservative right? An owner that has bootstrapped the business knows that you start with what you can afford and then as you learn, as you develop and have this history… the history in the business then you start to understand your customers better; what they're worth and then maybe you can start to manage your media and how you think about that better and surely hopefully concurrently you're optimizing the funnel so your customers are worth more, you're converting better, all these types of things right? But that's just the nature of again where businesses are in there maturity and how long they've been around. Mark: Yeah one of the common objections I hear from people … because we ask people who are selling their business all the time what's the average lifetime value of a client? And one of the biggest objections I get to that is I have no idea because customers are still with me. And you said something at the beginning and that is just start. There's a lot of models out there, just start with something. Do you have a basic model that you like to follow? I know for myself I just like to take a look at okay I might sell if a customer is with us and from the Quiet Light perspective we can say the same thing. Our business is typically one off but we have people who have sold two, three, four businesses. All the same, we don't want to assume that, we're just going to take a look at what … the lifetime value I spend right now with the assumption it could grow. Do you have a recommended model for people that are saying I don't know how to [inaudible 00:17:58.7] for these people that are still with us? Babak: So the fact that a customer is still with you for me is not a reason to not understand what a customer is worth. And so let's say they've been with you for … let's say the businesses have been around for a year and you've got 20%, 50% of the customers have been around that long. Do the average based on how ever long that cohort has been around. And if the other ones are … you know seem like they're directionally going that way then great. And then as you get more information you can start to build your model and add to it. But you know I think part of the thing also to be careful over depending on how long the business has been around is how many people are you looking at? So if you've got 100 customers versus 10,000 you trust more volume, right? And then the other part is just looking at I like to break things down into monthly cohorts. Let's assume it's just purchase, so I'm not lead gen but it's purchase, I like to look at who are all the people who first transacted in January, and then in February, and then in March and look at their relative month one, month two, month three revenues and certainly again margin and then start to see what kinds of patterns start to form and then again. And starting really that at that level and then you just start to refine this thing and as you get more data and … then great then you start to layer in. So worst case you're being conservative because you have customers who are going to stick around a little longer but that's a good thing and that's a good worst case to have as opposed to certainly the opposite where you may be overestimating or you may be overlooking at one group that's worth a ton and everyone else isn't remotely tracking towards that super high value group. Mark: I think a problem that people run into a lot is they've up the perfect be the enemy they good, they want to get that perfect model and if they think they can get it then they don't do it. I know I've fallen victim to that quite a bit as well. I want to [inaudible 00:19:41.4] Babak: Quote I have on my phone that shows up is perfect … done is better than perfect. And it's really easy to get stuck in that analysis paralysis perfection like … and also frankly this idea that everyone else has it better. I think a lot of people think that bigger companies or those using better tools always have better data but is definitely not the case. Like a lot of times the bigger companies they have too many legacy systems so I think oftentimes that comparison can pull people back because they think I'm never going to be able to achieve what someone else is doing or all that big data stuff. I mean just start with what you got and literally it could be Excel with a college kid and then you start building from there. Like literally it can be that that can be very very effective and I've seen it be that way. Mark: Yeah that's a good lead into my next question because you know you started at Beachbody with 100 million in revenue right? So you guys wanted to go ahead and start digesting data, you put a million dollars towards hiring on a new team just to be able to digest data. The entrepreneur who has an e-commerce business doing three million, four million bucks that's a lot more of a challenge for them to bring on that much of a team. Excel, analytics, are there any other programs they may want to look at or systems that you know of that might be a good starting point or would you even recommend going out and hiring a college kid or going onto a place like Upwork to be able to have somebody to crunch numbers? Babak: Yeah I mean so first of all when I joined again it was seven, what you think maybe a hundred million dollar business has in terms of systems and processes I would say first of all the tools today are so so much better. But I looking back, I work with some hundred million dollar businesses now that have dramatically better systems and reporting frankly because the tools are just much easier. So you know it took a year or so for me to get correlatively cleaner data and not even clean. So first of all even back then it wasn't like everything was so dialed in, that's kind of part of my point. And then second again like depending on people whether on Shopify or Magento or whatever your platform, honestly the basic thing is do a data dump. I've hired for multiple clients someone part time on Upwork to basically do some slicing and dicing; basic stuff, get some things in place. And we're not talking … so first of all even if you hire someone full time and let's say that person is 50,000 a year just picking a number, your exposure to that person is not 50,000 because within 90 days you should know whether that person is going to be working out or not. So let's say it's a quarter of that plus maybe a little bit more so oftentimes first people think about if you're going to bring on someone full time that that annualized cost that's really not what it is. You should know I think within 90 days that you're getting what you need and they're on a path. But at the very least there are definitely folks on Upwork and really just looking for someone who's got some similar work; I put people through an Excel test to make sure they can do the basics. It's all made up information and yeah you start with that and I've literally had college kids help out just … who were good at Excel. They don't need to know that much, they just need to know how to slice and dice some information. And maybe it's an MBA, I'm not saying you have to go there but certainly Upwork, Excel, using again basic tools. You do not need certainly anything remotely close to enterprise so you get stuff going. And I will say I do, I run some numbers for some of my clients and it's literally … I did one about a week ago, Excel, Hubspot, Shopify, GA piece it all together and we had a pretty rich view. It took some time obviously but we then had a pretty rich view of what those customers look like. Mark: So with somebody who has a Shopify store or an Amazon store where you can't really track customers as well with Amazon, but let's say Shopify store where you can track your customers, or a SaaS application or anything else where you're tracking those customers would you literally just go out and do a dump of that data of the customers and go back and start to calculate okay this is what … you know graphing it out, these customers are worth this much in those first 30 days and then it starts to look like this when we move out? Babak: Yup that's exactly. I mean … so and that's what we did. Let's say you're looking at 2017 data it's literally [inaudible 00:23:52.4] all the new customers and that's part of the thing is making sure they're new versus repeat. But let's just say you can identify that hopefully relatively easily; who are the new customers who purchased for the first time in January of '17, February of '17, March of '17 and literally track those people. Look at their February orders for January, look at the March orders for both like you know January and February and really that's literally started that way. And you can then start to slice and dice by traffic source, by product, by offer, by ad set. But that's next level, for some folks they just want to get the pure basics. Just start with that average thing and then once you have that and then you start to refine over time. But literally it's a data dump and you know if you can marry it with GA or with your CRM or ESP then great but at the very least start with the overall, start with maybe one line and then you just start to get better from that point. And frankly again that's what I did with Beachbody, that's what I do with my clients. And whether it's me or working with their teams you just start and then you start to refine over time. Mark: All right so let's go to the other side of this conversation. We started to get a good sense for our lifetime value and what a client brings to us in terms of different time frames; the first 30 days, the next … the first 60 days and so on and so forth and we know our cash flow requirements. Again, people listening, you have to keep in mind if you're going to spend $50 on a client and they're not going to pay you $50 until month six you need enough cash flow to be able to get to that payback period. Let's build a strategy, what does the strategy look like then at that point from acquiring the customers and going through different channels? I know obviously with Beachbody you guys did television, you did radio, you did a lot of media which was hard to track. And we see this a lot with … you know online platforms are really good right now at tracking with view through conversions and everything else but there's still some of those mediums out there that aren't great and imperfect. How does that sort of factor into your decisions when it comes to acquisition channels? Babak: Yeah I mean so no matter what channel you're in attribution is the bane of everyone's existence. A very very few people have it down and like oh I know what that means to have it down. You want to get to the point where you feel like a level of comfort and confidence. You know these days again most of the work … I have one client that I work with on TV and it's a very rare exception of how good their attribution model is but let's say that for the most part, most people are doing … I mean it's digital heavy. So for me, I basically focus and work with folks on really only a few channels so Google … which for me is Google and Bing. I mean people always forget about Bing, it's another 5, 10% and my joke is if you don't want that 5, 10% can I have it? And I'm joking but no one ever says yes. But it's using higher ROI's especially when you're talking slightly older demos. But Google and Bing, Facebook and Instagram, your internal e-mail and affiliates, and frankly just … and I said just but if you focus there I've seen plenty of businesses go well into nine figures; focus there. And then certainly you can layer on radio and podcast, TV, direct mail; but honestly Google, Facebook, affiliates, e-mail and internal … you know that's really where I put a lot of time and attention. And I'll say even then attribution is a bit of a mess because Facebook and Google don't talk to each other. So they're each one who takes some credit … you know or using GA last click, what's happening are people opting in through Facebook and then converting through e-mail? But you really just have to start to piece together things, at the end of the day again depending on your business model your PNL and bank account are the true measures of it. And so that sounds like a totally average overall view but yeah that's again I work with folks that have that and then they've got to a certain level of sophistication. So you start with … you know start and piece together what does Google say, what does Facebook say, like if you add up those two do you even have that many orders? You're going to have to be very careful about double counting but you just start to piece together this … the data starts to tell a bit of a story. I would just say one thing you mentioned view through, I am a very very very conservative on view through so the point of it I basically I ignore it; certainly from a GDN side and really even from Facebook. I just think unless you prove it I'd rather start with a [inaudible 00:28:07.2] and it doesn't work. I mean you got to prove it as opposed to just proving it. But I know that you know 28 day click one day view on Facebook is the standard set up. I moved most people to 7 day click not because it's right but mostly because it … we got to account for double counting, AdWords, what's going on in email, things like that. So there's … again there's no right and wrong but that's one of places I've kind of dialed in a little bit is looking at 7 day click. But honestly my biggest … the biggest mistake I oftentimes see with people with channels is they have too many. And so I think if people say oh I heard someone's doing something on Pinterest or YouTube or I got to do this, frankly if I see people who have four channels where it's 25% in each, that says actually something is not being done well enough. And usually, it's people who are really scaled, I kind of have this thing of two offers two channels, most businesses that have scaled substantively they've gone deep and hard in a couple channels which basically means they're left probably some money on the table elsewhere maybe but it means they're focused. And that means they're exploiting where things are working. And so I think that's one of the things, people think I got to be in so many places, I don't … I have not found that to be the case at all. And even though it sounds like you're concentrating your risk it also means you're exploiting an opportunity. And that's really I think oftentimes what you're really trying to do. Mark: How do you know when to give up on the channel if it's not working or would you? Babak: You know it's a good question I think at some point you have to make a call so it's … I don't have a rule around it and I put it that way hard and fast. I think it's … first of all, I like modeling off of other people; not copying but modeling. And so it is … it can be dangerous because you can see all these other people seemingly running a bunch of ads and yours may not be working but you may not know what their goals are and their goals may be different than yours. So I think it's always … you got to be careful about comparison but you know I think at some point you have to take … just like a lot of things you have to take an honest assessment and say do we feel like we've given this a fair shot? How much time and money have we invested? Frankly, what is it pulling because we all have tradeoffs whether you're a six figure business or a nine figure business everyone is resource constrained in their own relative way. So you have to pick and choose your battles and really where you think now. I guess … and sometimes the market maybe telling you something too that it may not be the channel but maybe the way you're executing on it right? Which may be kind of the same thing for you but I think that's one of the things too is really you have to take an honest assessment of what have you done, what have you tried, have you talked to people, have you pulled in whether experts or friends or done some research and you know. I think then it's relative to other things that you have in front of you, where is your time, your capital, your resources is better allocated. Mark: Yeah all right that's awesome. I told you before we started recording this that we were not going to get to the one thing I really wanted to talk to so I'm going to get to it now. And that is something I find fascinating about your approach to direct response marketing because direct response marketing we often think about in terms of the money that goes in we want to make sure that we're getting a positive ROI out of that and we're just measuring that and that alone. And we see it almost as this opposite of brand marketing which is splash it out there splash it out there and splash it out there and it's kind of a long play. But you have this intersection and you do this a lot with Beachbody as well, you have this intersection of brand and also the direct response. If somebody is focusing on those four that you put out, the Facebook, the Google, affiliate, and internal e-mail, what can they do to start building a brand and why is that important? Babak: So I think the first distinction is around something you said and I think a lot of people will latch onto which is brand marketing. And so really what I focus on and try to talk to folks about is building a brand. And so for me the distinction is brand marketing oftentimes is associated with you spend a bunch of money on media marketing whatever that's basically non-trackable and that is trying to build brand awareness but without necessarily tying it to some kind of metric. And I say that as opposed to focusing on building a brand. For me, that really comes down to the customer experience. And so those are totally can be integrated with a performance marketing direct response model. And really that's about how do you start to take care of the customer and treat them frankly like you would want to be treated if you were the customer. So I think it's less about brand marketing initiatives and it's more about this idea of does the word in the Lexicon around building a brand, about building something that's lasting; how often does that come up in the organization? I had breakfast actually with a friend this morning and we're talking about the idea of what's on brand versus off and what that means. But really at the end of the day, it's are you building something that's got some sense of sustainability? And I think oftentimes especially when you're earlier on the idea of shortcuts of doing things that are maybe … whether it's not as clean or not as brand building, I get that everyone's got to make their call all around those things but ultimately if you want to build something that's got some sense of scale and got some sense of sustainability I do believe you have to be focused on building a brand. Because when you do that you start to treat the customer better. You start to invest more in your product. You start to invest more in the kinds of media and frankly, that kind of stuff can be infused in your acquisition efforts. Did I mention that I'm writing a book on customer experience and that really came from how do you start to bring DR and brand together and really things like tapping into a sense of identity in community. That's not just brand marketing that's non-trackable, you can start to build that into your video ads on Facebook, Dollar Beard Club … now The Beard Club and they've done a phenomenal job of there's this sense of identity in association with you're a man with a beard. And so they tap into that and who you are, what that means, and so that is one layer of customer experience and building that brand that is clearly tied to performance marketing but it starts to infuse that. I would say two things like … you know so my four categories is really around the human and emotional stuff; there's product, there's the transactional experience, and then there's content like video. And they're not mutually exclusive [inaudible 00:34:16.0] stretch. But I'll say like with subscription businesses whether online … I mean media, SaaS, or physical box, one of the best places or best examples I see people have make some mistakes is around order notification. So this is not brand marketing, this is are you treating the customer better? Are you letting them know that next order is going to ship, that next feeling is going to happen? And oftentimes I see people say well if I send an email before that billing my churn rate is going to go up and my response is absolutely you're correct but also you know what happens is your customer is actually aware of that billing. They're not annoyed. I mean I think we all faced that thing where whether it's a meal subscription or otherwise, a billing happened and we didn't know about it we're annoyed we got to go cancel. We tell our friends, we post. That kind of stuff actually has an impact on the brand. And honestly one of the best examples I've seen of how to use that notification positively is Dollar Shave Club, they send a notification but they use that as a promotional opportunity to say your order is about the ship do you want to add something to it? And so whether it's their shaving cream or any of their other products they use that … and again 20 or 30% of people are going to open your email if you're lucky. So it's not everyone but you get the brand benefit of notification but then use that as a promotional opportunity and say do you want to add something more. And I would much rather be playing in that kind of world rather than trying to sneak in what you think is a one or two more orders but it's very hard to quantify. But you absolutely are hurting the brand if you're playing a longer game when you're trying to sneak stuff in and not be as clean and upfront. And yes Netflix and Direct TV don't do that but again those are very very different businesses than subscription boxes or something that you start on a risk free trial that frankly doesn't get the kind of use that Direct TV and Netflix would. Mark: Could you repeat those four categories again? Those are great. Babak: So the first one is really I talk about as like the human and emotional aspects. So that's things like identity, community, exclusivity, things that are raw human needs and traits. The second is really product, and there are multiple layers on it but I think it's kind of crazy that I have to focus and emphasize it but the number of people that I see that don't have the attention to detail on product. I've talked to people who's starting they want to private label fine but the better your product [inaudible 00:36:35.0] part it doesn't always win but a better product gives you a better chance at that. Third is the transactional experience, so how do you take people through your funnel, what is it like to get a refund, what it's like to get … I talked to customer service those kinds of things. And the fourth is content, so how do you use video, music, spokesperson, or a character. I mean really each of these things, there are plenty of examples of companies that are using all of them or just one of them to really start to enhance that experience and really start to rile their customers. That's the [inaudible 00:37:05.3] kind of thing but you basically need customers these days to be blown away. It is … you know I like to say it like it's … when people say it's the easiest time to start a business because generally the tools are easier but it's also like that means it's brutally difficult to compete and to differentiate. So you've got to be just a ton better than everyone else. And my experience is that customer experience and these kinds of things is really what you need and again it's infusing this idea of playing the longer game into performance marketing and direct response. These two are not at odds. Mark: Cool. All right you got a book that you're writing right now do you have any idea when that's going to be done? Babak: Best case is Thanksgiving time but I've started … I mean I'm happy to post a couple of links to some of the things I've started to write about whether in LinkedIn or in Twitter to just to kind of go a little bit deeper into these and show some specific examples. But yeah we're still talking a few months out. Mark: Okay I know we've had a couple of other people that are reading books and we always get e-mails after saying “Hey can I get notified when that book is out?” So do us a favor one when you do have that out send me a message and I'll make sure I update everyone that wants to be updated on that. And then where can people learn more about you? Obviously Round Two Ventures, any other place? Babak: Yeah I mean my business is Round Two, it's Round Two Partners. Visit the website. But yeah the same thing and it's like a holding company but my blog is the easiest. It's just my name, it's Babak Azad B-A-B-A-K-A-Z-A-D.com And that's what … I put a lot of content there and then frankly there and LinkedIn. I'm @BabakAzad pretty much on everything other than Gmail of all things but … another Babak Azad stole that from me but … he was earlier but yeah I'm on pretty much every platform. But my blog and LinkedIn are the two easiest platform. Mark: Fantastic, this is great. So thank you so much for coming on, I really do appreciate it. Babak: Thanks a lot Mark I'm glad to be here.   Links and Resources: Round Two Partners Babak's Blog LinkedIn

Mark 4:21-34

We welcome Walker Deibel as the latest member of the Quiet Light Brokerage team. He's joining us today to talk about startup failures and how what he calls “acquisition entrepreneurship” can help buyers learn to grow value in their business after they buy it. Walker has acquired 7 companies in the past 10 years, both on and offline. By his third acquisition, he found that he was looking for businesses that had the right infrastructure and management already in place. Walker is here giving his insights into buying versus building your next business. From a stint in digital printing at the dawn of the digital age, a film production “hobby” that has him listed on IMDb, to a failed startup that seemed to have every ingredient for success, right up to his current successes buying established businesses, Walker truly has experience in every aspect of the business building and acquisition spectrum. Perhaps there is no right or wrong way to come into business, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. Episode Highlights: Not every business should be bought. If you have an idea that you think can fly go out and by all means get that VC to get it started. You can have the best idea, the best team, and all the hallmarks for success yet still fail if you miss the mark on one key aspect. Take an existing infrastructure, finance the purchase, and from there go to work. If you succeed you have a great chance for high ROI. Buyers need to find the right business for them based on their strength and weaknesses. Acquiring an established business means you are free to focus on the particular parts of the business that most need attention, aiding the growth of the enterprise as a whole. Walker discusses what he calls the 4 Models of Building Value once you buy. Owners can get themselves out of the operation side and really work as an investor. A lot more can be accomplished by working on your business rather than in your business. Everything in business up until now has been about hitting the home run. Sometimes growing businesses should just aim to hit some doubles and triples. The buyer and seller relationship is a key element in the acquisition process. There are good buyers and there are bad buyers. The relationship is beyond just the transaction. Try to communicate with to seller why you are the perfect fit for that business. Transcription: Mark: All right Hey Joe How are you? Oh you're not Joe; Walker. Walker, how are you? Walker: I'm great Mark how are you? Mark: Good, good. For anyone watching or anyone listening obviously we do not have Joe this week. Joe is off exploring the eternal city of Rome and I am sitting here just a pile of jealousy wishing that I could be there. So … but good for Joe he definitely deserves the break. He works really hard. I will never say this publicly with him on the podcast but I will say it here and trust that he's not going to listen to it so his head doesn't get too big. But I do have somebody here, Walker Deibel right? Walker: Deibel. Mark: Deibel, I've been pronouncing it Deibel for a while. Walker and I know each other from a past transaction he bought a listing from me, a business from me a few years ago but Walker is also going to be joining the Quiet Light Brokerage team here in about a month. Maybe less by the time that this episode airs and so he is somebody to get to know as well. From that regard we're going to have a good conversation today mainly because your background Walker is super extensive. Like a lot of the people that work with Quiet Light Brokerage, you have that direct experience in buying, building your own online businesses. So let's do this, let's go back and have you introduce yourself a little bit a little bit of your background. Walker: Sure. Gosh where to start, I guess I think I've started a few companies and all of them tend not to do very well. And that's not something that I'm prideful about but I think that it's a common theme that you hear from entrepreneurs which is you know fail. Fail often; I've done that plenty and statistically that's what startups do. Conversely I've had tremendous success in actually buying existing companies and growing them and over the past 10 years I've been able to acquire seven companies in all. Some of them offline some of them online as you've discussed and I just want to take one moment and say that having looked at hundreds of offering memorandums I became a very early fan of Quiet Light Brokerage. I just think that what you've been able to build at Quiet Light is very special. You work with sellers, you list them at the right time, and you think about it in the same way that buyers would. So whenever I look at a listing from Quiet Light I'm just absolutely thrilled with the package and excited to be on with you now because of that. Mark: And if anyone's wondering I do pay by the compliment so [inaudible 00:03:37.5]. So your background is in buying and you bought a number of companies you said … how many was it, 10? Walker: Seven, I bought seven over 10 years yeah. Mark: Okay over 10 years, I thought it was seven. And not everything has been online you own a couple of different offline businesses as well. Walker: Sure. Mark: And you're back and before that was publishing right? Walker: It was printing so yeah we … I, my first company I bought pretty much because when I was in graduate school, when I took in my MBA our startup failed [inaudible 00:04:07.2] something we called Avatar, it came out with the real 3D and we had that real 3D technology in point of purchase advertising and had a great team and had some real interest and it all just kind of got hung up in legal. I guess the people in the technology decided that they would rather build Avatar after that startup kind of washed up and I actually went and bought a book printing company. And it was a time when print is dead was a common headline. You know Amazon was sort of moving in, the Kindle was coming out, the iPad was coming out, and bookstores are going out of business left and right. And what I saw Mark was opportunity, it was one of these things where the industry was fragmented there was a lot of players, a lot of let's just say legacy teams doing the wrong things in the industry at that time. And so I bought a book printing company, all of our customers were publishers and you know they too were fighting the same things that we were seeing. And so although the offset book printing industry was declining, the digital book printing industry was climbing at a rate of about 28 [inaudible 00:05:17.8] was pretty clear when it happened. But yeah trying to get that business online and produce those short run digital products for authors and companies trying to manage their inventory levels was the challenge ahead. Mark: Awesome, lots of experience there. And then you also have a little bit of experience in movie making and documentary and production right? Walker: That's right. Yeah I consider that more of a hobby than a profession. But yeah I've probably been involved with about 10 films over the last five years and most of them were lucky enough to premiere at Sundance, South Buy, Toronto's from the biggest festivals out there. Print the Legend was … we thought was going be the first Netflix Original it turned out to be the 2nd and now we just released Bill Nye: Science Guy as a documentary. Mark: That's you? Walker: Yeah I was involved. Mark: That's right you told me about that I forgot about that I've seen that pop up on Netflix right? Walker: Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Mark: That's fantastic. And you know that I can't let this go but you are IMDB listed and I always joke about how you are just three handshakes away from Kevin Bacon. You know as you come on board with the Quiet Light team and head up to conferences[inaudible 00:06:32.6] you could be 4th in line to kind of- Walker: [Laughter] Mark: There is that and there's also a couple movies that you're in which if anybody wants to have a good time go ahead and read the reviews. Walker: That right there is a great example of why you should buy instead of build from scratch okay. In other words when I get involved with movie production, I look for teams that are already assembled that really have all the variables that are critical to success. And what we did early on was basically pull together a bunch of people who wanted to be filmmakers. Very analogous to people who want to be running a successful company and what came out was let's just say that we got it, we got an exit, we got a … we sold the film but it was pennies on the dollar in terms of the budget. And all you need to do is read the reviews to figure out the outcome of that recipe. So a lot of what I do is look for teams with directors who have the … they've got the right resume to elevate to the next level. Someone on the team usually has an Academy Award and I come in and pull some money together either from myself or from other people and help finance the whole thing. So it's very similar to business acquisition. Mark: So a lot of times we link to resources in the show notes. I will spare you linking to the IMDB movie reviews and have listeners look that up and if they really want to read it they can read it and do the work. All right let's actually get into the topic though. Walker: Let's go. Mark: Buying versus building because this is an ongoing discussion, obviously everybody who has bought from us in the past understands the value of buying a business. But I think there is often a question in a buyer's head especially when they're looking at an opportunity. So they come across a business that we have for sale and they see it and like this wouldn't be that hard to build versus buying it. So I want to explore that a little bit and go into your experience on both because you've had startups. You've had startups that have failed and you're also successful with buying some businesses as well. What are some of the key benefits of both in your opinion, and what is from the drawbacks of both, and why at the end of the day and this is a big question so I'm going to just logoff from much of the talk in the next half hour; why in the end of the day does buying in your opinion win out over building? Walker: Okay great. So okay let's start just by saying that in my opinion not every business should be bought. And I don't mean that to say like the businesses aren't sellable, what I mean is just the opposite. If you've got an idea that you want to start up I think that most times it makes sense to buy an existing infrastructure and go from there as opposed to starting from scratch. But there are some ideas out there that absolutely that's not the path okay. And so if you have an idea that's right at the beginning of an adolescent market you shouldn't be buying. You need to go get VC capital and go. And have a very clear understanding that 75% VC back startups actually fail okay. So it's still not … you know you might be getting 40 million dollars but Jason Yelowitz I think was a perfect example of that; it then happened with him. Mark: It did, yeah. So anyone that wants to read his book Bathrobe Millionaire he talks about how … he bad, he was worth lots of money on paper and it disappeared. Walker: Right and so that's actually more common than the opposite which is the Uber and Facebook story that we all love. That buying businesses in most cases is a better avenue to start. Now let me just give you a quick example; we had a company that we fully funded okay. We had a majority investor was a former CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, and we had a proven dev team that was already building mobile software for the military and special forces. Proven we had it was a … it was a Share Point, A Mobile Share Point application. We had recruited and secured the head of Microsoft Share Point Services as our CEO. We had the CTO of another Fortune 500 Company working with us. We went through on the top 10 accelerator programs in the country. We had beta programs that big corporations right, like all the hallmarks and less than 12 months later we were out of cash. We had no paying customers and it basically we were able to sell it for again pennies on the dollar to a company that I think is going to do really well with it. But it's a perfect example of when everything's right you still got to get that product market fit before the time runs out. After that I had worked with a broker who was about 3 ½ hours away from me and he called and said hey how's that startup going? And I said actually it's a little rocky and he said good because I've got such a great business out here that I really want you to come take a look at. And I went out there and I looked at it and long story short I end up working with a partner on this project and we looked at it and what we saw was a true opportunity to take the customer base and basically upgrade the entire experience to an online ordering system. And so I bought the company, we used the cash flow of the business to create a proprietary e-commerce storefront and we then rolled it out to almost 20,000 users. So the company is doing from the minute we walk in the door it's doing seven figures in revenue which by the wae coin at Verne Harnish it's scale up is 4% of companies United States are selling seven figures in revenue. So you already are walking in the door and one of the most successful companies in United States all right. Funding does not take 24 months and running around and selling stock; you go to the bank. They finance the majority of the purchase and you come in with your own investment and go to work. Everything that we achieved by buying this company in sort of a second tier market in Missouri was everything that we were trying to do at this well-funded start up with an all-star cast. So it's just a perfect example of sometimes you seem to think differently about what it is you're trying to achieve and take the short cuts to get there. Isn't that what entrepreneurship is all about? Mark: Absolutely. Well, I loved what you said about the offline businesses, Ryan Tanzim and I did a podcast episode several weeks ago and he talked about that. He talked about somebody that he knows locally, I think they were doing air conditioning and they are really bringing online but what they are doing is they're using online … they are using the SEO tactics and SEM tactics that you would usually apply to an online business and he's applying it locally. So he actually bought this air conditioning repair company with the idea that they were just going to actually crush it online. They're doing super super well; I think there's a ton of opportunities for buyers in that space. Walker: Can I jump in right here like so- Mark: Yeah, please. Walker: So one of one of the things that I do, I've got kind of a model that I have put together to help people find the right business for them. And what you just said is a perfect example of that because the first question I get is do I have the right what it takes, do I have the right attitude to actually be an entrepreneur? I don't think that the listeners of this podcast need that, I mean that's not where they are. The next one is what are your strengths and weaknesses? What are the actions that you want to be doing every single day? And it sounds like this is an individual who says look I know online marketing, I know how to apply it and you look at the vast number of companies that are coming online to sell and actually not online businesses at all. You've got all the baby boomers retiring at 9,000 a day and they own more companies in any generation ever in history. And they haven't done much since the internet came out. So Internet marketing has clearly passed the point of adaption. I mean it's the way now but not everyone has caught up and you've got a huge amount of opportunity to do exactly this. Move and buy an offline business and basically apply online skills to grow it in a whole new way. Mark: Let's talk a little bit about this because I know that you are in the process of writing a book on buying businesses. What was the book about specifically? Walker: Yeah basically everything I've been talking about. It's called Buy Then Build, why entrepreneurs should buy existing companies rather than starting from scratch. And it's really everything that we've just been talking about. So the argument is that not only is buying businesses a better way to start, despite the popularity of entrepreneurship we haven't engineered a better way to make startups succeed. And I think that the answer to that question is to buy existing companies with existing cash flow. And if you look at buying a small business compared to just as an investment pretend you're not an entrepreneur that's going to move in and use your skill set to grow it [inaudible 00:15:31.2] buy it like a real estate investment or anything else. The returns that you can generate on something like that, the ROI is not really comparable to anything that I've seen. Especially if you want to maximize the ROI and use a lot of leverage that opportunity is there. I mean the SBA is lending … I don't want to over speak so I'm not sure an online business as without you know but you can quote as little as 10% out in these kind of instances. So I mean you can be up and running and off to the races very very quick. Are you seeing that in online businesses as well Mark? Mark: I've seen what specifically? Walker: Like 90% leverage on some of these deals. Mark: It would … currently yes. I mean historically that's higher than what we've seen in the past and that's the rule change as of 2018 so- Walker: Okay. Mark: So in the past it was 80% though which is still … yeah 80 to 75% which is still crazy amounts of leverage. Walker: Right we're right and you know 90% leverage. What I am saying is that if they choose to do that and if it succeeds they're going to have a great ROI. Mark: Right. Walker: Pretty much incomparable to anywhere else. But there's obviously inherent risk in doing something like that. So just understanding the model and being careful. However the odds of success are ridiculous compared to a startup of the same caliber. Mark: So your book is called Buy Then Build which you know often when we think about build then sell obviously. But obviously a big part of what you're talking about here is also that act of building on top and I think in an area where a lot of buyers, especially first time buyers struggle is identifying how do I build on this; what do I look for? And so when I talk to buyers, especially first time buyers that are looking to get into this for the first time they start thinking about well I want something that already has a history of growth. Or maybe they're looking at the opposite side I want something that has a history of not [inaudible 00:17:21.7] you know because I don't want to lose on the business. How should in your opinion and maybe you specifically how have you attacked that build portion of the equation? You've obviously bought and I know it did the one business you're talking about you saw a way to be able to look the entire customer experience up. What are different ways that you think buyers can look at building after they buy? Walker: Yeah. I've been calling this acquisition entrepreneurship. I mean it seems to make sense and so basically I think that there's four models of building value in a company after you buy it. Some people will say … I mean the market will very quickly jump to exactly the opposite and say like oh no I want a company that's a complete disaster. Like I want something that I can go in and put in lean operations and fix it up because then I can buy a cheap, create immediate value by improving all of the internal systems and then exit or run it or whatever. So that's the sort of turnaround kind of mentality and those are great in my opinion if you know what you're doing. I mean if you already are an operation … great at operational excellence that's going to be something that's good. Others will look at you know you get these sort of like there are these two models the guys over at Harvard wrote a book on how to buy a business and they buy what I believe they call internally profitable businesses. This is a bad example here but it's one that I always think of which is I always think of like snowplows or something like that. Like something where there's no obvious technological innovation that's going to get rid of the need for snow plows. And so it's going to be a slow growth but you know something you can hang your hat on. And I think that the way that they grow … they build value is really for the owner in that instance and just through equity build up. And so you're putting you know say 10% down and then over 10 years building up the rest of that value that way. The other model which I'm getting to the point sorry but the other model that scares me a little bit as you look at these high growth companies like the ones you're talking about and what maximizes a sale price are things like growth, revenue, earnings. I mean these are the things that people want. I mean it's a very marketable company but by doing that it's almost the opposite of the turnaround. The risk is a little separate like it needs to continue growing as fast in order to make sure you're getting the right deal. So that's something that in my opinion you have to know what you're doing to navigate that properly. Then you've got this sort of Platform Company and a platform is something where you take your skill set and apply it to the existing business in order to take it to the next level. Now it might be accelerating what's already happening or it could be simply diversifying. So in other words the first online business … so I bought a company from Quiet Light Brokerage and when I looked at it I really liked it because it was taking this sort of like old economy product and it had a kind of innovative twist to it. And so it was still on known in the US market and so as that awareness grows the company continues to grow. However what I acquired in this business was not only the cash flow, it was the infrastructure. It was all the people. I had an entire customer service team. I had a reliable PPC guy. I had SEO you know I've got … now I've got all the tools and all the things that I need to do this. And so what I've done is I've started building other sites as well. And so I'm not quite to the point where I've built a seven figure site from scratch that you can list for me. But I'm hoping to do that and I'm doing it the actual infrastructure that I acquired through Quiet Light. Mark: That's fantastic. Of course you'd be able to sell that business on your own when that day comes. Because you'd be working with us and you'll just put it up for sale and it all will be like oh this is great, Walker owns this, I trust him completely. Walker: Absolutely. Mark: Well you know what you've done though recently in anticipation of coming on board I know that you have been working your way out of your companies as an operator and really working as an investor. And I know this you know talking to buyers one of our most popular episodes was with Shakil Prasla who has bought eight companies in two years and he does this all the time. He does not work in his businesses. What was that process like for you or what has it been like to get yourself out of the operations of the business, and how did you go about doing that? Walker: Yeah it was kind of a slow evolution. Like in other words the first company that I bought I had a key man, woman actually that I worked alongside with very closely and she did … all of my time was spent on marketing sales and really strategy like taking the company to the next level. And you can do a lot more what do they say work on your business and serve in your business. And so I fell in love very quickly with the freedom that comes with having other people you can rely on in your company. As a result as I continue to move forward I always look for business opportunities and people that I know whose skill set matches up with the growth opportunity for that business. And so the 2nd company I bought it was more of a partnership and I learned the hard way that … how do I say this without being, I was messing the company up. It's one of these where he had his hands on everything that was going on, I would show up, you know I would drop in I was there about a day a week. I had relationships with major customers and walk in and just kind of I'd see something that I thought was wrong and I would fix it or give instruction or whatever else. No matter how minor it was it was still the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. The employees didn't know who was in charge. And so it was one of these I've got to remove him or remove me kind of situations. And so I've tried to put the emphasis where the skill is. And the other thing that comes out of that is by not operating in the business you can actually scale the number of businesses that you own. And that's what your other guest was doing if I recall correctly. He was actually interviewing and hiring managers. I typically do it with people that I know already so it's not … you know I network and find the people and then I wait for the opportunity as opposed to kind of trying to scale up that rapidly. It got to the point where the 3rdbusiness I acquired I was buying specifically because I had a manager to grow it. And it's working now because that's at a point where I think last year we grew 38% year over year so that's working. And I think the hard decision comes from entrepreneurs at every step of growth where they say okay I'm the one doing this and if I actually pay someone to do that then I make less money so I'm not sure I want to do it. But then the second they hire it out they have all this other money that you know whatever the difference is that's coming to them for essentially doing nothing or essentially moving to that four hour work week model. But if you have a four hour work week kind of company you can go buy 10 companies. Mark: I do. How do you get over the ego part though? You know for example I am in my opinion the best content marketer in the world. Walker: You are. Mark: I'm not. I mean this is the reality but when I'm dealing one on one with people, when I'm dealing one on one with somebody who I've hired to do that I micromanage. I get too involved in what they're doing. How do you get the ego portion out of this so that when you go and visits … do you visit that company anymore? Do you do- Walker: Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. No I'm very involved in everything. I think that … well I should speak carefully there, what I'm trying to say is just I'm not involved in the day to day. The truth is I'm probably more of like a chairman but I don't have enough gray hair so I don't call myself that. I have a baby face so … but it's you know I work more on a strategic level and looking at metrics and talking to the managers every week if not more often if something comes up. So the ego, I think Mark what I would say to that is there's certain things that okay it's twofold. There's certain things that you're not going to be able to let go of. And you feel like they have to be a very very precise thing. Those are not the things that you want to let go of. Especially to use your example like content marketing; content marketing is something that makes Quiet Light exceptional. It's something … you know Quiet Light both stands in with the best of the best but then they stand out by doing exceptional work. And that content marketing piece is so critical to what makes Quiet Light Quiet Light that that might be a driver that can't be outsourced. It's something that has to be precise. It's something that has to come from your mind or your advisors' minds and that piece might not be there. That said here's the answer your question, you're not going to like it, and I have a good answer for this. But here's the thing I have three children, they're seven, five, and three and they make mistakes. They made the same mistakes that I made when I was seven five and three and you have to stand there and watch them do it. And often with my managers I wanted to go over their mistake and then I realize it worked it just wasn't the way that I was going to do it. It's not a mistake at all. Or it's the other way and you've just got to end up paying for that mistake and so it's just that you've got to get that balance right. Partnerships are a good answer for it. Partnerships are like marriages and you just have to figure out how you work and how you communicate. And if there's something that you fear isn't going to work because it's not being rolled out the way you want to do it, I think that what I do is I just make that clear at the beginning and then we put metrics in place to make sure to watch it and measure it and then kill it if you know feel quick. If there's anything I have learned it's if you're going to fail do it really quickly because you save money. Mark: Right. Walker: So I think that's the way to do it. Mark: Right fire quickly, hire slowly. Walker: That's right. Mark: Yeah Chuck recently was talking to me about that so and the need to be able to do that. Awesome well you've covered a lot of ground in this and I really like this discussion of should you buy, should you build, what's better and I think you're right. Absolutely a lot depends on the type of company that you do have and what are you trying to build. Some companies did not lend themselves to being bought or to going that route but if you're looking for that cash flow, if you're looking to get into entrepreneurship a faster way to return investment is going to be that buy-in route. It's a lot faster and a lot more sure than the VC route. I think I was talking to a VC, this was four or five years ago now and he was really coming around to this idea of buying online businesses. And one thing that he told me he said you know with my angel investing with the VC investing that I'm doing everything is about hitting the homerun, it's like … and with that we're hit … we're striking out a lot. We're taking big swings, we're not hitting the home run but when we do hit the home run it's really really good. He said but I'm starting to wonder now maybe if we should just aim to hit some singles and some doubles and some triples instead and just play station to station. And I think that's a huge difference here like if you have the money to be able to go in there and swing for the fences and go for it, sure okay you know what go ahead. If you have the time, the resources, the desire, or an idea that you think really can take off absolutely. If you're looking to hit a single or a double you know that … it's a risk profile; what is a risk profile look like in buying for as risky as buying an online business can be and people should be aware of that. It's certainly a lot more safer than trying to build something from scratch. Walker: So in an early version of my book and I think I just cut it out actually it's … we're trying to get it done this summer but I actually call that entremetrics. Which is stop swinging for the fences and just get on base, based on that savermetrics, you know money ball right? Mark: Yeah. Walker: And that resonates with me completely. That's exactly the point. I think that you know VC again if it was a Harvard Business Review really sort of 75% of these companies are like going to zero. So being able to fast forward, you ask earlier hey I've got … I'm a potential buyer, I'm looking at this company I can build this. Like this isn't that hard, fine go build it. But like looking at it as an investor you've got that cash flow tomorrow. I mean it's you know and what's your time worth and what's the … what's it going to cost to build and you've got to put all those pieces together and yeah go build it and then bring it back to Quiet Light and we'll sell it because these are good investments. So yeah I think it's a simple way to get to the goal faster and to your point you're getting on base. You're engineering success right from the beginning so that you can move to second base on your own. Mark: Yeah, awesome. So your book is coming out sometime this summer maybe in the early- Walker: Hoping for late August. Mark: Late August all right. And at that point you will hopefully be a part of our team fully and we will be able [crosstalk 00:30:13.1]- Walker: I hope so. Mark: The book so when we do pay attention that. I'm sure it's going to be just one step above that Harvard Business Review which I actually have that up my shelf. They sent me a copy and a good stuff; it's seriously good stuff though. And right now eventually people be able to reach out to Walker at a Quiet Light Brokerage email address. In the meantime if you want to reach out to Walker contact me mark@quietlightbrokerage.com and open to have contact with him. He's got a ton of real world experience both in as you said some failures but a lot of successes as well and always a good person to talk to. Any final parting thoughts? Walker: You know there … one thing forgive me but there is one thing that I thought we would talk about and it just didn't come up and that's normal but I spent two and a half years trying to buy an acquisition target when I was at Corley. And we looked at 27 companies in depth talking with them. And what I learned along that path is that there are good buyers in there are bad buyers. And I just mean that from the perspective of the seller, and when you're trying to sell a business, how do I say this, the buyers it's almost like the first thing you want to do when you're just starting out is you want the seller to like come in with a slide deck like a startup and pitch you. Like here's what you're going to get and here's why you should buy my company and that's just not the mentality at all okay. I guess that somebody's built something and it's usually like yeah the timing is right I'm considering it but it's not like I'm trying to sell you something you don't need and so trying to go … I try to go out of my way to understand the business, understand the drivers, and really communicate to the seller why I would be the right buyer for that business. Because trying to get that emotional connection established at the beginning is so critically important. It's very emotional and everyone starts second guessing everything they're doing at one point or another and trying to build that bond at the beginning and getting on the same side of the table to acquire a common goal is just critical in the whole process. So it's something that I did learn that we can talk about I want to share. Mark: Well I'm glad you brought that up because I've used you as an example in countless presentations, I think at this podcast as well. Walker: That's right. Mark: Many of you have heard me use this example before about a buyer who after we submitted an LOI, you submitted the LOI and we had our very first call in due diligence and you stopped. And at the very end you said I want to take a moment and thank you for agreeing to sell me your business. And I tell this story because it was … it had a seismic shift on the way that entire transaction went and it established this common working goal and understanding that I think a broker definitely needs to have. I think a buyer should have as well. The sellers work for years to build something valuable, something that you want to acquire and take in. Showing some basic appreciation for that and yes they're getting well compensated through money, there's appreciation in that as well. But showing that verbal communication of hey I really appreciate and respect what you've done up till now, even if it's a distressed sale but that makes a big difference at the end of the day. And it really helps get through some of the tough spots that will come up doing due diligence. Walker: And they have a choice. As a seller they have a choice especially at Quiet Light. Quiet Light moves a lot of inventory really fast and I think we ended up closing on the 3rd deal I looked at and so there was a couple of deals that went to other sellers and I just didn't went out for whatever reason and they've got a choice. I agree, it's important. Mark: Yeah Walker thanks so much for coming on, I really really appreciate it. Walker: No, thank you Mark. I'm really looking forward to the next chapter. Mark: Well, we're looking forward to have you on. So again if anyone wants to reach out to Walker feel free to contact me mark@quietlightbrokerage.com if you guys have ideas for guests please let me know. I'm always looking for new guests. So we'll talk to you next week. Links and Resources: Contact Walker Buy Then Build – Why Entrepreneurs Should Buy Existing Companies Rather Than Starting from Scratch. Walker's book is coming out this summer!

I had a buyer recently tell me: “I don't trust SEO traffic. You can't change it. I only trust paid acquisition channels.” Times certainly have changed since just a few years ago. A lot of buyers look at natural SEO traffic as untrustworthy ever since the major index updates of Panda, penguin, and hummingbird. Others see SEO as a much more difficult (and possibly more expensive) avenue towards traffic. And some buyers think that the relevance of SEO will be discounted with new voice-enabled searches and paid advertising pushing natural search rankings down Google's SERPs. In this conversation with Corey Northcutt, we discuss the future of SEO, whether there is a good opportunity for buyers to exploit SEO opportunities, and what he would look out for on the SEO front before buying any online business. Episode Highlights Can we trust SEO long-term? Where is it going, and can you build a business on SEO traffic? What key SEO factors should you look at before buying an online business Google's primary goal, and why it is good for business owners Why SEO traffic will always beat paid traffic Why the major Google updates (Panda, Penguin, etc) were a good thing (and still are a good thing) Will paid ads continue to push organic rankings out of SERPs? Are voice-based search devices going to destroy SEO? Click through rates for top rankings in organic listings vs. paid listings Transcription Joe: Hey Mark, how are you doing today? Mark: Doing great. Joe: I understand you recorded a podcast with Corey Northcutt and it was all about SEO. Mark: That's right so Corey and I know each other through Young Entrepreneurs Council which is a great collection of entrepreneurs, some of the best resources that you can find online for anybody that is an entrepreneur out there and is looking for good networking opportunities. You do have to meet certain thresholds in order to join and Corey obviously hits those. I've used his services for another business of mine and was really really impressed with what he had to offer. Brad who works with us is actually the one who first recommended him to me. This guy has been working in the online world and SEO capacity forever. I mean he's a dinosaur in the SEO world, knows a ton about SEO. And one of the questions I posed for him and I really wanted to drill down on this podcast was whether or not there is value at all in SEO anymore from a buy in standpoint; in other words can it be trusted? I had a buyer tell me just a few weeks ago we were talking on the phone about one of the businesses I was representing and he wanted to know where our customers are coming from on the websites and I said well he's got good rankings and then he also does paid. And he came back and he told me and said I don't really care about the organic rankings because I can't control that at all. In fact all I care about is a paid acquisition channel. I think we hear that more and more from people that they trust that paid acquisition channel more than the organic channel. But I think it's almost an overreaction and there's a lot of opportunity being lost because everyone focuses just on the paid and just use the organic just has a sort of bonus to everything else. The couple of the topics that we addressed in this podcast is whether or not the future of SEO is going to be strong. You know we have more and more devices being added for voice-based search. We have the paid creep that's been happening on organic rankings where organic listings are being pushed down the page. And so this is really kind of a step back to look at your online business and say should I be focusing on SEO, what's the opportunity here with SEO as well. Joe: Okay so I'm not going to say whether I think you know you should be focused on it or not. What I can say is that a business with multiple traffics of multiple channels of revenue is worth a lot more money and from my experience a long time ago SEO was a long term game. I survived the Penguin updates, Panda update … actually I sold before the Penguin Update but it didn't matter because I didn't know anything about link building anyway. All I did was good quality content over a long period of time and I was rewarded. It's a lot more complicated than that I think. So I'm really excited to see what Corey has to say. Let's go ahead listen. Mark: Well one second, I'm going to give away a bit of a teaser on this and that is something that you said; I think what you said is perfect because it is the sense that a lot- Joe: Did you say that what I said was perfect just now? Mark: Dude, don't let it get to your head. Yeah it was actually perfect because a lot of people think that SEO is more complex. They think it's complicated. They think that it's a nut that's very difficult to crack. And a lot of us, especially those who have been around through the panda, penguin, hummingbird, you know all these sort of updates; animal updates that happened look at a SEO and like my goodness you can't trust this. Look what happened back then it got completely destroyed. One of the big takeaways from this and Corey gets into this is that SEO now is more predictable than it's ever been. Google's gotten better at what they're doing so they don't need to shake things up as much anymore. Now is a little bit harder to rank; sure because Google has done a better job of putting good information in front of people. But rankings are more stable now than they've ever been before. And so you need big takeaway is that while it's somewhat complex there's a huge opportunity because people like you and I have kind of looked at SEO as that thing as a bonus out there. Joe: From a buyer's point of view what you just said might be very valuable. You know it takes … it's harder to rank now and so if we're listening to business and there's good organic rankings, that in itself could have more value to a buyer. Because most everybody else just cheats to get to the top and you can't actually do that anymore but if you're at the top on page one that's really strong strong value. And I think hopefully in the long run for any business will add more diverse revenue channels which brings its a valuable. Mark: All right can we listen to Corey now? Joe: Absolutely, let's go. Mark: All right Corey, thank you for joining me on this quick episode here on SEO. Corey: Absolutely, thanks for having me. Mark: So yeah I know you've listened to a couple of the episodes before so you know that we like to have our guests introduce themselves. So why don't we provide everyone listening here with a background on yourself. Corey: Yeah I'd love to. So I've been doing SEO for going on 17 years. I've been … I guess running business of different shapes and forms for about as long. I came from web hosting and doing different IT brands and now I run an SEO agency called Northcutt. Mark: That's awesome. Yeah and I've actually … just full disclosure I have user services in the past but with a lot of the guests that we have here on the Quiet Light Podcast, the people that we've use in one cast in another their services so we trust the services, we trust you as far as your … the quality work that you do. And I also know Brad who works with Quiet Light Brokerage; he has used your services quite a bit in the past as well which is how I was referred to you. It was actually through Brad. So that that's pretty cool. Now you have a past in we posting as well is that right? Corey: That's true. Yeah I started at a provider called Ubiquity that was eventually acquired by LeaseWeb but not before I actually exited the company and sold it back to my business partners. Mark: That's pretty cool, so my background is actually web hosting as well. My first job out of college was with a company called Alabanza Corporation and they were the first ones to create the people know like web hosting manager or cPanel. They were the first ones to actually come out with a cPanel and cPanel's a competition to Alabanza. And I remember when we developed that the CEO talking about competition told me he's like I'm not worried about competition, it take … took us years to be able to create our I think he called it the account management [inaudible 00:07:01.2] stupid like that. And of course the temple was already out there so it didn't take them years to replicate what we were doing and it done quite well; so cautionary tale there. But the first business I sold under Quiet Light Brokerage was a web hosting company, so very familiar with the space. So you sold that, how many businesses have you bought and sold over the years? Corey: So I like to call myself a three time founder in all my bios. It's tough to say though because I have partners and in that I've had a lot of failed ventures too. A lot of projects that I've spun up or that maybe sold for cheap so it's been all over the map. I did web hosting. We spun off a data center services brand from that. We had Ventrilo provider called DarkStar Communications which was the largest provider of Ventrilo for quite a while. Most people I think don't even know what that is anymore. Mark: Yeah I've never heard of it. Corey: It was a big bank for a while. And it wasn't even my world but it was kids play World of Warcraft, they would need voice chat for that and it sounds insane today we've got Zoom and Skype and all these tools that are free but they would pay for it. So you'd have 50 or 100 people on one voice server and you needed tools to manage it. So a lot of different businesses; I kind of created a framework for how I like to build and market them but all in completely different spaces. Mark: You know I like to segment Internet entrepreneurs as to those that were started before the panda, penguin days and those that have come into it after because the world is so much different. You know people like you and I that have been in the online world for I'm going on 20 years here since I've built my first website. And you know back then and actually back when I started Quiet Light Brokerage, when I decided to start Quiet Light Brokerage what did I do? I went out and I built a website from scratch and then I custom coded an affiliate program in there and that was kind of how I launched everything was me going out coding, designing, launching, doing the SEO; everything top to bottom. And today I mean if you want to start a new site you can still do that but boy it's so much different today you don't … you really wouldn't want to take that approach as much. It's gotten a lot more complex. Corey: It's true. Mark: Yeah. And you seem to come from that sort of past entrepreneur pay and this is a good idea let me see if I can just build this out real quick. Corey: Yeah and yet it's changed so much. Yeah and I have … on one hand I love how quickly you can spend things up like you've got Shopify, you see people with stores in 10 minutes; it's completely insane. On the other hand I feel like a lot of people don't go as deep with their businesses now. You've got projects I can start a company and it might make 500 dollars a month and that's fine and it … I'll do 10 of those this week. The mindset has changed. Mark: Yeah I know definitely it's changed quite a bit. So I wanted to have you on to talk about SEO and I'll tell you kind of the question that spurred this on for me and I think it would be a good start for our discussion here. I was talking to a buyer the other day about one of my clients and he's Amazon and Magento mixed so he's got his own websites but you know a good portion of his business comes through Amazon. But we're looking at the websites because they're doing really well. Amazon is struggling but the websites are good; really really well. And we're looking at the host and this buyer was asking where does the client … where did the clients come from, are they coming from organic rankings or they're coming from paid service or good mature search campaign out there. So I told him well it's a mix you know there's really good SEO on the site, there's room to improve that as well but they also have a paid campaign that they will get. And this buyer almost seemed to dismiss the SEO side and said well I can't control the SEO world at all, I'm interested in the paid acquisition. And I see this more and more and I think this is kind of the people waking up from the hangover of the panda, penguin which is almost quick as far of be coming up on seven years or something like that; is that right? Seven years is that pretty close? Corey: Well- Mark: [crosstalk 00:11:06.9] try to also work. It's been a while since this happened and I think people have really adjusted their mindset to not trusting SEO at all. So my question to you and to ask in behalf of everyone that out there looking to buy an online business, can you trust SEO and can you build or grow a business on the back of SEO and have it be sustainable? Corey: Oh my God Yes. So there is one question that has been around since I feel like SEO began which is where this is going, it … can I trust it long term, and I think Google's actually been very transparent about what they want to accomplish. As much as we've had different updates like Panda, and Penguin, Hummingbird, chip things up to there's been quite a few but Google's always been forthcoming. And I feel like most of the media out there sensationalizes what's happening and it does a disservice to business owners. Because … and what does Google really care about? They want to reward an experience that is naturally relevant, popular, and enjoyable; that's it. And they've been working towards this goal for all of this time and I don't think it goes away. There is never going to be a point to where a better experience is paid advertising for what they deliver. If they ever reach that point I think all bets are off. I think somebody disrupts them; being or somebody else overtakes them. There's no way people want that. It is a better experience when it's not simply rented. So that doesn't go away it's just they keep it iterating towards getting better at what they set out to do. Like we talk about that pre-panda, pre-penguin world, I think it did a lot of good. I look back at how I did SEO back then and you know it was a little gray. It was hard to … like that was the conversation we were having with people. It's like I think we should be as white hat as possible. At that time I feel like that that was a source of a lot of that grand fish can spam. At the time he was not getting very much respect from professional SEO's and he was saying no, completely white hat, don't mess with anything, no schemes, no link real pyramid tetrahedron. Yeah like I'm sure you've seen all the different diagrams and wacky ideas that people were coming up with back then and that panda made him correct that just overnight everything shifted and it was like well yeah they finally got better and they really are rewarding people that aren't going against Google like do you want to work with them. Mark: Let me play devil's advocate a little bit here and argue against SEO. Now this is not my personal position. I actually agree with you. I think there's a ton of opportunity in SEO and I actually think the world is a … the SEO world is a lot more stable today than it was back in the pre updates of pre-panda, penguin, hummingbird updates mainly because the results are better and Google is still having a better experience and before it was very easy to came, the search engines. You were doing grey hat, I was doing grey hat, everybody was doing grey hat back then. But anyways let me play devil's advocate. Two changes that people look at and they see it as encroaching on the organic SEO. One would be the number of paid listings that show up above the fold on Google and where organic rankings start to be pushed down. And two voice enabled search. Let's start with the first one here the placement of organic rankings. I have another business that I own and I absolutely absolutely hate bidding on my brand keyword. Because it's my brand keyword, I show up number one, I show up number two, I show up number three, but if I don't bid on it I I've got four other people bidding on my brand and they're above me. So from that standpoint has SEO become less valuable for business owners or is that a trend that you think is going to continue where paid listings push out the organic rankings? Corey: I don't and in fact I … you know I saw the same trends. And by the way if somebody just for the benefit of listeners, if somebody is pushing you out that way on your branded searches if they mention you by name you can file a trademark request with Google and get them shut down. It … they're still able to use your brand name as a keyword but it can water down their messaging if somebody is getting too aggressive with that. So I don't see it going too much further and yeah that was a big story each time Google has experimented with expanding the ad block but there's data on quick relates that's out there. Rand Fishkin actually threw his new startup SparkToro all those Jumpshot's analysis on this and it's incredible how many people still click on organic overpaid. The overwhelming majority still click on organic across the board even in the most extreme like biased examples I've seen. I actually just sent out our quarterly here a few weeks ago that looked at this AAReps had their own click through rate data of tons of searches that they've scraped and in their example they said the maximum went up to 46% with click on ads. Up to is the operative word there I think that's the most extreme example. It's 46% where you know it's a branded, your brand is number one; obviously, that's what they wanted. We're going to click that sure but the Jumpshot data said 3% was their average. So somewhere between 3% and 46% are clicking on paid ads. It's still the minority and I don't see that ever changing. Mark: 3% to 46% is pretty broad. Corey: It is pretty broad. The average is three. Mark: Okay. Corey: But yeah. Mark: That's amazing. Yeah and in the example I have we have a lot of brand confusion in our space and my main competitor has been very very good at causing brand confusion. So it's a personal annoyance for me right now, my personal mission to get them out of that number one spot even though I'm losing money on it. Corey: Not this. Mark: Yeah. So that's interesting. I would have tend to agree that there's only so much real estate that they're going to give to the ad spot, to those ad blocks because it's … they have been focused from day one on that user experience. So they want users especially brand searches to be able to find the brand that they're looking for. What about voice enabled search? I know for myself and if I want to find out some quick data or whatever I've got a Google Pixel Phone I just give a little squeeze and Google's system comes up and I just ask it the question and more and more it's becoming intelligent in giving the response. More and more it's taking those responses of course from other websites and so they aren't getting any of the traffic to that. This wouldn't be so much a concern for e-commerce sites but for content sites I mean is this something to be looking out for and maybe something that's going to encroach on their opportunities in the future? Corey: Yeah there is definitely demographics that are going to be hit by this. You and I talked about famous quotations here a week ago in how that is an industry that got hit pretty hard by Panda. I think the nuance is any short simple information is going to have a hard time. Like just the example from last month, Google actually started returning no results searches and people asked for the time of day. And there was a website that was timeanddate.com it ranked number one for all of these and I'm sure they were raking in a lot of AdSense doing it, not probably great ads for those people but still it was working for them in the moment. So there are really nuanced types of businesses that I think buyers should probably be a little wary of. If it doesn't give deep information it can't be [inaudible 00:19:11.5] by a simple answer from Google. But if it does go deeper I think it goes outside the scope of what Google can accomplish with voice search because it's going to be complex. There's going to be value in multiple results then so that's [inaudible 00:19:26.1]. Mark: Okay well you know I think that's a fair answer. I think when you ask Google a question, if it's a quick answer like time and date that makes sense. But if you're asking how to replace a sprinkler head, Google might give you a short response but you're not looking for a three step process for that. You're probably looking for pictures or video or more in depth you know of your in-depth guide. And so getting that response is actually a good thing, getting that being that featured response at Google will probably be a good thing because more people are going to click through to your page right? Corey: Yup and there's also still value being lost right now from what they call no click searches. Where maybe you appear within the knowledge card, like the top of the results; people see your brand, they see that it's from you; they don't click through and see your analytics. But at some point who cares, if they still saw your brand you still helped them, and they still see then you may have accomplished what you set out to you anyway. It's just not going to be attributed as well. Mark: Right; of course. I get it the top of funnels sort of just brand awareness and awareness to your brand, what's better to vouch for you than Google right? Corey: Right. Mark: If Google's going to feature you on their search result page that's a pretty good thing and if people don't know what I'm talking about here do you have an example that you know off the top your head where a knowledge card will show up. Corey: Recipes are a big one now. I don't know any exactly at the top of my head but- Mark: Well didn't … wasn't there that one for a while which was why are fire engines red; do you remember seeing that? Corey: I think that so, it sounds familiar. Mark: Yeah if people haven't looked at this, do a search for why are fire engines red and take a look at what the response is. They may have updated it since I last did it but it was just somebody had the game of the knowledge card and it was kind of a crazy response. Corey: Yeah, but it's still not that hard to do. Mark: So I … okay so if I already had, you can't leave with that not go into it. Corey: Well we know what their data sources are so yeah you can … what Google is not good at is understanding what you're telling it, and that's what they're working on back checking right? Being able to actually understand is this good and not are these words here and phrase didn't maybe kind of mean something. And that's what I think they'll improve that maybe next. I think it'll take a while because they're still behind what a lot of the articles give them credit for now if you like but we do know which way they're going. There's an analogy. I love Aj Kohn as an SEO blogger; his company is called The Blind Five Year Old because that's how he perceives Google still. Kind of hyperactively bouncing out of your sight not really knowing what it's doing but they are still moving in a direction that makes sense. And with the knowledge cards there's different sources of data where I mean you can literally just put it in and hope that Google crawls it. So you can update Wikidata at wikidata.org put in some bunk information and sure they might index it. They might see that it's not that hard to fool it. Mark: That's funny. All right well I got some pressing question to get to here. Even though this is fascinating and would be fun to explore all the idiosyncrasies of the world of Google but let's talk about, let's put ourselves in a position of a buyer looking to acquire a business and I want to have more opportunities for SEO and how to uncover some of those and where some of the mistakes are. But before we do that let's talk about due diligence side of things. So he's looking to buy a business, it receives a good amount of traffic from natural organic rankings. What are some of the things that people should be looking out for when doing due diligence? For example private blog networks, are these still something to look out for or are there other things that you may want to caution people on inspecting before they do an acquisition? Corey: Right so without a doubt I would never buy any website without looking at its backlink portfolio. There are basically two arms of SEO right, you've got what happens on the website and off of it. I'm not so concerned about what's happening on the website. I know just based on my background I can probably make it a lot better. But I know that it's not a danger zone, the links are. So first are they trending upwards that's a good sign; bad links tend to get moderated. It makes sense, if somebody spams a whole bunch of forums or blogs they use a piece of software, it's going to get turned away and their Google patents that talk about this as a signal. Like if somebody blasts 100,000 links and all of a sudden they disappear I immediately know something's wrong. And even if something's not wrong if they had a good reason for that to happen, I still haven't really seen one, but if they did it … that pattern looks really bad. So that's the first thing, okay I guess I start to dig into it and I start to look for schemes like you mentioned; are there link wheels, are there … you mentioned that you and I are pre-Panda people a little bit here. I've … I know the schemes because I've used the schemes. I've tried the schemes and I know what all of them look like. There's any of maybe a dozen which might go beyond our time right now but- Mark: So with some of these schemes how would somebody identify these? Obviously link patterns so seeing declining back wings would be an example of things being moderated away from low quality sites or even high quality sites where it's been spammed to a public place. But for like a Link Wheel or a PBN, are there tools that you would recommend somebody use for this or is it really just something where you need to hire somebody like you to be able to help identify these schemes? Corey: Sure. Well I won't go so far as to say someone has to hire me but I do have a lot of skepticism in the tools only because we see them throw a lot of false positives. They do good things too but I've got a team that's used every backlink auto link tool I think at this point and they're flawed certainly. Especially when you pair them with the activity of disavowing links which is usually the natural next step. When you find bad links people tend to use the disavow form in Google Search Console and that's irreversible so it's really really dangerous. We've very frequently been approached by people that ran an automated link audit, got a lot of terrible advice, disavowed a lot of good links, their rankings went away, and they need help and all we can say is well now you've just got to rebuild like you shouldn't have done this. That was a bad idea. So I think it's just about recognizing the schemes and the most overarching witness test in my mind is does this double as good marketing. Sometimes it's just a completely automated site like you see a lot of these like statistics websites, and he ways websites, those big automated plays. I would usually say if a site links to every site on the internet which you can usually see, like is it linking to every domain alphabetically; you see that a lot on the backlink tools. I don't worry about those. I don't think you should disavow those because that's not a scheme. That's not a pattern that you want out and will and that's a flaw in every auditing tool I've used. So I wouldn't worry about those. I also wouldn't worry about anything that is editorially relevant. Like is it editorial, a guest post, a press release, a mention of any kind really that happened from a human but if it didn't and you can usually tell by this kind of thumbing through the side a little bit that usually means that your link is appearing besides other schemes. And if a link is really easy to get that by definition kind of makes it a bad link which is counterintuitive right? You've got all these SEO services that are offering fast easy links for everybody. That's flawed because if it's really for anybody that means that you're link appears besides porn sites you know fill affiliates like all sorts of really kind of sketchy looking stuff. It shouldn't be easy for everybody and that's really the way to tell it I think. Mark: So something that we see with Quiet Light Brokerage in our backlink profile is we'll get a piece published informs or entrepreneur or in [inaudible 00:27:36.5 a good piece and obviously we love those backlinks. But then sure enough there is these really low quality sites that will take that article that blog post and they'll republish it and you know it's just a complete spammy site. You can tell that there's never a human that has touched that site other than initially [inaudible 00:27:55.7]. Are those backlinks, if somebody is doing a backlink analysis on the site and they see some good high quality backlinks but then they see a whole bunch of copycats stuff is that anything to worry about in your opinion? Corey: It depends a little bit on the site. If they're purely just scraping forbes, I'd say well today link back because if they do it reminds me a little bit of press indication which is perfectly natural and it's a signal that I think any grown up brand is going to have. Like you've got basically every publicly traded companies running out regular press releases so if I put on my … like if I'm Google Ad that actually looks okay. But if it's a really low quality site you might see them also doing other shady stuff so you might have to look at their backlink portfolio and kind of pick apart what they're doing. Mark: Okay fair enough that is good advice. And if anybody is listening to this and you're completely lost as far as what Corey is talking about here I'm sure you could reach out to him and get a little bit more insight into some of these things. The world of SEO is kind of this big old rabbit hole, you can understand on a very basic level or you can get into [inaudible 00:29:02.3] sort of the more nuanced stuff. In which case you're talking about link wheels and different types of shapes as far as linking patterns which I've thrown most of that out the window years ago when I started seeing a lot of the updates come through. So and I want to talk about that you know we talked a lot about backlinks and backlink profiles, it's been my perception and please correct me you are the expert in this not me, it's my perception that backlinks haven't been so much devalued as might have been surpassed or might have … might be having other ranking indicators kind of come up alongside backlinks as being important. And one of the ones I've seen has been topic coverage, topical coverage on a page. So an example of that would be we have a blog post on I want the Seller's Discretionary Earnings well we also want to cover not only what a Seller's Discretionary Earnings but what does it mean for an Accrual Basis versus Cash Basis Accounting and you know what is Net Income, what is Gross Revenue because these are related topics to the one thing so having all that content now is a good signal to Google. In my correct or incorrect or off based when I say that the backlinks while still important are playing alongside some of these other newer ranking factors? Corey: Yeah I mean you'd be correct in saying On Page matters more and in more nuanced ways. It's tough to weigh like do links matter less because links are infinite really. On page is still finite so I think in that math equation links can never matter less because you can always do more with links. You can't always do more with your site so that makes that equation interesting. But yeah since the Hilltop Algorithm which I believe was written by Krishna Bharat, he published a paper that it's actually really old but it was pre-Panda by a lot and it broke down I think what they've been building upon for a really long time which for the first time defined what they call topical experts. And if you really dig into the paper it appears to be talking about domains as experts and they played but there's a little bit you know you had authorship of Google+ I think was one sort of riff on that idea of trying to figure out who really knows about a topic. And around that time SEO's like crazy with the concept of relevance. People are saying well you only want links from relevant sites. I think that's bunk because well do I not want to link from CNN they don't … they're not an SEO website, obviously I do, obviously that's still a good link. But there's more value if I get somebody from within my space on average. So it's just one more metric, it's a little bump I feel like in their favor if they're relevant or if you're relevant. They're looking at the themes throughout your site definitely. So to your point yeah that exact same idea, the more you cover a topic the more I think your ratio of expertise is strengthened there. And for the same reason Mike & Mitch E-commerce Shop should absolutely be able to outrank Amazon. They're generic, they don't have that focus and we see that a lot. Mark: That seems to be a recurring theme of this podcast here; how to be Amazon at their own game. And I've talked to so many e-commerce business owners who get frustrated by … when they put their own listings up on Amazon and all of a sudden Amazon's outranking their niche store. But I think your point of if you have good topical coverage on your site, if you're doing … if you're making sure the on page is right you should be able to outrank Amazon because it is a specialized site. And that actually said was a really nice link into the final section I want to cover and that is opportunities for pretty much any buyer when you're looking to acquire an online business opportunities in SEO. I see huge opportunities with most of the stuff I look at and working on the on page SEO, what are a few areas in your opinion that people should look at when they're looking to grow the SEO presence of either an e-commerce shop or a SAS business or a content business but really kind of looking at that a SEO portion, what are a few areas that are common pieces of low hanging fruit that you see? Corey: Sure. Well since Panda there are a lot more diamonds in the rough I feel like that just have broken on page SEO and the poster case study going all the way back was Danny Webb right? Everyone was talking about Danny Web which was one of the biggest tech forms, they lost easily all their rankings when Panda first hit and they managed to recover by removing what people later called thin content. Which were just pages that might have fifty words on the page, it was all the different individual profiles that people had, there were millions of them. Most of them were a bad search engine experience. So when I see a site that has a lot of pages that don't offer value to Google but don't carry the no index tag, the media tag, and the source code [inaudible 00:33:56.5] but code in the source that says keep us out of Google's index. I know well hey I can do that and overnight strengthen the stuff I want to keep and cut out the stuff that's just never going to be of any value and that's going to help a lot. I also look for sites that don't have a keyword strategy, sites that for whatever reason have never had any links but still enjoyed some organic success. There's a lot of ways to play this. In total there's I think a couple hundred ranking factors. I basically just look for a couple that have been 100% neglected because I feel like that's where people leave the most money on the table basically where I can see a quick one. Mark: Yeah, I think again coming back to round out this discussion, I think since the updates and after the updates everybody was scared of organic traffic and understandably so. I mean it was very difficult for a lot of people because they owned a business overnight an update happened and the rankings are gone, revenue is gone. A lot of businesses were built on this kind of shaky SEO and Google's done a good job of cleaning that up. But people now see the benefit of relying on paid acquisitions. As a result though I think there's a huge opportunity for buyers to take a look at pretty much any property that is not on Amazon. So any web-based property content sites etcetera etcetera and be able to really grow that business through good SEO practices. As you said looking at keyword strategies are, is there any keyword strategy there, or do they have good topical coverage, are they doing the basics to be able to rank well, and because no one is really doing that or very few people are really doing that on page SEO anymore it's kind of amazing how quickly it's fallen out of favor. Yeah so let me ask you if anybody wants to talk to you what's the best way to reach you? Corey: Sure. Well they can pop on our website which is just northcutt.com drop me an email it's just corey@northcutt.comor follow me on Twitter corey_northcutt to be my first name, any of those work. Mark: All right good. We'll all link to those in the podcast page the show notes so everyone can take a look at that. And you know again we don't get kickbacks from guests or anything like that but we do refer people that we've used in the past successfully and the services of yours is definitely a service that I've gotten good value out of. I know you did some work for me, I think it was back in October your group did some work for me and those pages are doing quite well now so thank you for that. I never gave you an update on that; they're doing pretty well. Corey: Yeah, sure. Mark: Yeah so thanks so much for coming on. I think this is an interesting topic and maybe one that we need to explore again in the future. Corey: Oh I'd like that. Mark: All right, thanks Corey. Corey: Thanks Mark.

Your online business is likely your MOST VALUABLE ASSET. And calculating its value is critical to setting goals and knowing your net worth. “But I never plan to sell” is something we hear often…and as entrepreneurs most of us @ QLB have said the same thing. Yet each of us has built, bought and sold our own online business…even the ones we never planned to sell. When I sold my web-based business in 2010 I was a novice. With what I know today if I could go back in time I would have planned my exit and likely sold my business for 2-3x more than I did. Instead…I waited until I was emotionally tired of the business, and sold it when the numbers were half what the once were. Not smart. Don't be like me…listen to this Podcast and implement our suggestions. You risk everything building and running your business, and you should get maximum value if/when you exit. The first step in getting max value is understanding the valuation process and being able to calculate your Seller's Discretionary Earning (SDE). Mark and I joke about falling asleep in this podcast due to some of the content…we're joking…and the material here is incredibly valuable. Episode Highlights: Learn the basic web based business valuation formula. Get to know what parts of a business swing the value range up or down. Net Income, plus Add Backs = Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE). What's an Add Back? Learn what are acceptable and unacceptable add backs. How add backs boost the value of your business. Using accrual accounting vs. cash for COGS…critical to understand for both buyers and sellers. Learn the typical multiple (value) ranges for an online business. Why a larger business fetches a higher multiple than a smaller ones. Inventory is SOLD SEPARATELY. If you own a physical products business, while listening to this Podcast your inventory levels will change. Including it in the list price artificially inflates the multiple of the business and results in an unstable list price. Transcription: Mark: Hey Joe how are you? Joe: I'm good Mark. How are you doing today? Mark: I'm good. Today we have an unusual guest at least for our podcast. Joe: That's what my wife calls me unusual. Mark: Well that's because you are the guest right? And in Quiet Light Podcast fashion, I'm going to have you introduce yourself to all of our listeners who have no idea who you are. Actually, they know you probably better than you may know yourself at this point because they've listened to you so much but I want to provide just a quick introduction for yourself. Joe: Wow this is how our guest feels. Now I'm on the spot. I hadn't thought that you were going to do that to me. But who am I? Self-employed since 1997, I'm kind of an old guy. Can you see that? A gray hair. 52 years old. Built box sold own online businesses, sold my last e-commerce business for a company called Quiet Light Brokerage. Jason here was my broker; you were the first guy I talked to. I loved the process in transactions so much. I reached out to you and six months later I said you know I'd love to be a broker and you said yeah let me talk to Jason. Jason thankfully said yeah talk to this guy. I came on in early 2012. You and I are now partners now. You're the majority and I'm just a small guy in the process but since then closed what approaching 30 million in total transactions might get 50 by the end of this year depending upon what happens, been around the block a little bit; lots and lots and lots of transactions of all shapes and sizes. Mark: And I think it's safe to say that you have built a name for yourself in the industry quite a bit. People know you. And I think for the first time in the history of the company we had a client you are working with and your plate was getting a little bit full so you thought about trying to hand him off to me and he said “No, I don't want to work with the founder of the company. I'd rather work with you, Joe.” And that's never happened. I'm totally happy about that though not that I don't want to be working with a client but it just goes to show the reputation that you built in the industry. Joe: Or how your represent…reputation is now destroyed. I'm not sure. Mark: Probably, now the word has gotten out. Well, he's not actually as good as we thought compared to Joe or Jason or these other guys. Well, we did a podcast episode a while ago with Chuck Mullins and we're going to be doing more of these words “Meet the Broker”. We also did one with Jason. So those you can find back in the podcast history but we obviously don't want to just talk about you and your background as fascinating as I'm sure that might be. You've got lots of years of wisdom to share with everybody. But we want to actually talk about a specific topic and I…and today we're going to talk about specifically how to calculate the value of your web based business or any web based business and what is the process that goes on behind the scenes to calculate that value. I know you gave a presentation recently, I think back in January out in California on this and it turned into a lot of questions about the actual valuation process. Like just the formula itself and how do we arrive at a certain number. So for those listening, we are going to talk you through this. But for those that are watching we will have something up on the screen a presentation that you can follow along. If you're listening in your car and you want to come back later you can find this on our YouTube Quiet Light Academy or on our podcast page at Quiet Light Brokerage. So tell us a little bit about the presentation Joe and how you kind of spent so much time just on the first half of this presentation. Joe: Yeah the presentation is really supposed to be about you know the pillars of growth. There's generally four of them and I put planning in there as a fifth. It was supposed to be about the pillars of maximum value but in order to get to that, I had to talk about how to calculate your seller's discretionary earnings in the value of your business and then it got into add backs. I really was going to do about a five minute presentation on that, about a 40 minute presentation on the rest, and then 30 minutes at Q and A. It turned into about 45 minutes of Q and A alone on calculating the value, in particular, the add backs. What was acceptable, what was not, and then the multiples and ranges depending on the net. So today in this first episode I want to touch on how to calculate the value of your business and then we'll get to the four pillars of value after that. So simply put Mark it's an easy formula. There should be no confusion about it. If you're looking at the screen there trailing 12 months seller's discretionary earnings times the multiple equals the list price of your business, simple; right? 300,000 in discretionary earnings times three you got a list price of a business of 900,000 in the key plus the landed cost of good saleable inventory on hand at the time of closing that. All of that language is really critical. Now I've been a guest on podcasts as well as you on other people's podcasts and we've talked about this formula at the beginning of the podcast and then literally 15 minutes in the host will say “So how do you calculate the value of your company again because it's simple but really-really confusing.” So I want to go through it. So we know this formula it's up to the screen again for listeners it's your seller's discretionary earnings for your trailing 12 months times A multiple equals the list price plus the inventory if you've got a physical products business. But the problem here is calculating the seller's discretionary earnings. We'll get to how to figure out what your multiple is but the most important thing is how to calculate seller's discretionary earnings. So it's up there on the screen now. It's simple if you use accounting software which is kind of important. Right, Mark? Mark: Very very very much important, yes. Joe: One of the four pillars. It's net income plus add backs equals your seller's discretionary earnings. So if you run a profit loss in Quick Books or Xero it's going to give you a net income number on the bottom. But every entrepreneur, for the most part, sometimes partnerships have better books…cleaner books. But most entrepreneurs, if you take a small salary, if you have a car that you ride after the business, you have your mobile phone as run through the business, all these things are personal in nature and then there's some one-time expenses as well. Those are considered add backs. So if you run a business and your net income is zero, that doesn't mean your business is worth zero. You could take a hundred thousand dollar salary and that's an add back as it's a personal benefit. Makes sense? Mark: Makes sense. But I'm going to back up just a minute here. Joe: Okay. Mark: Go back to the previous slide. Joe: Yup. Mark: Now where we're talking about the formula that we're using to calculate value. In that formula again, just to drill it into people's heads, it is the trailing 12 months seller's discretionary earnings which is close to a bit in most cases but not always. So we take that we times it by a multiple and that's where we come up with the asking price or the estimated value of a business. But let me ask you or to give an objection that we hear a lot from sellers when they see this. Isn't this too simple, what about all the other aspects of their business? What about the unique relationship that they have with the supplier or the upward mobility or upward scalability of the business and the trajectory of it? Isn't this just looking at the income only and not paying attention to all those other things? Joe: Yes and no. Right? And that's the answer is that we come up with a value range it's not a firm number, it's a value range and your business may swing in that range depending upon some of those things. If you've got a five year old business and you've got 30% year over year growth versus an 18-month old business, one is more valuable than the other. If you've got a patent on a particular skew that you have that prevents other people from competing with you that brings more value. If you have diversified revenue streams, you know Shopify, or your physical…your website, Amazon…different Amazon countries, Jet, Walmart, Daily Deal sites that's diversified revenue. Diversify…diversification means less risk. Less risk means higher in that multiple range. So all of those things come into play but as I say often we can't take an email list of 10,000 and say each email address is worth five dollars and do that math and add that to the value of the business. What it does simply is boost the value range of the business itself. Mark: Right. Joe: I think another way to understand this as well is that although our formula has two main parts the trailing twelve months seller's discretionary earnings in one part and in multiple being the other part, that doesn't mean that is…we're looking at two things. As we're going to go into both sides of this the multiple and the trailing twelve months are summations of bigger calculations. So when we could get to the SDE, when we're calculating that seller's discretionary earnings, we're going to go over that in this podcast episode, there's a lot involved in calculating seller's discretionary earnings just as there's a lot that goes into understanding what makes its multiples. These things kind of summarize the business and all of those intangibles as well. And I think a lot of people that do know this formula they focus a lot on the multiple. But I love the fact that what we're going to do here is we're going to unpack this seller's discretionary earnings number and see what goes into building that. Because this is actually an area where there is a lot of opportunity for optimization [inaudible 00:12:44.4]. And once you understand this aspect of it and you plan in advance sale of your business you're never to sell but someday you may wake up and want to move on, you understand the value you're going to have a much more valuable business down the road. And you know I think we were at a presentation together where someone got up and said adds are the most valuable asset that you own as your business and if you don't take care of it and you don't understand it's value you not really maximizing it; so really important. You know the key point here is Mark the trailing 12 months. It's not the trailing three, trailing six times two or anything like that; the trailing 12 always takes into account the seasonality of the business and we do every…a year over year comparison when working on that multiple valuation as well. Mark: Yeah and just one last [inaudible 00:13:32.3] on this, this is one formula that is used. It's used in this industry for online businesses which is why we use it. It is not the only way to estimate the value of a business but what I would tell anybody out there that wants to look at different valuation approaches they all essentially do the same thing. Some do it more complex than others and at the end of the day, these are predictive formulas right? I'm trying to predict what's base trying to pay. So anyways on with the next line, I took us back a little bit but I did want to get in to that a little bit. So add backs- Joe: Keep doing it I do this every day and it's simple language to me now but it is not simple, it's pretty complex. Mark: Right okay so let's get into the seller's discretionary earnings if I'm going to Quick Books because everybody I know that's listening is using Quick Books or Xero or a professional accounting software right? Everybody's using that I'm sure nobody's using Excel. Where can I go in Quick Books to calculate or see what my seller's discretionary earnings are? Joe: You can't. Mark: That is not in Quick Books? Joe: No. Mark: What is that, what is seller's discretionary earnings? Joe: It's your net income what you get out of Quick Books or Xero plus the add backs. That's what you call seller's discretionary earnings. So the big question is what's an add back? And this is why it took 45 minutes in the Q and A session that I did. So when you get to add backs and I'll go to the next slide here this is a lot of information but really an add back is something that is a personal benefit to the owner of the company or a one-time expense. Now there are always exceptions to the rule and you always want to use math and logic. But an example is owner payroll, if someone takes a payroll of 128,000 dollars to maximize their social security, that's an owner benefit and if your business is doing net income of 500,000 dollars, you add back 128 to that so now your discretionary earnings should be 628. Simple round numbers if you're doing 50 in net income and you take salary of 50 you're discretionary earnings becomes 100,000. And so if your multiple is 3X on the net income it's only 50, on discretionary earnings it's 300,000 big difference. Mark: Right. So why are we adding back these expenses? Because basically what you're doing is you're going through, you're taking a look at a company's income statement or profit and loss statement and that's something that you can generate in Quick Books or Xero or any professional accounting software. And you're going through those expenses and you're looking at some and you're saying okay we're going to add…and right now this is acting as a subtracting number to the revenue and that's how it would get to net income. But you're saying we're going to actually add that expense back so effectively take it out. Why are we taking out these expenses? Joe: They're personal in nature and they're personal benefit but you need to in your terminology taking it out you have to go with full disclosure to the buyers. They want to see every cent and so you don't go into the Quick Books accounting, you delete these personal expenses. You leave them there yet you run the report you export it to Excel and then below that net income you create an add back schedule and you go up to…okay this one's personal mail and entertainment travel or what you did a website redesign you spent 10,000 dollars three months ago. That's a one-time expense, for the most part, we could add that back. And you had an employee that did outside sales and she tried, she was only around for three months it was a 15,000 dollars expense she produced zero outside sales commissions is that an add back? We could talk about in some cases it is. But there's a lot of that today goes deep deep deep in the conversations with the owner of the business in order to get to the most important number which is a seller's discretionary earnings. Mark: All right very good. So when we're doing these add backs what we're doing is we're taking out these expenses because we want to present it to buyers and show them what the business operates from a standard starting point. So we call these discretionary expenses and we call them discretionary expenses because their expenses that the owner is spending at their discretion could be circular about it. So how do you go about or I'm going to hand back over to you, what's the next step for going through and explaining and understanding these add backs? Joe: Let's just give some example, some things that people brought up and I just pop something up on the screen you know question. Can I go to the gym every day? You go to the gym pretty often right? You try to get out and you might run it after your business is that a personal benefit you tell me? Mark: Yeah. Joe: Absolutely. So if you spend 50 dollars a month for the gym that's an add back, it's 300 dollars a year. That's a thousand dollars added to the value of your business if your multiple is over three times. Your car, your meals, and your entertainment; a big one that you and I and the entire team talked about recently was as an entrepreneur you may travel to different events. You may go to the Prosper Show that we were out in March. You may go to arket a conference. You may go to Seller Con, whatever the case might be. Can you write those things off as an add back? And we collectively said yes. Because it's a personal choice of the owner, in most cases you can learn those things online but you're going for the camaraderie and it's helping with your business in some ways but it's not a required expense that carries forward to the new owner. And that's the most important thing; it's not an expense that carries forward to a new owner. Mark: Let's talk about that trade show example because I think that's a really good example where we can get in and show how understanding what gets added back and what doesn't get added back and be somewhat nuance. So let's take two different scenarios and start with…well we'll start with Rhodium we talked about them a bit and we like the guys in Rhodium quite a bit, it's a good community. I would go to that event just for the camaraderie and the networking alone without necessarily have any business…there's always a business interest with what we do but my main reason would be to go there for the camaraderie. Looking at Quiet Light Brokerage would that be considered an add back yes or no? Probably because we're not necessarily selling our services at that point but if we display a pub con, if we get a booth display there, we're making out to contacts would you consider that an add back? Joe: Well let me tell you, let me correct you if you will on Rhodium. When we go to Rhodium and we are sponsoring the event, so it's an expense to us, we stay in hotels, we have meals, we have entertainment, and we produce revenue from it because we build relationships with those people who then come to us to list the business for sale; and that produces revenue. So when you've got an expense that produces revenue it's not an add back; simple as that. But an example of someone going to Rhodium…a real example, someone went to Rhodium recently and her husband decided to go as well, didn't go to the events but was there and then they stayed an extra week and called that their honeymoon. Went on a helicopter ride that…all sorts of different things and it was a complete business expense and write off. Absolutely a write off, she can't tie a revenue to that expense. So it's an add back. There's always math and logic with these, sometimes the buyers are not going to see it the same exact way that the seller or the broker will see it but we don't push them. It's got to be crystal clear because and full disclosure because once you're under [inaudible 00:21:01.9] we don't want any surprises. An example that is not an add back that someone brought up they said well I'm using an ad agency to do all my Facebook advertising and I pay them 15% and I spend [inaudible 00:21:14.4] a thousand dollars a month. That's 150 dollars a month expense. I'd like to add that back because my logic is if the new owner has those…that experience that doesn't need that ad agency then they're not going to have the expense so it doesn't carry forward right? Well, no it's an expense that that ad agency spends money, it produces revenue, you can't…it's a big leap of math and logic. We don't know if that particular buyer has that experience or not. If they do, good for them it's a savings on their part but we can't add it back assuming everybody has that experience. Makes sense? Mark: Yeah absolutely. I think there's a common sense factor here and that is what we want to do is we want to look at the expenses that have been used for the normal operations of the business, so expenses that's been used for normal operations they stay. The elements that are outside of normal operations of the business those are the ones that are typically going to be added back, so personal benefits, those one-time expenses that'll be outside of normal operations because it's…it is part of normal operations but it's such a rare occurrence. We want to show buyers what's their expected ROI from this business if they were to acquire it. And so you can't…you have to have a common starting around and that's where you end up getting into the add backs and taking out those discretionary expenses. Joe: Yeah. Let's talk about one more sort of not black and white example just to talk about what you said which is common sense. So I listed a business last fall and the owner of the business really literally worked five hours a week. He had a full time person doing inventory planning things of that nature customer service…doing inventory planning and design and then he had someone that he had do customer service. That someone that he had do customer service was his brother and he paid him 30 dollars an hour for customer service work. The customer service work involved canned responses and canned responses and email canned responses in a pop up chat. He was grossly overpaid doing that kind of work, 30 dollars an hour. My advice at the time and you laughed at me and called me a Scrooge at one point [inaudible 00:23:24.5] was fire your brother. Okay, you're paying him way too much. I think the total amount that he might have been paying him was roughly 30,000 dollars a year. When in reality he was paying him too much money was paying him for hours that he didn't really work. So he should have fired his brother, hired somebody with half the cost, it made up the difference of 15,000. Let six months pass and he would have…his business when it was listed at 3 ½, so it would have 3 ½ times 15,000 dollars which would have been added to list price. He wasn't willing to be a Scrooge because that was just before the holidays. He didn't fire his brother. So we went with math and logic and we presented an adjustment in the add backs accounting for his brother going away. Mark: Okay. Joe: It wasn't ideal, it was a little gray but the math and the logic made sense and it worked. We had multiple offers under LOI closed with no issues with that add back mostly because it was right there in black and white and detail that talked about prior to the LOI. Mark: Right. So it does work the other way as well too. I've actually had the opposite scenario where somebody had a bunch of friends and family helping out in their business and they were grossly underpaid because they were doing favors. And he was like the Uncle Vido or someone like that was doing the books for almost no money whatsoever. And in that case would go the other direction and we would actually inject a cost into that P and L that will basically say hey they're here in a sweet heart rate that's not going to continue we need to see what this role is important but necessary and here's a pretty reasonable market rate for math and logic once again. Joe: Yeah, it's math and logic in there as well. Okay, I have a look at our time here Mark and where we are but a really really important thing for physical product owners is in the valuation of the business is the thing that put me to sleep in college. Literally, I fell asleep in the classroom and the new students came in and I was asleep in a classroom. It's accounting. Okay if you're driving pop a couple of no doze for this part but it is so vastly critical and this is critical for buyers and sellers. For buyers listen to this closely because if you find a broker that lists something that is growing like crazy, physical products business and they don't do accrual accounting or flipped it to accrual, you're getting that business at a discount because it should be accrual. When it's accrual the business is…it's the right way to do it first of all but the discretionary earnings is higher and the business is more valuable. Mark: Hold on accrual? What are you talking about here…we're just doing something excel at this point. So what is accrual and why is it so important? Joe: You're selling a widget, so let's say you're selling a widget for 10 dollars and your landed cost of goods sold on that widget is two dollars, 20% landed at your 3PL at your Amazon FDA. That's a cost of goods sold of 20% that…that's accrual so that when you sell that widget in the month of June that cost for that widget is applied to that month of June, so it's 20%. So your cost of goods sold…landed cost of goods sold shouldn't be roughly the same every month, month in and month out when it's accrual. If it's cash you're going to see that 20% go to 60%, 102% down to zero back up again to be all over and what it's going to look like on the bottom line discretionary earnings is that your earnings are all over the place; up and down, up and down and it's uncomfortable for buyers. The way that they look at these things and the way that we train them to look at these things is discretionary earnings and then have some working capital for inventory. When you purchase inventory moving up to 4th quarter, if you are cash basis and you're wrapping up inventory and normally you've got 50,000 dollars' worth of inventory but all of a sudden your stroking checks and you've got cash out of the 150,000 dollars that depresses your net income and your discretionary earnings and the value of your business if it's presented on a cash basis accounting. Does that make a little bit of more sense and not put you to sleep? Mark: Yeah, that does make more sense and what I would…the way I've explained it to some people as well is that when you move to accrual basis accounting it's kind of like going from a two dimensional picture to a three dimensional picture because it looks at your business and where its value is in all places. So instead of just taking cash out when as you said your 4th quarter you're stroking checks because you've got to stock up that inventory you're expecting a busy Christmas season so you're writing all sorts of checks out. Instead of saying okay I've just lost that much value of business, no you haven't lost much value you're just taking cash and converted it over to inventory. So accrual says hey you still have value in your business because you have all those inventory, you just exchanged cash for inventory. And then when you sell that product now you recognize the expense of that individual item. Joe: That's the key when you sell that product that's when you recognize the expense. And a good bookkeeper can set it up for you. And trust me if you spend a little bit of money a couple hundred, 300, 400 dollars a month on a good book keeper you will make that back multiple times over in the sale of your business because buyers will have more confidence. Brokers will be able to do a better valuation with less complexities and you won't pull your hair out during the valuation process. And I've seen people do that it's really-really hard to go back and do it. We do it more often than not we do it right Mark? We have to go back and flip it from cash to accrual then and I want to show you how to do that. So right now up on the screen, I've got a sample profit and loss station, a sample statement. Net income you can see there we're going to call it 425,000 dollars. Again, we've got an add back schedule below it for those listening here is some of the add backs; we've got interest expense that they had a loan, legal and professional fees for a patent for example or a trademark those are one-time expenses, meals, and entertainment, office expenses you work from home but you've got your kids' school supplies that you [inaudible 00:29:33.0] your business, your own payroll and I've got vehicle expenses here. So we take that 425,000 in net income plus the add backs on 120 and we're not at 545,000 in change in terms of discretionary earnings. So again you just say a three time multiple we added 360,000 in value to this business just for the add backs. But when you look at this gray line in the cost of goods sold the cost of goods sold as a percentage of total income goes as high as 97% and as low as 5%. It's all over the place. In the next screen, I'm going to flip it down so we know that that's cash because it's all over the place so here we flipped it from cash to accrual. Mark: So this is the same company? Joe: The same company this is the same exact P and L but within the Excel spreadsheet there was exported from Quick Books or Xero or in some cases produced, we've flipped the cash to accrual on the total cost of goods sold line only. We don't change those numbers in the cost of goods sold expenses the only thing that's changed is that total cost of goods sold line. You see sometimes those total doesn't add up to the individual things it's because we flipped it to accrual and we work with a formula on that. So there's more than one way to do almost anything but we work with the seller on calculating new accrual and we'll go into that in a minute but the key difference is when you look at this we went from cash to we were at 425,000 in net income right? Now we've flipped to accrual you look at that net income line that's jumped from 425 to 485,000 so we've added 60,000 dollars in discretionary earnings just by flipping it to accrual. Let me repeat that for those that are almost asleep because we're talking about accounting. By not producing any more revenue, by not hustling any harder, by not renegotiating cost of goods, by not doing anything other than good accounting we've increased the net income from 425 to 485. By you know proper accounting. Mark: [inaudible 00:31:45.6] the question is this dishonest in any way? Joe: No. It's the absolute right way to do it. It's standard acceptable accounting principles. The other way is the ready fire aim approach that unfortunately most of us take, me included because I didn't know any about Quick Books or accounting, I fell asleep in class, I never had a bookkeeper. This is actually the right way to do it. Mark: All right so that [inaudible 00:32:09.8] both cash and accrual are acceptable ways of filing your taxes and doing books. That gap does recognize both, however, accrual for a product space business is going to be more accurate and more thorough and so what you're saying is that the cash basis actually undervalues the business when you record your books in cash basis. Joe: If the business is growing rapidly absolutely because they're taking almost every expendable dollar that they have and putting it back in inventory. So an example is you know you and I talk about this valuation a lot, I had a client that went to every other brokerage firm. They really needed to sell their business because they had a house under contract contingent upon sale of their business. It was for an income they lived in New Zealand they had an Amazon US Business. They had to sell the business [inaudible 00:32:58.7] tough situation to be and a foolish situation to be in. They went to…got different valuations and every broker is trying to push that multiple high to help them achieve their goals. Too high for that 18-month old business, [inaudible 00:33:13.4] we did the proper accounting flipped, we did it in accrual. I was able to push that multiples down and other brokers like 3 ½ it was never going to happen. We were able to push it down to about 2.7 yet the value of their business was a couple hundred thousand dollars higher. So we had a higher value and a lower multiple more attractive to the seller more attractive to buyer. We had a buyer that was really good at accounting, really good entrepreneur, fully understood it, bought it, went through to do diligence, really happy. Both buyer and seller happy. So there's just huge value. Mark: This is actually really good I guess pro tip for people buying as well. If you come across an opportunity that's now with Quiet Light because we are going to almost always be pushing our clients simply in order to accrual in pretty much every circumstance for an e-commerce business. But if you come across an opportunity as a buyer and you see cash based books for an e-commerce business, take a look at the trend of the business. If that business is growing as you point out Joe the net…then the cash basis accounting is going to undervalue the business. On the other hand, though if that business is shrinking and they are not adding new inventory, they are going to have inflated or apparently inflated margins because they've stopped by an inventory, they've stopped recording expenses and you could actually end up over paying for a business if it's on the decline. So that cash basis accounting just for a product based business it's unreliable because of the fact that it doesn't take into account when the expense of the item when it's sold and so you really have to pay attention to the other aspects of the business such as this trend. Joe: Absolutely and you know cash basis accounting is okay for SaaS business and things that don't have accounts receivable…things of that nature. But for a physical products business accrual is the way to go. Buyers will be aware if it's cash especially as Mark said if it's declining buyers get excited. And it's growing unlike crazy as cash basis you buy it hold it for a year or two and then you do accrual based accounting and your value is instantly higher. So in this example again to move things along we've added 60,000 in discretionary earnings if by example we were at a three time multiple that's 120,000 dollars…I'm sorry 180,000 dollars added to the value of the business by not selling a single widget more. Really [inaudible 00:35:34.3] so how do you calculate accrual? It's really complicated, to be honest with you and you've got to have a good history and records to do it. Again, start with a good goalkeeper but the formula is simple beginning inventory plus purchases minus ending inventory that equals your cost of goods sold. And this should all be landed and this is ideally on a monthly basis. Now you can do it, right? If you haven't done it yet you can't do it. So what you got to do is go back in history and figure out what your cost of goods sold are with different formulations and calculations and it's different for each client that I work with. Absolutely doable I get two listings in the last two months where we had to do that and couldn't do this. I'll be honest with you most of the times we can't get to this. It's ideal if we can but more often than not we have to go with another method which is take all of those purchases take all of the shipping cost average out the shipping cost times the number of units that your shipping…it's complicated and I can't tell you exactly how it is because every situation is different. But that's the formula. The end result again when you put to accrual is a higher value. Again going back quick review before we put too many people to sleep with this your most valuable asset is more than likely your business. You should know what the value is within a certain range 10% I hope and then the question is okay I know how to calculate seller's discretionary earnings, the final thing is what kind of multiple range do I put on it? And what I've got here up on the screen is for physical products businesses and I'll talk about content businesses and SaaS businesses and so on so forth as well. So a larger business is more valuable and in what ways Mark? Mark: Large businesses are more valuable. And at today's podcast episode that actually launched today was on that very topic is buying big better than buying small, I'll go back and [inaudible 00:37:27.9] that one fun episode. Larger businesses are more valuable because they are more stable. You have more resources available to hire out work or to reinvest in the business. So generally speaking businesses that have higher earnings and higher revenues end up getting a multiple boost just because they are more stable and have more room for or investing in and changing the format of the business. Joe: Right and the other thing is odds are we've been around a little bit longer too or they have multiple streams of revenue balanced less…essentially they are less risky therefore they're worth more. So in the examples, I've got up on the screen and we'll talk about [inaudible 00:38:10.6] for listeners. If you have seller's discretionary earnings on a physical products business of less than 700,000 you're going to be in the 2 and I'm going to do a broad range 2 ½ to 3 ½ multiple range. So if your business is 100,000 dollars in discretionary earnings, the value big range 250 to 350 plus the landed cost of good saleable inventory on hand at the time of closing. Again as Mark said at the beginning we take all of those other factors, how many streams of revenue do you have. do you have any patents, how do you launch new products, do you have a big social media following that proves that your margins are done without discounts or advertising. All of those things come into play and could push a multiple higher or push it lower even below this 2 ½ times in the even when we do that client interview we do the valuation process, let's say that you have a patent infringement issue and it's still something that's scary and hanging out there. That might push the value down a little bit. Or if you're trends are going down that's definitely going to push the value down a little bit. So again, less than 700 in discretionary earnings 2 ½ to 3 times plus the landed cost of good saleable inventory on hand at the time of closing. When you get that bigger more valuable business with discretionary earnings that are north of 700 and again these are great numbers by the way again nothing here is in black and white but the value is going to be higher. Because it's more established, less risk that somebody is going to pay more because their money safer. That value range is going to jump instead of 2 ½ to 3 ½ you're going to go from 3 ½ to 4 ½ sometimes possibly higher. Mark: And if anyone is listening to this a few years down the road and have dug back in the Quiet Light Podcast archives and are now listening up. Multiples do change over the years as well. So this is where the market is at today and always check with us to see where multiples are if you're listening to this at a different time. Joe: Got it. SAS businesses. SAS businesses is in the last 12 months good ones that are trending well that have a reasonable [inaudible 00:40:14.7] and have a good handle on the metrics, I'm going to talk about that in the next episode, you're in the four to five time range. Content sites again and much of the same dollar ranges here. Content sites probably 2 ½ to 3 ½ times unless you're much larger. I've got one with multiple offers that's between four and five times because of the size of it and because of the growth. It's discretionary earnings are well north of a million dollars. Affiliate sites, same thing. The real separator here is I think the SaaS business because it's generally B2B recruiting revenue and the value is a generally higher at least felt…buyers feel as though they're worth more. Buyers are usually right no matter what Mark and I and the seller thinks. Buyers [inaudible 00:41:03.1]. Mark: And we're going to be doing another episode of talking about multiples and how do you determine the multiple of your business because that's a pretty complex valuation as well. Where there's literally dozens of factors I know I wrote a guide…I think it's on the website right now called The Ultimate Guide to Website Value. I wrote it three years ago. I think maybe four people have read the whole thing because it's long. It was around 30,000 words of all the different things that can really impact the value of a website. I should probably go back and update that because I'm sure there's some things in there that needed to be updated now, a few years later. But there are a lot of things that can influence that multiple up or down. Joe: Let's leave the listeners with this Mark and it's something that we talked about a little bit. If you look at your own values and your own assets, anybody that's listening and you own a business, think about the different things that you own: your bank account, your retirement portfolio, your house, your car. Do you know what the values of those are plus or minus 10%? You probably do but do you know the value of your business plus or minus 10%? You probably don't. Hopefully, this podcast will help a great deal. But even with all the information we've shared you really can't figure it out until you do a proper add back schedule and do all those details. I've had calls, we've had lengthy calls with buyers, we've gone through it all and if I…yeah on my values about 850 and then we get to P and L it turns out their value is at 1.2, really important to get the details down. Get a handle on it even if you don't plan to sell the business either ever or six or 12 or 18 months down the road. Mark: Very good well if you made it to the end of the episode here congratulations and we really appreciate you while listening in. I'd be interested in hearing feedback what do you think about episodes like this where it's Joe and I or maybe we'd bring Jason on or Chuck on again and we delve deep into some of the things that we do on a day to day basis. Are these helpful for you? Do you like them? Did I put you to sleep? Do they…are they things that you would want us to do more of? Let me know send me an email mark@quietlightbrokerage.com if you absolutely hate it then email Joe at joe@quietlightbrokerage.com. So anything left to…anything more to say here? Joe: No, that's it. It's a lot of information it's a bit overwhelming and just digest it. We'll have a link to this presentation in the show notes so people can download it. You'll get a little summary video of it as well that we can share [inaudible 00:43:32.2] can go through their own process. And then one more thing I guess yes I do have something. I have a client recently that I've been talking to for 18 months and you know I said: “What's the one takeaway after all we've gone through?” And she said “More than anything else if I could convey and share something with people that are trying to understand the value of the business and might sell it is don't be afraid to talk to a broker, get a valuation, figure out those things that you need to fix so that 12, 18 months down the road, the business is more valuable and you're prepared.” That's the key thing. Mark: Absolutely we do have resources on the site, articles that break down how to do a seller's discretionary earnings calculation. We'll link to those in the podcast show notes. So if you want to get deeper and couldn't follow along everything in this episode there are some articles that you can refer to which will be easy to follow as well. so thanks for listening and we will be talking again in a week. Links: PDF Version – How to Calculate the Value of Your Business

When it comes to buying internet businesses, is it better to buy big or buy small? Today we are chatting with Jeff Hunt of Own Optimize. Jeff has one of the largest web business portfolios we have come across here at Quiet Light. Through close to 60 transactions, he has owned a total of nearly 500 websites. These days Jeff spends his time working on his websites and educating others on how to buy internet businesses. After a career with IBM in the services business, a move overseas led Jeff to the internet where he started a real estate website. Despite a tech background, he didn't really know anything about websites when he started out. Soon he learned that buying them was much easier than making them and started to build his portfolio. Today we talk to him all about what to focus on once a website catches your interest. Episode Highlights: Start off on the right foot at the very beginning of the process. When buying a site, what you're really looking to buy is a quality website that you can grow and automate. Jeff's range of investment is typically sites valued at $50,000 and under. Of course Jeff experienced failure, 8 out of 10 of his sites didn't make it. He admits to being guilty of chasing too many things at once. Success for Jeff has come from a combination of buying and building. Making a smaller purchase is not always for financial reasons, it can be for a new buyer to explore whether or not they even like the business. When a buyer starts small they get an opportunity to learn the transaction process. Smaller websites can carry more risk. They may not have had enough time to grow. With large sites, you still have some leverage even if you come across hard times. Owning larger sites that garner larger revenue allow buyers to afford to hire a team. Before a purchase, study the heath of the business; the historical data, the ratios, and the percentages of cost that make up the total cost. The seller should have found the key to attracting new buyers and that knowledge can be passed onto the buyer. The buyer needs to really understand the business model and hone the process that the seller has achieved. Transcription: Mark: Joe, How are you? Joe: I'm good Mark, how you doing today? Mark: Good, good! I got to talk to another member from Rhodium Weekend, which is one of those events that we talk about a lot on this podcast, to talk to Jeff Hunt. Joe: I know. Jeff Hunt's a good guy. I think he's bought four hundred (400) businesses in his lifetime. Mark: Websites, a lot of these– yeah it's about forty (40) or fifty (50) transactions that he's done, so mostly some 50,000 dollar transactions. Joe: Pause, I said four hundred (400). Am I completely wrong? Mark: No, you're not completely wrong at all. So forty (40), fifty (50) transactions but whole of about 400 to 500 websites at all. Joe: Okay, got it! Mark: Yeah, can you imagine trying to manage that many sites? Joe: Absolutely not! –trouble doing my job here at Quiet Light that is an immense amount! Mark: Yeah, I know everyone recognizes you as a slacker. Joe: (laughs) Mark: So anyways, he's bought a lot of businesses, he's bought a lot of sites and he has a lot of experience on that. Now he's teaching people, he's got the website investor– the book that he wrote. And he talks about developing systems to buy sites, successfully. And he talks a lot about some of the mistakes he made along the way. What we talk about some due diligence, but also about this ongoing question: Is it better to buy small or buy big? Now what was better for you, what's– could've helped you avoid risk more and how's that changed from the years. He's got a lot of insights into due diligence that were fascinating and honestly, the interviews I've done, I kind of wish we would flip this one around because towards the interview, absolutely, really going to miss some good topics. Joe: It's interesting that the subject of should I buy a million dollar business for– or ten– how many thousand dollar businesses always comes up. And all we can do is thought from own experience and on what other people like Jeff have done. And I think, I've had Kevin Peterson on the upsell buying portfolio SAS business as he said– I think we've quoted him that it– it takes the same amount of work to run a million dollar business as it does a hundred thousand dollar business in some cases actually takes less because it's more established. And Jeff bought forty to– 5400 smaller sites, right? Mark: That's right. And we talked about that. I do think that running-a-large of business is often less work And I wrote an article on this, years ago, We have not been blogging for almost a year now because we've been focusing on the podcast but I did right an article on this rad. I went into the data actually to take a look at: What are the average number of hours that people are working on smaller sites versus larger sites. And what is the average number of staff and how does that correlate with revenues. Really some fascinating data in there, so excited. I got to transcend you deep dive there. So all in to that much show notes, anyone wants to do some further reading. But larger sites, they're often less work. And in some ways, that's risky because there's– you have more cash flow and we talked about that. If you have a business that's– that has twenty (20) thousand dollars of revenue and you lose a key client or you lose a key-traffic source when things get cut in half, you don't have but ten (10) thousand. Joe: Absolutely! That's why, just to say it so people hear it that the– the multiple's evaluation on these jump when your discretionary earnings is up that million dollar mark, you're going to jump significantly in terms of the over-all value not– obviously because of numbers but because the multiple actually jumps too, from a– let's say from a three (3) to four (4) for an instance. Mark: Yeah and I was talking to a potential client the other day who has a business who– it's multi-million dollars of revenue but the earnings are starting to have troubles and he said, “Would anyone buy this?”. And I explained to him that if a business has millions of dollars in revenue, even if it's struggling from an earning stand point, yeah, that's going to really negatively affect the business but this is probably still is soluble. But if you have a business that makes five (5) or ten (10) thousand dollars a year in gross revenues and isn't making any money probably not going to be sold. An orgs couldn't be very difficult to sell for anything of value, so can newly certain size? It's just more flexibility on the part of a buyer. Joe: Yeah! But Jeff has a different model in system and he's buying lots of smaller one's so he's doing something very, very right. Different than your blog couple of years ago, talked about so be real interesting series got to say. Mark: Yep, let's get to it. Alright, hey Jeff! Thanks for joining me. Jeff: Hey, it's great to be here, Mark. Mark: I know we know each other from a mutual group that were both part of. And people who have listened to the podcast before will be familiar with this group, at least you've heard of it before, and that's Rhodium Weekend. You and I have attended it from the past some years, right? Jeff: Yeah, love–met a lot of fantastic people–Rhodium is a good– as you know, it's a group of people either buying, or have already bought in to operate online businesses so it's kind of really unique crowd and be part of it. Mark: Yeah, if anybody wants an introduction 0:05:43.3 let me know, I'd be more than happy and of course, Chuck will surely be able to provide that as well. Chuck Mullins who works at Quiet Light Brokerage, introduced me to Rhodium. And really– Chris had actually stopped me, but really Chuck encouraged me to go. And it's been a good investment of our time and place. It's good group and I met you there few years ago. We talked at the conference and we've seen each other at conferences since then. I think the last time we met in person was Afilias somewhat last summer. Jeff: Yeah! That's right! And I met Chuck there I think the first time at Rhodium and I formed a number of partnerships there so it's a great group of people, it's your (0:06:22.0) way around the business that were in. Mark: Alright! So, let's start getting into little bit in the– as our listeners know, we usually love our guests introduce themselves. So if you want just give, just kind of quick background on who you are and what you do, that'll be really helpful. Jeff: Okay. Well, you know, I maybe one of your older guest– I don't know but if the white here kind of gets it away a little bit, I'm in my fifty's and I'm still on the website business so… Mark: Oh, my! Jeff: Kind of funny like the bunch together that we hangout or they're a little bit younger than I am but I give them a run through their money. I actually started out in the corporate world. Probably like a lot of people buy websites and I had a crew with IBM and I was in middle managements. I had a pretty lardge organization, people who were in to service this business. So, big companies with give us their I.T. departments to run so I had development organization, infrastructure guys, and a lot. And how to buy a budget of about twenty five (25) million dollars, at that time. It's kind of funny that even though I was kind of that technical business, I didn't know anything about the internet at all. And so my first introduction to the internet was actually I started a real estate business. So I moved overseas, left IBM, moved overseas, I started this real estate business and I realized it needed a website. And so, I kind of just dove in and I learned out to do all the websites, staff and crew website for this business. And then after that , I– you know, my eyes kind of got opened to the side of the all. Starting website really hard and so I started looking at as ways to buy them. And I started buying websites and over the last ten years I actually– I've done probably fifty (50) or sixty (60) transactions and about something like three hundred (300) websites, actually probably closed to the five now but while it does ring, big groups like networks of websites that did some more functions than those kind of things. So– Then along the way, I kind of wanted to leverage some of my assets. One of my assets was just– I have been doing this for a while and you know, having my fingers and all kinds of online businesses and different business models across all the sites. And so I wrote a book called The Website Ambassador and then I've done courses on website investing and some networking like at Rhodium and other places and stuff. I really enjoyed this– I just love– I really love almost everything about online businesses. And just the lifestyle part of it but really like the analytical part of it, the marketing component and operations component. Component is just– is just low fun. So that's my story. Mark: So– I'm sorry, you said three hundred (300) and four hundred (400) websites in total? Maybe more? Jeff: Yeah! Like one of my purchases is something like two hundred and fifty (250) websites that were– I can't even read the domain names. They were German and French. And there were these affiliate websites selling Amazon FiliA products and to Amazon Germany and Amazon France. And I ran with those for couple of years some of them died off and then I sold them. Mark: Oh, okay. How in the world do you begin to even manage that many sites? Jeff: Yeah, well–you know, that's one of the many mistakes that I've made I think in the course of my website career is buying too many and chasing too many ideas that looks really interesting like– it's probably happen to you. Maybe it hasn't happen to you though like I see these things and I think “Woah! That's a very unique business modeling and that's really cool. I like to learn more about it and pick it up. Like uncharmed by those particular sites, actually those who're kind of template sites and so there was a lot of automation. There were programs that could make the same update to, ten's, twenty. Sometimes more sites at a time. So that's how we managed them. Mark: Okay, That makes a little bit more sense. Now when you say that you've been buying all these websites, we don't have to talk specific dollar amounts but who are we talking about larger sites, smaller sites, what's the range that you really been investing in. Jeff: Well I've bought in– again maybe this is something I would do differently for starting over again but most of my sites for sub- fifty thousand dollars only handful of that amount, just a lot of them as like mentioned. And I've done kind of a combination of buying and then building and typically for me the cycle's ban or buy something that I don't really know that much about like I started out with Google news approved sites and merely day so I bought a dozen different news site over time but then after a while after a year or two into that, I really understood that news business borrowed so it was very easy for me to actually create my own news websites and then go from there and I've done some more things. For example Mozilla site– so one of the reasons that we buy is because were learning something, were picking up. Were kind of learning from something that's already working. And then later on if you want to add to it by building from scratch, that's kind of a logical sequence for me. Mark: Yeah, alright, let's dive in to that topic a little bit because we get that–this question a lot from potential buyers, especially first time buyers. People that might become mean and in. They know that they want to get in to the website business or some sort of online business, they're coming from the corporate business world like you did and they might have good enough money to do a larger deal but their wonder, is that the right thing to do? And I think you might have touched a viewpoints here which might be interesting. let's talk about, specifically, let's just start with the benefits, binds small to start. You've done a lot of bind small sites and smaller sites. What were some of the big benefits that you've gotten from that and then maybe later on we can move in to some of the drawbacks from that. Jeff: Okay, yeah! That sounds great! And one of the first things that I say when I get that question by big or small is: Whatever you buy, it needs to be a good quality so it needs to be something that's very stable no matter how big or small it is. So, kind of get to your specific question, what are the benefits of buying small, first the obvious one is that you're risking less capital and for many people, that's important, especially when they don't have that experience that leads to the confidence to something bigger. So that's kind of important. And many people are running to ask me that question and it doesn't even matter what their capacity is. Some of them have a capacity in capital to buy very very large websites, multi-million dollar websites. They still don't want to do it. They want to spend five (5) thousand or twenty five (25) thousand or something like that and the reason is because it gives them the, yeah. One of the things that they think about necessarily is they don't even know what it's like to be a website owner. So it isn't just the risk of the money but they're not even sure that they'll enjoy the– be and stay which is being the owner and upper of your website. So that's one thing that binds small can do. Kind of give them a taste, what it's like. And then secondly it gives them an exercise of the transaction process. That's as you know, the transaction process is quite different from very small sites than from a large one but at least they're going through the steps of– during the evaluation, looking, evaluating, waiting, executing a transaction, setting up the accounts, perhaps hiring the team, and all of those kinds of stuff. And then some basic things that if you've never been on the website business, you've never done before like giving hosting setup and domain ownership and some of those basic things. So that's kind of the value. And the other thing is that, whereas the dynamics and management of large versus small can be quite different some of the basics in terms of the actual business models behind the sites are actually quite similar. So the content website monetized by advertising is very similar too. Whether it's big or small. Just the mechanism and process you put around that are different. So if you're unfamiliar with the business model, you can pick up some familiarity from buying a smaller site. Mark: So, you said that I think it's a key point here, and that is bind for education. And bind small for education is something that you've done quite a bit, in where you bought, you've learned in this industry a net shore, a style of online business. And I've been able to use that as an education, they will build your own as well. I talked to buyers a lot about their first purchase and an advice to buy smaller if they want to get that education set, understanding that, can you talk about that a little bit more how you've used buying small to be able to learn more about the nature, about the business style? Jeff: Yeah, that's excellent accredit in general sense education and one of the ways that we educate our self is through relationships and at working and so really, the important part when you buy a site is the relationship that you have with the seller and those have been valuable to me. I meet so many really , really instructional, educational relationships, from sellers who– and that starts with setting at the relationship– setting off at the right flow with the relationship at the very very beginning on the process. But many of the sites I bought I got really good coaching, I have relationships to this day with people that I bought sites from eight (8) years ago who were entrepreneurs, they figured something out. Most– as you know, most business is fail. Very high percentage of business is fail, off line or online. And even at higher percentage of online business is fail, been off. And I think it's just because more people try at the online business but when you have any site that's been around for a while and it's kind of built up a following and so on, is one that hasn't fail or at least not yet. And so the entrepreneurs who're able to do that and figure that out, a lot of times, they know things that you want to know from them so the key thing is actually learning what has been built, what the process is, that they use to attract customers and we'll probably talk more about that later. I hope we could. Mark: Yeah, I'll get you to talk about whatever you think will be worth talking about. I do want to talk a little bit about the differences though on bind big versus small. You mentioned in there one of the benefits to bind small is you're obviously risking what's capital. And I would completely agree with that. I mean, it's pretty obvious, if you're buying a million dollar site to buy in a ten (10) thousand dollar site, there's significantly less at stake. When I tell buyers to buy small, initially, often times I'd tell them that and say, you know, be prepared for a little bit higher risk profile. And in my experience in– feel free to disagree with this , that's in my experience buying small often comes with a little higher level of risk. I know you said you have to buy quality. What's been your experience as far as the quality businesses that you bought in this small range? Jeff: I totally agree with you and the reason that buying small carries more risk is because most smaller websites don't have the same age. They don't have the same momentum they haven't necessarily withstood the test of time. And what that really means is, in the internet business they change really fast so new competitors enter the space, there's changes in technology, changes in software, and most importantly there's changes unlike the big players like Facebook, Google and the like. And they're making policy changes and all those things, so when you buy a smaller site, in most cases, they may be successful, cause they're flying under a radar of sorts and they haven't been around long enough to see the change from desktop to mobile or from easily making Facebook ad purchases to a more competitive environment, faced to capture all those things, so as a result, the lower in sites is almost always more risky. Now obviously, you can mitigate the risk the longer you look but sometimes it takes a really long time to find the site that's– that has true stability. That's still kind of that low end so, yeah, that's right. So my experience with that, that answers a specific question is that I've failed a lot of times. Probably, my early sites that I bought, I bet you eight (8) out of ten (10) just didn't make it. Either they didn't pay for themselves and some of them might've made almost no money, most of them made some money but not nearly what I wanted and then they kind of take her off. It's hard. Mark: I found as well what larger sites having that extra cushion more discretionary earnings and more revenue, gives you a lot more ability to, not to make a mistake and absorb it. With the small site, if it's only generating twenty (20), thirty (30) thousand dollar per year, if it loses a major source of traffic, all of a sudden that twenty (20), thirty (30) thousand will go down to five (5). And now, all of a sudden you're questioning why I'm even doing this anymore. Where, you were as a few–you have a business's doing five hundred (500) thousand dollars a year and discretionary earnings and it gets hit hard. You're still probably making six (6) figures and have some leverage that are to be able to– may buy yourself out of this situation or fund what needs to be fixed Maybe place that better or so, there's a little bit of subordinate there. Workload as well, I mean– I've found in your website, in some sense, I found that with larger sites, sometimes that workload can actually be less because you can afford the higher people, where as with other site that's kind of on the edge. And I ran into this with my first company actually that I owned, I got it to a hundred twenty(220) thousand dollars in revenue and really I needed to hire people but I needed all the money. I was getting so– I couldn't really afford six months of that financial hit. What's been your experience with that? With dealing with casuals and maybe the freedoms that casuals would– of a large business would bring you? Jeff: My experience is exactly what you said where– and in fact I have websites right now where I'm forced to do things that I really shouldn't be doing, I should be spending my time thinking about the strategy, looking in for competition, time plotting on a road map, and in managing people on. And some sites is just aren't making enough money for me to hire someone to do that on month you have. So that's absolutely right, that when you get that, and you know– as I mentioned I– that there were intersections and that I've done everything where I sweep the floor myself, so I kind of gone the whole gimmick and certainly when you have a team then it really freeze you up to use your mind in a different way and that's a lot of fun if that's kind of where your skills are, what you want to do. So definitely not to big advantage of buying big. Mark: Alright, so you have done– how you told me at the beginning, I didn't worry about, how many transactions again, estimated? Jeff: Only sixty (60). Mark: Alright, that's a ton! I mean quite label with more or less than a thousand for ten years, that's with lots and lots of buyers and sellers. Sixty (60) percent is a lot. I'm going to put you on the spot and if you don't have an answer for this please just ignore it. I'm curious, what's one of the craziest thing that you can share that you've ran across in your process of buying sites? Jeff: Well. you know, I've ran across more than I– there's some crazy one's I've ran cross that I haven't bought. But there's several of them, one of them that I talk about in my book is– I found this site that– I had a hard time finding out what product is sold but it was insanely profitable like nine (9) percent profit margins but it was an E-commerce site. So it was a hard physical good and when I looked into it carefully, what they were selling was a urine. Laboratory processed urine for people who're trying to pass drug tests. And so they said, after I finally understood exactly what their product was, I understood why it was hard for me to understand, because they didn't want to like, advertise it too much that they had to do it enough to be on the safe side. Mark: There you go. One of the first clients I took on was selling poppy flowers and they were selling them for couple rearrangements, I may be naive. I had no idea that they were used for opium as well. And I had one person tell me, one buyer was like, “So are you okay with selling drugs?” I'm like, “What? What are you talking about?” Ends up, they were not, but there is people buying the poppies. At least my theory at probably buying the poppies thinking that they were buying drugs. They're probably just get stomach ache. Jeff: Alright, well, you know, that's interesting you bring that up because it's an example of one of the subtle eficlosures and we ran into this issues a lot in this business crossly, even for sites that you would think don't really have controversy around them. We ran into this kind of things. So it's one thing that buyers should be aware of. Mark: Let's (0:23:21.2) to that because you've got your course to write your book as well. Your course is at website investor.com? Is that right? Jeff: Yeah, ownoptimize.com is a good place right now. Mark: ownoptimize.com, Okay. Jeff: Yeah! Mark: We'll link to that in the troll notes so just go over to our website and look in the troll notes for the course, the online course. Let's talk about some of the lessons that you teach in this course. Obviously, we'll keep the best secrets for the courses. So– but, what are some of the things that you try and teach buyers who are taking your course? Jeff: Well, one of this– I don't want to over simplify and this may just sound too simple but one of the biggest mistakes I think that new buyers make is they don't just look at the graphs. And it's amazing what this simple graphs can tell you, the direction of the traffic, and the direction of the financial, those two simple things are really, really important. And a lot of times when you look at a graph, let's say twelve (12) month graph and it's– you can kin od tell visually that it's down or gently downwards sloping, but in truth it may actually be like twelve (12) or twenty (20) percent downward sloping and if you just extrapolate that into the future– I mean, business is going to be worth nothing in just a few years and so I think people tend to have an optimistic view when they look at numbers and sometimes they realize that their businesses that are losing money overtime and they feel like the moment that they buy this site, it's going to stop losing money, it's going to start– it's going to be flat or go up from there and there's no real reason to think that. So that's kind of really simple but that's a way that you can dismiss a lot of sites unless you have really specific knowledge about why it's going down and a very specific idea about how you can turn it around. Now we can talk about that way or two because a lot of people– that's hard to really know for sure. So then you need is just to stay away from those kinds of sites so we need to look–. So overall, key thing is you look at the graphs, if it's a stable business, you're looking for a stable business because the most important thing is– I kind of teach a risk-based methodology but for valuation and also for valuation-selection websites so for me, real core thing is you're looking for the engine for customer acquisition and you can– all kinds of sites she can evaluate, usually the successful ones. The owner, the creator, has found a way to systematically attract new clients and if it's a content site and the client is website visitor or if it's a services site, a client, whatever it is. And that process–whatever the process is, it might be toasting the Facebook every day, it might be buying Google ad words, ads, it might be just content creation regimen, it might be a product launch, philosophy on Amazon like these kinds of steps, I'd choose these kinds of products, I'd brand them in this way, I'd quadrant them in this way. And the process may be –it may not be like mind blowing in terms of what it actually is, but it might just be very consistent and perhaps complex and blast. and whatever that process is, it's that– is that engine it drives the site, that's really what you're buying because if you can get your mind around it and understand what it is that they're doing that attracts these customers consistently and then you can start envisioning how you would do that yourself and perhaps, how you would scale it, how you would tweak it to enhance it, then that's kind of the whole agree, So you want a process like that but you feel like doesn't have a hauls or gas in it, like you can see why it's working and how it's working and you get your head around that then you know the business model and then if it's historically if it's a cheap pretty solid results, consistent results, there's always going to be pivoting and changing strategies and so on but you get a model like that, that's kind of what you really want to buy, to probably grow what you're trying to buy as a buyer so that's kind of a key thing and then there's all kinds of methodology around you, valuation. We look like — there's like several dozen things you can evaluate that there's content and ownership and reasons people are selling and the financials and branding, legal aspects–all, all those kinds of things that you want to look at but the core thing is that how do they get their customers and what's the risk profile on this side. Mark: So how do you– how do you, work for– so that's really, really good advice, understanding the customer journey from beginning– from top of funnel, just awareness of the site that you're looking at down to the actual acquisition of the client. Right? How do you handle that insane environment like Amazon or were dealing with all the market places or even with– I guess with E-commerce, you do have a customer journey but have you worked much with Amazon to see how you would evaluate that? Jeff: Well, no, I don't have a lot of very specific experience with Amazon but I can tell you that– Amazon FBA is actually a very sophisticated business because there are so many elements of it and you have to do each of them quite well, actually. That's one of those cases were it's not just a simple three (3) or four (4) silver bullets and you win. It's like the people who do Amazon FBA well, do a lot of things well. They do product selection very well. Niche selection first, product selection well, then they understand the launch process like putting the right brand on their product and giving those initial reviews. And they understand the inventory process. They don't have cash problems with having generating a man and then having nothing to sell to people. Then they have to understand the operational aspects too like how do they wants making sales, how they actually get the product out and in a good way and then servicing the customers later on and answering their questions from there, just get a review and so it's really kind– it's a complex process so the– what I just said earlier about what's the engine behind it, well in that case, the engine is, are there good SOP's, is there a good team, is there like –what's kind of the new ones that has a loud– like some people, super good at branding and they're super good at that product launch process in Amazon and so that's kind of what's giving them the edge over the competition and other people were good with analytics and numbers and ratios and shipping cost, cost of good sold to whatever they're spending on customer service and all that kind of stuff. Which that's all fine but it's kind of that it's up front-end that's probably more important in Amazons like how they're interacting with the customer. Mark: Well this is why it's so important for pre-sellers to document their processes because a lot of this stuff is done almost from a skills like that is developed over years. Having those processes, documented, the stuff that you're doing on day-to-day basis helps buyers like you, Jeff or any of the buyers out there understand what's going on and try to sum it– that is as well. I want to go back about what you said about graphs because that really caught my attention. I–I'm with you on that. I love graphs. I think visualizing data, specifically the financial data is something people don't do enough. And I might geek out a little bit here, and save my finger craft that I used when I'm evaluating business myself, is year over year analysis that I like to look at both the revenue and to those gross profit. Definitely take a look at that if you're able to, if it's done on cruel basis. My discretionary earnings, it was a year-over-year because it soothes out some of the seasonality that you're naturally going to have in pretty much every business (0:31:12.3) has, even a little bit of seasonality. Is there a better–like a favorite approach or favorite sort of graph that you would recommend or any other piece of geo that you would look at to say, “Hey! Here's kind of a peak into the future or maybe what the drafts of help of these businesses” Jeff: First of all, I love year-over-year analysis too when you have a business that has enough historical data out there to be able to do that, and that's really, really helpful. But in terms of adding to that, for me, one of the important things is ratios and if you have a numbers degree, whether it's finance or accounting, whatever they teach you about that. But actually it's simpler than– you don't have to learn what you do in school. What it is, is your looking for things like the percentages of the cost that make up the total cost of the product or the service and a lot of times you can find problems where, for a few months, shipping was a lot of money or cost of product or cost advertising is a lot of money and then there's–and then some of those cost drop-off where the ratio changes, the percentage change radically. And for me, those are kind of– a lot of people are afraid of financial analysis in funnels but actually, we understand that what you're looking for is kind of that stability in the business and then a little– the flags or things that changes in the ratios, changes– the peaks and valleys in the chart. And is there good explanation for those peaks and valleys. Peaks and valleys are just fine. The only concern is what are the reasons behind those peaks and valleys and sometimes, for example, sellers, so they really have– they may not have any idea why they're getting more customers or any idea why they lost customers. And the big problem with that is that when you buy the site and something happens, you're not going to be able to get those customer back if you don't know the reasons for those things. So some of the tools and things that I look at. And also just say, they kind of end in the evaluation stage and stay on in due-diligence stage. One of most important tools for new buyers is to compare different sources of information, just in the content, for example, a lot of times, you'll have analytics reports then you have your ad network reports and sometimes you have bank statements, you have taxes, you have– you actually, a lot of times have a lot of different sources for very similar information and it's important to kind of compare those sources together to see if something's missing, something's kind of wack. And it kind of really helping, so in E-commerce is same thing, where a lot of times you'll have traffic and saying why I'm getting this many sales, repay-dues and then you have shopping cart software on your website, you have merchant processors who have similar data and then whatever is in half-thing in your back account and all of those things that's lying out. So , there's actually some, pretty simple tools, once your kind of aware them to take the mystique off of what're people are a little bit concerned about when they first enter business. Mark: Wow! there's– I kind of always restarted with this, rather than buy a big verse and buy a small sort of conversation that is a lot of details you get in to hear, but we are up against clock a little bit here. I think this idea of understanding the customer journey, understanding how they become customers, and the process they're involved there both can help any buyer understand how healthy a business is and how new was or how specialized they're going to have to be in their–works with that business but also potentially uncover some opportunities if there's leakage, for example in that customer journey wherein you're losing a lot of people at a certain step maybe they are taking advantage of cart abandonment technologies or maybe they don't have a good e-mail automation. Well these are opportunities that might be available for buyers. And then also this idea of looking at ratios; really, really solid advice. Jeff: Yeah, the ratios– what I will do again when I'm evaluating business is I'll look at cost of good sold– gross profits were the first things I will look at. Is that ratio staying healthy because you don't want a business where that's getting squeezed up at time or at least you need to understand that. But also you compare advertising to total revenue are you having to spend more just to keep the same revenue? Or has that owner adjusted another area so maybe they're spending more but cutting back on staff–But to make the bottom line look healthy but ,maybe lying underneath there's a few issues that you have to be aware of. Mark: I would love to sit and talk for a couple of hours because I think we could talk for a couple of hours. So, maybe what we'll do is we'll have you on again in the future and we can continue the conversation. In the meantime where can people learn more about you? Jeff: I've a website called “HeckYeah.org” and then “OwnOptimize.com” is where I'm selling my courses right now. So those are the two places. And yes Mark, I would love to– this is one of my favorite topics really is this idea. First time buyers, second, third time buyers; what are the questions that they have, which they look for and as you said, lots of things we could talk about. We're just barely scratching the surface so I'd love to come back and talk some more about it. Mark: Cool! Hey Jeff, thanks for coming on. Really appreciate you coming on and well, stay in touch. Jeff: Yeah, sounds good, great. Thanks a lot for having me. Links and Resources: Jeff's Website Jeff's Course The Website Investor

Professor Heidi K.  Brown is a former construction litigator, author and self-described introvert. Mark was able to connect with Heidi, who is based in Brooklyn, New York where she is the Director of the legal writing program at Brooklyn Law School, to discuss the differences between introverts and extroverts in the legal context. Heidi's recent book, The Introverted Lawyer: A Seven Step Journey Toward Authentically Empowered Advocacy, helps the introverted lawyer to best harness their personality and flourish in the legal field without conforming to the stereotypical lawyer as extrovert. Professor Brown will be presenting a CLE webinar entitled The Introverted Lawyer: Authentically Empowered Advocacy, in our New Lawyer Webinar series on May 9, 2018. Register now. ALPS In Brief, The ALPS Risk Management Podcast, is hosted by ALPS Risk Manager, Mark Bassingthwaighte. Transcript MARK: Hello, welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the ALPS Risk Management podcast. We're coming to you from the ALPS home office in the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Mozilla, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the ALPS Risk Manager, and I have the pleasure today of sitting down with Heidi K. Brown, a noted author. We're going to be talking about her book here in just a few minutes and also Professor at Brooklyn Law School. Welcome to the podcast Heidi and if I could have you briefly introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself and we'll get started on a conversation. HEIDI: Thank you so much for having me. Yes, I went to law school at the University of Virginia. I grew up in Virginia. Then I went into construction litigation right out of law school, actually both my summers in law school I worked for a construction litigation firm, a boutique litigation firm and ended up doing that for the bulk of my litigation career and about 15 years into my litigation career I transitioned into teaching legal writing. I've been doing that for about eight years now at three different schools. Most recently joined Brooklyn Law School as the Director of the Legal Writing Program, here in Brooklyn, New York. I love to write and my latest project as you mentioned is this booked called the Introverted Lawyer. MARK: As an aside, I just finished it. I thought it was a very well done book. I also found it interesting in firms of your history. Being an introvert and having this career in construction litigation, I just thought, "Wow, okay, that had to be a challenge." Let's start off just talking about some basics for out listener. Can you describe some of the key difference between introverts and extroverts in terms of the context of the legal profession? HEIDI: Sure, yes. Until I started really studying this in the legal context, I did what most people do and I sort of lumped those labels of quiet individuals together, introverts, shyness, social anxiety. But they're actually very different concepts and different categories of personality traits and preferences. So, first I can sort of distinguish between introversion and extroversion, if that would help, and then distinguish among introversion, shyness and social anxiety. So introverts and extroverts, those terms really just describe the different ways we process stimuli, energy, and information. Introverts process all of those types of things deeply and internally and sort of methodically on the inside. Where as extroverts process stimuli and information and energy externally. So, I kind of like to use the image of Time Square in New York, it's a very highly stimulated environment and an extrovert might thrive on the noise and the action and the number of people and gain energy from that scenario. Where as an introvert can handle that with skill, but in a shorter dosage and will need to sort of retreat to quietude and solitude to regain energy and to process all of that stimuli. In the legal context, well, introverts can be very adept at processing information and complex legal concepts, they need to do it internally. Actually the scientists say that introverts and extroverts use two completely different neurological pathways in the brain to process information. And the introvert's pathway is longer, so that's why is can take us longer to listen to questions, read something, handle a lot of competing voices in a meeting and we process all of that internally and deeply before we're ready to respond aloud. It can seem like an introvert is slower, but actually they're just going very deep into analyzing concepts. Shyness and social anxiety and completely different concepts. You can be an introvert and not be shy at all. Shyness and social anxiety and more of a fear of judgment or a fear of criticism in performance oriented scenarios. And that can stem from sort of things that we remember from growing up, maybe we had a coach or a well-meaning mentor or peers or a care giver who put us in situations where we felt judgment or even shame, sometimes, can drive adult shyness and social anxiety. So they're very different categories. I find it helps, when we start to understand ourselves in the legal context what might be holding us back in certain scenarios. It's helpful to understand, "Is this because I'm an introvert and I process things internally or is this because I'm afraid of the perception of judgment from a judge or opposing counsel or a colleague or a client. MARK: I find it fascinating. There was some real learning out of this and even just what you shared, but I picked up in the book as well. I am an extrovert. I have always sort of viewed introverts as, if you will, a behavioral situation, a behavioral issue. And I don't want to say ... It's just different. But you're talking about this processing, internal brain. I just found that absolutely fascinating. It really sheds some light on an issue for it. I liked that. What prompted you to write the book? HEIDI: Well, throughout my litigation career I always loved the legal research and writing aspects of my job, but I struggled with the performance oriented aspects of my job. As you can imagine, in the construction litigation world, performance matters. It's a tough industry, you have these strong personalities and the cases I was dealing with would take about two years to do to trial from complaint filing all the way to the actual trial. We were dealing with a lot of depositions, a lot of discovery. It was very performance oriented, lots of negotiations. I struggled in those environments because, while I loved the research and writing and figuring out the complex contractual issues and the legal issues that happened in all of our cases, in those moments of performance I felt I had to mirror the other attorney's behavior or the client's behavior and a lot of times, as I mentioned these strong or tough personalities, and I just don't have that personality. For about 15 years of my career path I thought that was a weakness of mine or there was something wrong with me and I was the only nervous one in the room. And as I describe in the book, I have a blushing tendency, I flush, I turn red, my face gets blotchy when I'm nervous. So I have a really bad poker face in negotiations and in court room scenarios. Again, I always thought that was a flaw and what really prompted me to write this book and study this deeply in the legal context what when I transitioned to teaching, while I was litigating, I was working on a big case out in California and I was asked to start teaching a legal writing course at the same time. And I noticed that my strongest legal writers, my most thoughtful, analytical students were also my quiet ones and the most fearful of the performance scenarios, whether it's the Socratic method in the classroom or a mandatory oral argument simulation. And I finally thought, oh my goodness, Instead of giving these amazing students this message that maybe you're not cut out for litigation or, if this is so stressful for you, maybe you should go do something else, which were messages that I heard and absorbed in my career. I thought, no, these are amazing thinkers, they're great listeners, they're hard workers, they're creative problem solvers and we need to find a way to explain why certain performance scenarios are harder for some of us than other. And it doesn't mean we're not able to do it or we can't be fantastic at it, we just need to understand ourselves better. So that's what led me to study introversion and shyness and social anxiety in the legal context because no one had really talked about it in the legal profession. We obviously have the stereotype of lawyers being extroverted and confident and sort of gregarious and that's not actually the case in every scenario. My goal was really to help quiet law students and junior associates who were worried maybe they weren't cut out for our profession and empower them to know that yes they absolutely are and here are some tips for amplifying our voices in an authentic manor. Throughout my career the mantras I always heard was, "Fake it till you make it," or "Just do it," that amazing Nike slogan. But those messages aren't really helpful in the types of scenarios that I struggle with and also that I'm talking about here. MARK: And what I really enjoyed and another take-away, I guess, from the book is you really talk about the introverted lawyer has a different set of strengths or assets, if you will. I thought that was very interesting, can you kind of highlight what value, strengths do introverted lawyers bring to the profession? HEIDI: Yes, what I noticed and gleaned from all the resources that I studied, is that common themes pervade quiet individuals. If you're thinking about introverts or even people who experience that shyness that I mentioned before. The experts on these issues show that these individuals are active listeners, they really can sit in a room, even with competing voices, and they're listening to what these individuals are saying and they're really focused on hearing what someone else is sharing. They're, as I mentioned before, kind of deep thinkers, really methodical, slow, careful, thinkers, they're processing all this information of a deep level. They also have a tendency towards creative problem solving. Because they're listening and absorbing lots of different competing ideas, they're capable of synthesizing those into solutions that maybe some of the individuals speaking are overlook in the moment. And that's why it can also lead to really strong legal writing because when a person can be quiet and reflective and sort of work out a problem through writing, it can really illuminate solutions to legal problems that maybe aren't apparent if we're just debating and talking about them out loud in a verbal valet scenario. Then one thing that really surprised me or stood out to me during my research was that these experts pointed out that quiet individuals also bring empathy to a human interaction. As a former construction litigator you might not think of empathy as being an important legal trait or a skill of an attorney. But I started remembering scenarios in my job where we were trying to resolve a conflict on a massive construction project and just to kind of take a step back for a minute and to have empathy and try and figure out what really is driving this conflict? It's not the firing off of these angry emails that people do on construction jobs sometimes- MARK: Right. HEIDI: ... but it's really this human frustration that, on a random Tuesday on the job site, rain is pouring down and materials are late and everybody's trying to get something done and it's not working and trying to really understand from an empathy standpoint what's really driving the conflict from a human perspective. I was excited to hear all these positive traits that quiet folks bring to the legal profession, that we sometimes don't appreciate as much as, in my opinion, we should. Good lawyers need to be good listeners and not always speaking, we need to actually listen to the client who might be afraid to tell us what's really going on. Then good lawyers need to deeply think about complicated legal concepts, the law is hard and we need people who can sort of take a quiet moment, find that difficult answer in a sea of research, take the time to write and reflect on the problem and write out the problem and come to a solution that might not be as obvious if we're just talking about it. Things like that really stood out to me as amazing traits that quiet folks bring to our profession. MARK: Yeah, and when I think about all this myself, there are certainly the lawyers that we've been talking about, very, very aggressive and these kinds of things. I don't know that that approach really serves our clients best. And I like the focus on taking the time to really go deep and explore and think through and look at the issues. What I hear is we're placing ... we're moving away from the advocacy model toward a, what is really best for the client, problem solving model, both are necessary. But I really value where you're going with all of this, I really do. I'd like to talk a little bit about the process that you describe in your book. You acknowledge that while introverts and otherwise quiet advocates can be pivotal, change agents for the profession. These lawyers still need to be able to jump into the fray and speak with assertiveness at times because it's just called for, it's necessary. And you developed a seven step process for, if you were amplifying the voice. Can you talk a little bit about these steps? HEIDI: Yes, as I mentioned, the messages that I absorbed over my trajectory and my career were always sort of just, "Fake it till you make it," or, "Do these performance events 1000 times and it will get easier." I tried those methods and they absolutely did not work for me, it never got easier and when I started studying this, the book, I realized it wasn't getting easier because I was just hurdling myself into these scenarios without any self-awareness and not really understanding that my approach to the law is maybe different from an extroverted person. In developing the seven step process, it really broke down into a reflective plan and an action plan and really beginning to step into these performance events that we need to do as lawyers- MARK: Right. HEIDI: ... we can't just avoid- MARK: Of course. HEIDI: ... performance or human interaction. But doing it with heightened self-awareness and then a conscience plan for each event. So the seven steps really developed into the first two steps being reflection on mental approached to these types of events and physical approaches. I was really excited when I started realizing how important the physical aspect of anxiety is, like what are we doing physically in an anticipation of these types of events that maybe isn't that helpful to us, it's instinctive what our bodies do physically, but it's not always helpful. So step one is reflecting mentally on what we are hearing in our minds as we are approaching a law related performance event. Some lawyers might sort of resist going that direction and feel like, "Oh, I don't want to get too touchy feely with my emotions." But it's so important to realize and reflect on and listen to what we tell ourselves in anticipation of a negotiation or court room appearance or a difficult conversation with the client, what messages are we hearing in our minds and then trying to pin point, "Wait, where have I heard that before and what's the original source of that message because it absolutely is not the person who's in front of us today."   It really comes from this ingrained or entrenched mental messages that we've been telling ourselves for years and years and years. It's really remarkable when you can realize, "Oh, this is not the law professor that I'm encountering or the judge or the intimidating opposing counsel or the strong personality client, this is a, perhaps well-meaning, mentor or coach or authority figure from high school or college or an earlier event in our professional careers. And it's really tremendous when you can realize, "Oh, okay that message no longer has any relevance in my legal persona today." But it takes us taking the time to listen to it and then we can sort of override it or delete it from our mental soundtrack. Step one is that reflection piece on the mental messages.   Step two is a physical reflection approach. And I mentioned my blushing problem before. To hide the blushing in my legal career, which I felt was a weakness of just this shiny red billboard of my fear, I used to hide it. I used to wear turtlenecks and scarves and try and hide myself, but physically that was just making my physically reactions worse because I was hot, I was feeling constricted. When I started doing step two, which is the physical reflection piece, you realize your body is just going into instinctive protective mode when you feel fear or anxiety. But what we do is we close ourselves off. We cross our legs or hunch our shoulders or constrict our bodies to get small and invisible. But all that's doing is constricting our energy, our adrenaline, it's preventing us from breathing clearly, it's effecting the oxygen levels going to our brain, our blood is not flowing in a productive manor. But we don't realize that's happening to us until we take the time to reflect and monitor sort of minute-by-minute what we do instinctively in anticipation of a stressful moment. Step one and two are really the reflection piece.   Steps three and four are flipping those recognitions or those realizations and having a new plan. Step three is having a new mental action plan. And I kind of like to analogize to the fire fighter mantra of stop, drop, and roll. When we step into a performance event or anticipate one, those old messages are gonna show up they just do, they've been ingrained in us for years. But we hear them and realize, "Oh, wait a minute. I'm gonna stop. I'm not gonna listen to that and instead I'm gonna apply my new approach. I've prepared for this event, I know the case law or the statute of the client facts better than anyone in the room, I've done all this preparation, and I have something to say. I'm gonna do it my way." And just having this new mental action plan for when those old messages creeped in. Same thing when the physical action plan, which is step four. It's knowing that our bodies are instinctively gonna try and close us off from the event and protect us. But having an athlete's approach to the performance event, standing in a balanced stance, either at a podium or even in a seat at a conference table, opening up your channels of breathing oxygen flow, blood flow and giving your excess energy and place to go. It's amazing in a performance moment when you realize, "Oh, I'm crossing my legs again. I need to sort of balance myself out and breathe. And it's really incredible when you realize just by making subtle physical changes, you can breathe better and then your brain works better and everything just kind of flows in a positive direction. And then steps five, six, and seven are really just building on that for the long-term. Step five is about developing, what the experts call, and exposure agenda. When I first read about the term exposure, I thought this sounds dangerously like just do it, just expose yourself to these scary events and everything will be fine. But exposure in the psychology perspective is stepping into these moments with self-awareness and a plan and it's really looking at law related scenarios that might give some of us anxiety, consciously prioritizing them from least anxiety producing to most anxiety producing. And then having a real conscious mental plan and physical plan for each event incrementally. And then stepping into each event with purpose and the plan. And then step six gets even more nitty gritty and tangible with each event and that is designed to have, to use an athlete metaphor, a pregame plan and a game day plan for each of those events, trying to put yourself in the scenario, substantively, mentally, and physically if you can go to the space, go to the room if that's possible, check out the seating arrangements, the podium, is there a microphone, what's lighting like, how many people are gonna be there, and just anticipating different situations that normally might derail us but now we can take more control. And then step seven is just a reflection after each event and figuring out positively what worked great and maybe what you can make some subtle changes to for the next event. MARK: What I liked about ... again, as an extrovert approaching this material, I think there's a lot of value to it for non-introverts as well. I really like this aspect of self-reflection and trying to understand, both emotionally and physically, why we do what we do. I think sometimes people are very aggressive for fears and all kinds of things. You see where I'm going. I love the whole model that you've developed here. HEIDI: Thank you. MARK: Can you talk a little bit about ... the temptation, if you will, is to say, okay. We've talked about some of the strengths are introverted lawyers have. Does that, from your perspective, do you think limits that areas of practice that introverted lawyers can really excel in? Do you see where I'm going with this? HEIDI: Right. Not at all. I don't feel the introverts should limit themselves to the types of areas of legal practice or really any aspects of legal practice. To be honest, those were the kind of messages that I either heard or I misinterpreted that, "Well, why did you do into litigation if you were nervous about taking a deposition?" Or, "Why did you go into construction law if you didn't want to fight like a champion?" And I don't think those are productive messages at all because in my experience and working on myself. I realized introverted and quiet individuals can do any aspect of law, they just need to have better self-awareness or enhanced self-awareness of their strength and also scenarios that might cause them some particular challenges, how to step in to those challenges with force and amplification, but in an authentic manner, not trying to fake extroversion or mirror the behavior of a really boisterous gregarious person, but instead stepping into the scenario as a calm, quieter figure but with power. And it was eye-opening when I realize, a quiet individual can be a very tremendous voice in a negotiation or in the courtroom. We don't all have to be boisterous and gregarious to be effective. That was a huge realization for me. I definitely do not think that introverts should only go into transactional law, for instance, because transactional law requires a lot of performance, so you're really not cutting out those performance scenarios. But I also feel that if we encourage introverts to limit their interest, we're missing out on a tremendous body of voices that have great ideas for any aspect and any area of practice if that law and that's not what we should be doing. We should be including these voices in all aspects of our legal profession. What's been fun and exciting throughout this journey with this book is talking to extroverts who were open to understanding introverts better so they can better manage teams and understand that having both introverts and extroverts on a legal team, whether it's in transactional work or a litigation is an asset because you're bringing these different minds together to solve problems in different ways, and that's really gonna serve the client better. Rather than us all trying to be this one stereotypical lawyer. MARK: Let's follow up on that just a little bit because I will confess that I have been one of these people that will say, or at least out of naivety had this thought, that but do it kind of a thing. You know what I ... what advice do you have for manager partners or supervision attorneys in terms of recruiting and developing a talented pool of introverted lawyers? HEIDI: I've been really excited to hear how open so many managing partners and leaders are in learning more about different personality types and being vulnerable themselves and looking to see if, are they really extroverted or have they just been acting extroverted all these years. I think the more that law office leaders or law firm leaders or legal profession leaders understand that we are not all the same, but getting a little touchy feely I guess with personality traits and understanding the assets that different diverse individuals bring to the profession is a huge first step. Just realizing, okay, we're not all the same and that's a good thing. Then I've also been trying to study and understand how to encourage law firm leaders and law office leaders to acknowledge the presence of fear in lawyering because there are many scenarios that we encounter in the practice of law that are just scary, and they're scarier for some of us than others. It really accomplishes a great deal when a law firm leader can say to junior associates, "Hey, look I realize that some lawyering scenarios are gonna be scarier for some of you than others, that is okay. It doesn't mean you're not cut out for this. But let's talk about that and really figure out what is it about this particular deposition or negotiations or client scenario that's troubling you and let's talk about the tactical aspects of it." Not always the substantive preparation because I think all of us endeavor to work as hard as we can on the substance of the law, that really being honest about the mental aspects of our job, that tactical scenarios that we don't always teach in law school, and we assume that junior attorneys can just figure out in the field. Managing partners and law firm leaders, really sit down openly and talk with junior attorneys about the reality of fear in lawyering and provide helpful advice and mentoring on how to handle those scenarios without judgment, without making it seem like a weakness. I think that will really go to great lengths to help the well-being of our profession and help everybody perform better and serve our clients in a really fantastic way. MARK: I have one final question I'm very curious about. You've come out at the end of an interesting journey, and we have the book here. Knowing what you know now, if you were to go back and do it all over again, in terms of your career, would you do anything different? HEIDI: I would have been so much healthier. If I had known all this then, I would have been able to take the pressure off of myself to prepare for depositions and trial work and client scenarios in a way that made it okay for me to turn red in a deposition and keep going, keep going with my plan, don't let my nerves make me feel weak or like I'm not but out for this. And I so wish I could go back and redo all of those scenarios and just be able to talk myself through those scenarios realizing you are substantively prepared, you know what you're doing, you have a voice, you're entitled to do it your way and not try and mirror the guys across the table, don't worry about if you're blushing, it doesn't matter, you're doing a good substantive job. And I think I would have had a much healthier journey through my twenties and my thirties. But I think all of that experience led me to the place that I am now and I'm very happy in my job, I love teaching legal writing, it's a powerful medium for lawyers to communicate and this book has really taught me how introverts and shy and socially anxious law students can really change our profession if somebody just takes a moment to tell them, "You can do this." And that's been very exciting. MARK: We are at the end of our time here. I'd like to say, Professor Brown, thank you so much. It really has been a pleasure. To our listeners, I hope you found something of value and interest today out of this conversation. And if in future you have any ideas for topic or if you have questions or concerns you'd like to see addressed in one of our podcasts, please don't hesitate to reach out to me at mbass@alpsnet.com. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye.  Heidi K. Brown is a graduate of The University of Virginia School of Law, a law professor at Brooklyn Law School, and a former litigator in the construction industry. Having struggled with extreme public speaking anxiety and the perceived pressure to force an extroverted persona throughout law school and nearly two decades of law practice, she finally embraced her introversion and quiet nature as a powerful asset in teaching and practicing law. She is the author of a two-volume legal writing book series entitled The Mindful Legal Writer, won a Global Legal Skills award for her work in helping law students overcome public speaking anxiety in the context of the Socratic Method and oral arguments, and was appointed to the Fulbright Specialist roster to teach English legal writing in international law schools. As the author of The Introverted Lawyer, Heidi champions the power of quiet law students and lawyers to be profoundly impactful advocates, in their authentic voices.

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

  Mark S A Smith is the author of 13 popular books and sales guides and has authored more than 400 magazine articles. He is a genuine Guerrilla Marketing guru, co-authoring three books with Jay Conrad Levinson, and is a certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach.   A renaissance man with many talents, Mark is passionate about leadership, team building, teamwork, sales, and marketing. For over twenty years Mark has served as a strategic advisor to corporate leaders and executives all over the world who must develop the best way to bring in the right strategies for successful growth and sustainability.   What makes him different is he brings a holistic view of the business instead of solely focusing on one aspect and ignoring the impact of decisions on the rest of the organization   How to Get the Most Out of 2018 Tapping into the top five trends to grow your nonprofit: Omnichannel – allow members to consume you anywhere and every way How the growing economy creates monetary opportunities The impact of higher unemployment on your volunteer force and how to pivot to get all you need New leadership demands: what's changing and how to stay out front Turning unrest into peace: how to divorce your organization from the media's promotion of outrage Interview Transcript   Hugh Ballou: Greetings, it's Hugh Ballou and Russell Dennis on this version of The Nonprofit Exchange. A dear friend who I see too rarely, we have been talking virtually but now we are together. I said, Why don't we talk about some things that are on your radar?” Mark S. A. Smith, welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. Mark S. A. Smith: Such a delight to be here. Thank you, Hugh. Hello, Russell. Hello, friends on Facebook. Welcome. We have a lot of interesting things to talk about because 2018 is going to be an astounding year. You might be listening to this in 2020 or 2024. But you know something? What we are talking about today will probably still be issues even in the next five to ten years. Or opportunities, as the case may be. Hugh: We record messages that are timeless. But you're right. We are turning the page into 2018 as we are recording this. If you are a regular listener, you know you can go to thenonprofitexchange.org and see the video versions of these. But you can go to iTunes and download the audio there. Mark, you are in a series of really powerful interviews we have done over three years. We are starting our fourth year of these great interviews. What we endeavor to do more often than not is find people that have business expertise. Let's install that particular business expertise into the charity. It might be a church, a synagogue, a membership organization, or a community foundation, but it's some sort of philanthropic work that we're doing. Before we get into the subject matter, which I'm going to hold off in giving people a title, tell people a little bit about Mark Smith and why you are able to talk about this topic today. Mark: I help people sell complex, expensive, high-consideration things as fast as humanly possible. I am an electrical engineer; therefore, I am a systems thinker. I have recovered. I don't sell or do engineering very much, but I do help people sell complex things. That is where you have multiple people involved in making the decision. Each person has a different view of what creates value and what we need to do. Sounds an awful lot like this nation, doesn't it? Hugh: Yeah. Mark: How do you round up consensus? How do you have people go the same way? Just like when you're working with nonprofits, herding cats is what we have to do. It's the same thing when you have to sell expensive technology. What I'm doing here is applying all the things I have learned about selling very expensive things to the world of nonprofits. It's absolutely identical. I, too, do work with a nonprofit. I am on a board here in Las Vegas where I live. I've been involved in nonprofits throughout my life. I understand, and I am delighted to share with you my business acumen. What I like to tell people is a nonprofit is not a business plan; it's a tax status. Hugh: That's not a philosophy, no. You're very active on social media, especially Twitter. You put out little short memes with a few words on it. I gotta tell you, they are very thought-provoking. They help me focus on what's important. Mark: I am honored that that happens. Thank you. Hugh: There has been this coincidence of you tweeting on the things we are actually talking about. Sometimes simultaneously. I find that to be fascinating. Mark: The issues are the same. Whether it's nonprofits or the for-profit world, the issues we face are frankly identical. Hugh: I laugh when business leaders say, “That might work in the church.” Mark: Or the other side is that the religious leaders say, “That might work in business, but it won't work in the church.” Hugh: If it's true anywhere, it's true everywhere. Mark: We're humans working with humans. Hugh: I think we've stalled long enough in telling people what the topic is. What is the topic? Russell wants to know. Mark: All right, Russell. You're ready? Today's topic is how to get the most out of this year, which happens to be 2018. We are going to talk about five trends that are going on that you need to know about as the leader of your nonprofit to stay ahead of the game, to grow, and to prosper heading forward. Some of the things we are going to talk about are technology, and some of the things we are going to talk about are psychology. Hugh: Say that last sentence again. That caught me off guard. Mark: Don't you know I do that to you? And you do the same to me when you're speaking. Some of the things we are going to talk about are technology, understanding the technology that nonprofits have to be embracing and keeping track of and staying up with. Some of it happens to be psychology, what is happening in the general zeitgeist of the world and how they impact nonprofits. Whether you think they do or not, they do. Your constituents, your members, your flock all are impacted by what they see in the news and what they experience with retail and what happens in the business world. They carry those attitudes and insights into your organization, whether you want them to or not. We have to manage that. We have to deal with it. We have to capitalize whenever possible or perhaps even neutralize it in some cases. That is what I mean by psychology. Hugh: Absolutely. I think we're guilty in any discipline. I know in the church, I have had people say to somebody, “You're so heavily minded you're no earthly good.” We all live in the reality of today. I can say that I served the church for 40 years and probably got to that space myself. I put in very carefully numbered bullet points. I noticed that I numbered them wrong. Our first one is, Omnichannel. Speak about that. Tell us what that means. Mark: Listener, have you ever had the situation where you were multi-tasking, perhaps watching television and checking your telephone for messages or tweets, or maybe even reading the news story you are watching on TV simultaneously to see what if you were seeing on TV made sense to other news channels? That's omnichannels, my friend. The reality is we are multi-screening. You are getting information from multiple locations at all times in all ways. What this means to nonprofits is you have to be able to bring your message, bring your service to your constituents in every way that they consume information. Just by a show of hands, who here has for your organization—I see ten fingers there, well, eight fingers and two thumbs. Sometimes I am just all thumbs. Do you have an app? Do you have the opportunity of having your constituents consume your services, your podcasts, your sermons via a dedicated app that would alert them when something new becomes available? Are you using the technology to your benefit? Now if you're doing that, fantastic. Just stay with it. You have to understand we live in an omnichannel world. We are consuming many things in many different ways. Mobile apps, partner locations, maybe figuring out other locations for people to access your services. Where do your constituents go that you can have a kiosk or a corner or something like that where people can plug in, enjoy, take advantage of, be reminded of, contribute to, consume whatever it is you are bringing to the marketplace? Since I don't know what your nonprofit is, we are spraying and hoping you will catch a couple of ideas here. The concept here is you need to be everywhere that your people are every time you possibly can be. The reality is if you are a church, people are carrying around a sermon in a box in their mobile device. Chunk things up into five-minute pieces to give them a chance to remind, refresh, and renew. If you are supplying educational elements, keep pushing out opportunities for people to learn and to refresh. If you're supplying the opportunity for people to volunteer, if they are standing in line or waiting at a traffic light and they can pull out their mobile device and contribute something in some sort of thought-provoking way, let them do so. That is what we mean by omnichannel. Take advantage of that any way you possibly can. Hugh: You said something about five-minute segments. Remind, refresh, and renew. Talk more about that. Mark: What I am finding is short segments of content that provoke people. Just like when you read something from me on Twitter, you're telling me that I am inspiring you, I am provoking some thoughts, I am causing you to think about new things, maybe connect some new dots. The bulk of those tweets are 140 characters. There are some that run a little bit longer thanks to Twitter's new length limits, but it's a very short little boom. It's a little thought bomb that goes off in your brain. As a nonprofit, most of us are in business to inspire, to have people live a better life, to improve their condition, to stay on target, to stay on task, to stay on the straight and narrow. That requires constant reminders. Another thing to keep in mind is if you are a church or an organization where people come to see you once a week or once a month, it's not enough. They are bombarded by all these other messages and all these other counter-messages that they may not wish to consume. Our job is to remind them there is another way of thinking. There is another opportunity. There is better potential for them that they have already volunteered to be a part of. If we can chunk our messages from a text standpoint, an audio standpoint, or a short video standpoint to refresh, renew, and remind themselves there is a reason why those of us who have a spiritual practice, it's a daily practice if not hourly. Hugh: Yes. Oh yes. That is so important. I think the biggest flaw I see in organizations is when people say, “They should know better because we told them that,” but they told them that in 1903, and you have repeated it since then. Mark: Here's the problem, friends. You may have told them that, but the other side has told them their viewpoint a thousand times since the last time you said it. Hugh: Omnichannel. When I first saw that, I thought it was a piece of software. Mark: It's a concept. Hugh: Russell is taking good notes. Do you want to weigh in on this omnichannel touchpoint? Mark, what you're doing is top of mind marketing, isn't it? Mark: Yes. Let's just keep reminding them what they have asked us to remind them of. Hugh: Russell? He's been very polite. Mark: He's been quiet. He's been smiling. He is giving me thumbs up. He is also muted. Russell Dennis: Not anymore. We can quickly fix that. Greetings and salutations, Mark. Good to see you again. It's been a while. I was just typing that when you're out there in multiple places, where your people are, and that's the important thing to figure out is where your people are and getting out there and getting in front of them. We are in a short attention span society. If you're not out there online, you're left behind. It's not a fad. It's not a trend. It's here to stay. Hugh: I think it's also in person. Where do your people hang out? I am hearing omnichannel as virtual as well as live. Mark: Absolutely. Physical, too. It has to do with digital signage for example. Digital signage is omnichannel. Most of us have digital signage in our houses of worship. As I pointed out, as we talked about, where are they? Let's see if we can put a digital sign in the places our people hang out to remind them of the messages they have agreed to consume. Hugh: Great. We are sitting at the top of 2018. Our market has been growing. There are over 100 companies that announced employee dividends and financial expansion of programs since the tax bill passed at the end of 2017. There are all kinds of energy and economy. Talk about how that benefits the nonprofit sector. Mark: We are sitting at the highest consumer satisfaction index of all time. I think it's for a number of reasons. One is that a lot of people are feeling good about themselves again. A lot of them have hope for the future. A lot of them feel that in spite of the noise we hear on the mainstream news on a regular basis, locally, the communities are doing well. More people have jobs. More people are feeling good about what's possible. Certainly my business has been substantially increased. As you pointed out, yours has, too. A big part of it is that my customers are looking forward to growth and therefore investing in opportunities to grow. As a nonprofit, you can plug into this feeling of goodness and growth, asking for more than you could ask for in the past. Requesting more. Asking people to donate more for perhaps more time, for perhaps a higher level of investment of themselves into the organization. When people are feeling good, they say yes to opportunities because it doesn't feel like it's so heavy. Doesn't feel like it's such a burden. When we feel depressed, it's very hard for people to feel good about themselves. Hugh: What makes people say yes? I still have lots of- Mark: What a great question! I'm so glad you asked it. What makes people say yes is because your request is in alignment with their personal identity. Hugh: Whoa. Whoa. Hey, Russ. What does that trigger with you? Russell: It's everything. Everything revolves around relationships now. People are starting to figure that out. It doesn't matter what business you're in. Now you have to build relationships. In the old days, you could just blurt out at people. There were very few places for them to get a message. They were fed by three big networks messages. Think about Henry Ford when he talked about the Model T. They can have any car they want as long as it's black. Now people have choices. They have different avenues for expression, and they have short attention spans, so you have to resonate with people because they will look for another cause if they feel like they're not being romanced, so to say. You have to keep that connection some type of way, keep thanking them, showing the impact they are making, and staying with it. People change. There are so many different causes that they can get involved with now. It's like anything else to maintain that brand loyalty as it were. You have to connect with your tribe. People want a sense of connection and a sense of accomplishment. Younger people coming into the work force want to do work that matters. Hugh: Mark, I pinged Russell because many times in the interviews, he helps us remember that whether you are creating board members or talking to donors, we have to think about what it is they want, what they are interested in, what they want to achieve. There is a messaging piece that I was honing in on here. How do we form our message so that we do connect with that like-minded person? Mark: Let's get back to the concept of personal identity. People buy things to support their identity or they buy things or engage in things to help them transform their identity into a new place that they desire to be. It's a really important concept because all sales, all marketing, all recruiting, all conversion happens when a person sees their identity as that which you are offering as a nonprofit. That transformation for a lot of people is where we're heading. As people grow, they transform. As young people go from high school to college, they are transforming. As they go from college into the workforce, they are transforming. That personal identity, how you view yourself and how you want to be viewed by—Russell, you said it right on—tribe, we choose our tribe, and the choices that we make determine our tribe. In a model I generated, those tribe decisions are mission-critical. The reason why is because if you make the wrong choices, the people who you might like may just stop calling you back. They may quit inviting you out. They might leave you on your own. That is where that personal identity comes into play. Identity happens way more than people realize. A great example of that is sports. Russell, do you consider yourself a sports fan? Russell: I love it. Mark: Do you have a team? Russell: Believe it or not, I root for the Cleveland Browns. Mark: Why the hell would an intelligent man like you root for such a losing team when a logical person would pick a winning team to root for? Russell: I grew up there. Mark: That's it. Yes! Russell: I haven't lived there in almost 40 years, but home is home. Mark: It's part of your core identity. It is so deeply ingrained in your core identity that I couldn't get you to wear a piece of the opposing team's clothing even if I paid you. That's the power of identity. When you as a nonprofit can tap into that identity, that is where you really get that brand experience where people refuse to go anywhere else. But you have to keep reinforcing that identity. You have to make sure that the identity you're offering continues to shift in the proper direction over time. In a growing economy, people have the opportunity of transforming that identity. That is really where we're going with this #2 point. It gives you a chance to perhaps recruit people, to bring people in that you haven't been able to before because they couldn't afford it, they didn't have the bandwidth or the money. Now they do. Get very clear. A definitive passionate, audience that wants to be recognized or grow their identity can help you as an organization grow. Get really clear. Get really sharp about this. It will have a massive impact for you in 2018. Cool? Hugh: Absolutely. You talked about unemployment. The numbers show the unemployment figures at the end of 2017 were the lowest they've been in forever. But there are still people who are underemployed. They are not unemployed. Mark: In fact, those underemployed people are the ones who are perfect for volunteers. The reason why is as humans, we like to feel we are making a difference. Russell, you pointed that out in your last comments. We really want to feel we are doing good, like we are making a difference. When we are underemployed, we don't have that feeling that we are living up to our potential. People in that environment can be invited to fulfill that in a nonprofit volunteer situation. Whether it's an executive who has moved to a lower position, who needs to give back and still provide that strategic input, that is the perfect person to capture for example. Or perhaps the stay at home mom who went back to work because her kids are out of the house, and as she enters back in, she doesn't go back in at the top level where she started. She comes in at a lower level, and she needs to fill that gap of feeling good about herself until she can be promoted up to that new level. That is the opportunity that you as a nonprofit can fill. Hugh: You spoke earlier about working with a local nonprofit in Las Vegas where you live. Why did you say yes to that? Mark: For two reasons. One is that I have an expertise that the association can use. I can benefit the association in quite a few different ways because of my deep history in business and as a professional. And that association also allows me, it feeds me in that I get to be with other people whose future is my history. And so I get a chance to give back because if I rewind my life back 30 years, I was the person who is being served by the mentor who I get to be today. Hugh: So your input is important to shaping the future of their work. Mark: And they have a desire to have a similar experience that I had. When we are looking for a mentor—this is probably one of the best pieces of advice I've had in my life—look for somebody whose history is your future. They can help you plot the path. While your paths will be slightly different, the fundamentals won't be that far off. Hugh: Russell, did you capture that last comment? Russell: I did not. I was in the process of typing that. I don't type very quickly. This is interesting because what we are talking about, there are three things that a nonprofit needs: time, talent, and treasure. We get obsessed with the money and forget about time and talent. Especially with people who are underemployed, people have different motivations for joining you. When you are clear about what it is you are trying to do and you have inventoried all of your assets, which include time, talent, skills, knowledge, abilities, those are all assets to the nonprofit. When you can leverage that and get other people, it's like money in the bank because you go out, build relationships, get sponsors for media, cash sponsors, you go out and get people to contribute pro bono services, you bring students in, you bring professional firms. There is a number of different ways to approach getting pro bono talent. When you are clear on who you are and what you need, you can offer these folks some time. Maybe they need to build their portfolio. Maybe they are tried and just want to give back. Maybe they are entering the workforce. Maybe they are underemployed and want to have some projects and creations of their own. You can set that table. When you are clear on what it is that people want, then they will come support you and always keep evaluating, putting challenges out there for them to stretch and grow and invest in their learning. They have reasons to stick with you in that case. Mark: Right on. I think if you get the time and talent right, the treasure follows automatically. The reason why is what is money? It is a reward for doing what others want. It's canned labor. That's another way of looking at it. Russell: Canned labor, but meaningful labor. It's not standing at a copy machine all day or making coffee. It's actually creating things. Building your social media strategy, writing policies, it's endless the number of things you can find volunteers to do that they can help support the organization with. Yes, even fundraising. The sky's the limit. It's up to your own creativity and finding out what moves people. If you don't have any money, you probably have time and talent. Mark: They probably know people. There is also ways of converting some of that talent and some of that time into treasure. If you think about it, that's what a business does. It converts time and talent into treasure. As a nonprofit, you can do exactly the same thing. Your tax status permits that to happen. Hugh: Money is also reward for providing value. Russell: Another way to keep score. Mark: That's universally agreed upon. Hugh: Back to where we were talking at the beginning of this interview about installing sound business principles into the charity. I am using charity purposefully here. Sometimes we use the word “nonprofit,” which spins us into this scarcity thinking that we can't generate a profit. But the profit is what pays for the philanthropic work of the organization. Like you said, it's not a business plan. It's not a philosophy. It's a tax classification. It's really tax exempt work. We are getting a lot of useful content today about leveraging what is around us instead of getting stuck in our hole, our silo. You ready to move to the next one? Mark: Let's do it. I think we have beaten that topic up a little bit. I like it. Hugh: #3 is New Leadership Demands. What is changing, and how do we stay out front? I remember years ago people were hiring the motivational speaker. Give me rah, rah. Then people left the room, and it was over. People aren't hiring motivational speakers. They are hiring people with solid, executable content. What has changed in the leadership segment? What are you thinking about? Mark: What I see is the informational speaker and the inspirational speaker versus motivational speaker. Let's talk about that, and then we will go on to the topic of what's changing with leadership. The difference between a motivational speaker and an inspirational speaker is very simple. If we go back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which I see as a fundamental to everything we do, both within the charitable sector as well as the business sector, those two lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy is physical needs and then security. Within those two levels, you can motivate people. It's basically a pain-based motivation. Once we get to that next level, where you have love and self-esteem and move up to self-actualization, that is where inspiration comes into play. If people are in pain, you have to motivate them. If people are out of pain, then you can inspire them. Don't try to be inspirational when people are hungry and tired and scared. That doesn't work. It's just frustrating. They will nod their heads and do what they need to do to get the hell out of your view so they can go get some food or drink or get warm or whatever. We have to help people to the third level of Maslow because we can start to inspire them. With that in mind, from a leadership standpoint, understanding your leadership is 100% contextual on the state of the person and ultimately the team you are working with. That is not a blinding flash of the obvious to most of you, but we have to be reminded of that because a lot of the traditional leadership mantras that we hear are being offered from the top of Maslow's hierarchy. But a lot of the people we are leading are way down the hierarchy, and we have to remember that sometimes it's just giving them a shoulder to cry on and taking them out to lunch or buying them a cup of coffee. Sometimes that's all the leadership they need in that moment. Hugh: Wow. That's a paradigm shift. What are you thinking there, Russ? You're smiling. Russell: The thought came to mind that great leaders always have a pulse on where their people are because no two people are in the same place. Cookie cutter leadership doesn't work. It may have worked back at the turn of the 20th century. Mark: It didn't work then either, Russell. I hate to tell you, pal. It was just misreported. Russell: They pushed it as, “Get in line or go work somewhere else.” That doesn't work. Good leaders build other leaders around them because that is what makes a great leader look good. We have people who can execute or delegate, and she is doing high level functions. Sometimes you have high performance individuals, and it is really hard- When they have been driving the train for a long time, it's really difficult for them to take a step back because they have their vision and it's their baby. They have a hard time taking a step back. This is a way that leaders have to grow in. If people in the work force today aren't getting work that means something. They move on. Do yourself a favor and let other people help you. Mark: I think some of the things we have to take a look at from a change standpoint is that our millennial culture, I raised five millennial children. None of them live at home. I consider myself to be a success. They don't put up with ultimatums. They'll just raise their middle finger and wave you goodbye. The reality is that leadership is now voluntary. It was always voluntary, but it is now absolutely voluntary. People accept leadership voluntarily, and a charitable organization has always been voluntary. We have to become a whole lot more about what it is you are looking for. How can I help you grow? Where do you want to go? What do you need to help you get there? Can we help you get there? It's a lot more of the let's figure out where our tribe needs to go and bring that to them. I think that's a big component of that. We raised our children to question authority. The boomer generation just shakes their head at, “I am a boomer.” Friends, I raise that generation. I raised them to be what I wanted to be when I was their age, which was to have the freedom to ask questions and to push back and to say, “That's really stupid. Why do you make that?” When I was a kid, that earned a slap across the face, so I learned to shut up very quickly. I let my kids ask those questions. They were hard questions. They made me a better man. That also means that military-style, authoritarian leadership will no longer work. It has to be collaborative leadership. But how do we do collaborative leadership? It's simple. You just ask people. You ultimately, as the leader of your organization, get to make the decision. But you also have to have that collaboration of how we arrive at the destination. You are responsible for the destination. Then we collaborate on how we get there. That is what I see as being a major shift. Hugh: That is especially true in nonprofits because we do attract some capable people. We think we have to do it as a leader because we don't want to bother them because they are volunteers and are busy in their real life. Mark: But wait a minute. That's why they showed up. Hugh: You got it. I set that one up good. You are really interfering with what somebody has come to do. That seems like a logical step. That is a huge problem. Bowen leadership systems, Murray Bowen as a psychiatrist created this whole leadership methodology. He talks about that as overfunctioning, and the reciprocity to overfunctioning is underfunctioning. Especially when you have a boomer, me, and you are talking to millennials, like the editor of our magazine, Todd, he says, “Tell me where you want to be, and let me get there.” Nobody likes being told the steps or micromanaged. Millennials like it the least of any particular segment. You raised five millennials, and I don't see any wounds on your body. Mark: I'm a much better man. Before I raised my five millennial kids, I was a jerk. Hugh: Really? Mark: Yeah. I knew everything. I knew exactly how to do it, and I could prove it. If you didn't believe me, I'd write a book about it. Hugh: Wow. Russell: I just sense that pleasure. Here's the thing, Mark. They'll be back. They will bring more with them. Mark: It gets better and better and more disruptive and more delicious. Hugh: There is a story of this conductor, who are known to have healthy egos. This conductor walks into a restaurant with a whole bunch of musicians. One person stood up on one side and said, “All conductors are jerks.” Whoa, it got back like this. On the other side, somebody stood up and said, “I resent that comment.” The conductor looked at him and said, “Hey, are you a conductor, too?” He says, “No, I'm a jerk.” I love it. That is a reframed lawyer joke. Mark: The way I like to talk about conductors is conductors are highly skilled. They can play every instrument in the orchestra. They can. But not well enough to make a living. At the end of the show- Russell: [hard to hear] tickets on the train, either. Hugh: The model you are talking about is the conductor doesn't tell them step by step what they do. The conductor says to the oboe player, the violinist, whatever, “This is the effect I want. This is the result I want.” They guide the process. I wanted to segue into that as a model for what you're talking about. That has been a consistent model over the decades. If we look at that in today's world, leadership as a profound influence and not the micro that you are talking about, do this, do this, do this. It's a nuance of engaging people and empowering people to raise the bar. That is the essence of transformational leadership really: building a culture of high performers that respond to you. So we are looking at what has changed, but also we are looking at- Earlier, you talked about transformation. There is a transformation in ourselves before we can be effective. How does that link with what you're talking about? Mark: Everybody that I know is going through some form of transformation. They are trying to add a new skill. They are trying to let go of an old habit they see as not serving their life any further. They may be going through a spiritual revolution where they are going from less spiritual to more spiritual. It may be that they are looking for a physical transformation, losing weight, adding muscle, adding health. Those transformations always trigger help because if we could do it on our own, we already would have. We need either skills or encouragement or motivation or a tribe to travel with. Let's talk about transformation for just a minute. Let's have some fun with this. I know that we bumped into this idea with me before, Hugh, and let's talk about it. I think we have enough time. It's fairly simple. There is fundamentally a seven-step process in transformation, plus a step zero and a step minus one. Hugh: Ooh, do tell. Mark: The first half is about belief. The second half is about knowledge. The difference between belief and knowledge is a manifestation in the physical world. Step minus one is where they want to go. The transformation they want to enjoy is invisible. They can't even see it. It's not even within their awareness. It's not even possible. They hadn't even thought of it. If you as a charitable organization want to find new people, part of your job is to message the outcome that you deliver so that we can take people who don't even see that as an opportunity into something that is within their awareness. Then step zero, going from invisible to impossible. That is the step zero. “Oh, that's impossible. I could never do that. I don't see how that's possible.” That's step zero. The transformation starts when they go from the impossible to, “Hmm, that could be possible. You have 1,000 people in this community that has made this transformation? Wow. You've helped that many people? It is possible.” Then the next step is to probable. “I could probably do this. I don't have all the answers. I may not know my path yet, but this is probable. I could do this.” Then the third step moves to inevitable. “This is going to happen. Oh yeah. Let's make this happen. Yeah.” Hugh: Minus one is where- Mark: Minus one is invisible. Don't even know it is possible. Hugh: Invisible, okay. Mark: Step zero is impossible. Hugh: Okay. One is possible. Mark: Possible. Hugh: Two is probable. Mark: Two is probable. Hugh: And three is? Mark: Inevitable. Hugh: Inevitable. Mark: This is going to happen! I know how to do this. Whoo-hoo. Help me! Hugh: Russell is scribing these. He is capturing the brilliance. Mark: That is all based on increasing belief because the transformation has not yet become physical. It is still nonphysical. It is thought and that is about it. Now we cross over from the nonphysical to the physical, from the belief to the real. Step four is real. We go from inevitable to real. From real to sustainable. I did it! Okay, let's do it again. I can do this any time I want. That is sustainable. Then we go from sustainable, step five, to step six, which is normal. “I do this all the time. Sure, of course. This is just part of my life.” To step seven, which is historical. “I have always done it this way.” If we are working people through a transformational process—invisible, impossible, possible, probable, inevitable, real, sustainable, normal, historical—if we can run people through that process, we can help them through their transformation. But here is the most important aspect. You can't take somebody from impossible to inevitable in one step. That is the psychology of leadership. We have to help them move from impossible to probable. We have to help them move from probable to inevitable. We have to help them move from inevitable to real. Each one of those is a step, as we are crossing this chasm, let's call it a river, from impossible to historical, going from one side to the other. Every step is a slippery rock that as they reach out with their foot, it may feel like, “I don't know if I can do this.” Our job as leaders is to hold their finger, hold their hand. When I was raising my kids, we would do- Kids were going across the rocks, and I would give them a finger. All they had to do was hang onto my finger. That was enough to give them the confidence to take the step. My kids would grab that finger, and we could move them. You did this, right? Russell, you've done this with your kids? Just give them a little bit. We don't need to hold them in an airman's grip. We just have to give them a finger to hang onto. Russell: If you don't want to carry them, you just give them that finger. It's just enough. Less is more. Mark: That's right. Russell: More, and they step into that power. That's what it's about. Whatever the mind can conceive and make itself believe, it can achieve. That is a process. Mark: You just summarized those seven plus two steps in three words. Hugh: Thank you, Mr. Hill. Mark: Yes indeed. Hugh: That is a profound statement. I was really small, walking with my father, and I would hold a finger. One day, he put a stick there. I kept going because I thought I had his hand. All I had was a stick. When I grew up, I repeated that dirty trick with my kids. Russell: Interesting. That brings a story to mind. I don't know how old I was. I may have been two or three. My mother used to carry me upstairs at night. One night, my mother and sister brought me upstairs, stood me in front of the crib, and said, “Okay. Climb in.” I was baffled. I didn't do anything. So they said, “Okay, well, you will climb in or you will stand there all night.” I don't know how long I stood there. It turns out they were there watching. It wasn't very long. I climbed up in that crib. Oh, okay, I got to do this or it's not going to happen. I never forgot that. I don't remember much that happened before five. As five gets further away, it's harder to remember. But that was something I never forgot. A lot of life is like that. Hugh: That's a great story. That's a big leadership example. The last one of your five topics for the year is Turning Unrest into Peace: How to Divorce Your Organization from the Media's Promotion of Outrage. What ever are you talking about? Mark: I'll be delighted to share with you. With the broad spread availability of Internet and mobile devices, the media got out of the news business. The reason why is the news was available any time I chose to pick up my mobile device and read the news from dozens of news sources. The fundamental TV news made a wholesale pivot from news to opinion and entertainment. You watch any of the mainstream news, and they are not delivering news. They are delivering opinion, not even fact. Opinion. It's the mot hilarious thing. I watch the news now and laugh. I just see it like reality TV. It is completely scripted. Whatever side they are trying to spin, that is what it is. What is truth? I have no idea anymore. The challenge is to get people to watch opinion, you have to generate outreach. You have to go to them and say, “Isn't this awful? Isn't this unfair? This is just horrible. I can't see how we can even stand doing this anymore.” That outrage allows you to sit through the commercials for pharmaceutical products that help you fix the outrage. You laugh because it's true. Russell: Okay. I'm going to give up on MSNBC and Fox Noise because- Mark: It is noise. I can watch Hannity once a week. It's the same story every night. Here's the thing. First of all, you have to realize that the news business is really to do one thing. It's not to inform you. It's to sell advertising. Pure and simple. Their job is to create a community that wants to be outraged a specific way and to promote that outrage so people feel like something is going on. They feel like something is important, but the reality my friends, in the world of charitable organizations, we are offering another way of thinking, another way of feeling. We are offering perhaps a better feeling. I feel way better after going to church than I do after watching the evening news. That circles back to our #1 point today, which is omnichannel. We have to keep providing our message on a regular basis daily, hourly, morning, evening to counter all of the outrage that people are being fed from a commercial stream. Go ahead. Carry on. What do you have in mind there, Hugh? Hugh: Wow. Wow. Where people are getting into an emotional state, not a factual thinking leadership functioning state. We are going into this- Mark: Facts don't matter anymore when it comes to mainstream news. Hugh: We are in a post-truth culture. Mark: We are. It's really interesting. Hugh: When we hear comments like “The media lies,” I watched purposefully for several weeks reports on CNN, CBN, PBS, and FOX. They were all different. Mark: Yes. Hugh: Which one is lying? Or are they all lying? Mark: None of them are lying. They are presenting their vision of what they want you to believe. Facts have nothing to do with anything. They believe It's true. They look you square in the eye through the camera and make you believe they believe it. And they do. Otherwise they couldn't deliver that. Let's circle back to the facts that matter to us and to constituents of our organization. That is what we need to focus on. Hugh: We have eight minutes. We are wrapping up here. That is a perfect segue, thank you. Go ahead. Mark: The whole point is we need to make sure our message and our leadership and our direction and our transformation is absolutely clear. We have to supply at last some rational thinking. When people say, “Did you hear what the news was?” and the answer is, “Do you believe it?” Let's focus on something you can believe. So help pivot people away from buying into something that we keep illustrating over and over again is patently not in alignment with the belief and the worldview that we wish. We have to substitute the worldview that our tribe wishes to see. Personally, I see humanity as growing, expanding, being bigger-hearted than ever before. The people in my environment, the people I bump into, including the folks on the street that ask me for help, are doing better than ever before. My job is to elevate, not to outrage. I think that there are way more people that have that desire than ever before, and perhaps that is why Cartoon Network has a higher rating than CNN. It's because we want to feel good. We don't want to feel bad. As a charitable organization, bringing that good news to people and giving them things they can do to feel better about themselves and to improve humanity and their tribe is probably the ultimate thing we can bring to our constituents. Russell: To piggyback on what you are saying, out of my own experience, I was an advertising salesman for WGAM TV while I was in college. Our most expensive segment was the news slots. That supports that, and that has been the case for quite some time now. That was a few years ago. The other thing is people are looking to raise their level of consciousness. The media likes to exacerbate this idea of taking sides. One thing that happened to me as a result of my experience working with the Native American tribe is I became nonpartisan here. The people who were going to help you may be on other sides of the aisle. I was literally more interested in what was going to benefit my tribe than what fit their politics. What we are talking about really is raising our level of consciousness. Me, for the most part, I am tuned out on those things. I can't watch that stuff. If I do happen to catch glimpses of it, nobody lives out in the middle of nowhere. There are a few people off the grid, but you will be exposed to some of the noise. Does that noise matter? We are trying to raise our level of consciousness, and there are people who need our help. When that is the driving thing, you learn how to play nice with others, but you don't always have to agree on everything, except who is it you want to help and how can you get there. You leave all of the ego and crap on the doorstep and come together to perform missions. I'm glad you haven't said anything that made me so angry I have to go put a nasty tweet out. I have a Twitter account, and I don't want to use it. Mark: Personally, I have a positive posting policy. If I can't say something nice, I write them a letter and burn it. Russell: As long as you don't mail it. That could get you in a lot of trouble. Mark: If you are writing a letter to somebody or emailing, don't ever put their address in there as you write it. Otherwise you might by accident send it. Guilty as charged. Russell: It's good to write letters every once in a while. Us old guys write letters. You can write letters. Younger folks out there, it's a dying art. It's fun. Mark: It's great fun. I wrote myself a letter on New Year's Eve. It's part of our ritual: to write ourselves letters. Just to wrap up this segment, an important component is what is your core principle as a leader? Focus on activities that will provide you and your tribe with those core principles. My core principle is freedom. Everything I do needs to lead me to freedom. Freedom of thought, freedom of action, freedom of life. From that freedom, I can serve people. I can't serve people when I am not free, from a thought standpoint, a physical standpoint, a monetary standpoint. I use that personally as my filter. If I am going to do something, say something, act in some way, the question is: Does this bring me closer to more freedom, or does this take freedom away from me? It could be anything else. It could be oneness. It could be joy. It could be love. It doesn't really matter. All of them boil down to the same situation anyway. Just that word resonates with me. I think ultimately that is what we need to do to bring peace to our tribe. Hugh: Our strategy is Russell and I encourage people to be very clear on their vision while they are doing something. As charities, we have to be very good at defining the impact of our work. What difference will it make? We achieve all of that through setting powerful goals. You have given us a whole lot of ideas for goals. Russell mentioned him before, and he is looking behind you there. Behind you is Henry Ford. Mark: Actually that is Edison. Carry on. Hugh: They lived next door to each other down in Fort Myers. Mark: They did. Hugh: Edison said he never failed; he just found 9,999 things that didn't work before he invented the light bulb. Ford said obstacles are what you see when you take your mind off your goals. They are both dedicated to excellence. They were both in tune with the culture and trends of their day. Mark Smith, I don't know a lot of people with two middle initials. Mark S. A. Smith. You stand out from all those other Mark Smiths. Mark: That is the reason why. That way you can find me on Google. Hugh: They are impostors. Mark: No, they are not impostors. They are just hiding. Hugh: This is really rich in content. Russell, do you have a closing comment you want to leave here? Russell: There we are. I'd like to thank Mark for the thoughts he dropped. You are preaching to the choir. It's about who you are. That's a message that has to ring true. Who are you? Who are you, and that way you can connect with the people that you are aligned with. I love the alignment. Great comments. Notes in the SynerVision Leadership webinar notebook. I have the notes, Hugh. It will also be out there for folks to look at. It's a great day here. Hugh: Super. Mark, thank you for being here and sharing your wisdom with us. Mark: Delightful to be here. Thank you for the invitation to do so. We have plenty more in 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim: Welcome to Slave Stealer podcast! This is Tim Ballard and Mark Mabry talking about the darkest plague that exists on this earth today and seeking the solution. We have a guest on today that, I think, is part of the solution. I really believe - and I have, for years, believed - that the reason we can't put our arms around this problem and squeeze it to death - this problem of trafficking and human slavery - is because people don't know it's there. They don't believe it's real. Or they see something and they turn their head as fast as they can. And so, at Operation Underground Railroad, we have a unique approach, I think. We're not just waving this banner of darkness. There's a lot of organizations - and God bless all of them for what they're doing. The programs that are about awareness often are just waving a flag of depression and darkness, and you look and you're like, "Eek, oh oh yeah, here's my five dollars - now never contact me again," and off they go.  They don't want to see it. That's not our message. Our message is light. Light. Light in the darkness. Because we provide a solution. We're going in and extracting. We are providing law enforcement with tools: digital tools, computer tools, training, undercover tactics - everything you would need to know to run an investigation.  Mark: You're staring the bad guys in the eyes. Tim: That's right. Mark: And how many organizations actually touch the bad guy? Tim: Yeah, we touch the bad guy, we throw his face in the ground and put him away. That's what we do! And that is light - that's hope. And so, we try to push out that light. And one of the ways we do that is by showing people what we do. There's a team of cameras that follows us around, and we show people what we do. And when those traffickers go away, the world gets a little brighter. And when the next trafficker goes away, the world gets brighter still. And that's the light that we're building. See, Montel Williams - who is our guest today - he understands that. He understands that if you shine a light, people will get on board. If you shine a light, the bad guys hate that light! So they're going to go away. If they don't end up in jail, they're going to be so antagonistic to that light that they're going to crawl up like little bugs and go away. And hide. And Montel gets that. And he's the kind of voice that we need to be loud and proud and share this light. So that's going to be his message. Mark: He's a passionate guy. As you're saying, he blew up Facebook a couple of times this year, and Twitter. And even in our conversation with him, he starts out kind of a low simmer and then just crescendoes. And I think you guys will enjoy... Tim: Yeah, yeah. You don't want to get in his way, man. Mark: No. Tim: When he starts moving, you do not want to get in his... I do not want to be a trafficker in the path of Montel Williams when things get hot. And things get hot with this guy. Mark: He was a Marine, he attended the Naval Academy, he had a career in the military. People don't realize how bad he actually is. Tim: Oh yeah, no no. He's...he's tough as nails. Mark: And he delivers, so it's a great interview. Tim: Yep. Mark: Let's go to it. Tim: Alright, roll it! Mark: Tim started to tell me about how you guys met, but his version was really weak compared to what I think yours probably is (no offense, Tim). Montel: It was literally the morning after the Stadium of Fire. I went up to the breakfast lounge in the place we were staying at, and literally, you know, Tim walked in the door and shut me down. And his speech was just ridiculous the night before. You know, I work on a lot of issues. I’m involved in things that most people don’t even have the slightest idea that I’ve been involved with for years now. Everything from...veteran issues, but I’ve also been deeply involved in trying to help heal some of the wounds that our veterans have faced from war. And those wounds are deep, especially when it comes to traumatic brain injury. And I was blessed to be able to get involved in a process...a study with a medical device that now is going to - over the next year to two years - prove out to be one of the first lines of defense, I think, for many symptoms of traumatic brain injury. We are in the middle of...doing one of the most comprehensive traumatic brain injury studies the world has seen at three centers of excellence. And I only say this because, you know, I’m involved in issues. And why? Because, you know, I got involved... I'm a board member of Fisher House. I was visiting our soldiers 3-4 years ago for...almost every three weeks, I was going down to see every new batch of soldiers that had flown in from Germany or from London, and just going down and visiting troops. So, you know, I’ve been moved by that issue, and then I’ve been involved in things from teen suicide prevention - it’s another issue that I’ve been in for, that I’ve been working on. And then to sit in that room and hear Tim discuss the mission - his emotional, moving story about saving children’s lives. Mark: Anything you remember in particular - like a line that he said, something that stuck? Montel: You know, I mean, I could say, sitting like...as I sit here right now and I think about what Tim had to say...you know, there was a call to action. There was a call to step up to the plate and understand what’s going on. And even though I understood as I was sitting at the table, I’m looking at the reactions of the people in the room around me, and you can look and see that some of these people...even though you hear about it, you see it on the news - it goes right over their head. It wasn’t until, I think, they caught the emotion that is involving what Tim had to say, that I saw the emotion start to well up in them. So again, I walk into this lounge, and I was again blown away. All I felt was that I needed to do whatever I could to help Tim make his mission more complete. So, you know, I think I said immediately - "Whatever you need from me, whatever you want from me, I’m there. And let's go." Tim: I think it was your birthday, wasn’t it, Montel? Montel: Yeah, as a matter of fact, it was on my birthday. As a matter of fact, it was on my birthday. It was the 3rd. That’s right. The night before was the event on the 2nd, and I had brought in four of [inaudible] dinner. One of the other award recipients was Master Sgt. Cedric King, who is a double amputee, a war hero of extraordinary proportion, who was on that stage. So it was very moving the night before to have had him come in and then to meet Tim. And then I wake up - it's the 3rd - and I told, you know, all the guys from the stadium...I said, "Look, I need to have at least that one day off." I was going to chill. Honestly, I think I worked for about an hour on the phone, just coordinating - trying to figure out who I was going to talk to as soon as we got past the holiday to figure out how we were going to come together. Tim: Man, it was an amazing experience for me. I mean, I was starstruck - I'm not going to lie - when you walked into the...you know, because the night before, I knew you were in the audience, and I'm like, ‘I wonder if I'll get to meet Montel.’ And then, the next day, I'm getting hot chocolate with my kids, and there he was! It was a small little kind of kitchen, you know, and there he was, face to face. And it was an emotional moment for both of us, I think.   Montel: Yeah, yeah, really - an extremely emotional moment. And that’s part of the reason why I think I just really need to help and try to be involved. I have people who are of like mind, who think the way I do, who have been in my corner in my entire professional career, and especially the media. And, you know, those people are very vocal, and they want to be heard. And I think if I reach out to them and let them know that we are involved and we are going to now do some things that before today, I think, have not been done. Yeah, we call out some of these pigs - you know, there are so many shows and it comes and it goes. I want to really, really figure out a way so we get the message out there that is a continual message - in the face, bigger than, you know, the campaigns that they are running right now nationally to stop people from smoking. If you are so stupid that you’ll put a cigarette in your mouth right now and wreck your lungs, then I would rather take the money that’s being spent there to put a message out right now that our children are being exploited, raped, and sent around this planet, and you...really... If we can’t get to an understanding and get that in people’s faces, so much so... I hate the commercials that they have been running, you know, where you have the people who are in the hospital on the third lung, and they're showing me all the body parts of people who are ravaged by cancer because they are smoking. I want to show people the ravaging of what’s been happening with our children - get it in your face so hard that you say, "Enough, don’t show me that anymore!" and you do something about it.   Tim: I love hearing this, Montel, because a confusion to me is why are we not seeing that, even in politics and in debates. It should be... I mean, this is the fastest criminal enterprise on the planet. Why aren’t we talking about it? What’s the reason, do you think, that people are shying away? Montel: Why is it growing so fast? Why is it growing so fast? Tim, I bet you, man, you’ve got this, man. Look, it’s growing so fast because of, I think, money. You know, we have the largest disparity of wealth in the world, but we have the largest number of millionaires, uber billionaires, millionaires, hundred... guys, people who have wealth, sitting around, that think that their wealth can hide them and keep them hidden from the truth. It got to be because dude, I mean, you know, the plane tickets cost money. To be able to buy a child, it costs money. You know, to be able to do this and not have anybody catch you: it costs money. And that’s what’s happening. And so why aren’t politicians talking about it? I don’t want to be a pig when I say this, but maybe some of them have friends or relatives or cousins that they know are the people doing this. Because that’s the only reason why this would not be... You know, it’s like all day long - I’m out here, I went snowboarding today, you know. This is the open season and it’s a beautiful day today, but then I realized I had this interview to do with you, and all afternoon I’ve been like...it’s been, you know, my heart’s pounding because I’m just so angry. And it’s just the same reason why, in the last three weeks, why all we keep hearing from our politicians is how quickly they want to send another American child off to die. They really...they want to go put 'boots on the ground, boots on the ground,' - you can’t even pay for the health care for the ones we have that have already put the boots on the ground! Tim: Yeah. Montel: But we want to put them on the ground. And yeah, we may need to, but let’s be a little bit more compassionate in our rally to send them off to battle. Now, if we're willing to do that, and these politicians are jumping up and down in every one of their debates to say those things, why do we not - in the same conversation and debate - talk about how are we going to help heal the delays in the treatment of those who have already served? We can’t say that because we know that we have...their friends are the ones who are part of the problem. So I’m starting to think that maybe that’s what's going on. We've got too many people of wealth who are hiding, just the same way as we have terrorists who are living double lives as Americans. And we’ve got rich people who can afford to do this - living double lives - they're right under the surface and we're letting them get away with it. And I’m open Tim - you know. dude, I’m not afraid. I am NOT afraid. I will take that shot, my friend. Tim: And we need you to take that shot - we want you to. And you know what we do. If these guys want to get into the market cause they want those kids, we meet them there and that’s where we can expose them. We meet them there - we’ve already done it dozens of times, hundreds of kids we’ve pulled out, over a hundred travellers or traffickers in jail... I think you and I were talking about this when we met over the 4th of July. It’s about shining those faces of those guys who are hiding - shine them everywhere, put them on billboards, make everyone know that you CANNOT hide behind your money. We will meet you in the dark place and we will expose you once you are there.     Montel: I'm telling you... Call them out - that’s what we've got to do. So, you know what? You know, it’s going to be holiday season, we're going to take a little break, alright? I want to hit the ground running in January if we can figure out...like I’m working on some projects right now. You know, I'm working on a couple of projects right now that are media projects that... You know, if I do some things for some people, then maybe I can ask them to do some things for us. Let’s figure out a way then we can get something on the air - I mean, you know, ‘America’s Most Wanted,’ you know, whatever.   Tim: Yeah. Montel: I got happy, I got tired. That did a lot of good in some cases because you did cover some of those cases of child abuse, but I really think that we need to have a steady stream - not just the TV show, but I’m telling you, like, I would love to right now in the middle of this live CNN... I’ve got CNN on and the second they go to commercial: bang-bang. I want to jump right to a commercial about a child that has been exploited - this is going on, and this is the guy who worked in Chicago at such and such bank, was a bank president, he lived in this neighborhood, this is his family, and you need to understand that this guy thought he was getting away with it, and he’s been doing it and now he's crying like a stuffed pig because he’s in jail, and he knows that when we let him out in the population that they don’t like little child molesters like that, and while he's crying like a piggy, he's talking about the fact that he’s been doing this for the last 10 years and got away with it right beside you.   Tim: That’s right. Montel: How could you let this person live next to you?! That’s the story that needs to be told, man. Tim: Yes!  Yes it is! Montel: And I want to help you tell them. Tim: And we need your help. We can get into the dark and shine the light, pull them out, but we need people like you to make it loud because we’re still learning how to do that. So we appreciate that.    Montel: Well, just the fact that you're blogging right now, and the fact that people are going to tune in. Maybe they'll listen to me today. They'll say, I want to see what they're going to do. Montel, please, what are you going to do? You know, this could be a regular from us. Let’s come together every couple of weeks and let's talk about the plans that we put in place, the things that we can talk about. I also, you know, it’s like...you know, I think in some ways... I worked in intelligence my entire time I was in the military. I had top secret inside clearance - I can say that right now. I had one of the highest clearances that the military had at the time. I ran a couple programs. I get part of the problem that we are having right now when it [the military] looks at international terrorism. The problem is the fact that we keep giving out all the secrets. We keep telling them every level of encryption that we have the ability to break so they can find a new one that we can’t break. I don’t want to give them too much - I want to show America while you can complain all you want about the Taliban, you know...we're going to fix that problem. You haven’t even blinked at trying to fix the real one. Let’s fix this one, because this is the one that’s going to destroy us from within. We can see the devastation now in children as they grow older and older and now have the revelation of what was done to them. Those are the ones that weren’t even trafficked. Tim: Right. Montel: So, you know, I mean, honestly, America’s got a reckoning. And, you know, we can’t put one... You know, it’s like, you know, do you pick the worst problem and put that first, or do you fix the problems you have? I say we go after both of them at the same time, and I think America has got the stomach for it. It just hasn’t heard the voice loud enough. And I have a voice of couple of people that I think might want to bring this forward as part of their national campaign. Mark: I was going to ask you about that, Montel. I know, from your social feeds, you are a friend of Governor Kasich, and I about came out of my chair with glee the other night watching that debate, and I heard the words ‘human trafficking’. Montel: Yes. Mark: And they came out of his mouth, and those words have not been uttered in a presidential debate, in the last couple of debates. I need to go to do a word cloud or something to find out, but he did it. And so, we have a little segment on our show, called ‘The Big Ask’ with a K. And, I have a big ask for you. I thought...you know, when I heard him say that, I was waiting for somebody to wax poetic and do something lofty on trafficking, but of course they went right back to Donald calling Jeb not powerful, or whatever his word was. So, here’s my big ask for Montel Williams: I want you, because I know you are capable and I’ll be probably in tears by the time you’re done, to picture yourself on the stage, cameras on you - it is Montel Williams’,  'I want your vote for president, and my platform is human trafficking.' Can you give me that lofty speech that will make me hear the music coming in by the end? Montel: You know how they give you the highlights before the debates... Mark: Yeah, get me fired up a little bit. Montel: You know, maybe what I should say is that if right now we are living in a time in America where the entire focus of the nation...in some ways, I understand, because there has been enough fear-mongering to make us believe that the entire focus of everything we do as a government should be focused on terrorism. But, you know, America has to continue to survive, has to continue to grow, has to rely on its most sacred treasure, and that’s America’s children. Now, I don’t care what source you listen to, what side of the fence you're on: Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal. It doesn’t matter. If you are listening to all of your pundits, they will tell you at worst case, worst case in this country today, we have probably, okay...twenty, forty, fifty, let’s say there might have been a hundred terrorists who snuck in - they are under the radar, we need to put money in finding them. I agree. But, excuse me, we have 1.5 million children who are victims in 2012 to human trafficking, and we know that 85% of them have been trafficked for sex. And these are children, American children. So, I say that that’s a million and a half lives that from this point forth will forever be changed, a million and a half a year. In fifteen years, they got 20 million children who have to as they grow to adults, as they’ve been saved, brought back into the society and trying to be contributing numbers to that society. I say we got the Taliban under control. I don’t care if it’s two years, three years - it’s thirty years. This is part of America’s structure, America’s fabric. So, I can stand around and argue about who’s got more money in the bank, who thinks that they are tougher at fighting bad guys who are trying to hurt us ideologically. I want to find out who’s tough enough to turn in their neighbor, who’s tough enough to fight the fight of saving and preserving America’s future beyond the next five years. So, 2.5, 1.5 million...on the other side of ridiculous. The United States alone should be in the position to raise enough money to impact this, and we will send money everywhere else in the world. We will fight everybody else’s problem to try to force something down on someone’s throat that doesn’t want it, and we are willing to protect America’s precious treasure right here. I don’t know... If you want to protect America’s treasure, vote for me, if you want to continue on this normal...pick the other guy.   Tim: You got my vote! Mark: Montel 2020, baby! Woo! Tim: I love it, I love it! And, now the good thing is that we are going to do something about this, and I hope we can have you back on the show many many times as we develop our plan and say the things we can. But let’s do this!  We’re going to do this. Montel: Let’s do it! Now, you got me to say publicly, I make it as a public promise, man.  I’m working with you - we'll get this done. Tim: Awesome! We love you, man! Thanks so much! Montel: Thank you, sir!   Mark: Montel for president, baby! You said, you know, the government is leading, but in terms of being loud about it, how often do you hear nationally-placed officials talking about human trafficking in prime time? Tim: They're not! And that’s where the leadership is lacking. There’s no strong leader in all of our potential leaders. It’s not even on their agenda and I don’t know why it’s not! I don’t think they all have friends...I mean, that’s an interesting point that Montel brings up -  I don't think it's like they all have friends who are engaging in this kind of stuff. I mean, I’m sure some of them do. I think it’s a dark topic that no one wants to talk about. It hurts to talk about it. Mark: It’s weird because governments usually... These guys will go on talk shows and talk about something then not do anything about it, but this is the opposite. It seems that they are legislating and making a little headway, but they're not talking about it - it’s lacking the component that we hate the most, generally speaking, that is, the flapping gums of politicians. Tim: I think the reason... It’s not that they don’t know... Mark: Yeah they know, they just...   Tim: They know it’s an issue. Here’s why they don't talk about it. Look, they're pandering, they are all pandering to voters, right. They need voters to weigh in. So, I really do think this: if they believed that the voters knew what was going on, they would talk about it. But they are saying to themselves, why am I going to introduce a new topic? - relatively new, right. Why am I going to introduce a topic that’s not going to help me get elected because the electorate doesn’t know? And if they don’t know, they don’t care. So let’s talk about things that we know they care about. So our job, more than try to convert or try to influence these candidates or elected leaders to do something... I think our job is to light a fire under the people - the Harriet Beecher Stowe approach, where she lit a fire under the people. They read her book by the millions, and they said, "What is going on?! I didn’t really know - I mean, I heard of slavery, but I’ve never seen it. I’ve never travelled down there, in the South, and saw it," and she lit a fire there. And then they got so loud that folks like Abraham Lincoln and others had to respond. Mark: Yeah. Tim: And the response ended slavery. So I really think a lot of this is exposing this issue, shining a light, letting the people see. When the people care, the candidates will care.   Mark: And, it seems like Montel... He’s one of those populist heroes in the last two decades - had a huge show in the 90’s, he’s got total social clout now, he’s moved kind of into this activist realm, and he’s got tons, his hands on tons of pods, but it’s that type of guy that can talk to big groups. And the talk show people - Oprah, Montel, you know, from the heyday of afternoon talk shows that would make people cry every afternoon...that would be, seemingly, a way to engage people. And he could be that guy. Tim: Yeah. He’s going to be that guy. I mean, he’s that voice we are going to need. And he’s not going to be a ‘one and done interview’ - he is committed. I spent a couple of days with him, over the 4th... Man, I’m telling you he believes this. He believes in it, and he is going to help us. Mark: Yeah. Tim: He's going to be instrumental.  Tim: This show is sponsored by one of my favorite companies on the face of the earth, Hylete. In fact, I’m wearing - let me stand up so you can see - I’m wearing Hylete shorts right now. Mark: Those are really handsome. Tim: I wear Hylete shorts pretty much every day, because here at the headquarters of Operation Underground Railroad is a CrossFit gym that is very fruitful for the foundation. All the money that we make in the CrossFit gym comes back into the foundation. So we’re grateful for the CrossFit gym, and we’re grateful to Hylete who’s been a proud sponsor, who’s been able to not only outfit some of our guys, but make some awesome contributions. They made an OUR shirt, Hylete OUR shirt - their clothes are designed for intense fitness, like CrossFit. They made a Hylete/OUR shirt that all the proceeds came back to us, and we’ve been able to make thousands of dollars, and we continue our partnership in the coming years. So thank you to our partners and friends over at Hylete. Buy their clothes, and go work out!  

Tim, Mark & Marisol Interview 00:00 Tim: When you rape a child, you lose rights forever. That’s it! You lose rights forever. Somehow we don’t understand this. And again, you can serve your sentence and everything else, but you still have lost rights. One of those rights you lose is you don’t get to travel around the world with anonymity. We are going to talk about where you are. We are going to watch you. Is that so unreasonable? I mean, the argument is that, well if they travel to some place like Iran and we tell the Iranian Government, they might kill him. Well, you know what, that is his choice to travel to Iran after raping children. Don’t rape kids! How about that?! Let’s start with that. 00:36 Mark: If you do it twice, we are sending you to Iran with a big tag on your head, ‘I rape kids’. 00:40 Tim: That should be the punishment, right? That should be the sentence. 00:42 Marisol: We do that for terrorism and we give up their rights that way. It should be no different. Intro 00:50 You are listening to Slave Stealer. 00:54 Tim: It is a world I know and understand better than most people, because you don’t even know how real and how huge it is. There have been laws put in place to protect kids, and one of the laws - surprise, surprise - is that you can’t sell them. If you guys are traffickers, you have come in just like this. This is what happens, this is the core of the problem. Tim: Marisol, thank you for joining us on Slave Stealer podcast. Marisol: Oh, it’s my pleasure. Tim: Marisol Nichols is our friend, and actress, and social activist. She has been on ‘Criminal Minds’, ‘24’, ‘Blind Justice’, ‘NCIS’ - all these cop shows. Does that have anything to do...or is that just a coincidence with your passion to fight crime?   Marisol: I am sure it does. I am sure it does. I did so much resource playing different kinds of cop roles and agent roles and stuff that it just kind of, by default, dealt with me into this world.   Tim: Tell us about your foundation, and we’ll talk about how we met and what we are doing together with you. Marisol: Sure! So I have got involved in trafficking maybe three or four years ago, and the whole reason I started my foundation was... Well, there are a couple of reasons. One was, like, the more I learned, the more I found out about it, the more I was like, "I have to do something." I can not do something. It can’t be something that I can sit back and say, "Those poor people over there, how horrible for them." That’s… I can’t sleep at night unless I do something. And there were many, many, many nights that I wouldn’t sleep because the more I learned, the more, you know, horrific it is. So forming my own foundation - it was sort of a natural thing that came out of meeting with different organizations and legislators - you know, the people that live and work in this field - to see how I could help, what could I do. I have, you know, many, many friends in the business, both in front of the camera and behind the camera, and anyone and everyone I would talk to were like, “What can I do? How can I help?” And because of that is how I started doing these briefings and big events, educating a particular audience about what is happening not only in our world and on our planet, but also in our own backyard. Tim: So, question for you, because I don’t know the answer to this question but it bugs me. I mean, this is the greatest plague on the planet. There is nothing worse than this and yet, we, our presidential candidates, aren’t talking about it. It is kind of still a vague word, you know, people, trafficking… What is going on? Why can’t people see it? Marisol: Two reasons. And I don’t actually even blame people for not seeing - I blame the people that are in charge of our entertainment. I blame...I really do, I truly do, because I think that we have created a world where we can’t get purposely distracted by Kardashians and social media and whatever other things that they want coming down the line as a buzzword of the week. So we don’t pay attention to what is really really going on. And that our news channels are not very forthcoming - some of them are really wonderfully, will do pieces on it and pieces on it, but to me, like you said, is nowhere near fit to what is needed. And I am sure that you have had this strange [inaudbile] that when you do meet people that find out about it, their world is completely rocked and they are completely changed and they want to help. Tim: Yep. Marisol: And I honestly believe that there are, you know, certain forces out there that don’t want to see this end. Mark: Name names. Marisol: Well look, who is profiting? I mean, you can follow money: who makes the most money from this? Whether it is sex slavery or labor bondage or what. Who is making money from this? And you can trace it back and trace it back. And Tim hit it right on the head - why aren’t our presidential candidates talking about this? This is a huge issue; it is bigger than anything. Tim: Yeah. Marisol: He is right. Why isn’t there a giant spotlight on who is profiting from that? Who is benefitting and keeping people enslaved? Tim: It boggles my mind, but I do believe like you believed it - if we can get people to see it and they become converts, our politicians will have to start talking about it if there is a demand for that subject.   Marisol: Exactly. Tim: And we are not yelling loud enough yet. We are trying to yell loud and be a voice for these victims. Now you got to come with us - we took you down to visit some of the victims that we had rescued in Haiti, and then on our way back we stopped in an unnamed city. Marisol actually went undercover with us, and... Tell me, tell me about the whole experience, how you felt seeing those kids. And then, I mean, you kind of got this cool experience where you got to see these victims and, all of a sudden, you are thrown into this - one of the people who travels and abuses these kids, one of the partakers. What was that like?     Marisol: It is haunting because it is one thing to read about the issue, talk about the issue, hear the stories, look at videos; it is another thing to see it firsthand, and particularly meeting the abuser... I mean, this was... You know, you wouldn’t recognize him down the street. You’d think this is your college guy, this is your neighbor, this is your… You know, he looks like an everyday Joe. And the casualness in which he would talk about doing these things to girls was astonishing and also heart-breaking. You realize that these are human beings, right? You realize that you are talking about someone’s sister, someone’s daughter, someone’s mother, one day hopefully...   Tim: Yeah. Marisol: And it was....you know, it was haunting because you go, “Ok, that is the mindset that allows this to occur.” That is the mindset - partyyy, woohoo, or whatever it is. It was haunting; it stayed with me. Tim: And can you tell us...what was the role you were playing? You were awesome, by the way, and it was obviously natural. You know, it’s funny... People think like, you know, like undercover operators... Just because you are a cop, you think you are going to be good in undercover work. It is not true. And when I was in the law enforcement, it was difficult to find good undercover operators because, again, it is not inherent to a police officer. It is more an actor or actresses, and that is where you were being able to pull it up. So, tell us what role you played in that?   Marisol: Yeah. So, I was playing the person who sets up the sex parties basically, who sets up the situation for men to come and abuse these girls. You know, it was very, very like spur of the moment. I think we had, what, half an hour to plan it or something. Tim: Yeah. Marisol: You know, when I saw that the only way I am going to pull this off with this guy is if I pretend to be one of those people that just don’t care. Mark: What did you do? Give me some lines. Marisol: You know, I have... I did things like, “Hey, yeah, you know, it’s all good.” Tim: Yeah, she was sitting like really sexy, like just loosey-goosey. It was perfect. And the guy was like watching her more than anything else, and he understands that she will be able to get girls for us, better than we can get them on our own. Marisol: One of the facts that I was surprised to learn about is that some of the traffickers are girls - they are. And they lower young girls just as men do. Tim: Even better. Mark: Let’s say you get a big role as a trafficker on a film coming out in a couple of years. What do you do to prepare? Marisol: It is interesting because prior to coming into this world, you know that there are evil people out there, but you think, you know, you just don’t have that much reality. And then playing the trafficker or playing someone like this...now I’ve started to play some sort of, you know, one or two bad guys here and there, and I am like, “Oh no, no, no, it is 100% evil with no remorse and no feeling and no nothing.” That is how you would have to be to do this. You have to be one of those people, that ‘there is nothing left’. Tim: You are looking into their eyes when you see these people - I mean there is no soul. I mean, it is like past feeling. It is just unbelievable. Like the woman we have talked about, the trafficker, the beauty queen, who was going and luring these girls at 9, 10 years old, telling them that she will teach them to be famous. She is famous, she is also in music videos, and the families were sending their kids with her. And she is going and selling them to us who she believed were men coming down to violate. And Marisol, you talked about this guy we met and you played your undercover role... I mean, I am literally sitting here, we are late for the podcast, I have twenty dudes sitting here, and they look just like that guy. I mean, I have a couple - I am not kidding you - I have a couple right now who are coming together to abuse who they believe to be a 13, a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old. And they are all excited - they tell me what they are going to do and they both want to do it together. They will be arrested next week when they show up. Marisol: It sound like how can you not do everything you possibly can, and, like, why aren’t there writings on the streets, why aren't we talking about this? It should be on the tip of everyone’s tongue. And I believe that if we did, it really would end it fast.   Tim: Yes. And the problem is this concept that people think, "Well, I have heard of it, but law enforcement is taking care of it. The government can take care of it." And not to slam the government, but it is too big of a problem. There are 30 million plus slaves, depending on what numbers you look at, 2 million at least or more, probably, kids in the sex slave industry. If people knew… And it reminds me of the slavery in the 19th century where it was the same thing. They were not talking about it. It was just like people knew what was happening, but: "Oh, the government will take care of that." It wasn’t until people learned through, like, abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote "Uncle Tom’s Cabin." It wasn’t until the people rose up and it got so loud that the government said, “Oh crap, we better do more, we better do something.” And then you start to stop it. We can do it, we can stop it! Marisol: And it comes down to people demanding that the government do something about it. These are just demands that it will end, and it will end it. But you need multitudes and multitudes of people demanding, showing more, and educating others to really put an end to this. But it can be done. I believe you, 100% it can be done. Mark: I have a question, Marisol. In your dealings with trafficking, who were the good guys? Why don’t we just start shouting out people that are amazing? You may have worked with them directly or not, you have known them or are friends of yours. Marisol: Yeah, ok! Well, first of all, Tim, Tim Ballard, whom I met at Osborne - for sure, 100% top of the list. Tim: Thank you, you are so nice. Marisol: What they do is incredible. And I have mentioned it before, but it is when you first learn about this, you are, “Let’s go get the kids. Can we just go and just get the kids?” And that is what they do. Mark: Yes. Marisol: And I mean that is vital. There is, obviously, a lot more they are doing. There are so many people doing this particular fight. There is Kim Biddle, from an organization called Saving Innocence in Los Angeles, that has dedicated her life. She is this beautiful, brilliant, brilliant girl, gorgeous, and she has dedicated her entire life to saving girls from trafficking and then rehabilitating them and seeing it through, like seeing it all the way through - not put them in a home and walk away, but seeing all the way through until the girl graduate from the home, goes to college and has her entire life back. She is dedicated. Mark: More influencers... Anyone in your world, acting world? Who are the good guys in trafficking? Marisol: There was this one movement that Sean Penn and other celebs got involved in and it was quick, but it really made a difference. It was "Real Men Don't Buy Girls." I don’t know if you remember that, but it was a whole Twitter and hashtag thing, and they got giant celebs to do this. And I thought it was really effective because people look up to actors, musicians, incredible artists as opinion leaders. For these guys to stand up there and say real men don’t buy girls... I thought it setted up a little bit which was really, really good to set a precedent of like, "Hey, who are we looking at that really does this?" and maybe, maybe make someone think twice about it. There needs to be more. I mean, just to be honest, we need more shows focusing on it. We need more episodes of crime shows focusing on it and really telling the stories. On "Law and Order: SVU," they have done a fairly good job on that because that is their ‘Sexual Victims Unit’ - that is the entire title of the show - but I believe we need more.  And recently - I don’t know if you saw "Room," but "Room" did a really good job of taking you through a girl’s experience, what it would be like to be trapped and under the control of someone else who is monitoring your every single move. I don’t know if you know the story, but she was trapped for seven years and had a baby by the trafficker and eventually escaped. And this particular story in this movie did such a good job. But it is based on so many cases of girls being trapped in the exact same way, having children from their traffickers, all of it… And it really... I thought they painted a really great picture of what it is like for the victim, and they do sort of wake up, like, “Wait, this exists. This happened.”       Mark: Are there certain writers or studios or groups that do a better job of talking about trafficking, and are they getting the ratings when they do it? Marisol: That is a really good question. There are definitely episodes that focus on it, but not anyone where I can, “Oh yeah, this particular writer," or, "Fox is dedicating an entire series to this,” or anything like that. It is still not there. And, like anything right now, it is just an episode or two that would be dedicated to it rather than an entire show. Is that make sense? But when they do air, they make just as equal ratings as they would any other crime, because it usually goes on crime shows. What I would like to see is that at the end of those things, "To find out more, go to www..." or statistics. Mark: Yes. Marisol: Or, like, “Hey, this is actually based on a real case,” to get the audience going, “I had no idea.” Because anything that is based on real life events will always get more interest. Mark: Do you feel like we speak about trafficking correctly? In general, how it is messaged? How should it be messaged in your opinion, if you were PR for the movement? Marisol: If I was PR for the movement, I would call it slavery. I would call it modern-day slavery and I would make sure that it was on the forefront of everything. And I would really, really, really validate the people who rescue the kids - not only OUR, but also police officers, FBI agents, sheriffs...because when I would tell people, they would go, “Why isn’t the police doing anything about it?” I am like, “Because the police is the same people who have to respond to a burglary, to a murder, to a cat caught up in the tree, to all of it.”     Mark: Yeah. Marisol: And I think if we started validating more and more the officers and sheriffs and agents that are focusing on this, and on getting results, freeing girls, and, most importantly, putting the traffickers away... I think the more validation you give that, or anything, the more of that we will get. Mark: Yeah. Marisol: You know, there is a fascination with murder. You know, there are a thousand TV shows about murder, about this, and I have been in all of them, so I do know. And I think we need to shift our focus, because, for one, I think you get whatever you validate. So, if you validate that, you are going to get more of it. We can use that to our advantage and validate those guys that are doing this, and not only getting the girls, but arresting those traffickers and making sure it sticks. Because it is not easy. And I know this from law enforcement, I know this from meeting with different legislators, and all of that. It is that trafficking is not an easy thing to prosecute.   Mark: It is not. Marisol: It is crazy to me, and I have certain ideas that I am working with to make it a lot easier and what I think could be done. But we will get to that whenever you are at that point of the program.   Mark: Well no, if you have certain ideas, let those out. Marisol: What is hard, at least in this country, is you have to get a victim to testify against her trafficker and the johns just walk free: "Well, she approached me," or, "I don’t know… answered an ad," blah blah blah… There is an existing law in the book called statutory rape that doesn’t matter if the girl was consensual or not. It doesn’t matter at all. So if you would start prosecuting johns and traffickers with statutory rape, you don’t have to get the girl to go through a whole testimony, and how he forced her, anything. Is she under the age of 17 or not? Tim: Yeah. Marisol: That... It is done. And when you start prosecuting johns and traffickers with rape, that is a different story now. Tim: Yeah. Marisol: And charging traffickers, by the way, with facilitation of late, where you are creating an environment, where a girl can be raped extremely easily, should be under the age of 17, it is done. Tim: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. In fact, a lot of our approaches to this is all about figuring out how to prosecute these cases without needing to put the victim on the stand. These victims are so... They have been so terrorized and so rewired. For their own well-being, you don’t want to put them on the stand to have them have to relive this. Also, they are not the best witnesses because they do not know who they are, they don’t know who to trust. And so, this solution of prosecuting different crimes to get around that is one approach. Something we are doing, especially in foreign countries, is we do these sting operations and film everything. And they don’t really do that, especially in developing nations. We film every part, from the day we meet the trafficker until we buy the kid. And so, at the end of the day, we just give a hard drive to the prosecutor, and it is like they are watching the movie, and they say, “We don’t need to put the kid on the stand because we have the true intent of this trafficker from seventeen different angles."    Marisol: Yeah. And you know, Tim, I have had these conversations with Lieutenant Mark Evans, who is head of all Los Angeles Vice and all of the trafficking in Los Angeles on the Valley side, and he is like, “We would do this if the DA/district attorney would prosecute.” So my next step is to meet with DA and go, “Would you prosecute them?” Because all depends on are they going to prosecute a case like that or not. The cops can actually charge them with anything that they want, so if we just start instilling the mindset... And also johns... Can we just take a moment about the customers? Because if, right now - and I don’t know if this is the case all over, but at least in California, you know - let’s say there is a 12-year-old-girl. Someone answered an ad on Backpage and went to a motel and had sex with the 12-year-old girl. And the guy is 55 years old - he gets a slap on the wrist and he goes to john school and he gets a misdemeanor and gets it wiped from his record, just like traffic school. I don’t understand - how that is ok? Tim: Yeah… It is not ok. Marisol: And if we started prosecuting the johns with statutory rape, and you advertise that, you are going to take away the demand a lot faster. Tim: Absolutely. Marisol: Because people don’t like to be charged with rape by any means. But right now, there is no consequence. Tim: Yeah. Marisol: There is no consequence. They walk free. It doesn’t matter. So there are mindsets and things that can be changed within our already existing laws, at least in this country, that I believe can go a long way towards making a difference. Continuing with the customers... And then, as the johns get arrested and as they do get prosecuted, or even just arrested, why are we protecting them? If you look on the back of a newspaper, or whatever, you can read like who got arrested for what, drunk driving, blah blah blah blah, but you can get arrested for this and it is not there.    Tim: Yeah. Marisol: So I think we should make the johns, particularly the rich white guys, pay for a billboard with their face and their mugshot in their neighborhood. Tim: The Queen of Sweden did this. She did this thing where if you got caught trying to have sex with a child, you got your face plastered on a billboard for everyone to see. And guess what happened? They stopped. They stopped soliciting kids in Sweden. They left. It is exactly what we need to do. Marisol: Exactly. Tim: Unfortunately, there are a lot of groups out here who would stop us from doing that. Trying, worrying about child rapist rights. Marisol: It is insane to me. And I think, I honestly believe, Tim, that if we could get the certain people in the government that are not scared of that, we could push something like that through. But what I have run into in meeting on the local state and federal level is you get guys that are just, "Oh no, we can’t do that. We will be fought,” and they don’t even try. But I believe if you would try hard enough, we could push something like that through just based on the statistics alone that you ended this.      Tim: These politicians answered to the people. If we would get the people loud enough, then they would say, "Of course, I will put their face on a billboard!" Because the people are demanding it, and that is where we need to start this, right. And that is what you are doing - that is what we are doing - is trying to create this grassroots movement - get so loud that these guys have to start doing stuff like this. History tells us that they will do it if we get loud enough. Mark: You mentioned politicians that are scared, and we don’t know what the exact story is on H.R.515 right now, which is before Congress, which is a big cause that we are going to take up.     Marisol: Which one is that? Mark: It is International Megan’s Law. Marisol: Oh great, yes! Ok. Mark: It will allow better communication between governments as bad guys travel abroad and come in. Right now, you cannot really get the information quickly enough to be actionable intelligence. Now, it went through the House, it went through the Senate, the Senate put some amendments on it, threw it back to the House - now it has a 15% passage rate. We have got a brilliant girl from the Podcast Congressional Web that just dissects bills. She is amazing.    Marisol: Who? Who does she work for, do you know? Mark: She is, totally... It is just her, totally independent. Marisol: Oh, ok. Mark: I don’t know what her politics are. I have listened to her shows - I have no idea, which is beautiful to me. She just dissects bills and sees what the [inaudible], sees what the hold-ups are in...what day, I think February 10th, we are going to be on with her and she is going to walk us through the bill and dissect who is holding it up and why. Marisol: Great! Mark: That is going to be awesome, right? Tim: This thing has been in Congress for over a year. It is ridiculous. Now, I actually testified with [inaudible] of Utah. We testified before the House on this bill because we were so frustrated, like, “Why can’t you pass this?!” It is a place that actually creates what is called the Angel Watch Center, a center where non-profit, private groups, government groups all get together and they talk about... They bring intel together, they start communicating better. And like Mark was saying, it is a notification program. If some French child rapist/former convict comes into our country, they are going to tell us, “Hey, this guys is flying into JFK. You might want to either deny him entry or watch him,” you know. We did the same for other countries. And again, what the issue is is their rights, the criminal’s right to travel without being notified. Mark: As we start to find more about H.R.515, maybe we engage you. Marisol: I am looking at it right now and I am kind of seeing where possibly the hold-up is because they are talking about any sex offender, and what I found in the past of certain other laws was that the definition of sex offender also includes, like, the person who was caught urinating in a park drunk, and he is labeled a sex offender for the rest of his life. And they are using those cases to cause an uproar to stop the whole thing, and say it is discriminatory against them. It is a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense, but that is where I am guessing - it is a guess - some of the hold-up is. One of the things that could go a long way is we will prosecute people for aiding and abetting. If they knew about a murder or they knew about a robbery that was taken place - so they were the driver but they didn’t do it... But we don’t do this with [inaudible].     Tim: It is a great point. It is true. Marisol: That would be another angle to getting the johns going, "Hey, you knew about this?” to get prostitution illegal in this country. So, did you really answer an ad for a massage? Do you know what I mean? And cast a wider net when you can actually prosecute people for aiding and abetting, for helping along, for being an accomplice...you know, looking in terms of existent laws that we already have in the books and prosecute differently to make a bigger dent. Tim: Agreed. We could make a list and shout it out to the world: "So, here are the things that need a change," and just be loud. Get the footage, get entertainment industry, get everyone to be so loud - Harriet Beecher Stowe thing, right - and then say, "What do we do?" "Here is the list, call your congressmen, get this stuff changed." Let’s do it, we are going to do it! Alright. Thanks so much, Marisol, we will have you back soon. Marisol: Alright, thanks guys! Thanks for having me! Tim: Alright, thank you! You know, the thing done is at least there are people out there because what this requires to save kids... You have to think outside the box. Just like to get rid of slavery in America, you had to think outside the box. And the model we are proposing is this private public partnership where we need our law enforcement. They have the badges, they have their prosecutors, they have the jail system, they have the judicial system, they can do this. But the problem is, this is such a unique problem and it is so enormous you have to be proactive and creative. Because these…the bad guys are being creative, and most law enforcement agencies don’t have the wherewithal to cover the homicides, the drug dealers and all the things they have been fighting for years and years and are trained to do. And now, you have trafficking problem on top of that. It is relatively new in terms of trying to react to it and most don’t have the tools they need. And that is why I left the government. Because I recognized all the gaps in the agencies that were fighting this problem. Again, not to slam them, but there are gaps everywhere. I got turned down by half the time when I put out request to do an operation. I got shut down because of X,Y, or Z. I always kind of understood the reasons, and I thought, “Alright, I don’t see the government fixing these gaps anytime soon, so I am going to leave - start my own organization that fills those gaps.” So I can go to any agency and say, “I know your problems because I had them, and I am going to solve them for you. We will do this, this, that and the other.” And the law enforcement agencies that want to save their kids are like, “Yes, come on in!” and we go and conquer together in the private-public model.  There are other law enforcement officers who... I will not name them right now, but have them in my head right now, and I am pissed off at them. So close-minded. Mark: What did they say? Give me a conversation. Tim: "You shouldn’t be doing this work. This is just for us. This is for a SWAT law enforcement." "I was a SWAT law enforcement for 12 years, I know how to do this." "Well, you cannot do it. I do not like you doing it." “The parents of the kids, who are being abused - they like that we are doing it. And where we are working, no one is doing it." So there is no answer, no answer to it. It just the partners we work with - they are not this way. If you are this way, we don’t work with you. But you would be surprised how many come back and say that they literally gave up the opportunity to rescue more kids because of pride, because of ego, because if you don’t have a badge, you shouldn’t be consulting or helping or anything like that. They can’t see outside the box. And it is sad because kids are getting hurt. I have had a conversation, actually - and I will not name the people, the agency - but I have literally had a conversation that went like this: "So you are telling me that you or your boss would rather let these kids continue to be raped than work with a private organization that you know together we can solve the problem?" And they said, "Yes." Mark: Wow. Tim: They said yes. It wasn’t them... The person I was talking to said, “I want to do it, but yes that is... My boss has made that deliberate decision.” They don’t want to admit that they need help or that they don’t have a handle on it. It is sick, it is sad. But you know, you have all sorts of people, and the good news is that there are a whole bunch of law enforcement agencies out there and prosecutors all over the place that put the kids above everything else, and that is who we work with. Yep, that is who we work with. And there are so many of them that we don’t run out of work. So, you know, I was talking to some folks at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who are a wonderful asset - all law enforcement works with them on so many areas to find kids, to find child pornographers - such an amazing organization. And I was talking to them about some of my frustrations and they said, "You know what? We did the same thing." They went through the same thing in the 80’s when they created the organization. There was a major - and I won’t name the agency - a major agency in the United States government that actually put out a policy/memo to their agents, to their law enforcement, saying, "You will not work with this new National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. You will not work with them. We got this. We don’t need help."    Mark: Farm Bureau. Tim: Yeah. That was a farm bureau. You got it.    Mark: Gosh…you know, the pressure was their heyday. Tim: Between that and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, yeah... They just went...yeah, unbelievable. But now, guess what? That agency has agents in their office that work inside the National Center. And so they say, "Just don’t worry. Buck up, little Timmy. Just work with those that will work with you. And success will be built upon success." And so we just have to put the negative aside and put the haters aside and we will work with those who see the vision. And they are the best ones anyway. They are the ones who are getting it done. Mark: Today, more than any other day, in talking to you, I feel momentum. I feel really pumped. And I don’t know what you had for lunch, or what your pre-workout was, but you are on fire, man. You are going to kill it. Tim: You didn’t feel that before? Mark: I did. Tim: You jerk. Mark: I didn’t... I felt like... Tim: ...how to take a compliment and just throw it in the trash. Mark: No, listen. I have felt like you are pushing a boulder uphill before, but now I feel like the boulder is moving. You know what I am saying? Like, we were getting people and we're shedding light on the problem, but really I just feel a new energy and not sure what it is. Tim: Well, what you are feeling probably is... I am in the middle of a case. I am back in my... Mark: You are... Tim: ...I am back in my agent days right now as an employee of this law enforcement agency. It is… I have been given authorization to get back and get my hands dirty back in this. And when I do that, I get very energized. Well, friends, sign us off, Timmy. Buck up, little Timmy. Tim: Thanks for joining us, guys. Looking forward to see you again on Slave Stealer Podcast.

Being tall can come with a few of benefits…they’re faster runners, see more at gigs, can reach the top shelf and have the innate ability to pull off jumpsuits.Now, anthropologists are saying that, on average, tall people even earn more than short people. Can you believe it?在这个“以貌取人”的时代，悲催的事情却远不止于此。有人类学家研究指出人们的收入与身高挂上钩，高个子的收入普遍比矮个子的收入高。你相信吗？Heyang: So What does the research say? And is it true that taller people just earn more ?Mark : Well, it’s kind of old of saying, this is known for some time, and i think yes it’s true, this is been an well established that taller people earn more than shorter people, but they don’t earn more because they are taller or shorter, in my opinion, this goes probably weight back to when their children fighting at school or something like that,obviously, people that had a height advantage might be bigger people therefore stronger, therefore maybe dominated the other kids more, therefore maybe develop some skills like leaderships or always be chosen or gain more respect, and therefore their whole development just to the accident of being a couple of three centimeters just taller, the whole development might give them advantages, social advantages which we don’t even see developing. So at the ends up, they already have the advantage just position, yes, it was because their height advantage when they are small, but it’s lot of the other things that happen along the way.Luoyu: Yea, from the evolution perspective, a lot of anthropologist said so because of human being evolve as species and still living struggles on the plain many people are scabbed down the good leaders of those tall people they consider them to be intelligent and to the persons having leadership skills, probably, and now, i think, even nowadays, society, now is operating following of this sym pattern. Mark : Let me just quickly say that it’s interesting what you say about in ancient time, they would be on the grassland, for example, and a tall person had the advantage. Well a tall person could see an enemy coming more sooner than shorted people could be (that’s true , they could ) and therefore that’s why it would make them the leader, because they can see dangers before anyone else can, i mean, say for example, there are someone as tall, Yao Ming, that person might find himself not just because their physical presence, their shear size, but because they could see when there was enemy coming before anybody else could, they could assume the leadership position, they could just take the leadership position, and couldn’t they ?Heyang: But if, let’s just say two tribes or let’s say an animal and this tribal people are so of at war, you know, at each others’ throws, and when a person like Yao Ming, be too big to hide and wouldn’t he be a bigger target so as beat? But anyways, it seems evolution has determined that taller people are just in a more advantage position, Luoyu: But I want to say here that , well, there is al large probability it’s been a large probability if you are tall, you have a large probability to earn more, but there are no other causal effect that since you are tall, you can earn more...Mark: I think it’s kind of culture it depends, because if you look at some African countries like Rwanda, you have the tip tribe, very very tall people, but if you compare all the Dutch, actually, the Dutch very very tall people , generally, but if you compare perhaps their income with shorter Americans, well ,for example, you probably find they are earning less, so depends on culture too.Heyang: yea it depends on culture and think about the shorter people that have fewer healthy shoes living longer and getting to sit on taller people shoulders at festivals, that sound like a major advantage. A small consolation perhaps but no less powerful for it.

Koolchat No.6 Buying an IphoneTips for buying an iPhoneMark: Tip #1 – Which phone do you want? (5s / 6 / 6+ / 6s / 6s+)Jackie: I want the 6s+Mark: Don't say… ‘want' or ‘give me'. I would like the da da da iPhone. Mark: No, replace ‘da da da' with the phone you wantMark: Tip #2 – Choose your colour? There are 4 colours to choose fromJackie: err!!Mark: No, we should say: ‘excuse me', ‘pardon' or ‘I'm sorry'. Jackie: I'm sorry, how many colours are there? Mark: 4 colour! Silver, Gold, Space Gray, and Rose Gold. Which do you think will be popular? Jackie: Chinese people like gold, maybe Rose Gold.Mark: You do know that's Pink?Jackie: Pink!!, you said Rose Gold.Mark: I know but it sure looks pink to me.Jackie: Maybe, I'll give that to the wife. Mark: Tip #3 – CapacityJackie: Oh, easy. I want to buy in Hangzhou city.Mark: Haha… no not the city the ‘ca-pa-ci-ty'. The storage size, capacity.Jackie capacity.Mark: They make 3 storage sizes, called ‘Gigabytes' but we usually say ‘gigs'. Repeat – 16 gigs, 64 gigs & 128 gigs.Jackie: So how many gigs do I need?Mark: I know you like movies and you like to keep Koolchat with you all the time, I'd get 64 gigs.Mark: Tip #4 – Take a seatJackie: Does it come with a free seat, an Apple seat?Mark: No, think about it.Jackie: Oh, it will be very busy. I'll need to wait?Mark: No.Jackie: I have to sit down while they teach me how to use it?Mark: Maybe, but no.Jackie: What then?Mark: If you don't sit down, you'll fall down when you hear the price.Mark: Tip #5 – How will you pay?Jackie: I thought you were paying. My birthday is coming.Mark: err… no.Jackie: I guess I'll buy my own birthday gift.Mark: The sales staff always ask: “How would you like to pay?” What will you say?Jackie: I want to pay with a card.Mark: Remember we change the word ‘want' to ‘would like'. You could say UnionPay or credit card.Jackie: I would like to pay with Mark's credit card.Mark: Let's put it together in a dialogue for our English learnersMark: Can I help you?Jackie: Yes, I would like the 6s+ iPhone, please.Mark: Sure, which colour would you like?Jackie: I would like the rose gold one, it's for my wife.Mark: ..and what capacity would you like?Jackie: 64 gigs please.Mark: Please take a seat; I'll just be a moment. PauseMark: Here you are. How would you like to pay?Jackie: I would like to pay by Union Pay.Mark: No problem.

Koolchat No.6 Buying an IphoneTips for buying an iPhoneMark: Tip #1 – Which phone do you want? (5s / 6 / 6+ / 6s / 6s+)Jackie: I want the 6s+Mark: Don’t say… ‘want’ or ‘give me’. I would like the da da da iPhone. Mark: No, replace ‘da da da’ with the phone you wantMark: Tip #2 – Choose your colour? There are 4 colours to choose fromJackie: err!!Mark: No, we should say: ‘excuse me’, ‘pardon’ or ‘I’m sorry’. Jackie: I’m sorry, how many colours are there? Mark: 4 colour! Silver, Gold, Space Gray, and Rose Gold. Which do you think will be popular? Jackie: Chinese people like gold, maybe Rose Gold.Mark: You do know that’s Pink?Jackie: Pink!!, you said Rose Gold.Mark: I know but it sure looks pink to me.Jackie: Maybe, I’ll give that to the wife. Mark: Tip #3 – CapacityJackie: Oh, easy. I want to buy in Hangzhou city.Mark: Haha… no not the city the ‘ca-pa-ci-ty’. The storage size, capacity.Jackie capacity.Mark: They make 3 storage sizes, called ‘Gigabytes’ but we usually say ‘gigs’. Repeat – 16 gigs, 64 gigs & 128 gigs.Jackie: So how many gigs do I need?Mark: I know you like movies and you like to keep Koolchat with you all the time, I’d get 64 gigs.Mark: Tip #4 – Take a seatJackie: Does it come with a free seat, an Apple seat?Mark: No, think about it.Jackie: Oh, it will be very busy. I’ll need to wait?Mark: No.Jackie: I have to sit down while they teach me how to use it?Mark: Maybe, but no.Jackie: What then?Mark: If you don’t sit down, you’ll fall down when you hear the price.Mark: Tip #5 – How will you pay?Jackie: I thought you were paying. My birthday is coming.Mark: err… no.Jackie: I guess I’ll buy my own birthday gift.Mark: The sales staff always ask: “How would you like to pay?” What will you say?Jackie: I want to pay with a card.Mark: Remember we change the word ‘want’ to ‘would like’. You could say UnionPay or credit card.Jackie: I would like to pay with Mark’s credit card.Mark: Let’s put it together in a dialogue for our English learnersMark: Can I help you?Jackie: Yes, I would like the 6s+ iPhone, please.Mark: Sure, which colour would you like?Jackie: I would like the rose gold one, it’s for my wife.Mark: ..and what capacity would you like?Jackie: 64 gigs please.Mark: Please take a seat; I’ll just be a moment. PauseMark: Here you are. How would you like to pay?Jackie: I would like to pay by Union Pay.Mark: No problem.

Xiaohua: Hello, welcome to round table’s word of the week. This week, we are going to talk about some wedding-related words and phrases. Mark: That’s right. There are lots of wedding-related words and phrases. And the unique thing about many of them is that you never really hear of them except in the context of a wedding. One of the first ones is a very familiar phrase, is to go down the aisle. This is something we hear a lot. We hear: the bride looks beautiful. There she is with her husband-to-be, just about to go down the aisle. When people say this, they mean the center corridor between the seats inside a church. But this is one of most frequently misused words in the English language. In a church, there are two aisles. These aisles are on the sides of the main room of the church, not down the center. This will surprise many people because we are brought up with this phrase down the aisle. Xiaohua: So what’s the name of center corridor then?Mark: It’s actually called the nave. So the nave is the pathway where the bride walks. So you know, you can walk down the aisle, but if you do that, you will be walking down the side of the main room of the church, not down the center.Xiaohua: That’s interesting: go down the aisle 这个词组表达的就是结婚的时候从教堂中间的那条通道走过去这时候的样子。那中国人可能经常会说走上红毯。但其实Mark指出教堂中间的那条走道叫做nave，教堂两边的走道才叫做aisle。That’s such an interesting misunderstanding.Mark: Let’s have another one now. The people who get married, the happy couple: the bride and the groom. That’s a very interesting thing, isn’t it? Because a groom is also a word that is used to describe somebody who looks after a horse. I don’t know why that should be significant really in a wedding. Xiaohua: Bride and Groom 或者是 bride and bridegroom就是新娘和新郎，但是groom在英文里又有男仆或马夫的意思。I checked it in the dictionary. Actually, in old English, bridegroom was called brydguma, and guma meant man at that time. But gradually this usage of guma being man disappeared. So later, people just somehow replaced guma with groom.Mark: Yes. That’s very interesting. And also, the word bride does itself relate to horses just like groom does. Even now, there’ll be a public footpath in England where people can walk down there. But if it’s a public footpath where horses can also go down there, it’s called a public bridal-way.Xiaohua: Also, something that bewilders me is the name for best man. We know that is the best man. But the equivalent of that for a bride is maid of honor. Now there doesn’t seem to be any resemblances between the two phrases. Mark: No, well if we take a look how long these words have existed, maid of honor comes from American culture and is therefore much more recent. Whereas the idea of best man has been around a lot longer, hundreds and hundreds of years that’s been around. The origin of it is quite interesting. The idea was really that if the new husband wasn’t able to fulfill his duties as a husband to the bride, then the best man would step in. Now remember we’re talking about a time hundreds of years ago when man would be called off to fight and might be killed in a war leaving behind the wife and children. And so this is again where the best man would be expected to come in. Xiaohua: Interesting and slightly scary story for me.Mark: Actually, you know, traditionally it’s the new husband that chooses his best friend as the best man. Really I think the new bride should choose the best man, cause she is the one that theoretically might have to end up living with him and taking him on as her new husband. Xiaohua: Oh my goodness! 所以在英文best man或者是男傧相还有这样一个奇怪的故事。就是在很久很久以前，当丈夫因为什么样的事故死去或者因为生病而不能履行丈夫的职责的时候，就要由男傧相来代替行使丈夫的权利和角色。So I guess then in this way, the best man should be called the second best man, because it’s really that what he is. Mark: True. There is an old joke which is, you know, you must feel sorry for the bride, she never ends up marrying the best man. Xiaohua: Yes. That is interesting.Mark: As well as maid of honor which is sort of the female equivalent of the best man, this is coming from American culture. So has the idea of bridal shower that has been around in British culture for probably the last 10 or 15 years. I think really behind all this is marketing, you know. It’s a way of selling people stuff. So this is where the bride are given lots of presents by her besties, isn’t it?Xiaohua: Yes. Bridal shower这个词我觉得很难翻译，算作婚前的新娘送礼会。Basically, it means you shower the bride with gifts prior to her marriage. Right?Mark: It likes rain shower, but instead of it raining down with water, it’s raining down with gifts, which sounds wonderful, especially for those who sell the gifts. Xiaohua: That’s true, and I think that’s effectively brings us to the end of this edition of Word of the Week.

Xiaohua: The omnipotent Chaoyang residents are on the go again. Latest news says that a CCTV host busted by police while taking drugs fell from a building in Beijing and died. The host as well as another drug user was reported by Chaoyang residents, the so-called “Chaoyang Masses”, or 朝阳群众 to the local police. The phrase “Chaoyang Masses” has been very popular recently with the help of the Internet. Now let’s talk about it finally. Why do you think that this term gets so popular. Heyang: Because I think it’s been closely connected to a string of celebrity gossip. That’s it’s always the Chaoyang residents or the Chaoyang masses give the police a tip-off. And now there’s this CCTV host, and previously there was Huang Haibo and Ke Zhendong and a whole bunch of others. As a result of the tip-off got busted by the police either because of calling prostitutes or taking drugs and all kinds of things going on. So, I’m with the netizens. When and how did the Chaoyang masses became such a powerful and mysterious organization, to some extent, that can fight crime? When did that start happening, since last year I suppose?!Mark: I think it started happening in people’s imagination. When this phrase has been invented by the media. That’s when the phenomenon started. Realistically, it doesn’t exist. Xiaohua: It was invented by the police probably.Mark: There are certain individuals who have nothing better to do. They go around poking their noses into other people’s business. Now sometimes when it’s illegal business, it could be a good thing. But to think of it…as it has been compared to the British secret service the MI6…Heyang: And also the CIA, the MOSSAD…Mark: Come on now, really. I think this is the most hyped up story and a fantastic sounding phrase—the Chaoyang Masses—to hook the whole story onto. And we’ve fallen for it. We are promoting it.Xiaohua: We are not. We’re trying to get to the bottom to it. Mark: We are discussing it. In that way, we are going along the way with this idea that there’s such as thing as the Chaoyang Masses. When in fact it’s probably just different people who happen to know someone, maybe they have a grudge against them. And if they can snitch it to the police then they will. I hardly think it is hundreds of thousands of people in organized units, going around busting crime. Is it?It’s the odd person with a grudge that thinks alright, I’m going to make an anonymous tip-off to the cops and you are for it Mister. That’s what is happening.Heyang: And maybe they happen to live in Chaoyang district who knows. Mark: maybe they don’t. Who cares. Heyang: Yeah, we cares.Mark: But it doesn’t help the story if we say they don’t.The media loves this kind of thing. Sure enough, we are enjoying it now and discussing it. Heyang: When I saw this my initial question was…So these are celebrities that have paparazzi following them around. And even the paparazzi who have a close eye on these celebrities 24 hours around the clock couldn’t bust them taking drugs and doing illegal things. When did these Chaoyao people and how did they bust them when even the paps can’t do. Thanks guys, I think now we’ve cleared the air a little bit for me. Mark: Let’s look at this realistically. If you are running a hotel, if you are renting an apartment and you sometimes service the apartment. The hotel room is cleaned and you find some drug paraphernalia or something there, you don’t want anything to do with that obviously. Therefore you would probably tell the police. But it’s hardly a case for the Chaoyang Masses. It’s probably someone looking after their own interests. Because they don’t anything to do with that kind of illegal activity. And therefore they don’t want anyone doing it in their property. Who knows how the information gets to the police. It’s probably things like that, people looking after their own interests. Xiaohua: You guys have great points. But just to play devil’s advocate here. Don’t underestimate the power of the masses, or maybe the Dama’s, or the Daye’s in this case of Chaoyang.On the one hand, I think Chaoyang is a place where expat communities are there, and lots of celebrities do live in Chaoyang. I guess that’s why it’s always Chaoyang and things happening in Chaoyang. On the other hand, it plays to the police’s advantage to create or help to create this phenomenon. Because that gives Chaoyang an image of there’s citizen vigilante where you don’t want to do something bad. Our listener Yang Duo says why are there still people taking drugs in Chaoyang, knowing that there’s the Chaoyang qunzhong there. Probably a good point.