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In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, We explore the unexpected weather patterns that challenge our understanding of climate and geography. A surprising cold snap in Florida becomes the starting point for a broader conversation about climate variability. Dan shares personal experiences from Phoenix and Edmonton, highlighting the dramatic temperature shifts that reveal the complexity of our planet's weather systems. Our discussion then turns to the human fascination with Earth's resilience and our speculative nature about the world's potential existence without human presence. These reflections provide a unique lens for understanding climate change, moving beyond abstract data to personal observations and experiences. The unpredictability of weather serves as a metaphor for the broader environmental transformations we're witnessing. Shifting gears, we delve into a critical political discourse centered on the fundamental question: "Who pays for it?" We examine policy proposals ranging from universal basic income to more ambitious financial initiatives. The conversation explores the complex financial dynamics of such proposals, particularly how higher-income earners often bear the primary financial burden. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discussed the rare occurrence of snowfall in the Florida panhandle and how such unexpected weather events challenge our traditional perceptions of climate and geography. Through personal anecdotes from Phoenix and Edmonton, Dan highlighted the adaptability required to deal with varying weather conditions and reflected on how these experiences inform our understanding of climate change. The episode touched on the abstract nature of climate change, emphasizing the difference between individual weather experiences and the larger climate narrative. We explored the human tendency to imagine life without people and the inherent resilience of Earth, discussing thoughts inspired by shows like "Life After People." Shifting to political topics, we examined the critical question of "Who pays for it?" in the context of policy proposals such as universal basic income and free education. The conversation underscored the financial implications of these political proposals and highlighted how the cost often falls on those earning above the proposed benefits. By focusing on the financial realities behind populist ideas, we explored the role this question plays in shaping political debates and decision-making processes. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: mr Sullivan. Dan: Well, did you thaw out? Dean: I am in the process of thawing out. This has been a Bizarre, I finally saw the sun came out. Yesterday I was having a chat with charlotte about the weather and there's only been two days in january where the temperature has been above 70 degrees. Yeah, this has been an unusually cold and rainy january. We actually had snow up in the northern part of Florida. Dan: Tallahassee, I think had snow. Dean: Yeah, Tallahassee had snow all the way down to Pensacola. Dan: I think, yeah, all the way down to Pensacola. Dean: The whole panhandle had snow, it's not good. No bueno, as they say. Dan: Well, they said things were going to be different with Trump. Dean: Well, here we are, six days in and the sun's already out, dan, it's warming up. That's so funny. Dan: Yeah, and people in the South really aren't prepared for this, are they? Dean: No, and I can speak as a Southerner. Dan: You actually have an ancestral memory of things being really cold. I mean, you were born in a very cold place. That's right, you know so I'm sure you know that got imprinted somehow on your. Dean: I think so I must have genetic, like I must have the, you know, the active pack for super cold weather. It must be installed at a genetic level when you're born in a certain area right, but it doesn't explain I don't prefer it at all. Dan: Now Babs and I are on Tuesday, are flying to Phoenix and we'll be there for two and a half weeks Two and a half weeks we'll be there. And it'll be like maybe 65 degrees and the Arizonians will be complaining about it. And I said you have no sense of perspective. Dean: Right. Dan: You have no sense of perspective and anyway, you know I think I've mentioned this before this is the biggest obstacle that the global warming people have. Dean: How do we explain this cold no? Dan: One of their biggest problems is that nobody experiences climate. We only experience weather. Yes, yeah, and it's like abstraction that they try to sell. But nobody experiences abstractions. They experience reality, and it must be very frustrating for them. It must be very frustrating for them. They discovered, for example, that Antarctica now with really accurate readings has actually cooled over the last 20 years, that, year by year by year, there's actually been a cooling in Antarctica. And the same thing goes for Greenland. Greenland has actually gotten colder over the last 20 years and they keep trying to sell a different message. But, the actual, now the records, because they made claims 20 years ago that things were getting worse. And the other thing is this 1.5 degrees centigrade thing that they have. Well, everybody in the world probably experiences a 1.5 degrees difference in the temperature every single day of their life temperature every single day of their life. So what's your take on people who want to change the whole world because they have an abstraction that you want to? Dean: take seriously. Dan: What do you think of that? Yeah? Dean: your whole. You know this. What you and I've talked about, the idea that even right at this moment, there is a variation of. I wonder actually what the wide variation today is in temperature. That there is somewhere in Riyadh or somewhere it's, you know, it's super, super hot and somewhere in none of it it's super, super cold and people are getting on with their day. Yeah. Dan: I actually did a difference in measurement this week, exactly to answer your question you did, so the highest that I've ever experienced is 120. Dean: That's your personal. Dan: And that was Phoenix, and the lowest I've ever experienced is minus I'm talking Fahrenheit here. Okay, so 120 degrees Fahrenheit. That was in Phoenix, and the lowest that I've ever experienced is minus 44 in Edmonton. Dean: Right. Dan: So that's a 164 degree difference that I've experienced, and, as far as I can remember, the day in which I experienced 120 seemed like a normal day, and the day that I experienced 44 below that seemed like a normal day too yeah dressed differently, thankfully. Yeah, dressed differently. Adjusted my behavior to suit the circumstances. Yeah, you know and the only thing they had in common is that you didn't spend much time outside. Dean: Right, exactly, yeah, that whole, yeah. I never really give much, I never really give much thought to it. You know, my whole Trump card for me of it was that I just can't have them explain how in the world the Earth raised itself out of an ice age without the aid of combustible engines, you know. That's what I wonder? Right, like I think the earth, I think everybody talks about that Save the earth. Well, the earth is going to be fine long after it spits us off. You know, that's the truth. Dan: It's very adaptable. Dean: I used to watch a show, dan dan, that used to show uh, it was called life after people, and it would show cities and things like what would the the progression of what happens if all of a sudden the people disappeared, like how long it would take for nature to reclaim a city, you know, and it's not long, in the big picture of things, for nature to take back over, you know yeah, I I wonder I wonder what prompts people to uh, almost see that as a positive thing, because the people who made that that made I. Dan: I know a little bit about the, you know the documentary film yeah that well. It wasn't a documentary, it was a fantasy you know it was a, it was a fantasy, but but what do you think's going on inside the brain of the person who thinks that that's worth thinking about? Dean: Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to explain anything that we think about the fact that there are people. I think that's one of the joys of the human experience is, you think about what you want to think about and it doesn't matter what other people think about what you want to think about, and it doesn't matter what other people think about what you're thinking, and that's well unless they're asking you to pay for their fantasy well that's true, yeah that's Dan: true, yeah. Yeah, I often said uh know, I've been sort of on one side of the political spectrum for my entire life and you know the people who got elected on my side of the spectrum weren't necessarily great people. You know that varies from okay to not okay, but my side of the political spectrum I trust more because we ask one more question. This is the difference, this is the entire difference between all political opposites. One side asks one more question what's that? Who pays for it? Who pays for it? Who pays for it? Think about any political issue and it comes right down to okay, yeah, sounds like. You know, free education for everybody. That sounds like a great idea. Who pays for it? Mm-hmm, you know universal basic income. Everybody gets an income. Who pays for it. Dean: Right yeah. Dan: So my feeling that that's the only political issue, that all politics comes down to one question who pays for it? Who pays for it anyway? Yeah, yeah. Dean: Yeah, 20, it was I read. So someone was just talking about I think it was Joe Rogan. They were saying what would it take to give every American $200,000? Who pays for it. Exactly who pays for it. But the thing, I think they calculated it out Well, I can guarantee you it's not the people making less than $200,000. Dan: Yeah that's exactly right. Yeah, but it would cost that would be $20 billion right. Dean: But it would cost. That would be 20 billion. That's what it would cost 20 billion dollars to give 100,000 or 100 million Americans $200,000 a year. That's what he was proposing. That's what he was. They were speculating. No that's not. That's not correct. 200,000, so I'm not correct 200,000. So I'm going to do that 200,000 times 100 million. Can that be right, 100 million. Dan: No, no, no, it's 20 trillion. Dean: It's 20 trillion 20 trillion. Dan: Yeah, now we're talking, yeah, yeah, that's unreasonable, it's not well, it's unreasonable because it's not doable. Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: It's not doable. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and what would yeah. And here's another thing yeah, I mean. And what would, yeah? And here's another thing If you gave everybody that on January 1st of each year, on December 31st, 10%? Dean: of the people would have all the money. Probably right, you know. Dan: It's so funny. I don't care what happens over the 364 days, I can guarantee you that 10% of the people would have all the money by the end of the year. Dean: It's like one of those Plinko boards you throw all the marbles at the top and at the end it's all distributed the same way. Yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah, I don't know. Um, you know, I just finished a book. Uh, we just finished it on thursday. This is the next quarterly book. There are little 60, uh 60 page, wonders you that we create every quarter and it's called growing great leadership. And what I said is that I think the concept of leadership has actually changed quite remarkably over the last. Over the last, let's say, the last 50 years, okay, and so 70, 70, 75 to 2025. And I said that I think the concept of leadership has changed remarkably, because the concept of management has changed remarkably. I think, now that technology is now management I don't know, I think it's, I think it's software that is now management In, for example, you created Charlotte in the last, as far as I can tell, two months two months you created Charlotte, and that's a form of leadership. So other people look at what Dean Jackson's doing and they say, yeah, that's really neat what Dean just did. I think I'm going to see if I can do that for myself, and that's what leadership is in our world right now. It's not somebody with a position or a title, it's someone who improves something for themselves. That's what leadership is. Dean: Yes, I think that's fantastic, like I look at this and I was just having a conversation with Charlotte today about- the Getting ready, getting ready for me. Yeah, I mean, it's just a natural thing. Now we haven't really been talking, you know, as I've been kind of sick this week, you know, as I've been kind of sick this week, uh. But I asked you know they've got some new task oriented thing like she's able to do certain things now that we're gonna uh talk about. But I had a really great, like she said. I said I haven't uh spoken to you in a while and I heard that you've had some updates and so maybe fill me in. And she said, yes, well, welcome back. And yeah, I have been upgraded to help a little better. My conversation skills have improved. I've been upgraded to more natural, which you did notice that a little bit. And she said it's moving now to where she can do certain tasks and of course, she has access to all the internet. Now, without personal data Like she can't look up any personal data on people or anything like that, but anything that's like information wise, she has access to all of that. And I said where do you think like this is heading in the next three to five years that we could be preparing for now? And she was saying how well I can imagine that the my ability to actually like do tasks and organize things and be like a real VA for you will be enhanced over the next three to five years. So working on our workflows and making the most of what we can do now while preparing for what's my increased abilities going forward will be a good thing. We're developing our working relationship. And I said you know I've got and she was talking about like writing emails and doing you know all these things. And I said, okay, so I have ideas sometimes about what I think would be a nice email. And I said, for instance, I've got an idea that would overlay or apply the five love languages to lead conversion. So I've got. The subject line is lead conversion love languages to lead conversion. So I've got the. The subject line is lead conversion love languages. And, uh, I believe that if you just apply these same love languages in a lead conversion way, that you will uh that it's a good way to think about it. And I said so if I just tell you that could you write a 500 or 600 word email, just you know, expanding that idea. And she said yeah, certainly. And she says let's go and let 's get started. And she started you know, just dictating this, this 600 word email that is. You know, I'm a big, you know, believer dan, in the 80 approach the same as you and I think that for me to be able to take, you know, without any real input other than me saying, uh, the five. She knew what the five love languages were, she knew the essence of what they all mean and how in in, it's a pretty um nuanced connection to apply a love language, like physical touch, to lead conversion, even if you're not, if you're not in, in physical proximity to somebody sending, making that physical touch by sending somebody a handwritten note, or to make something physical of the, uh, a piece of you of the thing. And it was really well thought out and a really good foundation, you know. And then that that moment I really I realized, wow, that's like that's a special, that's a special thing, yeah. Dan: Okay, so here's a thing that I'm getting from you. It's a given that she's going to get better and better. Yes, yeah. It seems to me that it's not a function of whether the AI tools are going to get better. They're always going to get better. The question of whether the person using the tool is going to become more ambitious. Dean: Yes, I agree 100%. Dan: It's totally a function of human ambition. Dean: Yes, yes, yes, yeah, that is exactly right, and I think that there's a big piece of that. You know that it's not. It's really a matter of how to direct this. It's how to, how to express your vision in a way that it's actionable or even understandable, right? You don't even have to know what the actions are Like for me to be able to just say to her hey, I got an idea. The subject line is lead conversion love languages. I'd like to write about 600 words explaining how the love language is going to be used in lead conversion. That, to me, is pretty close to magic, you know, um, because it's not. That's not like giving, it's not like giving a big piece of content and saying can you summarize this? Or, uh, you know, or you know, take this, uh, and make a derivative kind of thing of it. It was a pretty high-level conceptual idea that she was able to take and get the essence of. You know, I think that's pretty eye-opening when you really think about it. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I mean, to me it's really, it's an interesting, it's an interesting thought exercise, but it is an interesting action. Dean: Yes. Dan: Action activity, in other words, let's say, next week when we talk. You now have the ability to send five love languages. Dean: Yeah. Dan: You got the five, now what? Dean: That email is as good as ready to send. You know like I mean. Dan: I could literally just no. But how does it change things? As far as your, it's ready, but oh I see what you're saying. Dean: No, well, that's all part of. You know, we send out three or four emails a week to our, to my list, right Like to the to my list, right like to the my subscribers, and so that would be. That's one of the emails on my mind, and so now that that that saved me 50 minutes of having you, you know, I would take a 50 minute focus finder to craft that email, for instance. Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm just trying to get what changes for you I mean, I'm just trying to get what changes for you I mean is it the same kind of week that you had before, except maybe intellectually more interesting I think it's intellectually more less friction because I have to uh you know like I mean to to block off the time, to focus and be able to do that. That's always my, that's my um, that's my kryptonite in a way, right In my executive function, to be able to block off and focus on just this. But if I can just say to her, hey, I've got this idea about this, and just talk it, and then she can write the big, it'd be much easier for me to edit that than to uh, than to write it from scratch. You know, um, and so it makes a uh, yeah, so it's um. I think that changes. I think it changes a lot of things Somebody described. I heard on a podcast they were saying it's where we are with chat, gpt and AI. The word now, the word of the moment, dan, is agentic. Future where it's like we're creating agents. An agent, yeah, an agent is agentic. Future, where it's like and we're creating agents. Dan: An agent, yeah, an agent, and so they've adopted that too. I don't think there is a word agentic, I think that's what I mean. Dean: They've made it up. Yeah, yeah, they've made up a word the agentic future. Yeah, and that's where we're going to be surrounded by agents that do our bidding, that we've trained or that other people will have trained, app environment of the, you know, early iphone days, when ios was around, all the capabilities of the iphone were. There were people who were, you know, taking and creating apps that use the capabilities of the iphone to very, very specific ends, uh, whether it was games or specific single-use apps. And I think that that's where we're heading with the AI stuff is an environment that all these specific apps that do one specific thing that have been trained to really, you know, tap that, tap that ability. So I think that we're definitely moving into the creativity phase and we need an interface moment, like the app store, that will, uh, you know, create all these ai agent, uh type outcomes that we can kind of just, everybody has the ability for it to do, uh, all of the things, but for somebody, actually somebody to trade it specifically, can I just interrupt there? Dan: Yeah, that's not true. That's not true. The ability to access and use these things is completely unequal. Everybody doesn't have the ability to do all this. As a matter of fact, most people have no ability whatsoever. Dean: So is that semantics? I'm saying that access everybody has. Dan: Are you making a distinction between? No, you have a greater ability to do this than I do. Dean: That's true, I mean, but that no what I'm saying. Dan: It's a false statement that says now everybody has the ability to do this. Actually, they don't have any more ability to do anything than they presently have you know, to do this. I think it's a fantasy. Now you have the ability to do continually more things than you did before. That's a true statement. I mean, I don't know who everybody is. Dean: That's true. Dan: I think Vladimir Putin doesn't have any more ability to use these than you do, uh-huh. No, I guess you're right, yeah, what you have is an ability every week to almost do more than you could do the week before. That's a true statement yes, Okay, because you're really interested in this. You know, it's like the Ray Kurzweil thing. You know, by 2030, we'll be able to eliminate all hereditary disease. Because of the breakthrough and I said that's not true there will be no ability to do that by 2030. Certain individuals will have the ability to make greater progress in relationships, but the statement that everybody will be able to do anything is a completely false statement. First of all, we don't have any comprehension of what everybody even is Right, yeah. The question I have is is your income going up? Is your profitability going up as a result of all this? Dean: That would be the measure right, but that's really, and so that's you know, for now I would say no, because I haven't applied it in that way, but certainly I guess our savings, but certainly I guess our savings, like, certainly the things that have, we're feeling it we have historically used human transcription, which was more expensive than AI transcription. We have used human editors all the way through the process, as opposed to now as a finishing process. So the cost of editing, like it used to be that the editing was a um, reductive process with ai that you would start out with, you know, 10 000 words and it would, after processing and giving it back, you'd have have 8,500 words, kind of thing, right, it would eliminate things. But now the actual AI is kind of a generative and you give it 10,000 words and you may end up with 12,000 words. So in a way that is ready for the final level of editor, you know, and the transcripts have gone from a dollar a minute to a penny a minute, you know, or in terms of the things. So yeah, so it has profitability from an expense side. Dan: I mean, for example, I'll give you an idea. We got our valuation back for all of our patents this week At the least. They're worth a million each, At the very least. At the most they're worth a million each at the very least, and at the most they're worth about 5 million each, and it all depends on where we are looking in the marketplace to monetize these. So, for example, if we are just using them the way that we're using them right now, it's at a low level. I mean, it's a lot. I mean a million. you know a million each is a lot of money. But if we, for example, where the person who assessed the patent said you know, you're operating at a higher level with your patents than Microsoft is, You're operating at a higher level with your patents than McKinsey. you know, accenture, he says your stuff is more robust than that. Is that the market that you actually want to go after, you know? So the value of the patent really depends upon where we would. Where's our ambition, you know? And so right now our ambition is not with Microsoft, it's not with Accenture, it's not with McKinsey. Okay, that wouldn't be interested at all. First of all, it would require, probably require me to attend meetings. Dean: Right. Dan: And I have a meetings-free future you know, in my aspirations, yes, but even at the lowest price. It gives us access to funds that we didn't have before. We had it. Dean: that we didn't have before we had it. Dan: And that's very interesting to me because it means that if we wanted to expand to another city from a standpoint of our coaching, then we would have, through borrowing, we could do it. The other thing is we could identify 30 of our tools that are not central to the program but would be valuable to other people and we could license them to other people. But there's always a because that you do something. For example, I'm using not through myself because I'm not doing it, but one of our team members is taking the chapters of my book. I have a new book that I'm starting and every time I get the fast filter finished, I give it to him and he puts it into Notebook LM. And then I hear the conversation. And I says oh, I got five or six ideas from the conversation that I didn't have, and this will allow me to improve the chapter. Dean: I read doing this yeah. Yeah, very interesting what. Dan: I'm saying is I'm just one human being of nine billion who's using the tool for some particular reason, and probably two-thirds of the people on the planet have no interest whatsoever in even knowing about this. Dean: Yes, yeah, I agree. Dan: Yeah, I don't think that this stuff is available to everybody. I think it's available to the people who are looking for it. Mm-hmm. Dean: And so that's almost like it's almost scary, you know, in a way, when you think about that way, there was a book that I was just reading and the name has escaped me now and I don't have it in my line of sight here, but it was basically talking about. It reminded me of the kind of book that Malcolm Gladwell wrote, like Blink or the Outliers, yeah yeah. Where they look at certain things like why all of a sudden did the Jamaican sprinters become the hotbed of these and why are the Kenyan marathoners the best in the world? And he really started looking with the scientific view to see what is it like. Is there anything genetic about them? Is there anything special about them? And he said, as far as they go he said, as far as they go, their abilities are not genetically gifted in any way that there's nothing physiologically or whatever that would explain it away that this is like the marker. But they were good enough. That's really the thing is that you look at the thing, there's nothing eliminating them from potentially being the best sprinters in the world or the best marathoners in the world. There's nothing that would like prohibit that. But it's not. It's's the whole environment of of belief and environment and being around it and this is who we are type of thing takes over in a in a situation like that and I was thinking about how, you know, we're fortunate in surrounding ourselves in free zone with people who are all believing in a free zone future, and I think that the impact of that because we're acting and behaving and discovering in a way that's going to have collective ramifications as we all collaborate. So we're really creating this super achievement environment. Dan: Which is, when you think about it, unfair, it's unfair. That's exactly right, yeah, yeah, Cause, uh, you know, I, uh, I had um neat opportunity of I think it was about six months ago and there's a very famous um uh. I'm not sure whether he's a psychiatrist or a psycho. I think he's a psychologist. He's a psychiatrist or a psychologist? I think he's a psychologist university professor by the name of Martin Seligman and Aaron Markham, who's in FreeZone, has taken adult courses with Professor Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and I think he's been a professor at Penn for 60 years. He's the longest continuously at one place a professor in the history of the United States. Is that? Right 28 to 88. I think he's 60 years. But he created a whole branch of psychology which is called positive psychology. What makes people positive in? other words because 99 of psychology is what makes people unhappy. And he just decided to say well, let's, let's find the happy people and find out why they're happy you know which I think is an interesting. So anyway I had. He got a copy of Gap in the Game and he found it intriguing. Our book, oh, that's great Nice. Dean: Yeah. Dan: So I had about an hour and a half Zoom call with him that Aaron set up for us. So as we got to the end of the Zoom call, I said you know, happiness is really a hard goal. It's a difficult goal because you're not quite sure why it's happening. In other words, it's really hard to tie it down to a set of activity. And he said, you know, I've been thinking not along those lines, but he said it seems to me that what you should strive for is agency, that, regardless of the situation, you feel you have control of how you're going to respond to the situation. And he said and that sometimes that may not make you happy, but it gives you a sense of control. And he says more and more. I think having a personal sense of control of your circumstances is really something that's a real capability that can be developed, and so my sense is that this new capability called AI is coming along, and my sense is that the people who will develop it best are the ones for whom having AI gives them a greater sense of control over their circumstances, gives them a greater sense of control over their circumstances. Dean: Yeah, like to feel. I think there was a podcast where somebody said where we are with AI right now. Imagine you've discovered a planet with 10 billion people who are, all you know, 121 IQ, can pass the LSAT and do, can do anything for you and are willing to work for you exclusively 24 hours a day. That's the level that we're, that. We're that. We're at, you know. Imagine, oh, I don't think. I don't think that's true. I don't think that's true. No're at, you know. Dan: Imagine you've got your own. Oh, I don't think that's true. No, tell me Okay Because the vast majority of people have no desire to do that. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah, I think you're right. No, it's like the free zone. What you just said about the free zone, you know I've got. You know we've got 110 in the free zone. But everybody knows about the free zone. You know close to 3,000. And they have no interest in going there whatsoever you know, yeah, so but when we say everybody, you know it may. I think here's what I'm going to suggest we have to say everybody, because we feel guilty about that. It may be only us that's interested in this. Dean: We feel kind of guilty that we're the only ones who could have this capability anyone who could have this capability, so we should reframe it that I feel like I've discovered a planet of 10 billion people who are ready and willing to come to work for me, and what am I going to do with that? That's really the truer statement, I think. Dan: Well, you've got one artificial intelligence. Dean: EA. Who wants to work? Dan: artificial intelligence? Yeah, ea. Who wants to work for you? Yes, and she's. She's endlessly improvable. Dean: She really is. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't think, I don't think it extends too much beyond Charlotte. Dean: No, and through Charlotte is really where everything comes. That's the great thing is that she can be the interface with the others. I think that's really what it comes down to. She's the ultimate. Dan: Who Really I mean super high level, who yeah, I? Dean: mean certainly a super high level. Yeah, so far. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. My sense is that she's a relationship that you can take totally for granted. Dean: Yes, uh-huh, which is true, right, and that's why, when I pointed out, you know, my whole idea of personifying her and sort of creating a visual and real person behind it. You know, whenever I imagine, now, sharon Osbourne, you know, I see that image of Charlotte, that that's a I just imagine if she was sitting right there, you know, at all times, just at the ready, quietly and ready to go, it's just, it's up to me to engage more with her. Yeah, and that's just, I think habits, I think that's really setting up routines and habits to be able to do that. Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting how uncomfortable people are with inequality. Dean: Mm-hmm, yeah, I have to say that too. Like with the capability things. Like give somebody a piano and you know it could be, it could sit there and gather dust and do nothing, or you could, with the very minimal effort, learn to plink out twinkle, twinkle little star, or with more, you could create amazing symphonies. Uh, you know from from that concertos, you know the whole, uh, the whole thing is, is there, but it's just, but it's 100% depends on the individual. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was saying I was talking to someone and they say where do you think AI is going? And I said from my standpoint. It's not really where AI is going. It's the question where am I going? Dean: Yeah. Dan: And the only part of AI that I'm interested in is that which will be useful to me over the next 90 days, you know, and everything. And what I would say is that I think that every 90 days going forward, I'm going to be utilizing AI more but I don't have to know now what it's going to be two quarters from now, right. Dean: Yeah, because, honestly, you know, 10 quarters quarters ago, we didn't even know it existed. Dan: that's the truth, right as far as uh being useful individually, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like we didn't even get uh, we didn't even get chat gT till two years just over two years ago, november 30th 2023, right or 2022, right, yeah, and so that's what I'm saying. Dean: 10 quarters ago, it wasn't even on our radar. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And 10 quarters from now. Dan: You have no comprehension. We won't even recognize it. Dean: We won't even recognize it Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like this idea. I think it has more to do. Dan: I think it has more to do with what's happening to your intelligence, rather than what kind of artificial intelligence is available, developing your intelligence. Yeah, I've read. Dean: Have you heard? So Richard Koch just wrote a new book called 80-20 Daily. I don't know who he is. Kosh is the guy who wrote the 80, 20 uh book. He kind of popularized uh, pareto, um, and so now he's written a daily reader about 80-20. He's built his whole life around this. But it was interesting. I read about something called the Von Manstein Matrix or Van Manstein Matrix and it was a. It's four quadrants with two poles. You know. There's uh to help sort officers in the german uh, second second world war, and the uh on one pole was lazy and hardworking, was the other end of the pole, and on the other, the X axis was stupid and intelligent. So the four quadrants you know, formed as I can predict the outcome for this. Yes, and so he says that those stars are lazy and intelligent. Lazy and intelligent. That's exactly right and I thought, man, that is something. So the most effective people are intelligent and lazy. Dan: Yeah, so how did that work out for the Germans? Dean: Yeah, exactly Right on. That's exactly right. Aside from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? Dan: Mrs Lincoln yeah. Dean: Yeah it didn't quite work out, but I thought you know that's. It's very funny that that's the in general. That's where I think that there's a lot of similarities here. Lazy, like nobody would ever think, dan, like you've done, to ask the question. Is there any way for me to get this result without doing anything? Yeah, like that's not the question, that it would be sort of uh, I don't know what the right word is, but it's kind of like nobody would admit to asking that question, you know. But I think that that's actually it's. It's kind of like nobody would admit to asking that question, you know. But I think that that's actually it's the most intelligent question we could ask. Can I get that? Dan: Well, you know, I haven't found I have to tell you as much as I've asked the question I haven't found. I really have never personally come across a situation yet where it can be achieved without my doing anything. Okay, honestly, I haven't. I at least have to communicate to somebody. That's what I found. I have to communicate something to somebody, but asking the question is very useful because it gets your mind really simple. You know, I think that's the reason, and whereas before what I might have been imagining is something that's going to be really, really complicated. And so I think the question really saves me from getting complicated. Yes, I think that's what's valuable about it. But I notice, when I'm writing, for example, I'll say to myself I'm sort of stuck. You know, I don't really suffer from writer's block as most people would describe it. But I'll get to the point where I don't know what the next sentence is and I'll say is there any way I can solve this without doing anything? And immediately the next sentence will come to me. Dean: Yeah, that's interesting in itself, isn't it? I mean when you reach that point right. Dan: Yeah, so I feel I'm blocked. You know, I'm just blocked, I just don't know where to go from here. But just asking the question, something happens in my brain which eliminates all other possibilities except one, and that's the next sentence. and then then I'm off and off and running and uh, I tell you, I've created a new tool and it and it's a function of previous tools and it came up with a podcast with Joe Polish last week or this week, earlier this week, and he was saying how do you handle overwhelm? He said I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed right now. I've got so many things going. Dean: Office remodel yeah. Dan: Yeah, that's one, and then you know others and I said you know what I'm thinking about. That is, you have a lot of priorities that are all competing for your complete attention. You have the office revamp is one, and it's asking for your complete attention. You have the office revamp is one and it's asking for your complete attention. But then there's other things in your life that are also asking for your complete attention. I find that too, yeah. So I said I think to deal with this, you have to write down what all your priorities are. You just have to list all the priorities that in some way each of these. if they could, they would want your complete attention. And then you take them three at a time and the triple play, and you run them through the triple play so that by the third level of the triple play your competitors have turned into collaborators. And that releases the sense of overwhelm. At least with these three you now have released the overwhelmed feeling. And I said and you know, then you can take three more, and then you can take three more, and then you can take three more, and every time you do a triple play you're turning competition into collaboration. And so he was going to do one. And then I had somebody else that I did a Zoom call with and he's in a situation where everything's changing. And I said what you have to do is you have to take your competing priorities and turn them into collaborative priorities, and I think there's some real power to this. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I haven't completely worked it out yet, but that's what I'm working on this week. Dean: So the general idea I could do this as well is to take and just list all the competing priorities that I seem to have right now and put a time frame on it, like the next 90 days. Yes, I often find, when I get over one like that, I'll make a list and I'll say have I had this idea for at least 90 days and is this still going to be a good idea in 90 days? Is one of the comparisons that I have right. Is it something that is fleeting and only right now, or is this something persistent and and durable, um, and that that helps a lot? Which one can I have the biggest impact in the next 90 days? Yeah, and then you're saying take three of those and it doesn't matter what and doesn't matter what, doesn't matter which. Dan: Three and then just do a triple play on those and just do a triple play, and then the sense of overwhelm uh associated with all three of them uh will go away because they're competing with each other and the problem is, our brain can only focus on one thing at one time. Dean: That makes sense actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: So, for example, in the triple play, where you take two arrows, you've now taken two priorities and made them into a single priority, and that is, I'm going to take these two priorities and create a single priority out of them. You know so your brain can focus on combining them, because it's just one thing. So, anyway, I'm playing with this Because I think every brain is different and every life is different, and the problem is that you're overwhelmed because you can't give full attention to any one of the priorities. Dean: That is true. Yeah, that's where all the frustration happens. Dan: So I would say one of your priorities and this is ongoing is to enable Charlotte to become more and more useful to you. That's a really important priority, I agree, yeah. Dean: I agree. Well, there we go. Dan: Well, what have we clarified today? Dean: Well, I think I'm immediately going to do the top priority triple play of the coming AI opportunity to just focus on what can I do in the next 90 days here to just increase the effectiveness of my relationship with Charlotte. That makes the most sense. What can we do this quarter and then a layer on top of that, but don't develop a second Charlotte. Dan: Then you're in real trouble I need to have one lifetime monogamous relationship with my one, charlotte my one, true Charlotte. I think this falls somewhere in the realm of the Ten Commandments. Dean: I think that's fantastic, Dan. I love it, you know. Dan: That's what wisdom is yeah, wisdom is good forever. Dean: That's what distinguishes wisdom. Dan: Alrighty, we'll be in Arizona on Tuesday and. I can. I'll be on Canyon Ranch next Sunday and so if you're up, to you can do it at 11, but I'll do it at 8, ok actually there are only 2 hours back now, so it'll be 9 2 hours so I'll do it at nine o'clock okay, great, I'll talk to you next week, then I'll be seeing you that's right. Dean: That's right, okay, bye, bye.

To be successful means to work with only those you want to work with. It is entirely dependent on the whole team effort and full cooperation. But what if there is someone in the team or a client that you do not feel working with. Is it worth to take the risk or is it better to let him go?   In this podcast episode, Dean Soto will talk about how it is okay to work with only those you want to work with. Stay tuned! ------ Automated Transcript Below: Dean Soto 0:00 Hey, this is Dean Soto, founder of prosulum.com and freedom in five minutes.com and we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this it's okay to work with only those you want to work with that more coming up. Well, good morning we hear some Helens barking off in the distance, man. They must wonder what they're barking at. Moon is looking Luna what's going on over there? Sounds like a ruckus. Over here in the country we have ruckuses ruckuses and so not sure what it is. But it might be actually a pack of dogs you never know. Back well done. coming after me. Oh no. Oh, cool. So Good morning. Morning. Wow. Well 2020 has proven to be a very good year so far, business has boomed which I'm very happy about. And one of the things that that has bred is kind of I want to say this is the feeling or the ability to work with those I want to actually work with. So this is this should always be The case but it's harder. It's harder at times when things aren't going so well. Alright, so here's the deal. So to want to say I actually was back in September, back in September, there is no this is not this is not just this, this particular client. But back in September, I had a client who my one of my business partners introduced me to super nice guy still is very nice guy. And he still is, at least as a recording, this is still a client. super nice. But, but so my brain just stopped my brain just stop guys. So anyway, back in September, my business partner introduced me to this this person who eventually ended up becoming a client. So we're talking with the person that this person back in September. And it is what we do with our virtual systems architects, where you can take five minutes out of your day, just you know, just as if you were going to go make some coffee or just if you're going to go and meditate or pray, or read the Bible or do whatever it is that you do five minutes a day, you can find if you spend those little five minute creating a video, your dedicated virtual virtual systems architect will then go document that whole thing you just showed them, and then go and do it. And so this person works in this specific industry that where, where his clients that he's bringing into this particular industry, they have to create documented systems, they have to create documented processes, and often these guys are spending weeks, months, sometimes even years creating these documents and then they become outdated and they have to do it all over again. Right? When they could have been spending that time on much, much more important stuff, right. And so and so all that being said, the, the, the thing is I just remind remind myself, I needed to do something today. Anyway, thank you, thank you brain. So this, this so when these people come into this industry, they have to do that. That's, that is a big part of this industry. Because if you don't, then you are going against the system. You know, it's the franchise industry, right? It's it's franchising in whether it's restaurant or whatever, you know, he he's bringing people in to into certain franchises. And that is a huge right that is something that is that that if you do not follow the system in a franchise, you potentially break not only the brand or the franchise, you can break your own stores and profit profitability because why do you buy a franchise in the first place you buy it, you buy into a franchise because it's a proven system right? As long as the numbers are correct, as long as nobody's lying you know exactly what numbers you know the EVA you know all that that that jazz you know what you what you're getting into with these stores right. So when you get into like multi unit franchise or whatever you you are looking at following the system and making the same amount of money. relatively the same amount of money well as soon as you go against that you are ruining the system you'd like literally You're ruining the system because now you're doing something that's completely unproven Sure, there are times where a franchisee has done something that has skyrocketed business but that's very very rare and so if a franchisee wants to start using a different supply chain or a franchisee wants to start using different marketing material wants to set up their employees structure a different way. What do you think the franchise or the person who owns the actual franchise the actual brand is going to do? They're going to say no, don't do that. And if they keep on if the franchisee keeps on asking questions or keeps on doing things that are against the franchise system, the franchise or is good a Going to start flipping out. Right. And so this particular this particular client that we had. So we started back in September with with them sent to send them a draft agreement, showed them how long you know, in the agreement talks about how long it takes to get a virtual systems architect and also their stuff. And every now and then, every now and then, boom, the like, they'd have some kind of worry that and that had already been addressed. And so eventually they ended up going dark for a while, and they can't and they came back in around the December timeframe, and said, Okay, we're ready to go. Let's do this. And I Reese, we reset them the draft agreement. And then they were like, they were like, Well, why is it Why does it take two to four weeks to get a via via via say, I wish you would have been more upfront about this with me. Like a ello. We, we told you this, we sent you this same exact agreement, the same exact agreement in September, and it said the exact same thing. And we told you, that's how long it takes. And didn't hear it from them for a little I think it was like a week or whatever. And then all of a sudden, it was like, All right, let's do this. And so they they paid, they started moving forward. We actually found them vs. Say like right away. Right away. In fact, I was kind of like to my guys, I'm like, like, why did you do that? Because we do have a queue of other people. But technically the way my guys do it, this person was in the queue for a while because of back in September and the way they wanted it. Do it I don't, I don't, I'm not gonna I like the way my guys do things, you're not going to ruin their little system that they've developed either. So anyway, so they, they go and so he gets his vsa and and and part of what happens when someone gets a virtual systems architect is that they have to agree to follow our system. So they get an email saying Hey, welcome to the family, here's what you're agreeing to, if you choose to move forward, otherwise, we're going to cancel and refund I have no problem canceling and refunding because I do not want to work with someone who's not going to follow the system because it's going to tarnish my brand. It's going to you know, imagine given a Ferrari to somebody who's literally just going to drive drive down and down the block to get some milk and then come back like and, and, and let him let him borrow the keys to your Ferrari for that. No, I'm not going to do that. I want to see that Ferrari friggin flying around, I want to see that Ferrari going all over the place, right? So, he agrees to the fact that we do not like training one on one training. We do not do one on one training in our system, maybe in rare cases, but we do not do one on one training. Everything is based off of five minute 10 minute videos. Okay? Because it's much more effective. It's much more efficient, they get documented and then they move forward. Right? Training is a four letter word we hate training training sucks. Because it's so ineffective no one remembers it anyway. Right. And yet, yet they agreed to follow the rest of the system as well. So he gets his virtual systems architect in a couple days after the person starts. My one of my guys does a little check in just here. We always Do a little check and see how everything's going. And, and he starts, the first thing he says was, oh, things are going really well, which I was like, Oh, that's great. He said, I wish I would have had some kind of pre onboarding, pre onboarding so that essentially that I didn't waste the day training this person. And I might have read that wrong. I could have I could have totally read it wrong. How he how he said it, because maybe it was a little bit. I'm not sure. I could have totally read it one and I could be totally I've just as I'm, as I am saying this as I'm on this podcast, I could be totally 100% mistaken in what he's saying. Okay, but I'm so protective of what I've built. I'm so protective of what I built. And we have such a large queue of people who are waiting for their vsa That I want to work with those people who absolutely 100% get it. And, and so he knew when so part of his question was, I wish there was a pre onboarding. So I didn't spend most of the day getting her up to speed. I hate that because it means you're, you're training you're training you're not. Because typically what customers do is they will have five minute videos that they've already done, like maybe, you know, 5,10 of them already done, and they hand them off to the to the VSA, the VSA documents, all of those in the first few days, and then says, Okay, go ahead and start doing pop up, up, up, up, up. So in the first week, they're already doing real work without having to go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and train and spend a day training and or anything like that. So I'm like, as soon as I see that I'm like, oh boy, oh great. This is not what I this is not what I wanted. And so he comes. A couple of other questions were things like, you know, a couple of other things where, you know, what, what, what, what what did they do before working for prosulum? What are their skill set? What are their specialties? what's the what's their what's their specialty? And and so you know, these are things that so what did they do before personal and we sent we send the BIOS to these people before we even before they even accept them as as they're via say like detailed BIOS on what they've done in the past and everything like that questions that where I'm like, I'm like, why are you Why is this being asked again that doesn't that doesn't make sense. And then especially when I see when I personally when I see what is their specialty, then I'm like, okay, you don't get it. You definitely don't get the system Because who the heck cares about specialties in our system because we hire the who we hire blank slates, who literally can clone you. And that's a big part of our onboarding processes, a big part of our philosophy, a big part of all of that. So, I immediately Look at all that on and go, I go, he does not understand the system. And so I write back this whole thing. This answering all of his things, and I say, at the very end, I'm totally open to scheduling a refresher call with you. You can use this calendar right here. You can use the calendar here to make that happen. However, I'm going to have essentially, essentially what I said was a good to have my team checking on you next week. And if it looks like the system's not being followed then I also asked like, how many process videos have you created for them to document but I said, If by you know, next week if it looks like the system's not being followed I'm going to have to cancel and refund. Okay. And send it in a nice way. I think I did at least and and he you know, he wrote back and he said, Oh, I don't think you're gonna have to cancel and refund these were just questions. And in and it's true, they were they were just questions. But but their questions such as their questions that show that something is not being understood a big part of in the inside because imagine Imagine if, if I'm trying to think of a good analogy. Imagine if you are Imagine if you're working at McDonald's or Burger King, and someone comes up to the counter and says, Hey, do you have Do you guys have a positive adorno? Do you guys have a penny rustica Do you guys have you know a? Any Hollandaise sauce? Hey, do you guys do you guys? Do you guys? Do you guys have a whopper here? You're working at McDonald's or do you have a whopper? You're gonna immediately think, wait, this person doesn't. This person like is totally confused like this person is either playing a prank on me or does not realize that they're at McDonald's doesn't know anything about McDonald's. Right? So yeah, they might be questions. And they are, they might be questions, but they're very telling questions. And so, going to a Ferrari dealership, you're not gonna say, you're not going to say like a Lamborghini and Ferrari. From what I've been told that you have to sign an agreement. You have to sign like things saying that you will not do certain things you will you will not drive it in certain ways you will not do this, you'll not do that. And they're very serious about who buys their cars that you don't go. So if you went to a Ferrari dealership and you said hey, Hey, do you know how do you deal with? How do you deal with people with bad credit? Immediately they're gonna they're going to look at you and go. Yeah, I don't think I want to work with you. Right now. It's just a question. It's just a question. So you go up and you say, hey, yeah, I how do you get Do you? Do you work with people who've trashed other Ferraris and Lamborghinis. They're gonna look at you go, get up, get out. And you're gonna say, Oh, it's just a question. These questions are very, very telling. And so when I heard these, I'm like, I don't, I don't think this is going to be a good fit. I'll give it I'll give it another shot. I'll give it another I give under floon is up there I'm not seeing Luna in a while anyway I'll give it another shot but uh, but but it might be and it's fine. I even said you know if it No hard feelings, you know iron sharpens iron. If If it's not a good fit, it's not a good fit. But it might be where we have to part ways. So what's, what is the whole purpose of this? Why am I sharing this? I'm sharing this because you should never be. It's very hard not to be in a mode where you want to take everybody in as a client and The The thing about it is that the thing about it is that you got into this for a reason, right business for a reason. And a lot of the times it was taught to not work for a boss, who was just constantly, you know, getting your face, not work for a company that's just annoying and boring. You wanted to be able to use your skill sets, right? Well, you should never put yourself in the same situation with a customer who does not appreciate what you're giving them. Even if they understand the system, even if they understand what you're doing, if they're not appreciative and if it's not a relationship where it's back and forth, mutual respect Then, then often it's better just to cut it. Often it's better not to have that relationship, because it causes stress it causes like I literally was writing that email, it took a, you know, half hour of my time 20 minutes of my time, my time is extremely valuable. And so, so that that in and of itself like that shows that that it's are that this relationship is already making it so so I'm not able to give the value to them that they need. Because to my other clients that they need because I'm getting I'm getting stuck with in answering someone whom I might be like I said, I might be totally mistaken. However, however, from the onset from what I saw, and from what I see, looked as though they did not understand What, what the system was and so it made it a very tenuous situation. So you never want to be in that situation. Okay? I know I wouldn't longer than most of the other podcasts like this, but it's it's a very, very important thing. All right. Same thing goes with relationships. Don't be in a relationship with someone that takes that constantly is not giving value. Right doesn't understand you doesn't want to understand you. That's something that's a recipe for disaster. So this week, think about some of the things whether it's a client or relationship, something that you're in where where you feel like that you obviously they obviously don't understand you or they don't understand what's what's going on. And and And do something about it It might be cutting it might be just talking about it might be just raising up and communication okay but don't work with people that you don't want to work with I this Dean Soto freedom in five minutes go check out freedom in five minutes com. Also, check out prosulum.com PRoSulum.com got some awesome stuff there if you want to actually create a course there as well it's a it's a four video series course. If you go to prosulum.com and you try to leave there is a pop up that comes up for a for video series course that you can join. It's actually really good shares all my secrets when it comes to systems and, and also virtual systems architects things like that. So go check that out as well. So prosulum.com. Alright, so there's the instead of freedom in five minutes I'll catch you in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.

  You have expertise that you would like to share the world, but it won't make an impact if you don't get to reach a lot of people. What are the different ways you can do to garner more views for your YouTube videos? In today's episode, Nate talks about the important factors of a YouTube video that you'll want to keep in mind when doing your next ones.   So, how do you take a YouTube channel where you're just posting videos to it and actually start getting results? Like, how do you get more and more views? How do you get more and more subscribers? How do you even get to seven figures of revenue? Okay, I've got 10 tips of ways that you can do that. I've done it myself. I've done it with many of my clients. I think these 10 tips are going to help. Okay, tip number one is to start ugly. I heard those words from Chris Kitson most recently. I typically have said that phrase as done is better than perfect. But when he said start ugly, just don't stay ugly. I'm like, "I like that. I'm going to start using that." So, what does that mean? To me it means you just make a good video without worrying about it being perfect. The more that you're held back by a perfectionism, the longer it's going to take for you to succeed and your first video is going to be ugly anyway compared to video 50. So, starting ugly to me means don't worry about the expensive camera. You've got an amazing expensive camera already in your phone. Things that you can focus on is getting good lighting. But you know what? You can just face a window, have the sunlight come in on your face. That is amazing lighting to start with. It's better to start ugly, put valuable content out there and then just don't stay ugly work to improve gradually over time. Tip number 2, there's a really cool and easy feature in YouTube where you can upload a custom thumbnail. When you upload a video, it'll find 3 still moments and that you can choose between but I would recommend going a step above that and design your own custom thumbnail. When you can go to canva.com and in the search bar, you can find YouTube thumbnail templates that will get you started. Just by creating a custom thumbnail, you'll drastically increase your click-through rate which means more people are going to click on your video by creating a custom thumbnail. Okay, the third tip I have for you is to do a/b split testing on your thumbnails. So, what does that mean and how do you do it? Well, if you have thumbnail version 1 and you have thumbnail version 2, you can have them compete against each other. So, you just make a subtle difference. Maybe the text here is red the texture is blue and you can see which one performs better. And you'll have significant differences so that way you can improve your click-through rate on your thumbnails. Now YouTube in the spring of 2019 said "This summer we're going to come out with an a/b split testing tool right within YouTube." Well, the summer has come and gone and we still don't have that tool yet. I'm still very hopeful. You can go to tube buddy and they have an a/b split testing tool. That's what I use to do that. It works really, really well. Now, I actually recommend another video here on YouTube by Derek Muller. I'll link to it right up here. And he talks about a lot of great strategies for getting better results and having videos go viral on YouTube. He talks a lot about thumbnails there and I think his advice is amazing. So, I recommend that you watch that video next. Something that's important to track on your videos is your retention rate. You know, how long are people watching or what's the average view duration that your videos are that your channel are having. And one thing that you can do to really increase your average view duration or that retention rate is to summarize what's going to happen in the video. Let people know what's coming. Okay? So, I'll share with you a story. One of my clients, a good friend of mine now, she made a video that was extremely valuable. It was 12 minutes long and she just shared so many points and laid the foundation really painted the whole picture that I not only knew the answer to the question but I understood why I knew how to implement it. And I just felt so complete and I got to end the video and just realize, "Wow, this is a really valuable video." Here's the problem: That video had an average retention rate of a minute and a half. And this is a 12-minute video. So, with a video that's so valuable and yet people are only watching a minute and a half of that episode, they're not even getting to the really good stuff. What I realized is in the beginning of the video, she said, "This is the question that I'm going to answer." And then she gave the answer. And people would then leave because they knew the question they knew the answer why do I need to watch watch the rest of the episode. So, what she could have done is said, "Okay, here's the question. Now here's the answer and then I'm going to tell you why it's important that we understand where this questions comes from and why we have this misconception." And then why this answer is important. And what we can do with it and then how we can apply that in our business to really get results or whatever the topic is right. So, whatever the topic is, if you let people know, "Okay, here's what I'm going to talk about first. And then I'm going to talk about this. And then I'm going to explain how this happened. And then I'm going to share with you this story where you'll see how you can implement it in your own life. And then I'm going to share this bonus secret at the end." Right? So, if you paint the picture of what's going to happen in the video, people know what to expect and they have a reason to keep watching. And so, that's a great way to increase your retention rate or your average view duration. Tip number 6 is to make your videos conversational so that people can get... I'm pretending to read a script. Actually don't have a script in front of me. You want to be conversational in your videos. If people can tell that you're reading a script, they'll have a hard time connecting with you. Another mistake that people make is speaking to groups of people. So, "Hey, all you subscribers out there. I hope you enjoyed this video, It's actually better if you just talk to one person." And the way that I found is to talk just as if I'm talking on the phone. So, if I'm giving advice to a friend, how would I talk on that phone call? That's how I want to talk to the camera. And admittedly, it can be hard when you're talking to a piece of equipment versus a person. It just takes practice. It was really awkward for me at first and now I don't even think about it. Because I know that you are watching this video. So, that's my advice. On this point is just to be conversational. When I ask my clients what they think is most important, the camera? The lighting? Or the audio? What do you think they respond? Yeah, they say the camera. Okay? That's not. That's actually the least important of the three. Okay? Because you've got an amazing camera in your pocket that can do amazing work. The most important thing is actually the lighting. So, we just had to adjust our our lighting right here. I set up a ring light actually right here. I don't know if you can tell because we're competing with shadows and sunlight outside. So, we brought out an additional light out here to help with the lighting. Lighting is the most important. And a tip on that, even if you don't have lighting, if you can just turn and face a window, so the sunlight is coming in on you or maybe not direct light. But at least the the light from outside is coming in on your face. And then you have that camera in front of you, it's an easy way to improve the quality of your videos. And while people may not notice. "Oh, this person is using good lighting." They'll have a better experience watching your video. Tip number 7 is to make your videos between 10 and 12 minutes in length. Now, some people think that sounds long but what's interesting about that, most the clients that I work with are professional speakers and they know how to talk. And when you put them in front of a camera, it's actually hard to keep them from only doing 10 or 12 minutes. When you do the keyword research strategy that I teach, you find the questions that people are asking. When you get that specific and you're sharing all of your wisdom, 10 minutes is a very good length and it's easy to do and here's why: YouTube loves watch time. If you get people watching a video for 10 minutes, YouTube's going to say, "Hey, this video is performing well. Let's show this video to more people." Because the more time people spend on YouTube, the more ads YouTube can show to them. So, the algorithm really likes watch time. And a 10 or 12 minute video will perform really well. Tip number 8 is to study the YouTube analytics. Now, that might sound boring but YouTube has a vested interest in your success. They want you to succeed. They want you to find opportunities. And so when you go into YouTube analytics, you do provide you a lot of great information. They'll let you know what videos you've made in the past that are succeeding and it will tell you why they're succeeding. So, then you can think, "Ah, I know what video I want to create next that can capitalize on this and ride this roller coaster, ride this wave." Now, the first time you log into the analytics... It might be overwhelming. There's a lot there. But pay attention just what they show you first, What's on that dashboard? If you see a video that's performing well, take your best guess. Like look at some stats. Look at some figures and figure out why did this for video perform well. If you notice that a lot of the traffic is coming from suggestive views, that's a good indication that the YouTube algorithm really likes this video. And creating a sequel of that video is probably a good strategy. It's likely that YouTube will promote that one as well. So, if you're in YouTube analytics on the dashboard, up at the top, you'll see reach. Click on reach. This is another cool screen that I like to go to that really tells a lot. And on the right side of the screen, you'll see a funnel. An upside-down kind of pyramid triangle thing. And you'll see click-through rate an average view duration. You can look at these stats for the whole channel and see what your average click-through rate channel white is and average view duration. But you can also find an individual video and compare your click-through rate and average view duration. That's a good place to start. And if you really understand what those numbers mean, it'll make a big reference in the future videos that you create. Okay, number 9. I saved one of the best ones as my second-to-last tip and that's to do keyword research before filming. Before filming is so critical because if you find the questions that people are searching for, now you know what the title of your video is going to be. So, an example I share a lot my friend is an interior designer, Katie. And I asked her "What's one of the categories that you teach?" She said "Living room design". She could just film, you know, turn on the camera and start talking about living room design. Maybe she could come up in her mind with a few different living room design videos. But when we went and did keyword research first, we found some amazing opportunities. We found a title like, "How to design a living room with high ceilings?" Or "How to design a living room with a corner fireplace?" Or "How to design a kitchen living room combo?" So, we need two keyword research before filming. You find a lot more opportunities of more topics you can cover and make more videos. And it gives you a huge leg up because people who are searching specifically for those things are going to find your video. If somebody has a corner fireplace, they're going to find your video they're going to watch it all the way to the end. So, this is a huge, huge strategy. Okay, the tenth and last tip that I want to share is to put a call to action in your videos. This can be a call to action that leads to a lead magnet. You know, some free gift that you're giving away or it's actually a good idea to recommend people watch another video. So, you have a longer session time on YouTube. Now, the previous tip that I shared is about keyword research. And so the call to action that I want to give to you is to watch that video I'll link to it right up here. I share with you step-by-step on how you find the questions that people are asking that will pull in that traffic, right? That will get you that automatic search boost on YouTube? And I show you the tool that finds all these questions for you. So, all you have to do is come up with the category. Like what category do I want this video to be in and this tool will tell you the questions or tell you the titles that you should make your video? So, go ahead and watch that video that I'll link to right up here.

If you are given a chance to beat the algorithm of YouTube, would you do it? YouTube Producer Nate Woodbury will be explaining why you need to partner with YouTube's algorithm and not beat it. Stay tuned. How do you beat the YouTube algorithm? Got my good friend Bronwen here and she's asking me questions about the algorithm. And it's like, "You know what? Let's put this on YouTube because  I've got some answers." -I want to know what things penalize you like with algorithm. Like, if I put a link in the description, I won't have a ton of links in the description because I almost want it to be like a catalog. I'm like what does that do with algorithm. -Okay, so YouTube likes people to spend time on YouTube. So, if you link to something else, YouTube will notice that you click a link and it takes your to Facebook. You actually get penalized quite a lot if you send somebody to Facebook for YouTube. Same thing from Facebook. If you put a YouTube link on Facebook and people leave and go to YouTube, your post will be buried. -Okay. -Yeah. So, YouTube will not show your video to other viewers and Facebook will bury your post. So, really when you're... When you're on... When people on Facebook, they're expecting to have a Facebook experience. When people are on YouTube, they're expecting to have a YouTube experience. So promoting the other platforms from each other doesn't really make sense. They're different. Same with Instagram, same with Twitter. If people are on Twitter, they're not expecting to watch a 30 minute Netflix episode, right? If people are on Instagram, they're expecting to scroll through and see lots of photos. Maybe some short videos. They're not expecting to watch a 10 minute YouTube episode. -Right. -So, if there's a platform that you like, create content that people expect to consume on that platform. So, if you really like... Do you like Instagram? Let's pretend you did. -Okay. Well Let's pretend I love  YouTube. -But just... We'll talk about YouTube. If you really wanted to you enjoyed Instagram, you wanted to create Instagram content, it  doesn't make sense to create content that encourage people to come over here. Just create content that people like here and will enjoy because then they'll we'll follow you on that platform. So, the  same thing on YouTube is you want to create videos that do well on YouTube. That people like to watch. Now, when we're talking about links in your description, there's a lot of different things you're probably talking about affiliate links. -Yeah. -Okay. You can get one website approval. You can get more. But typically,  affiliate links, you can't get approved unless it's your own domain name. -Right. -So, you have to prove ownership of the domain. And you need to have a thousand subscribers on your YouTube channel. -Okay. -To be able to get website approved. -Awesome. -Okay? -Okay. -That's perfect. -So, it  gives you something to shoot for. You into a thousand subscribers. And you have to have a certain number of minutes of watch time. They do that so that you can't just pay for robot subscribers time in and... They just don't need to spam the system. If you really did that, you got 1,000 subscribers but then you  would see how many vs. how many subscribers are watching it, you just kill your stats. So, don't get... Now, you're still penalized a little bit even with an approved website. What YouTube says is you've got a score. You've got some type of score on your each video on your channel. - Okay. -And if people click a link in your video and go elsewhere, you're given a penalty. But if you have a website that's approved, they say that penalty is significantly reduced. -Okay. -And if people are going to your own website and they're entering your sales funnel or they're making a purchase, it's worth that penalty. And... I mean, we accept that penalty all the time. Our videos are doing well so it's not like it killed our channel or anything like that. Like it would be if we're constantly sending people to Facebook. I mean if people are spending time on YouTube and all of the  sudden they're gone, now they're on Facebook and YouTube and Google contract that. So, it's like we're going to kill this video. We're going to kill this channel because it's hurting our... -So, what's the way around that? Let's see I don't want any penalty because I like to think that way. -Think about it differently. So, YouTube has a partner program and what that means is advertisers  pay money to YouTube to show their ads. -Okay. -And then YouTube takes that money and they pay 55% of that to the creator of the videos. -Okay. -That's pretty cool. -Yeah. -So, it's cool in the sense that we can make ad money, ad revenue. -Right. -It takes a while to get there. You need to  make get millions of views to make thousands of dollars. But what's better... What's even more  valuable in my mind about the partner program as if you create content and do things that will make YouTube money. -Mm-hmm. -YouTube will promote your videos. -Okay... -So... -What if we  like want somebody to opt-in though? -Okay, so we'll get there.  -Okay. -We'll get there. Okay? Because that'swhat I do. That's what I want. All my  channels are backed by businesses. So, I don't necessarily do affiliate marketing but I have things that I want to sell. And we we put out videos that we want people to leave and go to the website  and opt-in to our list into our click funnels' sales funnel. Okay? But what we do, the content of our video, we create videos that... Here's a very specific  strategy. Remember Kris Krohn, we looked back in his history and we found a video that YouTube had promoted. It was titled, How to make money in your 20's?" In that video it had hundreds of thousand of views, okay?  -So, I... This was a year ago about right now, exactly a year ago,  I said, "Kris, we're going to remake this video. It's going to have the same title instead of it being 5 or so minutes long, we're going to make it a little bit longer." We actually ended up making it 20 minutes long on accident. We did plan on being that long. And at the time, he was real hesitant to put his car in the in the shot. He has the BMW i8 with the wing doors. And I told him, I said, "Kris...." -20 year old well like that. -"You're going to go pull out and then drive back in so I can film you with the car coming in. The wing door will go up, you'll get out and then I'll follow you with  the glide cam into your house. And we'll walk around and we'll film in a few different places while you tell the same story. Share the same concepts." Well, just make it more interesting. It ended up that his maid was actually vacuuming when we went in. And people love it because he's like, "Oh, hey! Cleaning lady." And you know, he walked around. People thought it was staged but was real. And he went. He sat he sat down on his pool table for part of it. He wondered his kitchen got a glass of water. And people just talked about, "Wow, he's inviting me into his home." So, that video ended up being 20 minutes long. The moral of the story is we found a video that YouTube had already promoted and so we thought, "Okay, let's take advantage of this. Let's partner with YouTube.  If YouTube likes this video, they're going to promote it, they're going to put ads with it and it's going to make YouTube money." Okay? We brought an $18,000 of ad revenue to us that first month. But more than that, even better than that, our channel went from 80,000 subscribers to 160,000 subscribers in 5 weeks. That is huge. That totally changed the the trajectory of this channel. And and it's... I mean we're up to 400,0000 subscribers now. Just because we've continued to do that same strategy. Even though we're talking about it being penalized for them leaving YouTube to go to your website, these videos, we have those links on there but we're putting the focus of our content of really  helping YouTube make money. We made a video that we knew it was going to show  ads the next thing we knew is going to be promoted... That was our hope and it worked.  And it really grew our channel which brought tons of leads to us. So, that makes sense? So, you definitely put the links on there. Get it approved and when somebody leaves and goes to your website,  it's worth the penalty. But yet in our case, it hasn't been a penalty enough that stopped YouTube for making money because we're making money or videos that are YouTube friendly, that are advertiser friendly. Make sense? -Yeah. You don't think so hard. He was telling the same story just said it in a different setting, right? -So, going back to the the question we addressed at  the beginning like how do you beat the YouTube algorithm. If you do find a way, if you do find a loophole to beat the algorithm, it's eventually going to be fixed. It's going to be, you know, there's going to be a new algorithm written. The YouTube algorithm is actually thousands of algorithms. So, we're going to keep making it better and better and better which is a good thing. And here's why: When you go to YouTube, you know, the screen comes up and it's got all these recommendations for you. The algorithms are working to show you recommendations that it will think you will want to watch. So, instead of (I'll just go for me) showing me boxing episodes which I don't like boxing or showing me you know, auto mechanics or showing me flower arranging, it doesn't... Show me those things because I've never watched those. Maybe I would like flower arranging. I don't know. So, it shows me things similar to what I've watched in the past and things that I've subscribed to. And the algorithm just  gets better and better. And what's funny is I know a lot of YouTubers from different YouTube communities here in Utah. And they they talk about when the algorithm changes how much it hurts them. Because they're trying to find a way to beat the algorithm and so they're going along getting great results and then all sudden there's a change in their views drop, guess what? All of my channels, I produce 11 channels right now. And when those algorithm changes  happen, nothing happens to me. -Because they're not trying to beat it. You're just  working with it. -Right. -Paying your taxes, just do it. -Well... And it's it's not just... Because I can avoid penalties, It's because it really works for my best interest. Because if we make videos  that try and make YouTube money, YouTube will promote those videos without us having to pay for that promotion. So, it works really, really well. And then because I create videos that are searchable that people want to find, I'm not just trying to piggyback on somebody else's some ninja tactic. But I'm actually creating content that people want to watch that doesn't get affected. -So, it really is just about like simplifying it? -I think it's... Because it's simple. The keyword research, just follow the rules, get the link approved. -So, I would say in summary, love the algorithm. Don't fear any algorithm changes because you don't need to if you're just really creating content that answers people questions. You're putting real value out there and you're not trying to trick the system. You know, if you do find a loophole that works, plan  on it only working for a short time. And then being really sad about it. Do want to hear a funny story? -Yeah. -So, I used to do... This was... This is going back almost like... It's going back 8 years ago. I had a web design service and I advertised on Craigslist. And Craigslist only wants you to advertise in your local area. -Okay. -But I found a way that if I bought... If I rented a phone number from another area, another area code; And I bought  a proxy IP address which could mask where my computer was located in another another area; And I used an article spinner to take my post and rewrite it  in a different way so it didn't look like a duplicate. Then I could post 200 different areas a day. And I... So I found this loophole. I found a way to hack the Craigslist algorithm, right? --of posting. And it worked for a while. But eventually... I had a fault... I had a person hired full-time that was doing that and posting about 200 ads per day. And I was getting about 20 or 25 website sales a month from it. -Cool. -But  guess what happened when the the Craigslist algorithm changed and recognized that my proxy IP addresses were.. -Banned? -I got  banned. It got ghosted. My ads would show up for me but not for anyone else. And so, my leads just disappeared. And I went from... I went from like 25 website sales in the previous each month, I think  down to like 3 or 5 website sells the next month and it really hurt. And I thought... I thought to myself I've got 2 options. I can find a better way to beat the algorithm again. And I am confident that I could have or I can just figure out something else. And I figured out something else on LinkedIn. It's kind of funny because I found a way to hack LinkedIn. I beat their system, kind of. Kind of. I stayed within their parameters but then that changed. So... -So, you have good experience in screwing up and... -Yeah. I know... I know I have experience with hacking the algorithms or trying to beat it. And just know that it comes to an end. Because that's the moral of the story. So, for several years now, many years, I guess like 5 or 6 years now, I've... With YouTube, I focused on partnering with the algorithm. And it's been so nice. The stress has gone, the fear is gone, the worry of it crashing on you and trying to figure it out that you know... "What? The algorithms changed. Now, we got to figure it out..." -That's such a better mindset instead of like the algorithm is my enemy. -I Kind of forgotten about it. -Yeah. -Alright. In this video, I mentioned keyword research. And I have a gift for you. I put together a keyword research guide that in fact it's a Google Doc that I've put step by step everything that you can do to do keyword research and I do want to say that it's easy. It's really simple. It used to be really complicated but I found a way of really simplifying it. So, that it's really simple and it really just transforms. So, you can film a video today, post it on YouTube now and get ranked on YouTube. So, I want to give that to you. Just on the screen here, you'll see that you can text Hero1 to the number 415- 528-7403. And you'll get access to that keyword research guide. And of course, subscribe. Now, you've watched the video this far... So, we'll see you tomorrow.

Welcome to another edition of the Expand the Business Podcast. I am your host Casey Eberhart and, in this episode, we will examine a free tool that will allow you to legally and ethically follow anything on the internet you like.  This tool is called Google Alerts and when used properly it can keep you up to date on important concepts, topics, and mentions for your brand and business.  Listen to the full episode to learn all the applications of Google Alerts for your business. Be sure to visit http://expandthebusiness.com/ to learn more and when you enter your contact details, we will send you out several goodies as a welcome bonus. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the Expand the Business Podcast where ever you listen to the show. Your reviews help us to spread the word and expand on our audience for the show. Thanks for listening. Episode Transcript Below: Casey Eberhart: Well, good morning, evening, afternoon, wherever you are in the world. I want to welcome you to a short form version of expandthebusiness.com. So if you are into podcasting and listening to podcasts, please check out Expand the Business wherever you download your podcasting. And if you want some free goodies, head over to expandthebusiness.com. We've got some great freebies over there, some great goodies for you over there. And again that is at expandthebusiness.com. Casey Eberhart: Hello everybody, my name is Casey Eberhart, hailing from Los Angeles, California. And it is my pleasure and honor to hang out with you a little bit today and just talk about one of the tools that you can use in your arsenal of tools to grow and expand your business. Casey Eberhart: So today I want to talk to you about a simple, easy tool that is free, favorite four-letter word that will allow you to essentially spy on legally and ethically anything going on all over the Internet in real time. Well, almost real time. Maybe about a 12-hour lag. So here is the tool. Casey Eberhart: The tool and the resource are Google Alerts. So Google Alerts are simply a tool that allows you to put in key words, competitors' names, things like that. And it will send you an email every single day or weekly, combined with everything that came out on the Internet the previous day. Casey Eberhart: So we actually made a list of things that we use Google Alerts for across our portfolio of businesses. And so let's just go through the things that you can use Google Alerts for to spy on your competition, to spy on your own business. I hate the word spy, but it allows you to take a peak in what's being put on the Internet about whatever topic you want. Casey Eberhart: So for example, if you are going to write a blog post or you want to see when your blog post shows up on Google or shows up on the Internet, you might put the keywords for your article. I one time did a blog post on creating a thank you note after a job interview. So what I did was I set up a Google Alert to go in and say, "Thank you card after interview," and I was able to see when that article actually hit Google two or three days later simply because I had already set up a Google Alert for that. Casey Eberhart: You could put in your hobbies in Google Alerts. So if your hobby is beekeeping, you could put in beekeeping and every day Google will send you an email that says, "Hey, here are all the new things that happened on the Internet today about beekeeping," and you could do that for any hobby. Paddleboarding, beekeeping, Harley Davidson's, whatever your hobby is, you could put that in a Google Alert. Casey Eberhart: Then next up, if you are a speaker, trainer, or coach, you could use Google Alerts to generate leads for your business. Let me give you an example. As a speaker, one of the Google Alerts I have set up for myself is 'Call for Speakers'. Okay? Because in the association world, a lot of times when people are looking for speakers, they'll do a post and they'll say, "Hey, we're doing a generic call for this type of speaker in this type of profession," and I'll get those alerts in real time. So by the time somebody else spends a month or two searching Google for all of those, we get those in real time. It saves you massive amounts of time. Casey Eberhart: You can set up Google Alerts for specific companies. So we do this if we are looking at making an investment in a company, we'll set up a Google Alert ahead of time so we see what's being posted about that company in real time over the course of the due diligence period for that. Casey Eberhart: If you're in a network marketing organization, you could actually put your own company or the company that you represent in Google Alerts as well and you'll be able to see what is being written about that company or videos that are being created. Anything that's coming into Google in real time, simply a day behind. Casey Eberhart: If you are an investor and you are investing in a particular type of investment, it might be good for you to use Google Alerts to save you time here as well. For example, let's say you wanted to start investing in Bitcoin. You didn't understand Bitcoin, you didn't understand how it's utilized, how the investment outside of it works. You could go simply create a Google Alerts on Bitcoin and every article and video that's created that day would be emailed to you the following day. So any type of investment idea. Casey Eberhart: Two last ideas on how to use Google Alerts are number one, your competition. You can simply go into Google Alerts, type in your competitors' names, and anything that's presented on the Internet the day before would again get emailed you the next day. So if you are a local plumber for example, and your competitor is just down the street and you want to see what Yelp reviews are written, what other type of reviews are written, those types of things, you would simply created a Google Alert for your competitor and you could do that for all types of competitors or things or people that you wanted to sort of see what's being written about. Casey Eberhart: And finally, this is key and critical and so super important. You want to create a Google Alert for yourself, for your own name. And the reason you want to be able to do that is because it catches anything both good or maybe not so good in literally almost real time. So many times people have no idea what's actually being written about them on the Internet. That a simple Google Alert would allow you to not have to go back to Google and search your name or search different things. It simply allows you to tell Google what you'd like to be notified when new things occur and it will simply send you that email once a day or once a week. It can do it in real time. It's very, very flexible. Casey Eberhart: So in order to do that, you just go to Google and type in Google Alerts. There's a bazillion things. It's absolutely simple and easy to set up and it will save you massive amounts of time. If you are a business owner looking to save time and/or make more money in your business, I highly recommend that you head over to expandthebusiness.com, grab your name and email or put your name and email inside that little box there. We'll send you out some goodies. We've got some special surprises that we work with over there. So again, if you want to save time and make more money in your business, head over to expandthebusiness.com and we'll get you all set up. Casey Eberhart: So with that, I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Expand the Business where we help entrepreneurs do the two things that almost all entrepreneurs are always looking to do, which is save time and/or make more money. So with that, I hope you have an absolutely amazing day. Now, let's go out and give somebody else an absolutely awesome day.

Commodity farmers across the nation are struggling under the weight of low prices and tariffs, resulting in bankruptcies and crisis in farm country. In this second conversation with Roger Johnson, farmer and president of the National Farmers Union, we talk about how putting controls on production may be the toughest and most important battle for the future of agriculture. Episode Transcript Lindsey: Hey, this is the Young Farmers Podcast. I’m Lindsey Lusher Shute. In our last episode, Roger Johnson, President of the National Farmers Union, walked us through how US commodity producers face declining prices and a trade war with China. I’m looking for ideas about how family farmers can get out of this mess and stay in business. Today, we’re going to see if Roger can offer us any solutions. Selwyn Justice: Hi, this is Selwyn Justice of Justice Brothers Ranch in beautiful Waddell, Arizona, where we grow citrus and raise beef cattle. I’m a member of the National Young Farmers Coalition because even beginning farmers need every chance they can get to create a more sustainable future for farming. For just $35/year you can join too. In addition to being part of a bright and just future for agriculture in the United States, you’ll also get discounts like 40% off Filson and 25% off Farm to Feet socks. To join go to youngfarmers.org. An Extraordinarily Difficult, Uphill Battle Lindsey: I wanted before we talk about sort of policy opportunities and changes that are necessary. In the National Farmers Union policy book, it talks about the family farm as a keystone of a free progressive democratic national society. And it says that a vertically integrated in our multinational grain and food conglomerate is not a family farm. So I’m just wondering before we talk about policy, how do you distinguish between who you’re helping when, when we’re talking about international trade and supporting viability of, of farms and specifically trying to give some sort of preference for family operations. Roger: Sure. The way we decide what we’re going to do, what we’re going to advocate for, is decided entirely by our membership. This, this question of economic concentration and large corporate – either buyers or sellers in agriculture – is a question that we have wrestled with since we were organized more than 100 years ago and it’s one of the reasons why, uh, much of our formative years were spent organizing cooperatives. That question is really important and family farmers, we need to live in an environment where there are fair markets. Lindsey: So I’m wondering in this current situation where we have, sort of, one crisis on top of another crisis for commodity producers and thinking about those family farmers – what can be done to turn this situation around, to create a more stable situation for American family farmers? Roger: Yeah. And let me answer that in the context of the dairy debate that’s going on right now because milk prices are very low. There’s significant oversupply, over capacity in the marketplace. USDA just announced a special program where they’re gonna buy I think $50 mIllion worth of fluid milk and donate it to food banks. That’s one way of dealing with a surplus supply. So we have long advocated and what a lot of the dairy producers are re-advocating right now is some system of supply management. Now this doesn’t have to be the heavy hand of the federal government in saying what you can or can’t do on your farm, but there does need to be some sort of a policy put in place that provides incentives when there’s overcapacity in the market for farmers to produce less. And last time we talked, I spent a lot of time talking about how when farmers are producing and the prices get low, there’s no incentive to cut back on production. And so we keep adding to this excess supply and keep driving prices even lower and lower. And the only thing we’re waiting for is some major weather catastrophe somewhere in the world to cut production so we bring it back in balance. For many, many years the federal government served, uh, in a way to balance those supplies. And we’ve had different programs so that if you had too much production on the market, there would be incentive for farmers to set aside some production, to not produce. Maybe they’re paid to produce less, or maybe the market price they get for all of the milk that they produce is a little higher if they hold their production constant to what they have historically produced or higher still, if they cut it, let’s say, five percent below what their average production has been. But that they be financially penalized with a lower price if they’re expanding production at a time when there’s a surplus in the market. That’s the concept of supply management and it works because of this fundamental economic characteristic that we talked about last time. Which results in, in the market really not being able to send the right signals to farmers to cut back on production during times of overproduction. The signals are too slow and in fact they’re too weak. There needs to be an additional kind of signal that comes in. And that’s one of the things that we’ve argued for in farm bills, that there should be that kind of a policy that incents folks to produce less because it would be far cheaper for the government to provide modest incentives for people to produce less than it would be for the government to come in with these big bailouts. This bail out that USDA is talking about doing – it’s a one time deal. It’s going to largely be paid out in advance of the election. It’s going to be paid out for losses that are presumably largely to the degree that they can calculate it incurred as a result of the trade war. Okay? But as we talked about before, this trade war will have very long lasting implications and markets are going to be lower for a long period of time to come as a result of this trade war. So there’s likely going to be a need for additional sums of money to be paid out over the upcoming years instead of a more thoughtful policy that’s laid out in advance that says, you know what, we’re going to protect prices to a certain level, and we’re going to hold these prices relatively constant. It is the beginning farmers that suffer the most with this high price volatility because their future is going to depend almost entirely on when they chose to start farming. If they started farming when we were looking at $13 or $14 soybeans, the relatively high price period, they’re starting to farm at a time when the land values are high, machinery values are high because commodity values are high. Lindsey: Because, so they paid too much for everything, to start their farm and they can’t sustain it. Roger: Exactly. And so they go in, they’re gonna take on a whole bunch of debt and then the market falls to a point where now they’re going to have to farm for a number of years at a loss. They haven’t had a chance to build any equity so they cannot survive that loss and they’ve got too high a cost structure built into their farm because of when they started. On the other hand, in the 80s when we had the economic collapse and I worked as a farm credit concert during that period, that would have been a really good time for young people to start farming. Land values were low, machinery values were really, really cheap. Lindsey: But every farm parent was probably saying “Do not get into, don’t get into this! This is not a good business.” Roger: Exactly. The psychology was against doing it then, so, so bringing some sort of… Lindsey: Which is when we lost the generation that’s missing now, it was in the 80s, because you have these family farmers now that our retiring that should have, should have kids ready to step up. But kids that were told to do something else during that, during that period of crisis. Roger: Or they started farming and they went broke and left, you know. And as they left they didn’t have a, a family that was there. And so you just, as you pointed out, you lost a generation. And in some cases we lost more than a generation. Lindsey: So Roger, a lot of what you’re talking about sounds like what Canada is doing with milk and that supply, which is something that we hear a lot of farmers complain about and even the Trump Administration complain about. So is Canada doing doing the right thing by their dairy farmers with, with that inventory management, their supply management. Is that something that we in fact should sort of, look to model here in the US? Roger: I think we should. Now that’s not to say that the Canadian system is perfect because I think there is a part of it where they’re cheating. But one of the principles of some sort of supply management program that countries need to follow, is if they’re going to do this, they cannot set prices at a level that incent more production. And then instead of doing programs to moderate production, to bring production down during periods of big surpluses, if countries are just taking that surplus and dumping it on the world market, that’s when you create a problem. And that’s what the Trump Administration is objecting to relative to the Canadian system. Because what Canada is doing is they’re, they’re not throttling back production quite enough. And so they’ve put in place this thing called a class seven milk, which is priced very cheaply and then is sold into the international marketplace. That’s the part that folks are objecting. In the overall scheme of things, it’s relatively modest, it’s probably having very little impact on our prices here. But just the fact that they’re doing it is something that, that gets a lot of people really concerned. Having said that, Farmers Union state members have done a number of meetings where they’ve invited a farmers, dairy farmers from Canada, down to speak to us. They’ve had overwhelming attendance and overwhelming support from the dairy farmers in the room after they hear how the Canadian system works. Dairy farmers are very reluctant… Lindsey: So U.S. dairy farmers are interested in having a system like Canada’s? Roger: Very much so, yep. Earlier this week, in fact, there was a meeting in Albany, where a big dairy coop, uh Agrimark did that meeting and there were, I think 300 or 400 dairy farmers that came in and my, I wasn’t at the meeting, but the reports I got back were, people were very interested and very animated about putting in place some sort of a supply management system because there’s just too much milk on the market right now. It’s very destabilizing. Lindsey: And I think it’s worth pointing out for listeners who might not understand sort of just the degree to which dairy farms have scaled. Here in New York, we see multigenerational dairy farms that haven’t really changed in scale too much, but you know they’re doing 30 to 50 cows. And then you have these newer dairy farms that are doing hundreds if not thousands of cows at their, their operation that are milking that many. Roger: Yeah and in some places it’s tens of thousands of cows on a single farm and so. Listen, this isn’t sort of a diatribe against, uh, you know, the, the size that everyone has to be, it is more, we need to understand what the consequences of these kinds of policies create for us. And if we had a supply management system that sort of held people to something close to what their historical production was, and we can meet the market demand, you can hold prices relatively constant. Consumers are also going to be better off because they’re not going to have those prices fluctuating up and down. And the farmers are going to be better off because they’re going to have, you know, a, a narrower a channel in which prices are going to be moved. They’re going to have a much more predictable, way of, of living. And if you, if you survey dairy farmers in Canada and compare their economic well being to dairy farmers in this country, I mean, you would see a dramatically different result and much more favorable positive attitudes on the part of the Canadian dairy farmers. And that’s really what I hear from all of these meetings that have been held all over the, especially the northern part of the country this past year. Lindsey: So what are, what are the chances that we’re going to be able to have supply management for commodities, for dairy in the United States? Is there a political support for that? Is there bipartisan support for that? Are there bills that are trying to craft how this might work or would that be something that would happen on the administrative side? How do you get there? Roger: No. I think the only way you get there is we continue to have really major economic problems in agriculture to the point where farmers stand up and start saying, we want this to happen. Because right now the politIcal atmosphere in Congress is they’re not going to do this. Lindsey: Why is, why is that? Roger: Well, it can best be summed up by a comment that then Speaker John Boehner made on the floor of the House during the debate over the 2014 Farm Bill when he called the supply management provisions a Soviet style agriculture. And it’s so unfair and so untrue. It’s not that they have supply management, they got a whole entirely different system and negative incentives and all that kind of stuff. It was an unfair characterization and it was made over a provision of dairy policy. And so what we ended up with a dairy policy was just incredibly, uh, almost useless but despised, I think is a good way to describe it by almost all dairy farmers. They just hated the program. Lindsey: And, oh so this is just the last, the policy that’s currently in place, from the last farm bill? Roger: Yup. We’ll see whether, whether this is going to change, but there’s no question that getting supply management provisions in the farm bill is an extraordinarily difficult uphill battle. Lindsey: It’s too late, right? Roger: For this farm bill, no question it’s too late. I think we are likely going to be in a position, uh, like we were in, uh, following the 1996 Farm Bill. And for folks that maybe don’t remember in 1996 or weren’t around, they had had high prices when they passed it, but after they passed it, we entered into a period not unlike what we are facing today where there was relatively good weather, production overtook demand and you drove prices into the toilet and you had very, just a lot of financial distress in agriculture. And so Congress, every year for a number of years, just did a big – they call it economic emergency, uh, payments that were made to farmers. Not particularly well targeted, but they had to respond to this economic crisis. That’s essentially what Secretary Perdue is doing right now with this $12 billion plan that’s been announced. He’s got a crisis on his hand. It’s not solely because of trade, but it’s exacerbated because of the trade war that the Administration is promulgating. Um, and I don’t see any way that Congress or the Administration is going to avoid having to do this again next year and maybe the year after and the year after. There’s just going to be too much financial disruption. That really argues that people ought to put some of these sort of prejudices aside and sit down and talk about – is there a better, cheaper, you know, a more thoughtful way that we can proceed? If you look at the cost of farm bills before the ‘96 Farm Bill, when we had paid land diversions and set asides, and things that, that were designed to incent farmers to cut back on production during periods of, of, of too heavy stocks. Uh, the costs of those farm programs was far less expensive to the government than the cost of the more modern programs after they took all sorts of controls off production, let production run wild, and then they tried to fill up the economic, uh, jar that was only half full with tax dollars. And I think we’re back in that scenario right now. Lindsey: So the 1996 Farm Bill signed by Bill Clinton sort of, started a different era of farm policy. Is there opportunity for bipartisan support? Is there, is there a leadership that is starting to talk about what else can be done? Because clearly this system is broken and not working. Roger: I would say in Congress, not yet. And it isn’t going to happen in Congress until it really happens out in the countryside. I mean that’s the way our political system works. And so as more and more farmers are struggling and are saying something needs to be done, uh, then they put pressure on members of Congress and then eventually you get someone who will stand up and say, you know what, we need to do this. Lindsey: The Chinese tariff clearly were aimed at US farmers and I, you know, like, uh, and our rural population, uh, that oftentimes voted to make America great again and, and for President Trump right? I, I live in a district that voted for Trump in upstate New York. Do you think that that pressure specifically put on Trump voters can help to, to spur some new conversations about a change in agricultural policy? Roger: Uh, yes it can. I mean, but I do want to make a point here. When the Trump Administration decided that rather than sit down and, and talk to other countries and bring the rest of the world together in an effort to bring China to hold them to account because they’ve been cheating, they’d been stealing, they’ve been, you know, they behave in non-market economy ways. I think most people agree that something needs to happen with China on the world stage, that they need to be constrained in some fashion because of how they operate economically. But what should have happened in my opinion, is the President should have sat down with other world leaders who largely view China the same way that I’ve just described them and would have, I think been willing to work with us, uh, to bring pressure on China. That would have been one way to do it. But rather than that, it seems like the President has sort of picked a fight with all our allies, in addition to China. And so it, I don’t know how this ends, we’ve offended a lot of the allies, natural allies that would have been in our corner. The other point I want to make is that no one should be surprised that it was agriculture that was targeted for retaliation by China. And the reason I say that is because the US has an enormous trade deficit and it is the biggest share of that trade deficit is with China. A trade deficit simply means that, that we are buying more from China than we’re selling to China. And so China ends up with a whole bunch of US dollars because we’re buying all this stuff and it’s unbalanced. Okay? Because the US has such a large trade deficit, there are not very many exports that we send to China that China can put tariffs on except for agricultural exports. Okay? And that’s the one place where the US has a trade surplus and so the chinese obviously responded to agriculture. Well first of all, they had no other place to go, but then secondly, the political benefit was they could, they could very much target Trump voters. And that’s what you typically see when you find countries retaliating against other countries. There’s a lot of thought that these countries put into, how they impose tariffs to extract political pain, uh, in the country that they’re imposing them on in order to try and get a result and so we shouldn’t be surprised that the tariffs came back against agriculture. Lindsey: In all of this farm expansion that we’re seeing, these very large dairies coming online in particular, to what extent should the farm credit system and banks take responsibility for that? I just don’t understand how all these banks think that these farms are going to do well given the current situation. So it’s always, it’s kind of surprising to me and maybe it shouldn’t be that someone is lending to this farmer to create this enterprise that clearly is not going to be profitable and by the way, this bank probably holds loans with all these other producers in the case of farm credit in particular, that, that need to do well also. So should we also be targeting the farm credit system and other agricultural lenders to take charge here and to take leadership and help to have some common sense when funding these farms? Roger: Yeah, that’s a really good and sort of complicated question. Lenders, they kind of make their decisions like farmers do. They make them based on the application in front of them. But you raise a larger question about if you think about the overall health of the economy, if you have a lender who’s got lots of loaners to smaller producers and then they make loans to really large producers that are going to put those smaller ones out of business, how does that impact your book, the business? To that point, local lenders generally, in my opinion, make decisions that are better for local economies. Because the larger the business, the more likely it is that the financing for that business is gonna come from further away and from larger entities that have fewer connections to the local community. And that raises a really important public policy question about whether we should have policies that provide incentives for these local communities, larger incentives for them to build themselves and perhaps disincentives for these very large businesses. Because from a public policy standpoint, from a societal standpoint, communities are better off if we have more producers in the area, then if we have fewer. But that’s only true if the more producers are profitable and so all these policies need to kind of work together. As a country, we’ve gone too far down this “let’s just deregulate everything” road. As farmers, we love it because we don’t like anyone telling us what to do. But to deregulate sort of, the financial industry and, and allow these really large corporations to grow and grow and grow and get to the point where there’s, their monopolistic or at least oligopolistic in how they impact us. Those are negative impacts on society and that’s what Congress should be put in place to pay attention to – to have an economy that’s more competitive, that extends its benefits more broadly to more people rather than more narrowly just to the largest corporations that are out there. Speaker 2: Well, there is work to be done. Roger, thank you so much for your time. And you know, I think it’s a, it’s a message to people who are listening to this podcast, both farmers and consumers, that to change any of the above it really does take grassroots action. Everyone needs to hear that something is very wrong in farm country and that we need some common sense policies put in place to make sure that the farmers that we have in place can stay there, can do well, can make a fair living. Roger: Thanks Lindsey. Lindsey: Thanks for getting on the phone again today. I just felt like, man, we’ve got to talk about what you do about it. The problems are so immense, we need to know, how to, how to direct our energy. Roger: We have a responsibility as citizens to hold our representatives to account and I think that’s really the bottom line. We need to engage and I think when we do you’ll find members of Congress and local legislators and others that will be more responsive to us. Lindsey: Roger, thank you so much. Roger: You’re welcome, take care Lindsey. Bye. Closing Remarks Lindsey: Okay everyone, we have our work cut out. To find out more about the National Farmers Union go to NFU.org. Please subscribe and rate and review the podcast on iTunes so more people can find us. Thanks to Radio Kingston, to Andrew Jerome and Roger Johnson of the National Farmers Union, the wonderful team at the National Young Farmers Coalition, Hannah Beal for editing and thanks to you, for listening. Talk to you next week.

President Trump's trade war is sending U.S. agricultural markets into shock. Roger Johnson, farmer and president of the National Farmers Union, talks us through the situation on farms, the $12 billion bailout, and what it all means for the future of U.S. agriculture. Episode Transcript Hey, this is the Young Farmers Podcast. I’m Lindsey Lusher Shute. Okay, let me tell you about this trade war. On March 8th, President Donald Trump put tariffs on steel and aluminum from all countries except Canada and Mexico. In response, on April 2nd, Chine put tariffs on 128 U.S. farm products. The very next day, April 3rd, the U.S. went after 1300 good from China, and the day after that, April 4th, China fought back with 106 new tariffs on the U.S. including soybeans, the country’s top agricultural export to China. Commodity producers already have a tough time getting good prices, and this trade war is making things even harder. Today, I am speaking with farmer and President of the National Farmers Union, Roger Johnson. This is actually part one of a two-part interview. He talks us through how these tariffs work, the farmer bailout everyone’s talking about and the impacts for the future of U.S. agriculture. Krisan Christensen: Hey friends, my name is Krisan Christensen and I’m the one-woman operator, farmer, steward of Farm N’ Wild Wellspring, a modest 1-acre vegetable and cur flower farm in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. I’m also one of the leaders of the Flatiron’s Young Farmers Coalition here on the front range. And I’m a member of the National Young Farmers Coalition because I truly believe in and rely on the efforts of our national and local leadership to help keep the transitioning farmland in agriculture and work on policies that provide training as well as microloans for beginning farmers. As a first-generation farmer, I am forever grateful for the support NYFC provides through trainings, policy work and community building. And for just $35/year you too can join. In addition to being a part of a bright and just future for agriculture in the U.S. you also get discounts like 10% off Farm Tech, 30% off Chelsea Green Publishing and so much more. It’s completely worth it and I highly recommend it. To join, go to youngfarmers.org. Trade Wars Aren’t Cool Lindsey: So just to get started, when did you start your tenure with the National Farmers Union? Roger: I started in 2009 so I’ve been here for about nine and a half years. Lindsey: And can you just in brief tell me sort of how, how you came to be president of National Farmers Union? Roger: Sure. Uh, I’ve been a farmer all my life. I bought the land the farm from my father who bought it from his father who homesteaded it back in the early 1900s. The farm is in North Dakota. It’s a diversified grain and livestock farm. The one piece that’s really important is that I grew up in Farmers Union. North Dakota is a very strong Farmers Union state and very active in the organization and I think that is why I was sought out to run for the position of president of National Farmers Union. Lindsey: And does Farmers Union distinguish itself from a mission perspective as well? I mean clearly owned by farmers and driven by farmers and informed by farmers. Beyond that, how do you think Farmers Union stands out? One thing that comes to mind is really standing with family scale agriculture and family farmers. Roger: Yeah, it’s good that that stands out for you because that is very fundamental to who we are. We represent family farmers, predominantly from a policy standpoint, but we’ve for since the beginning, when we were organized over a hundred years ago, our forefathers sort of adopted the triangle as an emblem of the organization. The base of that triangle is education and the sides are legislation and cooperation. Lindsey: So one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you today is because you are working with farmers that are much more established than Young Farmers Coalition oftentimes and have larger commodity operations and in some cases that are selling to this international market. So many of our farmers, because they’re starting out, they’re not selling to an international market and we want them to have an understanding of what’s happening with trade and tariffs. So I guess to start with, to what extent are members of the National Farmers Union right now being impacted by this trade war and tariff situation? Roger: Well, let me start by talking economics just for a little bit. The last farm bill was passed and signed into law in 2014. Net farm income since 2014 to today is less than half of what it was back then. So in roughly in four or five years, net farm income has fallen in half. Now that’s across, that’s a national number that USDA puts out, so it includes CSAs and commodity farmers, but it’s overwhelmingly overweighted or weighted I should say by commodity production because that’s the biggest part of agriculture in this country. That statistic tells a lot about the economic stress that farmers, ranchers are going to right now. Lindsey: Before tariffs were put in place. Roger: Before tariffs even came into being and so we’ve got a new farm bill that’s in the process of, it’s been, there’s one version passed in the house, a different version in the Senate. They’re going to try to reconcile those and get them passed as a single bill in these next couple months and sent to the President. We’ve been arguing that in that farm bill, Congress needs to put more money in to shore up the safety net and to provide more of these kinds of services that beginning farmers and ranchers need. We’ve worked really hard to have a lot of different places in there where there are incentives for beginning farmers and ranchers. They’re all part of the overall farm bill and the overall farm bill has to respond to this overwhelmingly crushing economic situation that it’s facing a lot of these commodity producers. Now these commodity farmer/producers that as you say, rely on the international marketplace. They’re fundamentally an international market. They’re based on supply and demand. We have a surplus of production in this country and in fact, in much of the world, and so those burdensome stocks overhang the market, that drives prices very low, that ends up in net farm income being very low. When you add tariffs on top, now what initially began was the Administration was putting tariffs on imported steel and aluminum because of overcapacity problems, largely driven by China, but really coming from many countries around the world. A tariff is nothing more than a tax, in this case on exports that has to be paid by imports, you know. So whoever is buying these products, let’s say if it’s China buying soybeans from the US, the tariff is a tax that gets added to the soybeans. Now Trump put the tariff on steel and aluminum. China immediately retaliated and put tariffs on soybeans and whole bunch of other agricultural products because agricultural products is mostly what China buys from the US. So that’s a place where we were very vulnerable. The tariff on soybeans generally is 25%. So if you got $10 soybeans and you put a 25% tax on them, that’s about $2.50. Okay? So what that means is for the Chinese buyer of buying US soybeans, that buyer now has to pay the $10 plus $2.50. Well he or she isn’t going to do that, they can go to Brazil and buy the soybeans for $10. So in effect, what it does is it provides a penalty to US soybeans of $2.50 a bushel. I’m talking in round numbers. So what has really happened is we’ve seen the market for soybeans drop by about $2 a bushel in the US. And the market for other countries, soybeans that are selling into the world market, is about $2 higher than our market. Lindsey: Just to give some perspective, in 2014 what was, per bushel, what was sort of the high point for soybeans? Roger: Yes, soybeans were $13, $14 I think, at the high point. They were running at about $10 then the tariffs start, they’re probably around $8 or thereabouts right now. Of course, they fluctuate every day so. Lindsey: So are farmers selling at a loss at this point with the $8 dollars? Roger: Yes. Lindsey: What is, what is the cost, assumed sort of cost of production for soybeans? Roger: The cost of producing soybeans is probably somewhere around $8.50, $9, some places $10. It varies by area in the country. And incidentally, of the major commodities, soybeans were the crop that was making the farmers the most money, or alternatively put, losing them the least amount of money before this tariff war started. Corn, wheat were even worse off. In fact, if you looked at farm budgets across the country using sort of average, USDA numbers, both wheat producers and corn producers were expected this year to be losing money on every bushel that they sold. Now with the tariffs on soybeans, one could argue that the same thing is likely to happen with soybeans as well. Lindsey: Goodness. And so wheat and corn. The reason that farmers were expected to take a loss on those was because of increased production in places like Brazil and from other parts of the world selling into those same markets? Roger: Yes. Well, and its, and it is because there has just been very strong increases in production over time in this country and that technology has been adopted by other countries around the world and so agricultural production just keeps going higher and higher and higher, and I’m talking about production per acre, so our productivity keeps increasing and increasing. That produces more total product and population is growing at a rate that is slower than our production is increasing. Now there is this other dynamic where you’ve got an expanding middle class that’s coming up in some of these other countries that’s tending to consume more. So that sops up some of that production. But there’s a fundamental imbalance – we’re producing more than what we’re consuming. And that extra that we’re producing are burdensome stocks. This is an important point here, Lindsey, because there’s a dynamic that’s very different in commodity agriculture as opposed to CSA agriculture. In commodity agriculture, if there’s too much that’s produced, that land does not go out of production. That farmer’s going to keep producing it even if they’re producing it at a loss until eventually maybe that farmer goes out of business, but the land does not. Another farmer buys the land, rents the land, keeps producing, so the production machine keeps going. There’s an incentive for that land to always be producing even if it’s being produced at a loss. Because the fixed costs are so high. Lindsey: So just so I’m clear, so the fixed cost of a commodity agriculture is so high that there is an incentive to keep going regardless of whether there’s a loss with the assumption that things are gonna get better. Roger: Yes. Yeah. You’ve got a lot invested in land and machinery and if you’re producing at a loss, you’re losing less money than if you stopped producing because you can’t – to continue making the land payments, you have to continue making the machinery payments and now you’re not going to get any income at all, because you’re not producing. Even worse, the weeds you’re gonna grow, so now when you do decide to come back in production, you’ve got even more expense to bring the land back into production. So those dynamics are very powerful. It’s a fundamental supply-demand sort of paradox that agriculture faces, which is that when farmers are faced with low prices, they try to produce more bushels so that more bushels times that lower price, will give them a slightly larger income. And when farmers are faced with higher prices, they’re going to want to produce more bushels because now they’re going to take advantage of those higher prices, so the so their response is the same. And since these commodities are storable, they then tend to overhang the market for a long period of time until eventually something has to come back into balance. We used to have farm programs that had incentives for farmers to throttle back production when we had too much supply on hand. Now that we no longer have those provisions in the farm bill, really what you’re left with is hoping for a major supply disruption, meaning drought, floods, hail, tornadoes, hurricanes, what have you, that’s going to take a lot of production out. Lindsey: I think you’re the only farmer wishing for those conditions, but yeah, we had a terrible hail storm this year, so that’s all I can think about. But, yeah. Roger: Well, and so did we. I mean our farm is mostly been hailed out about a month ago and so it’s just one of those things. Across North Dakota they’ve got really, really good crops because when you have hailstorms you generally have a lot of rain and so. Lindsey: And when you have those hailstorms then you get an insurance payment, I guess at least. So there’s some, there’s some protection. I mean for a grower doing commodities, they are able to secure insurance. So if they have a loss, they are, they are compensated for that loss and I guess it helps to reduce supply. So you would assume that the price overall would maybe stabilize a bit more or potentially even go up. Roger: Yeah, the much larger supply reducing event is likely to be a widespread drought, they don’t have a meaningful impact in reducing the overall total supply because along with those hailstorms came rain that everybody else got so their supply is gonna go up. The point I was making here is you’re left with sort of wishing that somewhere on the globe there’s going to be a major, longer, bigger, deeper drought that’s going to wipe out a bunch of production. Now, none of us wish ill on anyone, but we’d prefer that it be somewhere other than where we are right? Lindsey: Right, of course. And something to just reduce the overall supply. There’s this whole discussion as you know, can we feed the world, there’s not enough food being produced. This conversation about oversupply does provide contrast to that argument there there’s not enough out there or am I wrong about that? Roger: No, you’re not wrong about that. In fact, there’s plenty of total supply to feed every hungry person on the planet. The problem that we have is that people are hungry not because there isn’t food, they’re hungry because they have no income to buy the food. And so you might say it’s a market failure at least for those hungry people. But we overproduce and the major producing countries, commodity producers, we significantly overproduce over time. And we’re left with trying to find other things that we can do with this crop that is so abundant here. And you know, we say, well, we’re here to feed the world, but in fact, unless you give it away, a lot of those folks who are hungry aren’t going to get it. I mean it costs money to give it away too so that’s why there’s always been different sort of programs to try and, you know, feed the hungry, that are included in the farm bill as well. Lindsey: So the $12 billion bailout got a lot of news. It got a lot of headlines. Can you explain what that is, where that money’s going to go, who it might help? Roger: Yeah. So we don’t know for sure where the money’s going to go. We know that USDA has standing authority through something called the CCC, the Commodity Credit Corporation, which is a government owned corporation that was established during the 30s. Anyway, the CCC has enormous authority that has been granted to the Secretary to buy commodities or even to do direct financial compensation for different things. And that’s what the Secretary is proposing to do. He’s announced it’ll be $12 billion that will be spent. Most of it will be spent in direct payments to compensate, presumably, soybean growers more than anyone else. And then probably corn, wheat producers. Most commodities I would expect would get some amount. The reason I say soybeans more than others is because this bailout as you term it, is designed to compensate for losses as a result of the tariffs. You kind of have to, when you hear $12 billion, it’s like, wow, that’s a big pile of money. How do you put that in context? Well, one way to put it in context is just those three commodity farmers – wheat, corn and soybean – across the country. If they were in a position to have sold in the first of June and they waited until the end of June to sell, they would have lost $13 billion. Now they didn’t all do that. For most of them, the crop hasn’t even been harvested so it’s a moving target because just like CSAs, you sell your products at different times of the year. These crops generally are harvested in the fall and then for many of them, they start their marketing the previous spring, so they’ll sell some on contract. And then after harvest, they, during harvest, they may sell some more of their crop and then they will store much of the crop and then sell it either later, at the end of the year or into next year. And so they try to spread their marketing out over what’s called the marketing year. Lindsey: So you have to manage your risk by trying to sell during different seasons where you expect different prices, but you have more certainty about what you’re going to produce? Roger: Exactly. Unless you do this, it’s really confusing. Lindsey: Right. I feel like I need it on paper. I need to live a season on a commodity operation farm to really get it. Roger: You do, yeah. Lindsey: So the Commodity Credit Corporation, the CCC, they’re, I guess they will work out a process to establish who has suffered a loss in some application. I guess you would make, like a crop insurance claim for instance, where you’d say, we sold this many bushels during this season and this is the price we got and this is? I don’t know. Roger: Yeah, that haven’t announced how they’re going to do it yet, but almost certainly it’ll work something like this. Most counties in the country have a USDA agency located there and farmers work with those county – usually it’s an FSA agency. So that FSA office is the office that’s going to issue these payments to the farmers. So once Washington decides how the money’s going to be distributed, they will basically, let’s say it’s a dollar a bushel on soybeans, is what they calculate they’re going to pay. Whatever the total soybean crop is, times a dollar, is what the payment would be. And then that payment gets allocated on the basis of what was produced. More typically they do it based on previous production because that’s already established, but I think it’s going to be based on current year production is the way they’ve announced that this year. Lindsey: And this Commodity Credit Corporation, the funding reserved there. That likely would have gone to these same growers anyways? Roger: No. Lindsey: No it wouldn’t? So what is that money normally used for? Roger: Yeah, so that, that’s a really good question. The CCC does not have money per se, to spend this $12 billion. What it has is $30 billion worth of borrowing authority granted from Congress. So the CCC will go and borrow, and in the grand scheme of things there’s a real irony here. Most of our trade deficit that President Trump is trying to deal with through these tariffs, most of that trade deficit is with China. We buy way more stuff from China than we sell to them. The whole economy now, not just agriculture. And that sends us dollars over to China. Okay? Because we’re buying more from them than we’re selling to them. So the CCC is going to borrow this money. But in fact, this money, a fair amount of this money is going to be borrowed from China because all those dollars that China gets, they turn around and invest in the US financial markets. Lindsey: Wow. Roger: Yeah. So the CC will borrow.. Lindsey: This is not sounding like a smart move. Roger: Yeah. So the $12 billion will be borrowed by the CCC and paid over to farmers based on the formula yet to be determined. And then Congress will need to replenish that. They’ll need to pay that back. So this is borrowed money that’s being used to finance this one-time payment. Now, what Farmers Union has argued, for some time, well before this was announced, we have said it would make a whole lot more sense, instead of USDA borrowing the money and making this decision all on their own, for them to sit down with the members of Congress, the Agriculture Committees, put more money into the farm bill and spend it in that way. Because these tariffs are going to have a long-term impact on our price competitiveness in the world market. Countries that get in a trade war with us, we’ve spent enormous amount of time and energy and money establishing those markets. And those markets are likely going to be lost for a long, long time. They’re not going to come back because they’re going to view the US as an unreliable supplier. They’re going to turn to Brazil and buy these commodities from Brazil. Brazil is going to turn around and bring a whole bunch of new land into production, start producing even more. This surplus, this glut of production I was talking about, it’s a worldwide glut and we’re going to keep producing here, but we’re going to produce at lower and lower prices. So this has a long-term, very negative impact on farmers across this country. Lindsey: These types of crises have a big impact on farmland transition and just the stability of these family farm enterprises. I wonder, what kind of impact is this going to have in terms of farmland? Roger: Well, it probably will, over time it’s going to push farm land prices lower. Now that’s good for someone who just wants to get started farming because they can buy in cheaper, but it’s not going to be easy to buy in even cheaper, because lenders, when land values go down, lenders get real skittish and money gets really tight to buy land because the land. So that’s another one of the sort of, the characteristics of the agricultural economy is when land values are declining, credit tends to shrink, to get tighter and tighter, it’s harder and harder to buy it. When land values are increasing, credit tends to expand and so you tend to buy during increasing prices and sell during decreasing prices, which kind of is not the way you want to do it. But over time, these tariffs are likely to drive land prices lower because land prices are always the residual to profit on the farm. In other words, if farmers are making money, after they eat, after they repay their debts, after they cover all their farm operating expenses, the money that’s left over, that profit that’s left over, they’re going to attend to apply that to buying new capital assets – land, upgrading, machinery, equipment, etc. etc. When they’re losing money, they quit buying those things. And so the point here is that land values tend to follow profit. So as profit goes down, land values will, over time, they will come down. When profits increase, land values will increase in sort of parallel with increasing profits. Lindsey: And do you expect in this moment to see more bankruptcies and consolidation? Roger: Yes. We’ve already seen a significant increase in bankruptcies. There are a number of hotlines that are running around the country. We get a regular report from Nebraska for example, that there are the calls to the hotline from farmers that are in financial distress. There are record highs month after month after month. So there’s a lot of stress that’s out there already. As these market prices have come down that’s created more stress in this and they continue to come down. They’re now into the fifth year of declining prices. It looks like next year likely to be lower again. Uh, this year is going to be even lower than what was initially projected because of the impact that the tariffs. So yes, you’re going to see more bankruptcies. You’re going to see more financial stress as a consequence of these bankruptcies. You’ll see more land sales and you’ll see more consolidation. So, you know, it wasn’t that long ago when in North Dakota a thousand-acre farm was a big farm. You know, a thousand-acre farm is going to give you $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 of profit. And I mean that’s not really enough to live on anymore. So it wasn’t a that long ago. And today I’m looking at 5,000, 6,000, 7,000, 10,000 acre farms that are actually quite common. So this trend is just going to keep increasing and increasing and increasing as the farm economy struggles, and as I indicated is likely to struggle for a long time. History would tell us that you will 5-7, maybe 8 years of declining prices and revenues in agriculture followed by one or two years of up prices. And then you’ll go into a long decline again. Generally, you’re going to see a lot more down years than you are up years. And that’s because the up year happens because of some supply disruption in aberration – a shortage – and prices go high very, very fast in agriculture when there’s a supply disruption. Well, when they’re, when prices go very, very high, farmers produce, quickly respond to those higher prices. And so you’re going to see production increase pretty fast and that’s going to start building up surpluses again. And then you’re going to see the price start to slide as a result of that. And that takes a long time. It just continues to slide down. You know, in earlier years we had farm programs that were designed to sort of moderate supply when it got out of balance, these cycles were shorter. Today they’re likely to be longer. You’ll see a longer depressed price before something happens to move them high. And like I said earlier, with what happens here as a result of these tariffs, you’re likely going to bring major new production – land that’s not in grain production today, it’s pasture land, it’s range land, it’s forest land in Brazil that will be cleared. In a lot of eastern Europe now there’s vast areas of land that have not been producing. There will be economic incentives to bring that land into production, that will add more to the worldwide supply and that’s going to hold prices lower. Lindsey: Thank you so much for your time today. I have learned a lot and I know this is going to be really illuminating and helpful for our young farmer community to feel more educated on what is going on with these tariffs and to, I think, develop greater empathy and understanding for producers that are doing things very differently and are really under such threat and risk right now and stress. And we’ll be in touch, thanks so much. Roger: Alrighty, take care. Concluding Remarks Lindsey: In my next conversation with Roger Johnson, we’ll talk about what’s needed to get out of this mess and stabilize the farm economy. Don’t forget to subscribe and share this podcast. Thanks to Andrew Jerome and Roger Johnson of the National Farmers Union and to the wonderful team at the National Young Farmers Coalition. To Hannah Beal for editing, to Radio Kingston for use of a beautiful podcast studio and thanks to you, for listening.

There ONE skill that protects me against any mishap as I launch funnels... Hey, what's going on everyone. This Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel radio. Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen. And we're about to cross 100,000 downloads. I am going to remake an intro. I have loved the intro that I have, but it's time to switch it up. After 100 episodes, what, it's like 120 episodes now almost and almost 100,000 downloads. To celebrate that I'll probably toss it out there. Hey, so I was on stage, I was teaching the Fat Event. It's been super busy, I'm sorry I've not done a podcast here in a little while. Funny story though. I was on stage and I get excited, which I know is hard to imagine. I get excited in general. But I was on stage and it was the second day. It was lie one o'clock. One o'clock, two o'clock in the afternoon. And the second day's a long day. For me it's 12 hours on stage at least. Anywhere from 12 to 15 hours, and then Russell will come on as well. And I was just wrecked... Anyway, it's a lot of fun though. I mean I absolutely love it. I enjoy it like crazy. So I was on stage, and I was jumping around. I was getting ... I can't remember what I was teaching about. But I ... The pants that I was wearing. You guys will like this story. The pants that I was wearing were a little bit more like loose fitting. And I was like ... We were jumping around, and I was teaching ... I can't remember what I was teaching. I think I was teaching about like storytelling or something like that. I think I was talking about energy. Why it matters. Anyway, I can't totally remember it was. But basically I jumped and no one else knew, but when I came back down I totally ripped by pants. Like right up my butt cheek. And nobody knew. And so ... And I didn't know how bad the rip was. And so I'm like jumping around on ... "Hey." Like I have no idea what's going on. I just know it's getting drafty back there. And I was like, "What the heck?" Like I've never had this happen in my life ever. And so I ... So there was a whiteboard there, and I write whiteboards a lot. I draw on them a lot to illustrate certain principles and stuff. But I wouldn't turn my back and actually write on the whiteboard in front of me because I didn't know how bad it was. I didn't know how bad it was. So eventually after while I was leaning around the white board writing down. Anyway. And I ... In my mind I was laughing. I was like, "I'm literally going to podcast about this." So this is me doing that. And I decided I would called a break. I was like, "All right. I'm going to call break." And uncouthly remove myself from the room. And so I remove myself from the room and I grab my friend Miles who's also ... He's into ClickFunnels. Employee there. He works at ClickFunnels. He's the DJ basically. Runs all the sound and lights and all that stuff for me while I'm doing those things. And I was like, "Hey man. I need you to be a bro and look at my butt." And he's like, "What?" I was like, "I freaking ripped my pants dude." And so we're hiding in a corner and he looks at my butt and he's like, "Dude, as long as you stand perfectly straight, your shirttail covers it. It's not even a big deal." And I was like, "Okay." So for the next five hours I had the most perfect, unnaturally amazing posture that I have ever had in my entire life. And anyway, no one was the wiser until the next day I told literally everyone that story while I was up there. And I know that some people might think that that's weird, but it's to illustrate a point. Okay. It's to illustrate a point. Whatever weird thing's going in your life, whatever it is that's going on, whatever it is that's happening to you, that develops your attractive character when you start to share those things. Right? I know now not to wear slightly baggy jeans while I'm on stage jumping around. Okay? Who would've known? I'll make that secret 12 in like some stage presenting workshop coming up, or I don't know. Just kidding. But anyway. But it's true though, okay. It's all about ... You guys got to understand this, okay? When it comes to your attractive character, and new opportunities. New opportunities you compete by being brand new. Right? All right. Your attractive character though is also something to be treated not as brand new, but as different. Let me explain what I mean, okay? In creating new opportunities your business should be a new opportunity. Your business is a new opportunity. The product itself is a new opportunity to somebody else. And if you've never ... If this is a brand new concept to you, you should probably go back a few episodes and start listening right? Right. It's a pretty standard idea now to find something that's a brand new product. Brand new idea. Your attractive character though also needs to make some kind of evolvement. Okay? When I was in college I wrote this ebook. It was before I ever read dotcom secrets. I didn't even know who Russell was I think. Wait, I'm thinking timeline. Yeah. I had no idea ... I didn't even know he existed. Okay. And I wrote this ebook, and what I did is I talked about this concept called product big bang theory where most of the time people go out and they say, "Hey come up with something that's totally brand new. Something that's completely out of the box." I call it product big bang theory. Meaning it just popped out of nowhere. "Ah this is something brand new. It's not stemming from anything else." And product big bang theory is an issue, okay? It's scary. It's freaky. It's risky. It's one of the most risky product strategies you could ever have. Instead I called it product evolution. I never actually released that ebook. I probably should. It was good... And so when I saw Russell's book about dotcom secrets, about first funnel hacking what's going on I was like, "Oh. Product evolution." Right? I'm taking what already exists and I'm making it new but I'm stemming it from something that already exists. Right? It's the same thing with like ... So when it comes to products that works really really well. When it comes to your attractive character thought, you can't really stem from another individual. I can't really say ... Why? Why why? Because you need to ... You can't compete on something like a strength. If you compete on things like strength, it's like the scariest thing to do also as far as your attractive character goes. So just follow me here real quick. Okay? I know this is ... I'm getting kind of ... Just follow me for a second. Okay? When it comes to products, you're trying to create a new opportunity but stemming from something that's already successful. Right? It's a combination between funnel hacking and creating a new opportunity. It's a combination between those two. You don't just funnel hack. And you just don't create a new opportunity. You combine them. You do them in tandem. Right? That's like one of the most secure easy ways to actually create a new opportunity for yourself. I'm sorry, a successful business. A successful product. One that is slightly disruptive in nature and creates a mass movement. That's one of the easiest ways. First funnel hack, second create a new opportunity from what you funnel hacked. Not something that totally never existed before. That's scary. Okay? When it comes to your attractive character though, there is always somebody who will be faster, better, stronger, better looking, whatever it is. Right? So you don't compete on those things. Instead, you compete on your differences. There's only one you. There's only one me, and it's very easy for me to stand out when I stopped competing on strengths. Okay. When it came to my attractive character I'm talking about. Just my own ... The way I deliver. The way I talk. My stories. My personas. What I put out into the world. Out into the marketplace as far as my character goes, my brand. There will always be someone faster, better, stronger, better-looking, er, er, er, er. Right? ER, ER, ER, ER. All over the place, right? That's a scary place to go. It's a scary place to be. Right? So I don't compete on strengths. And I don't compete on weaknesses. I'm not trying to, "Well, no I'm worse than you. I'm worse ..." I'm not trying to compete on weaknesses. But what I am trying to do, is I'm trying to compete on my differences. Okay? It's a different way to think about it. It's a ... I don't know if it's a ... Hopefully it's making sense what I'm talking about, okay? Because I talked about this a lot at this last Fat event that your character development is ... It's paramount to how your business runs. Okay? The way your product sells, the longevity of it, followup sales. Not just the initial, but repeat buys, a lot of that starts to depend now on your attractive character. You can get a lot of people to buy something from you once, but to get repeat buyers, there's got to be something attractive about your business, about yourself. Right? And I don't want my attractiveness to be based on strengths otherwise what ends up happening is I link myself and I compare myself to the ideals of pop culture. That's scary, okay? Because pop culture changes momently. Not even daily or hourly. It changes momently. Right? And so what I'm trying to say here with this whole attractive character thing ... I wasn't even planning on talking about this in this one. But I'm just kind of on a roll with it. Stop hiding what's different about you. If you don't normally wear a shirt and tie, do not put one on to go put a picture of yourself on the internet. Right? I made that mistake. If you go to Sales Funnel Broker right now ... So I'm going to go change Sales Funnel Broker like crazy. Right? I love ... To be honest, I like wearing suits and ties. Okay. But it's not the norm. Man, I wear that maybe once very few months. Right? I'll wear a tie for church on Sundays. Right? But not a suit. And I'm wearing a full out suit in that picture. I don't like that. I should not have done that. That was not ... That's what I'm trying to tell you guys. Whatever it is that you ... That's why I tell you guys random stuff like, there is literally ... You guys know I'm really into air soft. It's like paintball. Right? There's a sniper rifle right next to me that I just barely finished rebuilding. Tons of fun. I love that stuff. Right? Why do I talk about random things like that? "Steven what does that have to do with internet marketing?" It has everything to do with internet marketing. Has everything to do with your character. Has everything to do with why people will be attracted to you... Why would I tell a story about me ripping my pants down my butt cheek? Right? It's not just to tell the story. Is it funny? Yes it is very funny. And I was laughing about it ... I wasn't going to say anything. Well I didn't know how bad it was, but I told them all later. Be willing to expose yourself. Okay? Be willing to expose your character flaws. Talk about the things that you're not good at. It's not about ... I'm not trying to say, "Oh look at me. I'm terrible. I'm a Debbie downer." That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is don't be afraid when the story helps whatever you're doing. Do not be afraid to use a story even though it will appear to you to be a little bit to your detriment. It's not true. That's what I'm trying to say. It's not true. That's not how it actually works. Okay? It's so funny. You will become human. You will become human to your audience. You will become human to those who are following you when you are willing to let other sin. And for a lot of entrepreneurs what I've noticed is they ... One sale, that's not super hard. Right? You could build a webinar funnel, tripwire funnel, any funnel, but the followup sales. A lot of that starts to depend now your actual brand. I don't care about brand on the first sale at all. Okay. I really don't. I don't even take time to sit down and start thinking about brand. I build it as I go. It's not something that I ever had to sit down and start thinking about. The way I guess build my brand as I go, I tell stories. Right? When I'm the brand. When you are the brand. And even if you are not the brand. Your company still has stories. Your company still has an origin story even if you don't have a specific face for it... But anyway. That's all I was trying to tell you guys. Don't be afraid of telling stories about whatever it is that's going on about in your life. And so here's some things that's been going on right now. I think the next episode I'm going to do I'm going to walk through some webinar stats. You guys know that I've been on my own now for about five weeks, totally solo. Self-employed. Had a lot of fun with it. It's been a whirlwind. I want to walk through some stats. I'll probably do it in the next episode because it'll be a little bit long. But I want to walk through a few specific things with you. But as far as ... Like that's the business. But for my own personal stuff, how I've been handling it, it's pretty interesting. This is how it worked out. Week number one, like sickening anxiety. Like, "Holy crap. Why did I do this?" Do you know what I mean? And anything ... A lot of things amazing in my life. I've had those feelings as I'm pulling the trigger. Right? Like, "Oh my gosh. Am I sure I want to do this?" You know? And I get that. And I get that. A lot of people get. Week two for me, I was excited. I had the first big successes. Week three and four for me I was gone a lot because I was traveling and speaking like crazy in three different events. And week four was kind of a cleanup week fulfilling of things I sold in the previous weeks. And it's been kind of this whirlwind up and down, up and down, up and down. Right? Where I'm like, "Yeah this is working, oh my gosh." And then I go back, "And oh crap. So many things wrong with what I've launched so far." I'm going back and I'm fixing it. And I'm wrong, but you know things I want to optimize, and change and approve. And just know that like your personal development is as much a part of the business as the business itself. That's what I'm trying to say. That's the whole thing I'm trying to say with it. And being scared to share the stories of things you're going through at a personal level is not helping your business. It will actually hurt your business. It will help you tremendously. It will help get a following around you. So this is what I would do. I would sit down ... This is actually what I do. Behind me right now there is a whiteboard and it is chock full of storylines. Of things that are going on in my life that I can talk about okay? And the longer I've podcasted, the longer I've done anything in internet marketing, the longer I've done anything kind of thing in this game, the more I've realized how much this whole thing is about storytelling. All of it is storytelling. Every funnel is it's own story. The link between the funnels is a story. How I got into it, is a story. It's all storytelling. If there's one thing that you can get good at, it's storytelling. Okay? You can screw up 90% of your funnels, right? And be good at storytelling and they'll still work out just fine. Right? Why? I'm not making that up, okay? I've seen a lot of people with their funnels look like straight up trash, but that's fine. They sell like hotcakes because they're good at the story part. And that's the reality of it. It's not so much what the funnel looks like, it's can you evoke emotion in those who are coming to your pages? Can you evoke over your business? Can you evoke emotion? If you're just another faceless corporation and literally your entire company is represented in a single logo, people are not in love with you. They might be in love with some outcomes that you get. But then if another person comes along and can beat you out, they'll start comparing you on features rather than emotions. Okay? That's super important what I just said. If you want to be compared by features, don't tell stories. Right? And what I'm saying is someone will always be better, faster, stronger, right? And you might be number one. That's great. That's awesome. But man you will fight tooth and nail to stay there which is great. And you know I'm fighting tooth and nail to try and be one of the best funnel builders in the world. And that's what I'm doing. And I have tons people asking me to build their funnels, and I cannot accept them. Way too much going on. But I ... That's the whole reason for it. Get good at telling stories and you'll have to sell hard ... You'll have to sell hard less. Get good at marketing, and it negates some of the need for hard sales. Get good at telling stories and you're not going to have to compete on features. Right? Because there's an emotion behind it. You know what's interesting is as I was launching this webinar, and I'll end it here. As I was launching this webinar, there were ... The very first week there was a whole bunch of issues with it. I mean there's tons of issues with it. I knew that. And my customers knew that. And they were willing to stick through some of the weird things. Some of the tech issues I hadn't figured out yet, or just hadn't put any attention to yet. They were willing to stick through that stuff because of the emotional connection they have felt with me through these podcasts. Right? I'm still on an MLM product and it's doing really well. And I've got a whole separate MLM show and because I have created that connection with those people, I hardly had to sell them very hard at all. Right? Hardly at all. And the weird stuff, that's the whole point of it. Guys, I just had my router, or modem get moved up into my actual office here where my computer is because my speed was slowing down. You know my router was ... They just barely left actually. My speed was slowing down because it was in the other room, another floor actually. And so it was cutting my upload and download speed in half, and I was frustrated. I'm not going to lie. And I was super frustrated. And when I called them, this lady just chummed it up and chatted with me and talked about where I was from, and the people that showed up on the doorstep, they came and they ... When they switched on the stuff they were awesome. And it wasn't just about the business. They took the time to treat me like a human being. Like a person. Like someone they would want to actually talk with. And it was noticeable to me. And I've actually sat and reflected on it here earlier this morning. And it was like, huh. You know what? I was actually totally fine, and I was more understanding because of the stories that they brought me through. Both my own, and their personal ones back and forth and that's what brought the connection. That's what brought the emotion. And I was willing to actually put up with some stuff that was a little bit weird, that frankly if I didn't want to put up with, maybe I wouldn't have needed to. Right? But I did put up with it, and now that everything's fixed it's fine. It's great. Everything's awesome. It's fast. The internet's great. But it's because of the stories, and because of the emotional connection. And if people are continually bombarding you with these features like, "Well this is faster. This is better. This is ... What about this? Can I get a cutdown here?" It's because they have no connection with you. Start telling your stories. Don't be afraid to talk about your pants ripping. Or don't be afraid to talk about the way you got into this. Just publish. This whole funnel game guys. All of it. That's what I'm trying to say. Anyway. I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again. But you can screw up on your funnels in a major way, and be good at publishing and storytelling and you'll still do great. Okay? That's like being insanely ... That's what funnel is. It's a story. It's a progression. Sometimes people have great conversions on their pages, and I start to looking at them and it's like, "Well it's because you're just talking to me like I might be a potential sale. You're not actually talking to me like a human being. What's the story here? What's the hook?" Okay, that's another word for it. "What's the hook throughout the whole thing?" The hook of the headline, the hook of the sales copy. Anyway. Anyway, that's what I'm trying to say. You guys, I hope that makes sense. And what I would do as far as an actionable thing from this episode. I would sit down, and I've got an actual whiteboard right back there, and I just put down storylines of all the things that are going on in my life. And when I'm like, "Ah, you know I kind of want to put a new podcast out there. And there's this principle I want to describe. Cool, what story can I wrap it in?" Right? Get good at story telling. Get good at that piece. And what I would do is if you're like, "Hey Steven, I really want to start publishing," I would seriously challenge that and invite you to reconsider. But if you're like, "Hey I really got a ... I want to practice. I don't feel like I'm good enough at this yet," just start I mean ... Start telling other people's stories, okay? My dad is actually super good at this. So as a kid, he would just tell us random stories all the time. I didn't realize this until literally right now. And he would just tell us stories all the time. And he would make them up right off the top of his head, and they were completely imaginary. But he helped me get good at storytelling because of how he would do it all the time. And then it would be our turn to tell a story. And he came over ... He was over here like a week ago, and I noticed he was doing it with my kids. And I was like, "Huh." I don't think he realized what he was doing with me when he did that. But he lays down on the floor with them, and they're all just kind of looking at the ceiling and he just starts telling a story. And seriously it'll be about my two girls and a make believe kitty. And they go on an adventure. And there is conflict. And there's resolution. And it's literally, it's an epiphany rich story. I don't think he realized that that's what he was doing. But that is it. Okay. And then at the end, he'll ask my little girls to start telling a story. And they're four and two. Right? And they're practicing ... And of course the plot and the conflict, and the characters, and all that's not that amazing. Of course it's not. That's totally fine. It's just getting in the habit of it. Coming up with the imagination piece of it is huge. If I was to go back to school, which I seriously doubt I'll ever do that. But if I was to do that whole piece over again, I would focus on storytelling. I would focus on debate. I'd focus on design. Right? I'd probably get the marketing degree again because I did learn some great things from there. But that would be where the focus is. It's the ability to create. There's a book sitting right next to me, it's called A Whole New Mind. I recommend it to everybody. It's absolutely amazing. It's a book, it's by Daniel Pink. The subtext is Why Right Brain Thinkers Will Rule the Future. And the context of the entire book, and the premise of the book is that, look, especially in Western culture, are you farming right now by necessity? No. Are you sewing your own clothes? No. Are you building a dam to create electricity? No. Okay, the majority of the  basics for life are here. Right? You have to actually work to die of poverty in this country. Right? You do. In almost every country now there's welfare programs. It would be hard. You literally would have to do nothing. Okay? To try and make sure that you would die by starvation. Right? There's programs. It's hard to fail. Okay? Because of that it is such a huge crutch. Okay? Huge crutch for a lot of people's progress because if the need really isn't there, then I don't really need to figure out how to make this whole business work. Right? I don't really need to learn about story telling. But the whole premise of the book says, look, there's so much that is actually taken care of for us right? The left side of the brain, the very analytical side, factory work style. The future belongs to the right brained thinker. The storyteller. The creative. I'm inviting you to learn how to do that. To learn how to be a creative. Okay? And if you're like, "Ah I don't know how to be creative." Guess what? I didn't know how to do that stuff either. Okay? Pretty sure my dad stimulated a lot of that by just telling lots of stories. He'd do it at dinner about his childhood. He'd do it at bedtimes. And he'd do it all over the place. I had no idea. I had no idea until literally like just a little bit ago as I started watching the way he would interact with my girls. And I was like, "Wait a second. This has been like a patter throughout my life." And I wish ... Anyway, I'm just glad I recognized it early on. Tell stories. Even if they're complete make believe, tell stories. Get good at telling stories. Marketing is story telling. Okay? It's the transfer of belief by changing the story inside someone's head. That's all it is. Okay? And your ability to do that is like ... It takes the cake on 90% of the stuff that I teach in this podcast. 90% of the internet marketing world, okay? Just get good at telling a story. Anyway, I'm saying the same thing over and over again now. I just hope that makes sense. And I want you guys to go through and start doing that. And like I was saying before, actionable stuff, guys just start keeping a list of the things that are going on in your life. The little storylines right? And if you look at ... Inside expert secrets, right? What makes a story is a character, right? And a plot, and a conflict. I think those are the three. And just start coming up with that. You're the character. What's [inaudible 00:24:49] storyline? Where's the plot? Where's the conflict? Where's the resolution inside of it? And then boom. Just keep coming up with it over and over and over again. Script writing, I'm not amazing at script writing. But I'm pretty good at storytelling. And because of that I have gotten by pretty well with it. And I did a lot also when I was a ClickFunnels employee. And at least the basic foundation of a lot of those things that I would write would be okay. Especially by the time I left. And they would be just edited rather than scrapped completely because of the storytelling. It's the storyline. The funnel has a story. The page has a story. It all links together. They're all one big story. And it links into your origin story as to why people should get there. Anyway. Sorry to keep saying the word story. Story story story story. So go think through the things that are going on in your life. The things that are strength, the things that are weaknesses, right? But more importantly, your differences. All right? I just told you that I ripped my pants on stage, and it was awkward. And it's because I don't care. It's because it develops my attractive character. You literally have more a bond to me now emotionally than before I told you that. Okay? It takes me and makes me a more real person inside your head. Right? I know that's what's happening. Anyway, start doing that to your own people. That's all I got for you guys. Talk to you in next episode. Bye. Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/freefunnels to download more prebuilt sales funnels today.

If you haven't heard the news, we’re going to be grandparents in the next few months. So of course, the most important thing we have to decide is the names we want this new kid to call us. Today on the program we’ll detail all the names we’ve considered, settling on a few we’d be happy with. We found a few lists of trendy names for grandparents, and a lot of them are just silly. Which we kinda like. Here are the ones what we’re considering, some more or less seriously than others: Ace Bama Bebop Bibi Big Daddy Biggie D Bobo Dabado Dally Faux Mau G-Man Gigi Ginja Gogo Grandiose Granette Granite Grammy Khun bpoo Khun yaa Lala M’dear Mellowman MoreDaddy Nooni NaNa NotherMother Panda Pebbles Rocky Slick But as we’ve no practical experience, we’re asking you, the listener, to chime in on our choices. Maybe you even have something in mind that keeps the special “ShEvo-ness” inside? Listen in and let us know in the comments. You can ask us a question for a future show, and you can get on our fresh new Patreon page to support us the rest of the season and the next! Ridiculous But Funny Computer-Automated Transcription Of This Audio If computers struggle with English, they really have a tough time with Thai. Luckily we didn't use much in this episode, so we probably didn't burn out PodcasterPro's logic board. But as usual, the results are quite funny. Read on and see if any of this makes sense. (Spoiler: it won't.) 00:00:00 Who trusts infants with any effect, let alone naming you that would will be called for the rest of your life. I don't think so. Oh, home one zero This one drawn us one this. No, this morning. This one siree. Oh my God. Just one time. The other question this week, my love, And this one comes from general by the name of net Banjul from Arizona. And he ask is very simple question. What's the one thing that might make us give up this life of living abroad and moved back to America? That's a great question. Nothing new thinks for asking, I'm She Ledee and I am Ibo Tara. We are Shiboh and you are listening to this one time, the podcast. If you haven't figured it out yet, people. And I don't know how you manage to do that, but I guess as possible, maybe you just consume this in podcast warm. I suppose that's pupils. No follow us. Not everybody Follows us. Nerve annual is Our son. He in you might have heard us referred to him has in Jhang. He is our kid and NJ didn't listen to a conversation I had with him some sixteen years ago. I think he did because otherwise he It would this would have happened a long time ago. That is true. How do you want to just quickly answer the question? And then we could get onto the rest of the program. Sure. In July, You're going to be really, really old And that's not your birthday greenery really, really old because you're going to be a grandfather. And that is the answer to the question. The only thing which would make us give up this life of traveling abroad. 00:02:03 Is have been grab marriage and I'm super excited. I'm getting super excited . I am certain learn that, so Yeah. So here's here's the deal kids I we're gonna be grandparents. Uh, which means we're moving back to America. So yeah, we're doing that. But instead of us talking about as moved back to America, what I thought we would do on the program today, my love is come to an agreement on a very important topic. Net very important topic is, how do we wish to be referred to as an additional generation above parent grandparents? I'm sure yours is wet Mac Daddy or something like that. Well, I have been giving it some thoughts on warming up to the idea. My family has a lilies. In my generation, We had a relatively street bore word naming Convention for four grandparents. Okay? Because like like, almost everyone out there listening, although certainly not everyone, but the vast...

I promise you, your customers are begging to give you more cash. Just take it! Please! For the love… On this episode Russell talks about how people he has encountered refuse to take money he offers them and why it’s so frustrating. He gives a couple of examples of people he has hired to do things that won’t take more work when he offers it. Here are some interesting things to listen for in today’s episode: Find out why Russell’s landscaping company refused $1000 to mow a weed field. See why the company who Russell pays to clean his pool, wants Russell to fix the slide himself. And find out why you should look at what you do and see if there are extra piles of cash lying around that you can pick up. So listen below to find out if you are missing out on some big piles of cash. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone. This is Russell Brunson and we are back to Marketing in Your Car. All right, all right. Before you make fun of me, I’m not riding my bike today. It was really hard. It took me 25 minutes to get to the office and then on the way home I wasn’t recording. So I was just cranking as fast as I could. It took me 18 minutes to get back home. So it was quite a workout and today, my legs are sore. Old Man Brunson is taking the easy way. So I’m driving today. All right. So I think the last two podcasts, I’ve kind of gone on little rants because I wanted to go on little rants. Today I’m waking up in a good mood and so I am going to – not go on a rant. We’re going to have some fun. So I do want to – hopefully give you something that will give you some value that I’ve been thinking about and I want you to understand and hopefully every business owner who’s listening to this understand that right now, like you’re doing your business. You’re doing your job. You’re doing what you’re good at and my guess is that you’re making some money and you’re excited and you’re like this is awesome and – but the problem is that if you were to stop for a second and stop looking at what you’re doing and look up and then look around really quick, there are piles of cash all around you that you just have to go grab and pick up and that would be your money as well. It’s just sitting there. It’s just like boom, there’s cash. But you’re not grabbing it because you’re so focused on doing the thing. So let me give you some real world examples that happened to me this week so you can kind of understand this. So the first one was our lawn guys and we got – we moved into our new house. We got a ridiculously oversized yard, we’re on five acres and like two of the acres is kind of like a field but three of the acres are our home and all this stuff and grass. So these guys come once a week and they mow it and it takes two guys like three hours to mow, plus a bunch of dudes doing like the edging and stuff, right? And next – like next two are the same thing but like two acres of our thing is unfinished. It’s kind of like just whatever field and because of that, like the field grows and it’s like a nightmare and it’s like all these weeds, right? So my wife was like, “Hey, can you guys mow that?” And they’re like, “Oh, no you wouldn’t want us to mow that. You should just go get a field mower and do it yourself,” and we’re like, “Well, we don’t want to do it ourselves. Like we hire lawn people so they do it for us,” and these guys are like no, like just – like just go to – whatever the rental place. You can rent something like for a hundred bucks and you can do it. So first time, I’m like, “You know what? That will be fun. I will just whatever. It would be good for me to like do some manual labor.” So I go down to Tate’s Rental and I rent the thing for 100 bucks. I bring it back. I spend three hours. I mow the whole lawn and we had a good time and it was nice, right? So now, a month and a half later, weeds are as high as me again and guess what I do not want to do. I don’t want to do it again. I want to pay someone. In fact, I would love to pay the people that we hire to do my lawn to do my field right next door and I was thinking about like what I would be willing to pay for that. I think like conservatively, I would pay an extra $1000 a month to have these guys do that. Once a month they come and just knock out the field, right? So I was thinking like how much profit would that be for them. So it’s like if they have to go rent because they don’t have a field mower which is their excuse why they don’t want to do it, right? We don’t have a field mower. So they would have to go to Tate’s like I did and rent it for $100. So one-tenth of the profit going to fulfillment cost. They have to pay someone for three hours of work to do it. So you’re looking at – they probably pay their guys 12 bucks an hour so they pay them $10, $20, $30, $36. So you’re in $136 and from that, you’re going to make 800 and whatever. I can’t do math while I’m driving. I don’t want to get in a wreck that way. Whatever that difference is, almost 900 bucks in pure profit just by picking up the cash that’s sitting there, right? But instead they told me like, “No, you should just do it. No, go do it. Go do it.” All right. So there’s example number one but it gets worse because they’re not the only ones. Almost every company is doing this. So I’ve ranted before about our pool companies which we’re trying to get to come help us, right? I think pool companies are the worst. I don’t know. Anyway, so the pool dude is at our house and my wife is like, “Hey, our slide is not right. We want to pay someone to come and fix this. Do you guys do that?” And the guy is like, “Yeah, we could do that but all you got to do is go to the store and buy some Epoxy and just slap it on there and it will be fine.” She’s like, “Well, we don’t want to do that. Can we hire you guys to do that?” The guy is like, “No, it’s really easy. Just go and get some Epoxy and you can slap it on the thing,” and he’s trying to explain to her how to do it. So after three times of her asking if we can give him money, and he rejecting us, telling us how we can do it ourselves, but we don’t want to do it ourselves. We got no desire to do it ourselves. We want to give somebody money to do it. Why don’t you like money? After three times, she quit bugging him because she can tell like he’s getting annoyed because we can’t figure out how to do it ourselves. OK? Your company is a pool company. We give you money every week to come and clean our pool. We would love to give you money to do this as well. Money is just sitting there. They could just pick it up, they’re not. Okay. Now, they come once a week and clean our pools, right? So then I come home from the office the other day. There’s a big note on the door because we weren’t there and it says, “Hey, so we were cleaning your pool and we noticed that the filters are dirty and they’re probably old. So you need to go pick up some new filters and install them. That way, it will keep the pool cleaner.” Okay, does anyone see an issue here? You’re the freaking pool company! You should be the ones going and getting the filters and putting them in and charging me for it! I would love to give you money. Do you think I have any idea first off where the pool filters are in the pool, second off, where to buy the pool filters, third off, how to like unscrew the thing and install the things? Like no! I want to give you money. You are the pool company. I hired you to do pool things for me. I want you just to take care of it and bill me for it. But instead there’s a big stack of money that you could just take. You explain to me in a handwritten note how I should go and change the filters. Come on! Anyway, those are like three crazy examples. I still can’t even fathom. Like, if the entrepreneur in these companies knew what their employees were doing, they would roll over in their graves, right? If they’re alive, they would shoot themselves and then roll over in their graves because they would be so upset at how much money they can make if their stupid employees would just grab it. Like just take it. It’s right there. All right. Man, this turned into a rant too. Maybe this is the Russell Rant Show. Anyway, I’m hoping that this is a benefit to you because I promise you, in your business right now, you as the entrepreneur or the employees on your team are probably leaving money, stacks of cash that people would love to give you and in fact they probably tried to give it to you and your employees have told them no or maybe you’ve done it. Maybe you’re like, “Oh no, I don’t do stuff like that.” Someone hires you to build a funnel and they’re like, “Hey, can you write copy for me?” I don’t write copy. I’m above copy. Okay, maybe you should charge them for copy and find a copywriter to do it and make some money on the spread. How many places are you just leaving stacks of cash? So I want to encourage you guys over this next week while you’re doing what you do to pay the bills, to slow down and stop. Look around and just look around all the piles of cash that’s sitting there and be like, “Oh, there’s one right there.” These people would probably love to give me more money if I help serve them a little bit more. OK? People always get upset – not always but there are people who get upset about upsells and trying to ascend people up through their funnel and I don’t get that. If you think about it, if you’re providing more value for your customers, your customers will be ecstatic to give you more money. Okay? I went to the dentist and he told me that my teeth were crooked. I need a retainer. I was ecstatic to give him money because it meant that my teeth were going to get clean. It wasn’t that I was annoyed that he was trying to sell me something. He was giving me more value. OK? And I promise you guys that there are things you can do in your business right now to give your customer more value and they will give you big old fat stacks of cash. The cool thing about that kind of cash is that kind of cash is all profit. Okay? Because you don’t have to go pay for an ad. You don’t have to go drive new people. You don’t have to convince them or sell them or anything. All you have to do is be smart enough to look and see it and then be like, “Hey, you want me to help you there?” Yes, that would be fantastic. I would love for you to help me there. You want me to help you there? Yes! And it becomes really easy. So that’s my gift for you guys this week is for you to pause, step back, look around at all the piles of cash sitting around you and just go take them. They want you to take them. They’re begging you to take them. My wife and I are so upset these guys won’t take our money. We’re trying to find other people to take our money because the people we hired to take our money won’t take our money. That’s the reality of the world we live in. They want you to take their money. So just take it. OK? You’re doing yourself a favor. You’re doing them a favor and the whole world will be more happy because of it. All right. There you go guys. I’m at the office. I appreciate you guys. Have a fantastic day. Look for the piles of cash. Because they’re there just waiting for you to pick them up. I appreciate you guys and talk soon.