Podcast appearances and mentions of matt great

Sill ol Matt needs a boost so its time we organize a campaign to Make Matt Great Again, YAY! or #MMGAY. Support the show: https://www.101x.com/cjSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EP 142! This week we have WA indie-rock darlings - Great Gable! Cal and Matt take time from their busy touring schedule to chat about something old and something new - The Black Keys 'Turn Blue' vs Matt Corby's 'Everything's FIne'. We recorded this one day before their Enmore Theatre show supporting Matt Corby on his Everything's Fine tour, HOW GOOD. FOLLOW GREAT GABLE: https://www.greatgablemusic.comREAD THE ROOM EP OUT NOW: https://great-gable.lnk.to/ReadTheRoomUse code ROYALE10 for 10% off at Rudderless Records! Link: https://www.rudderlessrecords.com.auFollow Record Royale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recordroyale/Follow us on the socials:Brad Mclean- https://www.instagram.com/bradbradnotgood_/Adam Lindsay - https://www.instagram.com/adamlindsay__/

Bob and Matt reunite to welcome Adam from DEBRA GETS RED PILLED as they discuss spinning the plates of freedom, sanity and autonomy in an attempt to establish some sort of normallcy in clown world.

In 2007, after nearly a decade of experience in numbers-focused direct-response marketing, Matt Weber used a business broker to buy a small jack-of-all trades agency that provided sales training, traditional media marketing, and a small bit of web development. Over time, that agency became ROAR! Internet Marketing, where Matt is now President. The agency's forte today? Measurable actions. In this interview, Matt explains what a buyer can expect from a business broker, how to select one, broker limitations, and a broker's role in facilitating business acquisitions. He warns that it will be challenging to evaluate transactional opportunities in the next few months. But, he also expects to see a lot of merger and acquisition activity as companies adjust to the COVID-impacted business environment. Matt's general tips? Agencies will need to be more aware of costs now, “throttle back” on anticipatory hiring, , and eliminate “tool bloat” (buying multiple tools with the same functionality).  Matt is no stranger to change. In 2007, websites were little more than glorified brochures. Matt shed virtually everything of the original business, rebranded it, and focused heavily on digital marketing conversions and direct response. Early on, 85-90% of the agency's revenues came from web development. Today, 80% of his agency's revenues come from recurring digital marketing services, primarily for three verticals: elective medical (almost recession-proof), recurring-business home services (need-based), and manufacturing (which has a completely different cycle than consumer-based marketing). Matt says, when you focus your efforts on a limited number of verticals, you “leverage your success more effectively,” and follows that with the comment: “Diluted focus yields diluted results.”  Matt has created a free tool, Smylelytics.com, which he compares to a car's “check engine” light. (It won't tell you what is wrong, but it will tell you when to take a look.) Twice a month, Smylelytics evaluates a company's Google Analytics, translates the information into memorable, themed photographs, and emails the company with the (good/neutral/bad) “news.” Matt serves as a national trainer for the Grow with Google program, where he presents small- to medium-sized businesses with a one-day class that covers Google My Business, Google Analytics, and Google Data Studio tools. He also speaks at conferences, frequently on the topic of, “5 Things Your Website Is Trying to Tell You but You're Afraid to Ask.” Here, he provides a brief overview of those 5 things: Does your website, as a salesperson, feel confident in selling your business? Is it effective in turning leads into sales? Where should you focus your limited time and budget?What do the analytics show you about which efforts are paying off and which are not?  Is your landing page making a good first impression? What does your landing report say about what your first-time visitors do on their first visit? Who likes you best? Focus your efforts on communicating with those who like you the most. Are certain pages repelling your customers? Stop serving the bad pages. Mayt is available on his agency's website at: RoarontheWeb.com or on Twitter @BestWebDesignFL. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Matt Weber, President at ROAR! Internet Marketing based in Altamonte Springs, Florida just outside of Orlando. Welcome to the podcast, Matt. MATT: Thank you. Great to be here. Been looking forward to this for some time. ROB: Excellent to have you here. I've been looking forward to this as well, especially with some of the interesting nuances of your own history and background. Why don't you kick us off, though, by telling us about ROAR! Internet Marketing and what the company specializes in?  MATT: Our real specialty is conversions. We've been around since 2007, and back then we started lead tracking, lead recording, and a focus on measurable results. That came from my background in direct marketing. I did direct mail. I did nearly a decade of direct response marketing where if you couldn't measure it, you didn't do it. Back in 2007, that's not what websites were. In 2007, websites were kind of glorified brochures, and nobody was really talking about conversions and goals and tracking things. That was our entrée into the marketplace, and we were really one of the pioneers in that area. We've continued to evolve that – to the point, though, where we've gotten a little bit less into web design and more into digital marketing. When we started the agency, 85-90% of our revenue was web development, and now 80% of our revenue is recurring digital marketing services. So our forte is measurable actions. ROB: Who were some of the first sorts of clients that were really open to thinking about their website as less of a brochure and more of a destination and opportunity to actually get action? I think some people were willing to spend more money on expensive brochures for a while, but who started turning that corner to thinking more progressively about their websites? MATT: Elective medical. Cosmetic surgeons, LASIK, cosmetic dermatologists. They came into 2007 with a fairly refined understanding of how much a new patient is worth, and they had some sensitivity to cost per lead. So that's where we get our start, and that was the segment that was most receptive to our messaging, followed by home services. They were also receptive to that because they were prolific direct mailers. So, they did receive that message well, and we're still in those two verticals today. ROB: That makes sense. Certainly, a lot of elective medical can potentially be fairly large tickets, fairly decent margins, and probably also so on the home services side. Was it larger project stuff, or were you also finding things even down to emergency plumbers? MATT: More things that had a recurring value – your pest control company where it was an average lifetime value rather than a transaction value. They got it pretty quickly. Let's say you engage with a pest control company; you're going to typically stay with them for 2+ years at $70 a month or $80 a month. Those companies understand lifetime value as opposed to transaction value, so this worked well for them. ROB: That's a great line of thinking, especially to find your way into some of those good long-term customer lifetime value – not so much restaurants and that sort of thing. You started in 2007. You started at perhaps an inopportune time, much as anyone who started a business last year may feel right now amidst this coronavirus crisis/shift/recession, whatever we wish to call it. How did those next couple of years going through that financial crisis with the business change your thinking, and how is it shaping how you think about the virus era and post-virus era that we are in and heading into? MATT: I want to answer the second part of that question first because we have always run our business imagining that we were always in the worst of times – because we were, in 2007-2008 and early 2009. We were in times where we were watching this deposit so that we could make this payment. We were running checks to the bank and then saying, “Okay, now we can make this payment.” Everything was almost on a minute by minute basis. We never forgot that. I think it's a lot like people listening who might have grandparents or great-grandparents from the Depression era and how that affected their spending all the way up until their late life. That happened to us and a lot of businesses, so we always managed the company as if times weren't great. That's helped now. We're in a stronger financial position, we're a financially strong company, and a lot of that is the attitudes that 2007 and 2008 brought with us. ROB: How much of that comes naturally for you? I think any entrepreneur, and especially in the marketing and agency world, one of the first questions you're asked when you meet anybody is “How many people do you have?” It's this tempting ego number to hire a little bit ahead of need. Probably throttling back on that along the way, was that a natural thing for you? Or was it an acquired discipline? MATT: It's an acquired discipline. You brought up a great one: labor. I think a lot of agencies do hire before the need. Another one is tools. I run into a lot of agency owners that have six or seven or eight different tools that duplicate functionality. These tools reshape themselves, they come out with something new, so the agency buys a subscription to this one without canceling the subscription to that one, and all of a sudden they've got what I call “tool bloat.” They've got subscriptions to a bunch of different things they didn't even know they were subscribing to. That happens as well. Being mindful of that I think is a result of the 2007, 2008, and 2009 experience, where we track everything we spend on a recurring basis, what we've committed to, and we're very cautious about our labor expenses. ROB: How do you manage those labor expenses when you do start to get close to the margin? I think we've all had that experience where we have a little bit more work than we can do or maybe a lot more work than we have capacity to do. How do you think through some of those inflection points? MATT: We've got quite a few spreadsheets and calculations that we do behind the scenes, and there's a premise behind it, and that is: we don't want to be that agency that hires up, loses an account, and lays off. We mathematically figure out not only what the point is when we need to hire somebody, but what's above that so that if we lost anything, we don't want to lay off. I'm happy to say that since 2007, we have never laid off a single employee because we've lost an account. We've eliminated a position because the scope of work changed, but we've never eliminated a position because we've lost a client. Now, when we go to hire people, yes, people are looking for money, absolutely. But at some level, they're looking for stability. A little bit lesser so today than maybe 6 years ago, but we get to tell those people, “This is our philosophy. We don't want to hire up and lay down. That's not who we are. We want to build a team, a coherent team, and we want to build for retention.” We've been very fortunate in that. We've got folks that have been with us for 10 years, 8 years, 7 years, and it's because of that philosophy. They know underneath it all, we're trying to build something progressively stable. ROB: That's insightful. One thing that goes along with that dynamic you discuss of losing an account and laying people off is also revenue concentration. Some agencies can be anywhere between let's say 30% and 70% all-in with one client. How do you think about revenue concentration? Is it something you try and manage, or is it something you just deal with and manage around? MATT: We definitely try to manage to it. In fact, we not only manage revenue concentration within a client, but we try to manage revenue concentration within a vertical. Our three verticals are elective medical, home services, and manufacturing. Those were chosen because elective medical is almost recession-proof. In fact, a couple of our cosmetic surgeon clients had some of their best years in 2007 and 2008, surprisingly. Home services are need-based, so it's hard for a consumer to give up let's say their pest control company, as an example. Then manufacturing has a completely different cycle than some of the consumer-based marketing that we do. So, we not only look at revenue concentration per client, we look at it per vertical. We don't want to be heavily invested into any one of those three verticals. ROB: Really interesting, and makes a ton of sense. Matt, how did you get into this business in the first place? What led you to move from whatever you were doing before to starting ROAR? MATT: I was working for the broadcast industry. That's where I grew up. I spent 15+ years in the broadcast industry. Then I worked for an exciting and fast-paced direct response marketing company, and I was in a job that was very challenging. A lot of travel, a lot of 65+-hour weeks. My wife at the time also was in a very challenging position, and our daughter was about two years from graduating high school. We looked around and said, “What does life look like after our daughter leaves the house?” We came to the conclusion that if you are going to kill yourself for somebody, why not kill yourself for yourself? So, we went on this process of buying a business. Interestingly enough, we ran into a business that at the time – and this is early 2007 – was a high-end luxury home theater business. I was going through the financials and going through the business, and it was owned by a gentleman who was an extremely smart engineer, and he had a great business from a technology standpoint, from an execution standpoint – but he was a horrible marketer. I thought, “Ah, this is for me because that's my strength. I'm a great marketer.” I was just about to put pen on a contract to buy that business, and our business broker called and said, “Hey, there's another thing out there. Why don't you take a look at it? It's an advertising business.” Of course, business brokers call everything an advertising business. So we went and looked at it, and it was a guy who had started this small shop that did a little bit of everything – it did sales training, did traditional media, and it did, back in 2007, a little bit of web development. We looked at 2007 and we said the future is digital, the future is web, the future is not traditional, and the future certainly wasn't sales training to us. So, we bought that company in early 2007 and began to morph it. We got rid of its traditional market offerings, got rid of the sales training, rebranded it, and got heavily invested into conversions and the direct response portion of digital marketing. And that's how we got into it. ROB: I think a lot of people may not be familiar with working with a business broker. Is that something you had done before? Is that something you would do again? Maybe in this season there's other businesses that would be worth acquiring? MATT: I think so. You're right, I think we're about to enter an interesting time for merger activity and acquisition activity. I do think a business broker is a time saver. It doesn't give you a pass on doing your own homework because business brokers can never be an expert in your line of work. In the acquisition opportunities that we've evaluated since then, that is very apparent. They don't know the metrics to ask and they don't know how to peel back the onions of the financials to look for what really is a healthy agency. But they do save time. In fact, a lot of agencies that might be for sale – how do you find out about them? It's not like you can drive by and they're going to put a “for sale” sign on the outside of the building. The only way you might be able to find out about them is if they're represented by a business broker. So, I do think if you're looking to acquire something in the coming months and years, definitely find a business broker that you can trust and build a rapport with. I think it's a little bit like buying and selling a home. You have to have a rapport with your real estate agent, and that real estate agent needs to have some level of expertise. You wouldn't engage with a real estate agent who doesn't really know the neighborhood that you're buying in, and you might not do the same thing with the business broker. Don't engage somebody who doesn't have at least some high level awareness of the type of business that you're looking at. But they are not going to be the expert, and you're going to need to bring a fair amount of analytical power to the evaluation of any potential transaction. ROB: That's a very timely insight, I think. For someone who hasn't worked with a business broker before, I think a lot of times when you generally talk about acquiring or selling an agency, quite often they're revenue and retention financed. How does that dynamic work with a business broker? Is it similar, where there's an earn-out and payback period? Or is it a little bit more of a buyout and transaction since there is a middleman in there who isn't involved at all in retaining clients the way you might be doing if you were acquiring an agency more directly? MATT: Yeah, brokers aren't really keen on the whole earn-out scenario. [laughs] But they're going to attach a value to the transaction regardless of how that transaction is funded, ultimately. So, the broker is going to seek its commission based on what that topline value is, and it's going to be paid at the beginning portion of that transaction. If the transaction takes years to complete, the broker will get his money upfront. ROB: So, the rest of the transaction, are you then able to still revenue finance it and set those terms directly with the owner? MATT: Yeah, and that's part of the negotiation. I think we're going to see changes in that upcoming. I think that we're going to see some vulnerabilities for shops that are heavily invested in these segments that we just talked about. If you're running a digital agency and 80% of your revenue is coming from restaurants right now, I sympathize with you. You're in a tough spot. If 80% of your revenue is coming from travel and tourism, I empathize with you. You're in a tough spot. So, what is that owner going to do? Maybe that's an agency where that owner says, “You know what? Maybe it's time for me to look at other things.” You have to then bring in the power of where that revenue came from, what it could be, and could you potentially help diversify that revenue? It's going to be a challenging time in the next few months to evaluate transactional opportunities. ROB: Going back to the start of the business for you – you talked about how you've navigated a previous financial crisis, but I think another thing you've navigated is in 2007, as you mentioned, websites were essentially glorified brochures, and social media was in an infancy if at all. LinkedIn I think was around, and Facebook I think was around for college kids. As additional marketing channels have come online and become viable, how have you navigated the process of when this is relevant to someone in manufacturing, when it's relevant to someone in elective medical, or when it's time to sit on it and tell them to take a back burner and maybe it's not time to put their business on TikTok? MATT: Great question, and this is where analytics comes in. This is why it's such an exciting time to be a small or medium sized business owner. If you think about where it was to be a business owner in the early 2000s – and way before that – the data was in the hands of agencies, and the data was in the hands of media outlets. You really couldn't answer that question that you just asked with clarity. But now the data is in the business owner's hands. The paradigm has changed. It's not a matter of speculating whether TikTok is of value or whether Facebook is of value. It's a matter of making sure you have the measurements setup in place and answering that question objectively. We have this conversation a lot. You've got a lot of companies that are way too heavily invested into social media because they thought it was cool, because it was the thing to do and everybody was writing a blog article on how you have to use Facebook 5 years ago. But then when you got into the numbers and you broke down the facts, a lot of folks weren't getting the ROI off of that investment they made into social media, and they were overly prioritizing it. So, the answer to your question is you've got to have the analytics and you've got to get the data set up, which has grown so much since 2007. Now everybody has the key to unlock the answer to that question with clarity. ROB: Very, very interesting. It makes sense, too. Data-driven decisions help here, especially when you have these transaction/conversion focused clients who know what a lead is. It's always easier to have an objective discussion around that. Now, if you rewind and if you were going to do this whole ROAR! Internet Marketing thing over again from scratch, what are some of the things you would consider doing differently if you were starting over? MATT: The biggest thing I would do differently is we were way too late to get into the game of specializing in the three verticals that we've chosen now. We at one time were proud of the fact that our portfolio contained everything from A to Z, and we would look at the world and go, “The world's our oyster! Everybody's a great prospect!” Ultimately that turned out to frustrate our salespeople. It sounded good, but it really wasn't a smart thing to do. When you focus your efforts on a limited number of verticals, all of a sudden you prospect better, and the biggest thing that you do differently is leverage your success more effectively. When you look at any particular business that knocks on your door as a prospect, you typically may not have a great story to tell them of what you've done in the past. When you narrow your focus and somebody knocks on your door in one of those verticals, you're very confident that you have a success story to share with them, and that becomes compelling. So that's absolutely the one thing that I would do differently faster. I would focus faster. ROB: There's so many interesting levels of discipline in here, because I think some people get into the entrepreneurial world and they think about the excitement, they think about the risk-taking, and I think they think about that correlating highly with running a successful business. It sounds to me, if we peel back the DNA here a little bit, it sounds like you have built in habits that lead to running a healthy and successful business that is good for your team, that gives margin to invest in them, and candidly – at least, a lot of people I know who have this sort of habit – it's actually better for their personal bottom line than having a bunch of employees and an infinite number of lines of business. How have you thought about the difference between a healthy business and the ego around it? MATT: I think running a business sometimes is kind of like the Olympics. For most folks, you have to specialize in a particular event and do well in it, but there are those rare individuals that can participate in the decathlon and be good at 10 events. I found out that I'm not one of those people. I need to focus on a particular specialty. So that's what we've tried to do. We've tried to focus on being a fantastic digital agency that produces results and tried to attract employees that share that singular vision. We're not thinking about this exciting app that we could do next week, and then we've got this idea for this other app that we could build the month after that. Not that we haven't tried to expand beyond our range; we have. But it's been cautious and it's been measured. I had a former boss tell me one time, and it sticks with me for a long time, that diluted focus yields diluted results, and that is something that I continue to live by. I'm very conscious of where our mental time and attention goes. If our mental time and attention gets diluted, we see it. We see it show up in the numbers that we track. Sometimes it's my role as the president to bring us back and make sure that we're focusing. ROB: Matt, outside of ROAR, you have a couple of other interesting things that you shared, and probably some other interesting new hobbies amidst this pandemic. Among some of the professional things that you do, interestingly, when people are traveling, you go on the road and speak with Google, actually. What do you share about, and how did that come to pass in the first place? MATT: Yes, I'm a national trainer for the Grow with Google program. About 10 years ago, a call came into the office and our office manager answered it and she said, “Hey Matt, Google is on the phone for you.” I said, “Sure they are.” There's all these people masquerading as Google. But I pick up the phone, and indeed, it's Google. On our website at the time, we had some videos that were called “60 Seconds to a Better Business Website.” We did this series about helping small and medium sized business owners get better results from their website, and they somehow found it. They saw I'm in the video, and they said, “Hey, we'd like you to come to Atlanta and audition for this program to be a trainer.” At the time, the program was called Get Your Business Online (GYBO). So I went to Atlanta, I auditioned, and I got the job. For the next 3 years, I traveled all over the country for them, teaching Google content. They disbanded the program, and then about 2 years ago they brought it back under a different name, GWG (Grow with Google). A little bit different content. So, they host these events all throughout the country. They're typically a day long, and in that day of presentation where they invite small and medium sized businesses, they'll do a class on Google My Business, they'll do a class on Google Analytics, they'll do a class on the Google Data Studio tools. I'm one of the people – there's 13 of us – that teaches those classes. All totaled, I've gone to 37 different states teaching for Google and teaching those classes, and it's been a blast. It's been a real blast. ROB: That's a really good credential. It's a good tip of the hat to what you know and the business you've built. Specifically, you've presented on “5 Things Your Website Is Trying to Tell You,” I believe you said that you're afraid to ask. What is our website trying to tell us that we're scared of? MATT: this is a program that I do outside the Google confines for a lot of conferences and trade events. It's called “5 Things Your Website Is Trying to Tell You but You're Afraid to Ask.” Real quickly, the five things: Number one, it's trying to tell you whether it feels confident selling your business. Ultimately, your website is just a salesperson. That's all it is. Just like you would measure the effectiveness of a salesperson – how many leads did they turn into sales? – you really need to be doing the same thing for your website. It's going to tell you whether it feels like it's doing a good job at that. The second thing it's going to do is it'll tell you how to prioritize your time if you let it. We're all investing in these different marketing activities, and if you look at your analytics, they're going to tell you which ones are paying off and which ones are not. We really need to focus. Unless you've got an unlimited budget and unlimited time, you've got to stop doing maybe your organic efforts because your paid is so much more profitable, or vice versa, stop doing your social because your organic is – but if you've got limited time and budget, you've got to focus. Your website will tell you how. The third thing that your website will tell you if you let it is, are you making a good first impression? One thing that's never changed is that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression, and that's true everywhere, and it's true with websites. If you look at your landing page report, it'll tell you what first-time visitors due when they come to your website for the first time. It may not be making a great first impression, and that could be costing you money. The fourth thing your website is trying to tell you is who likes you best. It's 2020. We don't market to everybody anymore. That's ridiculous. Let's shave that down and we'll find that women are more receptive to our message than men, or 35 to 54s are more receptive to our message than 18 to 24s, or we'll find out that people in the city are more receptive to our message than outside of the city. Whatever that pattern is – there's always a pattern – somebody likes you best. Let's spend our time and energy talking to them rather than trying to convince the whole world that they should buy our product or service. The last thing that your website is trying to tell you is some of your food is not very good. It's trying to tell you that some of your pages are just flat-out repelling people. If you imagine being a restaurant owner for a second, and every single time you put down a particular dish on a table – every time – people looked at the dish and they got up from the table and walked out of the restaurant – imagine that happened to you. Ultimately, what would you do pretty quickly? Stop serving the dish, right? If you think about websites, you know what we're all doing? We're still serving the dish. Because we do have a page that you can look at the statistics and go, oh, people look at that page and go, “Ugh!” and they get up and leave. If you look at your exit page report, you'll see what pages that's happening, and you've got to cure that because if you don't, then you're just like that restaurant owner who's continually serving that dish that's forcing people to walk out the door. So those are five things that your website is trying to tell you, but you're afraid to ask. ROB: I can definitely see why a lot of us would stick our head in the sand on that and try to do the thing we do every day rather than looking in the mirror and actually thinking about the data on our website and the page that everybody bounces from. It's straightforward, but I think we all certainly need that reminder. One other thing in your background I can't pass up and I have to ask about is Smylelytics. That's just a fun, catchy name, but what is Smylelytics that you have created? MATT: I've met a lot of small and medium sized business owners, and I talk to them about data like you and I are talking about right now, and they nod their head politely – and yet even my own clients, who I try to make data a little bit more accessible and enticing to them, they've got busier things to do, frankly. A lot of my clients are owner/operators. They're running the business, they own the business. So, I thought, how do I get this treasure trove of data that can be fundamentally business-changing to them in a way that they want to look at it? What Smylelytics does is takes your Google Analytics data and translates it into memorable photographs. So you can go to Smylelytics and you can pick a photo set – maybe you like sailing; there's a sailing set. Maybe you like dogs; there's a dog set. Maybe you're into cute babies; there's a cute baby set. You pick that, and then Smylelytics is going to send you an email twice a month, and it's basically going to turn your analytics data into red, yellow, green. Super simple. If things are going well for your amount of visitors, then you're going to get a happy baby face if you selected the baby. If things aren't going well, then you're going to get a sad baby. You don't have to think about it, you're not worried about charts, you're not worried about graphs, you're not worried about formulas, you don't have to dig your way through the weeds of Google Analytics. In a nanosecond, you can get the Smylelytics email, which comes out twice a month, and you can instantly know, “Hey, things are going well / things are going not so well.” It's kind of designed to be like the check engine light on the car. The check engine light doesn't tell you anything. It just tells you that you should go talk to somebody. That's what Smylelytics is designed to do: give you the confidence that everything's going okay, fantastic. If it's not, you know it, and whoever that trusted resource is in your life, then you ought to tell them, “Hey, we should look into this.” Maybe it's nothing. Just like that check engine light, sometimes it's something significant, sometimes it's not. But you should pay attention to the check engine light, and that's what Smylelytics does.  ROB: The way you describe it – we can't tell because we're on a podcast, but it does make me simple. Is that a paid tool? Is that a free tool? MATT: It's absolutely free. ROB: Great. We'll get that in the show notes as well. It's Smylelytics.com, is that right? MATT: Right. ROB: Excellent. Matt, when people want to track you down and want to find out more about you and ROAR! Internet Marketing, where should they go to find you? MATT: We are RoarontheWeb.com. That's where you can find ROAR! Internet Marketing. And on Twitter, I am @BestWebDesignFL. ROB: Legit. You can tell you started up in an SEO environment. That's so important to this day, amongst all the other things you've learned along the way. Thank you so much for joining us, Matt. I think you've had a lot to share that's really helpful, and we can all bring a smile to our faces and websites in this time. MATT: Great. Enjoyed talking to you. ROB: Thanks so much, Matt. MATT: Bye bye. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

With all of the turmoil in the world, Matt still doesn't quite understand what White Privilege is and how it applies to him. He brings on his friend Phaissa (a beautiful woman of color) to explain it to him and Shane. They also touch on looting, the "ethnic hair care" aisle and sex clones (for diversity's sake).https://www.patreon.com/yourworstfriendTo our listeners that really have nothing to do: we've started a Patreon with additional episodes. We're not begging for money; we just have too much content to upload all at once without it becoming an overload. So if you're really interested in the show, throw a dollar onto our Patreon below and get 1-2 additional episodes a week, with additional video and solo content content coming in the future.

Craig is in the WGAN Morning News with Ken and Matt. This morning,  we touched on a whole bunch of topics in the news. We discussed whether we should trust Google.  We talked about Autonomous vehicles and the societal implications and I talked about two-factor authentication and how you can protect yourself from sim-jacking. These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Related Articles: You Need Two-Factor Authentication Even If Google Screwed It Up?   Autonomous Cars — Are they ready for Prime Time? Why Are We Still Trusting Google?    --- Transcript: Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors. Airing date: 06/12/2019 Can You Trust Google?, Security Summer, Autonomous Cars, Two-Factor Authentication --- Craig Good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I heard "Big Papi" took his first steps in the hospital today. So, that's good. It brings back thoughts of everyone that has family and friends in the hospital that aren't celebrities and people that are injured. My thoughts and prayers go out to everybody every day. It's just a reminder of how fragile things can be in this life. This morning I was on with our friends Ken and Matt up at WGAN. And as usual, we spoke about a few different things. We had quite a little conversation about trusting Google, should you trust them? Can you trust them? There was a surprising revelation that came out, in fact, just last week about them, and what they've been doing, during the previous 14 years, a significant security problem. We had a chat about two-factor authentication, and I gave them workaround, a way to make it safe, even if you have to use text messages SMS for two-factor authentication because that's not secure. But there is a reliable way to do it. We talked about a little bit more of course about autonomous cars which are all in the news again, and what's the safety factor there? How far away are we? I took a couple of different angles than I made with Jim Polito on that discussion today, as well. So here we go. Also, don't forget, we've got our security summer, starting up in July, I will start sending out some emails next week, things have been crazy around here. As you can imagine, with all of the companies now getting hacked, and the losing money coming to me, and you know, everyone in the security business, which, of course, is way understaffed. And shout out to those of you who are trying to get into security, I got another email this last week from someone that was starting into a security career, and he's in his 50s. So there's something to be learned there, I want to encourage everybody. Remember the adage, "You can teach an old dog new tricks." It's a terrible saying. But you can learn a lot of this stuff, you really can. And there's a lot of people out there who have been trying to convince you that you can't do that, really all you need is their little bit of anti-virus software, or whatever it is, you know, they're selling that to you. Because that's all, they have. That's all they know. Well, they're not doing you any favors. They are trying to mess with you. You can learn this stuff. That's what the security summer going to be about this year, and I'm going to be teaching this some free classes. You know, I get paid for doing this too. And if you want more in depth, then you're probably going to want to sign up for one of my courses. But I want to get this information to everybody. Because if you know me well enough, you know, I got hacked. That was 30 years ago, about now, a long time ago. And it scared the daylights out of me. And I started to learn about this and trying to figure it out. It's taken me years, decades, to get to the point where I'm at now. And I am excited to share a lot of this with you. Just watch for my security summer. If you want to find out more, email me at Craig Peterson dot com, ask any questions that you might have. And I'll make sure you know, when I'm starting this whole little program up, because I want you to be aware of all of the major points here, right, I'm not trying to turn into security experts, that takes quite a bit of work. However, I do want you to be familiar with all of the problems. All the talk about hacks that have happened, how it happened, what should have been done by those companies give you an idea, but as well as what you can do to protect yourself a few tips on how to protect yourself, it's going to be kind of a busy summer. And if you sign up, and you'll be able to get a notification as to when these little courses are going to happen. And I'm going to leave them up for about a week or so you know because it does get stale. And I do need to revisit them. I don't want want to put them up blankly for the world to see forever. So keep an eye out. Email me at Craig Peterson dot com, and now we'll go to Ken and Matt. I want to encourage you guys, and you can learn this. There are the people that just been messing with you. You know the bottom line. Ken Craig Peterson, our tech guru joins us at 738 every Wednesday, and this is 738 on a Wednesday, which means you're talking to Craig Peterson. Craig. Welcome to the program, sir. Craig Hey, good morning. It is a Wednesday but is it every Wednesday? Today? Ken That's a good point. And you know what it is a lie in and of itself because I believe we did not talk to you last Wednesday. So it's most Wednesdays. Craig That's true. Yeah, I took a bit of vacation. I'm a motorcycle guy. And I have a motorcycle that is 32 years old. It's a 1987 BMW with 143,000 miles on it now. The only thing I had to do is replace the rear wheel on that bike. It's just been a phenomenal bike. So, I went up to like George in New York, and we rode around with some buddies for a week. And it was just fantastic. Ken Well, good. But that doesn't mean tech news stops. I hopped on your website, Craig Peterson dot com. To see what kind of top stories you had there and you have one topic here. Why are we still trusting Google? Can you answer that? Matt Great question. Well, they did say early in Google's history that they that their whole operating philosophy was Don't be evil, right. Are they evil? Now? Did you notice they took that off of their website? Right? Craig Yeah, exactly. I don't know why we're still trusting some of these different companies out there. They are selling all kinds of information about us. And, you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing when you get right down to it. Because, frankly, do you want to see car commercials all the time? Or would you rather see a car commercial when you are looking to buy a car, right? And, again, goes back, Matt, to what you've said many times, and that is if you're not paying for something, you might want to consider that you're the product and not the customer. And they have been doing all kinds of things. We're selling our data. But the other big problem that came out very recently, within the last couple of weeks is that in fact, Google has been storing our usernames and passwords for people that were using, basically their G Suite services. But it's been out there for 14 years in the clear. They're pretty good about security, although Android itself isn't the best out there. But now their G Suite customers are a little upset because of what's been out there. I was talking just yesterday with an employee who had been working at a company that was collecting personal information. They were collecting home addresses, phone numbers, and they were taking donations and were selling them. It was a great little company doing just all kinds of super things to raise funds for some good charitable organizations. It turns out they were using Google Forms to collect all this personal information about donors. You know, come on, guys, we cannot trust Google, we're using more and more of these online websites, software as a service. Think about Google Sheets, for instance, as well as Google Forms. And we're putting data in there that may end up getting exposed. We should not be doing that. Think twice about it. In our profession, we refer to this as shadow IT or shadow information technology. Historically, we had these big rooms, these big glass rooms with all of the computers in them. And we had true professionals that were running them, and making sure data was being kept safe, and information was not being stolen and leaked out. Now we've got the marketing department going out and creating contracts with companies that have online services, we have the same thing happening with sales and manufacturing and distribution and our purchasing managers are our data is not safe, and it's never been less secure. So be careful what you're putting out there, what you're given to Google what you're given to these other companies because frankly, it's a real problem. Matt Craig Peterson, our tech guru, joins us, most Wednesdays at this time to talk about the world of technology. And today is one of those days, Craig, while you're talking, I'm looking at a story on CBS This Morning about Uber's secret self-driving test facility for their self-driving autonomous cars. I know you had a story also about whether or not autonomous vehicles are ready for prime time. And I think it does beg the question, how prepared for prime time are these things? I know, it's a conversation I've had several times, and it seems like the older the person I'm talking to the more it freaks them out that there's no driver behind the wheel. I think it freaks everybody out. It just freaks out, you know, people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s a lot more than it does everybody else. But statistics, you know, are being what they are, you know, often they can be safer, then human behind the wheel. So what do you think? I mean, are they close to ready to take over the roads? Craig Well, I really like I mentioned this yesterday. I liked this story that came out in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago. And it said that autonomous vehicles, these self-driving cars are 90% ready and all we have left is 90% to go. In other words, yeah, there's a lot of things that look like we're ready to go and it might be just a few more years, and we'll have autonomous vehicles. In reality, it's probably going to be quite a while yet. And you talk about you know, older guys like Ken and myself who are over 30. And we're looking at some of these things. And we're concerned because we've seen failures before. Do you remember Cadillac v 864? Matt Back then, I wasn't much of a car person. Ken I did have a Mustang in 1960. Matt Do you remember the Corvair? Unsafe at any speed? Craig I do, and you know, Ralph Nader thing, we still have Nader dots on our tires. But that was an example back in the early 80s of Cadillac trying to make cars more efficient, the engines more efficient, and they had a V-8 engine. And what would happen is if you got onto the highway and you started driving, of course, at highway speeds, you're going down the road, you don't need as much horsepower to keep a vehicle going at a pace as you need to get the car starting at that speed. So they said okay, well, we're going to have the system that automatically shut down cylinders. So you'd be a V-8, and you'd be just roaring up and you getting on the highway and you're often running. Then it would cut back to six cylinders, even four cylinders. The concept was wonderful. But what ended up happening is that engine would say, as you're at a stop sign, oh my I need more horsepower, counteract the braking. Of course, They were not thinking about the brakes very well at the time. And then the car would lunge into the intersection so that you could get t-boned. Fast forward not very many years, and we had the Toyota with a sudden acceleration problem. That turned out to be a software error, where much the same thing was happening. A car would jump into the intersection. We're not going to get into all of the details behind it all. But I think with age comes from experience. And we've had some horrible experiences over the years with vehicles and some of this newer technology. So Matt, to answer your question, a lot is going on the autonomous vehicle space. In some cases, the cars are much, much safer, you look at millions of miles driven, compare human drivers to these autonomous vehicles, and the autonomous vehicles almost always win. But we also now have prejudices against the self-driving cars, social warriors are, you know, get on your horses here. Because there are people who when there's an autonomous vehicle on the road, or they think it's a ton of mess, they behave differently. Now they've been tested have been run, I don't know if you've seen any of these pictures with autonomous vehicles, where they took the driver's seat, and they made it quite a bit deeper, think of thicker padding on that seat. And they hid a driver inside the driver's position. You could not see them unless you looked exceptionally close. You could not see that there was a driver in the vehicle. Then the driver just drove around, caught down and of course, the cameras everywhere so they could see what the people's reactions were. People were going out of their way to mess with the car. They pedestrians were jumping in front of it. Vehicles were cutting it off, slamming on their brakes, doing everything they could to make it so that autonomous vehicle would get involved in an accident. I don't know. Maybe they're just trying to see what it would do. Of course, it wasn't an autonomous vehicle. There's a human driver in there. We, as a society, as people, are not ready for these yet. And frankly, I think the Wall Street Journal's right - We're 90% of the way there. And honestly, we have 90% of the way to go. Because there are so many things, we haven't even considered yet. Ken When he joins us, most Wednesdays at 738, to fill us in on tech news. We at the radio station. I don't want to be critical of our radio station. However, they started this two-factor authentication. So every time I get some on my email, they have to send me a text message with a code. I think this is a royal pain in the butt. I want you to tell me they shouldn't do that. Craig Okay, can they not do that. Ken Thanks so much. Thank you for joining us today. Craig I will leave it at that. Yeah, here's what's going to, first of all, there's a big problem with the way they're doing it. That is that there is something called SIMjacking or hijacking of your SIM card. So if they're sending you a text, that is very dangerous. What's been happening is that if you are a target, now they're not doing this in a broad fishing attempt. If you can are a target, and the criminals know they want to go after you, they can now take over your cell phone, and they will get the text. So it doesn't do a whole lot of good from that aspect. We use something called DUO. D-U-O, which is fantastic. For two factor authentication, we use something called Yubi keys, which are very good as well. If your company's requiring you to us a text message for authentication, there is a relatively safe way of doing it. And that is you can use something like Google Voice, assuming your Google account has not been hacked, right. But Google Voice, where there is no SIM card, there is no cell phone that SIM card to hijack. If you use this and it is what I do for places that have to have a text message sent for two-factor authentication. So if they have to send you a text message, it goes to Google Voice. I have my own little phone company, and I use that as well. That way the text message will come in via an app to your phone, you can check the app, and now you're reasonably safe. But yeah, in this day and age, you know two-factor authentication is something that that does make sense. We do have to draw a line, and that one does it make the most sense. I'd like it to authenticate you at most every four hours or once a day, particularly for emails, if you have to do it every time. It gets a little bit old, pretty darn fast. But you know it's the reality of today's world. Matt Craig Peterson, our tech guru, he joins us at this time every Wednesday to find out exactly what's happening in the world of technology. Craig, we only have a couple of minutes left. So lastly, I will ask you whether or not you judge everyone on social media? Are you part of the mob that rules everyone? Craig Oh man. I am not. I don't jump on anybody's back. I just had that happen to me with a significant hacking group. As you know, I run the national webinars for the FBI Infragard program. I'm pretty visible out there in the security world, right. I do lots of radio interviews and TV and stuff. I posted an article on my website and got jumped on by a small mob out there. We've got to be careful remember it's so easy to say something negative online. Our kids are getting bullied every day. Bullying seems to be quite a habit nowadays. I don't know what happened to free speech. We have these militant people out there these fascist like the Antifas. Total fascist don't want to hear what you have to say. And these internet mobs have become a real thing and a very negative thing. From my viewpoint. Anyways. Ken Good news as our tech guru joins us most Wednesdays at 738. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. We will talk to you next Wednesday. Craig Take care. Matt All right. Thanks a lot, Craig. We appreciate it.   --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553  

Find out how to help students apply their learning, how teachers can apply what they learning on teacher training courses and what trainers and teacher educators can do to encourage teachers to apply more of what they learn in professional developmentRoss Thorburn: All right. Hi, everyone.Matt Courtois: Hey, Ross.Ross: Good to see you again, Matt. Today we have on the podcast special guest, Karin Xie. Hi, Karin.Karin Xie: Hello, everyone! This is Karin.Ross: Do you want to tell us a bit about what you do, Karin?Karin: I'm a teacher trainer.Matt: Great. You work at a test prep school, right?Karin: Yeah. The teachers in my schools, they help students get ready for studying overseas.Ross: I think one of the interesting things about that, especially in the test prep industry, is we often see that students go to study English. They get prepared to take their IELTS or TOEFL. They go abroad and they can't actually speak English.Karin: Yeah, they mention that it's really hard for them to apply what they learned in the classes here when they go to college overseas.Ross: Yeah. We often see the same thing on teacher training courses, as well. We sometimes see people taking a CertTESOL, like an entry‑level qualification. Then, six months later, they're actually worse than they were when they finished. It's like they learned all this stuff but they haven't been able to apply it.Matt: It's amazing. They would spend 120 hours studying something and not improve from it. I don't know how that would happen.Ross: Absolutely. Today, let's talk about that and let's talk about how we can get people to apply learning. We have three questions. The first one is, how can teachers help students apply learning? The second one is...Karin: How can teachers apply what they have learned themselves into their teaching practice?Ross: And Matt?Matt: How can trainers help teachers apply learning?How Can Teachers Help Students Apply Learning Ross: Cool. OK, let's start off with teachers helping students. The classic thing here is that we want students to speak. That seems to be the industry standard for are you applying it. You have to get students to speak as much as they can by the end of the lesson. What do you guys think of that? Is that a useful paradigm?Matt: I always found it frustrating when I was a teacher to see my colleagues...I think a really common piece of advice is that you should study 10 new words a day or five new words a day. I know for me, with my Chinese...Ross: [laughs]Matt: ...I'm not very good at Chinese as you guys...Ross: That's why I laughed. Yeah.[laughter]Matt: Maybe you guys, because you're much better at Chinese than me and your English is much better than my Chinese. I have always looked at the CEFR thing and what I can do and...Ross: Order beer.Matt: Yeah. I can...Ross: Ask for the bill.Matt: I can flirt with a girl for maybe one minute.Ross: [laughs] That's all it takes.Matt: Yeah.[laughter]Matt: No, I can take a taxi. I can order food in a restaurant. That's how I measure my ability in Chinese. Is that how you guys measure...?Karin: I guess the reason that people quantify things like that is, as teachers, we need evidence of learning. If we have something like "by the end of this lesson, students would have learned these words," it's easier for teachers to evaluate their classes. They need to be aware that when teachers think they are teaching, there's not necessarily learning that's happening.Ross: Yeah. That's interesting. It reminds me of that thing, the management quote of "What gets measured gets managed." This idea that if you measure sales numbers, if that's your quantity, that becomes the most important thing in the company, what everyone gets focused on. Maybe it's the same thing in the classroom.If the easiest thing to measure is how many words can a student say by the end of the lesson, that's what the teacher ends up managing and focusing on in the class. Maybe that's not necessarily the best thing to do, right?Karin: Yeah. It reminds me of Bloom's taxonomy because when we say applying, what do we mean? What would students need to be able to do when they apply? That's like a lot of words. For example, you have things that's remembering, understanding, then analyzing, evaluating.When we want students to apply what they have learned, we could have them name things that they've learned. Name the five words that they've learned. We could have them compare what they learned in this class back to what they learned previously. We could have them evaluated, like their own learning.Ross: Yeah. Interesting. This reminds me of something I heard on the Sinica podcast. They looked at one of the differences between American and Chinese education. They talk about how Chinese education tends to focus a lot on memorization whereas what I think a lot happens in the West is that we focus on getting students to apply things.Tracy: What the Boston teacher was really great at doing is introducing a concept and then asking kids, what do you think about it? Not only that, let's apply what we just learned. The Shanghai classroom is really run very military‑style. There are 30 kids in a room and she's calling them by number, "Student number two, what is the square root of 9?" or whatever it is.Kids are popping up and answering her questions. It feels like a drill. It's like drill and kill. If you actually talk to the experts, there are certain things in math that you need to memorize.In Shanghai, at least, multiplication tables are being cemented to memory in something like the second grade. In the average American public school classroom it's not happening until a couple years later. These international math experts are saying that's a little bit too late.Matt: Even Michael Lewis for the lexical approach is all about experimenting with lexes you know in different context and everything. Even he in his book believed in the early stages of learning. He said like, "You do just need to memorize a bunch of words or you can never experiment with language in different context."Karin: I agree, yeah. There's a balance we need to have there, either the Chinese one that you mentioned or the Western one. What we need to is to remind teachers to have a variety in their classrooms so they could have the access to understand or to memorize things as well as things to compare or to evaluate.Ross: Yeah, as Matt was saying, to apply that into role‑playing, taking a taxi or flirting with someone at a bar.[laughter]Matt: Useful.How Can Teachers Apply What They Have Learned Themselves Into Their Teaching PracticeRoss: Let's talk about how can teachers themselves apply what they've learned. I thought here, it might be useful for us, in an egotistical way, to talk about ourselves. We've all done a bunch of different certificate courses and diploma courses before. What did you guys find, as a teacher learner on those courses, helped you apply what you learned? Not everyone does, right?Matt: I definitely found that I improved most as a teacher once I became a trainer.Karin: Same here.Matt: I always try to incorporate into my trainings, maybe I do it too much. I always get the trainees training other trainees.Ross: I think, for me, one of the differences in our backgrounds is that more of my background is in teaching kids than teaching adults. I always find one of the big advantages of teaching kids is they don't really have a lot in the way of expectations of what you will do in class.I found, when I was studying my diploma, I had so much opportunity to experiment in class. For example, I remember reading about the silent way and thinking, "I wonder if I could teach a class for an hour without talking." I tried it and I could.I don't think it was a great class, [laughs] but it was a great opportunity to practice what times is it not necessary to speak and what different things can I get students to do that I wouldn't do otherwise. That's something you can never do with adults because you never really have those opportunity. If you did that in an adult class, you'd get complaints.[laughter]Matt: Sure.Ross: I wanted to ask you guys, how much were you able to experiment by teaching adults? For me, with kids, it was super easy.Matt: I just think it's cool. I'm just thinking about feedback I heard from people who were taking the Dip. They would be reading about pedagogy and reading about all these classroom methods. Often they'd come to me and say, "Oh, this is fine but we're just reading about theory." I always found that so strange because it is theory about what you're doing.[crosstalk]Ross: It's theory about a practice.[laughter]Matt: Yeah, I think it's cool to hear that, as you were reading those books, you were actually applying the theories that you were reading. Often, myself included, I just read it as extra knowledge that I could have rather than something that I should be doing.Karin: When I first finished my CertTESOL course, I felt that I couldn't find opportunities to apply what I learned because during the course, I had to design classes from scratch for group of learners, consistently.When I went back to my own teaching, the classes were all made and I had to follow the classes. The flexibility of me adapting the classes is really limited comparing to what I did during the course.Ross: On training courses, we often train people to plan a class from scratch and teach that class. At least in most of the places I've worked in, that's not the situation.What people need to learn to do is not plan a lesson from scratch but follow and adapt a plan that someone else has made. Those are quite different skills. I feel that's an area where a lot of training courses don't really match up to the reality of teaching practice.How Can Trainers Help Teachers Apply LearningRoss: Guys, how do you think trainers or training systems and training courses can help teachers better apply their learning?Matt: We were talking about before, with the DipTESOL that I think it is a really good system, overall, for the whole course because it does assess every aspect of ability to be a professional in this industry. Not only do you have to be pretty good in the classroom, but you also have to be able to do research and be able to observe other teachers and talk about phonology.Ross: Yeah, and be able to answer questions about grammar on the spot, like you might get in the classroom as well.Matt: Yes. I found that maybe before the Dip. I did have some strengths as a teacher before the Dip, but by going through that process, I also had some glaring weaknesses. I became much more well‑rounded as a professional in this industry because of that course.Karin: It's really important for us trainers to encourage teacher‑learner autonomy and reflective practice because, at the end of the day, it's down to the teachers to decide how and when they're going to apply what they've learned.At the beginning of the course or even before the course starts, we really need to deal with the matter learning side of it so that teachers are reflective and teachers are autonomous.Ross: Yeah. I think that's a super good point. A lot of time, on courses, teachers do get all these opportunities to learn through peer observations, especially certificate‑level course, through observing their trainers, through teaching themselves, through getting feedback, through doing all these different things, doing research, interviewing students, blah‑blah‑blah.We could do a much better job of making them more aware of why they're going through that process and then making that learning on a metacognitive level, really explicit to people. The reason we're doing this is so you now have the skill to observe someone else, who's also a new teacher, not a great teacher, and you can learn something about your own teaching from that.Matt: Then that bit of the portfolio which, at the time, I think I didn't value very much...I bet all three of us, since we've started our new jobs and stuff, we've written our own rubrics for observing lessons. We were able to do that on that course, get feedback on it, test it out, try it and do it in a methodical way.It wasn't the first time on my job where I was going through this process, or, I don't know, writing a survey to ask for feedback from a training session that I'd written. It's not the first time I've written a survey, either, because it was taken care of that course.I mean, as I was going through it, I didn't value it. It wasn't really made explicit to me that these are skills that I will need in the future. As time went by, I look back at it and I appreciate that I went through that process.Ross: Yeah.What's Important In Applying LearningRoss: To wrap up, I need some final thoughts on what's important in applying learning.Karin: My advice is that you could do what Steve Jobs suggested. Take everything you do in your learning and your teacher learning as different dots and just bear in mind that those dots could be connected.Whatever you do or whatever you learn, for example, training course that you attended, some classes that you observed, some students that you've taught, really see them as something that's relevant to each other and constantly look back to see if you could connect the dots.Ross: OK, bye‑bye.Matt: See you!Karin: See you!

Click here to read HubSpot's response on this topic. Nasir and Matt discuss the trend in startups to compensate programmers and other early employees with stock options and how the company culture at HubSpot isn't what it seems. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to that business news. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: Why are you laughing? Is it too formal or what? MATT: No, it wasn’t too formal. It was just, uh, interesting breaks and peaks in your… NASIR: Oh, because, well, the reason is because I was starting to think about what the name of our podcast is because, you know, since I never say it in our intro anymore, I almost forgot what it was. MATT: There’s somebody else that does the intro, says the name, says our names, and then we immediately just repeat it. NASIR: Well, we don’t say the name of the podcast which, for the life of me, I can’t remember what the name is, but that’s okay. MATT: I say it at the end, I guess – in a way, I do. NASIR: Uh, keep it sound and keep it smart? MATT: Yeah, close enough. I hope you went to that game on… NASIR: I did watch it. The final? MATT: Great game, yeah. NASIR: You know me. It’s surprising that I sat through a game that I have no idea who the teams are or players are but, yeah, it was a great game. I think I just watched the last half. MATT: Yeah, the whole game was good but the last half was good. Yeah, my wife did the same thing. If she’s able to watch a whole half of basketball, you know it was a good game. NASIR: Yeah, exactly, and we’re talking about the… uh, what are we talking about exactly? I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. MATT: College basketball. NASIR: Oh, yeah, yeah, college. MATT: Because it was in Houston, that’s why I bring it up. NASIR: Yeah, we’re talking about the same thing. Anyway, what have we got today? MATT: You know, this is a topic that – I’m assuming you do as well – I seem to talk about it all the time with people – mostly with startup companies. We’re going to go through an actual company and kind of the tribulations that they’ve had. So, you have a startup company. Oftentimes, you have multiple people that are involved. Unless you get some sort of investment right away or unless one of the founders has some money from some other source or some money to pump through, they’re pretty handcuffed in terms of money they can pay out to people that are performing services for them which – you know, this is just a complete estimate I should say – over 90 percent of startups – and I use “startups” loosely – probably have this issue. NASIR: The so-called “tech startups” or kind of dotcom startup. MATT: Well, I think tech is a classic example because all businesses can probably use some sort of programming or tech person, but the tech ones in particular obviously have this huge need. And so, oftentimes, what happens for these startups, it’ll have the means to pay people. You know, we’re just talking minimum wage. We didn’t even talk about that yet but, in California, it was going to be quite the increase here in the next few years. NASIR: $15.00 – and New York. MATT: New York as well, that’s right, but we’ll talk about that at a later time. NASIR: I think we have a story about it. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: So, in lieu of paying these people at least minimum wage, they pay them nothing but they pay them in equity meaning that – well, only if you stock in this company or membership interest if it’s an LLC – in exchange for your services, the one thing that they often do though is they tie it into some sort of vesting schedule. So, in order for this person to receive this, you know, think about it this way – we’re going to give you five percent of the company which is probably pretty high but we’re going to give you five percent for doing the work you’re going to do as a programmer.

Nasir and Matt discuss how the Supreme Court will address the upcoming technology based cases on the docket. They also answer, "What is the difference between a Trademark and Service Mark? Which do I need for my advertising golf cart business?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And welcome to our business legal podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in to our email address. MATT: Which is…? NASIR: Oh, ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. MATT: I’m glad I’m not a guest anymore, or else I would have not known that. NASIR: Yes, you’ve been upgraded once again to co-host but, at any time, that is subject to change. MATT: Great. We’ll see what happens. I think, last week, I was fine on Monday. And then, for some reason, I got downgraded Wednesday and Friday. I don’t know what happened. NASIR: Well, you listened to Monday’s episode, right? Obviously, you should do some self-reflection there. MATT: That’s true, yeah. I have to go back. I didn’t hear anything but I’ll go back and listen a second time. All right, well, I think this is going to gain a lot of publicity here as we get closer to it. We usually don’t talk about specific stories so much but I kind of need to talk about this story because it paints the picture as a whole. There’s all these big cases that are going to hit the Supreme Court here pretty soon – these big cases that deal with tech. What this article is basically saying is these nine people aren’t the best people to be making huge tech decisions and, like I said, it’s the Supreme Court. This is going to be the final word here and this is basically saying these aren’t the best nine people for making decisions on tech, on what the law is supposed to be. You know, he kind of details some of the justices. Some of this might be overblown. It talks about a couple of them really aren’t sure, haven’t really gotten to email, find Facebook and Twitter a challenge. I don’t know how true any of this is. I mean, I find it hard to believe that they don’t know how to use email. I don’t care how old you are. They’re obviously all pretty bright so I think they can figure it out and stuff like that. But, I mean, this is an interesting topic. Have you thought about this at all? Because I think it is going to be interesting if they get into some really complex issues, but this isn’t the first time, I’m sure, they’ve encountered issues they weren’t familiar with. NASIR: Yeah, you’re right. It’s not the first time but, I think, in general, the Supreme Court is generally going to be older and they’re going to be of some – I think, in my personal opinion – kind of a status of which they’re not as in touch with most of the US population and I think, in general, whether it’s technology or not, a lot of people feel that way that a lot of the decisions that come out of the Supreme Court are sometimes a little bit distant from what’s actually going on in the ground. Eventually, that usually catches up. It just takes a little bit of time. But the system design to the law has not changed too quickly. But, from my perspective, one thing I think about technology is, when it comes to defamation. For example, the statute of limitations – and I’m not even talking about the Supreme Court but in most appellate jurisdictions in the state – for the statute of limitations for defamation is one year in most states, okay? That means that you have one year from the date of publication to bring your claim. Most states follow a single publication meaning it doesn’t matter if it’s republished over and over again. They look at the first publication. But where this comes into play that I think the law has not caught up with technology is that, when someone posts a defamatory comment online as opposed to a newspaper or a story,

Nasir and Matt discuss the potential benefit of PiinPoint, the digital location finder, will have on small businesses. They also answer a question on whether you should make the first draft a contract. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business! This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And we are starting our new format at Episode 25 – a quarter of the way through to a hundred. I think that’s 1… 2.5 percent of a thousand. MATT: Great math lessons we’re giving here. NASIR: Is that right? I don’t even know. I’m probably off. MATT: Yeah, 0.25 percent is correct. As long as you put the percent after it. NASIR: Perfect, yes. Or 0.025 which is a decimal. MATT: It would be 0.0025 or, no, you’re right. NASIR: No, 0.025. MATT: Sorry, I screwed up at the beginning. NASIR: All right. Well, so long as we got our math correct. Good thing we’re not mathematicians and we’re attorneys. MATT: Right. Well, let me talk about this new company – I guess it’s not a new company. It’s new to me. PiinPoint – I don’t know if you’ve heard about this but it’s a pretty unique thing that they’re doing. It’s this digital platform and it basically allows companies to, first of all, you have to pay for the service, of course. Once you’re in, it allows companies that want to add a new location – or maybe add a first location, I suppose – to use their information, their data to find the most ideal location for your business. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: They just got about $250,000 in funding but it’s still relatively new-ish. I don’t know if they even have a model that’s even fully functioning yet but this would be pretty cool for businesses looking for a new spot. NASIR: Yeah, it seems like they really take data and analyze it. They do everything from monitoring locations, your locations, exploring new locations, reviewing your competitions’ locations and things like that. I don’t know what kind of data they’re actually collecting and how they’re accessing it but I think the most important thing to get from this transaction is for startup companies, I think they said – as far as what they disclosed, they started in July – right now, they have only around ten customers but they were able to raise $250,000. Understand the concept here is we’ve hear a lot about this minimum viable product is get out to market in the fastest way possible and see if it’s viable. This company was able to show that they were able to attract ten customers and it seems like they’re actually pretty sizeable customers as well and raised $250,000 overnight with angel investors. MATT: I just went to the website. Right now, you can only sign up for the pilot program. But I’m really interested to see how they do this because we still don’t really know. I’m sure they obviously have some sort of algorithms that they use. But is it based on people checking in at locations? I don’t know what access to data they even have. I think it can be a good thing, especially for startups. Location is pretty key. They say that’s one of the most important things you have is location. NASIR: Yeah, especially if you need a retail environment. I had a friend back in high school and his family owned a Long John Silver franchise. I remember distinctly that one of the reasons why it went out of business is because it was at a corner which was very difficult to get at in the sense that the driver would miss the line and so forth. Just because of that alone, it wasn’t producing the amount of customers that it needed. So, location is obviously important. But getting the information and data, getting this information that probably these bigger companies have ready access to through their market research but being able to aggregate it in a way that’s reachable to the smaller guy I think is pretty huge. MATT: Yeah, just like the frozen drink bar that has been open up in Downtown San Diego. San Diego is one of the biggest beach towns – it has the most beaches in t...