Podcasts about odesk

00:01 - Ad (Ad) Anne Ganguzza, you are a true gem. Okay, I am a voice actor, been in the business over 15 years, eight of those full time but, honest to goodness, until discovering the VO Boss Podcast this year, I feel like I've been getting away with murder. I don't even know how I've been as successful as I have been without all the strategies and perspectives and predictions that you make about our industry. I feel like I've been in VO College for like the past six, seven months listening to the VO Boss podcast. It's just incredible and I can't thank you enough. I love you, I love your co-hosts, I love your guests. It's just so full of information that I can put into action for my business and just please keep doing what you're doing, because I feel like I'm taking my business to the next level the boss level.  01:03 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey boss, talent Anne Ganguzza here with a quick shout out to those who are a little freaked out about marketing. VO BOSS Blast is your secret weapon, making your marketing manageable. Your voice deserves to be heard. Join us at vo boss.com and start your marketing campaign today is the Boss Level marketing campaign. Today, it's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level.  01:30 - Intro (Announcement) These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  01:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Money Talk Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am so happy to be here again with our resident money gal, Danielle Famble. Hey Danielle, hey Anne, how are you?  02:00 - Danielle Famble (Guest) I'm good, I'm good. How are you?  02:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I am good. You know, it's been a busy week of auditioning, coaching, working, submitting auditions, and I happened to reach out to my agent and it made me think about our series about money and I thought it would be great to talk about the whole agent aspect managers, pay-to-plays, the whole agent aspect, managers, pay-to-plays and about financials when we work with said companies, people. I think there's a lot of myths out there for people that are just getting into the industry or even people who are in the industry. They have a lot of beliefs about managers and pay-to-plays and should I, shouldn't I? What's fair, what's not fair?  02:44 I thought it'd be a great time to talk about that today.  02:46 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah, that's actually really important because these agents and managers are pay-to-plays they're all businesses, right? So they are working within the business model that they have set up for themselves and businesses have costs and so to work with a business, there is a cost there and you, as the VO boss running your own business, you have to think about the cost that you would be paying, the business expenses you'd be paying for having these relationships. So, yeah, it's really important.  03:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, let's start actually. Let's start with, let's say, somebody's just getting into the industry, and I know a lot of myths about people that just get into the industry. They believe that they need to be able to get an agent right away. And so we can start there to dispel some of those myths. And, by the way, I will say myself personally, I was working full time in the industry for about four years before I got my first agent.  03:36 Oh wow, yeah, mostly because I was doing a lot of non-broadcast work. And so agents, their business, as we were just discussing, right, and businesses are in business to make money. And so if we think about an agent, where is the money right for the agent? How does the agent make money? Well, they get a percentage right of the jobs that they cast and opportunities that they send to us. And if we book that job because they provided us with that opportunity and negotiated on our behalf, they then get a certain percentage of that money and their business model, like any business, right, we want to remain in business, so it behooves them to make money right, to get bookings and to get jobs. And so I guess, Danielle, first of all let me ask you, I mean, in dispelling the myth, I mean, did you get an agent right away when you first got into the business, or what was your entrance into the business?  04:35 - Danielle Famble (Guest) So my entrance I actually came from a musical theater background and I had representation sending me out on auditions for shows, for theater shows, and that person also did rep people who were doing voiceover, who were doing on camera. So I basically kind of moved within that organization from being on stage to being behind the microphone. So in that respect I did start out with representation and then actually moved to a different agent who specialized specifically in voiceover. So that was my trajectory. But to your point and I think this is actually really important, depending on what you're wanting to do, like what genres that you are going into and really like putting your focus in, you may or may not need an agent, especially like with non-broadcast, for example.  05:27 You can get a lot of that work on your own with your own marketing and things like that. So you may not need an agent and there may not be agents who are really focusing in that specific niche to go to and work with them. So I think the question then becomes for the individual VO boss what is your business model? Are you wanting to do more commercials? Are you wanting to do non-broadcast? Are you wanting to do animation? Really, depending on what genres you're really targeting, depends on if you need or it would work best for you to have an agent or representation. I think a lot of people when you hear that they want to work with an agent, it's probably because they want to do commercials mostly, or animation.  06:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Exactly, exactly. And I'm always stressing to my students that are just coming to me, that are new to the industry, that in reality, I mean you don't need an agent if you're not getting into broadcast right away. I mean you can acquire an agent later on or at a certain point, and most agents, I would say, are only really concerned with broadcast. Why? Because they get paid more.  06:32 It's as simple as that it's as simple as that right it's the money, because broadcast they can get paid based upon the job and where and how often it airs, because they'll get paid each and every time that happens. For non-broadcast it's kind of a one and done. Now all agents are not created equal. I mean there are some agents that are specializing in specific genres. Now I don't know of any agent that really specifies in an e-learning genre, but that's because why it's non-broadcast and it doesn't necessarily behoove them right to focus on that, because it's a one-and-done sort of thing. So the amount of money they're going to make on a non-broadcast job versus a broadcast where they're going to pay royalties, residuals, all that good stuff, is minimal.  07:17 And now I do have an agent that I book a lot of corporate work. I mean they're not going to say no, right, and I'm sure it's working with a company that also books broadcast style commercials and that sort of thing. So they also like, oh, I need a little internal training video or I need a corporate video that's going to be on my YouTube channel, and so I will get those jobs from my agent as well. But to be quite honest, I mean it's not as exciting as if I booked a national commercial. Sure.  07:46 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah.  07:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) The money. There is obviously much better there. So that is with agents, right? Well, let's discuss pay-to-plays, right? Because there's a lot of people who are like, oh, we should just direct market, how do I get opportunities? And a lot of people, when they first start out, want to talk about pay-to-plays and so pay-to-plays and so pay-to-plays, as their name suggests. Right is, we are going to pay so that we can play or get jobs and auditions, and so we pay a fee and, depending on the pay-to-play site, they have different business models. So you pay one fee for a particular amount of auditions or a particular level. At this point it used to just be one fee where, oh, you're on the site and you get auditions, and now they've kind of really diversified and have different levels many of them and so, depending on the amount that you pay, you get a different amount of opportunities.  08:36 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Or you get the opportunities at like a staggered time depending. But yes, exactly Like for all of these different companies, as you're saying, they all have a different business model. So really the question becomes like are you willing to subscribe to that company's business model as they have it set forth? You don't have to. There are certain pay to play sites I'm not on because I don't agree or want to participate in that company's business model. It really then becomes a business decision for me and for my business how can I best position myself to win? And if it means that I'm going to be signed to a particular agent or on certain rosters or pay-to-play sites or those kind of things, it really becomes a question for me of like, how do I want to position myself to have my business do the best that it possibly can? And that's going to change. It might change that I change to a different tier at a pay-to-play site or I just no longer use that one at all.  09:36 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Business models change and that I have seen evolve through the years, because back in oh gosh, I want to say about 2006, that's when I joined my first pay-to-play, which was Voice 123. They have since evolved and grown and changed their business model to now have levels. But in the beginning it used to just be one level and you would set up your profile and based on that profile and the things that you selected in that profile, you would get opportunities for the auditions and you would get those jobs. There was no other than that one feed that they collected for the membership. They didn't collect any additional monies for that. And then I would say, maybe a couple of years later, another one. And well, I should say Voice123 was the first like official voiceover pay to play.  10:21 Prior to that there was like Freelancer you know, Odesk, and those were just freelance type jobs that everybody would just bid on. And actually at that point there was a particular fee which was called an escrow fee, right, that you would pay the company if you wanted to make sure that you got paid, because the biggest issue with freelance work or doing independent contract work, and especially when it's online, is not getting paid. And so as that evolved in the workplace or online, it became a big thing and so companies and this is even before Voice123 and Voicescom, but they started to offer a service called escrow service, where they would pay you and you would be assured that you would get paid and then you would pay them a fee for that and it was called an escrow fee. And so that was adopted early on by the freelance companies. And the thing about all the freelance companies is it became very popular right for freelancers to get work, and so this whole kind of what people today call the race to the bottom right underbidding that's how everybody got their work on a lot of those. And it just became this crazy kind of a model where you know you would bid on something and then somebody would come in and bid a lower price and get the job. And so it became this mindset where it was like, well, I guess if I bid lower I'll get the job. And I think that's what started with the pay-to-plays people talking about them as being bottom feeders right, because people would start to underbid. It was very similar to the model of freelance Odesk, all those models in the beginning.  11:59 And then I think, after a few years and actually it was a few years because for a while Voicescom and Voice123 were the only two in the game and they competed with one another and they both had one level, and I remember Voice123, because they were out first, were always, I think, what people considered to be the standard, and they had a lot more memberships. And then I think Voicescom started kind of playing around with how they would offer jobs, and so they, if I remember in the very beginning, were the first ones. I don't believe Voice123 ever offered anything like an escrow service, but Voicescom started to offer you could pay escrow so that you can make sure that you got paid, and then you would pay them a certain percentage of the fee, and that was prior to any of their managed jobs of today, and so that was always a choice, so you could choose to take your chances and accept the job. And they were hands off, like if you got paid, you got paid, if you didn't, you didn't. They weren't really responsible. And then they offered the escrow, in which case they said we'll pay you and you can be assured you'll get your money.  13:04 And then, ultimately, I think the competition started happening once more. Pay-to-plays came about, like Bodalgo, and there's a couple other ones, voice Over Planet, et cetera, et cetera, and then the whole thing began. And, of course, it's always a point of contention, with everybody out on the forums talking about is it fair, is it right for them to double dip or triple dip, especially with managed jobs? And, danielle, I'd love to hear your opinion on this Double dipping, triple dipping. What are your thoughts? Is it a thing, is it bad? Is it illegal? Is it good? What are your thoughts?  13:37 - Danielle Famble (Guest) I mean, it's definitely a thing. I go back to my stance of this is the business model of the company that you are or are not choosing to do business with. If you don't agree with it, you don't have to participate in it. Like, for example, for me I am on Voice123. I'm not on Voicescom because I don't agree with their business model, so it is a thing. I don't agree with their business model, so it is a thing.  14:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I don't know that it's illegal.  14:04 - Danielle Famble (Guest) I mean, where are the laws saying that they can't do it? But if you don't agree with it, then you can just take yourself and your dollars out of the equation. And anyone who does agree with it or wants to use that platform for their business model, they're free to do it. And I think also for me platform for their business model they're free to do it. And I think also for me when I look at agents or managers or pay-to-plays, it really is. Is my business financially able to recoup the costs that I'm putting into, for example, the pay-to-play? Am I making enough money that the amount of money I'm spending, the tier that I'm on on voice one, two, three, for example is that a good return on my investment? I think that's the same thing for being with an agent, same thing for being on a pay to play site.  14:49 Is this is a business expense? And does my business have the capacity to recoup the amount of money that I'm spending, because I look at all of these relationships as a cost of doing business? And what is the return on investment If I'm spending because I look at all of these relationships as a cost of doing business, and what is the return on investment. If I'm not booking enough and I'm not making enough money to cover the amount in commission that I'm paying, for example, then maybe I need to go and look at how do I get my business to a place where the ROI will be positive. So really you can agree with all these different businesses or not, but really the question is does your business have the ability to get a positive return on investment for the amount of money spent, because it is a business expense when you are working with these companies.  15:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely. And I think, bosses out there, the one thing to really think about is just mind your own business and make your own decisions on whether you want to work with other businesses, and you can certainly get online and contribute to all the all the discussion and all the hype. And is it double dipping? Is it triple dipping? Is it right? Is it wrong In reality? Like people get so like up in arms about the state of pay to plays but in reality, just okay, let them do their business. And you're right, I mean, I am not part of pay-to-plays because, well, some pay-to-plays because I don't agree with their business ethics. So when managed jobs came about with voices, that's when I think, really, everybody started to say that there was double and triple dipping. And I guess you can say that, but honestly, it's kind of like well, I'm not going to stress myself out over it, I'm just not going to use it if I don't agree with it.  16:31 And managed jobs if you think about it and I want to talk to you about management companies too managed jobs is similar. You know, if you think Voicescom, they're charging a fee for your membership and then, in addition to that, if you decide to take a managed job. They're going to handle all the negotiation of the pricing, they're going to handle all the communication with the client, they're going to handle all of that stuff on behalf of the client, and so there is a fee for that. And of course, one of the big things was well, how much is that fee? But in reality, is there regulation on that? There really isn't yet. And so I mean, if you wanted to get into technicalities, have they done anything illegal, right, by charging a certain percentage for a management fee? No, not really. It's a business model. So if they decided to charge 50% management fee, well, that's their business model. And of course, that's a business model as long as we know about it. We can agree or not agree to it, right?  17:18 And as long as we know about it, and I do believe that any company that I do business with and I'm pretty sure it's the same with you, danielle I want them to be transparent.  17:28 And if I feel that a company or an organization has not been transparent with me. That's when I back off and I say you know what? I have a choice here. I mean, goodness gracious, I didn't get out of the corporate world so that I could continue to do things that I didn't want to do or invest in things that I didn't want to invest. I mean, this is why I am my own business, right, I make my decisions that are best for my business, and I can say you know what? I don't need to subscribe to that, I don't need to be a part of that model or have them as my client, and so it's as simple as that.  17:58 I move on my merry way and I don't let it stress me out, but it's good to know from the get-go. If I feel like they're not being transparent, then there's not much they can do to win back my trust. I don't know, danielle, if you're the same way, but that's my personal take on things. If you lose my trust years ago, from the beginning, I don't know if you'll get me back.  18:20 - Danielle Famble (Guest) I think it's also just about like really making sure that you are an informed consumer, because you are then the consumer and they are a business partner in a way. Yeah, so making sure that you are informed. If you aren't asking the questions that you need to ask, or don't partner with these people until you know the answers, also try it. Try it out and see if it works for you and if there is a positive ROI for trying it out or not. But for me, there are certain business partnerships that I just haven't entered into because I don't agree with the business model. Now they can change. My business model has changed. They can change their business model. I mean, we saw, like, the different changes that have happened with pay-to-plays over the last several years. But if you don't agree to it, there are so many other options. That's a great thing is that there's so many other options?  19:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm so glad that you brought that up, that, yes, the business model can change, like our business models change too, and you're right. I'm glad you brought that up because it makes me think about when you talk about transparency in a company. Right, I had a personal relationship with certain members in the community that owned businesses that I did business with, and so I think you're absolutely right. When it comes business to business, that's completely separate from, let's say, a personal relationship and maybe that trust issue that I might have had like. Are they ethical? Are they running their company ethically? And do I believe that they're telling me?  19:42 There's a lot of businesses out there that you know they make promises, and it's one of those things that I think you have to really sit down and do believe.  19:51 We're going to do this, we're going to change our business model, and so is it something that you believe that the company has integrity, that they have morals and ethics and that, again, is probably another podcast episode, but that can have everything to do with. But the fact is is that many of the companies and the vendors that we work with have business models and we choose whether or not to partner with them. So that brings me to you know, speaking of managed jobs, right, what about managers? And I will tell you right now, I do not work with a manager right now, because the majority of my work is on the non-broadcast side and I've always been very adept at getting my own work, and so I've not really felt like I've needed or maybe ever thought a manager would be something that would help my business, although I certainly don't discount it. But I know that you work with a manager, so let's talk about the financial aspect of management.  20:44 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah, so, like you said, I do work with a management company and it's a different business model than agents, like we talked about in the beginning of this episode. So, agents the job that they have booked you on and they negotiate on your behalf they're getting a percentage or a commission from that job With management companies and it really depends on which management company you're working with. But I'll just make a general statement. Really, what they're wanting, that business model is more like managing your career, and they are getting a percentage of your entire book of business, as in everything that you have booked, with or without them actually being the ones who have negotiated it or presented that opportunity to you. And there's a financial implication to that as well, because for me, I look at what is my book of business outside of this relationship with this management company.  21:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So anything that I get on my own anything that I get through my agents.  21:40 - Danielle Famble (Guest) What does that look like and am I willing to participate in the relationship with a management company and is the return on that investment high enough and positive so that I can continue doing what I'm doing and having the robust business that I'm hoping to have For me, having the robust business that I'm hoping to have For me? I look at that from a financial aspect every single month and I am detailed with it because this is it's a business relationship, and is it worth it to me to have the access to the opportunities from this management company, along with the other things that I'm getting with having the relationship with them, getting to speak to people who are incredibly knowledgeable, asking questions about things that I don't know Like? Is that relationship worth the amount of money spent on this commission of my entire book of business?  22:31 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Sure, I was just going to say I think there might be some confusion as to what the responsibilities of a management company are, right, do they take you by the hand you personally, danielle and say okay, here, we think you should work with this agency or we're going to get you job? I imagine that management companies, like overall, have a scope. Or does each management company operate differently, like, do you get personalized attention? Are they taking you by the hand and saying here, danielle, I think you should do this and we're going to give you all these opportunities in this genre, et cetera?  23:01 - Danielle Famble (Guest) I think for me my mindset with working with a management company, working with an agent at the end of the day I look at it sort of like a pyramid or tiered. I am running the business, I am minding the business that pays me, I am running this business, and so I look at this as relationships, not necessarily that I'm abdicating my responsibilities of running the business that pays me to somebody else and they can sort of take me by the hand and deal with it. Personally, I don't feel that that is the business model that I am trying to run for myself. So I think for me it's more about what are the relationships that can be made through the connection of being with this management company not here.  23:47 Just what are they?  23:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) doing for you? Yeah, exactly.  23:50 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Wherever you send me, I will go. It's a partnership and for me, I believe that the way that I can best create the business that I'm trying to create is to partner with people who are much more knowledgeable about certain genres or connections than I am. But I am a working participant in that relationship and not allowing someone to sort of take me wherever I need to go.  24:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's kind of like outsourcing. There's so many ways in which it's similar. It's like outsourcing because you want to be afforded opportunities that you may or may not be able to get on your own.  24:24 And that's the fee that you are paying them. I know a lot of people are like but how are they different from an agency? Well, an agency is one agency that has relationships with clients, right? Or has relationships. Maybe not relationships, but they establish relationships with clients to get job opportunities to then pass on to you. Management companies don't necessarily get specific custom, I would say, opportunities just for you, but they also develop relationships and have opportunities. That would be, I would say, a more broad spectrum than just one agent, right, it could be multiple agents, it could be multiple business relationships and those are the opportunities you are, quote unquote, paying a service fee for.  25:11 - Danielle Famble (Guest) And hopefully the idea is that they can coexist and work together, so like the agent model can coexist and work with the management model, so that it's not necessarily a replication, it's almost the Venn diagram of it all, and so there really should be sort of not necessarily just overlap, but an expansion of well, this is what the agent does, and these are the jobs that I get through my agency, and this is what the management company does, and these are the type of jobs that I get through the management company, and also I'm my own business too, so these are the jobs that I'm negotiating for myself and finding through pay to plays or through SEO, or through just the auditions that I have, or my own marketing word of mouth, those kinds of things. And so the idea is that all of these things are working together and you are utilizing the business relationships for each business that you choose to partner with, and at that point then you've built, hopefully, this robust business that isn't dependent on just one business model or one relationship.  26:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that you just narrowed it down to just relationships, because in reality there's a lot of people that would say like, well, I did all the work in getting that job, why should I pay someone? Why should I do? And in reality it's really all about the relationship right. The better you can work with as a partner and the more income that you can bring to them, the more they're going to try to bring to you, and I think that relationship is a cycle One feeds the other, and I like that.  26:40 - Danielle Famble (Guest) You just said work with them, because a lot of people, I think sometimes, especially when you're wanting to get any sort of representation, agent, management what have you? It's like you're working for them, you're doing things for them, or they should do something for you, exactly. And this is a it's got to be a partnership. Do something for you, Exactly, and this is a it's got to be a partnership.  26:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, absolutely yeah. Whether you're talking manager, you're talking agent, maybe, I don't know, pay to plays I'm not sure. If you call that, I mean a partnership.  27:11 - Danielle Famble (Guest) really, I don't know if you call it a partnership exactly. I think it's a tool, it can be a resource, for sure.  27:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, yeah, but I would definitely consider agents and managers to be relationship partnership. Pay-to-plays are a slightly different model where I wouldn't say it's as customized. It's about as customized as it can get by the algorithm that gets you the opportunities.  27:28 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah and again, all of this is really about the business expense of it all, because all of this costs money. So if your business is not in a place where this expense is bringing you a positive ROI, I would go back to training making sure your demos are up to date, making sure that you are the person who's going to be able to book those jobs, so that you would be able to pay these commissions and everything else. Because this really is about is the work coming? Are you able to book those jobs that you can make the money?  28:00 to pay the commission to all those things Exactly.  28:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And it's funny because I was thinking about that, as it's kind of the beginning of the month and I have to pay my VAs. You know, it's kind of like every month, boom, I pay them, I pay them, I pay them, and it's like this expense that I've gotten used to where it's like, oh okay, there's my outgoing expenses, I do it every month. And the funny thing is is like I think about myself, you know, 20, some odd years ago, when it would be like, oh my God, I can't afford to put this kind of money out every month for an assistant. And the funny thing is is I do it without blinking right now. You know I pay my assistants on a monthly basis and boom, and immediately it just and so I've got that. I don't know. I've got that cycle going where I'm getting a return on my investment and so I have the money to be able to use that as an expense every month.  28:44 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Absolutely. I was actually thinking the same thing because I very recently paid my assistant. It's like automation yeah exactly, and it's one of those things where I think about and I'm constantly I mean I'm so tuned into the financials of my business to the point that we're actually remaking our back-end system.  29:03 We use a completely separate back-end system like a CRM system, and one of the things that was most important to me is that the reporting was dialed in, because I want to know how much is coming in and all of that is coming from work that has been booked from me, my relationships with the agents, managers, my own clients, all of those things it has to have a positive ROI for me to be able to keep this business running, yeah yeah, good stuff.  29:29 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh my gosh, I feel like we could have five episodes on that. Yeah, all right. Well, thank you so much, danielle. I cannot wait to talk to you on our next podcast. In the meantime, big shout out for All right. Well, thank you so much, danielle. I cannot wait to talk to you on our next podcast. In the meantime, big shout out for our sponsor, ipdtl. You, too, can connect and make money like bosses like Danielle and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week and look at that ROI, and we will see you next week.  29:55 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Have a good one everyone Bye, bye.  29:58 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast-to-coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

Mark Khavkin tells us that from the very beginning of his career journey—a 2008 role as an investment professional with a European private equity firm—he was able to gain experience in board strategy, investor relations, and entrepreneurial exploration. This foundation allowed him to read boardroom dynamics from very early on and prepared him to anticipate a variety of operational perspectives that would set the stage for his path forward. Transitioning to Silicon Valley, Khavkin joined eBay's corporate development team, where he learned to align acquisition opportunities with the strategic goals of business units and technology leaders—experience that deepened his understanding of operational management and strategic planning. A pivotal moment came when a former eBay divisional CFO who had served as a mentor invited Khavkin to join oDesk (later Upwork) as FP&A lead. This role allowed him to influence company culture and drive change from within the finance function. At Upwork, Khavkin tells us he sharpened his ability to integrate investor narratives with internal strategies, from marketing to product development. His ability to present a cohesive story from market opportunities to long-term strategy proved instrumental during the early milestones of Upwork's IPO journey. Throughout his career, Khavkin has come to pursue experiences that would require a unique blend of investment acumen, strategic insight, and leadership impact. His journey highlights the importance of understanding both investor perspectives and operational realities, while crafting a narrative that demonstrates insight into both.

Jenny He is the Founder, CEO, and licensed contractor at Ergeon, a construction company making home renovation easier for consumers and contractors. Jenny combines her strong engineering, technology, and consulting background to convert and facilitate contractors' construction projects as well as to manage Ergeon's fully distributed workforce. She applies a consistent, rigorous approach to contracted project progress and outcomes as well as to evaluating individual employees' task and teamwork results. Jenny shares her thoughtful analysis of how productivity can be assessed and tracked appropriately for specific disciplines, teams, and individuals.       TAKEAWAYS    [03:15] Jenny is born in China to parents who are both engineers.     [03:53] Jenny moves to the UK at 10 years old as her father pursues research and his PhD.    [04:48] The family moves to Canada and Jenny studies electrical engineering at college.    [05:24] Enjoying solving hard problems, Jenny's PhD optimizes Internet routing protocols.    [07:23] A random situation results in Jenny becoming a consultant and joining McKinsey.    [08:37] Learning leadership and soft skills, Jenny follows good managers, not projects.    [09:34] The hardest part is not solving the problem but defining the right problem to solve.    [11:42] Jenny discovers insufficient technology is built to support skills tradespeople.     [13:00] Jenny proposes a useful solution for a skilled field tech—how else can she help?    [13:59] EZ Home's app gamifies workflow for gardening service providers.    [15:28] The CTO/Founder of EZ Home also co-founded Odesk and has great relevant experience.    [16:22] Tackling physical work projects is even harder than Odesk's business.    [16:48] Why the technology needs to be more mature for the new venture.    [19:29] Jenny wants to empower high skilled trade entrepreneurs.    [20:50] Renovating her home, Jenny plans and uses technology and has a positive experience!    [23:02] The name Ergeon captures the vision of the company.    [25:07] Measuring customers' experiences is a key productivity metric.    [28:12] Jenny takes project complexity into account and assesses contributions to set prices.    [29:09] How Jenny's business takes care of most front- and back-office construction coordination.    [36:06] Creating a scalable, full distributed factory with an iterative communication process.    [31:02] Scalable groups perform tasks with construction knowledge embedded into the technology.    [32:28] They identify specific skills to hire for and teach the rest.    [33:25] Is the unit of productivity the team or the individual?    [34:55] To measure productivity, there often need to be sufficient similar jobs to compare.    [36:44] Onboarding is very deliberate since Ergeon hires many people with no experience.    [37:32] In the first few days, new hires are trained about processes and best practices.    [38:44] Role-playing in initial weeks' boot camps increase knowledge and confidence.    [40:25] Onboarding timeframes and programs depend on the type and complexity of the role.    [42:30] Distributed working issue #1: Building trust is hard.    [43:15] Transparency is important to avoid a tiered system of senior execs and everyone else.    [44:12] Distributed work issue #2: Mitigating time zones using async methods and alignment.    [45:13] Distributed work issue #3: Interpersonal connections need purposeful nurturing.    [47:03] How to evaluate individuals whose productivity is measured at a team level.    [50:34] Technology progress leads to reskilling, evolving roles, and supported outplacement.    [53:27] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To measure productivity, start with performance and assess variation between identical roles. Address systematic challenges hindering goal achievement including employees' access to suitable tools before identifying productivity measures and ensure people have the training and support to focus their efforts.    [54:48] Jenny is revising for multiple exams so Ergeon can operate in many more U.S. states.        RESOURCES    Jenny He on LinkedIn  Ergeon's website  Ergeon on Instagram  Ergeon on X  Ergeon on Facebook        QUOTES (edited)    “Often the hardest part isn't solving the problem, but defining what is the right problem to solve.”  “We also have other teams in the company like supply ops because it's a small team. we're looking at the team level targets and productivity versus the individual. Because I do believe, unless you have say five plus people doing exactly the same job, they can't be having some different variants of the job.”  “Building trust is hard, and it is harder in a distributed environment.”  “We are trying to create a scaleable factory where no one's co-located.”  “We do a lot of async communications and make to make [work] sustainable for people. We're generally thoughtful about hiring for specific roles where async work is easier.”  On connection, “It's not even just about distributed or not, it's if everyone is co-located, it happens somewhat naturally. When you can't not see other people and have casual conversations, it has to be then very purposeful to create that environment. To give people that opportunity to connect.”  “Start with performance, before you think about productivity. Understand how much variation you have within the exact same roles. If the delta is huge, what is causing the delta—are there systematic challenges that make it difficult for people to achieve their goals?”   

One of the first places voice actors often look for auditions is on Pay to Play sites. For a fee, these sites let you audition for jobs from potential clients all over the world. But these sites can have downsides, including unethical business practices. Controversy over these sites has been highlighted at voiceover conferences and throughout social media. In this episode, the BOSSES delve into navigating online casting platforms and cultivating loyal client relationships outside of these sites. We discuss the investment of time and resources needed to be successful and the importance of evolving with the industry to avoid getting left behind. Ever-evolving AI technology challenges us to redefine our roles and strategies, and we tackle this head-on sharing insights into how we can adapt to remain indispensable. 00:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey VO Bosses. Ann Ganguzza here. Are you struggling to market that boss voice of yours? Well, let me tell you about the VO Boss Blast. With a custom vetted list and personalized emails, we can help you get your marketing message out to those who hire. Find out more at vobosscom and let's blast off together.  00:24 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, everyone welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza. Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and we are here with the Real Boss series with my good friend and guest co-host, Tom Dheere. Hey, Tom Dheere.  00:55 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Hello Anne Ganguza.  00:57 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Tom Dheere, it was so awesome to see you at VO Atlanta. I have to say.  01:01 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yes, the drive-by hug Right.  01:03 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I know and I saw you for like a split second, but still it was good for that split second to get the hug in. Absolutely, I know the two of us were insanely busy but getting back together since VO Atlanta. There was a big bomb dropped at VO Atlanta with the Drama, bomb.  01:17 Yeah, with the online casting panel, which began with an apology from the CEO of Voicescom. And so, hmm, let's talk, shall we? Let's dish, let's dish, let's, let's, let's fill some tea. So what were your initial? Were you surprised and what were your initial thoughts? And actually we should just recount for the bosses who were not there at VO Atlanta, the very first thing, on a panel of online casting with J Michael Collins, j Michael asked the acting CEO of Voicescom was he prepared to apologize to the voiceover community for the actions on behalf of Voicescom in the past few years, now that David Cicerelli has stepped down and indeed there was an apology. So, tom, were you there, present in the audience?  02:07 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Well, yes, I was there. I was asked to be there actually. Me too, me too Okay so you were part of that little group of people that were asked to make sure that we would be present at the online casting. Because then we could talk about it like this so then we could talk about it, or we could step up to the mic and ask some pointed questions.  02:23 But to give everybody a little bit of background is that Voicescom has had a pretty bad reputation for a good 10 years, Because I think the first great resignation was in 2014, which is when the interview with Graham Spicer came out and the article that somebody wrote showing how, you know, the same casting notice was posted on Voice123 and Voicescom, but the Voicescom was thousands of dollars lower. So they were caught kind of red-handed doing what many would consider some unethical practices.  02:53 Double-dipping, triple-dipping, Right so Jay O'Connor, who is the acting CEO of Voicescom, is also the son of the recently deceased Supreme Court Justice, sandra Day O'Connor, and he also works for Morgan Stanley.  03:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And Morgan Stanley was the company that put $17 million investment into Voicescom, not a voiceover company.  03:13 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Not a voiceover company. They invested that roughly six, seven years ago. So I'm assuming that David Cicerelli stepped down because he didn't come through on his promise to make their money back. So that's why they put one of their own people in there. So I'm assuming Jay's job is very simple make their money back. So that's just kind of the background. And JMC who I just had him on my Ask Me Anything said that one of the conditions of Jay appearing at VO Atlanta was that he apologized for the past business practices and behaviors. So it made me think about the word responsible. Jay was not CEO of Voicescom when all the interesting stuff happened. However, if you break down the word responsible, it's response able able to respond.  03:57 Oh, I like that Well yeah because, if you think about it, Jay is not guilty of the stuff that Voicescom did under their previous administration, but now he is able to respond to all of that stuff. So you know that late last year Voicescom signed the Fair Voices Pledge and altered their terms of service, the Fair AI.  04:19 Thank you Nava and Tim Freelander and Karin and all those wonderful people there. So what was extra funny is I was sitting next to Miranda Ellis, who's our buddy, who helps run VA for VO, and we were talking about it. We're wondering who's that guy up there? And then I was telling her about the whole Jay O'Connor thing and then JMC said and here is CEO of Voicescom, jay O'Connor, and we're like oh okay, there he is.  04:47 And yes, he did apologize. He gave them an F for how they handled the situation, but they said they're going to be working on moving forward and a lot of pointed questions were asked. I was surprised that he was there. I was surprised at the apology. I think he handled most of the questions from the audience pretty well, pretty professionally.  05:03 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I wasn't surprised at the apology. I mean, j Michael basically said are you prepared to apologize? And when you are a CEO of a company, I mean at some point, like I imagine, you're going to work that out politically correctly in front of an audience of thousands, knowing that we would be talking about this. What was he going to say? To be quite honest, I mean, I wasn't surprised that he apologized. I wasn't surprised that he took Jay Michael on it, because, guess what, there's business for him sitting there in the audience.  05:33 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Oh yeah, potential customers. There was a sea of potential customers in there and ones who had left the platform who now could be persuaded to return to the platform as well. I did make it a point to talk to him afterwards. I as well. I did make it a point to talk to him afterwards. I first said I'm sorry about your mother's recent passing.  05:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, thank you.  05:47 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I say thank you on behalf of I know he's a person.  05:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) He is a person, yeah, Like he's just a guy.  05:52 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) He probably didn't know Voicescom existed, right? So, like he doesn't know about this stuff and we have to give him the benefit of the doubt, of course of the doubt, we have to assume he's an ethical, response-able person and I said hey, if you need some insight from boots-on-the-ground people, let me know. I gave him my card. He said thank you, he was very kind. So am I optimistic about Voicescom? Cautiously pessimistic? No, yeah, cautiously optimistic. So I'll say cautiously pessimistic. But you know what? I'll tell you something, anne. I rejoined in September of 2023 because they did change their terms of service, they did sign the Fair Voices Pledge and also, as the VO strategist, I have students who want to understand what's going on and if it should be used and how it should be used Yep.  06:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) completely agree with that. So if nothing else.  06:39 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I wanted to create an account to understand how the platform functions, how to feed the algorithm.  06:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) If we are going to be working with students I mean myself included. I mean honestly. I mean we have to know about these platforms so that we can talk about them and recommend them or not to our students. So I feel like I'm a member of Voice123. Now I will say that I was not able to stay for the full session at VO Atlanta because literally they scheduled that right in the middle of my X session, so after 20 minutes I had to leave and so I did not get a chance to speak to him myself personally. But I know a lot of people that I've talked to did, and Mark Scott also did a nice recap on his podcast about the conversation and his conversation with him as well, and myself and Law had a discussion about it as well on a podcast. So I think it's good that we're talking about it. But I'd like to go further, tom. I'd like to talk to you about pay-to-plays in general, what part they play now in the voiceover industry and where you might see them going in the future.  07:36 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) It's funny because maybe 15 years ago they were a disruptive force in the voiceover industry, not unlike AI right now, which is currently a disruptive force in the voiceover industry. And, like I've said about AI and you and I talked about this a couple of episodes ago when it comes to disruptive technologies or business models, you can fight it, you can ignore it, you can adapt to it or you can embrace it. So everybody has their own journey and their own path on how to define success as a voice actor and what they need to do. You want to do all high-end cartoons and video games. You need representation. You need to join SAG-AFTRA. You may need to move to LA or New York or Dallas and do a boots-on-the-ground thing. If you want to narrate audiobooks, that's a different track. If you want to narrate e-learning modules, that's a different track. The best way that I can illustrate this is talking about my journey on Voice123. I joined Voice123 in 2006.  08:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) no-transcript.  08:49 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yeah, I joined it the first year that I went full-time as a voice actor. I learned a lot on there.  08:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It wasn't my first year as a voice actor, but it might've been my second or third, and it was an opportunity. It was a new opportunity to get work, and I remember at the time. How else did you get work outside of if you had an agent? I did not have an agent at the time. I was working on the online platforms like Freelancer back in the day I mean, it was Freelancer, I don't know if it was Odesk.  09:18 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Odesk Elance, Elance.  09:23 - Intro (Announcement) I was on all those too.  09:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I was on all of those too, and then Voice123 came out and I joined in 2006 as well, and actually it worked well for me Although you have actually created a record of how well you've done on that platform throughout the years, and so I'm eager to hear about that.  09:42 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Sure. So for those of you who are listening to this, I'll just read this to you as best I can, but I've got a little slide up here. So I joined in 2006. There was only one tier, it was $200. That first year, I made $1,100. So a great return on investment. Next year, rejoined, made $2,750. So that was great. 2008, it went up to $300. I made $2,650. 2009, made $1,. I made $2650,. 2009, made $1950,. 2010, I made $13,000.  10:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) What changed.  10:09 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I got better at auditioning and I also landed a big textbook like a science textbook. So that was a big chunk of that $13,000.  10:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So let me ask you, in those years, in those early years, how many auditions were you doing? Were you doing 10 a day, 20 a day, as many as possible?  10:26 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I was doing a lot less than that. I was doing a handful a day, but also my direct marketing strategies were working pretty well, so it was complementing. So I was blogging and doing social media and posting on Facebook and Twitter and stuff like that, so it was part of a balanced breakfast, absolutely. 2011, made almost $8,000. 2012, I renewed, but I only made $350. Now what happened in 2012 is that my voiceover career turned the corner. I went full-time in 2006, but late 2011, all the seeds I'd been planting for all those years started to bloom. So I found myself auditioning a lot less because I was just booking a lot more as a result of my direct marketing strategy.  11:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right and then also probably repeat clients at that time were starting. I was also getting repeat clients.  11:13 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) So yeah, so that was happening too. Now, in 2013, I did not renew. I made only $300 just from a legacy client. But the main reason I didn't renew is because there was a cultural thing going on in voiceover where a lot of voice actors were saying that if you are on a pay-to-play site, you are contributing to the lowering of rates, you are a bottom feeder, you're enabling predatory practices, and I made the dumbest decision in my voiceover career, which was I stopped auditioning on Voice123. It was a huge mistake. So, 2014, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, I made virtually nothing because I didn't have a paid account.  11:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But also what happened in those years. Had you gone more to direct methods of marketing? Yes, okay.  11:57 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yes, direct marketing was my main jam. 2014 was, to be totally honest, and that was the year I made the most money as a voice actor. And then in 2015, 16, 17, 18, my income started fluctuating wildly $20,000, $30,000 rises and falls year over year. One of my top 10 clients replaced me with AI back then too.  12:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) In what year was that?  12:18 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) That was 2018, I think, A top 10 client. I was replaced by AI and then 2019, I made nothing. 2019 also, there was like a major downshift in my voiceover revenue because I noticed almost all of my direct marketing strategy stopped working. So did I all of a sudden become a lousy voice actor? Maybe Did industry trends change and my voice was out of fashion? Definitely not. It was becoming even more in fashion more young, energetic, friendly guy next door sound, which is still in demand. So, after contemplation and talking to friends and professionals, I rejoined for $888 in 2020. And now there was a tiered plan.  12:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, exactly I was going to say at this point bosses, pay-to-plays evolved. They used to be just one fee and it was usually around $200 to $300. I remember when Voicescom came on the scene it was the cheaper of the two, for $200, when Voice 123 was at $295, I believe, or something like that. And so then there was a bunch of people that joined Voicescom because they kind of undercut the competition, so to speak, which maybe we should have looked at that in the beginning and said, oh, look at that Now there's competition in the online community and online casting community because Voicescom was the second, I would say, largest platform to come out and they grew fairly quickly, I think because of that lower price point.  13:42 And they also did a bunch of good marketing, I would say, on Google. I think they did a bunch of Google ads and they had a bunch of. Seo that they were working on, and so they became really, really popular around that time.  13:58 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) So what happened in 2020 when I rejoined? So I rejoined like it was a Black Friday sale. Basically, I had one month and in one month I made $1,300. But here's what I noticed. Well, I made my money back immediately. But the other thing I noticed is that when you're on Voice123 and you can click on the client number, sometimes you can see an email address associated with that client profile and often it's the extension of productioncompanycom and I started noticing production companies that I used to work with or that on Voice123. So I was like oh, interesting. So apparently there has been a migration of ethical, well-paying production companies making quality content that had been slowly making their way to Voice123 and probably Voicescom too, because it's easier to curate a roster, it's easier to post an audition.  14:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh my gosh, yeah, you have hundreds and thousands of people of different voices on these platforms and it can be a little bit cheaper. I know that was the whole thing, because here you're not necessarily saying how much will it cost, right, when you have a direct contact, versus specify your budget, right? A lot of these pay-to-plays asked you to specify a budget and so if you specified a lower budget, you could still have hundreds of people responding to this, because it was like freelancer Odesk. It started to become the lowest bid, wins almost.  15:23 - Intro (Announcement) Yes.  15:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Like kind of thought, and especially when you're talking after the many years of online casting, it just then became a thing where, oh, I can get cheaper voiceover, and for a business, right, I can have lots of different voices I can choose from and it's probably cheaper. And so for a business, I mean really, where's that business decision, unless you've caught them right and you've become like a valued voiceover actor for them, that you've given them value over and over and over again. Now, all of a sudden, they have hundreds of thousands of people they can choose from that are credible, right, and they're cheaper. So business decision, tom?  16:00 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yeah, here's the thing about that too is like since 2020, since I rejoined, my gigs aren't $100 or $200. They're $4, $5, $6, over $1,000.  16:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Because you can specify that.  16:15 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Because I can specify that and that also tells me that there are ethical, well-paying production companies on Voice123 in addition to bottom feeders. So in spring of 2021, the algorithm changed All of a sudden. The auditions there was a lot less and they were a lot lower paying, so I didn't renew.  16:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, they redid their platform a couple of times completely. So that caused a lot of commotion in the voiceover world.  16:35 And, interestingly enough, tom, I just want to bring this up who else was sitting on that stage at VO Atlanta but Rolf Veldman, who was always the one from Voice123 that got a lot of heat from these conferences. But I love Rolf. I think, rolf, he took it year after year after year right as a person who was not necessarily in the voiceover business either, but he would show up and he would respond and he was, I believe, transparent, which then I gave him my respect for that Because, if nothing else, he was transparent.  17:11 He finally was on the stage and probably going wow, the guy from Voicescom is getting all the heat this year.  17:18 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Oh, he was grinning from ear to ear. He was eating it with a spoon. He loved it. So 2022, I rejoined again, but this time I joined on the $2,200 tier. So this was late March 2022. In that year, I made $12,000. And then 2023, which is my first full calendar year of being under the $2,200 tier, I made almost $19,000.  17:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's a definite return on investment. So.  17:42 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yeah, and as of this year, 2022, and today, as of literally today, April, I have made $6,200.  17:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now is the majority of that from new clients or clients that are coming back to you.  17:55 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Well, that's the thing, it's a combination. So there's two sets of clients, you know, there's your audition and pray clients, and then there's your legacy clients.  18:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Audition and pray Yep, absolutely Right.  18:06 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Commercials tend to be audition and pray. Cartoons, video games tend to be audition and pray. E-learning, corporate explainer, more of the audio book. Often those tend to be non-audition and pray because often you join an e-learning roster or you join a telephony roster and you don't audition, they just send you work. So with Voice123, there's a lot of them. One particular one comes to mind I auditioned for a corporate, short, three-minute, corporate industrial about bananas in a grocery store. If you work in the produce department, how do you handle the bananas to make sure they don't bruise, how to display them properly, quality check and all that stuff. It was a gig. Three minutes directed session, $550. So I'm like okay, that's like right in the sweet spot for that. That's like perfectly fine For three minutes directed session, great. And then they sent me nine more without auditioning.  18:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.  19:00 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) So an audition in Prey see, that's what people think about Voice123 is that it's an audition in Prey machine. It is if you suck, and it is if you can't audition well, and it is if you can't deliver the goods once you audition and book the spot. So I do have a lot of new clients, but a lot of them, a lot of them, have come back for more.  19:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And with Voice123,. One of the big differences of the platforms is that you can take the client off the platform. They have never intercepted and I don't believe that they will, because I think that's Rolf's claim to fame and how they lasted right through the turmoil of people being angry at them was that you could always take the client off the platform. Now, voicescom does everything in their power to make you not take the client off the platform, and that is where they get into people labeling them as double and triple dippers.  19:50 So not only are you paying for that yearly membership fee and they also have different levels. But when you have a managed job or any job you cannot disclose, you won't know their email address, you cannot work with them off platform and people have been threatened if it's found out that they're working with them off platform. So thoughts on that business policy. Tom, what do you think about that?  20:17 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I'm going to answer that question with a question. Do you think voice actors should pay to audition for anything?  20:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, you know, yeah, that's a really, really good question. I mean, I don't think so.  20:27 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I don't think so to a point.  20:29 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I think they should pay for a platform that gives them opportunities. So that's a tough one, right? I mean should they pay to audition.  20:38 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Well, I think of it this way If you told me 20, 25 years ago that I would have to pay to watch a Yankee game on television, I would have said you're out of your mind. And now they have the yes Network, where you have to pay to have access to get the quality content that you want. That being a Yankee game and auditions are quality content and that's a subscription model of a lot of businesses today.  21:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, and even I've considered it for this podcast, right, all right, so you can get a certain amount of listens free, but there is quality content or maybe more in-depth content that you would subscribe to.  21:13 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) And you do keep it with subscriptions, like Patreon pages do, and things like that. Yes, it's a common business model. Here's another question Do you think voice actors should get paid to do auditions?  21:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, that's a good question. Not necessarily. It depends on if that gets used right, If their audition gets used for the job, if you're getting paid.  21:32 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Is it a demo or a scratch track?  21:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. But now, okay, let's just say you pay for the option or you pay for the opportunity to get auditions. Should then there be an escrow fee? Right, and that's what a lot of people have the problem with an escrow fee. And should there be a managed services fee? And should there be a managed services fee? Now, anybody that manages a job, right that project, manages the job. A manager takes a percentage, an agent takes a percentage, but then on top of an annual fee right to audition, plus an escrow fee. Now, if you remember, tom, in the beginning Voicescom's escrow fee was an option and I believe is it still an option. If you want to do, because escrow was an option back in the early days, you could choose to have them hold the money or say I'm going to get my money guaranteed if I put it in escrow, and then you paid a fee for that.  22:27 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I think it's mandatory now.  22:29 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, yeah, so that's triple dipping to a lot of people right, Get rid of one of those fees, I mean do you feel that's right.  22:40 - Intro (Announcement) I mean, I think it's fair that it's either you pay to be on the site and there's no additional fees or being on the website is free and then they're taking a percentage of it, not both.  22:48 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Now, you weren't there for the Q&A. Our friend, miranda Ellis, who I was sitting next to in the audience, got up and she said I have a problem with the fact that one of the casting spec options is broadcast in perpetuity. And she said that's a big problem for a lot of voice actors because that can create permanent conflicts. She asked are you going to get rid of that? And he said no, because we would lose a lot of business that way. That's not a good answer. That's the only thing I was truly unhappy about with his answers, but he owned it.  23:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, honestly, I think that it's a responsible action for an online platform like that to like lead the way. Right, because here's the deal. Right, you're talking about consumer mentality. I mean in voiceover jobs, I mean if people are not used to. If you're a small company, you're not used to hiring a voice artist and you're not sure, like, how does that work? Right, I mean in perpetuity. I mean if you work for a company, right, and they hire you, you sign a contract, you're working full-time, everything you do for that company is property of the company, and that just became that same mentality. Right for the freelancers Okay, I'm going to pay you.  23:53 Work for hire yeah work for hire and I pay you and that's it, and that's where the mentality stayed for a lot of companies. I think if you are a large service provider to a voiceover, you should take the lead and do what's right and do what's ethical, and that to me would be like start it and say no in perpetuity. There's not an option for in perpetuity.  24:14 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Right.  24:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And that would be a nice thing. Otherwise we sit here and we fight, and we fight, and we fight like we've always fought right To get rid of in perpetuity. Do you think in perpetuity will ever go away, tom?  24:24 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I think it will always exist in some form yeah, I agree.  24:30 The thing that concerns me the most about it is that, like, if there's a casting notice and it says erotic, there is explicit sexual content. Everybody knows what that means. They know what they're getting into. If it's a casting notice for a political ad Democrat, republican or whatever you look at the script and you go oh okay, do I feel comfortable with this? You know what you're getting into. You can make a value decision. If it's these text-to-speech things, some of these casting notices, or if it's an online perpetuity, a lot of the voice actors don't know what that means. They don't know what they're getting into, and that's where SAG-AFTRA, nava and other organizations that's where the onus is on them to educate, to make sure that people are aware of what these things mean. That should not be the case. Voicescom should not have that option or the ability to modify the option.  25:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Exactly. You know what I mean Exactly.  25:17 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Because there's genres and sub-genres. You know like, if you want a public service announcement forever to technically broadcast and have that be in perpetuity, you can make a case for that.  25:26 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You know what I mean.  25:27 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) But it's too broad and it isn't explained. There should be like a little button or a little like question mark or a little thing next to it. You click on that and it's like this is what this means.  25:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And voice actors should have been educated many, many, many years ago, right? And what does it mean when you deliver an audio file, right? This is where, okay, we're creatives, we're good at what we do, but we also this is where the business sense comes in. Right, here, have my audio.  25:53 And usually what happens is something bad has to happen for us to like say, oh shoot, I probably should have a terms of service or a statement of work or a contract for all our non-broadcast stuff. So all our non-broadcast people are like, yeah, sure, give me a hundred dollars or give me $500, give me a thousand, that's perfect. And then all of a sudden, they find that their voice is out there on TikTok, you know, I mean, I'm not saying that that was Bev, but things like that happen, right. Or it even happens today with agents that are looking after our best interests, where sometimes you'll find a commercial that was supposed to only be regional which is now in a different place. And how do we know about it? Not until somebody tells us about it. And so we should. Now, with the technology, there should be a way to voice print and tag our audio so that we know if it's not where it should be, and it's being used.  26:41 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) And they're working on that? Yeah, exactly, they are working on that, exactly.  26:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Wow, I really feel as though we should have a part two and a part three and a part four with this conversation. But wow, tom, good stuff. Thank you so much for sharing. I love that you shared the real numbers. I mean, anybody that knows me knows how much I love talking numbers because it really brings a level of realism to the bosses and I think that we all need to really see those numbers and it really helps to educate us on making good decisions for our businesses. So, thank you, tom, it was wonderful talking to you again and I look forward to the next podcast. Bosses, I'm going to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You, too, can connect and network like bosses real bosses like Tom and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom. All right, have an amazing week, guys, and we'll see you next week. Bye.  27:33 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

Ramesh Johari is a professor at Stanford University focusing on data science methods and practice, as well as the design and operation of online markets and platforms. Beyond academia, Ramesh has advised some incredible startups, including Airbnb, Uber, Bumble, and Stitch Fix. Today we discuss:• What exactly a marketplace is, if you boil it down• What you need to get right to build a successful marketplace• How to optimize any marketplace• An easy litmus test to see if there's an opportunity to build a marketplace in the space• The role of data science in successful marketplaces• Ramesh's philosophy on experimentation and AI• Advice on implementing rating systems• Why learning isn't free—Brought to you by Sanity—The most customizable content layer to power your growth engine | Hex—Helping teams ask and answer data questions by working together | Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments—Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/marketplace-lessons-from-uber-airbnb-bumble-and-more-ramesh-johari-stanford-professor-startup/—Where to find Ramesh Johari:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rameshjohari/• Website: https://web.stanford.edu/~rjohari/• X: https://twitter.com/rameshjohari—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Ramesh's background(04:31) A brief overview of what a marketplace is(08:10) The role of data science in marketplaces(11:21) Common flaws of marketplaces(16:43) Why every founder is a marketplace founder(20:26) How Substack increased value to creators by driving demand(20:58) An example of overcommitting at eBay(22:24) An easy litmus test for marketplaces (25:52) Thoughts on employees vs. contractors(28:02) How to leverage data scientists to improve your marketplace(34:10) Correlation vs. causation(35:27) Decisions that should be made using data(39:29) Ramesh's philosophy on experimentation(41:06) How to find a balance between running experiments and finding new opportunities(44:11) Badging in marketplaces(46:04) The “superhost” badge at Airbnb(49:59) How marketplaces are like a game of Whac-A-Mole(52:41) How to shift an organization's focus from impact to learning(55:43) Frequentist vs. Bayesian A/B testing (57:50) The idea that learning is costly(1:01:55) The basics of rating systems(1:04:41) The problem with averaging(1:07:14) Double-blind reviews at Airbnb(1:08:55) How large language models are affecting data science(1:11:27) Lightning round—Referenced:• Riley Newman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rileynewman/• Upwork (formerly Odesk): https://www.upwork.com/• Ancient Agora: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Agora_of_Athens• Trajan's Market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan%27s_Market• Kayak: https://www.kayak.com/• UrbanSitter: https://www.urbansitter.com/• Thumbtack: https://www.thumbtack.com/• Substack: https://substack.com/• Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/• Coase: “The Nature of the Firm”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm• Stitch Fix: https://www.stitchfix.com/• A/B Testing with Fat Tails: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/710607• The ultimate guide to A/B testing | Ronny Kohavi (Airbnb, Microsoft, Amazon): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-ab-testing-ronny-kohavi-airbnb-microsoft-amazon/• Servaes Tholen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/servaestholen/• Bayesian A/B Testing: A More Calculated Approach to an A/B Test: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/bayesian-ab-testing• Designing Informative Rating Systems: Evidence from an Online Labor Market: https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.13028• Reputation and Feedback Systems in Online Platform Markets: https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/stadelis/Annual_Review_Tadelis.pdf• How to Lie with Statistics: https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728• David Freedman's books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/David-Freedman/author/B001IGLSGA• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Thousand-Weeks-Management-Mortals/dp/0374159122• The Alpinist on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Alpinist-Peter-Mortimer/dp/B09KYDWVVC• Only Murders in the Building on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/only-murders-in-the-building-ef31c7e1-cd0f-4e07-848d-1cbfedb50ddf—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Bryan Driscoll marries his expertise in digital marketing with savvy real estate investments to help clients maximize their potential. Bryan has a long history of success in marketing, starting out as an independent freelancer to help businesses strengthen their SEO back in the early 2000's. He started out as a one-man show working from home via Odesk (now Upwork) with the goal - to help people grow and you get to work together for a long time.   In 2014, Bryan set the wheels in motion when he purchased his first real estate property. Noticing a $15k wholesale fee was attached to the deal and his wheels started spinning: "What if I did marketing for myself in Pittsburgh for Real Estate deals, would that work on a local level.?"   He tossed up a carrot site (412houses.com) and crushed it. That is how Motivated Leads was born.   Bryan partnered up with Chad Keller and they pivoted their businesses to focus only on real estate investors.   With time being so precious, Bryan knows the importance of staying put - literally! His wealth-building strategy is as localized as they come: he only invests in a single zip code. By limiting himself to this tight radius, Bryan's able to focus on building his real estate empire right outside his back door.   Bryan has achieved financial success by following the BRRRR model and now owns in excess of $5million dollars worth of real estate - but he's a savvy investor, carefully keeping his debt levels under control at around $800k. His motto is clear: never overleverage!   Bryan has a beautiful wife and 3 sons and that's what he works for.   What You Will Learn: Who is Bryan Driscoll? How did they come up with their company? What is the BRRRR method? There are multiple ways to do marketing. What are outbound and inbound marketing? What is SEO and why it's so important? How does Bryan see things like the metaverse and blockchain processing having an impact? How can people measure and track the results of what they're doing? Some tips for running your Google Ads. Bryan shares how he can be contacted. Additional Resources from Bryan Driscoll: Website: www.motivatedleads.com Phone: +1 (412) 819-1980 Email: bryan@motivated-leads.com Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/67080514/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/motivatedlead/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/motivated_leads/ TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@motivatedleads Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/MotivatedLeads/ Attention Investors and Agents Are you looking to grow your business? Need to connect with aggressive like-minded people like yourself? We have all the right tools, knowledge, and coaching to positively effect your bottom line. Visit:http://globalinvestoragent.com/join-gia-team to see what we can offer and to schedule your FREE consultation! Our NEW book is out...order yours NOW!   Global Investor Agent: How Do You Thrive Not Just Survive in a Market Shift? Get your copy here: https://amzn.to/3SV0khX HEY! You should be in class this coming Monday (MNL). It's Free and packed with actions you should take now! Here's the link to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sNMjT-5DTIakCFO2ronDCg

Po tom, čo Rusko zbombardovalo Odeský prístav obilím a zablokovalo vývoz potravín z Ukrajiny, bude ukrajinské obilie opäť problém. Minister pôdohospodárstva Jozef Bíreš tvrdí, že medvede ohrozujú chovy zvierat a tak ich bude treba regulovať - aj strieľaním. Prečo neodvolal šéfa PPA Jozefa Kišša, keď ho zadržala NAKA? V podcaste s ministrom pôdohospodárstva Jozefom Bírešom sa dozviete: – ako vidí koniec ministra vnútra Ivana Šimka vo funkcii a ako by sa vysporiadal s podriadenými v podobnej situácii; – prečo neodvolal riaditeľa PPA Jozefa Kissa, keď ho zadržala NAKA; – že ruské bombardovanie ukrajinského prístavu s obilím spôsobí problémy aj nám; – do akej miery sú naše kapacity na prevoz ukrajinského obilia obmedzené; – že aj na Slovensku vzrástla úroda obilia a aj my ho vyvážame; – prečo v tejto situácii Slovensko žiada o predĺženie zákazu dovozu ukrajinských surovín; – či bude následkom zlacnenia obilia lacnejší chlieb; – do akej miery sú opodstatnené debaty o bezpečnosti ukrajinských potravín a do akej miery je to len panika; – že všetky ukrajinské potraviny, ktoré sa dostanú na náš trh, sú kontrolované a teda bezpečné; – že zablokovanie Čierneho mora ruským námorníctvom prinesie hlad miliónov ľudí a najlepšou cestou by bolo zabezpečiť túto trasu; – či sa máme pripraviť na každoročné odškodňovanie pôdohospodárov za zmeny klímy; – že Európska únia plánuje odškodňovať pôdohospodárov na poistnom princípe; – že medvede likvidujú chovy zvierat a pastieri pre obavy o život odmietajú pásť; – že Fínsko či Švédsko majú na medvede recept; – či sedí štatistika, podľa ktorej psy ublížia ročne desaťnásobne vyššiemu počtu ľudí ako medvede.

Po tom, čo Rusko zbombardovalo Odeský prístav obilím a zablokovalo vývoz potravín z Ukrajiny, bude ukrajinské obilie opäť problém. Minister pôdohospodárstva Jozef Bíreš tvrdí, že medvede ohrozujú chovy zvierat a tak ich bude treba regulovať - aj strieľaním. Prečo neodvolal šéfa PPA Jozefa Kišša, keď ho zadržala NAKA?V podcaste s ministrom pôdohospodárstva Jozefom Bírešom sa dozviete:– ako vidí koniec ministra vnútra Ivana Šimka vo funkcii a ako by sa vysporiadal s podriadenými v podobnej situácii;– prečo neodvolal riaditeľa PPA Jozefa Kissa, keď ho zadržala NAKA;– že ruské bombardovanie ukrajinského prístavu s obilím spôsobí problémy aj nám;– do akej miery sú naše kapacity na prevoz ukrajinského obilia obmedzené;– že aj na Slovensku vzrástla úroda obilia a aj my ho vyvážame;– prečo v tejto situácii Slovensko žiada o predĺženie zákazu dovozu ukrajinských surovín;– či bude následkom zlacnenia obilia lacnejší chlieb;– do akej miery sú opodstatnené debaty o bezpečnosti ukrajinských potravín a do akej miery je to len panika;– že všetky ukrajinské potraviny, ktoré sa dostanú na náš trh, sú kontrolované a teda bezpečné;– že zablokovanie Čierneho mora ruským námorníctvom prinesie hlad miliónov ľudí a najlepšou cestou by bolo zabezpečiť túto trasu;– či sa máme pripraviť na každoročné odškodňovanie pôdohospodárov za zmeny klímy;– že Európska únia plánuje odškodňovať pôdohospodárov na poistnom princípe;– že medvede likvidujú chovy zvierat a pastieri pre obavy o život odmietajú pásť;– že Fínsko či Švédsko majú na medvede recept;– či sedí štatistika, podľa ktorej psy ublížia ročne desaťnásobne vyššiemu počtu ľudí ako medvede.

Is your team making your vision a reality? Are they getting there fast enough?It is essential to have a leadership vision, AND you need to create the team to get there. This is where many inspiring visions fail. I host Matt Cooper, CEO of Skillshare, who shares how leaders are tapping into new strategies to leverage the best talent around the world to accelerate their leadership vision and make them a reality.Since joining in November 2016, he's led the company to significant growth of both sales and subscribers. Skillshare has more than 800,000 paying subscribers today.He brings the perfect balance of operational excellence and an entrepreneurial spirit to his role and has led a number of strategic initiatives surrounding employee experience and compensation including equity grant transparency and a no negotiation salary policy - two policies that have earned him recognition as a top leader. He's also served as CEO of Visually and held senior leadership roles at Upwork and ScribbleLive. LinkedIn Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/cooperm/Company Link: https://www.skillshare.com/en/What You'll Discover in this Episode:A big leadership lesson that helps him remain curious and humble.How to tell if your team is giving you honest feedback.A strategy for giving and receiving hard feedback.A time an executive coach helped him.The biggest problem with Glassdoor reviews.The tool every leader can use to build their own “Skunkworks”.What he learned about delegation as executive at Odesk (now Upwork).How every company can innovate (even when you don't meet in person).Two kinds of leadership and why you need both.How to tell if your team needs remote or in-person leadership training.Matt's No B.S. policy for Stock Option Grants.Why Skillshare NEVER negotiates salaries.Two leaders that have impacted his career the most.The new “beanie babies” model that can be applied to any business.Resources:The Skillshare No B.S. Guide to Startup Stock Option Grants by Matt Cooper, equity grant transparency The Skillshare Why we have a no salary negotiation policy by Michael Karnjanaprakorn no negotiation salary policy The First 90 Days -

Be part of our community by joining our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtbehindthings In tonight's conversation with our special guest, Mohsin Muzaffar. His early life & education? What was growing up in Gujranwala like? His experience at Punjab University? When did he learn to use the internet? How was his first job experience? Why did he leave UAE? What was finding a job here in Pakistan like? What was his first project as a freelancer? Why upscaling is important in Pakistan? His work experience in oDesk? How did he start working at Payoneer? The scope of freelancing in Pakistan? How much it has grown over the years? What are the services that Payoneer offers? Its vision & future? Payoneer Vs. Wise? How long he has been in the field of freelancing? How does Mohsin envision Pakistan in 2050? Catch this and much more in tonight's episode. Do not forget to subscribe and press the bell icon to catch on to some amazing conversations coming your way Connect with us: • https://www.instagram.com/thoughtbehindthings • https://www.instagram.com/muzamilhasan Payoneer's Official Website: https://www.payoneer.com/ One8nine Media: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6akyz6EpkwyzBmKh0L2rSQ Support our podcast: https://anchor.fm/syed-muzamil-hasan-zaidi3/support You can also audio stream our podcast on the following platforms: • Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3z1cE7F • Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/2S84VEd • Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3cgIkfI --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/syed-muzamil-hasan-zaidi3/support

Varun Mayya was in college when he along with his friends started up a t-shirt manufacturing business called SIZR. Later on, he went into building a recruitment platform, Jobspire. And they were one of the youngest teams to raise venture capital of Rs 1.7 crore even before they graduated, and scaled the company to serve 4 million requests in 2016. In 2017, they sold Jobspire to a New York-based company.Varun also authored a book named Pyjama Profit which is a guide for millennials to get started with an online freelance practice, while developing the skills needed to succeed.Along with running a youtube channel, Varun also co-founded Scenes, a community platform for creators to manage, moderate, and monetize their communities in one place. Scenes has raised funds from some notable investors including Kunal Shah, Gaurav Munjal, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Tanmay Bhat as well Tanglin Ventures, Better Capital, Whiteboard Capital, iSeed Ventures, and Blume Founders Fund.Tune in to this insightful episode with Varun to learn about building a brand, processes around content creation, and leveraging your youtube channel to scale your business. Notes – 03:10 – Intro04:05 – His journey before entrepreneurship06:49 – Getting introduced to oDesk (now Upwork) via his mother and earning his first $10009:10 – Starting a visual version of Naukri in fourth year of college11:09 – Writing an Amazon Bestseller Book – “Pyjama Profit: The Millennial's Guide to a Sustainable Freelance Career” 12:48 – Starting Avalon Scenes18:07 – Two rounds of funding for building a community space19:22 – Top clients and why do they use Scenes?22:11 – Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?24:09 – What excites him the most about Scenes? 26:40 – Solving a problem really well v/s Building a large business28:41 – What's their longterm goal with Scenes? 33:02 – Can Scenes eventually replace Discord? 34:36 – Why he continues to a creator with Scenes growing? 41:25 – Learnings on YouTube and Twitter around content creation46:15 – One of his best videos on YouTube52:44 – “I think we live in a trust-deficient economy and content is the only way to beat it.” Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur! https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll

  This week we revisit our conversation with Gary Swart. Gary is a General Partner with Polaris Partners and until April 2014 he was the CEO of oDesk  (now UpWork, NASDAQ; UPWK). Gary is a thought leader in entrepreneurship; how best to hire and manage teams; and the future of work, including online work.  

From very humble and unlikely beginnings, Yeukai has emerged as a world leading authority on Outsourcing Strategies and Educational-based Marketing. In just a few years, he has built a national UK client base and has recruited to over 400 virtual employees for both client and for his company, World Outsourcing Solutions Ltd. Recently, he has expanded his operations internationally in Australia, US, and Zimbabwe. The first two years of operation has gained Yeukai an acknowledgment certificate from Upwork, formerly known as Odesk. He was awarded among the top 10% outsources in the United Kingdom. This achievement has led Yeukai to establish his own outsourcing company after seeing there was a need in the market. He has also helped a lot of people generate income through his company. Amazingly, he has been generating income through the internet, earning from $4000 going to $8000 and roughly $15,000 a month. All of these were made possible through the wonders of Outsourcing! yeukai@worldoutsourcingsolutions.com

Gary Swart, General Partner of leading venture capital firm Polaris Partners, focusing on investing in technology and healthcare companies. Prior to joining Polaris he was CEO of oDesk, now Upwork, the world's largest online work marketplace. He regularly appears in major media such as CNBC, NPR, Fox, and Washington Post to discuss marketplaces, the freelance economy, and the future of work.

Enjoy this throwback episode where Russell explains a powerful concept that could help you and your business when times get tough. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com --Transcript--- Good morning everybody, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I just dropped my kids off at school and now we get to hang out. Hey everyone, I hope you guys are doing amazing. I am trying to get on a better rhythm of doing podcasts consistently. I had this really weird thing where like I'll get in the mood and I'll do like 10 in a row, and then I'll get out of the mood and I won't do some for a while. And I'm trying to get more consistent where we get two or three a week. So I apologize for my inconsistency, but I'm grateful for you guys and for listening in. And hopefully you get good stuff each time. You know, it's been fun doing this now for 500+ episodes, and if you haven't gotten the Marketing Secrets black book yet, go to Marketingsecrets.com/blackbook. Some of you guys know that Julie Stoian and I went through, and she listened to every episode and took notes on them all and then rewrote them into a book of the top 99 takeaways from this podcast. So to shortcut your life a little bit, go and get those, print them out, that's what everyone's been doing, printing them and reading them. But it will catch you up on the Marketing Secrets, the last 5 years of the best and most important "ah ha's" and things like that. That's a freebie for you guys. But today I had a specific thing I wanted to share with you and I've been wanting to talk about this for a little while, but life's been a little crazy right now, trying to get done some big projects. This month of October is crazy, I'm speaking all over, flying a bunch of places, we're doing an event for Two Comma Club X members and a whole bunch of other things. Rebuilding the whole company structure, anyway, I could go on and on. But it's so much fun. I love what we do. I love that we get to play this game every day. Anyway, what I wanted to share with you guys today, it was kind of fun, Steven Larsen was in the office the other day. Some of you guys know we launched the One Funnel Away Challenge, which has been nuts. We had over 7500 people sign up for it. It's 100 dollar challenge, so 7500 people paid $100 to be a part of it, and every day for 30 days Steven jumps on and yells at everybody and pushes them forward through some curriculum that we're taking people through. Again, it's called the One Funnel Away Challenge, a lot of you guys are part of it. If you're not part of it, then it's because you didn't pay attention to the 30days.com launch we did recently. Anyway, for all you guys who are in there, it's been so much fun. It's been fun though because Steven comes into the office everyday, which I miss having him there, he used to be there every day. You know he had to go out and start his own business and all that kind of stuff, which I am proud of him for. Just teasing, it is really cool. But I am really grateful to be able to pull him into that because it's fun to see him everyday and see him in his element where he's jumping on it, and training and motivating and pushing, just doing his thing. It's amazing. This new program though, this One Funnel Away Challenge is going to change a ton of people's lives and I'm excited for all of you guys who are going through it. But I digress, the reason why I'm telling this story is, he was in the office and we were talking about a bunch of stuff, and we were actually talking about the Two Comma Club X coaching program, which is something we sold at the last Funnel Hacking Live, and I think we had 650ish people join it. And it's not a cheap program, it's $18 grand a year or $1800 a month. And a lot of people came in at $1800 a month, which obviously is not a cheap investment, but at the same time, I talked about when we sold it, I was like, “It's less than half the cost of a crappy employee.” And you're getting access to all these coaches and all these things. So far we've done three or four events, I'm doing a two day event this month that only they are allowed to come to. It's expensive but it's also super cheap, you know what I mean. And we're talking about some people that had dropped out of it for whatever reason. And some people have dropped out for legitimate reasons, I totally understand that. But the story I wanted to tell you today was interesting, was about Steven's sister Marie. She joined the program, and she was probably in a group of a bunch of people that probably shouldn't have joined. I think for some people it was as much money as they were making at the time, and they still just jumped in because they saw the vision, they wanted the thing and they jumped in. And it was interesting, Steven was telling me this story that like two months into the program, I think it was the second or the third month, the next $1800 a month payment came up and she was freaking out. And had kind of a thing like, “Oh my gosh, I'm not making enough money for this. I can't do this, I need to drop out.” And she told Steven, “I can't do this, I need to be out of it.” And Steven listened to her talk about all the reasons why she needed to drop out, and he listened to it and after she got done saying all the reasons why she should drop out, then he said, “Or you should lean in.” And that is the message for you today, “Or you should lean in.” What does that mean? You should lean into it, instead of freaking out, “oh, I can't handle this.” Let's lean in and double down and go all in. And when you do that's when amazing things happen. And to Marie's credit, she did. She leaned in and during that time got through the scary bumpiness and launched her business and right now her business is doing somewhere between 8 and 10 thousand dollars a month, which is amazing and insane and so cool. She's helping people launch podcast. It's like my podcast, if I was working with her  I would record this and send it to her and she would just somehow make it magically show up on iTunes right. My brother does that for me. But that's what she does for people now and she's killing it. But it's because during the turbulent times of backing out and running away, she leaned in. I want you to think about everything great that's happened in your life. For those who went into sports, think about the hardest times, the times... I only know wrestling because that's my world. But the times where I needed to cut weight or I had to go get someone who was really, really tough, or I lost a match or whatever, those are the times you want to quit right. You're like, “I'm out.” And back out and walk away from it. But it was in those times that instead of backing out, I leaned in and had success. Yesterday, it was kind of fun, we were working on a video and I was like, “I need my old wrestling matches from back in the day.” So my brother, Scott, he had them all on his hard drive so he dumped them all onto Google drive, so I was looking at all these old videos of me through high school and college wrestling. So I was kind of going down this jaunt down memory lane, and I saw in there the match my junior year where I lost to this guy named Nick Fresquez, the very first match of the season. And I remember this because we recorded it, but I think my mom accidently recorded over it or something like that, but we had a 22 second clip of that match and it was when Nick did this move on me that was the move he beat me with. And I remember my dad used to watch that 22 second clip over and over and over and over again. I'd come up during the season, I'd wake up in the morning and he'd be upstairs watching it and he's like, “Russell come here, come here.” And he'd sit me down on the carpet and he'd show me how the move worked and we would drill it, and go to the wrestling room later and drill the move. Man, we must have watched that 22 second clip of my loss like a thousand times or more during that next four months of the wrestling season. And we'd practice it and practice it and practice it. And yesterday I found the match of me winning the state title, and we're watching it and seeing as I did that move, the same move he did on me to beat me at the first of the season is the same move I used on him to beat him in the state finals. And I was thinking about that, I was like, in context of this whole concept that Steven shared with me about leaning in, I was just like, man, if I hadn't leaned in to that, if I would have been like, “Oh my gosh I lost to him.” And had fear and all these things, then I never would have been a state champ, which man, life circumstances since that moment that brought me to where I am today, all hinged upon that moment. It's kind of crazy, if we were to go back in time that far. Right so in sports, the times it was the most painful and scary and the things I freaked out about the most, is when I leaned in, when greatness came. I think about marriage, I love my wife, I love my kids, but marriage isn't easy. I thought it was going to be. I'm not going to lie, if I was to go back to Russell 20 years ago, I was struggling through life just waiting to be married, then everything will be good. And my marriage has been amazing , but man it's been hard. And I think my wife agrees, it was way harder than we thought. And it's those times where it's hard where it's like, man it would be so easy just to like, back out. “I can't afford the monthly payment.” Boom, back out. But instead I leaned in. I was like, I love her, I've committed to this, I'm doing it. And because of that is how we've made a marriage that wasn't just good, but a marriage that's great. I think about it in business, how many times I could tell you the stories of me building a company and crashing it, and building and crashing it. I'm working on, we're doing this event in Utah, the Dry Bar Comedy club in two weeks, or I guess it's a week and a half now. I want to make an outline of the history of my business, so I went to the good old way back machine and went to try to find every single funnel that I've ever built. And I forgot how much stuff I've done, how many software products we've launched, how many info products, how many courses, how many viral sites, how many list building sites, it's crazy. I haven't finished the list yet, I'm already at ten pages of links to funnels that I built. And these aren't just like, every page in the funnel, because I can't in the way back machine. Way back shows you snapshots of your websites back, as far back as the way back machine was created. If you never used the way back machine by the way, you should go. Go to archive.org, in fact, do this for fun. Go to archive.org, that's the way back machine, type in dotcomsecrets.com, my site, and go look at the history of my site, you'll see every variation of Russell over the last ten years on that site. Every blog I launched on there, everything. But it's fun to see the back, the history of these things. So I went to way back machine and was trying to find all these things, and you can't see the upsells or downsells, so I can just find the landing page of every funnel I've ever created in my life, and it's ten pages now of funnels. And I'm going through this and I'm laughing at some. Some of them were the worst ideas ever. Some that completely bombed. Some that I spent literally millions of dollars on that never went live. In fact, there were two or three that I found that I was sick to my stomach. I was like, I spent four years of my life, I had six full time developers I was paying a million and a half, two million a year for these guys, and none of these ever saw the light of day. I'm like, ugh. Some of them were the pre-cursers to clickfunnels. I remember clickdotcom.com was the pre-curser to clickfunnels, and I saw this thing. That was one that we literally spent, I'd say conservatively at least a million and probably closer to two or three million we spent on that thing. I found all the screen shots, all the everything, but it never went live. Nobody ever saw it. But had I not leaned into that and tried to build that, we wouldn't be at Clickfunnels today. I think there are like 5 different software programs we created that were all pre-cursers to Clickfunnels. One of them was an RSS auto-responder, one was a desktop auto-responder, one was a funnel building software, one was a shopping cart. All these things that I tried to build that failed. I found this site, champion sound, this is like, I was in the brinks of bankruptcy, literally. I had just had to fire 80 of my employees and we moved from a 20 thousand square foot office to a 2 thousand, I had 150,000 in IRS back taxes that I owed and I was trying to figure out how in the world to save the company and save myself from bankruptcy. And If I would have gone bankrupt, I still had all this outstanding coaching liability. So I would have destroyed my reputation. So I was on this thing where if I would have given up I would have gone to jail and destroyed my reputation. So I was like I can't give up, I have to lean in, I'm being forced to. I remember I had, I was on Flippa.com, trying to buy a website, trying to figure out my future, and at like 2:00 in the morning I saw this site called Championsound.com, which you should plug that into the way back machine, you'll see what it is. Anyway, it was an email, text message auto-responder fro bands, and I was like, “Oh my gosh this could be the greatest thing in the world. I could start this thing, we could sell it to bands, and I could re-launch or clone the site and launch an email/text message auto-responder for dentists, and chiropractors, and I was like, “This is the future of my business.” So I leaned in, took 20 thousand dollars I didn't have, bought the website. And then what's crazy, when we tried to make it go live, or after I bought it and they tried to transfer it to me, they're like, I gave them access to my server, and they're like, “No, I need a server that can run Ruby on Rails.” I was like, “What's Ruby on Rails?” they're like, “Oh, it's like a different language.” I'm like, “What?” I'd never even heard that word before. And I remember none of the development guys I had on my team at the time knew Ruby on Rails. I tried to hire people on Odesk to do Ruby on Rails, and I couldn't find anyone that could do it. Man, after three or four months of trying to find somebody who could edit the software, after they installed and then left, and then all these things were broken, it wasn't working, all the customers were angry and it was horrible. I literally, after that three months that I was like, “I just wasted 20 thousand dollars that we didn't have. Just shut it down.” The servers were like a thousand bucks a month too, they were super expensive. They just shut it down. And I was packing up my bags for the day and was walking out, and as I walked away from my desk, I stopped for a second and I was like, “Wait a minute, I wonder if there's anyone on my list who knows Ruby on Rails?” which is a stupid thing to say, because at the time my list was a bunch of business opportunity seekers, and they weren't programmers or developers, but I had that thought in my head. So I walked back into my desk, I leaned in, sent an email to my list saying, “If you know Ruby on Rails, I'm looking for a partner.” And that email happened to land in the inbox of somebody who had bought my micro continuity product five years earlier and happened to be on my email list. But because my subject line said Ruby on Rails and partner, he saw that and he said, “I'm looking for a partnership with a marketer, I know Ruby on Rails.” And it was Todd Dickerson who responded back. And anyone who knows my story, knows that Todd is my cofounder of Clickfunnels, he's the one who built it. And had I not bought Champion sound, had I not leaned in with the last bit of money we had, if we had not tried to get it to work, if I had not instead of giving up, had I not sent an email to my list…if I hadn't done all these little things, that email would have never landed in Todd Dickerson's inbox, and Clickfunnels wouldn't be here today. So my message for you guys today, I know that in all areas of your life there's up and downs, and typically when everything's up in business, something going to be down somewhere else. Sorry guys, they're blowing leaves behind me. When you're up in business you're going to be down in your spiritual life. When you're up in your spiritual life, your business is going to go down. Or you're up in personal health your business will collapse, or your marriage will collapse. There's always going to be ups and downs and I don't think anyone has ever had it where everything is perfect all the time, if so life would be too easy. So it kind of cycles like that. And I say, you know whatever season of your life you're in, where you're in that hard time, instead of running away from that hard thing, do what Steven said to Marie, and lean it. Yeah you could, you could walk away. Yeah, there's a million reasons why you shouldn't do this, but you know it's right, you know it's good, you committed to it, so let's lean in instead of step away. And if you do that I promise you greatness is just on the other side of that. If Marie wouldn't have leaned in, where would she be today? Would that company ever be there, would all the people she's serving now, would she be able to serve them? Probably not. If I wouldn't have leaned into sports, would I have become a state champ and an All-American, and wrestled in college, and ended up in Boise where I needed to be to be able to create Clickfunnels. In my marriage, all the hard times where I wouldn't have leaned in, would I be where I am today with my amazing wife and my amazing kids? I got the coolest kids in the world. Last night we were downstairs because we are re-doing our bedroom, so we're sleeping down in the basement right now, and on the big screen I wanted to show my wife a video, so I showed the video and then we stared looking at all the videos in our camera roll. And then somehow, I don't even know how this works, but somehow on iTunes, on the big screen tv, they had all these clips from way back in the day, that somehow got save to iTunes or iCloud or I don't know, something. So we're watching these videos of our kids from back in like, like Aiden who is 8 years old now, there's videos of him when he was like a newborn. And there's this one, he's probably, I don't know, maybe 3 years old, and he had on Ellie's swimsuit, so it's like a pink and purple swimsuit and he's dancing. And we're like crying/laughing last night watching him dancing and in the video Collette's like, “Aiden someday we're going to send this to your wife.” And he in the video is like, “Mom, why don't you send it to her right now?” We were just dying laughing at him in his little stick legs dancing in her swimsuit. And we're sitting there just laughing our faces off and I was like, man, there were so many times in this marriage where either of us could have walked away. So many times in our relationship, and we're like sitting here and just laughing at that and realizing how happy we are and how grateful we are for each other and how grateful we are for our amazing kids. But that didn't come from stepping away from the challenge, it came from leaning in. So there's the message for today, thank you Steven Larsen for sharing that with me the other day. He said it kind of in passing, but it had a big impact on me and  I wanted to share it with you guys. And hopefully that will help someone in your moment of struggle in any area of your life, just remember to lean in. Thanks so much and we'll talk to you guys soon.

Servaes Tholen (Grove, Thumbtack, UpWork, eBay) is a financial operator with a wealth of experience leading cross-functional teams. After holding various financial positions at eBay, including CFO of the North America business unit, Servaes moved on to work with smaller, dual-purpose startups with social missions. In today's episode, Servaes joins Catherine Jhung to discuss his transition from eBay to the startup world, his untraditional route from applied physics to finance, how companies like Grove and UpWork are making a difference in the world, and much more.Topics Include:Growing up in the Netherlands. How living abroad before moving to the US influenced Servaes and the work he does today. Working as the VP and CFO for eBay's North America business unit. Key takeaways from his time as a consultant for McKinsey. The marketplace demand for companies with social purposes. The immediacy of climate change, and our social responsibility to respond. Long-term career aspirations. And other topics...Servaes Tholen is the CFO of Grove Collaborative where he oversees Accounting, FP&A, Corporate Finance and Business Operations. Prior to Grove, Servaes worked at Thumbtack where he served as CFO and COO for over four years. Prior to Thumbtack, Servaes was CFO of Elance and Upwork where he was primarily responsible for Finance, Human Resources, Analytics, and Data Science, before, during, and after the merger between Elance and oDesk that created Upwork. He holds an MSc in Applied Physics from Delft University of Technology, as well as an MBA from INSEAD with a focus on finance.Want to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website – https://www.htgc.com/LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/hercules-capital/

We're lucky that we chose a profession where confidence beats knowledge. Before I dive deeper into that, we first have to look at what confidence is. According to disctionary.com, Confidence is the belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities. Confidence is what's center stage when you say, “I can do this.” Confidence is what's driving you when you say, “I can figure this out.” Confidence is the ladder you climb when you say, “I can succeed.” Without confidence, your goals, your intentions, your ambitions might as well be called dreams. Because that's all they'll ever be if you don't believe in yourself and your abilities. I fully believe that without confidence, you cannot succeed as a design business owner. I'm not talking about being a designer. Many designers lack confidence in themselves. I know and have worked with designers who fall into that category. I'm talking about running your own design business. Being a freelancer if that's what you want to call yourself. But I digress. Confidence. If you want to succeed in this business, you need confidence. But what about knowledge? Don't you need knowledge to succeed? That's a trick question. The definition of knowledge, according to dictionary.com, is an acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation. Acquaintance. What an interesting word to use. Most of the time, when you think of acquaintances, you think of people you know of but don't necessarily know. I consider Betty, the cashier at the grocery store I go to, as an acquaintance. She knows me by name, and we exchange pleasantries whenever I'm in her checkout line. If we run into each other in town, we'll smile at each other and say hi, but that's the extent of our interaction. We're acquaintances. Merriam-Webster defines knowledge as The fact or condition of being aware of something. Being aware of something? According to this dictionary meaning, that's all that's required to have knowledge. So, according to two reputable sources on the meaning of all things. Knowledge doesn't mean intimately knowing something. It just means being acquainted or aware of something. When you think of the definition in that way, you realize that you don't actually need to know something to succeed. What you need is confidence in your ability to seek knowledge. And that's why confidence beats knowledge. Now don't get me wrong. There are plenty of times when knowledge trumps confidence. If I'm about to have surgery, yes, I want a confident surgeon, but I hope their knowledge of the procedure they're about to perform supersedes that confidence. If I'm about to take a trip, I'm less interested in how confident the pilot is and more concerned that they know how to fly a plane. But when it comes to design or to run a design business, confidence beats knowledge. You probably don't remember, but there was a time in your life when you were very young when you didn't know how to walk. You crawled around on all fours. Or maybe you were one of those butt dragging babies. Regardless, one day, after spending your entire life so far on the ground, you got up and walked. At one time, you didn't know how to ride a bike. Then one day, you did. You didn't know how to swim. Then one day, you did. This applies to hundreds, or should I say thousands of accomplishments in your life. You didn't know how to do something until you did. I remember when my kids were young. Any time they would get frustrated and say, “I can't do it,” I would calmly correct them by saying, “It's not that you can't do it. You just don't know how to do it yet.” And once they learned, I would remind them how they felt before their accomplishment. But what does Confidence beets Knowledge mean? It means that you don't need to know how to do something before taking on the task of doing it. You just need to be confident that you'll figure it out. I admit I didn't always feel this way. Back in 2006, I was approached by our local library to design a new website. They had heard good things about me from several people and had decided I was the one they wanted to work with. This was going to be a huge project. In fact, I was a bit intimidated when I found out their budget for the website was $50,000. That was more than I made in a year back then. The library wanted their new website to be connected to their catalogue of books. They wanted visitors to the website to tell what books they carry, if they were available for loan or already checked out. And if the latter, when they would be back. They also wanted members to be able to reserve books for pickup and put holds on books. All the typical things you expect of a library's website today. But in 2006, not many libraries had integrated catalogues on their website. I knew enough about websites to know that it was way beyond my capabilities. At that time, I was hand-coding websites in HTML and CSS. However, this website would require a database and therefore PHP and MySQL. The problem was, I didn't know PHP or MySQL. And even though I tried to learn it in a hurry, I just couldn't wrap my brain around the concept. Where HTML and CSS were so easy for me. PHP left me stumped. No matter how many books I read or courses I took, I just couldn't grasp it. Maybe it was the pressure I was under to learn it quickly to start on the website. I don't know. But in the end, I gave up. Now you may be thinking, you gave it a good shot, Mark, but at least you could hire someone to do the coding for you. Well… I kick myself to this day for not thinking of that. No, that's not right. I did think of it. I just didn't have the confidence back then to follow through. I didn't know what to do. I realized I didn't have the skills required for the project, but I didn't know how to find someone to help me. I knew what I needed to do but not the confidence to follow through. Upwork's former halves Elance and oDesk were around back then, but I wasn't aware of them or any other online platform I could turn to. So, backed into a corner, I did the only thing I thought I could do. I contacted the library and told them I couldn't take on the project. I turned down a $50,000 job. Several months later, their new website was up and running, I talked to my contact at the library, and he told me who they had hired to do the job. I was taken aback. I knew the person they hired. And I also believed their knowledge of web design wasn't much more than mine. So how did they pull it off? I ran into them shortly after that and asked them. You guessed it, they created the design look for the site but had hired someone to do the actual coding. It cost them $12,000 to hire a developer to complete the site for them. Presuming they were being paid the same $50,000 I had been offered, that meant they made $38,000 just for designing the look of the website. And I lost out on that money because of my lack of confidence. That lesson taught me a lot. 1) I was an idiot for not thinking of hiring someone myself. But most importantly 2) I lacked confidence from the moment I was presented with the website project. I figured I didn't have the knowledge and, therefore, couldn't handle the job. If I wanted to succeed in this business, I would need to rectify that. I would need to be more confident in what I could get done. Since that fateful day, I have never turned down a job for lack of knowledge. When a client asks me if I can do something that I'm unsure of or flat out don't know how to do. I answer them with confidence that I can get the job done. And then I figure out either how to do it or who to hire to do it for me. Confidence beats knowledge. Be your own guinea pig. It's great to be able to hire a contractor when you need one. We're lucky that there are so many options with good talented people available to us. But nothing beats learning how to do something yourself. You know that old saying, give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime. Providing he likes fish, that is. But the same concept applies to us as designers. I love hiring contractors to help me. But given the opportunity, I would much prefer to learn the skill and do the job myself. There are ways you can do just that while working on client jobs. Not sure how to do something the client is asking for? Chances are there's a blog article or YouTube video that will walk you through it. But sometimes, it's a good idea to be your own guinea pig. If you've been following Resourceful Designer for a while, you know that I design websites in WordPress. Specifically using the Divi Builder from Elegant Themes. However, I just told you how I was hand-coding websites for clients. I remember in the early 2010s, fellow web designers telling me I should try WordPress. But I had a strong aversion to WordPress. To me, the fact that WordPress used predesigned themes was an afront to designers. There was no way I would build a website for a client using someone else's design. But in 2013, I was getting into podcasting and was told that I needed a WordPress website to generate the RSS feed for the show. Very reluctantly, I installed WordPress and bought a theme called Evolution from Elegant Themes. This was before they came out with Divi. In fact, the friend who was helping me get started in podcasting had an affiliate link to Elegant Themes. Hence, as a way to repay him for his kindness, I bought a lifetime deal through his link, even though I only needed one theme and had no plans on building any WordPress websites beyond my own. That decision to buy the lifetime deal may have changed the course of my life—more on that in a moment. So I built my WordPress website and had to admit that there was a lot more flexibility in it than I originally believed. The theme did restrain me somewhat, but at least I could control how each part of it looked, even if I had no control over the layout itself. That was in June of 2013. December of that same year, Elegant Themes released Divi. And it changed my view of WordPress. Since I had a lifetime deal with Elegant Themes, it cost me nothing to test Divi out. I installed it on a dummy site I didn't care about and really liked how it worked. Divi was a game-changer. Here was a theme that gave me full control over how each element of a website looked and how each element was placed out on the screen. I could make a website look like how I wanted it to look. Not like how some theme designer wanted it to look. The next time I had a client website project to work on, I used my newfound confidence in my ability to make WordPress work for me and switched to WordPress and Divi. And I haven't looked back. If I hadn't used myself as a guinea pig and tested out WordPress on my own website and then Divi on a dummy site, I probably never would have made the switch to what I do today. Since then, there have been many times when I used myself as a guinea pig to test things and build my confidence. Be it new software or new features in existing software. Offering services I had previously never offered. Taking on projects I had never done before. Working on stuff for myself gave me the confidence to then use those skills on client work. Even today. I recently started building a website for a personal project I'm doing. And even though I've been a devoted Divi fan since day one, I decided to build my new website using Elementor. Why? Because I know the day will come when a client will ask me to take over a website built using Elementor. So why not get my feet wet on a project of my own choosing. So When the time comes, I'll have a better understanding of what I'm working with. So all of this to say, without confidence, I don't believe you can get very far as a design business owner. It's nice to have the knowledge, but confidence in yourself and what you do with that knowledge will propel you. Look at any successful freelancer you know, and you'll see that they exude confidence. That's the secret to their success. Confidence always beats Knowledge. Or at least, almost always. Tip of the week Let me ask you a question, is an email a contract? Last month, a Mississippi court took up an interesting case looking at what it takes to make a contract by email. Spoiler Alert: Not Much. As you know, a contract is just another word to describe an agreement. So when you exchange emails with someone and come to terms on a deal you both agree on, you ARE making a contract. In the Mississippi court case, the two parties had done just that... agreed on terms for the sale of some equipment in a series of emails. Now here's the tricky part. One of the parties, Jordan, had proposed the initial offer from his computer's email, which included his name and contact details in the signature. The other party, Parish, then countered the offer. But when responding to the counteroffer, Jordan used his iPhone to seal the deal with a “Let's do it.” reply.  The trouble is that the message had no signature from his iPhone other than “Send from iPhone.” Jordan later sold the goods to another buyer at a higher price. Parish sued for breach of contract, but Jordan claimed that there was no valid signature to his email and, therefore, the exchange was not enforceable as an agreement. The trial court agreed, and an appeals court affirmed. But the Mississippi Supreme Court found the state's Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) permitted contracts to be formed by electronic means such as emails. Then, the Court stated that the determination of whether an email was electronically signed according to the UETA was a question of fact that turned on a party's intent to adopt or accept the writing and is, therefore, a question for the finder of facts. So, because there exists a genuine factual question about Jordan's intent, the Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. Anyway. That's a lot of legal talks. But the takeaway is. Emails can be the basis for an enforceable contract. So be careful in wording your messages. Even something as simple as “sounds good” could be deemed sufficient to bind you. If you consider your emails merely preliminary to a formal, written contract on paper, SAY SO. Add something to the signature of your emails, such as “this email message is preliminary and shall not constitute a binding agreement, which may only be made in a formal, written memorandum executed by all parties.” Adding a simple line like this can save you a lot of trouble should a client ever try to hold you accountable for something mentioned in an email. It makes you think.

How to take six weeks off without stressing even a little bit. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back the Marketing Secrets podcast. Right now, I'm at Lake Powell. I've been on the boat, the houseboat and jet-skis, and we did a waterboard, it's a type of Flyboard where you literally feel like Ironman flying through the sky. We just got done wake surfing, our kids have been wake surfing. It's been an insane week and I'm here with my friend, John Jonas. I'll introduce you guys here in a second. And for me, it was a lot to take a week off. I had no cell phone access for a week and John hasn't worked in eight years, 12 years. Just kidding, he's basically taking six weeks off. He is the person in my life who somehow has figured out a systemized entire life. So he can just do whatever he wants whenever he wants. And so that's what we're talking about today is systemizing outsourcing and whole bunch of other stuff when we come back from the theme song. All right, so I'm back here. We're on top of the houseboat and I'm talking to John Jonas. Some of you guys know John, if not, he is the founder of onlinejobs.ph, which... Actually, do you want to tell them what it is and tell them about you? John Jonas: Yeah, thanks man. So when I was early on in my business, I just realized I needed help and finding help sucked. It was so hard. And everybody talked about outsourcing, outsourcing, outsourcing, and I tried India and it sucked. It did. Russell: The entire country. John: Well and then it's like, dude, I have nothing against the country. But outsourcing there was really hard and there's some really big cultural reasons why, and I won't get into it, whatever. And then you have Upwork, which was Elance and oDesk at the time, which is fine, except the whole system is based around 100% turnover. And as a small business owner, 100% turnover guaranteed in your business, that sucks, hiring a contract worker, that's so stinking hard. So one day I'm talking to John Brizzy, the owner of backcountry.com. And he says to me, "When you're ready to start outsourcing some of this stuff, make sure you go to the Philippines with it." And I was like, "Huh, really?" And he gave me some reasons why, and more than just like, "Oh, this is amazing," it gave me hope that maybe I'd find something different than what I had experienced before, because that was really the thing was there's so much loss of hope in outsourcing because it's just a babysitting job and people that you're outsourcing to suck and they can only do menial tasks. And so I hired this guy in the Philippines full-time, which he gave me a reference to hire someone full-time and I didn't know if I could do it. It took me two months to hire someone because I didn't know if I could keep someone busy full-time I didn't know if I could pay them I didn't know if they could do good work. It was the most liberating experience in my life. This dude's full-time job was doing anything I asked him to do. And yeah, dude, that was amazing. I taught him how to systematize this whole system that I had completely failed with on Upwork. It was Elance at the time, but I hired this guy to write articles and he wrote these articles and sent them back to me. And I was like, "Yes, I got these articles done," this was on Elance. And then I realized, "Oh, now the burden falls on me to do the rest of the work." And that's where most stuff breaks down is when it falls on you to do the rest of the work. So when I had this guy in the Philippines, I realized, "Oh no, he can write the article and then he just worked full-time for me. So I can teach him to do the posting and the headers and the resource boxes and the links and I can teach them how SEO works and he can do all the SEO." And this was like 2005. So since then, I've realized oh yeah, you can hire amazing people, programmers, designers, social media people, content writers, data entry people, lead generators, whatever it is, copywriters, you can hire a really good people. And in the Philippines, I was paying the company, this is 2005, I was paying them $750 a month they're paying him $250 a month for full-time work. So today that same person's probably going to be like $450 a month straight from you to them because of what online jobs is. Russell: Because you guys created a platform. Because prior to, so the first time I hired someone from the Philippines, there was a company I hired and they... I can't remember name of it. Agents of Value, yes. Agents of Value, yes. And I was so excited because it was like 700 bucks you get a full-time employee, which I was paying American wages prior to everyone and I was freaking out. And then yeah, like you said, you find that they're only making $250, $300. And so what John built is a really cool, I wouldn't call it a directory, it's more than that, but it's a place you go, you sign up for it, and then there's how many Filipinos are listed there right now? John: There's over a million Filipino profiles there. Yeah, so what I created was what I wanted for myself. So after a couple of years of hiring people through this agency, I went to them and they said, "Well do you want a programmer or a webmaster?" I was like, "I want a content writer." "Well do you want a programmer or a webmaster," was their response. And agencies, generally, this is how they are. They're going to three times mark up the salary and then they're going to give you the same person. They're going to go to online jobs today and try and find the person... They do, I know they do. So I created what I wanted, which was I just want to recruit some people on my own and I want to hire them and I want to pay them directly and there's no markup, so there's no salary markup. And there's no middleman telling me who I need to hire, giving me someone crappy who doesn't know anything, which is what Agents of Value did multiple times. And so now I can go and find someone, find the exact person I want. And it's crazy. I hired a programmer who was working for IBM and he's so dang good. Or I found a copywriter, actually, I hired a copywriter who wrote some ClickFunnels emails. And it's amazing what you can find on onlinejobs.ph. And the crazy thing about the Philippines, I had no idea at the time. This is why this guy's advice was so dang good. And he obviously knew, and I had no idea. So in the Philippines, there's a culture of honesty and loyalty and hard work and make people happy. So my guys in the Philippines have my credit cards, they have access to my email account, they have access to my servers. We've seen hundreds of thousands of people hire people in the Philippines and have seen very, very few people get ripped off. And almost every time when they do, it's because they tried to get the person to do some work and then not pay the person. And obviously, yeah, they're going to try and get paid. And then there's the loyalty thing. So the Philippines, their culture is loyal almost to a fault. So when you hire them, they'll never stop working for you as long as you gain their trust. So the first person I hired in 2005 still works for me today. Yeah, and he's amazing. He can do anything. When I hired him, he knew nothing. Today, he can do anything I want. So the culture makes such a difference of the Philippines versus elsewhere, especially for a small business owner. Russell: All right, so I want to tell a story and I'm not embarrassed, maybe a little bit. So you and I had a chance to go to Australia to speak at Mal Emery's event. Do you remember what year that was? John: 2012. Russell: Dang. So 2012. And for those of you who know me and know I wrote a book about the perfect webinar as my things I'm really good at closing people and selling from the stage and all that kind of stuff. So John and I fly down to Australia, we both speak on stage and you destroyed me. It was really embarrassing. I only sold a handful and John sold everybody in the room literally bought his... It was insane. But I'm telling you this because there was a story you told in there that I'm going to mess with the details, but I want you to share the story with people. Number one, they'll get to know you a little better. But number two, it's also I think a lot of you guys have probably heard me or other people talk about outsourcing and you're like, "Oh yeah," and maybe you hire someone here or there, but for you, there was something in your life that happened that made forced you to do it and then that ended up giving you the freedom that literally we've been here this week, everyone's stressing out. No one's got cell phone access and John's just having the best time ever. And you have six weeks in a row vacation time. What week are we on right now? John: Four. Week five. Russell: Week five of six and I'm like one weekend. I'm like, "Well, I'm good." So anyway, I want you to hear this story because it's powerful, but also I think I'm hoping you guys hear and realize that you don't have to wait for something tragic or scary like this to happen. But if you kind of try to force it in your mind, you can have something like this happen and give yourself freedom earlier. So with that said, here's John. John: So I've worked about 17 hours a week for the last 13, 14 years. And here's what happened. So my wife is seven months pregnant with our third child. This is 2007. We went to the doctor, he's run some tests and he says to my wife, "You have preeclampsia. And if you don't go on strict bed rest for the next three to five weeks, you're going to have a seizure and you're going to lose this baby." And to me, obviously, I was there with her and it was a shock. And on my way home from the doctor's office, I was just thinking, "I'm working full time and I have to two other kids and she has to be on strict bed rest. I'm not about to lose a baby over money." So I was thinking, "What am I going to do?" So when I get home, I sent an email to two of my guys in the Philippines. I had two guys in the Philippines at the time and I sent an email to them. And I just want you to know, as I tell you this, they had been with me for about 18 months. These were not guy. I pulled off the street. You're not going to hire someone new and this is going to work for you. It's going to take some time. But I told them, "Hey guys, here's my situation. I can't work. Here's why. I need you to take over everything I'm currently doing in my business." And so I... Everything, everything. For the next three weeks, I literally worked one hour. And that one hour... So after that day, when I got home, I sent them all the instructions I could, that one hour was just responding to their questions. And they took over my Google AdWords account and they took over my blog and they took over the marketing that I was doing. They took over the SEO that I was doing. They took over customer service. They took over everything I was currently doing. Three weeks later, my wife has the baby, this beautiful little girl Bailey, who just turned 14. And for the next two months, my wife struggled with postpartum depression. And so I just kept not working. It was a little bit more, it was one hour a week because she was allowed to get out of bed now. And so I spent three months not working basically. And it's expected to have a disaster with my business and came back to find my business had grown. And I'm not going to tell you it's because these guys were running the business. That's not the case. But the point here is that I had had the right help and my business didn't crash when I wasn't there. So from there, this is where you'll really recognize I hope what the possibilities of outsourcing are. So after these three months, I was like, "Well there's only so many times in a day you can take your kids to the golf course," and you get bored. Because that's what I was doing. I was taking my kids to the golf course twice a day. And so I started designing a business based around how far can I take this outsourcing thing? Because I had only had these guys doing menial tasks up to that point. And now I realized like, "Whoa, they're way better than I thought they were. And so can I build a business based around them doing all the work and me just being the CEO?" So I started designing this business. I'll tell you what it was. We were going to write reviews about products and post them on our website and then drive traffic to them and put affiliate links on all the reviews. So I record myself talking for 45 minutes explaining this whole thing. And I bought a domain and I sent the domain and my recording to this guy in Philippines. And again, he had been working for me for a while and he takes the domain, sets it up on my hosting account, sets up WordPress and changes the theme according as I've described and sends it back to me a couple days later and it was horrible. And I was like, "Oh crap." So I went back and described it better and better again. And we did this for about a week until we got it right. He got the website how I wanted it. It was amazing. So then he wrote the first review and it was terrible. And I was like, "Oh yeah, this outsourcing thing isn't as good as I thought it was." Russell: You're like, "No, I'll take it all to myself." For me, that's what I've been using. Like, "Well I'm done. I'm just going to myself." I give up usually at that point. John: That's not what I did. And because that's not my personality. I want to see if I can make this thing work really. So I worked with him through the review. I was like, "Okay, we've got to change this and this and this. And we've got to get more data from here. And we've got to do this." So we worked for a couple of weeks, got the review right. And I never wrote another review. So he had already done some SEO, but I start teaching him more SEO and he starts doing SEO and he starts doing some social marketing, even though social media wasn't really a thing. But we started doing Craigslist stuff. And we started doing RSS feeds and we started doing everything that I knew to do at the time, I did. Everything I knew to implement, I did. Which today all the things you know to implement would be build your funnel and start your Dream 100 and run Facebook ads to it and start doing some SEO maybe and get on a podcast or start a podcast. All these things that you know you should be doing I was doing, except I wasn't the one doing them. So that business in the first month made me about $200. Within three months, it was making three to $500 a month. Within six months, it was making a thousand dollars a month, within a year is making me 10 to $15,000 a month. And this dude in the Philippines, who, again, I told you they're super loyal and super honest, he built the whole thing. He joined the affiliate programs. He starts running Google AdWords on it. Because I taught him how to do it. He sends me a report every month. "Here's how much money we spent. Here's how much money we made. Here's what I think I can do to improve the business and make more money." And that was where I realized like, "Oh yeah, these aren't just dummies that can only do menial work. They can only follow exact instructions." No, he read between the lines so many times he figured out so much stuff. And I don't want you to think that he built this whole business for me and I didn't do anything. Because I did. I was the CEO. I knew what was going on. I knew what had to happen. But I never touched it. I don't touch WordPress. I don't write content now. Russell: So let me ask you, so I know that there's people listening right now who are thinking, "Well why doesn't the guy just make his own blog and then just do it himself? And then he'll make the 10 grand a month for himself and not have to just cut you out of it." And I've thought of that as well. I'm curious why specifically Filipinos, why that's not an issue for you. John: So yeah, because in India, that's the first question they ask. And that's our experience with outsourcing is, "Well what's your business model here?" I explained to him the business model. In the Philippines, they're not entrepreneurial. They don't want to steal your business. They don't want to steal your idea. They don't want to do it on their own. That's too risky for them. They are really job oriented and they want a job. They want a long-term stable job that they can take home and reliably take care of their family. And I've seen that so, so many times. I have people that have worked for me since 2005 and 2006 and 2008 and nine and 10. And they also work with me. Russell: Awesome, okay, my last question for you then is I think we had this conversation last year. So John's my Lake Powell buddy. And it's our third time renting house boat together, fourth time on the lake together. But anyway. Last year we had this conversation, I'm not sure if you remember it, but it was impactful to me because for me, those who know me, I'm a perfectionist, especially comes to my funnels and copy and design and everything's going to be reviewed by me because anyway, I'm super annoying that way. But our stuff does really well. And so I'm always thinking it has to be perfect to go live and get shipped out there and actually be a live thing. And last year was talking to you about it. And your philosophy is obviously different than mine. You were more, do you remember this conversation we had? And you were talking about how you're like 80% is it's fine. The extra 20% is... Do you remember this conversation at all? I'd love to get just your mindset on that because it's something I could use, but probably other people as well where it doesn't have to be 100% to make money. It's got to be close. John: So there are some things where it needs to be 100%. But most things, it's more important to get it done than to get it done perfectly. And so for me, my philosophy is ship, get it out there. So just before we left, we're driving down here and I checked my project management and saw that they had completed this big long piece of content that we had. And I said to them, "I'm not going to review this, but publish it because I'm sure it's good enough. You guys are good and publish it." And when I get back, maybe I'll review it. Maybe I won't, I don't know. Maybe the task will be gone and I'll never see it. But to me, just getting it out there and having people see it is more likely to tell you the problems with it than I am to tell the problems by reading it myself and to creating a bottleneck myself to let me give you 16 more things that I don't think are perfect. Even though you guys think it's perfect, there's three other people that have seen it, and I don't think so, but they do, which tells me maybe I'm wrong. I also don't have, and this is a personality thing, I don't have the design eye that you do and I don't care as much. I want people to see it and I want people read it and ship it, get alive. We ship software with bugs all the time because then it's live and then people will instantly tell you, "Oh, this is a problem." "Oh, okay. We'll fix it. Sweet." Russell: As opposed to figuring out all the problems, mistakes on your own. Oh man. Well I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, it's a little different, but I don't normally interview. I don't even know John, you're like the second person to ever be on my podcast besides me. But I think it's good for everyone to understand. So for those who are in some part of their business where they're trying to think of if they can use outsourcing more, join Online Jobs, and this is not a paid ad. I get nothing from this other than as long as online jobs keeps making money off of a boat buddy at Lake Powell, otherwise I've got to pay for this whole thing by myself. But there's no advertising, but let them know how Online Jobs works. Because it's different. It's not like Agents of Value. You're hiring and paying them and could you walk them through how it works and wants to get the count and how to set it all up and everything? John: Yeah, so Online Jobs is kind of like indeed.com, but for the Philippines. So you go on and you post a job and it's free to post a job. And then depending on your job, you'll get a few or hundreds of job applicants. And if you get hundreds of job applicants, that's a problem, you can't go through hundreds of applicants. That sucks. But you'll get a bunch of applicants. And then you can see the applications for free. You can do all that for free. You just can't contact anybody. You don't get anybody's contact information until you pay. And it's $69 for a month and then you get to contact as many people as you want, really. Or you can reply to everybody who sent you a job application, if you want. And then you just interview them, you're going to use their Disk profile. Russell talks about Disk profiles. And I think it's amazing. Almost everybody on there has a Disk profile and you're going to send them emails and ask them tons of questions. And here's a little bit of advice, don't do a Skype interview right off the bat. That's the first thing everyone wants to do is get on the phone with them. And that's the last thing you should be doing when you do interviews with people in the Philippines. They don't want to do it. So do that at last when you've narrowed it down to three. You can give a test task. You're completely on your own. Every application will come to your email inbox if you want. It's your Gmail inbox. They'll also be in your online jobs inbox, but then you interview them and you hire them and you pay them. And we don't take a cut of any of that. If you're interested in more, I have, very similar to Russell's one funnel away, I have the one VA away challenge. So I will walk you through the hiring process and I guarantee you'll find a great person if you go through my process at one VA way. It's my process of how I hire great people. I never think, "I don't know if I'm going to find someone good this time or not." I'm going to find someone good. I know I am because I've done it so many times. Russell: So onevaaway.com? John: onevaaway.com Russell: Awesome, all right. And I'm going to product this. So obviously I have click funnels that whole business and there's support and there's team and everything. But we started building some of these side businesses and some fun projects I was working on and all of them have customers coming in now and customer support and all these things. And I was like, "Aaaa!” and so I asked John, I'm like, "Hey, what would you do if you're me?" He's like, "Dude, you're an idiot. Of course go to Online Jobs." So we did, sent them to the count, we hired three new Filipinos, they're on a Slack channel with us and they have access to our help desk. Our help desk has all these little sub companies we're building and they're cross-training on all the different products and they're awesome. Every morning they check it on Skype, like, "Good morning, we're here." And then they check out at night like, "We're done," and they have questions asked in Slack, and then they're just cross-training all of our products. And so we'll just keep adding more products in there and they're supporting all of them and it's amazing. And we've got three right now. We'll probably have more as we start growing and stuff like that. And I'm getting really excited about bringing in more to do more tasks. Everybody can do funnels. You guys are training now on a lot of them are doing funnels, a lot of them are doing copywriting, a lot of them are doing a lot of other stuff too. So anyway, it's exciting. So go to onlinejobs.ph or onevaaway.com. And with that said, hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Get your mind thinking about outsourcing and the Philippines and a whole bunch of cool things like that. So in fact, one time you gave me... So I've done this four or five times. We build up huge scenes. At one time I had this guy named Mateo we hired from the Philippines and he built a team of like 30 writers for me, back when we were doing SEO really, really hard. We were cranking on it. Anyway, it's fun to do and fun to learn and to get to know some really, really cool people. So anyway, hope that helps you guys appreciate you all and we'll see you guys on the next episode. Bye.

Michael Begg began as an Amazon seller and quickly saw an opportunity in e-commerce marketing. He figured how to successfully sell products online. That led to the idea of creating their own agency, AMZ Advisers, full-service, e-commerce, and digital marketing consultancy partnering with brands to evaluate and develop their e-commerce strategy. Today he joins us to talk about how he started scaling his agency, how he used third-party platforms to get his first clients, and how he stays on top of his niche. He also shares tips on how has had great success near shoring his team. 3 Golden Nuggets Play to your strengths. After establishing an agency and getting your first clients, you are probably thinking about scaling. Agency owners should always play to their strengths by figuring out the high-value and low-value tasks. Hire people that can start taking care of the low-value tasks. The importance of the first 100 days.  You got a new client, great! Celebrate, but also make sure to have a plan for the first 100 days to ensure retention. Joey Coleman speaks about the importance of the first 100 days when onboarding a client. In Michael's case, his agency has set up an internal structure where the first 90 days are dedicated to the basics. That will give them enough information about the next steps and will give the client the first results to decide if they would like to continue the relationship.  Staying on top of your game. Platforms like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are constantly changing and if you take a step back from the implementation, you'll fall behind, which will negatively affect your ability to train other people. Michael's agency avoids this by selling products on Amazon themselves. This allows them to use their company as a guinea pig to learn things that they can apply to clients. Sponsors and Resources SweetProcess: Today's episode is sponsored by SweetProcess. If you're looking for a way to speed up processes in your agency, SweetProcess will provide the systemization you need to scale and grow your business. Check out sweetprocess.com/smartagency and get your productivity up. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How Near Shoring Your Agency Team Helps Scale Jason: [00:00:00] I have a great guest today and we talk about how he's grown his Amazon agency. And really he moved down to Mexico, created a team down there, and is really scaling it very fast. Really interesting episode. I hope you enjoy it. Are you frustrated with how long it takes you to get stuff done in your agency or tired of your team missing steps or falling through the cracks? You know, you may be looking for an easy way to capture SOPs to scale your agency faster and easier. Now, our partners at Sweet Process have created an amazing tool to help you overcome all these frustrations. Sweet Process really lets you create step-by-step instructions for every task in your agency. From writing proposals to executing client work and responding to client requests. So everything gets done more easily, no more mistakes or missed steps. Plus you'll have a central place where everyone employees, contractors, or even VAs can access your procedures anytime from anywhere, the best way to learn about how Sweet Process really can streamline your agency is to start using it. So exclusively for the Smart Agency masterclass listeners, you can try it out for 28 days free of charge. No strings attached. Just go to sweetprocess.com/smartagency to start your free 28-day free trial today. That's sweetprocess.com/smartagency to get your SOPs down and your productivity up. All right, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Michael: [00:01:42] I'm good, Jason. Thank you for having me here. Jason: [00:01:44] Yeah, I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and what do you do? Michael: [00:01:48] Sure. My name is Mike Begg. I'm one of the co-founders of AMZ Advisers and we're an agency that specializes in the Amazon marketplaces. We help brands increase their sales, manage their advertising, and just maximize their visibility on the Amazon platform. Jason: [00:02:04] That's awesome. So how did you get started? And then tell me kind of the origin story about how did you transition to Amazon. Michael: [00:02:11] Yeah, so we actually started as, uh, myself and my two partners, we actually all started as Amazon sellers ourselves. Before that, I was actually working in retail. I was working at Sears in retail real estate development. And this was in like 2014, 2015. So it was a very interesting time for the business because a lot of things were, you know, the stores were really struggling, trying to figure out ways to make money. And at the same time, we kind of saw what was happening in e-commerce and saw an opportunity there. So originally we just started selling products for ourselves to make some money on the side. And we found out we were really good at doing that. And we realized that a lot of other companies, a lot of big brands, were really bad at it. So that kind of led to the idea of creating the agency, AMZ Advisers, and yeah, from there, we just went out and got our first clients. And it's been six years now and we just keep going forward. Jason: [00:03:03] So that's great. And so walk us through kind of, how did you start getting your first clients? Did you just go, hey, I see your position in Amazon. It sucks. Like, do you want our help or what? Michael: [00:03:15] Yeah. So the original way we started getting clients was, well, two different things. The first, I guess, sales meeting that we went on, uh, was with a distributor in Long Island. I'm originally from Connecticut. And I think we saw his, uh, job post on like Indeed for like an Amazon expert. And we just like reached out to him and we were like, look, you're not going to be able to hire anyone for this position. Uh, and then we kinda got the first meeting that way. But beyond that, platforms like Upwork, FreeUp, ODesk used to be, I think was part of, it was a part of Upwork, now freelancer.com. All of those, uh, we just started putting our profiles and our company on there and started taking jobs, even if they were low costs. Just to, to start moving up the ranks. And yeah, that's really how we started building and getting those initial clients. Jason: [00:04:04] You know, we had a mastermind member talk about how he generated like over a hundred thousand in monthly recurring revenue from Upwork. And I was like, there's no way, because I just always looked at it as like a platform like Fiverr, like find cheap labor. He's like, no, no, no. And he walked us through a strategy. I'm like, wow, that is really pretty clever. I was like, if that existed, I was like, I would have done that. Like, that was great. Michael: [00:04:29] Yeah, no, it was awesome. I mean, for growing a business, it was perfect to get started because we didn't really understand exactly what companies we were going after or what companies really needed this service. So it was kind of a way for us to learn and figure things out. And yeah, I mean that, it just kind of developed into building out a real sales and marketing strategy from there. Jason: [00:04:49] Yeah. Let's talk about a little bit about how have you been able to start scaling, you know, the agency, you know, I look at, you know, the first part. It's just really getting started, you know, going after the clients, knowing where you're going, getting that, you know, that direction. So as you're in that building phase, and then you get to that systems phase. So talk about a little bit about how have you guys been able to scale. Michael: [00:05:13] Yeah, I think you bring up a really good point there. And in that initial phase where you're kind of just getting those clients, it's really important to play to your strengths and what you're good at, what you're not good at. So the great thing about having partners in the agency business is that, you know, we each compliment each other. So like, I'm very good at marketing and advertising. I have a partner who was very good at sales. I have another partner that's very good at project management. So between all of that, that really helped us execute initially to get to the point where we could start figuring out the processes to go forward. So that's always important, I think when you're in that initial phase, and then when we're looking at that next level of building the processes, it's okay. Which way do we approach it. What are our high-value tasks? What are our low-value tasks? And can we start by getting rid of some of these low-value tasks to other people? So the way we started with that, at least from my perspective on the marketing side was, you know, blog writing. I started outsourcing blog writing instead of doing it myself, content marketing, coordination. So doing the outreach to other people, you know, I started outsourcing that to a VA. SEO link-building like started outsourcing that to a VA. So it started with those low-value tasks that really allowed me to focus on the higher value items. And then from there it's more of right now, how do I train someone to take over some of this higher value stuff? Because I mean, I think a VA is great for that low-value stuff, but getting them to execute on the high value is definitely harder. Jason: [00:06:43] Yeah. It's really challenging. So, you know, I like kind of the process that you went through of going like, hey, how do I get rid of a lot of the stuff? So what were some of, outside of just VA is like, let's talk about kind of the management level. What was kind of that first person like you guys are around 30 people now, so you got some structure in place. And a lot of times people look at it going, man, I would never want 30 people. Because there are kind of that process of like five employees and they're already maxed out and then they think all 30 are going to report to you. Which is, obviously that's a mistake. Like that's a bad, that's a bad structure to have with 30 people. So talk a little bit about the structure that you guys put in place and then how has it evolved? Michael: [00:07:26] Yeah, so I think originally the first people that we brought in that, you know, weren't ourselves to help where, I guess I call them Amazon experts, the people that understood the platform and how to sell on it. And you know, that allowed us to start taking on more clients because now we can leverage their bandwidth to help with. Then we got to a certain point where we realized, well, we need someone to kind of oversee a lot of what they're doing to make sure it's consistent between what each of them are doing because everyone has different levels of knowledge within Amazon. And I mean, just with anything, you know, some people that are more experienced are going to have more knowledge than others. So we called them the Director of Account Management, uh, was the one that really helped oversee everything. That was our initial kind of manager position. And that handled the, the client-facing side of the business and it worked for a while. And then we figured out it didn't work. We had to kind of evolve a little bit more. And then on the back end of the business, you know, we obviously have a lot going on with, you know, coordinating marketing. I have a marketing manager that handles all of that for me. Content creation, that's a big part of our business is, you know, graphic design, SEO, copywriting. And we brought in a project manager to really help oversee that process. We promoted a designer to really lead the design and make sure designs were consistent across everything. And those are kind of the management positions we started, we started filling start helping us manage things better. Now that Director of Account Management role has kind of faded out to the point where now we have, you know, a real client success team and we have an advertising team. So now the account managers are responsible for managing the relationship. The client success manager is making sure that that's responsible for working. And then we have the advertising team making sure that they're actually getting the results. So, there's definitely an evolution there and I'm sure there's a lot more, that's going to come, but from failing a lot, that's kind of where we got to where we are now. Jason: [00:09:19] Awesome. And then, is there a framework that you've developed over the years for making sure that you deliver, you know, the value to your clients that are on Amazon? Because I always find with successful agencies, there's always kind of a methodology or a framework that they actually follow. Michael: [00:09:39] Yeah, I agree with that. I think there kind of needs to be, we call it a playbook or, you know, just something that you can implement. That's going to get consistent results across clients. I mean, you need to be organized in a way, especially if you're going have people working for you. So yeah, we have implemented like, something like that. I mean, we focus on, uh, an initial 90-day plan to get, make sure every client, we hit these things in the first 90 days from during that period, we're collecting a lot of data and that's going to help us formulate our strategy beyond there. But yeah, I think having an initial, uh, methodology to make sure that they're getting the right results in the beginning with all the setup and you know, all the fundamentals. And then from there seeing where the data is taking us and then implementing the strategy then. Jason: [00:10:21] So let's dive a little bit more into kind of the 90-day plan. So let's say someone goes, hey, um, I want to, you know, be a big dog on Amazon. This is what I want. Right. And, uh, like walk me through that process. Like, are you selling them a 90-day plan or are you selling them something different? Michael: [00:10:39] Yeah, we're selling them. I mean, we obviously want this to be a long-term partnership. We want it to last longer than 90 days, but in our opinion is that, and our view on it is that if you don't see the value within the first 90 days, then like what's the point of working with us. So, you know, initially, we just got to make sure that everything is set up in the account correctly. A lot of times within Amazon, people are doing things incorrectly there, you know, it's just costing them money or making them look not as good as it could. Uh, from there, you know, doing content, making sure everything is optimized. From there, starting advertising and like, yeah, moving down the line, but starting like really with the basics and the fundamentals. And then we think after, you know after we do those things within the first 90 days, you're already going to start seeing a pretty good return on the investment. And that's like what we call the window to show the value and beyond there it's just continuing to show value primarily through advertising and you know, other marketing strategies. But yeah, that's kind of the way that we approach it. We don't sell them on the idea of a 90-day plan. It's, you know, we just have that internally. Jason: [00:11:39] Yeah, I love that you do that the 90 days, you know, I had a guest on, uh, Joey Coleman who will link up in the, in the show notes. If you guys go there, as well as we had him speak at our Digital Agency Experience, and he talked about why the first one hundred days is so important when you're onboarding a client. Like we all think of, hey, we got a new client. Yeah. Celebrate, ring the gong, ring the bell. That's it, but it's all about like retention, you know, like when I'm chatting with agency owners and we talk about, you know, alright great you're good at attracting. You're good at converting, but are you really good at streamlining the operations where, which, you know, part of that is retention and upsells to other things. So it's yeah, you could be like, there's a lot of companies I know that will be nameless. I won't call out anybody that we're really good at sales and marketing, but they sucked at operations. And you have to kind of get all three of those together. This has all been great. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience? Michael: [00:12:37] Yeah, I mean, I think there's something interesting when we're talking about, you know, running a business and an agency in general, and I think this last year has made it more relevant than ever. It's just the ability for remote work and that's something that we really leveraged within our business. I mean, you know, virtual assistants are pretty common, but, uh, I actually moved, left the country. I live in Mexico now and, you know, what's helped us build our agency is by building a team down here. So, you know, now I'm leveraging not only the cost savings but the ability to scale faster by hiring more people. And, you know, I'm hiring. Like I talked, like I talked about the range of low value, high value, again, you know, the great opportunity is now that I'm here with them and I can train them on the high-value tasks. So, having the ability to hire a team like that, international, that's not virtual assistants that are on the other side of the world is definitely been very important for us. It's really allowed us to improve the product quality as well, because I think a lot of agencies generally go that independent contractor route where you definitely don't have as much control versus actually having an employee. Jason: [00:13:39] And let's talk about this a little bit, because we actually bought a company on our agency in Costa Rica that did the very easy development work. You know, it was only one time zone away. We were on the east coast at the time and in Atlanta and they were, you know, on central time. So it was really easy, but we always had a struggle with giving them more qualified or thinking tasks. And you just mentioned like you live in Mexico, which is great. I'm sure the weather's a lot better from Connecticut. I grew up in Long Island, so I know how bad the weather gets up there. So Mexico is like, yes. So if someone was hearing this and going, man, I'd love to get a lower-cost labor, but really good. Does it require them having to move there or what have you found is the musts? Michael: [00:14:31] I don't think it requires them having to move there. But I think a lot of times, and this is a big challenge where I think a lot of agencies struggle and I know we struggled with it, is transitioning from I'm hiring someone where I think I know what they're doing to transitioning to I'm hiring someone that I need to train to do what I want. And, you know, that can, all it can be done virtually. I mean, a lot of companies succeed like that one example, you know, we, I have another company down here that's a US-based company. And what they do is they have literally a live camera in the office. So it's like in a TV screen. So it's just like, two-way communication live. If someone has a question, they answer it there. It's almost like being in the physical office. So I think there's a lot of ways to tackle that problem. But if you don't, aren't in that position to really train them, if you don't have, I always say documentation, good SLPs build on how to do things, it's going to be that much harder for them. And I think that's really where a lot of people will probably fail with that. You know, for us being here in the office was great initially, because, you know, we were able to hire people. I mean, when it comes to thinking of people that can think critically. Yeah, we've hired some engineers. We've hired MBAs, uh, people that have really helped us scale in that sense because they have more business experience. But yeah, if we weren't there supporting them, we weren't training them. Like we were, we probably would've just set them up for failure. And then, you know, we wouldn't have seen the return on it. So, and now, again, being remote with COVID, I'm the only one in my office, out of all my employees. So it's definitely still possible to do it. You know, we, we've trained over the past year. We've trained another five people completely remotely up to the point where they're able to, you know, take clients. Uh, handle everything, you know, understand all the strategies. So it's doable, but obviously, that training piece is the key to it. Jason: [00:16:17] like what you said about the TV and the two-way. I just keep picturing the Wizard of Oz. Right? Like the guy, you know, the guy always watches me. Like, I'm watching you, like, you got a question? You're not working? That's pretty funny. That's when you mentioned that, I was like, oh my gosh. Michael: [00:16:35] It's definitely like strange in a sense that it's kind of like big brother watching you, but at the same time, it actually, I think it's really an interesting idea if you're collaborating between your team and a different country. So like for example, a good example of this is let's say you're the marketing head. You're the CMO. And you hire everyone down here. So you have your entire marketing team here, but you're based in the US so you hire a CMO to have a team down here. That's a great way to collaborate. I mean, yeah, I kind of, it still has that big brother vibe to it, but now you can literally direct them in the office and be like, all right, just have this call. This is what I figured out. This is what we need to do. Whatever it is in real-time, instead of dealing with time zone differences, you know, outsourcing stuff to Asia. I mean, you already know from Costa Rica, but yeah. Central time zone for us is huge too. Jason: [00:17:24] And let's talk about the people and then we'll wrap it up. Are you bringing on people that already have the experience or are you training them from the ground up? Michael: [00:17:36] It's very tough to find people that have Amazon experience. Luckily we have a mix of some that do some that don't, we've found some employees that are Amazon sellers themselves down here that sell primarily on Amazon Mexico, that we've been training to, uh, you know, do better. I mean, they understand how the platform works, but they're not massively successful on it. And that's kind of what we've been able to. That's a, that's a much shorter training timeline than it is for other people. We've also hired engineers. Uh, engineers have been very good mainly because their, their problem solving, you know, if there's an issue, they can kind of figure it out when it comes to learning how the platform works. That's something that's very interesting to them. And we've also hired, uh, people with digital marketing experience, even though if it's not, even though it might not be related to Amazon specifically. So, uh, we've hired a couple of employees that had backgrounds in, uh, SEM, uh, other paid ad types, social media, uh, and they've been able to understand the advertising concepts very well and pick that up very quickly. So yeah, I mean, it's very hard to find exactly what we're looking for in our niche, because Amazon is fairly new and there's not a lot of talent out there. And the people that do know what they're doing usually are creating their own agencies or. Or doing consulting themselves. So yeah, that training piece is just massive. Jason: [00:18:51] And then I guess I lied. I have one more question, especially with, you know, something rather new or, or just staying on top of your game. Like, I feel a lot of agencies, you know, they knew how to do something cool. They got into this by accident, but they're not able to stay on the top of their game and, and, and get it to a point where they can actually train others. So, what are some things that you guys have done to stay on top of your game that enables you to train someone that has no knowledge in it? Because I feel that if all the agencies could really understand that and then do that, their work would be so much better. Michael: [00:19:29] Yeah. It's definitely a tough one because once you take a step back from the actual implementation and doing things yourselves, you know, things are constantly changing, whatever, whether you're using Google, whether you're using Amazon or Facebook, whatever platform you are on, if you're not constantly doing it, I think that's going to definitely have a negative effect on your ability to train other people, or you need someone that is doing it to have that knowledge to train other people. So. The way that we've kind of, I guess, avoided that problem is that, you know, and we're still selling products ourselves. So we have an entire separate business that, uh, is selling our own brands online on the Amazon platform and on other platforms. So we're constantly testing and trying new things within that account first to see how it works. And then, you know, we're, we're the Guinea pig and then we're implementing it to all of our clients. So. I think that's one really good way that we're kind of staying on top of what's happening on the platform. I mean, it's definitely getting more and more competitive, but by continuing to do it ourselves we're making sure that we're not falling behind. Jason: [00:20:29] I love it. I see that all the time. And I love using the agency as kind of an incubator or having other, or other companies as an incubator to test out and to really kind of, because a lot of times clients don't want you to test out stuff, but some do like if you go after the right ones, they do. But I like that. So awesome. This has all been great. What's a, what's an agency website that people can go and check you guys out. Michael: [00:20:53] Yeah, sure. So, uh, the best place to check us out is our website, amzadvisors.com. If you or any of your clients are looking for help where we're always going to help, or if you just want to email me directly, you can get me at my email mike@amzadvisors.com. Jason: [00:21:08] Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on. And if you guys enjoyed this episode and you want to be surrounded by other amazing agency owners that can see the things that you might not be able to see and really work on attracting the ideal clients, work on converting them at a high rate and also work on streamlining your operations, where. You're constantly building that talent where not everything has to flow through you, which is pretty frustrating. I would like to invite all of you to go check out the digital agency elite. This is only for experienced agency owners that want to grow and scale fast. I mean like double in the next year, go there, go to digitalagencyelite.com. And until next time have a Swenk day.

168. oDesk aka UpWork | Gary Swart is a partner at Polaris Partners, investing in technology and healthcare companies, out of their San Francisco office. He represents Polaris on the boards of Quantcast, SimplyInsured, FloQast, Falkonry, Faro Health, and Qstream. He also served on the board of CliQr (Cisco). This Episode is Sponsored By: Freshbooks invoicing and accounting software is designed specifically for small business owners. Freshbooks grows alongside your business, so you’ll always have the tools you need when you need them without ever having to learn the ins and outs of accounting. Try it FREE for thirty days, no catch and no credit card required, just go to: millionaire-interviews.com/freshbooks Hubstaff makes invoicing super easy. Hubstaff is not designed for one type of business, which is why there are over 34,000 companies using their application. To help your business get started with Hubstaff, use promo code YOLO and get 60 days FREE when you visit: millionaire-interviews.com/hubstaff On Episode 104, Eric Gilbert Williams talks about his journey from rock-bottom to building and selling a multi-million dollar business. Now, Eric is taking his business experience and coaching entrepreneurs like you, so you can increase your bottom line. For a limited time, you can book a complimentary one-on-one session with Eric to find solutions for your business, no strings attached, simply visit: millionaire-interviews.com/egw-coaching  

About This Episode: Beerud Sheth is the founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading messaging and bot platform, which is used by over 100,000 businesses and developers and handles over 6 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance, the pioneer of online freelancing. Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and Citicorp Securities. Find out more about Beerud at: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/beerud Gupshup - https://www.gupshup.io/ Check out our YouTube Channel: Jeremyryanslatebiz Make Extraordinary a reality: jeremyryanslate.com/extraordinary See the Show Notes: www.jeremyryanslate.com/880 Sponsors: Gusto: This episode is sponsored by Gusto. Run your payroll the easy way, the same way we do at Command Your Brand. You'll get a. $100 Amazon Gift Card just for running your first payroll! http://www.jeremyryanslate.com/gusto Audible: Get a free 30 day free trial and 1 free audiobook from thousands of available books. Right now I'm reading "Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy" by Andy Ngo, about building real wealth. www.jeremyryanslate.com/book  

As the CEO of Skillshare, Matt Cooper believes that learning is transformative — individually, socially, economically. Skillshare's mission is to connect life-long learners everywhere and build a more creative and prosperous world.Before joining Skillshare, he was the CEO of Visually, an online marketplace for creative work that was acquired by ScribbleLive in January 2016. Prior to Visually, he was the VP of Operations, Enterprise and International for oDesk (now Upwork), the world's largest marketplace for online work.He is a father of four amazing girls. In his rare moments of free time, he enjoys surfing, fishing, running and anything outdoors.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).1 

Gary Swart is a General Partner with Polaris Partners, and until April 2014, he was the CEO of oDesk  (now UpWork, NASDAQ; UPWK). Gary is a thought leader in entrepreneurship, how best to hire and manage teams, and the future of work, including online work. He is passionate about helping small businesses thrive, fueled by his extensive experience working with startups and small businesses and mentoring entrepreneurs and business school students. Gary has spoken at the Inc. Leadership Conference, The Economist’s Ideas Economy panel, South by Southwest, TechCrunch 50, TiECon, GigaOM’s Net:Work Conference, and at Harvard Business School, which teaches a case study on oDesk. His commentary has appeared in various publications, including Forbes, TechCrunch, The Washington Post, and The Next Web. He has also appeared on TV and radio shows, including the BBC, National Public Radio, CNBC, and Bloomberg TV and Startups Uncensored. Previously, Gary led SMB Sales for the Americas at IBM’s Rational Software Product Group and also served as VP of Worldwide Sales and Operations at Intellibank. Gary holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Maryland.

Steffen Hedebrandt is co-founder of Dreamdata.io. Transcripted borrowed from here.For a deep dive into attribution see this article.Phil Gamache:What's up, guys? Welcome to the Humans of MarTech podcast. His name is Jon Taylor, my name is Phil Gamache. Our mission is to future-proof the humans behind the tech so you can have a successful and happy career in marketing.Phil Gamache:Today on the show, we have a super special guest. We're joined by Steffen Hedebrandt. Steffen got his start in the world of marketing doing some SEO and some growth consultancy in the startup world. And he moved to Oslo in Norway to work in sales/BizDev for a company called Elance, which would eventually become Upwork after the oDesk acquisition. And he stayed there for three and a half years and moved back to Copenhagen and took a position as Head of Marketing at Airtame, a wireless HTMI product startup which John and I know very well. And at some point during your time at Airtame, you solved some pretty cool big attribution problems with some custom engines, and you started to get this itch about starting your own company.Phil Gamache:In the summer of 2019, you, Ole and Lars, both former SVPs of Trustpilot made the plunge and started DreamData. So today the main takeaway is going to be that, gone are the days where enterprise companies are the only people who can solve multitouch B2B attribution and tools like DreamData are solving this for startups and SMBs. So Steffen, thanks so much for being on the show, man.Steffen Hedebrandt:Thanks a lot, Phil. Really looking forward to it. We've talked a lot about this topic before. I'm sure we'll get pretty deep pretty fast.Phil Gamache:Like myself, I've evaluated DreamData quite a bit, so I'm super familiar with the platform itself. John, I don't know how much you know about it, but I wanted to kind of start off with your journey a little bit and go back to when you were working at Upwork basically, this big tech role and how different was that from your previous role in the startup world and what did you like most about both roles?Steffen Hedebrandt:From the get-go out of university, I joined the Vintage and Rare, which is basically, or I don't know if they exist anymore, but it was a platform for selling vintage instruments where kind of gathering shops and the shops would then put their instruments up there. And the first craft that I really learned after studying was really SEO because if you have 10,000 instruments, then you really want to have those instruments on top of Google instead of your competitors there. And, I just got super fascinated by actually how big an impact you can have when you understand that Google algorithm and how to friendly manipulate a little bit towards your own business.Steffen Hedebrandt:But, that was an almost bootstrapped kind of project which led me to reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris and dipping my toes into places like Elance and trying to hire people from India and try to connect them with the other freelancers you had in Europe and other freelancers you had in the US and then suddenly you have this web of people all over the world that you have to make work and that's quite a challenge.Steffen Hedebrandt:Fun story, my first job was, I put up a job for a person to add people on Myspace that's set with a guitar in their profile image. Super non valuable, but it was just to test down. So our vintage and rare profile had more followers. I learned a ton there and we didn't make any money, but we were greatly successful on Google and having been there for I don't know how long the was, three years or so. I actually got approached by Elance as they were setting up their European office and asked whether I wanted to join that and try to promote Elance in Europe. And, me being a big fan of the platform, I thought, okay, well, I haven't made any money in the last three years, so, let me go get a real job for a period.Steffen Hedebrandt:So, the music instrument platform was really fixing anything digital, this ads, SEO, et cetera, where Elance's and Upwork was much more the traditional business development like doing PR, doing events, handing over a list of keywords that you would like to have targeted. And so it's a much more you can, say hands-off than the nitty gritty of running your own a platform, but it was really interesting to try to be part of this classical California tech company and see that from the inside. It also got big so I think we were 70 when I started at Elance. And then, when it was Upwork, it was maybe 500. I think my true love lies around the smaller companies where it's bigger from thought action, and you see the impact of your work much faster.Phil Gamache:Something we talk with so much about on the show is the value of small companies. And well, just knowing what you like and the environment that works best for you. You touched on the SEO front. I think, as we talk more and more about attribution in this episode, SEO and attribution that they go together like peanut butter and salty water. It just is such a hard combination to get right.Phil Gamache:How many times in SEO land are you talking to an executive and your trying to explain like the value of SEO and you're like, hey, well, you know that dominating search rankings and owning thought leadership and the brand space that you have there. But then connecting those dots, I think, a lot of SEOs end up thinking attribution a lot because they want to really tie things to that revenue. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how your journey has brought you from SEO into the attribution?Steffen Hedebrandt:Yes. It's like super critical spot on topic for attribution. And I think we also showed some of you, some of this stuff still when we pitched Dreamdata. The main attribution challenge is that there's so few things that we purchase the very first time we experienced it. I'd buy an ice cream on a hot summer day right away. But even just a pair of running shoes you'd go to a couple of sites. You'd maybe switch between your computer and your phone, et cetera. And if we're then talking B2B, which that's what we address with Dreamdata, then we're also talking maybe multiple months, multiple stakeholders, even your teams has multiple touches with the customer as well. And then, very quickly it gets really complex.Steffen Hedebrandt:Just before I go to kind of how we solve it, what we really can see across all our customers is that all the organic traffic works really well to start journeys, but they're so rarely the last step of the journey. So that's where you end up in this disconnect between all the value you actually create by driving a lot of search traffic to the website. But then the sales people is the ones that convert the traffic, and then they get all the reward for closing the deals. But the deals might never have gone there if you hadn't brought in all the traffic.Jon Taylor:And, we go to this data-driven path where we want to see direct lines and businesses becoming so data-driven that we almost detach ourselves from thinking through the real marketing picture. You're right. You come in through SEO and then you download and nurture, you get a couple emails, a campaign, and then you purchase, and then it gets credit to sales call. You're like, "Wait a minute, marketing was involved in this."Jon Taylor:I saw this in my consulting life. I saw a really bad analysis that proved that accountants were the number one customer that we had. But we were an engineering firm. They were just purchasing the product at the end like, "We need more accountants." We do to pay our bills, but this wasn't the actual journey.Steffen Hedebrandt:It's so interesting. What we are after all of us, it's really just knowing the truth about what is going on. Because, when there's transparency into what's going on, then we can also do much more valid conclusions on what to do next and what to stop.Phil Gamache:That's the big word there, like trusting, having the transparency of the data, but also having buy-in from the rest of the folks in the company that they also believe in that data, attribution has such a dark reputation because a lot of folks just say that, a lot of offline purchases are never going to be tracked in this online world and attribution for B2B and for B2C isn't a real thing. So when you were at Airtame and you were trying to solve this, and you built up some custom solutions for this, talk us through like that journey and how you solved those internally and how you convinced folks in the company to believe in the data that it was like legit.Steffen Hedebrandt:I think that was a really interesting journey for me. And I actually have to correct you Phil, because we actually didn't solve that attribution problem. Not before I met my two now partners. They were pitched by our local VC for me to talk to them just to hear them out. I replied the VC saying, "I don't really think they can solve this, but I'll talk to them anyway. Now we're here.Steffen Hedebrandt:So I started out joining this company Airtame that came out of a crowdfunding campaign. So, a day we're spending several money on ads when I started there. And, over the past three years, we ramped that from zero euros a month to around $150,000 a month in ad spend. And what'd you see, is that in your initial spend, then you can kind of okay, do the gut feeling, okay, I turned that up and now we see more money. But as all low hanging fruits are gone, you're firing on all cannons, then it gets really hard to understand whether adding another 10,000 Euros a month is worth it or not.Steffen Hedebrandt:I found myself in... My practical solution was that, as long as I can prove that I'm not wasting money, then I can spend more money. Meaning that, you purchased the device and the website, so if the money I spent equal the money that we made through the ads, then it cannot be totally bad, but I had no clue about what was going on. I judged my marketing spend in the same month as I made the spend, which is completely stupid because, you know the journeys are like three or six months or so, but that was all I had. And that's obviously not a smart way to do it because the dollar you put out today takes six months to kind of... You plant the seed until the sales guy closes the deal. And that's why it's so critical to have some kind of clue on how those dots they really connect.Steffen Hedebrandt:And then, I met these two guys Lars and Ole who had been pioneering you can say, segment the CDP, almost like he was been pioneering it in Europe. He was the third ever enterprise customer at segment. And so at Trustpilot where he worked before, they had been storing all the data of the users on the website, in a database. And Trustpilot also had this problem of, it's a review platform where companies set up a profile and then it took an average 12 months from the set up of the profile until they saw revenue. So they wanted to understand what happened in the period in between, sign up to revenue.Steffen Hedebrandt:And as they solved this problem with the help of a CDP, then you could also start to ask questions. Is there a difference in the channel that they came in from? Is it better to be paid or organic or outbound? Who churns more, who has to hire LTV and so forth? We've been using segment as well and then we plugged in our data into this rough prototype that Lars and Ole had from Trustpilot. And what I could see there was actually, a good example is that, in the beginning of that year, I set up a content team with two writers, a videographer, a designer, and an editor for the team. And I've just been looking at [inaudible 00:13:33], looking at, our rank went up or we're getting more organic traffic. But, the CEO would be like, but I can't pay my salary [crosstalk 00:13:44] takes you guys have. But what we could see with that DreamData prototype was that for example, we had an alternative game, so Airtame versus another product, and we could see that those articles were actually massively valuable because ultimately, they ended up becoming into deal [inaudible 00:14:03] closed one.Steffen Hedebrandt:The only thing you can see in Google analytics is that those pages were visited. So the conclusion out of Google analytics would be to say stop that project, fire those people don't do it anymore. But in fact, one article started journeys for $60,000 within a year. So that's why it's so extremely important that you're able to connect those dots all the way from the first touch all the way through to revenue.Phil Gamache:I think you were describing a situation that I'm sure most of our listeners are very familiar with, that tangle of attribution and proving the value. One of the things I'd like to talk a little bit about is, where does Google analytics fit in the journey. It's almost table stakes for digital marketing, but you're right, it could lead you to some very poor decisions if you're not looking further down the funnel. How have you helped other people, or how do you approach the maturity curve from Google analytics into a segment, into a DreamData.io, into a HubSpot and connecting all these dots?Steffen Hedebrandt:This is one of the biggest challenges we have at DreamData is, kind of educating the market, meaning that telling people that Google analytics is close to useless in a B2B company.Steffen Hedebrandt:Let me start like this, do your customers purchase the first time they see something or do they need to do multiple research? Yes/No. Would they be using multiple devices in this journey? Yes/No. Would there be more people involved in taking this decision? Yes/No. Would your salespeople also be involved in this journey as well? And as you start to list all these bullets, then Google analytics starts to crumble quite severely.Steffen Hedebrandt:So to answer the question, I think it's also like an educational path and kind of an internet maturity thing. Because, now CDPs are blowing up and which helps people understand that you can actually have one person that then owns two devices that you can then start to understand if that one person, the next step is then to associate these people with for example, an account as you do in B2B. Does that make sense, Jonathan?Jon Taylor:Absolutely. Absolutely. It describes the universe that I occupy all the time and other organizations. It's also the technical issues. You described a scenario that even if you were a hundred percent aligned on everything, you're saying there's a technical issue. So I'm curious about the technical problems that you see. And obviously I'd love to hear more about how DreamData could solve that problem.Steffen Hedebrandt:But it's also kind of, it is almost like a consultancy expression, like change management process, because, man, now the CEO, he learned the Google analytics 10 years ago and it was actually okay 10 years ago because people only have a few devices.Jon Taylor:There's nothing more dangerous than a CEO and in Google analytics.Steffen Hedebrandt:But you basically have to tell a lot of the organization that you have to unlearn what you know right now and think about stuff in a different way. That is one of the biggest challenges selling our tool. It's kind of a new category, so there's not a natural spot in the budget for software for it. So that's kind of what we're trying to carve out.Phil Gamache:Yeah. Where that budget fits in is really interesting because, one thing that you've told me Steffen that really changed the way that I pitched attribution solutions internally is that, this isn't a marketing problem to solve. This isn't just on marketing to prove is content driving this, or where trials starting from.. This is a company problem and we're trying to figure out where the company is driving growth and we want to double down on those things and we want to figure out, what is driving trials? And so instead of it just always being marketing have to like come up with this battle and we need budget for this, it should really be more of this holistic approach. We need to solve this as a company.Steffen Hedebrandt:When you talk B2B, I think what this one is all about is actually being able to collect data of a full journey, meaning that you gather every single touch point then it's an opinion about what was important afterwards, but it starts with you actually storing your data and putting every single touch into a timeline. And then it can be kind of opinionated, whether which attribution model or so to use, but it starts with you actually getting out of a habit of having these cowboy salespeople with a phone that just like all the people and getting them into kind of air coal or something else. Taking every single touch you have and make sure that it's digital and make sure that it's stored somewhere so you can actually start to model it at a later point.Phil Gamache:It's super cool. So we touched on a little bit like the analytics maturity path that some of these companies go through. We talked about GA and, we throw shade at GA, but for a lot of companies that are in that startup stage that are less than 10 people or less than 20 people, an end-to-end multi-touch attribution solution isn't at the top of their list of priorities. They will just be using GA maybe they're like upgrading and relying on some UTM codes to track and see last touch and first touch. But, the end-to-end model where you can have all those touch points in the middle and then aggregate all those to a domain level, that's that's where the sophistication of needing to set up the data infrastructure, or a data warehouse where you can combine all of those touchpoints together.Phil Gamache:So why don't you touch a little bit on the service side of DreamData, the Google big query service type of package that needs to get done before you can get to the Nirvana of attribution that the visualizations kind of present.Steffen Hedebrandt:What we're trying to do with our product is incredibly ambitious because we holistically want to have every single touch that any account has any place. So, the way we do two things you can say, and then we glue those two things together. One is that we have a script that you put on your website, and this script starts to assign anonymous IDs to every visitor. And then we start to record what is this anonymous ID doing? If that anonymous ID at some point identifies themselves through a form of demo call or download depo et cetera, then we ask for permission to go look at what they did while they were anonymous. And now, as we know who they are, we can also associate them with an account. So you have this multitouch profile of just one individual that it's then put into the timeline of what does everybody from one account doing.Steffen Hedebrandt:And this is all stored in Google big query. So, you build your history off every single visitor on your website. Where did they come from, where did they go and what did they look at and so forth. So you have those touch points component.Steffen Hedebrandt:And then the other important component is what takes place everywhere else in the organization, meaning in your CRM, in your automation system, in your outreach software, in your customer success software, in your calling software. Because those are also touches that is going towards one account, and you actually want to mix all of that up to find every single touch that is part of an account journey and then map that into a nice clean journey. And with all that in place, you can start to do this analysis that we as marketers like to do, meaning that how's the ROI on Google ads? How's the ROI on a specific Google campaign? You can do that because all the campaigns arrives with a click ID, and then we can look up the click ID and see if it was part of any one journey or not.Steffen Hedebrandt:Same methodology applies to organic search as well. We use the tool ourselves a lot to do a business development because we can see which accounts are active and we can see who was it and what did they do from that account. So when your salespeople call them up, they will have something relevant to say, or when they send them a mail, they will know which campaign they actually reacted to and so forth. How does that answer?Phil Gamache:That's super cool. I think that there's a ton to unpack there, for sure. One of the things I want to highlight there that I think DreamData does better than a lot of your competitors in this space is this kind of company level sort of aggregation. You mentioned so many touch points in the B2B world, there's the end user who's going to go on your website first and he's going to look at a couple of blog posts, and then he's going to send a blog post to his technical implementer. And then that person's going to need to get the buy in from the director. There's so many people in the company involved in that. And if you're only looking at the purchaser and their journey, you're not getting the full picture of who is that first person in the company who was on the website.Phil Gamache:Can you touch on that, like super quickly? How does DreamData accomplish that? How are you able to aggregate those multiple touch points from different people all into one account and how are you doing this with reverse IP, everyone working from home now and not being in the same IP. How are you guys solving that.Steffen Hedebrandt:Let me try to remember all the questions in that one question, otherwise remind me. If we start with the script on the website and the way we link users to accounts, we have a hierarchy assess CRM where we would look you're up. So, normal CRM being obviously the first CRM, but you might also have HubSpot and you might also have Intercom and so forth. So, we get with the customer define what is the primary CRM, and then we'd say [inaudible 00:24:41] at a close IO and look to see in the CRM if we can find a connection there, then it's sorted.Steffen Hedebrandt:And if Jonathan comes along and he's not in the CRM, but he actually started to sign up to HubSpot so he receives some emails, in there we then discovered that Jonathan is also associated to close IO. If that doesn't work, then we can start to just look at the domain and say, okay, that domain is close IO. If that doesn't work, then we have an access to an IP database that we look up as well. So we do all of these things simultaneously all the time.Steffen Hedebrandt:And then, as we connect the user to to the company, then one user might have touch or in the timeline, touch one, three and five, and the other user would have touch two and four. So we organize it by timestamps, which activities took place. And that's kind of how we overcome this burden of you putting your ad spend on one person and then his boss comes with the credit card afterwards and pay you.Phil Gamache:Gotcha.Jon Taylor:One of one of the things that I observed when I did a stint as a Marketo consultant and marketing automations consultant, everyone's talking about ABM. One of the things that there's a little graphic that we're all looking at here, we should tweet this out when we do the episode. But in my opinion, you also start to see this type of attribution unlocking other capabilities. You have the ability to then, hey, now I can do account based marketing, because I actually know what works. I have a buyer cycle that's more sophisticated than just one ad for one person.Jon Taylor:I also feel like you start to get permission to do things internally within the organization. Hey, let's do some brand. We know that these things are working well, let's do some brand advertising. Something small companies don't always get to do. Do you want to talk a little bit about how you see this with your customers? You reach this Nirvana state, what starts to happen beyond just knowing more?Steffen Hedebrandt:Let's say that we are providing the best data set available to explain what's going on. Still, then you need humans to act on what the data is telling you. And, sort of the best of the cases we have, people go out and act afterwards, meaning that, hey, this, a Google ads campaign is actually thriving. Deals, let me turn up the spend on that campaign and try to make similar campaigns even as well. Or it could be to say, discover those pieces of content that drives deals. Let's do more of those. But we do also have customers who's not kind of acting enough on what the data is actually informing them. So what we're looking at now is to do some... Can we recommend stuff? This is like an outlier in terms of positive performance, do more of that. This is outlier in terms of negative, you should probably do less of that.Steffen Hedebrandt:Somewhere down the line, as we pitch to VCs, we also talk about revenue automation. Whereas, we believe that this data set is the data set that knows the most about like the commercial bit of your business. Some, given we know this, then we should also be able to buy more of your ads, depending on early signals of how those ads are performing or not.Steffen Hedebrandt:It could also be like stuff like what if scenario so say, we do a data model where you... You act like you set a budget to double, and then you predict how much revenue would come out of it. But that's further down the line of stuff that you can do. But the data is only as impactful as the people who react to the afterwards, I think.Jon Taylor:You touched on this earlier, and I think that was such a good point. You're educating the market as much as you're doing, you're solving a technological problem. Marketers exist at this interesting intersection, the skillsets that marketers have often put us direct contact with the pain points, but sometimes technically, the problems are very hard to solve. I know I'm not a data analyst by any stretch of the imagination, so the idea of, I don't know, predictive or alerting, or some sort of notification that helps to take some of the thought and some of the debate of these conversations. You're sitting at the CEO table and you're trying to figure out how to position this data. And, you're also in your own head thinking, am I really the expert here? You kind of have that self doubt. How does a vision of your platform, I think, jive with that type of marketing future?Steffen Hedebrandt:I think actually, we like to think of ourselves as almost the CTO for the CMO or kind of, let's take care of all this really hot stuff for the marketing people so they can just skim the cream and then do more of what works and stop doing what didn't work. But the truth can also be painful sometimes. If we thought to tell people, look, this is actually not driving revenue, then that can also be a problem. That's a cool thing here would be to kind of celebrate these lead ad campaigns that gathers a ton of emails, but when you look them up, there's no connection to one deals at all, but the marketing agency would say it was a success, but because you got a 100 new emails or something like that.Jon Taylor:Enter in hand wave brand-building right?Phil Gamache:So, with kind of several customers now that are set up using DreamData, what insights can you share for our listeners on trends that you've seen across customers kind of on an early basis? I know when a customer gets set up, it's probably a X amount of months until they start seeing data kind of populate. And, once the data warehouse is set up, share some insights on things that you're seeing so far, what's the typical time to revenue or what models do you see customers using the most?Steffen Hedebrandt:I'll try to say a couple of things. I think first of all, people are surprised by how long the research phase is or the phase where people are anonymous. People normally tend to understand from the moment we got that email into sales, then we converted within two months or so. But, the research phase is easily three or four months before that, which means a ton in terms of if you're trying to hit budget in the last quarter and you haven't done your marketing investment, then it's too late actually to start the journeys. So, the ramp time of the seeds you plant are actually longer than you expect.Steffen Hedebrandt:Then, I would say, all the stuff you can do that is focused on high intent is the stuff that actually kind of works. What I mean by that is, low funnel stuff is really where you should start. For example, an example is these alternative articles. Even though the volume is small, they're insanely valuable because if you're searching for an alternative to an already established brand, the intend you arrive to your website with is super big and I can't probably make money on it. Where a lot of companies, they try to go for volume, or volume at the cost of your going wider as well. And a ton of those stuff is just waste of money.Steffen Hedebrandt:And then, the overall trend is really that people have no clue about how valuable their organic and paid efforts are, because it's not connected from when you are anonymous to close one deals. A lot of people are under investing in this stuff because they cannot prove it. So they are growing a lot slower than what they actually could be if they could see like five X, the return of what they're seeing today.Phil Gamache:You touched on so many interesting points. As an SEO as well, we often get a bit of a rap for always going after a quote unquote, big keywords, high volume keywords. But when you see it at the end of the day, you're always grounded back to, "Hey, you got to do more stuff for the customer." They're asking salespeople's questions. We can answer them in a top of or bottom of funnel kind of posts. How do people react to some of this news when they start seeing, Oh crap, this isn't working. I thought this was my... My ego is attached to this work as well.Steffen Hedebrandt:Actually, what I was just about to say is that across our customers, Facebook really doesn't seem to work. There's components to that. One thing is that Google ads out of the box, that's the clique ID, whereas on Facebook, you need to actually set a click ID manually, which makes it harder to attribute. But across the board, Facebook is really not driving a lot of B2B revenue compared to Google.Steffen Hedebrandt:And yeah, as you said, Jonathan, that also leads to debates kind of, "Hey, I used to regard this as a success, but you're saying it's not a success. I don't trust you."Steffen Hedebrandt:Another problem is that we will never get to 100% without an attribution tool. So kind of people sometimes freak out if they know one data point that should be in the journey that it's not there. And they're like, okay, good. I'm not using it then. Whereas, you should think about it more as a statistical framework that takes you from knowing 10 or 20% to knowing maybe 70 or 80% as to kind of when you act on the data, it's still leading you towards a good place. But, they tend to freak out about, if they remember one single touch that, "Hey, I saw him at that place and he's not in that journey." And then obviously we need to do everything we can to get the data quality super high, but you're just never going to get to 100%, not even with the perfect tool.Phil Gamache:Yeah. There's podcasts like this one, there's no intent attribution on podcasts. There's no attribution on sending a text to your buddy who's using this platform and asking him for a candid review on it. There's always going to be these offline sources that a tool can track for every company.Steffen Hedebrandt:100%. We only do, you can say deterministic attribution, stuff we can prove happened. Like old school, what's it called, the old school marketing guys that would do TV ads or radio ads. They would do these guesstimates of... I guess it's causality that they say. I spent this money, now we make this money. And, whereas we're in the business off, we can actually prove it. That was click, that was revenue, whereas the others, did you hear this Freakonomics podcast that came out a couple of months ago?Phil Gamache:No, I don't think so.Steffen Hedebrandt:That was fun. But, they found out that for some companies, even though the best day was kind of Thursday or Black Friday or something like that, but it's because it's like correlate, then you spent more money on ads, but it actually is just because it's correlates with this is the time of year when people spend more. There's no impact [crosstalk 00:36:21].Phil Gamache:Well, that's crazy. Maybe we can end on this question. One of the things I see a lot about like debates around attribution is the modeling around it. When companies are building these custom solutions internally, they're forced to pick one model. So a first touch or multitouch, or like W shape. What I think that DreamData does super cool is this ability to just quickly on the fly change your attribution model when you're looking at a visualization. So can you touch a bit on why you guys went around that routes and, are customers loving that?Steffen Hedebrandt:I think this is actually kind of just out of the box. One of the biggest revelations that we give to people is that we help them compare attribution models. So say for paid, we'll show you five different attribution models for the paid channel right away. So we'll show you the first touch next to the last touch next to a dog reshape next to linear next to U-shaped. The answer is that depending on how you look at it, it's true that the ad started the journey, but it's also true that the ad was not the last touch. The essential bit is that you have all the information available, meaning you have the full journey and then you can then have different kinds of analysis purposes that you're trying to solve.Steffen Hedebrandt:Meaning that, if I want to understand which ads to buy more of, I think actually a first touch model is fairly legit to look at because you just want to see where the journey starts from. And then you want to do more of that. Whereas if you're looking at it from an ROI perspective, maybe you want to do a W shape, meaning, so it's touch first, conversion last conversion, et cetera. So my answer is always that you should look at all the attribution models before you decide on doing something because they all represent different parts of the truth.Phil Gamache:I love it. We'll end on this last question before we let you go,. We like to ask all our guests how they stay happy in their career and in their professional lives. You're a super busy guy. You're CRO of a company just founded a of years ago. You just got a nice big round of funding. Congrats on that, you're talking to VCs, how do you manage all this stuff? How do you stay happy in your life?Steffen Hedebrandt:Good stuff. I think I'm a little bit gifted also by being naturally motivated to continuously improve. But I guess by being in a startup, I'm just constantly motivated by, "Hey, here's an idea. Let's try and build it." And then unfolding creatively is so rewarding for me. And then seeing the result, Oh, fuck that worked or that didn't work, let's try to do more. Can we beat last month and so forth?Steffen Hedebrandt:I think because everything is so transparent in a startup, it, matters a lot whether you show up or you don't show up. That really, really motivates me. I just had a kid 20 months ago. I used to have a lot of time to then run or do CrossFit or something like that, which was a great outlet for me when you kind of feel, Oh fuck, I'm a bit full now. If you have time to do exercise a lot, because there's a lot of natural chill coming after doing so, now with a kid that's kind of... I think getting a kid has actually made me a lot better at prioritizing kind of like you've default to what drives revenue.Steffen Hedebrandt:Also, I kind of thought you would spend time on, got to get this small thing right. Nowadays, does this correlate with more revenue in the SNL and then I stay focused on those tasks.Phil Gamache:It's such a good answer. I love the aspect around the kids as well. There's this change in mindset once you start having children. As somebody in a fast paced startup you... One of my colleagues always says, I love this line actually. She says, "I'm super lazy."What she means is that she's not going to spend an ounce of effort on anything she doesn't think is going to provide return. I love that perspective and I love the perspective you shared on happiness. I think there's so much wisdom to unpack in what you just said.Phil Gamache:Steffen, thanks to you. Tank you so much for being on the show, man. We'll add in the show notes the website, DreamData.io where people can go check it out. I know you're active on Twitter and LinkedIn, so we'll drop links there, but thanks a lot for your time and really appreciate it.Steffen Hedebrandt:I really appreciate the invite, thanks. --Intro music by Wowa via Unminus

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhonadale/ (Rhonadale Florentino) has been an HR practitioner for around 19 years. She is the CEO and President ofhttps://www.readywritenow.com/ ( UpRush Social Geekers), an HR solutions and services provider located in the Philippines. She has held various director-level positions and has worked on the Gamification Framework to gamify human resources and the Digital 201, which helped her company digitize its human resources operations. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and has been quite active in improving the standards of HR in the Philippines through programs like UpRush’s HR Boot Camp, which provides the necessary competencies for up-and-coming HR practitioners who would like to become professionals someday.   “Don’t just start a small business blindly. Do your due diligence first.” Rhonadale Florentino   Worst investment everRhonadale got into an accident and was bedridden for about two months. She’s not the type of person who can just sit down and not do anything. So during those two months, she was thinking of how she could earn money as she recuperated. Doing online jobsRhonadale decided to look for online platforms where she could get a job, and then she came across oDesk (currently Upwork). She applied for jobs and got hired. But it was not for HR work but a writing job. Rhonadale wrote articles and blogs, and in the process, she got to understand what SEO is. Starting a small businessRhonadale enjoyed working online, and by the time she was going back to work, she was toying with the idea of doing a consultancy in internet marketing, which at that point, she thought was something that she could manage. Let’s start doing businessRhonadale wasted no time trying to analyze the business idea. Instead, she registered the business, came up with a catchy business name, and just started. Rhonadale felt very proud of herself. She was in her late 20s at the time, enjoying being the president of her own company. Off to a good startRhonadale started tapping into her previous internet marketing clients and subscribed them to her business instead of going through oDesk. She looked for connections from her last bosses and got some excellent referrals. The first few months were the best for her. Money was coming in, and she was getting a lot of clients. Building a teamRhonadale’s clients were too many for her to handle them alone. She decided to hire a team. Rhonadale started looking for people that she had an emotional connection with even though this goes against all of the things she’d learned as an HR professional. Instead of looking into competencies and skills, she was looking at the emotional connection. Rhonadale got people that were part of her life. Not up to the taskSince the team she built didn’t share the same vision as her, nor the skills needed to do the job, she started getting many complaints because the quality of the services that they were putting out was not the same as before. Trying to run the business while training her team put so much strain on Rhonadale. So she reduced the number of clients she was taking in, and so the income decreased. Losing sight of the financesRhonadale did not have anyone monitoring her finances. Her idea of finances at the time was that money coming in was more than what she was spending. But because no one was watching her expenses, Rhonadale spent so much on things that were not important to the business. She was also spending so much of her personal finances as part of the company’s finances. Rhonadale got someone to help her with the finances, and that’s when she figured out that she was losing so much money and had to cut down on costs and let go of some people. So, where was the problem?While going through her finances and trying to get her business back on track, Rhonadale realized that how she started that business was wrong right from the start. Rhonadale didn’t do any research, and she hired the

Recently I was asked by Rachel Pedersen what my favorite books are and why. So I wanted to share three that I’m loving right now. On this episode, Russell gives you his top 3 book recommendations and explains why they are so important to him during the phase of life that he’s in right now. ---Transcript--- What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to The Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I'm going to drop on you some of my favorite books that I'm reading right now. Hey, everybody hope you guys are doing awesome. So we're getting closer and closer to Halloween, depending when you're listening to this. Halloween was my favorite holiday for basically my entire life. I went trick-or-treating until I was 21 years old. And those who are like, "Wait Russell, weren't you on a mission when you were at 19 and 20? And the answer is yes, and yes, I dressed up as a Mormon missionary going door-to-door, because I already had the costume on. I got free candy. It was awesome. Oh, it was the good old days. Anyway, I love trick-or-treating. I love Halloween, love everything. In fact, when my kids were born, I was like, "This is the greatest thing in the world. Halloween was amazing before, it's even more amazing now." And went trick-or-treating every single year until about three years ago. Three years ago was when I bought my Batman suit. We launched Expert Secrets, our affiliate prize was to give away these Batman and Iron Man suits. I got my own custom-fitted, it was so cool. And I was so excited because that Halloween I was going to be Batman, legit Batman. And I was going to put on the suit and I was just so excited for it. And I remember it was a long day at the office, I got home as quick as I could, and I was trying to… oh, and the kids had wrestling practice. We got wrestling practice and come back. And kids gets home and I'm getting them all ready, giving them dinner, because I have to race back to the office to get the Batman suit on, which is an hour long project to get that suit on. I'm so excited. Feeding the kids, about to race back to the office and all of a sudden doorbell rings. And I go to the door and it's one of Ellie's friends. And friend's like, "Hey, is Ellie here?" I'm like, "Yeah, but what are you doing here?" She's like, "I'm coming to go trick-or-treating with Ellie." I was like, "What?" I'm like "I trick-or-treat with my kids." Ellie runs over, "Oh, bye Dad, I’m heading out.” I'm like, "No, you can't." And Collette is like, "Why not?" Because this is my holiday, you can't take my daughter trick-or-treating. And Ellie took off with her friends, she was gone. And a few minutes later the boys got calls from their friends and they're like, "We're going, we're going trick-or-treating." And they took off. And I remember, I wasn't ready for it. I don't know, it's like the kids leaving home, only worse. I wasn't ready for it. And I remember they were all gone and it was Aiden and Norah. Norah was tiny at the time, she was maybe two at the time. And so I didn't get my Batman suit on. We go out to the car and got Norah's suit and everything and put her in the car seat. By the time we got in the car she passed out and she was out cold. And so it was Aiden, me and Collette. So we drove to this neighborhood. Aiden got out with Collette, started trick-or-treating, and I passed out in the car. And that was the saddest day of my life. I miss Halloween. Anyway, I come to grips with it now. My kids are awesome. They can have friends. It was just, I wasn't ready for it. You know what I mean? You're planning your kids are going to leave the house someday, and then all of a sudden they just leave, without any preparation. Anyway, so Halloween was my favorite holiday until that year. And now my favorite holiday is 4th of July, because I spend more money on 4th of July than any sane human. And so because of that, everybody comes to me. And I'm doing that to compensate for Halloween being stolen from me by kids. Anyway, that's how I really feel. I'm just joking. Anyway, that's a true story. So 4th of July is my new favorite holiday, but it always was Halloween. And so as Halloween gets closer, I still get excited. I'm not going to lie, I love the leaves falling and the seasons changing and pumpkins and candy and just all the things. So anyway, one of our family traditions is every year for Halloween we go to Albion, Idaho, where there's this old college campus. It's in early 1900s, there was a thriving college here. In 19, I don't know, 1920 or something, it went out of business. So it's been vacant for 100 years. And a couple of years back, this family bought it and they renovate the whole thing and turn it into, one of the dorms they turned into a bed and breakfast. And then the rest of it, they turned to haunted houses. There's a zombie house, a clown house, and it's these old creepy buildings from the early 1900s. And anyway, it's insane. So we go every year. This year we took two of our friends, Rachel Peterson and her husband, Paul, and they came with us, which was really, really fun. So anyway, on the trip down, Rachel asked me, says, "What are your favorite books you're reading right now?" Everyone time someone asks me that question about books, I always freeze, because there's so many. I'm obsessed with books. I have more books than anybody I know. And I buy them every day and tons more. And I don't read most of the books, I listen to most with audio. But I buy the physical book too, because I like having physical books. Anyway, all sorts of turmoil. I sat there like a deer in headlights thinking. I kept thinking and thinking and I realized right now ... And it's tough, because you know how it is, different seasons of your life there's different books and all those kinds of things. So anyway, I'm in a season of my life I'm actually really excited for. I'm preparing, not really, I'm mentally thinking about my next book. I think I told you guys before, my next book. I bought the domain bootstrap.com. So the book's going to be called Bootstrapped, and it's going to be the ClickFunnels story, how we did it. It's going to be different, because all my other books have been how-to books, right? How to get traffic, how to build a funnel, how to write copy, things like that. But this book's not going to be how-to, this is the story of it. And so I've been obsessed, listening to books about companies and people telling their story about how they built the company. And so I've been listening to a lot of those lately just to understand how to write that way and how to tell stories that way that's different, right? It's different than how I've typically done things. So for me to be able to write this book, I'd have to change my skillset. And this hopefully is a side lesson for everyone. A lot of times when we have to do the thing we want to do, we have to learn something completely different, right? A lot of you guys, if you were a business before and you come into our world, you're like, "Oh my gosh, business is different online." We have to change how we think. And so for me it's the same way. For me to write this next book, I have to learn how to write differently. And I understand that and respect that. I'm paying attention to it, I'm trying to learn it. So anyway, so I've been listening to a lot of books about companies, about their stories, because I want to hear how people tell their stories. And so my three books I want to recommend to you today are all books about people with companies. And they're good for a couple reasons. Number one, they're fascinating books. Number two, they're really good storytellers. The way they tell their story was fascinating, where I was sucked into the book and I couldn't stop. In fact, two of these books I've listened to twice, and one I will probably listen to again. I just finished it yesterday, so that's why I haven't listened to it twice yet. That's rare for me. I don't normally read things twice, because I have so many books coming in. But two of the three books I have already listened to twice, which is a testament of how good of a story that they actually are. So with that said, in no particular order, I'll give you my three books. Number one book. And this one I'm nervous to tell you guys about, because it's the dark side of entrepreneurship, okay? A lot of times you hear stories about, "Oh, here's how so-and-so built their company." And it's this positive thing and there's ups and downs and trials and tribulations. But for the most part it's a positive experience, right? This is actually a book about a website called The Silk Road, which is a website that's on the dark web that sold illegal drugs. And so it's the negative side of entrepreneurship, but it's one of the best stories ever. So the book is called American Kingpin, okay? American Kingpin. And the premise of it is there was this kid, think he's 22, 23 year-old kid, he's libertarian and he felt that people should, if they want to do drugs, they should be able to do drugs. If they want to do it themselves they should be able to do it, right? And so he talks about that a little bit, and then he had this idea for a website where it's the type of site where people can come and buy and sell drugs on the dark web and he'd take a commission of every single sale that happened, right? And so that was this idea. Now the problem is that he didn't know how to code and it was illegal to make what he's trying to make, so he couldn't go hire coders on Script-Lance or oDesk like we would, it's illegal. So he had to teach himself coding. Then he started building the site. And it's crazy. I don't want to ruin the story, but it is amazing. He basically ends up building this empire. And he had every government agency coming trying to take him down, from DEA, FDA, FTC, all of them were trying to come and get him and none of them could figure out who he was. And so the story is just so fascinating. The way it's told, oh, it's so good. And one of my favorite parts is there's a scene where he's in downtown San Francisco, he's walking around, he's looking at all of the tech buildings, right? These huge companies worth billions and billions of dollars. And he's walking around by himself with a backpack on looking at these buildings and realizing that his company was worth more than any of these buildings, but if he told anybody about it, he'd have to go to jail. How cool is that? Even though everything he was doing was illegal, he was still an entrepreneur, went through the same trials and problems and ups and downs that we have to go through. And so I love this book. It was amazing. It's called American Kingpin. And it is the first one that I wanted to recommend. Also, the writer who wrote it is ... I literally, I tried to message him like, "Hey, would you want to write my book for me? Because you are such a good writer." At the end of the book, he tells about how he did it and talks about the tens of thousands of hours of research and all the papers and documents and court cases he had to go through to write this book. And he went on to say that on top of him just going and actually writing the book, he didn't just be like, oh… he looked at, what was the weather in San Francisco on that day? What was happening here? Happening here? When he's telling the scenes of the story, it was actually like what was really happening at the time. Oh, anyway, it's so good. I listened to it twice. I'll probably listen to it again, it's that good. I think they're going to make a movie out of it. Apparently there's a documentary made about it, but the documentary is horrible. Don't even watch the documentary about Silk Road. Just read the book, because it is insane and it's worth your time. So there's book number one. All right. Before I open up to book number two, I've got a secret message here about a cell phone number. And I want you guys all to text here in a few seconds. So I'm going to take a pause and do a really quick promo for the community, my texting community, and how you can get on it right now. All right. By the way, I'm having fun with the texting community. I've been sending out cool stuff every day, at least I think it's cool. Audio messages every morning, giving motivation ideas, inspiration. So if you're not on it yet, go and get in there. All right. Book number two. You guys ready for number two? Number two is a book called Lost and Founder. And this is a book by a guy named Rand Fishkin. And I love this book for a couple reasons. Rand started a company called SEOmoz, and he started about the same time I was getting started. So I had a chance to watch what he was doing. And Rand, I have so much respect for him. I think we both look at the world differently. I think he would disagree a lot of things I believe, I disagree with things he believe, from how to run businesses. But man, I have so much respect for him. And I remember watching, because I went the whole, bootstrapped, build a company through ads and funnels and things like that, and he went the other way of building a really good product and raise money and things like that. And it was interesting because looking at the outside, I never knew if I was right or if I was wrong, "Should we be taking out money? What should we be doing?" And in fact, in my book, Bootstrapped, there was this chance meeting where Rand actually came to Boise and spoke at an event. I showed up to the event. He told the story about Moz, how he took on money, his whole thing. And I remember listening to the story. In my head I'm like, "Okay, the next step for ClickFunnels is for us to take on money." And when he got done, normally I would leave something like that, I'm too introverted and shy, but one of my friends, BJ Wright, was there with me. He was like, "Let's go talk to Rand, let's go talk to him." I'm like, "Oh, okay." So BJ pulled us up there and BJ asked him, basically said, "Hey, you took on money, was it worth it? Tell us the real story." And Rand was very raw and honest and like, "No, it ruined everything." He went on, he's like, "I suffered depression." He's like, "I had to quit from CEO." He's like, "I don't even have my own car. I don't make that much money." And just going into the whole things. I remember when he got done telling me this whole thing, I remember getting in my car and voxing Todd and everybody on my team, "We are not taking on money no matter what it takes." He literally diverted me from taking on money. If it wasn't for him saying that, the next phase for ClickFunnels was to take on money. And so, because of that we didn't. And it was interesting, because publicly in his presentation, where he's telling the story about taking on money, but then privately, he literally told us don't do it. And I remember always thinking about that and wondering how he felt. And after he left Moz, a couple of years later he wrote a book called Lost and Founder. And Lost and Found founders is him telling a story. And in his book he explains the dangers of VC money at a level that I have never understood before. It was so clear and concise and oh, I'm so grateful for that book. Grateful for Rand, first off, for steering us in a different direction. But second off, the book is such a good illustration of why. And I hope you guys, especially my world, where we're talking about how do you go funnels, bootstrap things, man, that book was one of the best to show the opposite side of that, what happens when you do take on money and the scary side of business that a lot of us aren't aware of until it's too late. So Lost and Founders is book number two, super well written. Rand's an amazing writer, and just someone I have a ton of respect for. So that's book number two. All right. You guys ready for book number three? My third and final choice today is the book I finished last night, which is called Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. And a Shoe Dog is the story about Nike. And I've had so many people who told me to read this book over and over and over, and I kept fighting it, fighting it. And finally, it was actually interesting, Dean Graziosi told me I had to read it. And I was like, "Oh yeah, I've heard that by a lot of people." He said, "No, you need to read it for a different reason than everybody else." And I was like, "Why?" Dean and I talk about our kids a lot, and Dean and I both have children that we had butt heads with and struggled with sometimes. And he said that there's this part in Phil Knight's story where he had two children and he said that one of the kids he never could figure him out. It's like this puzzle, could never figure it out. And he always just struggled. Said his son would not wear Nike's. His son, whatever his dad wanted, he wanted to do the opposite and just, it was really hard. He said eventually, I think his son was 28 years old, he ended up passing away in a tragic accident. And one of the things he said in the book, he said, "Man, if I can do my life over again, I would've focused more energy on trying to understand the puzzle of my son". Oh, I'm getting emotional. Anyway, so that was the reason why ... After Dean told me that, he's like, You should read it, because I think for both of us ... " He's like, "We need to spend more time trying to understand our kids that we struggle with." And so I said, "Okay." And so I started to read the book and oh, so glad I did, for so many reasons. Number one, just helped me to understand that and put more focus on my kids, which I think is so important. And number two, it's just a fascinating story of the story of Nike. I didn't know all the story, how it happened and all the things he went through to make it possible. And anyway, it was such a good book, and I hope you guys have a chance to read that one as well. So there are my three books. Number one, American kingpin, number two, Lost and Founder, number three, Shoe Dog. All amazing books. Again, it's so hard to have a comprehensive list of all the amazing books in the world. But I thought three that are telling stories of companies, they will inspire you, they will motivate you to get you ready to build your company or give you ideas for the next steps in your company. And then also, how it relates to your life and your family and things like that. I think those books are amazing. Hope you enjoy them. With that said, I appreciate you guys all. Please, take a picture. If you enjoy this, take a picture of it, post it on Instagram or Facebook, wherever you post it, and then tell me your favorite books in the comments and tag me. And I'd love to hear what books you're reading so I can decide what to read next. Thanks everybody. And I'll talk to you soon.

Abhinav Chhikara got his start in design in 2011 by designing iOS apps for freelance projects on oDesk. Prior to that he was an early employee & the Head of Design at Unacademy, an ed-tech startup that's now valued over $1.4B & has raised from global investors like SoftBank, Sequoia Capital, Facebook, General Atlantic etc. After spending 2.5 years there, building the design team from scratch & helping build one of the biggest live learning platforms in the world, he realized that he wanted to fix the state of design education. So Abhinav quit his job to build 10kdesigners which enables the next generation of designers and product thinkers. JOIN THE DESIGN SCHOOL OF THE FUTUREBecome a UI/UX Designer by attending the 10kdesigners masterclass!CONNECT WITH ABHINAV CHHIKARAConnect with Abhinav Chhikara on LinkedInFollow Abhinav Chhikara on InstagramFollow Abhinav Chhikara on TwitterWatch Abhinav Chhikara's latest design tutorials on YouTubeRead the Amazon bestseller Pyjama Profits on freelancing by Abhinav Chhikara.If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave a rating and review in Apple Podcasts, Spotify  or share the episode with a friend. Thank you!

This episode of Flashback Friday was originally published: February 20, 2014 The tables have been turned on Jason Hartman during Episode #362 of The Creating Wealth Show. Normally Jason asks the questions, but today, host Kerry Lutz of the Financial Survival Network sets the agenda. What transpires is a nuts and bolts crash course in the exact reasons single family residential properties are Jason's preferred form of investing, bar none. Better than the stock market or gold by a long shot, and safer than apartment complexes or commercial properties. If you have an interest in a better understanding of the kind of investing that creates actual wealth for the long term, don't skip this show. About Kerry Lutz Kerry Lutz has been a student of Austrian Economics since 1977. While attending Pace University, he stumbled upon an extensive cache of Austrian Economic Literature in a dark, musty, abandoned section of the school's library. After graduating from The New York Law School, he became an attorney and life-long serial entrepreneur. His diverse career has included: running a legal printing company, practicing commercial law and litigation and founding a successful distressed asset investment company. In 2010, Kerry gave up most of his other interests to pursue his long held desire of becoming a radio show host. Thus the Financial Survival Network was born. Its mission, much like that of Jason Hartman's, is helping you to survive and thrive in the New Economy. He has done hundreds of interviews with such financial luminaries as Peter Schiff, Harry S. Dent, Martin Armstrong and Peter Grandich. Kerry now appears on 1230 WBZT, in West Palm Beach, FL, every Sunday from 9am-10pm EST. In This Episode, Jason Addresses: Is the dollar collapse real or fiction and why it might not matter Why math math is irrelevant when it comes to the economy Where Chinese millionaires want to live Why residential property investments beat multi-family and commercial How you can tell if your real estate portfolio is diversified What's wrong with most real estate gurus' and their promises much, MUCH more… Don't miss Jason's monologue, which leads off this episode. He discusses the recent merger of eLance and oDesk, the scam of life insurance as an investment,why college no longer makes financial sense, and what Steve Jobs told President Obama about creating more jobs. Links: The Financial Survival Network Check out this episode!

EP46: {Beerud Sheth, Founder of Elance & Gupshup} On this episode I speak with Beerud Sheth, who was the co-founder & CEO of the poplar freelancing work platform Elance in 1998, that is now Upwork. Beerud went on to found Gupshup a could messaging platform that has seen its share of twists and turns in the messaging and communications space since 2004 and now processes over 4 billion messages a month. Beerud joined us from his home in California for this chat. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Elance was co-founded by Beerud who moved to the US after graduating from IIT Bombay, to pursue his Masters at MIT followed by a stint in investment banking on Wall Street. Elance was the poster boy of the freelancer economy. Beerud was the CEO and top executive till 2007 and later a board member until the merger with Odesk in 2014. Gupshup is among the cloud messaging platforms in the world with revenue upwards of Rs. 600 crore and has over 39,000 businesses including Ola, Flipkart, Zomato, HDFC, Google, Paytm. Processes over 4.5 billion messages a month and recently expanded their services to South East Asia, Middle East and Europe. Hope you enjoy the episode! Stay tuned & stay Safe! - V @varunvummidi Timeline: 00:00 - Introduction 05:08 - Founding Elance 08:00 - Solving for supply 10:33 - Managing challenges building a marketplace 12:45 - Solving for Remote Work 14:20 - Took 6 months to build the business case for Elance 16:02 - Meeting co-founders & raising money 17:51 - Stock Markets were irrational in the 2000s that helped with fund raising 18:23 - Raising over $ 62M for Elance & the Odesk merger 19:50 - Transitioning out of Elance 23:28 - Reasons Gig Work is gaining popularity & the moment is now 27:23 - Gupshup - messaging & communication 30:21 - Messaging is the original super app 36:01 - iMessage Vs RCS 38:45 - Gupshup IP messaging 40:51 - Resident Message apps on OEMs 45:40 - Next phase of Messaging 48:30 - Mobile SPAM 51:25 - Plans & Hiring

Emma and Gil welcome game designer, educator, and birder Chidi Paige to discuss how games and play benefit education, how she designed her bird-themed game Birdwiser, and how competitive birdwatching has affected her as a person. SHOW NOTES 0m22s: From educationcloset.com: "STEAM Education is an approach to learning that uses Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics as access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking." It is an evolution of the older STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) approach in that it adds the arts. 1m29s: The Newark Museum in Newark, NJ. Fun fact: back when Chidi was working at the museum, Gil was a block away working at audible.com. Small world! 1m36s: Columbia University in New York, NY. 2m45s: Wonderstar Foundation has no web presence yet. Hopefully soon! 7m11s: ClassCraft 7m36s: Labster 8m01s: Chidi is referring to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for DNA replication, and to CRISPR for genome editing. 13m43s: Explorer's Program at the Newark Museum 23m06s: Our episode with Dr. Mary Flanagan was Ludology 226 - Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo 23m43s: You can hear more from Elizabeth Hargrave on Ludology 203 - Winging It. 25m31s: The Big Year on IMDB. 27m29s: Sadly, we could not find the video that Emma mentioned! 30m40s: Chidi's web site for Birdwiser. 32m00s: Whot and Uno are variations on the public domain game Crazy Eights. 33m18s: Birdwiser’s illustrations are by Emily Willoughby, with graphics by Kristine Mathieson of Tropikality Designs 36m26s: Sibley and Peterson are two of the best-known bird guides out there. 38m43s: We discussed Emma's Infinite Potato Problem in Ludology 225 - A Study in Emma-rald. 41m09s: The site Chidi is referring to is Upwork, originally called oDesk. 42m29s: Gil is talking about his word game Wordsy. 42m45s: "Complexity Budget," an idea Richard Garfield popularized. 47m09s: More info about certifying your garden for wildlife. 50m01s: More info about the World Series of Birding. 1h00m05s: The scientists Chidi mentions are Eric Kandel and Richard Axel.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Julia: So Todd, we were talking about outsourcing and how you use these kinds of services when you do your website.Todd: Uh-uh.Julia: What kind of careers do people follow?Todd: You know, you can do anything. It's amazing. If you go to oDesk or if you go to Freelancer, anything. I mean they have accounting services, legal services, people that do writing, proofreading, photo editing, video production, voice actors, there's so many jobs that you can buy online or people you can hire online.Julia: Wow.Todd: Yeah. And I think it's really cool if you want another career or if you want to travel the world, you know it's an easy way to work from anywhere in the world. So a lot of jobs where you just work from a computer, you know you can do it anywhere. You can go live in Vietnam or you can go live in Argentina and you can do your work there if you can get the work together. So I think it's a great opportunity for a lot of people.Julia: Yeah, it sounds so flexible, and yeah, brilliant. My mother is a tailor, she's a qualified tailor, could she do that? Could she outsource or does it have to be an online service?Todd: Yeah, I think it pretty much has to be any white-collar job. It has to be basically something that you would do with a computer. You know you might be able to, like you might be able to get a contract and then maybe ship people the work or whatever. I think if you were going to do that, what you would want to do is you probably can get stuff by using Google, Google AdSense, you know, or AdWords, I can't remember which is which, but you can place ads let's say in Google so you can drum up a business anywhere in the world. So like for example if your mom wanted to go live in Cuba what she could do is place ads, Google ads, and maybe she can get tailoring work and do it from Cuba and then maybe send, you know, send the products to people around the world via shipping. So, yeah, I guess you could. So how about you? Would you be into that? Would you be interested in having a digital life and just living anywhere in the world?Julia: Well, I'm a yoga instructor so my work involves being generally in the same room. I guess you could do something online with it but I like, I'm a people person, I like to interact with people so I think I'd find it quite lonely working. I appreciate that it would be good for traveling like if you wanted to go live somewhere really exotic and not do a nine-to-five job, I could imagine it for short term maybe but I like working with people face-to-face so I'd find it a bit lonely I think.Todd: Yeah. I know what you mean. I know what you mean.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Julia: So Todd, we were talking about outsourcing and how you use these kinds of services when you do your website.Todd: Uh-uh.Julia: What kind of careers do people follow?Todd: You know, you can do anything. It's amazing. If you go to oDesk or if you go to Freelancer, anything. I mean they have accounting services, legal services, people that do writing, proofreading, photo editing, video production, voice actors, there's so many jobs that you can buy online or people you can hire online.Julia: Wow.Todd: Yeah. And I think it's really cool if you want another career or if you want to travel the world, you know it's an easy way to work from anywhere in the world. So a lot of jobs where you just work from a computer, you know you can do it anywhere. You can go live in Vietnam or you can go live in Argentina and you can do your work there if you can get the work together. So I think it's a great opportunity for a lot of people.Julia: Yeah, it sounds so flexible, and yeah, brilliant. My mother is a tailor, she's a qualified tailor, could she do that? Could she outsource or does it have to be an online service?Todd: Yeah, I think it pretty much has to be any white-collar job. It has to be basically something that you would do with a computer. You know you might be able to, like you might be able to get a contract and then maybe ship people the work or whatever. I think if you were going to do that, what you would want to do is you probably can get stuff by using Google, Google AdSense, you know, or AdWords, I can't remember which is which, but you can place ads let's say in Google so you can drum up a business anywhere in the world. So like for example if your mom wanted to go live in Cuba what she could do is place ads, Google ads, and maybe she can get tailoring work and do it from Cuba and then maybe send, you know, send the products to people around the world via shipping. So, yeah, I guess you could. So how about you? Would you be into that? Would you be interested in having a digital life and just living anywhere in the world?Julia: Well, I'm a yoga instructor so my work involves being generally in the same room. I guess you could do something online with it but I like, I'm a people person, I like to interact with people so I think I'd find it quite lonely working. I appreciate that it would be good for traveling like if you wanted to go live somewhere really exotic and not do a nine-to-five job, I could imagine it for short term maybe but I like working with people face-to-face so I'd find it a bit lonely I think.Todd: Yeah. I know what you mean. I know what you mean.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Julia: So Todd, we were talking about outsourcing and how you use these kinds of services when you do your website.Todd: Uh-uh.Julia: What kind of careers do people follow?Todd: You know, you can do anything. It's amazing. If you go to oDesk or if you go to Freelancer, anything. I mean they have accounting services, legal services, people that do writing, proofreading, photo editing, video production, voice actors, there's so many jobs that you can buy online or people you can hire online.Julia: Wow.Todd: Yeah. And I think it's really cool if you want another career or if you want to travel the world, you know it's an easy way to work from anywhere in the world. So a lot of jobs where you just work from a computer, you know you can do it anywhere. You can go live in Vietnam or you can go live in Argentina and you can do your work there if you can get the work together. So I think it's a great opportunity for a lot of people.Julia: Yeah, it sounds so flexible, and yeah, brilliant. My mother is a tailor, she's a qualified tailor, could she do that? Could she outsource or does it have to be an online service?Todd: Yeah, I think it pretty much has to be any white-collar job. It has to be basically something that you would do with a computer. You know you might be able to, like you might be able to get a contract and then maybe ship people the work or whatever. I think if you were going to do that, what you would want to do is you probably can get stuff by using Google, Google AdSense, you know, or AdWords, I can't remember which is which, but you can place ads let's say in Google so you can drum up a business anywhere in the world. So like for example if your mom wanted to go live in Cuba what she could do is place ads, Google ads, and maybe she can get tailoring work and do it from Cuba and then maybe send, you know, send the products to people around the world via shipping. So, yeah, I guess you could. So how about you? Would you be into that? Would you be interested in having a digital life and just living anywhere in the world?Julia: Well, I'm a yoga instructor so my work involves being generally in the same room. I guess you could do something online with it but I like, I'm a people person, I like to interact with people so I think I'd find it quite lonely working. I appreciate that it would be good for traveling like if you wanted to go live somewhere really exotic and not do a nine-to-five job, I could imagine it for short term maybe but I like working with people face-to-face so I'd find it a bit lonely I think.Todd: Yeah. I know what you mean. I know what you mean.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Julia: Hey Todd, just talking about your website. Do you do everything on that site, all the recordings, the editing, everything?Todd: I used to. Yeah, I think up till the first, for the first six years I did everything. I did, I would record the audio that's step one. And then I would edit the audio and then I would transcribe it and then after I would transcribe it, I would write the quiz and then I would find photos for the audio and then I would make the multimedia which was usually Flash, then I would organize it and upload it on to a web server. So, yeah, I used to do everything.Julia: Ah, you're multi-skilled.Todd: Yeah, well I learned from it. I learned how to do a little of everything so it was good. But now I actually outsource a lot.Julia: What does that mean? You have other people do those parts for you?Todd: Yeah. Like usually I have now around six to seven people around the world that help me out. So I just find people, like digital assistants online, and they specialize in one thing and then I hire them through different agencies, and then they do the work for me. So it's great.Julia: And how do you choose who you are going to use for those tasks?Todd: Well usually what you do is you post a job on a site, you place a bid or you just post a job and then different contractors post a bid and you can look at their experience and then if you find somebody that says an audio editor or a transcriptionist or a photo editor then you hire them and you could either pay them one set fee for like one job or you can pay them by the hour and I usually pay people by the hour. So like right now I have a transcriptionist who works from Spain, she's a retired secretary and she does all the transcriptions for me now so there's fewer mistakes. There's a student in America who's Chinese who finds my images and she crops them now. It's like a part-time job. There's a guy in India who edits a lot of my audio now so he's a professional sound engineer.Julia: Wow.Todd: Yeah, and I send him the audio and he does that.Julia: So these people are all working like freelancers in their specific field?Todd: Yeah, usually what they do is they are professional and maybe they moonlight at night, they do a little extra work or in some cases, they just have a part-time job and they want to make a little extra money working online or it's their career actually and they work for many people so they'll cobble together many contracts with different people. Like for example the transcriptionist, I know that she does transcription work for five or six contractors or companies so she's always busy. And actually everybody who works for me has contracted work with other people, so yeah, so it's great.Julia: And you have direct contact with these people or do you just deal with them via the agencies?Todd: You can. Well, it's an online agency. I use a company called oDesk and I also use another company called Freelancer and they can contact me through there. They usually don't like you to email directly but usually, you have to give them your email and then sometimes they email me and we just, you know, contact back and forth. And it's great, we have, we use DropBox so DropBox is a service where we can all share the same folder so we can just share files online and they do whatever work I need done and that's it.Julia: Wow, it sounds great.Todd: Yeah.Julia: Convenient.Todd: Yeah, it's great.Julia: Are you always happy with the quality of the work you get then?Todd: Usually most people are really good. I mean sometimes you get contractors that aren't the best but yeah it's good. And you know the thing is it doesn't cost that much money. You know you might have let's say somebody does ten hours of work one week and you know they make ten dollars an hour, I mean in some countries that's a lot of money, that's pretty good money so they get a pretty decent wage and you get really good value for your money and it's a real big help for me. I can do more with the website by outsourcing it.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Julia: Hey Todd, just talking about your website. Do you do everything on that site, all the recordings, the editing, everything?Todd: I used to. Yeah, I think up till the first, for the first six years I did everything. I did, I would record the audio that's step one. And then I would edit the audio and then I would transcribe it and then after I would transcribe it, I would write the quiz and then I would find photos for the audio and then I would make the multimedia which was usually Flash, then I would organize it and upload it on to a web server. So, yeah, I used to do everything.Julia: Ah, you're multi-skilled.Todd: Yeah, well I learned from it. I learned how to do a little of everything so it was good. But now I actually outsource a lot.Julia: What does that mean? You have other people do those parts for you?Todd: Yeah. Like usually I have now around six to seven people around the world that help me out. So I just find people, like digital assistants online, and they specialize in one thing and then I hire them through different agencies, and then they do the work for me. So it's great.Julia: And how do you choose who you are going to use for those tasks?Todd: Well usually what you do is you post a job on a site, you place a bid or you just post a job and then different contractors post a bid and you can look at their experience and then if you find somebody that says an audio editor or a transcriptionist or a photo editor then you hire them and you could either pay them one set fee for like one job or you can pay them by the hour and I usually pay people by the hour. So like right now I have a transcriptionist who works from Spain, she's a retired secretary and she does all the transcriptions for me now so there's fewer mistakes. There's a student in America who's Chinese who finds my images and she crops them now. It's like a part-time job. There's a guy in India who edits a lot of my audio now so he's a professional sound engineer.Julia: Wow.Todd: Yeah, and I send him the audio and he does that.Julia: So these people are all working like freelancers in their specific field?Todd: Yeah, usually what they do is they are professional and maybe they moonlight at night, they do a little extra work or in some cases, they just have a part-time job and they want to make a little extra money working online or it's their career actually and they work for many people so they'll cobble together many contracts with different people. Like for example the transcriptionist, I know that she does transcription work for five or six contractors or companies so she's always busy. And actually everybody who works for me has contracted work with other people, so yeah, so it's great.Julia: And you have direct contact with these people or do you just deal with them via the agencies?Todd: You can. Well, it's an online agency. I use a company called oDesk and I also use another company called Freelancer and they can contact me through there. They usually don't like you to email directly but usually, you have to give them your email and then sometimes they email me and we just, you know, contact back and forth. And it's great, we have, we use DropBox so DropBox is a service where we can all share the same folder so we can just share files online and they do whatever work I need done and that's it.Julia: Wow, it sounds great.Todd: Yeah.Julia: Convenient.Todd: Yeah, it's great.Julia: Are you always happy with the quality of the work you get then?Todd: Usually most people are really good. I mean sometimes you get contractors that aren't the best but yeah it's good. And you know the thing is it doesn't cost that much money. You know you might have let's say somebody does ten hours of work one week and you know they make ten dollars an hour, I mean in some countries that's a lot of money, that's pretty good money so they get a pretty decent wage and you get really good value for your money and it's a real big help for me. I can do more with the website by outsourcing it.

Gary Swart was an early CEO at Upwork (formerly oDesk), now a public company and the largest freelancer marketplace in the world. He is now a partner at Polaris Partners, investing in technology and healthcare companies. Prior to oDesk, Gary was the vice president of worldwide sales for Intellibank, responsible for building the direct and indirect sales organization and channel development. Previous to Intellibank, he was a business unit executive for IBM's Rational Software Product Group. www.polarispartners.com www.linkedin.com/in/garyswart/

My guest for Episode 90 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the former CEO of Odesk (now known as Upwork) and General Partner of Polaris Partners, Gary Swart. The post Ep090 – Gary Swart (Former CEO of oDesk) on focusing on your strengths appeared first on Startup Playbook.

On today's episode, we're talking for the first time with Davinder Singh Kainth.  Davinder is an author and has been published on many sites including BasicWP, Simple Pro Themes, and ProBeaver. Davinder has been creating and implementing online spaces for over a decade. He has experience with web design, development, blogging, and SEO. Recently Davinder is very prominent in the Beaver Builder community and has been creating goodness at ProBeaver.com. Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners S5: E4: Davinder Singh Kainth Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window Guests : Davinder Singh Kainth – Lives in India and is an author at BasicWP, Beaver Builder Pro and Simple Pro Themes. Davinder started his career as a successful technology blogger. He migrated to the Genesis Framework and has created several Genesis themes that can be found at Simple Pro Themes. Davinder has a lot of experience with writing, client products, and services. What will you  learn in this episode In addition to web design, development and agency work Davinder has created a successful niche product called ProBeaver.com.  (5:20  ) You can start your career by working with Upwork (used to be Odesk), freelancer.com or Fiverr. You just need to be competent in the area where you are applying. (7:50) You can become a regular on somebody's team when working through Upwork. You start low and show your value through your work and build trust. (11:31) In order to not always be competing at bottom dollar projects, you need to be competent in estimating. As the scope and cost of the project increases, your estimate must also increase. (12:00) Balancing work with clients, products, and content is an art. Davinder does not work for longer than 2 hours of focused work without a break. He has to adjust his work schedule to accommodate the US and Australia. (17:11) It helps to get a partner on large projects that complement your skills. (18:09) Davinder's work is split 60/40 between client work and his personal blog. (19:06) Lessons from running a small business Have a Plan B when starting out freelancing.  It is very helpful to have another source of income or savings until the freelancing takes off. (20:00) You should stick to one page builder when building client sites. It is fine to experiment with page builders on your personal site. (29:57) While experimenting with AdSense from Google, Davinder found that you are 100% dependent on Google for your success.  You have to constantly be changing with Google's updates. (35:06) It can be profitable to start a niche for your business. Davinder used to link to Amazon for his first business centered around toddler potty seats. (35:59) Affiliate links with trusted WordPress products can be another revenue stream for your website. (37:00) If you approach something with your heart, you will find success. (37:31) Be confident about pricing your product. You know the value of your work. (39:00) Advantages of using Beaver Builder Beaver Builder is helping developers create powerful websites and clients can easily manage their sites.  (24:24) Themes are leaning toward builder themes or feature themes that work very well with Beaver Builder. (25:57) Beaver Builder is perfect for the small client that just wants a website with a few pages. Beaver Builder is releasing a new plugin called Beaver Themer that should make building themes even faster. (42:02) The community around Beaver Builder is passionate and very loyal. EPISODE RESOURCES Follow Davinder ProBeaver.com Davinder on Twitter Davinder on Facebook BasicWP Simple Pro Themes Stay connected with the Matt Report by joining the email list over at mattreport.com/subscribe To follow all of Matt's efforts, take a look at Crafted by Matt If you like the show please leave a 5 Star review over on the Matt Report on iTunes. Sponsors: LiquidWeb Beaver Builder   ★ Support this podcast ★

With so many WordPress themes available on the market, it might sound crazy to even try and start a business selling your own. There are super-huge, multi-purpose themes selling $100k worth a week with option panels the size of their revenue charts, others with big passionate communities supporting them, and countless other shops just as successful in their own right. How can you compete? What would make someone choose you over anyone else? And that's the rub, isn't it? What makes you different? As you will find out in this episode with Mike McAlister of Array.is, that's the key ingredient in today's theme market. It's not just your theme's code, your support, or even your price point — give your customer a new reason to choose you over their never ending suite of choices. If I haven't scared you off by now, let's dive into how to start a theme business. Interview with Mike McAlister of Array.is Subscribe and rate us 5-stars on iTunes! Mike McAlister of Array.is I've been a big fan of Mike's work for a long time. In fact, I'm using one of his themes for my new podcast, PluggedIn Radio — but more on that later. There's a short list of theme companies I recommend, given that I own one myself, and Array.is is in the top of that list. When it comes to someone that cares about every pixel, I let his portfolio speak for itself. Mike and I chat about his experience building the Array.is business and how it's taken shape over the years. If you're thinking of launching your own theme shop, this interview and my guide below should be a great kickstarter. If you enjoyed this episode and the launch of Season 3, “Getting back to the roots,” I'd love a review on iTunes. I'll read new reviews on the next episode. How to start a WordPress theme busines I've created the following guide as an overview of sorts to starting your WordPress theme business. I'm sure there are some finer details that you might consider, but consider this your bootcamp style guide to launching. Step 1: Decide on your theme type Multi-purpose. Food blog. Photography focused. E-commerce. The daily blogger. Decide on what vertical you plan on tackling with your new theme. Once you define that, you set yourself up to build a workflow or blueprint taking you from concept to promotion. Knowing what kind of theme you want to produce helps you answer the following: How big is my audience? What kind of developer experience do I need? What kind of design experience do I need? How many options will this theme need? Will this theme need to work with other plugins on the market? Does this theme need to integrate with third party services? How much support will this theme require? At what price can I sell this theme? Will I be able to craft a solid marketing and promotion plan for this theme? Should I use a theme framework? These questions may be the tip of the iceberg, but they are certainly questions I would ask myself if I were to develop a new theme. A multi-purpose theme may have a larger audience than the photography theme, but it's much harder to support and go to market. Similarly, the photography theme would face said challenges compared to a theme made for food trucks selling tacos — but way easier to find a direct audience. What type of theme will you build? Step 2: Define your development skill I am not a developer, but I play one on TV. Many of you starting WordPress product companies are developers and designers by trade, so finding a developer isn't necessarily a challenge, until you want to start offloading some of the work. One issue that might crop up for you, if you answered some of the questions above, is the amount of options your theme might support. It's at this point you might realize you do need an extra pair of hands or that your goals are more lofty than your strengths. Other technical challenges might be supporting a plugin like WooCommerce or GravityForms. Sure there's accounting for basic styling, but are you comfortable extending them into new aspects of your theme or generally supporting the future revisions plugin developers release? Do you really have the developer chops to handle third party code? Think big picture when it comes to accounting for your developer skills. Remember, there's a lot more to running a theme shop than shipping the code, I hope you're ready for it. Find a good developer to help. There's a bunch of places one could start with: Tap into your existing network. A no brainer, but often overlooked. Post Status club. If you're a member great, if not, not a bad reason to fork over $99 to Brian. OfficeHours.fm community. Especially if you're headed in the Genesis direction, a good way to support Carrie Dils. WordPress jobs board. StackOverflow jobs board. oDesk virtual worker. Codeable. Google. Attend a WordCamp and talk to people. These will all come with their varying degrees of success, but you need a place to start, so why not give them a go? Step 3: Define your design skills Designer: Another thing I am not. I've seen a lot of developers pretend to be one too — it's not pretty. Based on the the type of theme you're producing, ask yourself, how important is the design? Very important — let me just answer that for you right now. ★ Support this podcast ★

On this episode of The Angry Millennial, we're chatting with former oDesk (Now called Upwork) CEO + partner with Polaris VC, Gary Swart. In this episode, we chat about meeting a few years back at CreativeLive's Secrets of Silicon Valley event, what it's like working in an early-on startup, a bigger company, and even a big conglomerate, how important it is to see which is a good fit for you, the shift in the workplace to working remotely in the new gig economy of today, what it was like helping so many freelancers create more steady streams of income, having oDesk become a case study at Harvard Business School, passing up on being employee #3 at Netflix, how important his wife's support has been in embracing taking big risks, and more on this episode of The Angry Millennial. Remember to always use #theangrymillennial on social media + follow @millennialangry on Twitter to ask any questions you'd like any of the upcoming guests to answer during the show.

Today I speak with Fabien Dodard founder of Dodard Interactive. He tells us his experience running a successful kickstarter campaign for an app called Know Your Numbers. He managed to get this fully funded so teaches us the lessons he learnt along the way.

The real secret behind delegation and getting stuff done. On this episode Russell talks about how he gets so much work done. He shares a secret of how to do that by outsourcing and how to make it work for you. Here are 4 cool things to listen for in today's episode: How Russell figured out who to hire for various tasks. Why A players are 3200 times more productive than B players. Why you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. And Russell's advice for finding A players for your business. So listen below to hear how to find A players to help you get more stuff done in your own business. ---Transcript--- Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing In Your Car. I'm already halfway to the office so this one might be short.  Nevertheless this is part of a new series I've started, between marketingquickiesshow.com and marketinginyourcar.com.  These are my two content things, so if you're not on both you're missing out because we're going back and forth on the storyline. Yesterday on my marketing quickies show, Mike Stanczyk, some of you may know Mike, he asked me, “I want to know more how you're so productive, how you get stuff done, your work ethic”. So, I'll talk about some of those things.  So yesterday, on the live periscope, I talked about a concept called “lead or gold”. It kind of goes into the core foundational mindset of how to get a lot of crap done.  So if you go to marketingquickiesshow.com and click on the one that says “How to get a lot of crap done”.  That's a foundational piece on what I'm talking about today. So my goal for the next week is to share a bunch of ideas of how to get a lot of things done.  So that's the first one.  So go listen to that, it'll be number one. Today I want to talk about, it kind of shifts over to the side of delegation and outsourcing and things like that. I remember when I first got into this business, I could always tell the life cycle of where a new entrepreneur is. Because as soon as they've outsourced the first time they all want to create a course in outsourcing, Because, “You could pay people a little bit of money and they'll do stuff way better than you do it.” It's a big “Ah Ha”.  Initially that's what a lot of entrepreneurs do.  They hire their first outsourcer.  For me it was someone in Romania. I paid $20 and he built a software product that I ended up selling for $67 and I made tens of thousands of dollars on something that I paid a guy $20 to build.  I remember having that “Ah Ha”, “Wow, I cannot believe that that was even possible.” So I think a lot of us start out on that journey. And the problem is that as we start outsourcing some things, where most entrepreneurs get stuck is it's hard to let go of the reins.  I'm sure you've had that before. You give someone something and they don't do as good a job as you. You try to get them to do it again, and they don't and after 2 or 3 times you just take it back. And it's like, “Screw that, I'll just do it myself.” And I still struggle with that, I'm sure you do as well.  Which is why I do so much stuff. So a couple of things I want to speak to you on that, that have allowed me to get so many things done. And this isn't something that happened overnight, but I've been doing this business for over 12 years so I've hired literally hundreds and hundreds of people to do different tasks. I've hired people that are the cheapest, and I've hired the most expensive, and I've hired people in between. What I've found, I wish I had the link to the article that Todd, one of my partners in Clickfunnels sent, that talked about the difference between A players and B players.  It showed that A players were 3,200 times more productive than a B player. So a lot of us try to get B and C players because it's cheaper, but in reality its way more expensive.  A lot of times you can find one person who can do the work of 10, 15 or 20 people. It may seem hard to believe, but it's true. Todd's a good example of that.  In the past we had 6 full time programmers in Boise trying to build the shopping cart software, we spent 3 years and probably three or four hundred thousand dollars trying to do it and we never got to a point where anyone could use it.  Todd came in and looked at the shopping cart software that we were thinking about using, spent the next two days rebuilding it from the ground up and it worked. It took him two days what took 6 people 3 years and never got live. Now let's talk about finding A players. I think the biggest thing….You gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. I remember people saying that when I was dating before finding my beautiful, amazing wife.  I think it's the same thing. You gotta hire a lot of people until you find the rock stars. So what I do a lot of times now, let's say I have a project, I'll go to Upwork, used to be Scriptlance and Odesk, I think it's Upwork. I'll go to Upwork, I'll post a project, but I'll hire 3 people to do the same project. People are like, “Russell why would you do that?  It's going to cost you 3 times as much money.” the reality it doesn't, it cost less money. What happens is I have 3 people build the same thing, one person sucks at it, one person does something kind of weird, and one person is a rock star. But you don't know until you get 3 people you have something to compare them against. So I have 3 people do a product. Usually it's not my big idea; it's not this huge thing.  I'll post and get 3 people to do a smaller project.  It'll test their skill set, but it's not something I'd pay tens of thousands of dollars for, but I do that to find an A player.  After I find an A player I'll go back to that person and say, okay here's the actual project that I want you to do. And hire them to do a bigger project. That way I only have A players on our team. And that's a big part of it. When you do find A players, figuring out ways to lock them up and keep them close to you, because again an A player is worth hundreds of B players. A really good example is when we launched Clickfunnels initially it was Todd and Dylan who built the whole thing. Then as when we start scaling we knew we needed to bring other people in to help. One of those people was Ryan.  Prior to Ryan, we hired a couple of people that were B, C and even D level people. It was horrible.  Not only did they not progress things, everything digressed. Everything moved backwards. And we found Ryan; first off he was culturally a right fit. He was our same age; he was cool, same timeline in his life. He was a great cultural fit. He brought a whole other level of things. He came in and brought Clickfunnels this thing we needed that we didn't have.  He's been amazing. After a while, the demand on Clickfunnels is really high.  It was getting to him and his family. He had a side website making a bunch of money and he got to the point he was going to leave and pursue that, or find a job where he got paid the same for a lot less stress. We knew that if we lost him it would be painful, so we came back and said he is an A, maybe an A+ player and we need him. We needed to lock him up and so we came back and did what it took. Paying him more, giving him equity giving him profit share, whatever it takes. Because one person like him is worth dozens of other people. If you lose someone like that, it can cripple you. It can destroy you.  What I would say, is looking at your company through a different lens, where it's less, “let me hire the cheapest player possible” and shifting that to, “let me find the A player rock star”.  Incentivize them in a way where everybody wins. I look at my company now and we have A players.  A whole bunch of A players. “Russell, how are you able to get so much amazing stuff done?” Because we only have A players. The B players we get rid of, they're gone. They're not part of our organization. All we have is A players, “How in the world are you competing with companies like….Lead Pages is a good example. They have 100, or 200 employees, we've got 25.  How are you able to compete and dominate those guys?” Because we have A players.  You bring in VC money, guess what you hire? A bunch of B players, right. Because that's what they want you to do; they want you to spend their money and build out a team and you need directors and managers and all this crap and people that don't actually do anything. So yeah, you can spend their budget but you get a bunch of B players. That's the difference. I look at any VC backed company, there's a bunch of B players getting funded by dudes that have money, and it shows.  So that's the next step.  Again, if you listened to the periscope before, or if you haven't go to marketingquickiesshow.com, talk about the foundational mindset you need to get crap done. The whole lead or gold concept that I learned from Gary Halbert. Today is all about delegation.  But don't delegate to people who are worse than you, delegate to rock stars.  Yesterday for example, I had to get done a sales letter for a new Clickfunnels process we're doing. I sat down and I locked myself….I had to get it done; I had no choice…lead or gold. I got this thing done. Normally it would be me that designed the sales letter, but Dylan, who's my partner in Clickfunnels, he's a rock star.  He's the best designer I've ever seen in my life.  So I gave it to Dylan, now I'm not nervous because he will make it better than I ever could.  The biggest problem a lot of entrepreneurs have is that we're delegated to people that are worse than us. When you do that, that's where this back and forth and struggle and headaches and everything come from. Start the process today of finding you're a players.  A players have different motivations.  Some its cash, some its partnership, some they want a cool project.  There's different motivations. It doesn't' mean you have to pay them a lot of money upfront. A lot of times A level people are motivated by different things. A good example is Todd, when Todd started working for me, I feel bad about it now, but he worked for free for an entire year. He had different motivations. It wasn't to get money. His motivation was to be part of something bigger. After a year, I realized we hadn't paid him anything. I'm like, this guys really useful, we should pay him something. “Hey man can I pay you?” he's like, “Yeah, whatever.” so I started paying him. After another year, one day I was hanging out with him and he was showing me all these job offers. He was getting 3 or 4 job offers a week for 4 times what I was paying him. I'm like, “Dude, why don't you take those?” He's like, “I want to be part of something bigger.”  Crap, I need to pay him more, because I'm going to lose him.  So I'm like” Hey, can I pay you more?” And he's like, “Sure, whatever.” So the A players typically have different motivations.  Its figuring out those motivations are and aligning them with you. But if you've got vision and you know where you want to go. Finding the A players and getting them to align with you isn't necessarily a hard thing.  Because most of the people I've found that are A players are less money motivated and more mission and vision motivated. That's what drives them. So find your passion, your mission, your vision and sell them on it and that's how you get the rock stars.  If you want to go for the cheapest you can go to Odesk or Upwork and find those kinds of people, but it's going to cost you more in the long run. So there you go.  That's the strategy for today.  Hope that helps. With that said, I'm out of here, I'm at the office.  Going to get stuff done. I will talk to you guys all again soon.  Thanks everybody.

Joey Kissimmee says that he's not techy, but he has created iPhone apps, SaaS products, WordPress themes, and is now working on WordPress plugins. He says that he has always been a hard worker. His first job was washing dishes in a beat up old sandwich shop in Chicago when he was twelve. In 2000, he started working at Walmart and doing a little business online to make some extra money to have fun with his wife and kids. “At first,” he says, “it was just selling junk on eBay.” But he found some mentors, he listened, he learned, and he implemented the things he learned. He created a few tools that he couldn't find and then turned these tools into products. Somewhere around 2008 or 2009, he realized he was making some pretty good money from his online business and decided to take it seriously. By early 2010, he was able to retire from his job at Walmart to work his online business full-time. Please see Disclosure* (below) concerning affiliate links on this page. Key Segments [03:00] Joey is not a developer, so how did he get into the SaaS world? He says he's not techy. Joey wasn't even sure what SaaS meant until long after he was creating SaaS products. [03:55] He didn't set out to become an entrepreneur; he just wanted to sell some junk on eBay. [04:25] When he first started to get involved with marketing, his mentors were creating little tools to perform tasks. [05:05] He started creating iPhone apps in 2011, and that's where he really learned to hire people to create things. [06:25] Anything he had to do repeatedly, he would pay someone to automate for him. He systematized his processes and created tools for himself. [07:00] In about 2010 a buddy in the affiliate marketing world told him: “Dude, you could sell this stuff.” [07:40] He was a good listener, and he took action. He just implemented what worked. He created TubeSlicer.com as a tool to do the five things he knew how to do with Photoshop for creating YouTube thumbnails and then turned this into a product. He did the same thing to create Image Ad Creator a product to create images for split testing Facebook ads. [09:15] Every product he created was to solve his own problems, and then he figured out a way to turn it into a viable product. He created Tube Slicer, Image Ad Creator, TimelineSlicer, and Podcast Artwork Slicer out of his own needs. Appendipity, his premium WordPress theme, was created the same way and turned into a huge success. [10:00] “I don't care who says what, outsourcing is an art form.” When you're outsourcing you don't have to know coding, you have to know the lingo. [11:30] Rule #1: Know how you want to use the product. The coder doesn't really care about or understand the Ux (user experience). Your problems aren't unique. There's a good chance that a dozen other people have the same problem; so if you can figure out how to solve it for yourself, you just solved it for a dozen other people. [12:14] Rule #2: Know the lingo. [13:00] To communicate Ux to the designer for his WordPress designers he draws on a legal pad and then scans it and sends it to them. For iPhone apps, he used Balsamiq to do wireframes. 14:30 Once it's working the way you want it to work, fiddle around with the look of it. Once the mock-up's done and you've got a working prototype, send it to the designer. [16:00] His go-to place for designers was oDesk. He also used Freelancer and eLance. (Note: oDesk and eLance merged in 2015 and formed Upwork.) [16:40] You could get hosed in many ways. The developer and the designer could overcharge you. People could also steal your ideas. One way Joey protected himself was not to give too much information on the job posting. [17:00] Joey gives an example of how he does a job posting and then explains his filtering process for hiring. [18:50] Once he has filtered out the best candidates, he shares more detail privately with them. If he has a good feeling about an individual, he does a live Skype session with them. You have to trust your gut. No matter how qualified someone may seem, if you don't feel right about it, and there's just something off, forget it. [21:55] For design work, he now goes to 99designs but uses a slightly different process because of their crowd-sourcing-like model. [23:00] Now, he can also put the word out to his email list that he needs people and use a survey on Google Forms to collect responses. Requirements are in a question format. He doesn't use a code word in these surveys, but the rest of the process is the same. [24:50] Joey has developed four different types of software products but uses one well-refined process to find people in all cases. Joey picked these things up by paying attention, listening, being connected to a few good people, and doing it. [27:40] Joey recommends The 4-Hour Workweek, The ONE Thing, and Influencer (see Resources Mentioned below for additional details). [29:00] Joey takes the end of one year and beginning of the next to spend with his family and to reflect on his business. He reflects on how things have gone in the past year and what he might want to try in the next. [32:15] He is fortunate to be able to take himself out of the equation. He learned to create evergreen businesses that don't need his name or his face to make money. Create brands that can stand on their own. [35:15] Don't become brand dependent. Don't become the brand because you won't make any money if you take yourself out of the equation. Build the product as the brand. [35:45] You can create a SaaS product, and you don't have to be the actual product. Be behind the scenes. Let the product breathe. Build the product into a brand. Make it the best thing possible. [36:55] You don't have to make it the best thing possible at the beginning. The beauty of SaaS is the ability to release versions. Build a working prototype, release it for free or dirt cheap, and then get feedback from the customers. Let the customers build the features into it then package it up, raise the price, and sell it. People will buy it because it's customer driven. They built the product. [38:20] You will get a lot of crazy requests from guys who think so far outside the box, they lose the box. Filter by the majority of requests. [41:15] “You just gotta go out there and do it. I always tell people, and I preach this off the rooftops: ‘You must listen. It doesn't matter where you're listening from. You have to listen to everything that they say. Learn as much as you can. There's no possible way you can learn everything that they say and jot everything down. Just jot down and take mental notes of the things that resonate with you. Then when you're done listening and learning, go out there and implement it. That's the freakin' key thing right there. If you don't implement, if you don't take action, the only guaranteed results to zero is if you do nothing. You might as well do something. If you're gonna get zero anyway by doing nothing, you might as well go ahead and try to do something so you'll get some kind of result.'” [42:05] “Do something. That's the way I go about it. You know, hey, it's gonna be zero anyway if I do nothing. So I might as well get a zero by doing something. ‘Cause at least, I gave it a whirl.” [42:55] “If you can use your own product, you've got something good to share with people.” Resources Mentioned 99designs – web-based service for design freelancers. Appendipity – premium WordPress theme created by Joey Kissimmee. Appendipity is particularly well-suited to podcasting. This site uses Appendipity. Balsamiq – wireframing app. Freelancer – web-based service for freelancers of all kinds. Google Forms – online form app from Google. Results transfer into a spreadsheet. Image Ad Creator – app created by Joey Kissimmee “that allows you to create beautiful and professional looking image ads to use with your Facebook advertising.” IncomePress.com – Joey Kissimmee's primary personal website and podcast. Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, Second Edition – book by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler about making change happen. Photoshop – SaaS for processing images. Podcast Artwork Slicer (server move in progress) – product by Joey Kissimmee to create inexpensive album artwork for iTunes. The 4-Hour Workweek – book by Tim Ferriss free yourself from as many tasks as you can so that you can live differently, doing only the things that you alone can do. The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results – book by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan describing a simple, powerful concept to focus on what matters most. TimelineSlicer (server move in progress) – app created by Joey Kissimmee to “create custom cover photos for your Facebook Timeline.” TubeSlicer.com (server move in progress) – app created be Joe Kissimmee to create thumbnails for YouTube videos Upwork – web-based freelancers of all kinds. *Disclosure: Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links. I may earn a commission if you purchase through these links. These commissions help to cover the cost of producing the podcast. I am affiliated only with companies I know and trust to deliver what you need. In most cases, affiliate links are to products and services I currently use or have used in the past. I would not recommend these resources if I did not sincerely believe that they would help you. I value you as a visitor/customer far more than any small commission I might earn from recommending a product or service. I recommend many more resources with which I am not affiliated than affiliated. In most cases where there is an affiliation, I will note it, but affiliations come and go, and the notes may not keep up.

Oringally aired as CW 362   The tables have been turned on Jason Hartman during Episode #362 of The Creating Wealth Show. Normally Jason asks the questions, but today, host Kerry Lutz of the Financial Survival Network sets the agenda. What transpires is a nuts and bolts crash course in the exact reasons single family residential properties are Jason's preferred form of investing, bar none. Better than the stock market or gold by a long shot, and safer than apartment complexes or commercial properties. If you have an interest in a better understanding of the kind of investing that creates actual wealth for the long term, don't skip this show. About Kerry Lutz Kerry Lutz has been a student of Austrian Economics since 1977. While attending Pace University, he stumbled upon an extensive cache of Austrian Economic Literature in a dark, musty, abandoned section of the school's library. After graduating from The New York Law School, he became an attorney and life-long serial entrepreneur. His diverse career has included: running a legal printing company, practicing commercial law and litigation and founding a successful distressed asset investment company..In 2010, Kerry gave up most of his other interests to pursue his long held desire of becoming a radio show host. Thus the Financial Survival Network was born. Its mission, much like that of Jason Hartman's, is helping you to survive and thrive in the New Economy. He has done hundreds of interviews with such financial luminaries as Peter Schiff, Harry S. Dent, Martin Armstrong and Peter Grandich. Kerry now appears on 1230 WBZT, in West Palm Beach, FL, every Sunday from 9am-10pm EST. In This Episode, Jason Addresses: Is the dollar collapse real or fiction and why it might not matter Why math math is irrelevant when it comes to the economy Where Chinese millionaires want to live Why residential property investments beat multi-family and commercial How you can tell if your real estate portfolio is diversified What's wrong with most real estate gurus' and their promises much, MUCH more… Don't miss Jason's monologue, which leads off this episode. He discusses the recent merger of eLance and oDesk, the scam of life insurance as an investment,why college no longer makes financial sense, and what Steve Jobs told President Obama about creating more jobs. Links: The Financial Survival NetworkCheck out this episode!

In today's Q&A, we are helping Zach figure out how to make a video and landing page for his online course he's releasing. Do you have a question you want answered on our podcast? We would love to help you! Click here to ask your question! [Tweet "You're not gonna make a dime if you don't create some kind of sales page"] Resources Mentioned in this Episode Leadpages Fiverr 99 Designs Odesk Elance Podcast 21 on Landing pages Let's dive into this week's question! JOCELYN: Hey y'all! You're listening to a Q&A with S&J. Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work. We're your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us, each week, as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside-down by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? All right, let's get started. SHANE: What's going on guys, welcome back to the Q&A with S&J. We are on the road traveling right now and we are in a hotel room, and we thought we would go ahead and record some podcasts. We do not have our normal microphones with us, so we're using the internal microphone on our MacBook Pros. So that is why the audio sounds a little weird in this episode of the Q&A podcast. Today's question comes from Zach Lazarus and he writes, “How the heck do I make a landing page for my video course? I am on a bootstrapping budget and I need to make a sales page. I don't have enough money to buy one of the tools like Lead Pages, so what should I do?” JOCELYN: Hey Zach, we really like Lead Pages because they do show you the conversion rates for each type of sales page and I think that that makes it a little bit easier for people who are new at making sales pages because you don't have to guess and wonder if the sales page actually coverts. However, if you don't have the budget for Lead Pages right now, you can also have someone make a sales page or a landing page for you and there are a variety of different places that you can have this made. You can do it on Fiverr, you can go to 99Designs I think is one that does that, oDesk, Elance, all of these places, you can probably find somebody to make a sales page for you for less than your monthly cost of Lead Pages. However, just like I said before, you may not be sure about the conversion rates. But don't stress about it too much because I had, pretty much, the most terrible landing page on Earth on my Elementary Librarian site and it was very successful for a very long time. I have since changed it to a Lead Page and it has increased my sales even more since then. But what I'm trying to say is that don't stress about having the exact, perfect, landing or sales page on your website. Just get something up there to promote your product and tell people about its benefits. SHANE: We actually did a podcast about everything that you can include in a sales page or a landing page and that was flippedlifestyle.com/podcast21 and that'll kind of go through all the elements. I'm not gonna get into that right now about what you need for a landing page, for your digital product or any kind of product that you create. But it's like Jocelyn said, you don't have to use a tool like Lead Pages. It saves you a ton of time to do that, so the cost may look high but you're saving so many hours of your life creating things like landing pages that it's actually really, really worth it and you're actually, probably saving and making more money in the long run by using a tool to create your landing pages. But if you ever have a WordPress site, all you have to do is create a page and put all of the information about your product on that page and put a button to buy it. It doesn't have to look perfect like all the gurus say, it doesn't have to have all these specific, little buttons and bells and whistles and checkpoints and you know, you don't have to have the three columns that are side-by-side. We have made thousands upon thousands of dollars before we upgraded all of our stuff...

In this episode we interview freelancer Kayli Barth, a freelance marketer and creator of The Freelance Hustle. You can find Kayli on Twitter at @kaylibarth. Take Away Quotes & Advice from Kayli People are looking for freelancers...I was confident the work was going to be there Get a pen and write down what you want. Write down your goals, the type of work you want to do, the type of people you want to work with, how much money do you want to make, how and where you want to work. Kayli's Must have Tools Google Drive - http://www.google.com/drive/ Paymo - http://www.paymo.biz/ Links for things we talked about in the show The Freelance Hustle - http://thefreelancehustle.com/ 31 Days of Marketing Your Freelance Businss - http://thefreelancehustle.com/category/31-days-of-marketing-your-freelance-business/ 6 must-haves on your Linkedin profile for freelancers - http://thefreelancehustle.com/must-haves-linkedin-profile-freelancers/ Right Hook Mics - http://righthookmics.com/ oDesk - https://www.odesk.com/ freelancer.com - https://www.freelancer.com/ byregina.com - http://byregina.com/ House of Bliss - http://www.houseofbliss.com/ Silence - http://silence.io/ Josh Long - http://joshlong.cc/ Follow & Subscribe Please subscribe via your podcast service of choice. Please send in your questions and comments at http://www.thefreelancepodcast.com You can follow The Freelance Podcast on Twitter at @freelancecast Rate The Freelance Podcast! You can help us reach other freelancers just like you and I by leaving a 5 star rating in iTunes for this podcast. If we have helped, or provided any useful information it would be awesome if you could leave us a rating. Thanks for listening.

Gary Swart is a Venture Partner at Polaris Partners, an 18-year old venture capital firm. Gary is also the former CEO of Odesk, the world's largest online workplace with over 1 million clients and 5 million freelancers. He joined the company as its CEO in 2005 and has guided the company to industry leadership and through their recent merger with Elance. Links & Resources Mentioned ODesk Polaris Partners Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to the podcast Leave a rating and review Follow Omer on Twitter Need help with your SaaS? Join SaaS Club Plus: our membership and community for new and early-stage SaaS founders. Join and get training & support. Join SaaS Club Launch: a 12-week group coaching program to help you get your SaaS from zero to your first $10K revenue. Apply for SaaS Club Accelerate: If you'd like to work directly with Omer 1:1, then request a free strategy session.

Curtis McHale is a returning guest on the Matt Report. In this return appearance on the Matt Report, Curtis shares how and why his rule of no weeknight TV watching, reading business books, finding clients that view hiring a WordPress developer as an investment, and being candid with clients about understanding software bugs has helped double his income. Communication is the essential factor to having a successful local or remote outsourcing relationship. If you decide you want to use a source from a place like Elance or oDesk, you need to set up a solid process to find the qualified individual. As an experienced developer Curtis has a sweet spot for plugin documentation. A plugin with great documentation is a valuable gem. While auto-generated documentation is not enough. Listening Options Itunes:subscribe to MattReport Stitcher:subscribe to MattReport Viewing Options (Enjoy the unedited intro! ★ Support this podcast ★

Online Marketing News 18th Dec - FB Video Ads, T&C Summit 2-for-1 Tickets, OptimizePress & LeadPages Updates, Gmail Image Serving, YouTube Live Events, Google + Ads, Twitter Promoted Accounts and Odesk/Elance Merger (and More)

Jason Chicola, Founder And CEO Of Rev.com On Megatrends Of Remote Work, Labor Marketplaces, Product Management, And Role Of Technology In Freelance Work Businesses have a tough time interacting with people who are overseas and in different time zones. There is also the hassle involved with having to select the best workers from a large pool of possible freelancers, leaving business customers unsure of what the final results will be. About Jason Chicola Jason Chicola is founder and CEO of Rev. Prior to starting Rev, Jason was the 3rd employee at oDesk. Jason was also an investment professional with H.I.G. Capital and an associate with Globespan Capital Partners. Earlier in his career, he was a business analyst at McKinsey & Co. Jason earned BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. www.linkedin.com/in/jasonchicola About Rev.com Rev is a services marketplace that works with the top 10 percent of freelancers, and delivers services to businesses at half the price and twice the speed of traditional vendors. Rev's first two services are audio transcription and document translation. Unlike offerings that require businesses to coordinate projects directly with freelancers, Rev vets the workers, manages the project, and guarantees quality. Rev also develops and supports its iOS app, the Rev Voice Recorder, a free audio recording app with one-click transcription services. Rev's mission is to build the best place for freelancers to work. Rev is headquartered in San Francisco and is funded by Globespan Capital. http://www.rev.com Resources: http://bit.ly/10EoRHj