Podcasts about ron you

Join hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham in Part 2 of the discussion on database sharding with Ron Soltani, a Senior Principal Database & Security Instructor. They talk about sharding native replication, directory-based sharding, and coordinated backup and restore for sharded databases, explaining how these features work and their benefits. Additionally, they explore the automatic bulk data move on sharding keys and the ability to split and move partition sets, highlighting the flexibility and efficiency they bring to data management.   Oracle MyLearn: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-database-23ai-new-features-for-administrators/137192/207062   Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/   X: https://twitter.com/Oracle_Edu   Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.   --------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative  podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started! 00:26 Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast. I'm Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs with Oracle University, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Principal Technical Editor. Nikita: Hi everyone! In our last episode, we dove into database sharding and Oracle Database Sharding in particular. If you haven't listened to it yet, I'd suggest you go back and do so before you listen to this episode because it will give you a lot of context.  00:53 Lois: Right, Niki. Today, we will discuss all the 23ai new features related to database sharding. We will cover sharding native replication, directory-based sharding, coordinated backup and restore for sharded databases, and a few more.  Nikita: And we're so happy to have Ron Soltani back on the podcast. If you don't already know him, Ron is a Senior Principal Database & Security Instructor with Oracle University. Hi Ron! Let's talk about sharding native replication, which is RAFT-based, meaning that it is reliable and fault tolerant-based, usually providing subzero or subsecond zero data loss replication support. Tell us more about it, please.  01:33 Ron: This is completely transparent replication built in within Oracle sharding that duplicates data across the different shards. So data are generally put into chunks. And then the chunks are replicated either between three or five different shards, depending on how much of the fault tolerance is required.  This is completely provided by the Oracle sharding database, and does not require use of any other component like GoldenGate and Data Guard. So if you remember when we talked about the architecture, we said that each shard, each database can have a Data Guard component, whether through GoldenGate or whether through Data Guard to have a standby.  And that way support high availability with the sharding native replication, you don't rely on the secondary database. You actually-- the shards will back each other up by holding replicas and being able to globally manage the replica, make sure everything is preserved, and manage all of the fault operations.  Now this is a logical replication, generally consensus-based, kind of like different components all aware of each other. They know which component is good, depending on the load, depending on the failure. The sharded databases behind the scene decide who is actually serving the data to the client. That can provide subsecond failovers with zero data loss.  03:15 Lois: And what are the benefits of this? Ron: Major benefits for having sharding native replication is that it is completely transparent to the application or any of the structures. You just identify that you want to go ahead and use this replication and identify the replication factor. The rest is managed by the Oracle sharded database behind the scene.  It supports fast failover with zero data loss, usually subsecond failovers. And depending on the number of replicas, it can even tolerate multiple failures like two server failures.  And when the loads are submitted, the loads are also load-balanced across all of these shards based on where the data is located, based on the replicas. So this way, it can also provide you with a little bit of a better utilization of the hardware and load administration.  So generally, it's designed to help you keep your regular SQL-based databases without having to resolve to FauxSQL or NoSQL environment getting into other databases. 04:33 Nikita: So next is directory-based sharding. Can you tell us what directory-based sharding is, Ron?  Ron: Directory-based sharding basically allows the user to define the values that are used and combined for different partition, so better control, location of the data, in what partition, what shard. So this allows you to set up a good configuration.  Now, many times we may have a key that may not be large enough for hash partitioning to distribute the data enough. Sometimes we may not even know what keys are going to come in the future. And these need to be built in the future. So having to build these, you really don't want to have to go reorganize the whole data based on new hash functions, and so when data cannot be managed and distributed using hash partitioning or when we need full control over combination of where data exists.  05:36 Lois: Can you give us a practical example of how this works? Ron: So let's say our company is very small in three different countries. So I can combine those three countries into one single shard. And then have three other big countries, each one sitting in their own individual shards. So all of this done through this directory-based sharding. However, what is good about this is the directory is created, which is a table, created behind the scene, stored in the catalog, available to the client that is cached with them, used for connection mapping, used for data access. So it can give you a lot of very high-level benefits.  06:24 Nikita: Speaking of benefits, what are the key advantages of using directory-based sharding? Ron: First benefit allow you to group the data together based on the whatever values you want, depending on what location you want to put them as far as across the shards are concerned. So all of that is much better and easier controlled by us or by the designers. Now, this is when there is not enough values available. So when you're going to use hash-based partition, that would result into an uneven distribution of the data.  Therefore, we may be able to use this directory for better distribution of the data since we understand the data structure better than just the hash function. And having a specification where you can go ahead and create future component, future partitions, depending on how large they're going to be. Maybe you're creating them with an existing shard, later put them in another shard. So capability of having all of those controls become essential for management of this specific type of data.  If a shard value, the key value is required, for example, as we said, client getting too big or can use the key value, split it or get multiple key value. Combine them. Move data from one location to another. So all of these components maintain automatically behind the scene by us providing the changes. And then the directory sharding and then the sharded database manages all of the data structure, movement, everything behind the scene using some of the future functionalities. And finally, large chunk of data, all of that can then be moved from one location to another. This is part of the automatic chunk data move and whatnot, but utilized within the directory-based sharding to allow us the control of this data and how we're going to move and manage the data based on the load as the load or the size of the data changes.  08:50 Lois: Ron, what is the purpose of the coordinated backup and restore system in Oracle Database Sharding? Ron: So, basically when we talk about a coordinated backup and restore, remember in a sharded database, I have different databases. Each database is a shard. When you take a backup, each database creates its own backup.  So to have consistent data across all of the shards for the whole schema, it is extremely important for these databases to be coordinated when the backup is taken, when the restore is being done. So you have consistency of the data maintained across all of the shards.  09:28 Nikita: So, how does this coordination actually happen? Ron: You don't submit this through our main. You submit this through the Global Management tool that is used for the sharded database. And it's the Global Management tool that is actually submit your request to each database, but maintains the consistency of when the actual backup is taken, what SCN.  So that SCN coordination across all of the shards is then maintained for the backup so you can create a consistent backup or restore to a consistent point in time across the sharded database. So now this system was enhanced in 23C to support multiple destinations.  So you can now send your backup to an object store. You can send it to ZDLRA. You can send it to Amazon S3. So multiple locations can now be defined where you can send these backups to. You can also use multiple recovery catalogs.  So let's say I have data that is located on different countries and we have requirement that data for each country must stay in that country. So I need to also use a separate catalog to maintain that partition.  So now I can use multiple catalog and define which catalog is maintaining which partition to satisfy those type of requirements or any data administration requirement when it comes to backup recovery. In addition, you can also now specify different type of encryption to be used, whether you want to have different type of encryption algorithm for each of the databases that you're backing up that is maintained. It can be identified, and then set up for each one of those components.  So these advancements now allow you to manage this coordinated backup and restore with all of the various specific configuration that may be required based on the data organization. So the encryption, now can also be done across that, as I mentioned, for different algorithms. And you can define different components.  Finally, there is much better error handling and response available through this global system. Since things have been synchronized, you get much better information into diagnosing any issues.  12:15 Want to get the inside scoop on Oracle University? Head over to the Oracle University Learning Community. Attend exclusive events. Read up on  the latest news. Get first-hand access to new products. Read the OU Learning Blog. Participate in challenges. And stay up-to-date with upcoming certification opportunities. Visit www.mylearn.oracle.com to get started.  12:41 Nikita: Welcome back! Continuing with the updates… next up is the automatic bulk data move on sharding keys. Ron, can you explain how this works and why it's significant? Ron: And by the way, this doesn't have to be a bulk data. This could be just an individual row or it could be bulk data, a huge piece of data that is going to be moved.  Now, in the past, when the shard key of an existing record was going to be updated, we basically had to remove that row from the table, so moving it to a temporary table or moving it to another location. Basically, you're deleting the row, and then change the value and reinsert the row so the row would then be inserted into the proper location.  That causes a lot of work and requires specific code-writing and whatnot to manage those specific type of situations. And of course, if there is a lot of data, now, you're moving those bulk data in twice.  13:45 Lois: Yeah… you're moving it to one location and then moving it back in. That's a lot of double work, not to mention that it all needs to be managed manually, right? So, how has this process been improved? Ron: So now, basically, you can just go ahead and update the value of the partition key, and then data will then automatically move to the new location. So this gives you complete flexibility of the shard key values.  This is also completely transparent, and again, completely managed behind the scenes. All you do is identify what is going to be changed. Then the database will maintain the actual data location and movement behind the scenes.  14:31 Lois: And what are some of the specific benefits of this feature? Ron: Basically, it allows you to now be flexible, be able to update the shard key without having to worry about, oh, which location does this value have to exist? Do I have to delete it, reinsert it? And all of those different operations.  And this is done automatically by Oracle database, but it does require for you to enable row movement at the table level. So for tables that are expected to have partition key updates kind of without knowing when that happens, can happen, any time it happens by the clients directly or something, then we may need to enable row movement at the table level and leave it enabled. It does have tiny bit of overhead of maintaining these row locations behind the scenes when enabled, as it maintains some metadata behind the scenes.  But for cases that, let's say I know when the shard key is going to be changed, and we can use, let's say, a written procedure or something for that when the particular shard key is going to be changed. Then when the shard key is updated, the data will then automatically move to the new location based on that shard key operation. So we don't need to move the data manually in and out or to different locations.  16:03 Nikita: In our final segment, I want to bring up the update on splitting and moving a partition set, or basically subpartitioning tables and then being able to move all of the data associated with that in a bulk data move to a new location. Ron, can you explain how this process works?  Ron: This gives us a lot of flexibility for data management based on future requirements, size of the data, key changes, or key management requirements.  So generally when we use a composite sharding, remember, this is a combination of user-defined partitioning plus the system partitioning put together. That kind of defines a little bit more control over how the shards are, where the data is distributed evenly across the shards.  So sometimes based on this type of configuration, we may actually need to split partition and that can cause the shard key values to be now assigned to a new shard space based on the partitioning reconfiguration. So data, this needs to be automatically managed. So when you go ahead and split partition or partitionsets, then the data based on your configuration, based on your identification can automatically move to the new location automatically between those shard spaces.  17:32 Lois: What are some of the key advantages of this for clients? Ron: This provides a huge benefit to clients because it allows them flexibility of better managing their configuration, expanding both configuration servers, the structures for better management of the data and the load. Data is completely online during all of this data move. Since this is being done behind the scenes by the database, it does not impact the availability of the data for anyone who is actually using the data.  And then, data is generally moved using transportable tablespaces in big bulk and big chunks. So it's almost like copying portions of the files. If you remember in Oracle database, we could take a backup of big files as image copy in pieces. This is kind of similar where chunks of data can then be moved and then transported if possible depending on the organization of the data itself for those particular partitions.  18:48 Lois: So, what does it look like in practice? Ron: Well, clients now can go ahead and rearrange their data structure based on the adjustments of the partitioning that already exists within the sharded database. The bulk data move then automatically triggers once the customer execute the statement to go ahead and restructure the partitioning. And then all of the client, they're still accessing data. All of the data operation are completely maintained behind the scene.  19:28 Nikita: Thank you for joining us today, Ron. If you want to learn more about what we discussed today, visit mylearn.oracle.com and search for the Oracle Database 23ai New Features for Administrators course. Join us next week for a discussion on some more Oracle Database 23ai new features. Until then, this is Nikita Abraham… Lois: And Lois Houston signing off! 19:51 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

Change is here and security has to change with it. In this episode, Mark speaks with Ron Worman, Founder of The Sage Group and Managing Director of The Great Conversation. Ron talks about how the security industry is ripe for reinvention. With AI shaking things up on a fundamental level, security leaders must adapt to this reality and let go of outdated methods. Aside from a mindset focused on innovation, leaders must build a business model for the future that allows people to get retrained and redeployed during downturns.Tune in as Ron digs into embracing change and emerging technologies on The Fearless Mindset Podcast.GOLDEN NUGGETSReimagine security as times change- Ron: "I am now putting security in the category of bookstores, music, and taxis just for a second. And we're doing it as a thought experiment, not because we're saying that security's no longer relevant. Music is still relevant, books are still relevant under a different form, even on a Kindle, and taxis are still relevant under a different form called Uber and Lyft."Prepare for the future and save money - Ron: "You shouldn't wait till you get laid off to be putting money in the bank. Don't take that extra trip to Hawaii. Don't spend money on that 60-inch screen. Make sure you're putting 10% every day out of your pay. And if really want to buy off on the fact that everything you do impacts your world, set another contribution aside to nonprofits who are helping people."Get to know more about Ron:LinkedIn | The Great ConversationTo hear more episodes of The Fearless Mindset podcast, you can go to https://the-fearless-mindset.simplecast.com/ or listen to major podcasting platforms such as Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify, etc. You can also subscribe to the Fearless Mindset YouTube Channel to watch episodes on video.

Nicholas – Was my confession valid? Anita - I heard the 13th Bishop of Columbus Ohio was so Joyful that I want to move to Ohio! Connie - I like the Rosary in the rearview mirror. But It can go against you if you get into an ascendant and they are trying to find out who's at fault. Ron - You were talking about the Trinity yesterday. I was under the impression that God the Father would be a little more Superior. Can you explain this more? Patrick recommends “Theology and Sanity” by Frank Sheed Cecilia - How many disciples were there during Pentecost? Maria - I interpreted his question quite differently, I thought he was talking about a habitual sin. Elias - Why is Jesus painted with blue eyes and blond hair? How do they know what he looked like? Kelly - Is there a book about Queen Vashti in the book of Esther? Patrick recommends seeking out Catholic commentaries about her. Brian – At what stage of life does someone get original sin?

What you'll learn in this episode: Why people collect jewelry even if they have no intention of wearing it How understanding the historical context of a piece of antique jewelry can increase your enjoyment of it Why if you only invest in one vintage piece, it should showcase the quintessential style of the period Why interest in estate jewelry has skyrocketed How to choose a reputable dealer About Ron Kawitzky Ronald Kawitzky, with his late wife, Sherry Kawitzky, is the founder of estate jewelry firm DK Bressler. The young husband and wife team began their treasure hunts searching for the very finest jewels and rare collectible objects at markets and fairs across the country, and later expanded their travels around the world — throughout Europe and the far edges of the globe, including Ronald's native South Africa. The two developed a defining style and built a collection of brilliant jewelry spanning a broad array of stylistic periods from antiquity to the 21st century. This collection evolved into the DK Bressler brand, named after Ronald's mother, Doreen Kawitzky, and Sherry's mother, Selma Bressler. Together the couple set up shop in New York City's Diamond District in 1990, while continuing to scour the globe for unique treasures to bring back home. While Sherry passed away in 2001, Ronald continues their legacy, finding the very best jewels and gemstones that fit their shared style. Additional Resources: DK Bressler's Website DK Bressler's Instagram Photos:   Ron Kawitzky didn't set out to become a jewelry dealer, but like many collectors, once he started buying antique and estate jewelry, he couldn't stop. His passion for jewelry (and the history behind it) led him to found the estate jewelry firm DK Bressler with his wife, Sherry. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about what qualities collectors should look for when purchasing antique jewelry; how to choose a reputable dealer; and why you should always buy jewelry that excites you. Read the episode transcript here. Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. Here at the Jewelry Journey, we're about all things jewelry. With that in mind, I wanted to let you know about an upcoming jewelry conference, which is “Beyond Boundaries: Jewelry of the Americas.” It's sponsored by the Association for the Study of Jewelry and Related Arts, or, as it's otherwise known, ASJRA. The conference takes place virtually on Saturday and Sunday May 21 and May 22, which is around the corner. For details on the program and the speakers, go to www.jewelryconference.com. Non-members are welcome. I have to say that I attended this conference in person for several years, and it's one of my favorite conferences. It's a real treat to be able to sit in your pajamas or in comfies in your living room and listen to some extraordinary speakers. So, check it out. Register at www.jewelryconference.com. See you there. Today, my guest is Ron Kawitzky, owner and founder of the estate jewelry firm DK Bressler, which is based in New York. Ron's choices for his wares are fueled by his knowledge and his passion for history. That's pretty evident when you look at his exhibits at tradeshows and elsewhere. Today, we'll learn about Ron's own jewelry journey as well as the estate jewelry market yesterday and today. Ron, welcome to the program. Ron: Good morning, Sharon. Nice to speak to you. Sharon: It's so great to have you. Tell us about your jewelry journey. Were you creative as a child? How did you get into jewelry? Ron: I was actually creative as a child. I was an arts major at school. I dumped mathematics for artwork, which I much preferred. I won all kinds of awards for that, but I was a history buff too. Between the two, knowing about jewelry periods just seemed natural and normal to me. Sharon: How did you segue? What did your family say when you said, “I want to be a jeweler” or “I want to go into the arts”? Ron: My father said, “You can't make a living on that.” For birthdays and holidays, you got a piece of jewelry, but you couldn't make a living out of buying one or two pieces of jewelry a year. He wasn't aware of London and New York as centers for the jewelry trade and profession. He was not ecstatic about it at all, but I've been collecting and buying and trading since I was young, so it seemed quite normal and natural to me. Sharon: So, you were involved even though your bent was towards art. At the same time, you were collecting jewelry and enjoying it. Ron: Yes, very much so. I always liked collecting things. I was kind of a nerdy kid. I bought everything from paintings to silver to small jewelry when I could find them. There was no appreciation back in those days, which was diamonds or nothing. Sharon: You went into accounting, though, right? Ron: Yes, isn't that awful? It's public now, but I would normally deny that entirely. Sharon: Well, you can make a living in accounting, at least here in the States. It seems a little bit of a dichotomy to me, jewelry and accounting. Tell us, your firm is called DK Bressler. Obviously, that's not your name. How did that name come about? Ron: My last name is Kawitzky, which people can't spell. It's K-a-w-i-t-z-k-y. In order to try to avoid terminal problems and whatever else, we picked my late wife's name. My late wife's mother's name was Bressler, and my mother's name was DK. It worked out that way. Sharon: When did you establish your business? Ron: I established the business in 1990, 1989, or something like that. It's been fantastic ever since, frankly. Sharon: Along the way did you study jewelry? Did you continue to deal in jewelry when you were in the corporate world? Ron: No, I bought jewelry as gifts and presents for my wife. I always loved dealing with it and playing with it. From the age of 13 I went to London with my parents, and I remember my mother had a friend in the jewelry trade. I would sit in their apartment and open a bag, and all these colors and stones would come flying out of the bag. I was always intrigued, and I was 13 at the time. This seemed great. So the idea that I could make a living out of it when I got older was very exciting for me. Sharon: Was it always in the back of your mind as a second career if you stopped doing accounting? For me, it would be if I couldn't take it anymore. Ron: I really quit the day I graduated from accounting school. It was a seven-year master's program. I couldn't tell you one thing. The next day, I was so unmoored. I think I have a left brain, not a right brain. It went more towards style and beauty and stuff like that. Sharon: Seven years, wow! Ron: Columns of figures didn't do it for me. Sharon: So, tell us how you opened your business. Did you open the door and say, “I'm here”? Did you have inventory? How did you do that? Ron: That is one of those critical moments that your life changes. It turns on a little occurrence you don't give full credit to, but life is not a straight, linear thing. It evolves in twists and turns. At some point in my existence, in the 80s, I found myself unemployed, probably unemployable as well. It was a very difficult time, and my wife said to me, “You've talked about the jewelry business for your whole life. Maybe it's time to finally get your hands dirty and take a chance and commit.” So, we did, with a lot of help from her, of course, and it worked. Sharon: That's a good point you made, several good points, about the fact that life is not linear. I guess to some people it might be. Ron: But wouldn't that be boring? You don't know what's around the corner. Sharon: I was thinking of the description somebody once told me about their brother who had made a lot of money. He just kept rising up the corporate ranks, and they said he led an "enchanted" life. So, he had a straight line, in a sense. Ron: Yes. Sharon: Did you open your business here or in South Africa? Ron: No, I grew up in South Africa but I'd left South Africa a long time ago by then. I opened it over here. I had a rucksack. I put three or four things in a bag and paid calls on Madison Avenue and 47th Street, at the infamous 10 West 47th Street. It was the center of the whole antique estate trade. Sharon: Who are your clients today? Who do you sell to? Who buys from you? Ron: Social media is one of them. Thank God, we have a great reputation and a history that goes back since 1990, which is already a long time ago. People call us when they want things, certain styles they need to source. We put it together, or we do shows and meet new people. We do travel a lot. I travel to Europe, to England, in America as well. Sharon: During the lockdown- maybe you did travel- but how did you manage? Ron: People were very willing to buy. They were happy to buy. I kept them in contact and in touch. Collectors are collectors. There were even more collecting types because they wanted to amuse themselves when Covid was in full flow. Sharon: Ron, what do you consider a collector? There's no real answer, but I'm always curious. What do you consider a collector? Ron: It's quite amazing. If you're buying something like Louis Comfort Tiffany, in many cases, it's men who collect things. They have no intention of their wives ever wearing it, but they love the object. They love the history. They like everything about it, and they'll buy it for their collections. He has since passed on, but I had one collector who would frame the pieces I sold him and hang them up in his bedroom. He would have a wall full of the most glorious jewelry by Tiffany, by Castellani, by Giuliano, necklaces and bracelets and things, and no one would know what they were worth. It was quite amazing. He had no expectation of wearing anything; he just loved the piece and appreciated it. Sharon: How about the women who buy from you? Do you have any women collectors? Ron: Yes, very much so. Women want to wear the pieces or fantasize about wearing the pieces, so that adds another dimension to it, which is nice. Sharon: How does history influence what you choose when you're looking at another dealer's pieces, or whoever you're buying from? How does history influence what you choose? Ron: Because I was a history buff, it was so exciting to find a piece of jewelry with certain motifs or illusions to, I don't know, Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1901 or something. it's interesting to see how people relate to these pieces. They feel part of the whole, storied past. People want to be part of a historical event. It sets you in time. It sets you in romance. It sets you in all kinds of things. Sharon: When it comes to history and historic jewels, do you have a particular time period, like ancient gems? Is there a particular time period where you start or stop? Ron: Yes. Roman cameos are wonderful, interesting to collect, but not always fully appreciated, not always fully understood. It's a very esoteric, arcane business, and it's subject to fraud and other things since you're carving with a natural stone. But if you make a study of it and you know a little bit about Greek or Roman mythology, it makes sense. Suddenly you're a part of something going back 1,000 to 1,500 years, and that's very exciting. It places you in history. Sharon: When you say that some people don't appreciate it, are you talking about people who say, “It's just another cameo,” or “I don't get it”? Ron: It's the equivalent of—and forgive me for saying this—putting the painting over the couch in the living room. It matches the color. It's there because it's beautiful, not because the green of the drapes matches the green of the carpet. Do you know what I mean? The jewelry is more important than anything else. Sharon: If someone is looking at two pieces but one has a history behind it, are you saying people will go for that? Will they say, “Oh, this one fits me better”? How does that work? Ron: How typical it is for the period? That's what you want. If you would like a piece of 1960s jewelry, it should be the quintessential piece. It should be by someone like Andrew Grima. You want somebody who understands context; otherwise, it might not mean all that much. You can just buy something for its beauty, too, but context is nice. If you understand anything about art and history, and you look at a piece of Andrew Grima's work, you understand it. There's a synergy. There's a joint thing there with Jackson Pollock, who also dripped oil onto canvas. I've seen gold dripped onto a piece of jewelry effectively. You know what I mean? It's not a very elegant way to put it, but you need the best for its time. Everything is classical in the right sense. Sharon: What do you think people should look for when they want to buy a piece of estate jewelry? Just, “Oh, this is interesting,” or should they be looking at value? Ron: It should be, “This is interesting.” You have to love it. It's like buying a share. You have to have faith in the company you're buying a share in. It's not just a question of buying something I don't believe in, because if things change, tastes change, you might not fully realize it, but it might take years to be worth its value again. Sharon: The dealers, or the people who are selling their own jewelry or buying from dealers, do they understand and appreciate the history? Ron: That's where we come in. We try and explain where it came from, what was happening in the world at the time. Is it a piece of industrial Deco jewelry? Do we know that it's 1930s, 1940s? The world was at war. It has a context. You want something to collect from the time. You wouldn't want to buy a flower brooch in 1942. It wouldn't really much sense, would it? Sharon: It's always interesting to know what the history is or to have a part of history when you're choosing a piece of jewelry as opposed to just—not even an interesting piece of jewelry, but— Ron: You need to educate yourself, and you need to pass it onto the client who wants to be told. He has every right to be told, “This is what makes this a fine piece, and that's not.” You do have to love the piece. You want to wear it; you want to enjoy it. That goes without saying. It is the prime mover of the whole thing, but once you pass that, you need to know details; you need to study. Sharon: And what do you think about today when people are looking at jewelry? What do you think is the most popular when people are looking at your jewelry? Are they looking at brooches? Are they looking at rings? Ron: Rings are probably the first seller. Rings and earrings are always the first, followed by bracelets, I would think, and ending up with brooches. Other dealers always say brooches never sell. I find that we sell brooches all the time. They're beautiful objects, even if they're not worn that much. I used to have a client who put the brooches on her lampshade next to her bed. She had a whole lampshade full of them. She just loved looking at them. When the light came through, she was so excited. It was a pleasure. Sharon: There are fabulous brooches around, yes. Do you find a difference between the coasts in what people are interested in? Ron: Yes. It's a little bit low on brooches on the coasts because you're wearing thinner dresses. In Palm Beach, you wouldn't wear giant, heavy brooches because it would drag down the silk that you're wearing. Even having said that, the ladies that wear brooches are probably also wearing Chanel and heavy fabric to go out for lunch and elsewhere. Sharon: You do need some substance behind it in order to have a brooch. Ron: Yes. Sharon: There are tricks to get that substance, even on a T-shirt. So, why is there more interest in estate jewelry today? Do you think there is, and if so, why? Ron: Very much so, as evidenced by the fact that there's not too much stuff around. We've really been battling to find fresh inventory. Part of it is because a lot of it is sold these days through the auction houses instead of being sold through dealers. It seems to be a push towards the auction houses. Sharon: Are you finding it more of a challenge today to find pieces? Ron: Yeah, very much so. Either people don't need to sell, or these are prosperous times. Sharon: Do you buy through auction houses? Ron: Very, very little. I have a few things that I need that I'll track down. The auction house can be very helpful, but mainly you want pieces that haven't passed through those storied doors. People want privacy to a large extent as well. Some people want privacy. They want to buy; they don't want the whole world to see what they paid for things. Sharon: That's a good point. During the lockdown—it seems you were online a lot more through Covid. Ron: Yeah, we had to get more into that because I'm a little bit lost that way. I can't fully understand the internet and what you can do with it, but luckily, I have good helpers that help me do that stuff. It doesn't come naturally to me. I'm still stuck in the past history-wise. Sharon: I think it doesn't come naturally to a lot of people, including people like boomers on the tail end of the baby boom. It's overwhelming in terms of what there is to learn and how fast it changes. Ron: It's amazing, isn't it? Anyway, we found ourselves sitting in front of the computer monitor. People called up for things, and we were shipping out stuff from all over the place, which was wonderful. Sharon: Somebody would call you up for something, and you could look on Instagram or different sites to find it? Ron: Our own site would bring people in. Sharon: I was looking at your site last night. Is there a lot more you have? Ron: Yes, we have ten million things, it seems like. What you see online is probably half of a half of a percent. We have things in every category, every range. Buying is the treat, as everyone knows, and collecting and organizing things and curating is exciting to me, too. I have different collections of different things. I guess it shows if somebody's looking for something. We have copies and duplicates; not copies of jewelry, but similar pieces in duplicate because we loved it. If a piece is in great condition and exciting, it's worth buying. Sharon: Do you find more pieces that are worthwhile from a historic perspective over in Europe? Do you find them in people's safe deposit boxes around the country? Where do you find those? Ron: You never know where the next piece is coming from, Sharon. It's amazing. Overseas is one thing, because there's a much greater appreciation for estate and antique jewelry in Europe, I believe, than even in America, but you're going to beat the bushes a little bit and try to get things from your suppliers. There's always something coming out. Sharon: Do you think there's more appreciation of estate jewelry abroad because people here like shiny new things? Ron: That, to an extent. They've been spoiled. They treat jewelry as an accessory. I find that the Germans, the English, buy things more as an heirloom piece. They want to pass it onto a grandchild or something. They look at it differently, whereas we look at it as more decorative, completely decorative. You buy it and you get bored with it, and the wedding is over and you can't deal with this piece again. You move, and there are people who'll sell a piece of jewelry. Whereas the Europeans have considered it very carefully and look at the long term, thank goodness; otherwise, there would be nothing left altogether to buy. Sharon: That's interesting and makes sense. Not to denigrate anything or anyone, but jewelry has to be pretty. Whether it's historic or not, it has to be something you like, whether you're going to pass it on or whether you think it's going to be sold to another dealer. It has to be pretty. Ron: That's the first thing I said. You've got to love it. You have to enjoy it. You must think of it as a piece of pleasure that you're wearing on your chest, which is lovely. Sharon: I'm always interested in this question, Ron. What is the catalyst that got you to switch? You said you were unemployed, but switching from accounting to opening your own estate jewelry business is a huge step in my book. Was there something? Did your boss come in and say, “I want this by tomorrow”? Ron: Now, you asked me a long question. I need to lie down on the couch, probably, to answer this question. I was in a public company we founded that was very successful. Then came the stock market in the late 80s. If you recall, everyone lost their money. We lost our second go-around for money. It was a long story, but effectively, that was really it. In the food business, we came up with an idea that was very lucrative, and it worked very well, but no one was buying anything in the late 80s in the stock market. So, I found myself available, as I said. Sharon: Some people have a business, but they're on Ruby Lane, or you see them at the shows on weekends buying and selling jewelry. Were you doing that? Was that in the background? Ron: We always bought things. We always knew some dealers, and we'd go and tour these antique shows on the weekends. There used to be many more of them in New York. You'd meet people and find things and dabble a little bit, but it was always just buying. We never did any selling because whatever we bought, we liked. I still have those early pieces I bought when I wasn't even that familiar with them. It really made a big difference. I never stopped enjoying that, and it came in very handy. When I found myself unemployed, I started selling the things I'd collected. That got me in the business that way, through the back door. Sharon: I think you said an important point about the fact that there are not as many antique fairs right now. It's partly Covid, but are they just waning? Was this something that was going on before Covid, that there are fewer antique fairs? Ron: There were so many. There were two or three every weekend in Westchester and Long Island. We would travel all over the place in those days. When the kids were young, we'd bundle them up and go spend money. I guess we chose well, because you'd sit in a little auction house storefront in Queens somewhere, and you'd buy a little pair of earrings for $120 and it seemed magical. By the time we got home, we'd be so nervous. “Oh my god, is this the right way? Is it the wrong thing to buy?” Then Monday morning you'd rush off to 47th Street and sell and make 30 percent of your money, and you'd say, “That was easy. I could do this again.” Confidence just gets built on confidence, and it worked, thank goodness. Sharon: Wow! I give you a lot of credit. Some of the things I look for when I'm buying a piece of estate jewelry are, besides the fact that I should love it, that it has to be in good condition. Do you need to be somebody who's worked with jewelry to know that? Ron: Condition is important because that could impact the future of the piece after a year or two. It should be correct for the time, correct for the period. It's really important, and you should get pleasure out of it. The prime thing is to enjoy it, wear it with excitement, and you'll get many years of pleasure out of it. Sharon: I think it's really important to wear it with excitement, like, “Oh, my gosh, this is so fabulous! Look at this!” I'm thinking of dealers who have sold to me, and I felt like they were selling as opposed to somebody who—I know when I've looked at some of your pieces, you explain where they came from or why they're important. Is that what we should be looking for? Ron: Yes, very much so. It's a good question that you asked, Sharon. I think it's important for a dealer to be reputable. They should be steeped in knowledge about what they're buying or selling. You find out more about your car before you buy it; you should find out about the wonderful piece of jewelry. It's of equal value in many cases. Sharon: I'm thinking about some of the pieces I've seen which you've shown, a fabulous pair of cameo earrings. Ron: Yes. Sharon: It sounds like you're saying the dealer has to be the first line in terms of educating somebody. Ron: That's so well put. It's exactly right, but you've got to do your own work. You should ask them for a write-up on an invoice, and probably in most cases, these things should be appraised for insurance purposes. It's important to understand what you're buying. It's an arcane, esoteric world, and people should be careful. Sharon: How do I know if I'm buying from somebody reputable, let's say I go to the Miami Show in January or February, which is huge in that there are so many dealers. What should I look for? How do I know that somebody's reputable? Ron: Look at the other pieces the dealer has in his showcase. You'll see the kind of pieces he gets. Most people are just buying gold for gold and not of an age and not of a period. It might not mean anything to them, and it might not mean anything for the customer, but I'm saying to enjoy the piece more profoundly, steep yourself in knowledge of the piece and the age and the epoch. I think that's really important, and condition is everything. Sharon: That's a good point, having brought several pieces that I purchased from other dealers that I took to the repair shop several times. The condition is very important. Ron: Welcome me back, and we'll talk about it for as long as you want. I can't think of anything more fun than discussing a piece. I love it. It's exciting to me, and I like transmitting the excitement to the next person. Sharon: You have several pieces you've shown me in the past. I could feel your excitement. They weren't pieces that called to me so much, but I could feel your excitement in it. Ron: I still enjoy it. I still get excited every time somebody brings a piece. You could look at it again and study again and discover something new about it, and that's the thrill. It connects us to our whole history, to the whole background, to literature. It makes sense. If you understand it, you'll get more pleasure out of it, like anything else. Sharon: That's a very good point. Ron: Thank you so much, Sharon, it's very nice of you to include me in your podcast. Sharon: Thank you very much, Ron. Ron: You are so welcome, and thank you. Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.

Our guest today is Ron Schneidermann, CEO at AllTrails, the ultimate guide for outdoor adventures. AllTrails was early to the consumer subscription space, launching a $3/month premium tier way back in 2012. Ron joined as CMO and COO in 2015, and then took over as CEO in 2019, helping to grow AllTrails to over 1 million subscribers and tens of millions of active users worldwide.On the podcast, we talk with Ron about the magic of consumer subscriptions, experimenting with freemium strategies, and how private equity isn't always as bad as you've been led to believe.In this episode, you'll learn: How to refine and optimize your freemium strategy Two things you need to keep an eye on as a founder The pros & cons of outside funding vs. organic growth How Ron fast-tracked AllTrails' profitability Links & Resources Accenture Hotwire Yelp Liftopia Alex Honnold Spectrum Equity Ron Schneidermann's Links Ron Schneidermann's LinkedIn page AllTrails Celebrates 1 Million Paid Subscribers! (January press release) AllTrails' website AllTrails is hiring Follow AllTrails on Twitter Follow us on Twitter: David Barnard Jacob Eiting RevenueCat Sub Club Episode Transcript00:00:00 David:Our guest today is Ron Schneidermann, CEO at AllTrails, the ultimate guide for outdoor adventures, AllTrails was early to the consumer subscription space, launching a $3 per month premium tier, way back in 2012. Ron joined as CMO and COO in 2015, and then took over as CEO in 2019, helping to grow AllTrails to over 1 million subscribers and tens of millions of active users world.On the podcast, we talk with Ron about the magic of consumer subscriptions, experimenting with freemium strategies, and how private equity isn't always as bad as you've been led to believe.Hey, Ron! Welcome to the podcast. 00:00:59 Ron:Thanks for having me.00:01:00 David:Yeah. Really looking forward to the chat today. I wanted to kick it off, and most people know what AllTrails is, and it's a fantastic brand. It kind of tells you what it is right there on the tin. What's your pitch? We're in 2021, post pandemic.Give us the short version of what AllTrails is. What does it mean? 00:01:21 Ron:Yeah. So AllTrails is a free app and website that helps you find trails all over the globe, so you can spend more time enjoying the outdoors, and spending time in nature.00:01:34 David:That's awesome.00:01:35 Jacob:That's a very nice mission. That's way more beautiful than helping developers make more money. Both are important, but I can smell that. It smells, “piney” and I like it.00:01:46 David:Yeah, it smells like the Colorado forest. I haven't been hiking forever, and doing all the research to chat with you today was like, oh man, I need to go hiking more.00:01:55 Ron:I heard there's a great app for that.00:01:57 David:I heard that.So, I did want to also ask about your journey to AllTrails. You got there fairly early, and then grew in, and you're now CEO. Tell me, off the bat, what led you to AllTrails way back in 2015 when it was just six people?00:02:20 Ron:Yeah. To answer that I'm going to go a little bit further back in time. My first job right after college was at Accenture, at a global management consulting firm. It was great. A good jumping off point, and I learned a ton. I didn't know anything going into that job. You know, you get the rubber stamp and it opens doors.By the end of my third year there, I kind of had a realization. Epifany is a little too strong a word, but I just kind kinda realized I can't take a job just for money again. The amount of time and energy that I was putting into it, and the lack of work-life balance, it really made me rethink who I want to be. Who does working Ron want to be?So, I was able to parlay that Accenture job into a biz dev role over at Hotwire, an online travel company. That was really where it opened my eyes. Like, I am so much happier, and I am honestly so much better when I'm working at something that I'm just personally passionate about.That guiding principle has really held through throughout my career trajectory. From Hotwire, I want to do my own startup in the ski space. I love to ski. So, I did that for nine years. It was a ton of fun. Then I was over at Yelp, doing growth for a bit. I love finding non-chain restaurants, and supporting mom and pop businesses, and stuff. I live in Yelp, so that was great.Then, when the opportunity for AllTrails presented itself, it was just kind of a no-brainer. Of course I'm going to take this.I'll say this to you, one little addendum, one of the things I learned along the way, too. I am not a zero to one guy. That is not when I am at my best. It just causes me stress and anxiety, and just, figuring out how to keep the lights on for another day.So, again, knowing kind of that sense of self knowing. Like, alright, I'm best at B to C. I'm at my best when I'm using products I personally want to use and like talking about. I like hypergrowth, and I think that's probably my sweet spot.So, it starts to all align when AllTrials showed up.00:04:34 David:Yeah. And then how did that go from? You joined the company as COO, right? And then, what was the progression inside the company to eventually taking over as CEO?00:04:45 Ron:Yeah. So if you want to demo and COO, I dunno why I really wanted to have both, like, I didn't want to just be CMO in a vacuum, but not have any ownership or agency over kind of team composition and strategy and stuff. So I thought that it was really. Really important. And when you're a six person company, it's pretty easy to grab titles.It's not like how to take it from anyone.00:05:08 Jacob:I was going to ask, like, I mean, it's, it's not like you see this a lot where it's like a six person company and they had like five C-levels and you're like, okay. Yeah, sure. Like, like my title, for example. But like, I'm kind of curious, like, you know, you like your background, you founded a company, like you were like a real CX whatever.Right? Like it's not like it was fake. So how did, how did that, how did you go as like an executive, like choosing your next thing? That'd be a hell of a pitch to get you to like join a tiny little like, team like that.00:05:36 Ron:You know, I think I, I spent a lot of time thinking through again. I don't know, I, to be perfectly honest, I was, I was a little bit bored at the end of my tenure at Yelp. I love Yelp. It's a great company, but it was just, it was too big for me. And so I spent a lot of time thinking through what's next again?That whole question, like zero to one. Do I need, do I need to start something myself or what? So the smallness didn't bother me. I actually really liked the smallness cause it was almost like, it was almost like a cheat code. Like I got to do a startup, like basically from scratch, but I didn't have to do it from scratch.And then.00:06:09 Jacob:They had, they had a kernel of something at00:06:11 Ron:They did, they did. And you know, it was actually to, to give my predecessor credit. It was, it was actually more than that. Like they had, they had solid product market fit from a monetization perspective. And then what really got me across the line with their product channel. And I feel like that's often overlooked and that's something you kind of pick up in time.Like it's not just like, is this a product people are willing to pay money for, but just straight up, how are you going to get this out to market? And can you, can you do it in a way that is, you know, viable and scalable and, and ultimately, you know, going to be, be more efficient than, you know, it's kind of like net out, right?Like the whole LTV to CAC thing and everything that00:06:49 Jacob:Yeah. It's, it's something more efficient than paying for every single install. Right.00:06:53 Ron:Exactly. And so. You know, I, it felt like there was good bones, you know, maybe it was like a fixer upper kind of house. but it had good bones, like it had, it had the foundation in place. And I could see, you know, back in 2015, the product sucked, it sucked. and, and what was shocking after I came was how bad the data was.I didn't realize that when I was kind of doing my own diligence, but it was00:07:20 Jacob:You mean like analytics on the internally, what the company knew about itself or you mean like the, the, the trail00:07:25 Ron:The trail data, like the trail data that we were showing, you know, and that's that's subs high consequence. and so that was like a hard pivot, within a couple months, like, all right, this is, you know, all hands on deck thing.We're not doing anything else until we figure this out. but again, it just, it felt like there was a diamond in the rough, in this one. You know, I've been here six years now and I can say like, unequivocally, this is the highlight of my career. Maybe I just got lucky. I don't know. But, man, like, yeah, this has been a really, really great run so far.00:07:59 Jacob:I was just going to ask about the, that channel and monetization fit. I mean, I guess this was maybe I'm jumping ahead in our agenda here, but, but yeah, they were already charging a subscription before you got there. Right. And in terms of like monetization, maybe like describe that model a little bit and, and how that has changed.00:08:20 Ron:Yeah, I had never done this subscription business before coming here. So this was my first subscription business. And I'll tell you, you guys already know this. I'm sure your listeners already know this too. subscription businesses are magical. Oh my goodness. Compared to like e-commerce or you're trying to re when, you know, the transaction every single00:08:40 Jacob:I know I was looking at Hotwire just now, when you mentioned it. And I was just thinking about like, how many of those there were at that era, right? Like, and still are like, when you had to book a hotel on Google and they're like, oh, here's 15 different sites. You can actually like book it through it's like Wolf,00:08:53 Ron:Oh, so tough. Same with Liftopia. Liftopia the ski startup. There was the same thing. Right. you know, but, but with a much smaller niche and segment, and then, and then Yelp is, you know, they're, they're kind of the media model and then trying to, you know, kind of pivot more towards like B2B and subscriptions for businesses and value added services and stuff.And coming here doing a consumer subscription business, an annual subscription, the auto renew. It's like an annuity, like it just builds up every single year. Like obviously, like you can't take retention for granted and I'm sure we'll talk about that, but you know, just, if you're able to kinda, you know, do a, do a pretty good job on the retention side and you see this thing build up And just.Raise the tide every single year that I've been here and have it just, is that much more momentum that just gets like brought into each new fiscal year for us. It's just, it's incredible. It is incredible. the leverage that it offers. So that was cool. That was definitely a, 00:09:51 Jacob:One of those good bones.00:09:54 David:Yeah. And that's what I was going to ask you say the bones were good. Yeah, AllTrails had launched their subscription in 2012. So about three years before you joined, what was the state of that? And that's really early in the kind of consumer subscription software space. Was there a lot of push back was like, how was traction, chargebacks and things like that was the bones were there, but were there some serious doubts or questions in your mind as to how this subscription app space was going to play out? 00:10:28 Ron:Yeah, I mean, so can I share a secret with you guys? I honestly didn't know that our subscription business loss in 2012, until you guys showed me the research that you did leading up to this, I had always thought that, it launched with our ass. We launched our apps in, I think early 2015, I joined in September, 2018.And I just lumped everything together just in that, you know,00:10:53 Jacob:Yeah. It's yeah,00:10:54 Ron:Yeah. So I, I, I had always thought that it, that we had launched it when our apps launched, but I guess we were on the cutting edge, the bleeding edge, the subscription space here.00:11:05 Jacob:So, so, but that, then I'm, then I'm correct to assume that, you know, if you launched a description 2012 was on the web, if you didn't have apps until 20, 20, 15. Right. Right. Which, I mean, my, my experience, I guess I've been on old trails website, but like my vast majority of experience has been on the web.Right. Because I'm like, or sorry on the, on the phone because I'm going for a hike and I'm like, I need a map and like, boom, there's AllTrails. Right. Which I guess is that channel fit. You're talking about.00:11:27 Ron:Yeah. And that's been, that's been one of the cool things when I started. So a couple, a couple, I guess, data points, just to show like, sort of that, that snapshot in time of 2015, we probably had 20,000. subscribers at that point, maybe a million cumulative registered users since 2010, when we first launched and maybe 20,000 active paying subs.And in January of this year, we put out a press release. We don't normally do that, but it was two pretty cool milestones. We had cracked 25 million registered users and a million paying subs at the start of this. So, you know, again, like the, the, the unlock has been really cool and very, very powerful. but the other thing, like you said, like this was, you know, a web driven subscription business.At first, when I, when I first started here. probably 70% of our, of our web traffic was desktop desktop to mobile 70 30. And obviously that's inverted, since then, and then Mo the, the, the mobile apps, the native apps are by far the best form factor for what we're trying to do. Like you said, Jake would like take it with you on the go, the navigation, the GPS stuff, everything baked in there.And so that's become really the workhorses of, of subscription business and, and of our overall, UDC flat.00:12:42 Jacob:Yeah. I mean, it's so helpful. you guys have good SEO when you search a trail, it comes up on AllTrails. Right. But that's, I would imagine like this stage probably mostly like demand gen for the app,00:12:53 Ron:That's exactly it. No, that's exactly it. Right. So our se our legacy SEO, this is what, again, one of the beauties of being around for 11 years and counting, we have this amazing legacy SEO and that's, that was that product channel fit that brought me here was the sales pitch was he just showed me Google analytics.And he just like, look, look at all of this for your00:13:12 Jacob:Just like a hyper-local very valuable data, right. Index. And if you're, if you're the winner, that's a great real estate to00:13:20 Ron:I know. And, and so what we've been doing obviously as, sort of consumer behavior has changed and gone mobile first is, we're able to parlay all of that mobile first SEO traffic it's, incremental organic app installs, and that's a huge driver. Of our business. We get millions and millions of incremental app installs that we don't pay a dime for every mom's.00:13:42 Jacob:Yeah. And going back to your point, like yeah. Not having to push. Up the hill completely is a bit, you know, you think about a Compounding annuity analogy as you made, right? Like the cost of that compounding really, you know, if you net out the whole asset, right? Like that's going to be a big part of it is like, how much does it cost to push that that, that, that flywheel up a little bit. 00:14:02 Ron:It's a moat for business too, you know, you're around long enough and you're doing something good. You're going to see a ton of competitors start flooding into the space, which is great as validation of what we're doing, but the product market fit product channel fit conundrum is, is real.It's real. And you know, I see really great products, you know, beautifully designed products that just crank can't crack the code on either of those. And then they kind of, you know, whether on the line, right? Like see it all the time.00:14:31 David:No, that was actually my next question is that in those early days, and you already said when you joined and when y'all launched the apps in 2015, they were crap. So take me, how did you go from this crap up and what experimentation, what pain, what suffering did 00:14:53 Jacob:There's some, there's some old, there's some like a old guard at, at all trials that are going to listen to this and be like, crap. They were great.00:15:00 David:But what did it take and what was the approach to, to find you, you had some level of product market fit, but then to actually build a great product around those early signs. 00:15:12 Ron:There, there are a couple of philosophical things that we decided immediately. One was around funding. Do we want to go take funding, and try and do this faster? Do we want to do this kind of organically? And my predecessor had done a small seed round. I think he raised 3 million bucks in 2012.And we were still kind of drafting off of that. And then there was a little bit of subscription revenue and then a whole bunch of just, you know, classic entrepreneur head on the swivel stuff. Like let's throw a bunch of shit up on the wall. Like, let's see what we can do. So there's, you know, a media play and programmatic ads.Whatever, right. Just trying to buy time more than anything. Right? Like keep the servers running for a little bit longer. But we decided we very intentionally decided not to take funding. We wanted to control our own destiny. And part of it to be clear, part of it was the handshake agreement with the original founder, was to grow it and sell it.He wanted us to, to, to sell it. And so, so then if that was kind of the. The Mandy. And I was like, well, why would we even just, you know, deal with the, the opportunity cost and the headache of going out and trying to raise funds, as a pain in the ass. So, you know, it was like, let's just, let's put our heads00:16:22 Jacob:Especially, especially for our consumer subscription company in 2015, like00:16:27 Ron:Right? Yeah.00:16:28 Jacob:Ben kind of been party to that. It's not, it wasn't easy. Let's put it that way.00:16:32 Ron:Tried doing it in 2005, by the way I was with Liftopia was insane anyways. but so we decided to put our heads down and just say super scrappy, super scrappy, super lean. And so, it just came down to like relentless prioritization and essentially what we ended up doing was triaging sort of a different funnel metric each quarter.Right. So one quarter is. We've got to tackle bounce rate. All right. Now we've got to tackle signup rate and now we've got to tackle pro conversion rate. And now we've got to talk over attention and we just kind of spent cycles, through 2016 and through 2017, just each, each quarter, just like laser focus in on that one metric and do what we can and then move.And it worked because by the end of 2017, we actually achieved profitability. Which was cool, which was really, really great. You know, like we wanted again, when you've been around the block long enough, you talked to enough entrepreneurs, you've seen, you've seen enough. there's so many examples of people going and getting too much funding too soon, and then they develop bad habits, right?Yeah. Let's get a little hot in here. Is it.00:17:36 Jacob:I never heard of that.00:17:39 Ron:So, you know, but so you see it right? Like that you, you get the, unsustainable growth channels, again, the product channel fit question, like how are you actually going to bring this to market? And how are you going to do it when that VC money dries up? Like, is this actually00:17:50 Jacob:Five X that VC money, right.00:17:52 Ron:Right? Is this sustainable?Or you're just connecting yourself to the next round of00:17:56 Jacob:You can put yourself in a, in a dead man's corner, right. Where you're not your, market's not big enough, whatever you end up killing and otherwise like really great business,00:18:05 Ron:Totally. And I, you know, I'd seen that, I'd seen that. I really didn't want to do that here. It felt like because so much of our growth was coming through SEO. It felt like obviously there's an opportunity, which we later unlocked on the ASO side of things. It felt like even beyond both of those though, it's just like word of mouth and PR and viral loops and network effects.00:18:27 Jacob:Product market fit as a broad thing, right? Like growth kind of have you have a really good product and it serves a niche, like grit just starts to start to go.00:18:36 Ron:And especially organic growth, right? Like, and that was really the big key as like, do we need to be like one of these DTC companies and just raise millions of dollars for Instagram ads? Or can we, can we do something that's more sustainable for the long haul? And that was, that was one of the bats.The other big bet that we placed was, from a brand positioning perspective. You know, when I came in the app was definitely geared towards like the through hikers and search and rescue and, and the hardcore, like, you know, back country folks. And the challenge with, with, with that segment is that there's always these, you know, really esoteric and extreme product requirements that they want because they're they're edge cases.They're by definition, all edge cases. And in this space in particular, a lot of them. Kind of living the, you know, the van life, life, you know, trying to live as frugally as possible. and so they don't want to really pay you any money either. It's like this isn't a good growth segment. We got, we gotta rethink this one.And so, I've told this story a lot, you know, this strong man to this day still is, is my wife where like she likes going outside with me. You know, she's always down to go on a high. you know, spend time outside. We have three kids, totally trying to raise them on the trail. we have a dog who loves being on the trail and, but, but if I'm not there, you know, she's, she's not going out there.Right. So it's like, okay, okay. Maybe here's the play. Like what, what if we use technology? Kind of tear down the barriers for entry, like instill confidence, whether through like product functionality or content, but really make it so that someone like my wife and the hundreds of millions of people around the globe, like her who, who know that they feel better when they time spend in nature.They're just a little scared to do it. Like, can we help augment that? Can we help supplement that? And I think that's going to be the unlock. And that was the big bet. That was the other big bet that we placed in 2015. And you know, 00:20:30 Jacob:And just to summarize that, I understand it's like to kind of not ignore these like extreme users that are on the edge on the edges, you know, serve them, but maybe not in the way that they would want, but like let's focus on, you know, this larger segment. I mean, I think that's the thing, even some good founder advice is good for founders.Sometimes doesn't always apply. Like B to C stuff sometimes where it's like, yeah, like, listen to your most vocal users often. There's something there, but like with an ounce of like moderation, because yeah. They can lead you in really strange places. And think about the network. Think about the like user.Maybe you're not talking to her, her the next year saying next a hundred million users that you have to get. and that's potentially a much bigger surface area. And that doesn't mean you're going to abandon those court users. Like they might grumble a little bit and they might not be totally served by your use case.And like, that's maybe just life. but, but you know, you've now potentially, like if you think about the, you know, the mission of just getting people outdoors, like you've achieved that much better by going for this much larger market segment. Right.00:21:31 Ron:Yeah, and they're not mutually exclusive. It's just which one are we prioritizing? Which one are we preferencing? And how are we, you know, what kind of language are we? Are we using lingo or not? Right. Are we making this accessible for everybody or not for imagery? Right. Are we doing like, you know, Alex, Honnold like dangling one handed off of a cliff,00:21:51 Jacob:Or just, or just a picture of the N the end cap at an REI, Right. Like,00:21:56 Ron:Yeah. Yeah. Or, or just like, you know, a family like smiling and having fun out in nature together, you know, like, all right. It doesn't cater to the core, but they're not necessarily going to like walk away because they see that stuff either. 00:22:07 Jacob:Right. I mean, and that comes to. Channel fit As well, right? Like not your products fit and your products oriented for, and that like B to C you kind of, you can't divorce the two, like you can't have totally independent marketing and channel channels for the product itself, which maybe you could get away with a little bit in B2B.But, but, but they, but they don't necessarily have to be like completely like linked, you know, you can kind of serve both niches on the, on the product side to your point.00:22:34 David:And speaking of getting more folks out in the mission of AllTrails. I'd love to hear about your freemium strategy, because that's a huge part of it. Like what early on, what was your approach? And then how did that evolve over time? As far as what features you do give away for free to kind of reach the broadest audience possible, and then what things you pay wall to actually get paid? 00:22:57 Jacob:And, and, and I'd like to highlight how Ron, when we asked you to describe AllTrails, you put free in the name, which I'm sure was very intentional. Right? You said it is a free app, right? It is not a premium app. I mean, it is a premium app, but the highlight the free. So00:23:09 Ron:Yeah,00:23:10 Jacob:That framing, what, what, tell us about your free app.00:23:13 Ron:There's, this is a, this is, an ongoing. Like not debate, but, it's an open question always. And we're constantly like asking our employees and our board, like let's challenge our assumptions here just because we did something a certain way last year. Doesn't mean we need to do it this way.Like let's constantly reevaluate this, for us, there's sort of three main buckets we have. Free on authenticated users and then we have free registered users. So kind of that registration wall is like the first key funnel, metric. And then there's, pro subscribers, right? So we have two, two kind of core, success metrics.One is registration rate and one is pro conversion rate. And then what goes in front and behind the paywall and the red wall, the registration wall. Constantly influx constantly. And plus we actually just did this really fun workshop a couple of weeks ago, internally here. It was like the history of AllTrailss pro and just showing kind of which features started when I, you know, again in 2015, like what was the pro feature set?How much of those? We actually ended up pulling in front of the red wall and new features that we put back behind the paywall. So I feel like we're constantly in a state of experimentation here. we've been, we've been experimenting with that since day one. We've been experimenting with pricing also on day one.And there's still, I don't feel like we've cracked the code at all at all. When I, when I first started here, I'll chose pro was 50 bucks a year and I spent the first, like two months just trying to get as, as much like, obviously all the quant data that I could get my hands on, but as much qualitative data as I could get to.So reading every app store review, every Reddit thread, every blog post. Talking to customers, all of it. And aside from everyone telling us that our data socked and, you know, we can, we got them lost. So we got them tickets from the park ranger for telling them to bring a dog when it's not that currently, whatever it was.The other piece of feedback that we got was like 50 bucks, like it's way too much. And so we immediately started testing pricing and, and, and we tested it at 30 bucks a year and we tested that 15 bucks a year to kinda all right. If we really just take that price down is, the in incremental, purchase rate, gonna offset, you know, the, the change in that revenue per transaction.They were about to wash it, which was really interesting from a net revenue perspective, 15 bucks a year versus 30 bucks a year was, was basically flat. But we went with 30 because it gave us more maneuverability. We could do more. for the folks who were like price sensitive, do do discounting, intro offers, whatever.At 15, we really couldn't go any low, lower. So it's just like, this is it for everybody all the time. but even that we're revisiting now and thinking through like, all right, maybe are there other different tiers? We've never done monthly before. So what is, what is a world in which there's a monthly price?I don't, I don't love it. I mean, again, annual is magic. Like why mess with a good thing, but there is a cohort of users, especially outside of the U S where that's a pretty high00:26:16 Jacob:Oh, I mean, I live in the Midwest. Like I would, I only need your app from, from April to November. Right. Like I really don't need to pay all year.00:26:24 Ron:For the two weeks in00:26:25 Jacob:Yeah. I, but I mean, I think there's the counter argument there of the simplicity. It's like, yeah, sure. But. Whatever your value is. So your, your, your, this is the price.I really, I I've seen that effect before on the price experimentation, you just end up with the same area under the curve. Like, no matter how you move it, and some apps are like that, some apps are not. but I do think it's really fascinating, the wisdom of crowds, right. And just how, like, they know like the, the, the, the masses have priced and valued your products.And then just like showing that like, it's very efficient, right. No matter where it goes, then you can come down to like, It's almost a good place to be. Cause then yeah, you have that like opera, you can choose where you want it to price. You can basically, you're freed from the like fiduciary duty of like maximum extraction.And you can like, like, just focus on like, okay, what's gonna what's right. For us for some of those goals on company growth and stuff like that. If it was right for the mission. And then like also give yourself some like tactical opportunities in terms of discounting and other stuff like this, and then positioning as well.Like what is it? I think that's almost as important. It's like, how do you use. How do you see all trials? Like how do you see it as like, what's the value of perception? Like a $30 skew and a 50 and a 15, those are very different. Right. And those are, you know, I think about consumer goods on those scales.That's like each one of those things has like a different, like, feel to it.00:27:43 Ron:Totally. And, and then on top of it, though, our business is driven by UGC, right? We have this classic UGC flywheel. And so obviously we know our pro users are more engaged, but a ton of engagement comes from our free users as well. And so you can't kind of, turn the squeeze on them too hard without like really fundamentally damaging the business.00:28:05 Jacob:What kind of user generated content? Is it like pictures and updated and stuff or what? What's00:28:10 Ron:Yeah, ratings, reviews, photos, recordings, you know, and then there's this also this virtuous cycle that we have, this beautiful relationship we have with our users, where they, they help us create as well as Curie our trail Content. So that's the thing with trail content, just to go down this rabbit hole for a second, Joe Content, super fluid, like it's not like streets that are, that are relatively static.You know, a trail is you get, you get flooding, you get fires, you get maintenance, you get development, down trees, whatever. Like they're constantly in a state of flux. And it's really, really hard to stay on top of it. We can't do it alone. And so we00:28:49 Jacob:And there's no, it's not like, it's not like roads where there's like a national database, right. Of like uniform data00:28:55 Ron:Yeah, no, not at all. Right. so we, we do. We have this like really beautiful symbiotic relationship with our, with our users, you know, and, and it's kind of like, we both get value from each other and we're both very transparent about like the relationship, like you guys help us and you help the community.Right. And we'll package it. We'll, we'll keep improving and investing in the product experience and everything else. and again, like, this is where it seems to be working, but this is when, when we were talking about. Th th the choke points in the funnel and that, that red wall and the broken version Weill, this is the thing that's top of mind over all of it. 00:29:30 David:Yeah, that's great. I did want to move on and talk about in 2018, AllTrails raised, 75 million led by spectrum equity. And so I'm curious about that, about that story. So, I know, you know, the plan was to sell and then you've shared on other podcasts that, part of that was the founder taking, taking some money kind of his exit event.But I'm really curious just from like a company building perspective. I think so many founders and entrepreneurs think, oh, if I can just. More money. If I can just hire more people, everything's going to be easier. but I imagine that's not the full story. So I'd love to hear about the raise, but then also kind of how that changed the company and changed the trajectory.00:30:18 Ron:Yeah. So like I said earlier, right. That the handshake agreement was to grow and sell it. So we knew going in exactly what the deal was. and once we hit profitability in 2017, it kind of felt like, all right, it's probably next year. It's probably our year. And we got an inbound from one of the big tech companies early, you know, probably end of Q1 of 2018.And so I was like, all right, game on, right? This is it. We'll go get a bank. we'll run a formal process here. And we started going through it. We started going through it. This was actually, it was fun, right? Like I got to put together sort of like, all right, here's our top 100 strategic partnerships broken out by category, broken out by vertical.Here's like the, you know, the accretive value here is, you know, the, the investment credit. It was like a really fun thought exercise. You know, we're talking to online travel companies and real estate companies, and obviously like the retailers and just so many different types of companies out there. And we ran a process and it was, it was fun.But, and as we were going through it, well, a couple things happen. One is our business really took off. Like it was a breakout trajectory year for us. So that always helps. Anytime you, you meet with someone, you share your plan and then you come back a month later and it's like, Hey, actually, Outperforming outpacing.So your price just went up. so that was, I mean, that was great. Like a great position to be in. I've never had leveraged like that. And the other, the other thing was like, we could walk away at any point. If we, if we didn't like it, I had done a lot of fundraising before and that I've never had a position of, of leverage like that.So that was cool. But as we were going through the process and talking to these different strategic acquires, the other thing that kept jumping out was like, I don't want to just go be middle management at some big company that I already like have chosen not to work out anyways, because it doesn't align with what I want to do with my time.And so, you know, we're kind of going through, it's like, is this really, is this it is this the only path? and we're talking to our bankers about it and like, you know, there's a, a huge ecosystem of financial investors that are really excited about this consumer subscription space. let's, let's do a spike there.And so we started talking to somebody. Different financial firms out there. And that's where it got really, really interesting. you know, I think, I think we all probably have preconceptions about like private equity groups, like, you know, I know, right.00:32:36 Jacob:Just, it then the light dimmed here. When you said00:32:39 Ron:I know, cause a lot of the classic ones, they're just there in your shorts about like your bottom line expenses and micromanaging and telling you to cut costs and00:32:47 Jacob:That's, that's the, that's the, the stereotype at least.00:32:50 Ron:Totally right. but there's this whole class of growth equity shops out there and, and we, we sort of plugged into it and I would squarely put spectrum equity and that one, and the first time we talked to them, it was so clear. They're like, you guys, aren't thinking big enough. It's like, what? I love that.Okay. Let's talk growth. You know, like you guys need to be thinking global. Right. And it was just like, there was so much alignment around. This, this opportunity in front of us. And instead of like pulling the rip cord and just kind of being absorbed and integrated into something else, it's like, how about, like, we really make a, make a run at this.And so the more we talk to them, the more it's was like, yes, hell yes. And it wasn't just from like, a funding perspective, you know? Cause if it was just that like again, then you just do an auction and you just see whoever's the highest. But we really wanted, like I needed a partner. I wanted a value added partner that I wanted someone who could bring in, you know, a sense of community, not have to reinvent the wheel all the time.That's always nice when you can plug into our portfolio of similar companies and just pick their brain. All right. Like how did you guys00:33:54 Jacob:Yeah. I mean, that's an under, that's an underappreciated aspect of raising versus like going at your own. It's like the network, like it's, I think feces oversell it, but maybe founders undervalue it. Right? Like00:34:05 Ron:A hundred percent. Couldn't agree more. It does. It really does. and so yeah, we kinda went, yeah. I, I feel incredibly fortunate that we were able to partner up with spectrum equity. And so David two question, I have, it's like it for us, it was this huge unlock. It was this huge online. Like we have another partner, we're going to be more formal, with our board structure and, you know, the, the sort of like metrics, which is great, like we needed to level up, and our corporate diligence and everything.And they've been, they've been a partner and we've, we've grown the board. We've added more expertise. And again, like the, the portfolio being, being sister companies with, with like Headspace and the not worldwide and survey monkey, whatever, like these cool companies that I respect and be able to, you know, hit up the CEO and be like, okay, how did you guys deal with this?Because like you said, like there are a ton of challenges that come when you're going through that, you know, that the slope of the curve at that point, right? Like the true hyper-growth curves. All right. You know, we can't fall back on, on money as an excuse, you know, like it's purely an execution play and how do we do more faster?And that's honestly like, that's my, I think one of the coolest things I can say about my board, that the single biggest piece of feedback I get from them where they're just like yelling at me all the time and a great way. It's like, you gotta do more faster. Why aren't you doing more faster? Right. Like that is the mantra here because everyone sees this opportunity.It's ours, it's ours to go take. Right. But we got to execute and do it as fast as we can.00:35:33 Jacob:Yeah. That's that's, I mean, I'll say as somebody recently constructing a board, like that was sort of my cause as a founder and as a CEO, like you're always, you're just, you're you're at, you should be at the limits if you're doing your job. Right, right. Like you should be kind of feeling at least like thinking, you know, what your limits are and what the company's limits are.And it's nice. Even if there isn't anything more you can do. It's nice to have some people who like, ostensibly are aligned with you to be like, Are you sure there's not more right? Like, is there anything like, are you doing like, could, could you change this? Like, could you go go faster potentially? And sometimes the answer's no, but it does always kinda, you leave those board meetings going like, like maybe there is like, maybe there is some way we could do this, like better or faster, right.00:36:10 Ron:Yeah. And then you build a team, right? And that leads back to like the team growth. And this, you know, this is our third year in a row of, of doubling head count. Hopefully next year will be our fourth year in a row. And all of the leverage, I'm a big believer, like two things are the lifeblood for companies like ours.One is culture and the other is momentum. And you can't, if you lose either of them, Right. Like, you cannot take your eye off of either of those as a CEO, as a founder, whatever it is. and so like building both, you know, they, they got to go hand in hand, or you can sacrifice culture as you're doing the internal hypergrowth.00:36:43 Jacob:Have an exit strategy, right?00:36:45 Ron:Exactly.00:36:46 Jacob:Going to last very long.00:36:47 Ron:Because you'll never get it back. That's exactly right. But, but generating momentum through like value added hires and raising the bar or bringing, you know, a bringing in a plus, I love being the dumbest person in the room. That's my favorite thing at all. Choose walking in there. It was like, all right, I'm going to learn something.Someone's going to teach me something cool. and building a team.00:37:06 David:So it sounds like the biggest unlock for y'all taking the money was just the ability to hire faster, hire better folks, offer better pay. but was there anything else that you feel like taking funding helped unlock for AllTrails? Did you, were you able to spend Mo did you start spending more on, on user acquisition or ramping anything else out? 00:37:27 Jacob:Can I ask a clarifying question without like you sharing your term sheet or whatever, but like D w like these, these deals can be very different than like a venture deal, right. Where like, almost always all of it hits the books and it's dilutive, meaning that the company gets the money, but this was like kind of a buyout for the founder as an alternative to a sale.It's like, did you guys structure it? So some hit the books and not, or was it all to the founders or how did it, whatever you're comfortable00:37:50 Ron:We, we hardly took any primary capital in 2018. I didn't, I didn't want it. I don't want it. Like I liked our organic trajectory. I didn't want. And obviously I've gotten to know spectrum a lot better. They're not built from the CNA, but you take money from a VC. And the expectation is like the success metric is suspended as hard and aggressive as possible because they're incentivized to keep you hooked, you know, on the next round.And I wanted to, you know, accelerate more like on the product development side of things, but I didn't want to get stuck in a, a growth model that's dependent on unsustainable paid acquisition. Right. So. almost the entire deal with secondary capital, which was great, which was00:38:33 Jacob:And for the financial illiterate IME, like 18 months ago,00:38:37 Ron:Yeah,00:38:38 Jacob:The company gets the money. Secondary would be somebody who's already a shareholder gets the00:38:41 Ron:Exactly the people on the cap table. so it was buying out the founder, buying out the original investors, like really cleaning it out. It was a new chapter, a new book altogether. At that point and, you know, start sort of starting together. I think, you know, to the question earlier, in terms of like the other value as like, I really can't stress enough, just the strategic value add that I was able to get like, again, because as a founder or as a CEO or as an example, You're kind of stuck in your own head a lot and you can talk to other founders, but you know, there's this like culture, especially in Silicon valley, like, oh bro, coaching it.Yeah. I mean just crushing it, you know? No, one's, you know.00:39:19 Jacob:I didn't, you didn't have to put air quotes around culture there, but like, I could hear the00:39:24 Ron:Yeah.00:39:24 Jacob:I'm called.00:39:25 Ron:You know, and very few people are like really open and transparent, about the challenges and what have you. And so being able to go in. and have this board that I trust that I feel like we're all aligned. I've had boards, you know, especially VC backed boards, where you get like a different, you know, venture capitalists from every round that you do.Like you have a lot of misaligned incentives. You have a lot of sharp elbows in a room.00:39:47 Jacob:I was gonna say, there's a lot of, you know, these are all competitors in a lot of cases, right? Hopefully you pick well, and you have people that are professionals, but like you can totally end up in a situation where you have frenemies,00:39:57 Ron:Yeah, you're watching your back at your own boards. That's a horrible way to live. Whereas with this one, it was so clean. It was like, we were owned by spectrum. This is great. I work at on their behalf. This is great. We've got the two of them there's me. And then, and then, but to their credit, they're like, let's bring on two more operators.And so, you know, they didn't care about like, well, we have to have 51% plus of the seats. It was just like, no, let's just surround ourselves with really awesome. And so we got, you know, we got the former CEO of ancestry, who, you know, they know a thing or two about, subscription businesses. And then we got the COO of Robin hood and obviously like they know a thing or two about hyper-growth and everything else.And again, like, so it's almost like it's this team, you know, it's like this dream team we're just collectively, like they're helping me chart stuff. Like see things. I wouldn't have been able to see on my own, whatever the pattern00:40:45 Jacob:Yeah.I mean, I think it's, it's, it's a good story in the sense that like, I think, I think we think too terminally sometimes about companies, right? Like it's like, they're born, they are grown and then they get sold and then they die usually like nine times out of 10, right? Like it's, it's not often that an intern, like I say, all goes well and the integration goes, well, some spectrum of results.Right. But this is a result where I think you, you guys have a company that's two important. To let die, right? Like if you had sold, I don't know what, you know, your fangs or whoever was like, I'm sure I could see any number of massive tech company wanting this to be a part of their data set or part of their like social, like aspect of whatever.It's just, I could see a plugging into a lot of things, but you know, to get Google's exciting acquisition today and not saying you guys. Talking to Google or not, but as an example, like their exciting acquisition today is tomorrow is like, you know, happy trails, blog posts, right. That actually a good name for the, the shutting down AllTrails, acquisition at Google blogposts.But, but the, you know, and this is a, this is a path where, you know, people who are passionate about the mission, the employees and the users, like can kind of, you know, get that exit that people are looking for. But without like jeopardizing. Thing that's important. And like, maybe this is very hippie, right?But like, I think there is some aspect of companies that's beyond like the capital value and beyond like, even like the culture, but like actually achieving the mission and, and making that change in the world or providing that service. That's, that's, that's more important than, you know, Hypergrowth or whatever.And look, I mean, we should get into talking about now, like posts around, but it sounds like you guys are in hyper-growth anyway. Right. So it didn't, it's not like it's, it's this false dichotomy of right. Like either you're like raising for venture and you're like going at it really hard or Like you're a lifestyle business or, you know, whatever.And it's just like, Maybe, whereas maybe us like lampooning, this straw man of a false narrative has like most of the talking about this to like make that is the, the, the totality of the false dichotomy is us talking about it. But I really think this is a great example of like one of those like interesting, you know, outcomes and, and stories.So it tell us about what's happening now. 00:42:52 David:I appreciate you sharing that specifically because even in researching it, I listened to a couple of your other interviews. I still assume that that the. A pretty big primary chunk that, that went into the balance sheet of the company and then it accelerated it from there. So it's an even more interesting story to me that that raise was mostly secondary.So from the $3 million seed way back in, whatever it was 20 12, 20 13, it really has been an almost bootstrapped company and becoming what it is today on. Little capital is really incredible and it really kind of speaks to consumer subscription space and, and how you can operate and go big without spending a ton of money.If you do it right. If you don't, if you don't just plug into Instagram and blow $5 million of VC money acquiring the wrong users, if you actually talk to them and build a good product and everything else. but I did00:43:55 Ron:Well, and I was just stay on top of not only that at the first board meeting that we had with. I, I walked in and I said, Hey, you know, this is great high five super-stoked, we're also, I think we should donate 1% of our revenue to environmental causes. I know you guys just shelled out a whole lot of money, but would that be okay?And to their credit, they're like Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. And you know, one of the first things we did post-transaction was signing up for 1% for the planet, you know, like there there's totally a different path here. I didn't realize it. And I think it's cool for people.I don't know. I, I wish I heard this earlier in my career. Like there are, like you said, like there's not a dichotomy, like there's so many different ways to do this. I think we have. Fetishizing almost, or like putting on a pedestal this whole like massive VC round kind of stuff, you know, and there's a time and a place for it, for sure.But like, that's not the success metric in and of itself, like more often than not, especially for earlier companies, the death knell. And so I think that, I'm always, you know, I get, I get hit up by people, you know, for whatever I'll all the time talking about this kind of stuff. And so I was like, dude, if you can boot shop, if you can control your own destiny, like do it, you know, find right partners that are gonna unlock growth and everything else.Don't fall, don't fall victim to that. Like, just that story that you think is like the classic Silicon valley startup story, which is you go out, you raise a big round and you have an IPO. It never works. It never works that way00:45:19 Jacob:Who would do that?00:45:20 Ron:To too many man.00:45:22 Jacob:We're running out of time. I do want to know. So you're talking about like doubling and so I'm guessing like the pandemic, like we've seen across the ecosystem has been really, especially, I can imagine there's two aspects to it, right? Like one your digital service.And then secondly, like you're very good compatible with like, social distancing. So did you like think you would be having this conversation for whatever four years after the spectrum, deal like doubling every head count every year? Cause that's typically not what private equity companies growth rates look like.00:45:51 Ron:I know. No, it was, I mean, so I'll preface this by saying we were incredibly fortunate during COVID and sometimes you just get lucky. Sometimes you get like, there's a ton of great companies out there that just like how to pull sales reps out of the field, or we're an equip for like the supply chain issues or whatever it was.Right. Like, Well, like you said, we're digital first company. we, we already, we had a somewhat distributed workforce, so we already like using zoom and slack and going fully remote. Like we, we saw no, no drop in productivity. Now granted like when, when the world shut down mid-March that was a little bit scary.But we knew it would be temporary. I, you know how long no one really knew. Bye bye. Mid April, we were going to our board and saying like, look like, I know things look a little bleak right now. Like the, the machine has fully ground to a hall, but we think actually like this is going to be an insane accelerant.Once things open back up, there's nothing to do. Like you said, it lends itself perfectly to social distancing. You know, people who can't travel anymore. Like, all right, we're going to explore our local state parks now, you know, like we'll scratch that. It's that way I got three kids and you know, school is canceled and obviously, you know, summer camps forget.What are we going to do? What are we going to do with these kids? And it's like, we're going to run them ragged on the trail, you know, every weekend we're just going on the trail and we're running them ragged and00:47:10 Jacob:There's a good ad campaign in there. Just00:47:11 Ron:Totally right. And so,00:47:13 Jacob:Sleeping kids in the back of a Subaru Forester and it's like,00:47:16 Ron:Yes, exactly. So, I mean, you know, we made, we did make a big strategic decision, to get in front of it and, and start hiring like crazy, and just make, you know, make a play, make a play. And, and again, Sometimes you get lucky. you know, that works, that works all these companies around us, that we were never able to like really poach from or whatever.Something like we're able to go grab their talent. Like not just from people who are like, oh, but people were actively working there who were just like, I don't want to do this with my life anymore. I like spending time outside. I had the number of people, the number of inbound applicants that like write in their cover letter.I was looking at which apps I use the most. And I just started applying to those jobs. You know, I think that there really is. It's like really. Great. And I applaud it and I love it. And I hope it never stops people like taking more agency and control over their career and not just like reactively, you know, just doing whatever leftovers00:48:10 Jacob:Yeah. I mean, the geographic unlock of remote, I think is a big part of that. Right. Cause suddenly like you're, you can just literally go on your phone and pretty probably today, nine times out of 10, you're going to be able to work for that company depending on your like, you know, locale or like time00:48:22 Ron:Totally.00:48:23 Jacob:It wasn't that way two years ago,00:48:25 Ron:Not at all, not at all. Exactly. So, a lot changed. A lot has changed in this time. With all of that, with the big accelerant they were seeing on the usability side through 2020, there is, I think David, you had asked this like pre pre-show, you know: there's two big questions hanging over our business as we went into 2021.One is, are the registered users who we got last year during COVID are they going to convert to pro like our conversion to pro happens over time? We look at a lot of stuff through a cohorted basis, and it goes up and to the right. It will take years for some users across the line to go pro, but it's great.It just keeps going up. So, are the folks who signed up when there was nothing else to do, are they ever going to convert to pro or not? The other big question is: all the folks who converted to pro in the height of the pandemic in 2020, once the world opens up, are they going to retain? Or, are we going to have the bottom drop out from under us?These were two questions hanging over our heads. We have a seasonal business, it follows the sun pretty much. So, as we headed into May, June, July of this year, thankfully that the answer for both was a resounding “yes.” The folks who signed up last year are converting at a higher rate than normal.The folks who subscribed are retaining at higher rates than normal, too. And I think it's kind of more of a testament to how the zeitgeists has changed a little bit post pandemic. Being outside just makes people feel good. I guess it's that simple. It's not very complicated.You feel better when you spend time outside, and people are just incorporating it into their regular routines.00:50:08 Jacob:Yeah. It's interesting. For positives and negatives, I think you came up three cherries, right? It just really lined up, and then it's continued. You're talking about the hiring thing, too. Like a lot of habits changed during COVID, and I don't think anything will necessarily go back. Especially if people have found a new, happier, maximum for their lives. You guys are part of that. That's great. and that seems like, I dunno, we don't have total good analytic quantitative data on this, but it doesn't seem like the whole boosts from last year totally collapsed.It seems like it just was like an accelerate, and I think other industries would sort of back that up. 00:50:54 David:Yep. Well, we're coming up on time. Is there anything else I should've asked you? 00:50:59 Ron:No, this was fun.00:51:00 Jacob:You guys are probably hiring, right?00:51:02 Ron:We're hiring like crazy right now. Yeah, absolutely.00:51:06 Jacob:AllTrails?00:51:07 Ron:Yeah.00:51:08 Jacob:There you go.00:51:08 David:Any particular roles you want to shout out? 00:51:11 Ron:We're always starving for great engineering talent. Android, iOS, front end, back end dev ops, security, all of it. PMs, product designers, mapping designers, customer support, the full gamut. The entire company, every department is hiring right now.00:51:28 David:Well, it sounds like a really fun company to work for. We'll put links to your job page and to your personal LinkedIn, and a few other places in the show notes, but this was really fun chatting with you today, Ron. Thank you so much for taking the time. 00:51:41 Ron:My pleasure guys. Thanks for having me. This was fun.

Every season, we make an animated video to kick-off a new book. Each video is an exploration of one character in the text, their psychology, and why they make the decision they do. Our video this season is entitled “Are Harry and Hermione better off without Ron?” You can it here, with beautiful animations by Hannah O’Neal. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Mari: Hi, I'm Mari. I'm here with my friend Ron. Today, we're talking about food. So Ron, what's your favorite cuisine?Ron: My favorite cuisine has to be Hawaiian food. I grew up eating Hawaiian food so every special occasion we had Hawaiian food, so now when I eat Hawaiian food, it always brings back good memories.Mari: What exactly is Hawaiian food?Ron: Traditional Hawaiian food is usually cooked under the ground in a hole with hot rocks and it cooks for maybe six hours or seven hours and when you take it out, it's very salty because we use a lot of salt and it tastes really good ... usually meat ... usually pork and other vegetables like taro and potato.Mari: So then what's your favorite Hawaiian dish?Ron: My favorite Hawaiian dish is called Lao-Lao. It's pork or fish wrapped in leaves and put inside the underground oven and it's very salty and very good.Mari: So the flavor is just salt?Ron: The flavor is salt and also the leaf flavor that it's wrapped in.Mari: What's your favorite dessert or junk food?Ron: My favorite dessert has to be cake and ice-cream together. I love to eat cake and ice-cream together.Mari: What's your favorite ice-cream flavor?Ron: My favorite ice-cream flavor is strawberry, and I like to eat that with chocolate cake.Mari: Mm, sounds good. Do you like vegetables?Ron: Not so much. I don't like to eat vegetables but I can eat them if somebody cooks them for me.Mari: What's your favorite vegetable?Ron: My favorite vegetable ... I don't have a favorite vegetable but I can eat vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, carrots. Those types of things.Mari: Do you eat your vegetables raw ... like salad ... or do you prefer them cooked?Ron: I prefer them cooked.Mari: Thanks, Ron.Ron: You're welcome.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Mari: Hi, I'm Mari. I'm here with my friend Ron. Today, we're talking about food. So Ron, what's your favorite cuisine?Ron: My favorite cuisine has to be Hawaiian food. I grew up eating Hawaiian food so every special occasion we had Hawaiian food, so now when I eat Hawaiian food, it always brings back good memories.Mari: What exactly is Hawaiian food?Ron: Traditional Hawaiian food is usually cooked under the ground in a hole with hot rocks and it cooks for maybe six hours or seven hours and when you take it out, it's very salty because we use a lot of salt and it tastes really good ... usually meat ... usually pork and other vegetables like taro and potato.Mari: So then what's your favorite Hawaiian dish?Ron: My favorite Hawaiian dish is called Lao-Lao. It's pork or fish wrapped in leaves and put inside the underground oven and it's very salty and very good.Mari: So the flavor is just salt?Ron: The flavor is salt and also the leaf flavor that it's wrapped in.Mari: What's your favorite dessert or junk food?Ron: My favorite dessert has to be cake and ice-cream together. I love to eat cake and ice-cream together.Mari: What's your favorite ice-cream flavor?Ron: My favorite ice-cream flavor is strawberry, and I like to eat that with chocolate cake.Mari: Mm, sounds good. Do you like vegetables?Ron: Not so much. I don't like to eat vegetables but I can eat them if somebody cooks them for me.Mari: What's your favorite vegetable?Ron: My favorite vegetable ... I don't have a favorite vegetable but I can eat vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, carrots. Those types of things.Mari: Do you eat your vegetables raw ... like salad ... or do you prefer them cooked?Ron: I prefer them cooked.Mari: Thanks, Ron.Ron: You're welcome.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Mari: Hi, this is Mari. I'm here with Ron. Today, we'll talk about types of entertainment and how often we do these things. Let's first start with watching TV. Ron, how often do you watch TV?Ron: Usually I watch TV every day. I don't watch TV for very long but I usually watch TV every day. Usually, I watch the news.Mari: Why just the news?Ron: I like to know what's going on in the world, so I usually watch CNN or BBC.Mari: And that's it. Nothing else?Ron: Usually, yes.Mari: Usually?Ron: Other than that, sometimes I'll watch sporting events such as baseball or football.Mari: But that's it?Ron: Yeah.Mari: OK, next, do you go to the movies? How often do you go to the movies?Ron: I don't go to the movies very often, maybe twice a year, I would say.Mari: That's it.Ron: Yeah.Mari: Do you rent movies?Ron: I rent movies more than I go to the cinema, but also not very often.Mari: What kind of movies do you like?Ron: I like funny movies. Comedies.Mari: Comedies. What's the most recent movie you watched?Ron: I watched Home Alone last night but it was on TV. I didn't rent the movie.Mari: OK. How often do you read books?Ron: I don't like reading, so I don't read books very often. The only time I do read books is for school purposes.Mari: What kind of books do you read for school?Ron: Well, my major is International Relations, so usually I read International Relations books if I have to read.Mari: If you have to read. So nothing? No books for pleasure?Ron: Not for entertainment.Mari: So when you're on the airplane, you don't read?Ron: No. I try to watch the movies on the airplane.Mari: OK. How often do you go to concerts?Ron: I go to concerts once in a while. In Hawaii, there aren't many concerts so when there are concerts, I try to go.Mari: What do you go see, or what type of concerts?Ron: I like Hawaiian music so I go to Hawaiian concerts, and if a big star from America comes, I usually try to go also.Mari: So music concerts.Ron: Right, music concerts.Mari: OK, Ron, thanks.Ron: You're welcome.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Mari: Hi, this is Mari. I'm here with Ron. Today, we'll talk about types of entertainment and how often we do these things. Let's first start with watching TV. Ron, how often do you watch TV?Ron: Usually I watch TV every day. I don't watch TV for very long but I usually watch TV every day. Usually, I watch the news.Mari: Why just the news?Ron: I like to know what's going on in the world, so I usually watch CNN or BBC.Mari: And that's it. Nothing else?Ron: Usually, yes.Mari: Usually?Ron: Other than that, sometimes I'll watch sporting events such as baseball or football.Mari: But that's it?Ron: Yeah.Mari: OK, next, do you go to the movies? How often do you go to the movies?Ron: I don't go to the movies very often, maybe twice a year, I would say.Mari: That's it.Ron: Yeah.Mari: Do you rent movies?Ron: I rent movies more than I go to the cinema, but also not very often.Mari: What kind of movies do you like?Ron: I like funny movies. Comedies.Mari: Comedies. What's the most recent movie you watched?Ron: I watched Home Alone last night but it was on TV. I didn't rent the movie.Mari: OK. How often do you read books?Ron: I don't like reading, so I don't read books very often. The only time I do read books is for school purposes.Mari: What kind of books do you read for school?Ron: Well, my major is International Relations, so usually I read International Relations books if I have to read.Mari: If you have to read. So nothing? No books for pleasure?Ron: Not for entertainment.Mari: So when you're on the airplane, you don't read?Ron: No. I try to watch the movies on the airplane.Mari: OK. How often do you go to concerts?Ron: I go to concerts once in a while. In Hawaii, there aren't many concerts so when there are concerts, I try to go.Mari: What do you go see, or what type of concerts?Ron: I like Hawaiian music so I go to Hawaiian concerts, and if a big star from America comes, I usually try to go also.Mari: So music concerts.Ron: Right, music concerts.Mari: OK, Ron, thanks.Ron: You're welcome.

Podcast Episode 15 Behaviour Change - Necessity is the Mother of Invention Dr. Ron Van Houten, Bobbi Hoadley, Cathy KnightsABA technical concepts covered in this podcast: Behaviour change procedures; pattern analyses; measurement; Functional Analysis; punishment procedures; negative reinforcement by reducing time and effort; positive punishment using delay and exertion; motivating operations and establishing operations; contextual fit; visual contextual cues; efficiency; group contingencies; maintenance  Bobbi and Cathy: When we have a problem that isn’t being solved, we create an intervention, or an invention, that will address the problem. The person we are talking to is such an interesting man, his name is Doctor Ron Van Houten and he is an ABA doctor and a professor at Western Michigan University. He has done work all over North American and Europe in traffic safety and how to decrease the conflicts that create near misses and people getting hurt. He has changed the behaviour of both drivers and pedestrians using Behaviour Analysis. Ron sets up solutions that engineer the behavior of everybody in those situations to mitigate the risk.

Ron: There were studies done that show that cars coming up to a crosswalk don’t have a good line of sight. Places in NY city a number of people crushed to death by trucks. So they put an arrow up high but it didn’t work. One simple solution was staggering the stop lines.Cathy: There are times when I would jay-walk, I think to myself ‘could I not have walked down to the corner to the crosswalk?” Ron: In essence, we know that people don’t like to wait. We find out where people would like to cross. Pedestrian generators. You can try educating with behavioural solutions.Bobbi: I would think all good functional analysis of behaviour is doing that – find  out where the behaviour is going and then decide whether you can actually change it or whether it’s better to go with the behaviour and just change the circumstances. Always juggling the reinforcement. In my situation, I measure a person against themselves. For you, you are dealing with people and conflicts and they all want efficiency.Ron: I wanted to get people to not use the elevator when they didn’t need it. I tried putting information about health benefits of using the stairs. Didn’t change. So I increased the wait time on the elevator and everyone who could use the stairs went to the stairs. By increasing their effort and time, I changed their behaviour.I did some things for the National Traffic Safety Administration, and we wanted to get people to wear seatbelts. I gave a survey, and sure enough put them into the car and baseline showed they wore their belts. Then we moved it to treatment, which was moving the car increase speed, if you buckled your belt, that force gradually went away. You have to repeat the reminders. A lot of people don’t buckle their seats before moving the car. You do a repeat reminder after they’re going. Pedal force-gets 100% seatbelt use, whereas before it was a delay. I used GM’s brake shift, to then get seatbelt reminder, and if they don’t buckle they can’t shift immediately, they have to wait 8 seconds. We had big increases in seatbelt use. They still have some choice.One of the cities in Florida, were having children struck going to and from school. I did the analysis and said 1) you don’t have a lot of sidewalks near the school. I looked and people were in such a hurry dropping kids off. Motivating operation-community wants to do something about it. 2) Reduce speeding when kids are going to and from school. Educate parents about kids getting struck, needing to be under speed limit or enforce it aggressively. For years, no more children were struck going to and from school. You need to prepare people before the change that they have to accept it.Bobbi: And this is a project you went back to and took data?Ron: We got the community buy-in to change the way things are done. Four years later, people were telling me it was awesome. They hit a tipping point into the high 70’s-people and drivers imitate behaviour. Everyone starts to yield. It become self-sustaining and changing dynamics of culture.Bobbi: Set up the group dynamics to either punish or reinforce.Ron: Some of the worst places I’ve seen, people say “oh we don’t have a problem”. When people try and make efforts, that’s where change is. Where there’s no motivation to change, it becomes harder. It’s almost paradoxical, when there’s a lot of interest, usually things are happening already.Bobbi: That’s why we follow our data.Ron: Score and look at what’s going on in Toronto-measure running lights.Bobbi: The programs to increase biking and decrease risks of biking in Vancouver use tools that are really varied.Ron: Consider for a moment, children used to walk or bicycle to school. Look today at obesity cause-lack of walking and bicycling. It’s a good thing to promote walking and bicycling because it saves on our healthcare costs.Bobbi: I do notice the more they put in structures to help bikers be more safe, it’s also the changing driver behaviour to be politer, I think you do reach a tipping point. I can’t hit them, I better join them.Ron: There is a greater acceptance of cycling than there used to be, and a little better with pedestrians. I would say Canada does better in yielding than the United States. I tried something years a go, it was the idea at the start of the walk, we had eyes that animated to look left and right. It would increase looking-so we could prompt people to look for vehicles. In Britain they have signs “look right” because we in North America look left, to look for moving cars. Winston Churchill was almost killed in NY City stepping off the crosswalk and was hit. Reminding people to look and knowing where to look. Crossing clockwise is different than crossing counter-clockwise. You have to use more behaviour to look at something coming from behind you than ahead of you. With texting you can’t see anything.Bobbi: I personally love the scrambling intersections in Europe. I don’t see these happening, can we expect that in the future?Ron: Scrambling intersections, creates more delay, but tends to be where there’s a lot of people. Match up treatments to people best you can.Bobbi: They have to provide equipment anyway, why not engineer it to be more helpful and safe for everyone. Ron: You can use something called a gateway treatment, so driver’s have to cross between them, we can get very good yielding with that and it’s an inexpensive tool. How much is it just the sign with no message? But going between these signs seems important too.Bobbi: So it’s a visual contextual fit.Ron: Exactly. We started to look at survival rates of the solutions. We found some that reduce the maintenance cost. Developing new ideas, some low cost. Think of the reminders in the car to wear seatbelt – costs nothing when software is already there.Bobbi: I would contend that most of the time it’s a lot less expensive to maintain a solution, than maintain a problem. Why I love behaviour analysis, we’re all about the solution.Ron: The other thing we can do is feedback and reinforcement. When we have a community making progress, we need to convey that to them to keep going in the right direction.  It was so nice to have Ron interacting with us and telling us more. The part I really like is that everything he does is the same as what I do. Even though he’s applying it to a variety of groups of people and he has a specific goal, he still does an analysis of the behaviour, and uses all the same tools I do, keeps it pragmatically going until he hits a tipping point and then keeps maintaining and generalizing it. It’ll be different for me crossing the street now.  It just goes to prove that necessity is the mother of invention.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:  Learn how Ron and his aftermarket service expertise help clients favorably impact the availability, reliability, support resource footprint and capability level of a product or system for an end-user.  Find out why cash flow is a huge challenge in a subscription model and why you need finance people to help you with that Find out why the price is an emotional driver of B2B and B2C brands   Ron Giuntini is the Principal of Giuntini & Company, Inc. since 1990.  He is in charge of overseeing the day to day business operations, managing various consultants, and heading the business development.  He also founded G35 Software, Inc. in 2016 where they employ a start-up, cloud-based, subscription-free application software which enables B2B sales teams to Configure & Price a Quote (CPQ) engaged in Aftermarket solutions. In this episode, Ron shares his expertise about the aftermarket service, gave an in-depth comparison about subscription and product service models, the challenges involved in developing a subscription model for your business and why you need to involve the leaders and decision makers of the company in the modeling and pricing process.   Tune in till the end of this episode and get that one piece of actionable subscription advice that will significantly impact your business.     “You must model your subscription financially to present to your leadership. If you're interested in moving towards that, you have to have the backup of the CFO because of the risks.” – Ron Giuntini   Stay updated on all thing pricing. Subscribe to ‘The Pricing Perspective’ here   Topics Covered:   01:12 – Ron defines what aftermarket is all about, what the biggest aftermarket sector is and how massive this industry is 05:29 – Difference between subscription and product as service business models 08:17 – Citing Ron’s reasons why robotics leads the subscription pricing model – protecting the brand and IP 10:56 – Subscription lesson from the Hughes Drill Bit, how it started the subscription model for drill bits 11:39 – The interesting antitrust case of United Shoe Machinery Corp. 13:24 – The reason why robotics leads the ‘product as a service’ model – the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) getting the constant feedback 14:09 – Mark tells value-based pricing as the reason why he thinks robotics leads the ‘product as a service’ model 16:00 – Ron narrates a detailed description of his other company G35 17:07 – Explaining further how the probability analysis in configuring price quotes was done 20:13 – How understanding a customer’s willingness to pay and the manufacturer’s willingness to accept relates in estimating costs 21:41 – Definition of forecasted cost 22:41 – The idea of creating a new company role called “price accounting” 23:01 – Pricing as emotional drivers of B2B and B2C brands 24:07 – Wrapping up with subscription advice from Ron – “You must model it financially to present to your leadership. If you're interested in moving towards that, you have to have the backup of the CFO because of the risks.  You must model it. That's my recommendation.” 25:21 – Why cash flow is a huge challenge with subscriptions and why you need finance people to help you with that.   Key Takeaways: “It could sell separately, the hardware and the service. It's all about protecting your brand and your IP. That's very, very important.” – Ron Giuntini “What I would love to see pricing people do is completely ignore cost. Come up with a price, hand it to the finance people and say, can we sell it for this and let finance decide if it's profitable or not.” – Mark Stiving “In the B2B world, we have to understand the way buyers make decisions, and we have to think about that. We can't just rely on the data, which is pretty interesting.” – Mark Stiving “Never talk about subscriptions without having that model, having developed it and going to the leadership (team). If you don't, they'll throw you out of the room and ask you - When you're an adult, come back.” – Ron Giuntini “Cost estimation is an art form itself and what always confuses me is that a lot of pricing people don't really look under the ‘comoda’ in regards to what, what makes up that cost.” – Ron Giuntini   Connect with Ron Giuntini: Email: ron@g35software.com giuntinicompany.com g35software.com LinkedIn   Connect with Mark Stiving Email:mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn Twitter

Welcome to this edition of the Real Fast Results podcast!  Ron Douglas is in the house, and he’s here to help any content creator, expert, and/or author who is trying to build their platform and income base.  Ron has advice on how to create a continuity program or another type of program to generate recurring income. Ron has a very stout and sterling publishing pedigree.  In fact, he is a New York Times bestselling author.  He has also appeared on national television shows, such as The Today Show and Good Morning America.  It’s all well and good to know that Ron has accomplished so much, but he still knows how to relate to people who are just starting out.  He’s very good at teaching and relaying information, so if help is welcomed when it comes to building your platform, you’re in the right place. Download the Complete PDF Show Notes Free for this Episode Promise: Creating Recurring Income If you want to have recurring income, if you want to have steady income, so that when you wake up in the morning you know the bills are paid that much because you’ve built something that makes you feel comfortable that the money is going to keep coming. If you want to do that online, and you want to do it with information products, I think I have a pretty good system that you’ll want to pay attention to. Download the Complete PDF Show Notes Free for this Episode Learn Create a physical product Offer the product for free - plus shipping Collect the lead Have an additional offer Be clear on what they are getting Put leads into a specific funnel The technology you need to make this work The specific programs and links Ron uses One-click upsell Download the Complete PDF Show Notes Free for this Episode Connecting with Ron You can reach me on RonDouglas.com, and you can join my email newsletter there.  When you get an email, you can reply back to that, or you can reach me on Facebook at Facebook.com/LikeRonDouglas.  You can connect from there. If you would like to see an example of one of my offers, you can see one at RecipeSecrets.net.  If you go to RonDouglas.com, there’s a link to RecipeSecrets.net, and if you go to RecipeSecrets.net/special, you’ll see the offer that I’ve been talking about throughout this podcast.  You can get a free cookbook too. We are going to be going into detail about strategies just like this when we do our Best Sellers Summit, which is later on this month.  We’ll have recordings there, if anyone misses it as well.  If you didn’t already know, the Best Sellers Summit is an annual online conference.  You don’t have to get out of bed; you can just log right on.  It’s an online conference where we bring some of the top bestselling authors, internet marketing teachers, social media marketing teachers, and other people that are bonafide experts online together. We bring them together, and you are able to learn from all of them, who each do an hour-long presentation on what’s working for them right now.  What’s working, how they are making money, and how they are selling books.  We teach people how to sell books, how to sell info-products, how to build a following online, how to build a social media presence, how to get more traffic, and all of that stuff. It’s all covered, and it’s all different and unique ways to do it.  How to do these free + shipping offers, how to sell on Amazon, and how to sell on Amazon Kindle.  All of these topics are covered.  It’s just a great way to learn the business and learn a lot of different ways to make money online.  You can learn to make money with information products and books as well.  By the way, you can check out the Best Sellers Summit by visiting DanielHallPresents.com/bestsum. Resources Best Sellers Summit InstaBuilder 2.0  WordPress Instant Publisher CreateSpace Kunaki Fiverr LocalNerds.com Rakuten PayPal Stripe Zaxaa ClickMagick Aweber Real Fast Results Community If you are diggin’ on this stuff and really love what we’re doing here at Real Fast Results, would you please do me a favor? Head on over to iTunes, and make sure that you subscribe to this show, download it, and rate & review it. That would be an awesome thing. Of course, we also want to know your results. Please share those results with us at http://www.realfastresults.com/results. As always, go make results happen!

It's the inaugural episode of the podcast and we're coming out swinging! We start off by discussing the one thing that seems to pre-occupy all of our clients whenever they go into the process of buying or selling a home -- FEAR. You'll find ways to overcome being so afraid and embracing the process, the most primary of which comes from a very odd source -- the works of Plato! Tom then takes a look at how investors took advantage of everyone's fear of the market during the crash, when everyone was running the opposite way, and made a killing buying houses when no one else was even thinking about it. We then start the conversation about what types of agents you want to avoid (the Weak Agents or WA's -- and Salesman Agent SA's) and what type of value an agent should bring to your home purchase or sale. We wrap up with our 10 Commandments or promises we pledge to provide to our audience. It's a jam-packed first episode and we're incredibly excited to be bringing it to you! [spp-transcript] Announcer: Welcome to the Clarified Realty Podcast — exposing the real estate secrets your agent doesn't want you to know. Here's your host Tom Clary. Tom: Hi there and welcome to our inaugural podcast Clarified Realty episode 001. We're so happy to took the time to give us a listen. I'm hoping that we'll have some great adventures ahead of us and we'll be able to learn a lot about the great big world of real estate together. Some introductions are in order. My name's Tom Clary. I'm a licensed real estate agent here in the state of California. My practice is located specifically in the beautiful San Fernando Valley. I'm a valley boy, born and bred, and while I handle real estate transactions in pretty much all areas of Los Angeles — Downtown, Hollywood — this is really my specialty. I work with both buyers and sellers and my office is located in the tony and prestigious enclave of Calabasas, California. You might know it as the home of a Kardashian or two and it's pretty much the Beverly Hills of the Los Angeles suburbs. Joining me today and on the rest of our podcasts will be my friend, sidekick and amazing lender, Ron Bruno. Hi there, Ron. Why don't you give us a little about yourself. Ron: Tom, thank you so much. My name's Ron Bruno. I'm with the firm, Guaranteed Rate here in beautiful Pasadena. I'm a Chicago guy originally — born and bred. We moved, my family we moved. when I was seven. Grew up in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina a nice little resort town — and as my wife likes to say, I'm a cabana boy — she she married a cabana boy. It is true. Tom: It happens! The dream happens. Ron: It does happen, exactly. I went to college at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia and moved out here fourteen years ago. Tom: Wow, you've been out here a while. Ron: I've been here for a while. I moved originally for a girl and stayed for the weather. Yes. Tom: Understandable. Sometimes the girls change. The weather here in California relatively stays the same. Ron: It's true and my professional background I for the first ten years I was in various realms in sales and marketing. Wy first job actually was advertising. Tom: OK. Ron: I've been in professional, personal finance and professional services for over eight years now starting in wealth management and moved over to the wonderful world of residential lending. Tom: Awesome, awesome, Ron… And we'll be going more in depth with Ron in our upcoming podcast number 002, where we'll be taking more of a deep dive into mortgages and how they are really the first sign post on our trip up the mountain of home ownership. Yes, even before talking to a real estate agent like me. But for this episode this is really going to be the two of us giving you a preview of what we're really trying to achieve here and give you an idea of what to expect moving forward. You know, when I first spoke to Ron about starting this podcast I told him that I wanted to make sure that if we were going to do you know to get together and talk to you guys once a week to humbly request the gift of your very valuable attention, I wanted to make sure that we were saying something completely different. I wanted it to be something that had a completely different voice and point-of-view. It had to be nothing that you could hear on another real estate-centric podcast or any other real estate content. If you're going to take your very precious time to download this podcast, how can I just, you know give you information you could just hear in a hundred of other places? And Ron and I really, you know, talked about it and I started circling around different concepts and nothing we really came up was really clicking. So I thought about it and I thought about it and I started thinking about all the clients I've worked with. Was there something about them that seemed to be a common thread? Was there something on, you know, either the buy side or the sell side that seemed to keep on coming up? And then it hit me. There was something that seemed to keep on coming up, over and over, every deal for whatever reason it just for some reason couldn't escape it. Every potential buyer I talked to was preoccupied with it. There was something here and I thought, well I could do something about that — and that thing that kept on coming back and back and back — fear. It's such a simple concept but it seems to rear its ugly head constantly in real estate. I mean everywhere I looked in my business I saw it. Fear about timing. You know? “Is now the right time to buy or sell or should I wait until next year?” Fear about inspections and disclosures… “Uh, what if I buy this amazing house but then I find out there is mold in the walls?” It's the one thing that united all these deals and it was an element of fear and I could only imagine that this fear sets in even before the process gets started, before people even make the decision to buy or sell a home. It paralyzes them. They sit in their studio apartment all huddled up on the couch under a blanket, saying “Oh, I sure would like to buy a house but what's the best choice? Should I rent? Should I buy? What if I lose my shirt, you know, like all those people did when the bubble burst?” “I'd love to start looking for a house but then I'd have to talk to one of those awful real estate agents giving me a hard sales pitch and I'm sure they won't leave me alone!” Actually that one is really a scary one. Ron: That's true. Tom: But look don't get me wrong. All of these are valid concerns, but they shouldn't ever be fears. At the end of the day, buying or selling a home or condo is not rocket surgery. Trust me I've spoken or done transactions with agents that I would consider to be the absolute best and brightest agents in the business, I mean the cream of the crop. And trust me no one is mistaking them for Mensa members or Nobel laureates. If they can understand the process, so can you, right? So getting back to fear. Look… Let's take a look at really, really good example. What do you think is the number one question I get asked over and over and over again as an agent? The first question anyone asks me when I walk into a party or some sort of networking event? Ron, you've probably got the same… The same story. What's the number one question you get asked whenever someone sees you that hasn't seen you for a while? Ron: How's the market? Tom: Yep — or is now a good time to buy? Or, is now a good time to sell? I mean am I right? It mean it's sort of cliche. Ron: It is. It is. You get people asking questions about, you know, where rates are going… What's the Fed going to do? You know, is now the right time? Should we wait? Is the… You know, are we in a bubble? Tom: Right. And it's and its foundation is really coming from fear. It's coming from a place of either, “I could lose my shirt or you know am I going to make some sort of mistake?” So, if someone comes up to me and asks me this… I mean, I'm talking about a person that that actually wants to buy, right? Not, you know, somebody who's just kind of, you know, waffling or whatever. They actually do want to buy, but they — they're asking this question seriously… What they're really saying to me is, “Listen, Tom, if I buy my house now, will I lose my money?” Fear. That's what's really at the root of it — and I'm going to let you in on the secret… About seventy to eighty percent of agents are not going to be exactly forthcoming about it if the market isn't going that person's way. They're going to twist it and turn it in a way that still gets you hooked. So, I mean, seriously? What do you think they're going to say, right? You think they're going to go, “I don't know — I hope you don't like that shirt you're wearing ‘cause you're going to lose it if you buy a house right now.” I mean, no. They're going to say whatever they can to get you to sign on the dotted line. Period. And they are everything I despise about this business and I'm sure you despise it too. So that's why it's so important you can find an agent who you can trust. And we'll go into this into a more in depth in a future episode — ways to weed out the good agents from the bad — but right now we're going to stay on topic about what this whole podcast is going to be about. So which is the fear — what can you do to reduce that paralyzing fear? Well, when I was in college at U.S.C. I took what I guess could be considered a general philosophy course, where we read Socrates and all the great philosophers and I basically learned how to argue with people using the Socratic method, which pissed my parents off to no end, right? Because I'd like, I'd come home and they'd say, “Clean your room.” and I'd say, “Is there really a room?” But there's one thing that always stuck with me. In the class that we read one of these books was called the Protagoras by Plato and I can't remember what the general gist of the whole thing was but there was this one part that really stuck with me and I think it's really important to this conversation. And, in that part, Plato — he's writing as Socrates, but it's Plato — is convincing his disciples that, you know, the five important human virtues: there was courage, temperance, holiness, justice, and wisdom — are all just names for the same exact thing. And his disciples, you know, they like go crazy. They disagree with him. “Oh oh. Whoa, whoa Socrates! How could these be the same things? How on earth could courage and wisdom be the same thing? That makes absolutely no sense!” But then Socrates, or Plato, goes through and systematically proves it. If someone has knowledge of the battlefield, they in turn have courage. If they make themselves educated about successful tactics and successful strategies, they have courage. Or, should we say — a lack of fear, right? What Plato was was trying to really teach us was that cowardice is really ignorance — and more importantly even — ignorance is cowardice. Ron: That's deep. It's a little deep — but I'll tell you something, it struck me so hard, even when I was eighteen, that I still carry it around with me, every single day — that basically, the more knowledge that I have the more courageous I'm going to be. So, anyway… If we, if we look at and if we look at real estate from this perspective — who do you think are the folks out there that aren't afraid? Well, it's the guy or girl with the most knowledge about the real estate market and real estate period. They're the ones that have you know taken time to educate themselves. The person who understands the battlefield as it were. They understand that fear keeps the scaredy cats on the sidelines while they jump in and they grab all the best deals. Look, after the crash, it's understandable that people got skittish. I get it. I mean people watched as friends and family, I mean lost their homes and lives were turned upside down. It only makes sense that there be a level of fear when people thought about the possibility of re-entering the market. But here's the thing. There were a lot of people who took advantage of this. They sat back until everyone was so afraid to buy and they swept in and basically bought everything with four walls. Usually with cash. Now, what do we have? Now, there's still a lack of inventory out there. We went from months worth of shadow inventory just sitting there to basically being in the desert looking for an affordable glass of water. I mean we're dealing with a housing shortage at least at least here in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley that has made home prices climb and climb. I mean sure I'm starting to kind of see that stabilize a bit but when things are all scary out there there were there were very few people that came in, investors, that took advantage of that atmosphere of fear and ate our lunch. I'm going to come… I'm going to come right out here and I'm going to let you know that I'm firmly in the camp folks who believe that homeownership is a good thing. I mean, it would be sort of weird for a real estate agent to be bearish on homeownership. So, right? You buy a house you keep it for a period time and you get more money than you started with. You can make changes and additions that add value and historically, at least, historically we're talking about an asset that appreciates. It gets more valuable as time goes on. Not to mention you don't flush your money down the toilet once a month in the form of rent. When you buy a home the money effectively goes theoretically back into your pocket. Yes, you need to come up with a larger portion of money to begin with in the form of a down payment and the payment each month may be a bit more but it's really hard to argue against the benefits. Ron: You know, Tom… You bring up a really good point and back when I was in the Wealth Management days… You know I was in wealth management in two thousand and eight, if you can believe that's when I actually got my start. Tom: Geez, you're old. Ron: It's like I timed that absolutely perfectly. But what was really interesting is you saw people like Warren Buffett and they saw companies and they saw a stock where that company was on sale. So, the value of that company didn't necessarily mean that it lost half the value. Japan, when they had the tsunami the E.T.F. for the Japanese economy didn't all of a sudden go away after the tsunami and it just so happened the next day that E.T.F. was down twenty five percent. So, real investors… They're looking at value when it's on sale and they are you know it just you know your wife she goes to Bloomingdale's and sees something that's half off doesn't mean that, “Oh my gosh, you know, the value of that bracelet is now half of what it's worth.” No. She sees it on sale and that's what investors do they see things that are on sale and when it comes to real estate when it comes to stock, there are a lot of people who see it as it's all of a sudden worth half the value. Tom: Yeah. And we'll go. I'm going to go into that in depth a little bit later on and he's but he's entirely right. I mean it's it's like a let me get to that but what I'm what I'm getting at is well look I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist at all, right? I don't own a tinfoil hat to keep the aliens from talking to me and I don't think there's a one percent that is doing all they can to keep the other ninety nine percent down at least in any sort of organized way, but because of the scarcity and the scarce nature of real estate, we're fast becoming a nation of haves and have-nots. And when I say scarce I mean there's, there's only so much real estate out there, folks. Housing starts aren't what they used to be. Not a lot of new houses out there. Developers aren't building like they used to and when they're building it's predominantly rentals. Right? That's important. That means there are less and less places to buy and if you don't jump on the train that's speeding by you might not ever be able to get on. When the economy was burning down and and everyone else was grabbing their hats and heading for the door — a lot of very smart, informed people were running toward the fire and end up making a lot of money in the process. They didn't let fear overwhelm them and now they're in the catbird seat, holding properties that were worth more than they were then you know they were worth even two, three years ago. Even though… Even though you're not here when we're recording this I can already hear a lot of you and you're basically probably saying, “Hey, buddy… I'd love to buy a house… A condo… But I, but I can't afford it. I don't have the downpayment. I don't even make that kind of money to make a monthly payment in this market.” I get it. I get it. But that's — that's not what we're talking about here and we'll go into depth in later episodes about how you can go from having zero in the bank to saving enough for a down payment or or how you can use a down payment assistant plan… Assistance plan to purchase a home. Ron will definitely be talking about that later but you can make it happen if you want to but I'm not I'm not going to B.S. you — it's hard freaking work and takes a lot of sacrifice but it's totally worth it. But we'll get into that later. So I keep on talking about things we're going to go back into later, but I swear, we're going to get back to them later. So, so no… What I'm talking about now though is I'm talking to those of you that are still standing on the sidelines and you're hemming and you're hawing — and, Oooo… Is this the right time to buy? Should I wait another six weeks? And you're vacillating back and forth… I'm going to let you in on a little secret. If that's what you're doing, you probably don't really want to buy a house in the first place. Because — want to know how I know this? Because you didn't come off the bench during the last bottom of the market. You already missed the chance — this quote-unquote bottom you keep waiting for! So, don't B.S. me and tell me that you're some sort of junior economist or something. “I keep on hearing I should wait until next summer to buy.” Well, you know what? Those folks still out there buying houses know something you don't: you buy the property, not the market! Alright, and what the hell does that mean? OK. Well, let me give you an example. And this is right off of… This stands on basically what Ron was just talking about it was it was Saks Fifth Avenue and the bracelet. But, I'm going to I'm going to put in more kind of every day corner market kind of terms. Right? So, so you… You've probably been to a Whole Foods, right? Now, let's say this Whole Foods is right next door to a Ralphs or a Vons, right? Something like that. Now most of the time because I am not made of money, I'm going to head over to the place where there's lower prices — usually the Vons or the Ralphs. I'm not a moron. Am I going to spend more money for almost everything just for the honor of walking home with a snazzy green canvas Whole Foods bag on my arm? No. But let's say one day I'm walking into the Ralph's and I glance over and I see that Whole Foods is selling bags of grapes for fifty cents a pound — and that's a really good price. Do I say, “Oh, no, no, no… That market is way too expensive. I'm not going over there!” Once again, Hell no! I'm going to go to Ralphs and do the majority of my shopping over there and then I'll go right on over to “Whole Paycheck” and pay you know buy a few pounds of their very tasty fifty cents a pound grapes. The same goes for real estate. You buy the property, not the market. There are a lot of savvy buyers out there still finding homes they can afford. They're not sitting on the sidelines waiting for the sea to change. No! They're out there, educating themselves every day in a way that these opportunities reveal themselves to them — and then they strike. And by the way that reminds me of one of my really big frustrations about people that want to buy but are still sitting there doing, you know, watching the world pass them by. You tell me, “Well, I'd love to do it but there's nothing I can afford out there.” Or, “I can't qualify for a loan.” Oh, really??? And what exactly are you basing that on? Have you spoken to an agent like me? Have you even given Ron a call and talked to him? Has he told you that you can't? Then how can you have any real idea about what your situation is? Because reality might be something completely different. I'm going to let you in on another big secret — for buyers? You don't have to pay us for this information! You actually don't ever have to pay us at all. That comes from the seller after you move in. So what the hell do you have to lose to pick up the phone and have us run some numbers? Or for me to look around at things that may not be on Redfin or Zillow yet. Or maybe I know of areas you haven't even thought of yet. Areas that make you say, “Oh, I didn't know this neighborhood was here!” You know, it drives me crazy! And we love those kind of clients because they give us a call that you know to find out stuff because we're like, “Cool! This sounds like someone who's actually taking the time to understand the reality of where they are!” Don't get me wrong, sometimes Ron's going to give you bad news. Or, I'm going to tell you that maybe moving into Beverly Hills isn't in the cards for you when you can only afford five hundred grand. But isn't it better to know the actual facts? Knowledge cancels out fear! It at least cancels out ignorance. Am I right, Ron? Ron: Yeah absolutely. I mean when you look at having the information at your fingertips… You can go online and run every scenario and look at what the general consensus says about your particular situation and you could paralyze yourself in fear where you're not actually really doing anything. You're just basing your situation off of what the general populace says versus actually running the hard numbers. And when I look at a client, I look at them from the standpoint of “OK, here's what you qualify for now.” Right? And if that's not the number that they're looking for, then we start talking about a path of either changing the expectations — or this is how we're going to work to get you into that position. Tom: Yeah, it's an actual getting your butt off the chair and doing something instead of sitting there and going, “Oh, I probably can't. I can't. You know? Oh, I read this and I read that…” You know, you could literally… It's like the snake eating itself. You'll never, ever, ever be able to get enough information to get you off the couch unless you actually do it. You actually have to do it and the first really good step is actually calling us and finding out. We'll be happy to tell you one way or another whether you can do it. And, by the way, I want to make sure everyone understands this. This is not some sort of you know get rich quick infomercial B.S. This is, this is an actual strategy for you to really become self-reflective enough and get the real solid information about your financial situation. You know, to overcome your fear and become a homeowner instead of just being a perpetual spectator. So, anyway alright… So what is this podcast going to be really? Well, we're going to be looking in-depth, really drilling down into each facet of the process. Whether you're a buyer or seller, you're going to hear things that could potentially give you an advantage. In each episode, we're… We're planning to a look at whatever you know whatever the topic is, whether it's escrow, title, lending — from both sides of the fence. Sort of like, you know, how Law and Order does… They do the whole police work first and then they switch sides and they go to the you know the whole court/prosecution side — that's that's what we're going to be doing here. We'll start with the buy side, discussing how you can get the best deals, things you should look out for when looking for a house. Things to look for in inspections. You know, things like that. Then we're going to switch gears and go the other way. We'll grab our sellers hat, put it on, and talk about how you can avoid certain pitfalls like disclosures and negotiating repairs and end up getting the best net for your home. On each side we will go deep to really try and provide insight and advice that you've never heard before. The last thing I want you to be thinking as you listen is is, “Jesus I've heard all this stuff before” I will struggle… You have my promise to you I will struggle with every episode to make sure that you take away incredibly valuable information that you can't get anywhere else. Another thing that I really want to do — and don't get me wrong, I'm running into very uncomfortable territory here… I want to provide a very honest look at what the real estate business is really like. For a long time now, real estate agents, Realtors — there is a difference by the way, I will tell you about what that difference is — have earned a pretty despicable reputation. They're like a very small step above used car salesman, with like new car salesman sort of running neck and neck with us — and it's incredibly well earned. Sometimes, I hear stories stories and I go. “Yep, that's why everybody hates us.” But I've got another maybe not so big surprise… Sometimes it's even how we're trained by our brokerages to do business in the first place. It's really, I mean it embarrasses me and this whole comedy of errors has a cast of characters and we'll definitely go into this more in-depth in later podcasts — but just to give you a little bit of a taste — there's basically, there are basically three types of agents. First, there's what I call the “WA” or “Weak Agent.” Generally they're the young and inexperienced agent. They just haven't been through enough deals, or they never had a good mentor, or they haven't been in the trenches long enough to really have gotten any kind of seasoning — or even worse, they just don't care about being informed or knowing about how things work. They don't learn about their area or how to analyze comps, so they can add value to your home search or your home sale. They just — like they just passed the agent exam by the hair of their chinny chin-chin, right? These kinds of agents can be really dangerous to you and can definitely end up costing you money and a lot of hassles. They make for a very stressful transaction. Then, the second type of agent is is what I call an “SA” or a “Salesman Agent” and you probably know the type if you watch Million Dollar Listing and other T.V. shows. They wear the totally slicks suits and have perfectly shaved stubble and perfectly waxed Jaguars. And by the way, they may have lots of knowledge but it really, really becomes a question of are they really using that knowledge for your best interests or is it to get the best deal or bottom line for them? After you sign the listing agreement with them are they doing the hard work? Are they there for all the inspections? For the photo shoots, are they moving furniture around to get the best shot? Are they are they making phone calls to your lender to make sure contingencies are hit on time — or did they they just make the deal and run, right? Is there some quote-unquote team, made up of usually WA's, by the way, in the background doing the work for him or her? Well this this type of agent is slightly better than the WA, they're still dangerous to you in other ways and and we'll get into that in the future podcasts. And the last type of agent is what I call the “PA” or the “Protector Agent.” This is the type of agent you should always, always be looking for. They're the ones that not only take care of issues but they take the time to make sure you understand why there are even issues in the first place. They have a portfolio of transactions behind them and have heard about most if not all of the pitfalls that might lie upon the road ahead. Every transaction is different and has its own moving parts but generally the P.A. knows how the engine works and even when there are unique and crazy curveballs they can find the best way to solve the problem and make sure you stay protected. I know I'm a protector agent because I'm looking out for problems before they even become problems. If we're going to breeze past contingency during escrow you bet your butt, I'm going to see it coming a mile away and be trying to fix the issue before it kills the deal and makes everybody's life miserable. So, look… My ultimate goal… What I want to achieve here and I think what Ron wants to achieve here as well, is that when it comes to picking an agent or a lender, I want to give you the knowledge and ability to really see through their mindset and find an agent or loan broker that is truly looking out for your best interest. Look, I'm not going to name any names. I'm not going to call anybody out, but I do think there needs to be a real self-reflectiveness in terms of agents really coming to terms with how we are perceived by Joe Home-Buyer or Josephine Home-Seller. When I'm, when I'm with my clients, I don't consider myself a salesman — like at all. I want to be more like like a professional with them, more like a doctor or a lawyer than any kind of, “Hey kid… Hey, hey, hey… Can I help you today?“ You know, B.S. salesmen. I wear a completely different hat when I'm with my clients. And yes, if I'm selling your house, I need to market or sell your property — or if I'm trying to get you into your dream house, you know, when there are ten other offers — I'm trying to sell you and your offer, but I should never be a salesman to my client. You're the person I work for. You're my boss. I'm supposed to advise you to the best of my ability and then you tell me what to do. So, we'll discuss this a lot more along the way too. Ron: You know Tom, you bring up a good point, because there's… There's two types of professionals out there. You have professionals that are transaction oriented, which means they will do anything to close the deal, right? It's A.B.C.. Yeah right. It's Glengarry Glen Ross. Always be closing. But then you have those professionals like Tom and myself — we're relationship focused. We're looking out for your interest and we're always thinking of the long term. Because we want to help you, we want to help your family, your colleagues what have you. So if you're looking at a particular home and it's not going to be a fit and we know that, we're not going to be pushing you into anything. Tom: Right. And you know it's… I've literally had this exact same conversation with all my clients, where I basically say, “I'm not trying to sell you this house. I'm trying to sell you the house ten years, twenty years, thirty years down the line.” That's what we're talking about here. It's not in my best interest, by the way, to just sell you this — like do everything I can to hard pressure you to buy a house “I don't know if I can do it” because all you're gonna do is be thinking all the time “That Tom, he just kept, you know, kept pushing and kept pushing and I would never go back to him again. I would never recommend…” No, no, no… I want, I want you to when you walk into that house, I want you to have a feeling of, “I'm home. I'm home. This feels great. That Tom…” That's really what I'm looking for. I want to hear “Tom” associated with that amazing feeling you have about walking into that house — and I think that works the best for anybody involved in that transaction. Ron: Absolutely. Tom: And and by the way while we're talking about like the high pressure thing and everything… I was thinking about this the other day… And I'm talking to Ron, because I don't know if you have you ever heard the utter exasperation of a homeowner after their listing expires? Ron: Oh, yes. Tom: If you don't know what that means when a home is put on the market and doesn't sell in ninety… one hundred twenty days, whatever days it says in the contract between you know the agent and the seller, it's then considered to be quote end quote “Expired” and it's up for grabs. Any agent can come in and try to, you know, get the listing again. And oh, boy… oh boy do they come. Holy moly. These these poor homeowners… Look, They've already experienced the humiliation of the market rejecting their home for whatever reason, whether, you know, there wasn't enough marketing — or they just didn't want to put in, you know, the resources to change the crazy pink walls in the living room to you know some color the didn't make people throw up when they looked at it. Or, you know, more than likely you just didn't listen to the agent and priced it way too high. Right? But for whatever reason your dream of packing up and moving to Bermuda has been totally shattered — and then what happens? Ron? Ron: Yeah, so what happens is… It's in the new Realtor's handbook. You get barraged by expired listings… There is this term, “door knocking” you are essentially you assault everybody in your neighborhood. Tom: I mean they literally get inundated with a barrage of phone calls from low-life WA's and SA's and they get easily, easily fifty to sixty phone calls, all in one day. Like they come out of the woodwork — it's like a zombie movie. I've been in places, brokerages, right? Where they call the receptionist they finally call the receptionist at the front desk and they plead for the calls to stop. I mean it's disgraceful and we wonder why we have such a horrible reputation as human scum. It's ridiculous. And it's like the crowd never stops. But I mean look I take a look at that stuff. It really makes me totally understand why people want to even nix real estate agent out of the mix completely, right? “I mean I've got Zillow and Redfin — they give valuations… They tell me what's for sale. I mean, why do I need an agent anymore? How are real estate agents not just a middleman You know that does X, Y, or Z, when I can do X, Y, or Z on this here smart phone of mine? When is someone going to come along and disrupt or Uber-fy the real estate business?” Well OK. OK, right? Point taken, but listen. Two things. Two things… First, speaking for real estate agents, we really need to listen to that. That means that people either think of us as unnecessary at beset or complete a-holes at worst. We are doing such a horrible job with how we deal with our clients or potential clients that they just don't want to deal with us at all. They want to cut us out of the process completely! And the second thing really… The other side of that coin is that not only are we horrible, but we're not doing a good enough job letting them know what value we do bring to them — and by the way we do bring value, an enormous amount of value but it just may not be in the way that they necessarily expect. There was a there was an incredible article I read the other day on Inman.com. It's a… That's a… If you don't know what that is, it's a website mostly for folks in the real estate business like me and Ron — and actually this article is more like a transcript from a presentation by a guy named Jed Carlson from a company called Adworx… And he was talking about this this exact stuff and he was comparing real estate to other businesses that had, you know, gone through the quote/unquote disruption. His biggest example was the music industry where you know basically Napster came along and changed the way that we think about music. Before, when you wanted to hear your, you know, favorite song that you had, you know, you wanted — you had to go out and buy this big black disc called an album or a CD — and you couldn't just have the one song you wanted, right? You needed ten other not so great songs that came along with it. But, like, with Napster you could choose the one single you wanted and listen to it as many times as you wanted. So he started thinking if technology like this could disrupt an industry like the music business could things like Zillow or Redfin, you know, etcetera do the same with real estate? So, he was reading an article — he was reading an article. So I'm reading an article of a guy who was reading an article — from an industry expert who was asked if you could boil down what a service provider really does for the client — what would it be? And this is what he said the guy said. I'm going to read it here. “I think it's three things. The first one is they help reduce the risk. They reduce the risk of the transaction. The second one is they help carry the load, grunt work, leg work, all that stuff. And the third one is they comfort the client along the way.” Now, it sounds exactly what a real estate agent should be doing. Funny thing, he wasn't talking about real estate agents. The guy was an expert in mountain climbing and was talking about Sherpas, Sherpa mountain guides. I'm going to read from the transcript here because what he says I think is very important. So listen up. He says, “Now for those of you who don't know what a Sherpa is, what they are… They are a culture of about fifty thousand people that live in eastern Nepal and they're famous for their hard work ethic and being acclimated to high altitude and a lot of them make their living taking climbers up Mount Everest and K2, the most dangerous mountains in the world. So the Sherpa, I think, make a great analogy to the real estate agent in a lot of ways because they share an eerily similar set of core value propositions, right? Reduce risk. Carry the load. Comfort the client.” End quote. So, that's what — that's what real estate agents really sell — confidence. You're going through one of the biggest purchases or sales if you're a seller in your life — you want someone who has been up the mountain enough times so they know when there's an outcropping that is extra slippery… Or “Oh, those clouds on the horizon are looking pretty scary over there. We should probably camp out here for the night.” And then this guy Jed goes on to say — and he's talking about the role of the real estate agent here — talking to the client, quote, “I'm going to take you through the most difficult and treacherous and biggest transaction of your life. I cannot guarantee it will be painless or easy, but it is my job to protect you…” There's that word “protect” you, “…during the process and make you as comfortable as I can. My experience will prevent errors and when something unexpected comes up we're going to benefit from my experience. Listen, I've got your back all the way through the process, even beyond the close until you are satisfied. I am your Sherpa.” So when you tell us that you can find the house on Zillow? You know, awesome! You know, that means we can save time finding you a place. I mean, but if all you think a real estate agent is is a dog running around to find you a bone — you're mistaken. That's not where my value is. An agent's value is being your Sherpa, guiding you up the mountain, doing some of the grunt work — and if the weather turns bad, as it does sometimes in a real estate transaction — you want them to have enough experience and knowledge to guide you to a safe place. And that's that's also what I, what I'm hoping to do here. I want to help guide all of you up that rocky slope of buying or selling a home. Remember… It doesn't have to be scary. I mean, not if you know where the handholds are, or the footholds are, and I'm I'm going to help you find where they are… Guiding you… Being your Sherpa. And whomever you choose to be your agent will take you the rest of the way, you know… Ron: You know, Tom you bring up a really good point and I really, really like this and you know professionals like us being Sherpas. You know, I think a very important piece to that is also transparency. You know, we want our clients to share everything and what's going on. They don't have to necessarily share everything with everybody in the transaction, right? But, at least with with us… Because what it helps is— it actually helps us create a path. So when we find, you know, just like you're hiring a Sherpa to take you up a mountain… If you have a heart condition, that's probably something a Sherpa would want to know. Tom: I was literally about to say if you, like, if you have asthma or something like that… You know, you're probably going to want to tell the Sherpa that. “I don't know if I can make it up this mountain.” Ron: Exactly exactly. Tom: Or, if you're afraid of heights, right? You know, you might want to reconsider. Ron: But you know those are things that, you know, once we know this information — knowledge is power. So, being transparent. If you're going to go on vacation a week before we close escrow, well these are things we need to know because we need to make sure that we lay out the path and that just helps us navigate and help. Tom: Well and to go into really and hopefully not to belabor the whole sharper analogy. We're basically if you have these issues. Well then we have to pack differently. I mean we literally have to if you. You know have a heart condition we're going to we're going to make sure that we're going to have you know adrenaline or some sort of being a deferred later inside of our back just in case that somehow you start clutching your chest you know at eight thousand feet and it's much easier to plan for this you know we set foot on the mountain. Right exactly. So when you're in the middle of escrow OK yes it's good to know if these these things pop up but it's a lot easier to know all of this in advance before we're helping you with your offer and helping you get into escrow and everything else because it helps us plan and strategize when advance because we don't have we don't have the clock or I don't have a gun pointed at our heads right. Great so here I'm going to be closing up here and basically what I'm closing up with is and what I'm calling my ten commandments for this podcast The first one commandment number one I will tell you the truth once a week. Even if it hurts me what does that mean. Well that means total honesty if you need to know something as a buyer or seller My duty is to let you know even if it's counter to my best interest. It's the podcast version of fiduciary. Duty basically But here's the other side of that coin. I'm going to and like you know we were just talking about on I'm going to ask you to be honest about things too if you're you know going to take a bigger role in finding your home or selling your home than you need to hear when you're screwing up to I'm not going to coddle you here. This is about you learning the most you can and then turning around and taking action effectively losing your fear and taking action effectively if I hurt your feelings in any way please try not to take it personally but there's a chance. It's going to happen next. Commandment number two I'm going to throw more value at you then you could ever need in this podcast in this pocket as you will hear everything the kitchen and the sink. There are times where it will be very kind of inside pool and nerdy and maybe too technical but I think it's important for you to hear it in order to get the whole picture and in between you will find you'll find things that resonate with you and then you can use personally. Number three. Every episode will have a riginal information and perspective that you can't find anywhere else. So basically if you say I X I could've gone on the internet look that up. I and Ron have failed and I definitely want to hear about it. Number four. I'm going to answer your questions. If you have anything specific you want to hear about do not hesitate. Email me at Tom at clarified Realty dot com and I'll be happy to answer it for you but don't be surprised if you hear it on the next episode of the pod cast. If you're asking a question then somebody else is probably asking that question to command number five shenanigans. I am going to be on the lookout for all the latest shenanigans and cons that you need to be on the lookout for in the market your protector agent should be looking out for these two but I'm going to try to do all I can to let you know before you get burned. Harmed in any way commandment or six you will learn ways to hold your agent and other real estate professionals accountable. What should you expect for the commission you pay what behavior and ethics of the protector agent personify each episode will include specific things you should be looking for when you're working with that command and over seven. I will introduce you to incredible experts in the field when I have a guest they will be bedded to make sure that they truly know what they're talking about and are professionals I consider to be the best in the business and you will hear amazing advice you won't hear anywhere else. Straight from their own mouths commander number eight. And this is an important one. I'm going to be learning right along with you. And that's going to be one of my big criteria when planning these pod casts have I heard that stuff before is it new to me and you know and I've been doing this a while. There's probably a good chance you guys haven't heard it either. If I haven't heard it command number nine is that I'm always listening. If you have something to say whether it's some way this podcast can improve or become better I want to hear about it. I want to read your comments. We're going to be building this plane mid-flight and I always want to hear ways to make it better as a matter of fact that's why I'm leaving command number ten open. It's going to stay empty in the off chance that one that you know once you hear this. You know if there's some way that the listener has a way to make this show better and more useful to each other then maybe might have a commanding number ten. Because in the end it's. It's my show. But ultimately it's for all of you and I can't wait to see everyone get involved and do what you can to make it even better. So that's just a small glimpse at what I really hope to achieve with this pocket as I think that if you listen to these pop cast episodes I'm going to you know consider it a success if you go into your first home purchase or your first home sale and say hey this that wasn't so scary. I can do this. I got this so wrong. You got anything else you want to. Here I think only covered and I'm really excited to hear everyone's responses and feedback and I mean the ultimate joy is listening to someone who. They didn't qualify or thought I can't buy a home. They've been turned down in the past and then ultimately through the right resources they come out at the other end and we get to celebrate that. That's what I'm most looking forward to. It's an incredible feeling. And it's literally like I can only compare it to you know I'm not a drug addict but if I can only compare it to a drug. I mean I love the feeling of helping people to get into homes and and if I can help any of you in that way in terms of giving you information and making the process smoother. This is going to be a success. So thank you again for listening. I'm begging you to not let this be it. I appreciate that you've taken your precious time to listen to this podcast but I hope you come along for the ride. Well we'll have new episodes each week all packed to the rafters with a great information. Listen to the podcast interact with other listeners and let's make this a truly amazing and useful experience for everyone. I want to thank Ron and his company guaranteed rate for Linux record i Pod cast in the offices here in Pasadena. If you want to get more information or ask me questions please email me at Tom clarified Realty dot com for more exclusive bonus content between episodes please check out our website www dot clarified Realty dot com and I am on Snap Chat Twitter and Instagram my call. Sign is act clarified reality. And please check out our clarified realty page on Facebook. I beg of you please please please leave feedback and reviews on i Tunes or in the comments section on our page as Gary Bain or Chuck likes to say the back is my oxygen so I want to hear what you all are saying my amazing theme song Hey now is from the band Wolf. So that's what two apps and please go check them out and like them on South Sound Cloud will also leave a link to the song in the credits if we can they rock show frickin hard makes my teeth hurt. Go check them out for amazing tunes and just a little disclaimer Ron and I are licensed by the California Bureau of real estate my Emma last number a license number is zero one seven one five three five three Ron's is integrate and two six one five eight seven The advice we give is only for properties located in the state of California for all the other states. Please contact your local real estate agent or real estate professional and that's about it. Ron you good. All right thanks for coming by everybody and remember the greatest feeling is making someone feel at home. Take care and we'll see you next week. [/spp-transcript]