Podcasts about so dan

Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:41):What's going on. Solarpreneurs. We are back with another episode and I'm excited today because we are in the studio with Mr. Dan Dunn. What's going on, Dan? Thanks for coming on the show. You bet.Speaker 3 (00:52):Good. He could to be here. Okay. Well, you'reSpeaker 2 (00:56):Hearing me too. Yeah, it's, it's fun. We're hearing a Newport beach, made the drive up here from San Diego and, um, we're doing some video content too. So excited about that. So Dan, you want to tell us a little bit how you got like in the solar space and your background, where you came from and everything.Speaker 3 (01:14):Sure. Yeah. I should have this down to an elevator pitch by now. Um, I was born in Illinois in the Midwest. I was then transplanted, California. So I clean California is my place of growth, I guess kind of sounds a little cooler. Um, and then, uh, went to yeah, went to college in Utah. I then, uh, and I majored in music in English. We just talked about that before this podcast started. Yeah. Um, yeah. I love music nerd and music nerd. That's right. And actually, uh, the movie pitch. Perfect. I was actually telling, um, this guy to the, to the left ear off, off camera earlier that, uh, my wife and I met through similar circumstances as Anna Kendrick and the guy. I don't remember his name anyway. She was in a female acapella group. I was in vocal point male acapella group kind of came together like jets and sharks and west side story anyway. Um, so yeah, met my wife there been married almost 16 years. Uh, live in Southern California. I love this place. Feels like home will never leave. And, uh, old harness. I started the harness brands in 2017, so we're almost five years old next year. Awesome. Um, and then have a production company in the music space called prosody music. Okay. That's me in a nutshell.Speaker 2 (02:31):That's awesome. I love hearing guys that are like, you know, like music nerds and stuff like that. Cause I was just telling you, I was a music major myself in college, studied drums, percussion. That was the dream I was all about, you know, just graduating and being a music teacher, making my 30, 40 grand a year. And I was like, this is it. I'm going to love it. That's the dream. And then yeah, came out. Yeah. Came out, made that, you know, like in the summer or whatever. And I'm like, it's a little bit longer.Speaker 3 (03:02):Right. I can still picture, Hey, imagine dragons. When they have their live shows, they need some good drummers up there. Right. Have you ever been to one of those?Speaker 2 (03:09):Uh, I haven't been to their show, but I haven't been to, I don't know. Been to all its other concerts. Yeah. Same with maybe they'll listen to this podcast. If they're listening, give me a call and I'll beSpeaker 3 (03:19):In the drummer. We've got a table right here. He can start anyway.Speaker 2 (03:22):Let's do it. But yeah, what I wanted to ask you, Dan, I mean being like music, English and all that. Yeah. Do you feel like, I mean, I don't think there's a ton of us that did music before, um, you know, solar, but the few that I have met that have, I feel like, I dunno, it's helped them in a way. Maybe like creativity. Do you feel like music has helped you in business or in any, any aspects of what you're doing now?Speaker 3 (03:45):Absolutely. So I mean, scientific studies have shown if you put your kids in piano lessons early on, they'll connect certain parts of their brain and think more critically. And I'm not trying to pump myself up at all. I mean, don't feel deficient out there guys, if you didn't get piano lessons, it's not your fault, but it does help. Uh, yeah. You looking at problems from multiple sides of the spectrum. And so when your brain makes those connections, you have kind of that openness to multiple solutions and seeing both sides of an argument, uh, really, really helps in problem solving interpersonal relationships, um, leading. It helps them and I think all aspects of business to me. Yeah.Speaker 2 (04:23):That's awesome. Leading. Why do you say that?Speaker 3 (04:27):Well, because as a leader, you're going to come across the fires. We have to put out constantly. Right. And so to put out fires, you could, you could throw a huge bucket of water on it and say, it's good. Or you could kind of massage it and come at it strategically and see if there's, you know, two or three different ways to go at it. And which one's best consider the consequences. Being able to look at that, that cube from all sides, I think will, uh, it has paid dividends. SoSpeaker 2 (04:53):Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. No, and I always compare it to just like, I'm sure, you know, music where you like a specific instrument. Are we just voice Canon boys in a way? Okay. Yeah, for me, it's like, I don't know about you, but all those hours you put in practicing. Yeah. That's true. That's something that I feel like it's like, I was, I was no way like a natural sales guy or whatever. And I still, like, I'm not like the top guy, but because of all those hours that I put in not being the top drummer or whatever, I'm like, okay, why don't I just use that same, you know, method of getting better at cells all the hours I put in practicing the guys are doing it. You know,Speaker 3 (05:27):I just made that connection. Now. That's crazy. I used to like hold myself up in a practice room for four to six hours a day just going at the keys. That's and then of course that's what I did on the doors too. That's weird. Never made that connection. Yeah.Speaker 2 (05:41):So cool. I think it's super power for sure. I agree. Well, you know, can go with a distance like that, but cool, man. So tell us Dan, how, uh, so harness you started that in 2017. Yep. Okay. And were you, uh, just working on a sales team before, how did you transition to like starting your own company and everything?Speaker 3 (06:00):Yeah. So back in 2002, I started doing pest control for a couple of summers. Then I did alarms for eight and a half years, mostly summers, but also some year round programs built up, you know, deems and regions during that time. And then transition to solar in 2012 with vivant, when they started their San Diego office, I was in that original office that was full of all kinds of cool guys. We were, we were a cool crew. Anybody that's listening? I don't know if you are, but it was, it was cool. Everybody from that office branched out and either became at least DMS, mostly regional VPs, owner, company owners, et cetera. Um, and so, uh, helped them went up to orange county and then, uh, left for solar city Tesla. And uh, when Elan fired us all in 2017, best thing that happened to me. Um, that's when I started harness because I, I felt like I had learned enough. Yeah.Speaker 2 (06:53):Okay. Yeah. A lot of good. A lot of superstars came from that. Yeah. Including, uh, you know, Taylor McCarthy. We were just talking about that a lot too. That's cool. We've been solar though. Were you, uh, do you know Rob Brian river? Yeah, for sure. With CLL, we used to call them the bull. The bull. Was he back there in 2012 with you guys? He was, yeah, he was in that office. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. So he, uh, yeah. New power that company he used to work for, he went on to be like VP of sales for that company. Yeah. Yeah. He was my boss for a long time over there, but I know that's cool. Yeah. A lot of superstars came from that and um, I know it was like rough, at least according to Rob, he said it's pretty rough. In the beginning, you have water issues with stuff. Well, we feltSpeaker 3 (07:34):So good about selling a 15 cent PPA for like $200 a kilowatt or 180. I think it was, we were so excited about 180 a kilowatt for a PPA. And by the way, the con the customers back then from a customer standpoint, we were setting people up with 15 cent CPAs now in San Diego. Um, you know, I think the average might be up to 19 20 cents somewhere in there. And so like just, I was talking about this with my team the other day at the companies feel at Liberty to continue to raise the prices as long as utility continues to escalate proportion with that. So yeah, it's interesting. The, the whole urgency pitch is, is real. It's not just a sales tool, like go solar now or you're going to probably pay more in the future. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.Speaker 2 (08:16):I know. I love those things. It's like natural urgency that we don't like. We don't have to make it up. It's like stuff is actually happening. Tax credits. It's actually happening a lot of good reasons. I'm not at the school. And so a harness it's a 2017. Do you think, do you think you would have like went on to start harness had solar city not had they not let everyone go. Do you think you would have gone that same path eventually orSpeaker 3 (08:42):Eventually, maybe? Yeah. Um, thing is, I was, I was pretty bought in to the vision. I was, I was a little bit of an Ilan worshiper, not a bad way. I mean, I did have a big blown up picture of him, you know, that Obama poster with the hope, you know, the blue and red and white. Yeah. I made one of Ilan and I put in progress and it was, it was a little foolish I think. But, um, I had that up in the office and uh, yeah, I just, I, I loved his vision. I was at like the Gigafactory grand opening and sparks Nevada. Um, I loved what we were doing. I felt like it was obviously much bigger than us, so everybody feels great about that. But, uh, when it stopped, it was an easy decision to do my own thing. I'd already been knocking doors for 15 years straight with no stops, you know, consistency and practice, um, and you know, running regions and divisions, stuff like that. So I felt like it was a good time, but how do you not fired us? That's a great question. I don't know. I think I was stuck with it for a while and man, it was just, it was, it was cool. Cool.Speaker 2 (09:47):Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. Everything happens for a reason, so sure. Yeah. Maybe a good thing. It happened definitely in hindsight. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so like, I mean, I know it's, you know, a lot of challenges going through starting your own company, starting your own brand business, all that. So starting out, I'm sure it wasn't all like sunshine and rainbows and all that. What was, what were some of like the challenges that you had to go through to get, you know, get things rolling with harness?Speaker 3 (10:13):I had the team from solar city pretty much. It was easy because there was no like non-slip stations. They fired us. So we just started, you know, it was no big deal. Uh, so I started with a T a sales team that was nice, but partner wise, um, a lot of companies, you know, instantly become dealers for other installation companies. And that was the, that was the thing. I'm a diligent student of who I'm going to be hopping into business bed with. And I did, I remember to this day I did 17. I interviewed 17 different EPBCS, which are, uh, installation companies went through it, got it on a PowerPoint, did like a, you know, a risk benefit analysis of it. Um, and I even presented it to my team like, Hey guys, this is what I've been going through to make sure we're going the right direction, settled in on one. I won't mention their name, but I sailed in on one and uh, on paper they were the best. And then in reality, they had horrible.Speaker 2 (11:08):Yeah. They leave me alone.Speaker 3 (11:11):Lost me a lot of money. Yeah, exactly. Interestingly enough, I hope I wish that the story was different, but, um, but what it did teach me was, uh, again, you can look good on paper executions, everything when you're in a partnership a lot of times too, and those go south like that, um, you can, you have to cut your losses. There were definitely some losses early on in the business first year, but I also came into the business knowing like all the stories I had read, that's pretty common. It's pretty common in your first year to anything, but in the five-year range. Yeah. It's common to, to have some struggles, have some learning lessons, some big ones. Um, and yeah, it's about it really tests your metal of if you're serious about the business and the long-term aspect of it or not. Yeah,Speaker 2 (11:53):No doubt about that. And so something that, uh, while I'm sure you've struggled with it too, like your teams just, I mean, commissions are so high in solar right now. Um, people are making 10, 15 grand on single deals and stuff, especially out here in California. Like how have you in your teams? I don't know if it's changed as time has gone on, but how, what, what are some things you're doing to like, keep your guys motivated earth stuff that you like passed down to like yourselves managers for our listeners,Speaker 3 (12:21):Uh, considering what they make, is that what you're asking?Speaker 2 (12:23):Yeah. And we'll just, that's one obstacle. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the curse of solar, right? It's like guys make 10 grand on a deal and then three weeks I'll be back next month. Right?Speaker 3 (12:33):Yeah. That is a, that is an interesting question. And it is something of course that we grappled with one way is to constantly have them expanding their idea of themselves. So, uh, it's, there's an income thermometer in every single person. And so once you've reached that thermometer top of a hundred thousand dollars a year, if that's essentially what you think you're worth, or I don't even know if it goes that far in your head, usually you're just like, this is where I'm comfortable. I love freedom and I love taking off and going on experiences. And now I have the freedom to do that. That's all fun and games. And I think everybody deserves to have that time in their life. But if you mentioned this concept of expanding the idea of yourself, often enough in meetings, which I try to, then you can, we actually have a, an archetype I created, uh, so Chad, the cheetah or Chad DRA for the women.Speaker 3 (13:24):Um, and, uh, so there's a, there's a turtle, Tom, the turtle there's Harriet the hair. And then there's Chad that cheetah. So essentially like how fast can you accelerate your progress towards semi-retirement towards being like a, you know, a 10 or a 20 or a hundred door owner properties, et cetera. And, you know, you can follow Dave all or some of these guys in the industry that have made it and have done that. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and it's, it's a reality for us in solar. Like we can get there quick because of the money, for sure. So do you want to just kind of live at this range, which I understand is extremely enticing and fun, but you could also make a million dollars in the next few years and accelerate your progress and, uh, do a whole lot more with your life. Right.Speaker 2 (14:06):Okay. So it sounds like just basically helping them see a higher vision and set bigger goals for themselves. Yeah, I have to. Yeah. That's huge. And so what are some ways that you do that for your reps? Is it like you personally sitting down with them or you like having your managers sat down and I don't know, I'm like quarterlies or anything you guys are doing to help them actually like see those bigger goals and visions for themselves.Speaker 3 (14:27):All of that. We started doing quarterly submits this year, which I don't know why we didn't do them before. They're extremely, they moved the needle a lot because we all get together and have that memory together. This, this quarter we're getting together at Pirate's Cove in Henderson, Nevada overlooking lake Mead. Oh yeah. I've heard about that.Speaker 2 (14:43):Yeah. Our, yeah. Cool. Same thing.Speaker 3 (14:46):This is one of those things that gets tossed around in the industry. So we rented it out for three days and we're, we're taking, uh, our top producers there for the three days. And then we're taking the rest of the company. We'll meet there for like a half day at the summit. That's awesome. And, uh, yeah, getting together and having those memories, having the comradery and the culture come together super important. And during those seasons, of course, we address that topic among many others. That's one needle mover. And the other one is, uh, yeah. Having, uh, you know, we have weekly calls with our leaders of course, and we disseminate what's most important. And there are things that we talk about over and over. Yeah. That's, that's one of them. SoSpeaker 2 (15:25):That's huge. It's communication. Yeah. It's funny. I'm so I'm working down with, uh, uh, Jason, I don't know if you know, Jason newbie squatting down there, but sure. Yeah. He's talking about the Pirate's Cove too. He said, yeah. I think he said Vivian got like banned from it or something likeSpeaker 3 (15:38):That. That doesn't surprise me. No, it doesn't surprise me though.Speaker 2 (15:41):He's like, but I didn't get banned, so yeah. Right. Yeah. There's no longer associated. Yeah.Speaker 3 (15:47):That's funny. I went there with Trevor, uh, Trevor in the top. He he's winning the cup every single year on the alarm side. Uh, I wonder if their group did it cause they're prettySpeaker 2 (15:56):Wild. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, I guess that's a story Jason will have to tell black guys. Nice. No, that's cool. And so, yeah, I like the quarterly summits idea. I think that's huge for probably, you know, the culture and things like that. Anything else that you guys are doing just like build the culture of working of like going out every day, if not getting lazy reps, what else are you guys doing?Speaker 3 (16:18):That's a good question. So we have, um, we started a prime program prime, and I think this industry is moving in this direction anyway. Uh, prime is essentially our, uh, senators. So, you know, we have centers in most of our offices. Now it's a very structured program at keeps. Uh, I wouldn't say that keeps people not lazy and they may even contribute to a little bit more, but I don't, I don't think so because it's very dialed in. And of course we have it structured to where we give the most appointments to the highest, highest skilled closers. Um, and so I think that helps a little bit, but also, uh, just the, the, the cadence of accountability. And I don't know we to be Frank, this question is interesting because we, as a company we're, we're not high high, like, um, what's the best way to put this.Speaker 3 (17:09):I'm not super super concerned with being the, like the top sellers in the whole country. Uh, as far as solar sales, I'm concerned with quality mostly. And so I would take honestly, uh, you know, a hundred installs from a group a month versus 300. And I know that sounds rash, but I would take them if they were super quality, uh, you know, the, the sales were done with trust and, uh, and not sloppily and not creating a whole bunch of stress and extra stress for people. Yeah. That's just me. That's the way I want to run the business. Um, one of the things I noticed with publicly traded companies is they're always making decisions based on their stockholders. And, uh, I never wanted to have that again as just a, again, an archetype of what I want, I didn't want, so in this company, we're, um, more principles focused, I think, just trying to always do the right thing. Yeah, yeah,Speaker 2 (17:59):No, that's huge. Yeah. I talk with, you know, some of my friends that own their like EPC stuff like that, I mean, they deal with some of these dealers who it's just like, they're pushing through deals no matter what, on any type of roof, getting guys the same, like roof waivers and stuff, and just throw them panels up there. And it's crazy and, uh, [inaudible] cells, but yeah, it's like 25 years peopleSpeaker 3 (18:20):And that's a long time.Speaker 2 (18:22):It's like, yeah, you throw on these roof waivers and then just put the panels up. Stuff is going wrong. And it's like, what's that? What's that gonna look like down the road for customers and thingsSpeaker 3 (18:30):Like that. It's literally the roof over somebody's head. They worked their entire life to buy their house and make sure it's good. Yeah.Speaker 2 (18:38):So, no, I definitely appreciate that. I think that's the, you know, the only way really to build long-term and make sure you're focusing on your customers and your clients,Speaker 3 (18:49):That brings up a point. I mean, because there's so much money to be made in the solar industry. There's, it's naturally attracting fly by night people. So it's, it's an, it's an unfortunate fact, the industry right now, I feel, uh, needs a huge pivot towards integrity based sales and installs. And I think on the installation side, especially, yeah, there needs to be a big step up in quality and, uh, and customer service towards, you know, uh, sales partners.Speaker 2 (19:18):I know no doubt. And it's like, how many times have you heard it? Um, I hear it all the time where like, oh, what's the reason you haven't gone solar. Oh. Cause our neighbor had a bad experience. So cause their friend know, cause our uncle's roof is leaking. Like how many more customers could we all have? We were just doing quality work and know, you know, not lying to people. So yeah. Ripple effect. So yeah, it's definitely super frustrating, but I know, so yeah. That's good to hear that, um, you know, that you're passing that onto your leaders and it's your company. Cause I think that's really what the industry needs. Um, but yeah. So how many teams do you guys have? So you said you're in, uh, California, Utah. Where else?Speaker 3 (19:56):California, Utah, uh, New Jersey. Um, a little bit in Nevada and a little bit in Florida and then we've got a team in Puerto Rico as well. Okay.Speaker 2 (20:05):That's awesome. How many reps do you have for the whole company? Um,Speaker 3 (20:09):We're around two 50. Okay. All right.Speaker 2 (20:12):Okay. And so what do you see? I don't know. I'm sure some, obviously some teams are better than others. What do you see in your great teams, your best team versus, you know, teams that are struggling, anything you see that's um, is, you know, helping contribute to a good team or is it the teams that are struggling?Speaker 3 (20:27):Yes. I think a good team obviously starts with leaders so you can have a good team without good leaders. It's obviously, uh, a again, a ripple effect. I hate to use that phrase twice, but, um, so if the leaders aren't dialed in, you can, you don't even need to see or meet the leaders. You can tell by the team if you just met the team. But anyway, once that's dialed in and this is part of what the leaders do, having the team have an identity, a name, and even a creed, something that they can coalesce around as a principle or principles that they live by once they have that and identity as a group, then it's about having fun, which is part of culture is kind of what we think about with culture. Like, yeah, you want a yacht somewhere. Um, so having fun and then, uh, getting into flow.Speaker 3 (21:13):I was listening to Aubrey Marcus podcast recently and he had a guy on there it's supposed to be the master of flow. Um, my VP Owen recommends to me anyway. He says there's steps to get into flow. And, and uh, the first one is curiosity. So as if the leaders can create curiosity, uh, with their people somehow, I mean, there's, we can brainstorm around that for a while, but we've, we've had ideas about it and we're looking to increase this constantly because when people are in flow, they don't have to think too much. They just feel, and they're feeling great about what they're doing and, you know, flows. Like we just went surfing this more in the morning and got tossed around in the water, positive ions flowing all around. Yeah. And that was the best way for me to start my morning before I got here.Speaker 3 (21:59):Yeah. So activities like that, if we can, if we can make, um, sales and solar as flowy as, as the way I feel when I'm surfing. Um, then I think we've, we have hit the jackpot. So our best teams, they feel that they don't feel like they're going to work. They feel like they're just in a, in rhythm with a bunch of their friends and they're making a ton of money together, which is awesome. But it's, they want to show up to meetings. Yeah. It's fun. You know, so there's good quality content being shared in the trainings, the bad teams, um, again, bad leaders or it's hard to say bad, uh, ineffective, ineffective leaders. Yeah. Not doing some of these things, no identity. Maybe, maybe they missed on the culture piece. Um, they're not having a much, they're too serious. Not having enough fun. Yeah. Uh, and it's the fun is not just like throwing out incentives and let's meet a Jamba juice it's it's like, right. You know, it's making jokes and having actually vernacular having like inside jokes around your work. Yeah. That kind of, stuff's fun. Yeah. So that's, it's all about. Yeah.Speaker 2 (23:04):That's cool. And yeah. Be a big struggle with like companies I've been a part of, um, I mean that's a big struggle is starting new offices, especially like when it's far away from your home base. Right. Or what have you, it's like sometimes it's tough to keep that same culture and expand and ensure, you know, find good people. Cause yeah. I mean, one of the first companies I was with it's like we expanded to, I think we opened up five offices in a year, but then, um, the next year all of them closed down except for like one, it was just like, because they didn't have like solid leaders in place. And I don't know, it was just tough to grow in too fast. Yeah. Keep it going.Speaker 3 (23:39):So, one thing that we've we've found is to bring like, use your best office and bring your leaders that are struggling or new leaders for sure new leaders bring them into that office and by osmosis the learn and feel the culture. So in fact, we just hired a new Vegas manager today. I just got off a zoom call with him this morning. And uh, he's coming in for two weeks into San Clemente where our top offices, uh, and he'll be learning by osmosis what they're doing. And it's not even just because you could describe to them what to do, but it's, you got to feel it. And you got to meet the people and see how happy they are and talk to them and like all that's going to be super valuable, invaluable. And he'll bring that back to, I guess, have a much better start.Speaker 2 (24:21):Yeah. That's awesome. So that works pretty well. They kind of see what the other people are doing and like, oh, I'm going to go implement that in mySpeaker 3 (24:26):Office. It's pretty basic, but I don't think on a lot of people are doing it.Speaker 2 (24:31):Yeah. I know. We definitely weren't when we were having that problem though. Right. That's that's a great idea. Um, and yeah, like as far as like, uh, your inspiration and everything, what's what are the things that like motivate you to keep it going through all the challenges? And I don't know when their struggles, ups and downs, what are some things that,Speaker 3 (24:51):Um, that's a good question. Multiple things. So I've thought about, what's been driving me since I've been a kid and it's actually hard to put my finger on it. I have some kind of motor in me that won't stop. I feel I've seen the musical Hamilton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just the Disney plus version. Yeah, exactly. Me too. I haven't been to a live show, but you know how there's a song in there that there's, the lyrics are like he's running out of time. He always felt he was running out of time. I've always felt that way. I've always felt like, Hey, this is a very, it's a short life. Um, you gotta, you got your time to make a mark on it. And uh, and so I think that's ever present in my mind. Yeah. And I, that drives me. I mean, I actually just heard, you know, some of the most successful people in the world, art are both running away from something and running towards something.Speaker 3 (25:38):Yeah. There's like two motors driving them. Yeah. And so, uh, I can certainly agree with and relate to the running away from things. Um, you know, came from a divorced family. Dad died when I was young bunch of interesting, you know, storyline items that I could bring up, but running towards something I'm running towards really excellence. I'm trying my best to just be excellent because at some point along the road, the way I got the idea in my head, that being excellent is just so much more fun. And it's a choice. So why not? Like why would you choose not to be excellent? Yeah. I know it's hard and I'm certainly not good at it, uh, all the time. But, uh, I think I've developed that skill over time to just, you know, achieve excellence in certain areas of life. Yeah.Speaker 2 (26:24):Yeah. It's sweet. I like animals. I remember when I first listened to it watched the Disney plus palms and I was like, listen to that, that same song, I think on the way to my, like my deals and stuff like that run out of time. Nice. You know, I guess it's the sweet, but it's true. I mean, especially in solar, that's like a real thing. Cause you don't know, like, I don't know what your thoughts, but it's like solar is probably, probably not going to be, oh yeah. It is profitableSpeaker 3 (26:47):For a long, I mean, yeah. Not, not 10 years from now. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna, it's going to hit critical mass. It's already doing that in certain markets and uh, in California specifically where we are right now, I'm not gonna make a prediction, but you know, we're, we're living on borrowed time for sure. He thinks though. I mean with, yeah, with the, with the level of commissions that we're getting, um, the way and just modeled it off of any other industry in the way it's matured, you know, it's still young. Yeah. But we can model this off of a lot of other industries and you can, you can predict what's going to happen in the next five years. Pretty well. Yeah.Speaker 2 (27:22):Yeah. So yeah. I mean, that's what we're trying to tell our listeners too, is like for those that are listening to this, make sure you understand that and take Dan's words you're living on borrowed time. So push as hard as you can right now be present. That's right. So it's like the days where you're making huge commissions, probably not going to be around forever. So no. So I invest in yourself, invest in coaching and get as good as you can right now. So you can reap the benefits and make as much as possible. Yep. I think is something huge and something I'm sure you, you know, share with your reps. Do ISpeaker 3 (27:53):Bet? Sure. Again, I mean, we've been on the wave of starting out 2012, just nine years ago, making 185 bucks kilowatt or whatever. It was 180 and being so excited and then it just kept going up every single year, but it's just like the real estate market. You can't just keep going up. It's got to crash at some point. Right. So I don't, I'm not saying we're going to crash, but we're certainly going to see corrections in the market. Uh, yeah.Speaker 2 (28:18):It's funny. I feel like the grandpa and solar, I started in Soren 2016. So coming up on five and a half years or so, but yeah, like I don't know all the new reps coming in. They're seeing these seats commissions. I the grandpa. I'm like, oh, back in my day, I was only making two 50. I know it's real.Speaker 3 (28:36):Yeah. And the opportunity arrogance is there. It's like, uh, you know them, like you said, those numbers, you mentioned earlier, they think that's normal. That's not normal. This is not normal. ISpeaker 2 (28:47):Know. So it's like, guys, you got to understand. There's like, solar's the gold rush right now. Go take your pick and hammer and all that. No, get it now andSpeaker 3 (28:56):Get it now and do it. Right. You know, don't ruin it for the rest of us. Don't be that. Don't be that guy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.Speaker 2 (29:01):For sure. Well, Dan, I know we're going to wrap up soon here, but yeah. Last question or two, I wanted to ask you, like from your reps that are, um, seeing a ton of success out there compared to reps that are struggling and whatnot, what are you seeing? What's separating like the super successful reps versus the ones that are struggling or new teams,Speaker 3 (29:19):The super successful reps have their schedules dialed in. We've got a motto at harness called win the day. You'll see it on our Instagrams. Okay. Um, it's on, well, it's actually in the back of my shirt, right? Is it on the back of my shirt?Speaker 4 (29:32):Not this one.Speaker 3 (29:34):Cool moment. Anyway, you put it on the back of our swag. Uh, when the day came from Owen Santos, RVP of execution, it's a, it's something that he came up with in his own life, basically to win the morning. He wakes up every day at 5:00 AM. I was disciplined guy. I know, um, gets his workout and gets his healthy eating go and gets the surf on surfed with him this morning. Um, basically does more than a lot of people do before 8:00 AM is over. And so winning the day is what our successful reps do. They have a pretty regimented schedule that they stick to live and die by it. And, um, that makes all of their targets time-bound, which has, if you listen to Tony Robbins, you got to have smart goals. S M a R T the T stands for time bound. So, uh, I think that's critical.Speaker 3 (30:20):And then they are students of the game, a students of the game. So they're constantly curious again, way to get into flow state about how to get better and what's happening and, you know, stay on top of their stuff. Yeah. So I mean, those, I could say a lot more than that, but that separates them again. If you want to look at the, the flip side of the coin reps that aren't being successful are treating this, like, you know, they'll come to a meeting and they'll expect the meeting to kind of fill their cup and uh, other people to give them all the knowledge and the skills that they need instead of taking that bowl by their own bull, by the horns, with their own hands and, uh, doing homework, you actually do have to do homework to be great at this. Yeah. So I know one of the best things I can give you is when I first started, I had, uh, an approach that I would record in my phone every day when I was driving out to the area.Speaker 3 (31:10):And I would listen back to it to hear how I sounded to myself and put myself in the customer's shoes. Like how would I react to this guy coming to my door? And I would do that over and over and over and over and over, like, I just became obsessed with like the right words and the right cadence and my meta verbal and nonverbal communication. And it probably took me like two and a half to three months, uh, right when I got into solar to come up with an approach that I felt was hitting on all the psychological principles that you would need to have in place to make sure the customer responded in a certain way. Yeah. And that's, that's what you do. You dial that in so that you're hitting on all those things, the takeaways, the questions, the, the motion creates emotion, all that. Stuff's so critical. ISpeaker 2 (31:49):Love that. Yeah. I can tell, let's go back to your music days. You're probably doing the same stuff and you're practicing piano, right. Recording yourself here and what's going on. That's what I'm saying. It's like so many parallels be doing it. Oh yeah. And top guys are doing it. They're recording themselves in their closes at the doors. It's just like so many things that we didn't think were doing there. Courtney is not going to lie. Right. Like it's like stupid, but I was actually sounded like that actually said that. Yeah. So yeah. So yeah, no, I think that's a huge separator and lots of people I've had on the podcast actually brought that up. That's one of the number one things that reps can do that most people aren't doing it's yeah. I didn't do it for years either, but I'm hearing it so many times. Good recording yourselves, getting feedback and just, you know, analyzing what went wrong and looking in the mirror. Yeah. That's huge. Um, well then we appreciate this secrets you shared with us today and um, yeah, I guess last question or two, I had like, what's been your biggest, uh, I dunno, is there any time at harness that there was like a, a down point or like a big struggle you had at harness and then what, what did you do to get out of it or any, or maybe there hasn't been any, but ISpeaker 3 (32:58):Don't know. Uh, I mean there was the installation misfire in the, in the early year, the most recent one was actually online leads, man, I'll tell you, I can go off for an hour about this. So many companies sprung up during the pandemic saying that they were experts and gurus on lead gen. So many dollars were lost to those companies. Not only by me, but others. Uh, but yeah, that was definitely a struggle. Um, we, we, I think we were shut down for probably, uh, I don't know, maybe a month and a half or two. And then we kind of rebounded with the idea that we were tied to the utility company. And I think everybody in the industry agreed we were essential services, but it's still, you know, um, had our best year during the pandemic, which is cool obviously, but spent a lot of money on online leads that didn't pan out. And again, I could name some companies, I can name some names, but I won't yeah. Blacklisted names. Uh, but I would just caution any, any of the listeners to be very, I would never go with an online lead company that hasn't been vetted by somebody, you know, that can show you proof of the results. Yeah. I just, it's such a trap right now, so yeah.Speaker 2 (34:06):And that's huge. I don't know if you've seen it, but there's like groups on Facebook now, like blacklisted, solar online leads. I follow people just go and follow them. Yeah. Talk crap on all the people that screwed him over.Speaker 3 (34:18):So the names that have scorned me have shown up, so it wasn't just me.Speaker 2 (34:23):Okay. Yeah. No, that's good to observe. I know a lot of people are looking, thinking, oh, online leads. That's the wave. Never going to have to knock the door again,Speaker 3 (34:30):But yeah. Yeah. They think it's a panacea. It's really not. Yeah. It's a supplement. It always should be treated such as such.Speaker 2 (34:37):Yeah. A hundred percent. Um, well Dan, thanks for coming on the show today. Um, where can people find out more about your teams and what you're doing and kind of connect with you on social media and all that? Yeah.Speaker 3 (34:47):Luckily, uh, there's this great guy named Serge. That's been, uh, managing our social media recently and, uh, anyways, you can find us on, you can find it on Instagram at harness your future. Okay. Uh, we also have harness power official. That's kinda more of a customer facing Instagram. Okay. Easiest way to find us. And you can slide into our DMS and have some conversations. Yeah. Okay. I love it.Speaker 2 (35:06):And speaking of surge, I mean, I know surge comes at the price. He's not doing this stuff for free, but, uh, w w what's driving you to kind of invest in like the social media side of things. And what's the goal with that?Speaker 3 (35:17):The goal with that is really because we were a closed loop before, like we were growing mostly organically by referral. And then late last year December-ish of last year, we just decided, you know what, we're going to do some, we're going to make some more efforts to grow. Uh, not just organically, but you know, get ourselves out there a little bit more and show the world what we've got going. We feel like we have something very special here. It's not contrived. It's a special culture of great people that want to be part of this because it's fun. It's special. We create a lot of cool programs that are proprietary to us. So nice. Um, so we wanted to get that out there a little bit more. And Serge is just such a charismatic gentleman came to me. He's like, Hey, I can do all this for you. And he made these massive promises and, uh, now he's, he's delivered quite well so far. Um, yeah, he does a great job, great content, uh, very organized. And he's got some automated systems that are pretty impressive. So yeah.Speaker 2 (36:10):Yeah. Surges them in. He said, we've gotten smiling on the sidelines there. So yeah. Give him a shout out. He's in the room, but no, so yeah, social media definitely important. I know if there's a building brand and also recruiting helps a ton just recruit your ideal salesperson.Speaker 3 (36:26):Yeah. Yeah. And I've been averse to it, to be honest that I haven't been on social media in a while. I took a hiatus for a Facebook for like a, I dunno, a year, year and a half or something. But I think the resistance to social media was like, I just don't want to feel obligated to put myself out there with something contrived. I want it to feel authentic. And I want to feel like, I don't know that we're not trying to like manipulate people into anything. So luckily surges give me free reign on what to put on there. Um, and has worked with me on, um, the way I want to do things, which is, has been awesome. Yeah.Speaker 2 (36:59):That's awesome. Cool. Well, Dan, appreciate you coming on. And before we wrap up here, any final, I guess, words of advice you want to share with our solar printers with RS or guys that are listening on the show here today? Yeah.Speaker 3 (37:10):I would just say something I say often there's magic in the mundane, which is, goes back full circle to what we talk about. Like if you, if you practice piano for hours on end or, you know, parlayed any kind of musical talent or any other kind of rhythm, maybe from athletics, when you were young into knocking doors, you know, that the magic is in doing the same mundane things over and over and finding the magic, which is the income, the success, the, uh, the leadership, eventually all the things that you kind of want and are going after it's it's in the consistent daily. Yes.Speaker 2 (37:44):Yeah. Love that. And yeah, I'm sure you read the two book compound effect slight edge, but yeah. It's just like, if you haven't read those for our listeners, go read those for sure. I mean, that's yeah. That's the key to success. Most people aren't willing to do the little things everyday over a long period of time. Anyone can do it for one or two days, but the guys that are having success in this industry, or really anything they're doing the little things that no one wants to do for, you know, day after day afterSpeaker 3 (38:09):Day formula was written long ago. I just gotta follow it. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.Speaker 2 (38:14):Love it. Dan will links were coming on the show. Guys, go give Dan a shout out soon, a message a DM on Instagram, Facebook, let them know you appreciate him on the show. And Dan, thanks again. We'll talk to you soon. Cool. Thanks Taylor. Appreciate it.Speaker 5 (38:28):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside. 

Okay, now this episode was clearly whacked! Before we got started, Dan's mic didn't work. He logged off and logged back on. Then Alyx disappeared from the studio. Then she reappeared. We started the show. Walt went live to start the broadcast, but it didn't start! 10 minutes later, we noticed that it still wasn't working. We restarted the show. A few minutes in, Walt gets knocked offline. When Walt got back on, we started talking about Converse's latest Instagram marketing campaign and how it focused on ... devil worship! Or more precisely it focused on the inverted pentagram. A few minutes later Alyx got knocked off, never to return. So Dan and Walt carried on a conversation about how such ideas get going and keep going. And the entire episode then concluded 11 minutes early. As Alyx told us afterward, it was time to go back to bed and start the day again!

Dan Regester is a third generation Air Force Vet. His deployment time was the Kosovo war where he flew on C-135s doing air refuelings. Originally “looking for adventure”, Dan had a childhood of the Air Force, visiting the air bases with his Dad, a Vietnam Vet, many times. And because many of his Dad's friends were military, Dan was immersed in the mindset of the military person and that was the main attraction for Dan. Dan's Grandfather was in the Army Air Corps during World War II before the branch was renamed Air Force. So Dan joined right out of high school, and in fact spent his 18th birthday in basic. He went to 22 different countries during his four years of deployments, starting in Turkey. The international exposure taught him that when you are in uniform, you are an ambassador for your country and everything you do reflects on the US. So he has taken that awareness into working with Vets and dogs, because the Vet and his/her dog are representatives as well. Dan's transition to civilian life was unfortunately similar to many Vets. He hated the VA, hated society, hated the military and wanted to just be in isolation. He realized that Vets needed some time after separation to reset and acclimatize and to replace the sense of camaraderie they had in the military and caused much of the depression and loss after leaving. But camaraderie comes with discipline and work to build it, and that's where the idea of matching Vet and dog – or occasionally cat – and going through a two-week training period together to build that camaraderie that was missing. Each dog is checked out to meet each individual Vet's needs. The program is very military like in its structure, and that also helps the Vet feel more comfortable with the familiarity. And as our host, Cyntia Kao says, it's too bad you can't see these gorgeous dogs on this podcast. They are spectacular. Veteran Founder Podcast with your hosts Josh Carter and Cynthia Kao We record the Veteran Founder Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland. Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main Website was designed by Cameron Grimes Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster Theme music: Artist: Tipsy Track: Kadonka Album: Buzzz Courtesy of Ipecac Records 10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

This week Karson announced the birth of his first grandchild. So Dan flashed back to November when he first made the announcement in this vintage Weekly Rap Up! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's summertime, and the living is… well, easier than last year, at least.  With the start of a new academic year on the horizon, a mere two months and change away, we decided this is the perfect season for an episode that begins to explore the choreography of moving from learning objectives to lessons to assignments that will resonate with an online audience.  And since our very own Dan Marcucci consistently garners standing ovations from students for his innovative approach to online course design and delivery, I convinced him to sit for an interview with me about his creative process.  It's one thing to encourage faculty to stretch out and take full advantage of the virtual classroom, and another thing entirely to actually waltz on the walls, cha-cha on the ceiling, and boogie in the balcony.  So Dan's going to help us trip the light fantastic.  In no time at all you'll be dancing like everyone is watching their smartphone!But before you buckle up your tap shoes, please take a moment to share your online teaching stories with us. Leave a voice message at speakpipe.com/wiredivyor by sending an email to wiredivypodcast@gmail.com.

98-vuotiaan yhdysvaltalaisen valokuvaajan Tony Vaccaron värikylläisiä ja leikkisiä otoksia 1950-1960 -luvulla tähdittävät aikansa merkkihenkilöt JFK:sta Georgia O' Keeffeen. Kun LIfe-lehti lähetti Vaccaron kuvaamaan Marimekon asuja, syttyi Vaccaron rakkaus paitsi suomalaiseen malliin Anja Lehtoon myös Suomeen. Taidehallin Tony Vaccaro: elämä on ihanaa -näyttelyssä esillä olevissa kuvissa voi nähdä entisajan glamouria, nostalgiaa, iloa mutta myös traagisuutta kuvissa, jotka nuori Vaccaro otti Euroopassa taistellessaan liittoutuneiden joukoissa. Vaccaro kuvaa lämmöllä myös sitä, miten Euroopan raunioissa rakentui toivo uudesta maailmasta. Vaccaro itse toivoi saavansa kuviaan vielä esille nimenomaan Suomeen. Haastateltavana on puhelimitse ennalta jututettu Tony Vaccaro. Suorassa lähetyksessä ovat keskustelemassa Taidehallin näyttelypäällikkö Eeva Holkeri ja Anssi Männistö, visuaalisen journalismin yliopistonlehtori Tampereen yliopistosta. Lähetyksen juontaa Pauliina Grym. Valokuva: Fun in Finland, Tony Vaccaro, 1965.

The roundtable interview with Matt and Caleb Maddix and a small group of people who are trying to change the world. Enjoy part three of this special 4 part episode series. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to The Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you've been enjoying this series so far. This is The Roundtable of World Changers, a conversation I had with Matt and Caleb Maddix, and a whole bunch of young entrepreneurs, who are literally out there trying to change the world. This is part three of a four part episode, because the conversation went for three or four hours. And so, this episode's also going to be about 40 minutes long, and it's the next set of questions they asked me. And if you've listened to the last two, you know that these guys ask a lot of questions, in a lot of different directions, and angles, and went all over the place. And I think this time is probably 01:00 or 02:00 in the morning. And so, the questions started going from everywhere, from business, to relationships, to families, and a whole bunch more. So I hope you enjoy this next episode. Here's some of the bullet points of things you're going to learn about. We talked about the 10 commandments of marketing. I talked about my very first mentor, and a thing he taught me, not just to make money in the short term, but how to build a business that now has lasted me for almost two decades. I talk about one of my friends and mentors, Daegen Smith and something that he taught me. It was so simple, yet it's been the key to help me get thousands of people a day to join my email list. We talked about leadership, delegation, scheduling. We talk about, as you're building a team, understanding people's unique abilities. Talked about how much time you spend thinking about the future. Talked about proximity with billionaires. We also talked about how to balance your business and married life, so you can be a good husband and a good father, which is something that I stress about all the time. We talked about a principle that I learned from Stacey and Paul Martino, that has been one of the most powerful things I've learned, which is called demand-relationship. I talk about that. We talk about some relationship tricks, for those who are either married or getting married. Some of the newlyweds, and the engaged couples, were asking some questions about that. Hopefully I don't get in trouble for sharing some of my tricks. We talked about knowing what your values are, and your priorities. Talked about being vulnerable, and being honest, versus staying positive through challenges. We talked about some of the biggest principles and things I learned from Tony Robbins, including how to change your state whenever you need to. And we talked about my 12 year relationship with Tony Robbins, and all the things behind that. We talked about... I don't want to spoil any more. You guys, this is a fun interview. And hopefully, you've been enjoying these so far. So with that said, we're going to cut to the theme song. When we come back, we're going to take you guys immediately back into this conversation. This is, again, The Roundtable of World Changers, part three of four. Matt Maddix: Let's say there was a Russell Brunson 10 commandments. You know how God had one. Russell: Thou shall build a list. Matt: Yeah. How high is this in the 10 commandments? Russell: My first mentor, Mark… Matt: And what would be some of the Russell Brunson... Let's come up with some of them. Like, "Thou shalt..." Russell: We need some stone tablets. Matt: "To all the funnel hackers, thou shalt and thou shall not." I want to hear- Russell: That would be a fun presentation, actually. Matt: Yeah, that would be, actually. Caleb Maddix: That would be. Russell: That would be cool. Matt: Dude, you need to do that. Russell: Come back from the mountain, we have 10 things. Matt: Yeah, seriously. Caleb: Wow. That'd be awesome. Matt: No, the five 'thou shalts', and like, "Thou shall..." and then- Russell: "Thou shall..." Matt: ..."Thou shall not, no matter what..." What would some of those be? Russell: That could be a really cool presentation, actually. Well, so I would say, in my first venture was Mark Joyner, and he was the one... So in context, in history, 18 years when I started, Mark Joyner... I don't think it's probably known. He's brilliant. But he built a company, and sold it off. And at the very end of his career as a coach person, I got to meet him and get to know him a little bit. But I remember, at that time, Google AdSense was this thing that came. And so, if any of you guys are old enough, just try and remember the Google AdSense days. It was insane. They were software. You click a button on software, it would pop out of site, pop out another site. And these sites would make anywhere from 100 to $1000 a day. And you just keep clicking this button, it would pop out another site. And so, people were making $1 million a month. They had teams in the Philippines, that these guys just clicking the button to build the software. It was just... But it was all fake. But it was tons of money. Insane amounts of money. I had friends making so much money. And shiny object, very shiny object, the most sexy shiny object of all time. You click a button, you can make $1 million. That was it, that was the pitch. And it was true. Matt: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: For so... Everyone I knew. Can you imagine that? Matt: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: If I go back in time, 18 years ago, I would move to the Philippines, I would hire everybody, and we would just click buttons. And I would've been- Caleb: Wow. Russell: ...a billionaire. It was- Caleb: Wow. Russell: It was insane. That's how Google got people adopting the AdSense program. So people would put ads on every single site, every single everything. And so, I'm getting in this game, I'm seeing this, and I'm morons making insane amounts of money. And I was like, "Ah!" And Mark had just become my mentor, the very first time, and he's like, "That's going to go away. Focus on building a list." I'm like, "But this guy's a moron. He made $1 million last month clicking a button. No strategy, no brains, no nothing." He's like, "I know, but it's going to go away. Focus on building a list." I'm like- Matt: Wow. Russell: But- Matt: Seriously? Russell: "He's clicking a button. Building lists is hard." He's like, "Build a list." I'm like... And I remember fighting him and fighting him, he's just like, "Dude, trust me. I've been on cycle. It's going to go away. Just focus and focus." And I was so upset, but I listened because I do that. One thing I pride myself on, I'm very coachable. Coach tells me something, I do it. I obey all giants with helicopters and stage presence. Matt: I love it. Russell: They tell me to do it, I do it, right? So I was like, "Ah, but there's free money in piles-" Matt: Even when it's hard- Russell: "All right." Matt: ...you do it. Russell: So I did it. And sure enough, I was doing that, and doing that, within six months, this things collapsed, disappeared, destroyed people's lives. Because you're making $1 million a month clicking buttons, what do you do? Especially as a young kid. Matt: Spending that much money. Russell: You're buying Lambos, and Ferraris, and helicopters, and pilots, and girls, and insane amounts of money. And then it disappears overnight. Devastating, ruined these guys, ruined them, so many people. Matt: There's no skill behind that at all. Russell: Yeah. And I had a list, and I just coasted through it. Right? And I've looked at the SEOs, every single up and down, up and down, through the years, and I just listened to Mark and just focused on building my list, focused on building it, and- Matt: So you still feel that as strong today, as when you heard it? Russell: 100%. Matt: Even then. Russell: 100%. That's one of our KPIs. How many people doing lists today? Every single day. Matt: Really? Everyday? Russell: Everyday. Because I did it for a long time- Matt: Even now, you're saying? Russell: 100%, everyday. John Parkes everyday sends me a number. “How many people joined our list yesterday?” That's all I want to know. Caleb: What's your guys' email open rates? Russell: It fluctuates. 20 ish percent. Caleb: Okay. Russell: Around there. But it was funny because I remember, I had forgotten that lesson after a while. And if you guys know Daegen Smith, Daegen, he's getting back in the game now. He's brilliant. But I remember I had a list, and I was my money off of it. I wasn't focusing on it. And I remember he asked me a question, he said, "How many..." It wasn't, "How many people are on your list?" Because that's what most people ask, "How big's your list?" But he asked me a different question, which input output, right? Matt: Yeah. Russell: The question was, "How many people joined your list today?" And I was like, "I don't know." He's like, "Go look right now." I'm like, "Okay." So I log in, and look at the thing, it was like 12. And I was like, "12?" And I was like, "Is that good or bad? I don't know." And he's like, "Let me show you mine." And he showed me his, and it was like 1400. And I was like, "You had 1400 people join today?" He's like, "Yeah." "Wait, how'd you do that?" He's like, "I just look at it everyday. And when I look at it everyday, somehow it grows." And I was like- Matt: Wow. Russell: "Okay." So then, everyday, after I log in and look at my thing, it was like 12, I'm like, "Ah." In my head, I'm like, "Fricken Daegen had 1400. I only 12." Caleb: Yeah. Matt: Wow. Russell: And also, I was like, "What do I do to get people to join the list?" Matt: Yeah, start optimizing. Russell: And then, your mind starts thinking differently, and all of a sudden you start focusing on it. And it's crazy. I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs, that have been in my world, who have gone up and then come down. And what happens, mostly, is they do something, they build a big list, they stop adding fuel to the fire, they have this list, they sell things to the list, the list atrophies, and eventually starts shrinking and dying. And then, they don't know how to build lists, the business crashes and dies. Matt: I hope you guys are really listening. Really. I mean, he's- Caleb: That's powerful. Matt: ...saving your life right now. Russell: The question, the goal, every single day, is that, because it's a fuel to your fire. And what happens was you stop putting fuel on the fire, and it doesn't die immediately. So you're like, "Oh, I've turned off Ads, so I'm good. But I'm just going to focus on emails, let's focus that." But just every email you send out, your list atrophies, shrinks, dies. And then, eventually, it'll just die. And so, yeah, if you're not consistently, constantly feeding the list, every single day- Matt: And once you have the list, what's the biggest mistake people make with their list? Russell: They don't email it. Matt: Yeah. Russell: They're scared to... You think it's too much emails. It's not, it's the opposite. It's that they don't email. Caleb: Okay. Russell: Minimum of three times a week. Closer to everyday. Matt: Wow. Russell: If you talk to Daegen, it's twice a day, everyday. Matt: Really? Caleb: What other KPIs do you have sent to you every single day? Russell: I want to know how much we made yesterday, striped. Because first off, it's cool to know. Caleb: Yeah. Russell: But second off, also it's like, I want that number to be bigger everyday. So it's like, actual money in the thing, how many people joined the list today, and how many books are sold, how many ClickFunnels members. Those are the ones for me. Our teams have other KPIs they focus on. But those are the ones I care about. Matt: So out of 30 days, when you hear the numbers, how often are you pissed and how often are you like, "Yeah."? Russell: Nowadays, it's always pretty good. Matt: Nowadays, it's like, "Woo." Russell: Because it might go up or down a little bit, but the numbers are big enough, that it's just like, "That's so crazy." I remember... Anyway. I remember just the growth of ClickFunnels, because you know Stripe dings every day with your numbers. I remember when we started going, it got to the point where it's like $10,000 a day, I was like, "$10,000 a day is insane. That's just so cool." And then, it got to a point where it's like $20,000 a day, and then 30, and then $50,000 a day, and then $100,000 a day, and then 150, then 200, 250, 300. I'm just like, "This is insane to me, that this is a daily thing that come..." it was just... Anyway, that's when it got just weird. And it makes me mad because Todd made a commitment to me, that as soon as we passed $500,000 a month in sales, he'd move to Boise. Matt: And he didn't yet? Russell: No. So... Matt: You were out of there already. Russell: And then, I was like, "Well, we have $500,000 a day." And then, he still hasn't come. So I don't know. Some day. Do you think Todd will ever move to Boise? Speaker 4: Plus I'm curious if I could pop in to ask a question. Russell: Yeah, feel free. Speaker 4: I've always wanted to ask someone of your stature, that's done as much as you have, impacted as much people as you have, and really built the business that you have. So I'm curious on your take on leadership, building a team, delegating, and your schedule and how you go about scheduling your day, and prioritizing what's important for you, as a business owner, and what you delegate to your employees and their responsibilities as well. So leadership, delegating, and scheduling. Russell: Good question. It's interesting because I would say I'm not the best leader on my team, by any stretch. And so, it was interesting because I spent the first four or five years with ClickFunnels as the CEO, trying to do my best with it. But it wasn't my unique ability, is leadership. I feel like I'm good at leading a community, but I struggle a lot more with employees and teams, internally. And so, about a year ago or so, I handed the reins to Dave Woodward, to be the CEO of ClickFunnels. And he's been amazing. Man, what he's done inside the company has been awesome. And I think a big part of it is understanding, at least for me personally, I was trying to be a leader, and trying to develop that, but I wasn't the best at it. And I think sometimes we think it's always got to be us. Like, "It's my company, I got to be the CEO. I got to be the leader. I got to do these things." It's understanding that a lot of times there's people who are really good. Who's the best you could find to be that? Or any part of our business. You know what I mean? It's a big part of it. The second thing is, if you've studied Dan Sullivan at all, one of his biggest things is unique ability. That's the thing. What's your unique ability? What's everybody's unique ability? And I think when you start a company, it's tough because it's like everyone's in charge of everything, right? I'm the CEO, but I'm also taking out the garbage, I'm also doing... everyone's Speaker 4: Yeah. Russell: ...doing a little bit of everything, which is cool. When you're scrappy in the beginning, that's important, and everyone's doing that. But as you grow, that starts hindering you more and more and more, where we had people who are insanely talented, who if I could just get them doing this thing, 100% of the time... And that's when it got to the point with ClickFunnels, is that my unique abilities are writing, are being in videos, are building funnels, doing the... Those things are my unique abilities. Caleb: Engineering. Russell: Yeah. And I was spending maybe 10% of my time on that, and 90% of the time in meetings, and trying- Matt: Wow. Russell: ...coordinate people, and leadership. And it was stressful and it was hard. Matt: And you were draining. You were probably drained doing that. Russell: Yeah. And I was miserable, that was just... I wasn't good at it. Not feeling good, like, "Ah, I'm not getting through to people. I can't figure this out." But I felt like I had to own, I had to be the guy, I had to do the thing because this is my baby, this is my business. And the last 12 months has been crazy, because I handed it to someone who actually is good at that, that is his unique ability. And I'm watching company structure, and meetings, and KPIs, things that I was never super good at doing, and consistently having it all happening now. And now, I'm in the marketing department again, and I'm building funnels. People are like, "What do you do all day?" I'm literally in ClickFunnels, building funnels. "No, but you have funnel builder..." No, I'm literally in ClickFunnels, building funnels. I didn't start this business because I wanted to be a CEO of a big huge company. I did it because I love building funnels. I'm an artist, when it comes down to it, this is my art. Matt: Wow. Russell: And that's what I get to do now. And it's amazing. So Dan's got Fridays we book out, and we spend videos, he's got a whole bunch of YouTube videos, we film five or six YouTube vlogs last week, on Friday. So we have that times blocked out to do that, right? I'm writing my next book right now, so I've got my mornings blocked out to write books, because that's when my mind's got not a million things so I can do that. And then, after morning comes in, after I do my wrestling practice, I come in. And that's my teams there, and that's when we're building funnels. I got my designer and my copywriter, the people, and I get to facilitate that. And I feel like the... What's the guy in the orchestra, the maestro? Caleb: Conductor? Russell: Yeah, like I'm the conductor, I'm conducting all these talented people. And everyone's bringing... And I'm alive, and it's exciting. And at night, I can't sleep, because I'm excited again. And so, I think that's the biggest thing, is taking the pressure off yourself if you're not the best leader. That's okay. What are you the actual best at? And success, in business, I think, at least for me, I always thought I had to be the best at everything. And it's the opposite, where it's like, "How do you focus on the thing you're best at? And get the rest of the people around you." Speaker 4: Yeah. And it gets- Matt: And it's... You had to have been willing to let go of your ego, man. Or you wouldn't have been able to grow so much. If you try to do it all yourself... Caleb: So I have a question. How much time do you spend actually thinking about the future? Because it seems like, from what you've told us, you're very dialed in and obsessed on the process, and that's how you've gotten to where you are, up to this point, because you're in love with the game. How much of your time do you spend thinking about the future, and what's on the horizon next year, five years, 10 years? Does that cross your mind? Or what does that look like? Russell: It's interesting, I can't remember who was talking to about this... The further out you look, the fuzzier it gets. You know what I mean? And so, I think for me, it's like we have... I know where I want to go, but the in between is really, really fuzzy, right? It's hard to know. And so, it's like I know... For me, the last big boat was $100 million, the next one's a billion. So we know there's the thing. But it's so far from... I don't know the steps to get there. You know what I mean? And so, for me, it's more like, "Well, here's where we're at." In fact, that was my... We had a chance, last month, to go spend a day with Tony Robbins, and we each had a chance to ask him one question. So that was literally my question, just like... Matt: What was your question? Russell: My question... It'll be a blog soon. Not yet though. No, but it was basically like, "We've gotten to this point, and I know to get to the next goal, the things we've been doing are great and they got us to this point, but I have to think differently to here. I don't know how to think differently. How do you think... It's not another book I'm... Is it a book? How do I think differently?" And what Tony said, that was... it's a very... He said a lot of things, but one of the big things was like, "Proximity is power," like, "You have to be in proximity with people who have already accomplished the thing that you're trying to do." And it was interesting because I look at the path of how I grew ClickFunnels, I did that 100%. I was like, "All right, who are the..." and we found the people, got proximity, and then grew it to this point. So eventually, we kind of coded out of the people who I was aware of. So I asked Tony, I'm like, "Well, where would you go to?" And he's like, "Well, if it was me," he's like, "Who's built the billion dollar company?" He's like, "Marc Benioff." And he started naming all these different billionaires. And this and that, all these things. And I was just like, "I never even assumed those people could... I could be..." it seems so far away. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's..." Having a proximity to those people, and start thinking differently, because I don't know the journey but they've done it. Because someone in our world, and like, "How do [inaudible 00:16:13]?" I'm like, "This is literally a 13 minute project. There you go. [inaudible 00:16:16]." It's like I've done it so many times, it's not hard, right? But for them, it's like this is the rocket science to figure it out. And then the same way with these guys who have built billion dollar companies. So now it's trying to proximity to those people, and trying to get around them, and trying to figure out the journey. So the first thing we did, literally, I got out with Tony, Tony gave the answer to the question, and I knew the first guy I needed to get into proximity with. So I texted Dave, Dave called him up, we brought him on retainer. And now, we've got him an hour a week, to get on the phone with him and just ask him all of our questions. And have him introduce us all the different players at that next level. So a lot of it's that. Dave, who's the CEO, was very focused on all the... He's very much like, "Okay, first, to get to this goal, we have to have everyone here, here, here. These are the percentages, the numbers, all the..." Those things stress me out, I hate spreadsheets. He's always got spreadsheets. But he comes back with all the spreadsheets, I was like, "All I need to know from you is... Because I'm going to be building a funnel. What's the goal? What do you need from me to be able to do that?" He's like, "We need more ClickFunnels trials." Like, "Done. I can... Okay. That's where I'm going to focus my energy." And then, it's like, now I can creative on that piece, because I know this is the metric that I can do, with my skillset, to drive it. And everybody's got a metric, right? The traffic team, everybody's got a metric. But for me personally, it's like the only thing I actually affect in a short term, micro, and then I can focus all the creativity and effort on that, while trying to figure out how to shift my mind set to be bigger, to... Caleb: If Marc Benioff offered you $1 billion for ClickFunnels, what would you say? Speaker 4: Good question. Russell: I'd ask him for five. Matt: Good response! Rob: Can I ask you a question, outside of business? Matt: You asking a question? Oh. Rob: Yeah. Matt: Oh, go ahead. Rob: So I remember you were talking about your wife earlier, with how you wanted to get her the couch. Me and my fiance actually met at ClickFunnels, at your event. Matt: Yeah. Rob: So- Matt: ClickFunnels wedding. Russell: No way. Rob: So what I'm curious about is- Russell: Am I going to be the best man at the wedding? Caleb: I told you, you've got to come, I'm like, "You've got to invite Russell." Rob: So what I wanted to ask you is, obviously you run a nine figure company, and there's a lot that goes into that, how do you balance with, let's say, number one, your wife and then your kids as well? And then, what is your secret to a really successful marriage, that's worked for you? Matt: Dude, what- Rob: I think that's something that many entrepreneurs have good marriages that don't really get asked about. So I was just curious about that. Matt: Yeah. Russell: So I hear three questions in there, right? So balance, happy wife... What was... There was a third one? Caleb: Kids. Rob: Yeah, just balancing it, running a company. I mean, you do all these things, you also have a wife, you have kids. Russell: Yeah. So I would say a couple things. So number one is balance is this thing that we all, for some reason, in our mind, we all seek after. But everything great in my life has come from times of radical imbalance. When I wanted to become a wrestler, I wasn't a great wrestler because I was balanced, it was because I became radically imbalanced in that thing. Matt: Dang. Russell: It became the most important thing in my life, and everything else suffered. But I had to do it to be considered successful. When I met my wife, we didn't create a great relationship because we were balanced, I became radically imbalanced. And all my time and effort and focus was on her. And that's why it became great. ClickFunnels, same way. We built ClickFunnels, I was not balanced. We had to become radically imbalanced for a season, to focus actually to get... So that's the thing to understand. In anything great in life, you can't do it in a point of balance. It's radical imbalance that causes greatness. Matt: And that's golf. Russell: And so, you got to be okay with that. But it can't be for forever. It's got to be something that goes, and it comes and goes. Because people who get radically imbalanced for a long time, they can lose their family, they can lose their kids. Rob: Was there a point where you had to tell your wife, "Hey, this is what I really want to do."? Russell: A lot. She had to- Rob: And she had to just- Russell: ...be on board with- Rob: ...get on board. Russell: She had to get on board, yeah. And if she wasn't, I had to say, "Okay, what's more important?" If it was her, then I had to say no to that. And there's been many opportunities in my life I've had to say no to. Rob: What's that dynamic like, being that guys are together, just as far as working out just normal little things? Russell: So I- Rob: Just decisions, those kind of things. Russell: Yeah, well, marriage, you're going to find out, it's hard. Just so fully aware. No one told me that, going into it. I was like- Matt: Yeah. Russell: I was like, "This is going to be amazing. This is going to be the greatest thing in the world." And it is, it's awesome. But man, it is way harder than I thought. Rob: Just to be a person. Russell: Yeah, someone's... I, actually, I would highly recommend Stacey and Paul Martino have a course that my wife and I have gone through the last year, and it's amazing. There's a principle they teach about demand-relationship. If you just go through their... They have a 14 day quick start, it's like $100. But if you just learn the principles of demand-relationship, what they teach. The biggest game changer in a relationship I ever... Of all the things I've studied... Rob: Why? Russell: It is amazing. Rob: What was your take-away? Russell: The principle of demand-relationship is that, throughout history and society, the way that most of us get things done is that... So in a relationship, there's a power player, and there's someone less, right? And if I want my wife to do something, I'm going to demand, like, "I need you to do these things." Right? And that works, until the other person has the ability to leave. So prior to divorce being a thing, men, throughout history, have had a dominant relationship over women. They used to manage and get what they want, and women couldn't leave. And so, it was a horrible thing, right? But they couldn't leave. As soon as divorce happened, boom, it started happening. Right? When parents come over to their kids and give demand-relationship, as soon as the kids are able to leave, it breaks. And then, breaks his relationships. And so, that's the problem, is that for the last 5000 years, that's been our DNA, that men force women to do these different things. And that's what the demand-relationship is. Their whole training, their whole course, everything they teach is the opposite of demand-relationship. How do you create a relationship, where transformation happens through inspiration, not through demanding, and chasing. And it's tough because, for all of us, especially men, it's been so ingrained in our DNA that if we want something, we... That's how we do business, how we do things. But in a relation, especially an intimate relationship, it's the worst thing that could possibly happen. And that's what we all do. So it'd be worth... I'm hoping she writes a book some day, because it's... In my new book, I have a whole chapter, actually, teaching her framework on in demand-relationship. What's that? Rob: Were you high school sweethearts? Russell: College, we met in college. Rob: So she was with you before you started... Russell: Yeah. Rob: ...and had the huge success- Russell: Yeah. Rob: ...basically. Russell: Yeah. Rob: What was that transition like, from you guys, I guess, being... struggling, and you guys stay together- Matt: Good questions, Rob. Rob: ...to now- Russell: His mindset's on this. Rob: Yeah. Russell: Going into it. Rob: What is that like? I'm just curious, because I mean people don't really talk about this, I guess, a lot. Caleb: Relationship genius. Russell: Yeah. And it's different, because some relationships, both the people are in the business, some aren't. My wife's not involved in the business at all. She... Rob: Oh, okay. Russell: ...doesn't understand it, and she doesn't want to be part of it. And that's okay. It's like sometimes that's been the biggest blessing for me, sometimes it's been hard. Caleb: Yeah. Russell: Right? Sometimes I see the power couples, who are both in the business, and it's really, really cool. But I ask them, and they're like, "Sometimes it's a great blessing, sometimes it's really hard." So there's pro's and con's both ways. But I think the biggest part is just, this has been good for our relationship, and at first we didn't always have this, but it was like... Just figuring out how to get... You both have to have that same end goal, otherwise you're fighting against each other, right? And so, when we were building ClickFunnels and stuff, it was hard at first, because she didn't really... She's like, "What are you guys doing? You spend all this time and..." didn't understand it. And it was tough because I was trying to explain it. And luckily, for me, is that Todd was part of this too, and his wife was kind of struggling. So they had each other to kind of talk through it. But it wasn't until the very first Funnel Hacking Live, where... Because my wife had never been to one of my events before, anything we'd really... She knew what kind of we did, but not really. And she came to Funnel Hacking Live, the very first one. And she didn't come down at first, because she didn't realize what was happening. And she was doing some stuff, and then, she came down with one of her friends and walked in the back of the room, and saw all the stuff. And she started just crying. She was like, "Oh, this is what you're... I had no idea this is what was happening, and what was..." And then, it became real for her. And that was such a huge blessing for me, because now, the next time, it was like, "We have to work hard for this." Or, "We're planning for..." whatever, she was able to see this is the fruits, and like, "Oh, that's why you're doing it." Now, if you notice, my wife's, every Funnel Hacking Live, front row. She doesn't understand a word we're saying, but she's there, she's paying attention, because she's like, "Look at all the people, and their lives are changing, and impacting." And now, it's different, where when I got to do work, work late nights, or whatever, she sees the vision, and she's on board with it. So it makes so much easier. The other secret I learned is if I tell her, if it's like 05:00 at night, I'm like, "Crap, I got to stay late tonight." And I call her at 05:00 at night, nothing good can come from that. It's better if you just go home, right? If I know Wednesday night, I'm going to be working late, I tell her Monday. Like, "Hey, Wednesday night, there's a good chance I'm going to be late." And then, if I tell her that, she's totally cool with it, right? But you don't tell them the day of. It'll destroy your marriage more than anything. Matt: That's good wisdom. Russell: The other secret, this secret don't put on camera, I don't want my wife to... Matt: Is that right? Russell: Yeah, if I have any inclination that people are coming to town, or something's happening, I always like, "Just so you know, next week, Matt and Caleb are coming to town. There's a good shot we might go to dinner at night, just so you're fully aware." And she's like, "Cool." And then, it's fine. The other secret, this is the real one. So don't share this outside this room. Speaker 4: This is the off camera one. Russell: Yeah. So especially after... For my wife and I... So we started having kids, the same time I started this business, right? And so, I'm traveling, I'm going to events. And she's at home with the kids. And so, we never traveled before, so I'm going on these vacations, I'm meeting these cool people, I'm in hotel rooms. So every night, I'm getting back, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh." And I'm like, "Okay, I met so and so, and then..." all these things I'm so excited, so pumped about these things. And I'm telling her about stuff, and she's at home with twin babies, miserable, tired, horrible, feet hurt, body hurt. And I'm out having the time of my life. Matt: Yeah. Russell: And I'm thinking she's going to be pumped for me, right? Matt: Right. Russell: No. And for probably a year or so, I was just like... And then, one day, I remember I'm at some event, and I get cornered by people. And then, introverted Russell's like... anxiety, and it was horrible. And somebody cornered me in the bathroom, and asking me questions while I'm peeing. And it wasn't even... At least, sometimes, most of the time, they fake pee next to you, so at least it's not awkward. He was sitting next to me, watching me pee. I'm like, "Can you at least fake pee?" And so, anyway... It was so bad. And I got home that night, and I call her on the phone, and I was just like, "It was horrible." I went off about how horrible it was, and I was miserable. And she's like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry." But then, she was cool. It was awesome. And I was like, "I didn't get in trouble." And so, the next time I went out, I got home that night, call her, I was like, "Oh, it was horrible. My feet hurt, my back hurts." Anyway, and I've told so many people this, entrepreneurs and friends, who do that, and they shift... Because they don't want to hear you're having this... Anyway, is this truly good or not? I don't know. It saved my marriage. Matt: Is it true? Russell: Literally saved my marriage, and it saved so many of my friends, who… so many of friends, who had the same thing. They want to hear the stories, but not in the moment. When you come back home later, you tell the stories, they love it. But in the moment, when they're miserable, and you're having fun, it is not... First time with Tony Robbins, when I walked on fire, I call her that night, I'm like, "I just walked on fire. Waaa!" And I hear the kids screaming in the background, and she was angry. And I was like, "Huh." And I'm like, "Cool, I'm sending you to walk on fire next month." I sent her to walk on fire, and then she was on fire. But it was like... Caleb: She's like, "No." Russell: Later, she wants to hear, but not in the moment, because it's just like... Anyway, so- Rob: Yeah. Russell: ...that was- Rob: Makes sense. Russell: ...life changing for... Anyway, so... And then, the other thing is just you have to understand what your values are. I learned this from Tom Bilyeu at a level that was fascinating, recently. But- Caleb: Who was that? Russell: Tom Bilyeu, he runs Impact Theory. Caleb: Oh, okay. Rob: Impact Theory. Caleb: Gotcha. Russell: But he writes out his values, but he prioritizes them. So his number one value is his wife, number two... And he has the values written out. And so, when a conflict comes in place, or he gets asked to speak at a huge event, speak for the Queen of England, or whatever, but it's the same weekend as his wife wants something. He's like, "My wife trumps the value... 100%, she trumps it. So the answer's no, and it's not hard for me to say no." Caleb: Wow. Russell: And so, it's figuring it out for yourself. What are your values? Personally, with your family, the wife, everything like that. And you define them, and then it's like there's no question. That's what hard, is when you value something here, and your spouse values something differently, and the conflict of that is what causes the fights, right? But if you get on the same page, like, "Look, this is number one, two..." You have these things, then it makes it easier to navigate those things, because it's like, "No, I understand this is one of the values we have together, as a couple, you should go do that thing." Or whatever the thing might be. So anyway... Caleb: That's awesome. Russell: But marriage is one of the hardest things, but one of the most rewarding things, at the same time. So it's worth it, but it's a ride. Go through demand-relationship, man. That's- Rob: That's a great point. Russell: ...so good. Speaker 4: I got a question. Rob: Yeah, go ahead. Speaker 4: So two big things that I heard from you, amongst your story, you were talking this positivity. When you were doing great at something, or you learned something, you're so excited about it, you're so positive, but then there's this other part of you that's very vulnerable. Russell: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Speaker 4: And so, you experience anxiety, or you have challenging days, or you're discouraged. How do you find the balance between those, of being vulnerable and being honest with how you're feeling, versus, "Hey, this is a challenge. I'm an entrepreneur, I can overcome this."? Matt: Right. Speaker 4: What's the balance? Russell: Yeah. That's good. One of the... Everyone who's met Tony has a story about how Tony's changed their life. But one of the biggest things that I... There's three or four things that I got from Tony, the very first time I went to his event and I heard him speak, that had a huge impact on me. One of the biggest ones was state control, understanding that. Have you ever heard him talk about the triad and things like that? Speaker 4: Yeah. Russell: I'd never heard that before, and I remember watching him do these things on people in the audience. And it was fascinating. He took a lady, who was... He picked somebody in the audience who was suicidal, and he's like... It was the weirdest thing. And he talked about the triad, right? There's three things that change your state, right? There's your language, there's your focus, and there's your physiology, right? So he takes someone, he's like, "I need someone who's suicidal." He takes this beautiful girl. I remember, we were up in Toronto, so then he takes this girl, and he's like, "I need you to get depressed. Not a little bit depressed, clinically suicidal." She's like, "What?" He's like, "Just get there in your mind. Whatever it takes, get dark." And you see her state change, right? And he keeps pushing her, and keep pushing her, and he gets her to this point. And anyway, it's crazy I'm watching this. And I'm kind of freaking out, because I'm watching him do this to this girl, getting her to a point... And soon, she's bawling her eyes out and everything. And he's like, "You got to get deeper. Get darker. More miserable." All this stuff. And you see him change this girl's state. And all of a sudden it stopped. And finally, it seemed like forever, finally he stops and he's like, "Everyone look at her. Watch her. Look at this." He's like, "What do you notice? What's her physiology?" You see her body, you see tears, and all this stuff. And you see her just broken. And then, he's like, "What do you say?" And he goes through the whole triad with her. And he shows that. And he's like, "Now I'm going to show you how quickly you can shift this." To the point where it's like... Anyway, it was crazy. And then, he shifts it, and he starts taking her back through, shifting the physiology, shifting her shoulders, shifting everything, shifting her meanings, shifting focus, shifting what she's saying. And he gets this girl, within three or four minutes, to literal ecstasy, it was crazy watching this. And you see her, where she's laughing... the opposite side of it. And I'd never seen somebody like that, the flip of emotions, how easy it was, by just shifting these three things in her. And it had such a profound impact on me. Caleb: Is there video of that? Russell: Not maybe the one I saw, but he does it at every UPW, he does it... I'm sure there's YouTube videos of it, as well. But if you type the triad, I think he calls it the triad or state control, things like that, you see it happen. But I saw that, and I was just like, "Oh my gosh, I never realized that we had control over that. I thought my feelings were my feelings." Like, "Here's your feeling." Like, "Okay, crap, this is the feeling I have today." And after experiencing that, I was like, "I could actually change this." I didn't know that. And it's interesting because I think sometimes when we're depressed, or we're sad, or we have these things, I think some of us like it. I've had times before, I don't want to be happy. I'm enjoying feeling miserable. And sometimes, I sit in there because I enjoy, because we do, it's weird. It's messed up. But I felt that. I'm like, "I could change this but I don't want to." But other times, I'm like, "I have to change it." Now that I've learned that. It's crazy you can shift your state, and you can do that and show up the way you need to be. And one practical example of how I use it a lot is, when I get home at the end of the night... And this kind of comes back to your question, I think, earlier, too. How do you do all the things? And I told you this yesterday. One of the things that I got the biggest, from being around Tony Robbins, the most impressive thing about him is when... Tony's got... As busy as any of us are, take that times 10, and that's Tony, right? He's the most busy person ever. But if you have a chance, a brief moment with Tony, where he's going to say a million things, and you have a second with him, he is the most present person I've ever met. The world dissolves around it, and it's just him and you, and there's nothing else. You can tell. And he's just zoned in on you, and it's this magical experience. And as soon as it's done, he's just gone, he's on the next thing. But that moment, he's hyper-present. And so, for me, when I'm doing things, it's like... Like, when I get home at night, at the end of the day, park my car, I walk in, and there's the door before I come into the house. And sometimes, I'm anxious, I'm thinking about work, and thinking about stuff, I'm stressed out, the FBI sent me a letter today, Taylor Swift suing me, whatever the thing is. And I'm like, "Ah." And then, I'm like, "I'm going to walk through that door, and I can't do anything about it now. My kids are there, my wife's there." And it's just like, "Okay, I got to change my state." And right there, before I walk through the door, I change my state. Get in the spot, and then like, "Okay, here we go." And I walk through the door, and it's like then I'm dad. And it's different, right? And so, I think it's learning those things. Because it's not... Your feelings are weird, they're going to show up in one way or the other, but the fact that you can control them, which I didn't understand or know how. But as soon as I realized that, it's just like, "I don't have to be sad, or miserable, or anxious, or whatever. I can actually change those things in a moment, if I understand how." And that was one of the greatest gifts Tony gave me, was just understanding how to do that, and seeing it in practical application with somebody. And now, it's like I can do it myself, any time I need to, if I need to. Matt: How do you act around Tony Robbins? Especially from the beginning to now, because you guys are close now. He probably looks at you like I look at a lot of these guys, that are Caleb's friends. I look at them like nephews, these are like... I'd do anything for them. And I know that... I can see that's how Tony starting to look at you. But take us from the very first time, because he didn't he have you come to an event, ask you a bunch of questions, take notes, and then just leave you hanging, or something like that. Tell the story, real quick. Russell: Oh, man. Tony's so intense. I still get scared to... It's still like, "Ah." Anyway, every time I see him, it's just like... I don't know, it's weird. His presence is- Matt: He still makes you nervous. Russell: Oh, yeah, for sure. But the very first time... So yeah, it was... I don't know, it was probably 04:00 in the morning. I don't even know. The shorter version of the long story is they asked me to come meet him in Toronto, at UPW, same event as this whole experience happened. So I went up there, and supposed to meet him one day, and it shifts to the next day. And if you ever work with Tony, just know if he tells you he's meeting you at 10:00, it could be like four days later you actually meet. You're on Tony time. Yeah, it's- Matt: That's just how it is. Russell: It's crazy, yeah. Just waiting. But it's always worth it, so you just wait and be grateful when it happens. But anyway, so we finally get to the point where we meet, and I have to drive 45 minutes. This is pre-Uber, so I'm in a taxi to some weird hotel. And we get there, and then me and his assistant stand outside for another hour, waiting in the lobby. He kept looking at his phone, nervously, like, "Ah." He's like, "Okay, Mr. Robbins' ready to meet you. Let's go." So we run up the stairs, we go to this thing, we walk in this room, and there's- Matt: And this is the first time you ever- Russell: ...body guards everywhere. First time I ever met him, yeah. Yeah, he's like a giant, comes and gives me a huge hug. And we sit down, and he's like, "You hungry?" I'm like, "Yeah." And he was vegetarian at the time, so he's like, "Get Russell some food." And brought me out this amazing plate of... I don't even know what it was. But it was... I was like, "If I could eat like this is every night, I'd be vegetarian." Because it was amazing. It was- Caleb: It was? Russell: ...insane. And then, got his tape recorder out, he's like, "You okay if we record this?" I'm like, "Yeah." So he clicks record, picks out a big journal, he's like, "You're Mormon, right?" I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "I love the Mormon people. When I was eight years old, I went to a Mormon church and they told me to keep a journal. I've kept a journal ever since. Do you mind if I take notes while we talk?" Matt: Wow. Russell: I'm like, "Eh, okay." So he's recording, taking notes, and then he drilled me for an hour. Just like do, do, do. Just like- Speaker 4: And how long ago was this? Russell: This is 13, 14 years ago. Speaker 4: Okay. Russell: Anyway, it was intense. And I can't remember what I was saying, I was so scared, I'm second-guessing everything I've said. And then, he's asking me numbers and stats, because we were trying to do this deal with him. And it was so scary. Matt: So he was just drilling you with questions, and just trying to- Russell: Oh, like crazy, yeah. I'm trying to just... Yeah, dude. Anyway, it was crazy. And then, he had to go back to UPW to speak again, so he's like, "You want to drive with me?" So I'm like, "Yeah." So go down, and jump in his Escalade together, we're in the back seat, and we're driving. And it's just crazy. And I remember he asked me a question about this one... I won't say the person's name because the story isn't positive for the person. But he asked, he's like, "What do you think about so and so?" I'm like, "Oh, that person's really cool and really talented." He's like, "He's a very significant..." and he just talked about six human needs, earlier that day, so I was very aware of here's what the needs are, right? And he's like, "Yeah, I don't think I'd ever work with him, because he's very significance driven." And I was like, "Oh, that make sense." And all of a sudden, I was like, "Ah, Tony is reading my soul, right now." I was like, "What drives me? I don't even know what drives me. Does he know what drives me?" Like, "Oh my gosh, am I significance driven?" I'm freaking out, like, "Ah." And all I remember is panicking, thinking, "He knows more about me than I know about me, at this point." And all these things, I'm freaking out, we're driving in his Escalade. And we get to the thing, and he's like, "I got to go inside. Thank you so much, brother. I love you." Jumps out the car, shuts the door. I'm sitting in the Escalade, like, "What just happened?" Matt: It was that fast. Russell: It was insane, yeah. Matt: It was just like- Russell: And then, the driver's like, "Do you want to get out here? Do you want me to drive you somewhere?" Like, "I don't even know where we are." We're in Toronto somewhere, that's all I know. And so, it was just the craziest experience. And then, I don't hear from him for four or five months, nothing. And I'm like- Matt: What were you thinking? Did you think- Russell: I was like, "He must've hated me. Maybe I failed the test. Am I significance driven?" I'm freaking out about all the things. And then, one day, I get this random... It was actually my wife and I, we were celebrating our anniversary, so we were at... It was a StomperNet event, but we took her, it was this cool thing. And she'd just gone to UPW. I sent her like three months later. So she walked on fire, and she was like... And Tony talks about Fiji there, so she was like, "Someday we should go to Fiji." And then, we get this call from Tony, and it was like, "Hey..." Or it was Tony's assistant. Like, "Hey, Tony wants to know if you want to speak at Business Mastery in Fiji, in two weeks." I was like, "Tony Robbins..." I started saying it out loud so Collette could hear me. "Tony Robbins wants me to speak in Fiji, in two weeks?" And Collette, my cute little wife, starts jumping on the bed, like, "Say yes! Say yes!" Caleb: Aw! Russell: And I was like, "Yes, yes, yes. Of course, we will." And then, we're like, we've got three kids that are all toddlers at this time, and like, "Can we bring kids?" They're like, "There's no kids allowed on the resort." I'm like, "We've got three little kids." He's like, "Ah, all right. We'll figure it out." So I hang up, and we're like, "We don't have passports for the kids, we don't have anything." So anyway, it was chaos, we're freaking out. We ended up getting them there, they literally built a fence around our... The Bula house, where's Dan at? The Bula house we were in. They built a whole fence around, so our kids wouldn't die because- Caleb: Did they really? Russell: ...there's cliffs off the back. Yeah, it was crazy. And then, I'm speaking to this room, and there's less than 100 people. I'm speaking, and Tony's sitting in the back of this room, I'm like- Matt: While you're speaking. Russell: ..."I thought he was not going to be here. This is really scary." Yeah. And he's paying attention the whole time. Matt: Does it make you more nervous? Russell: He introduced me, he brought me on stage, which was like... I still have the footage of that, it's really cool. He brought me on stage, which was crazy. And then, I remember, because in the thing we're talking about lead generation, I was talking about squeeze pages. And afterwards, he got on. He comes up afterwards, he's like, "Yeah, I heard squeeze pages don't work anymore. Is that true, Russell?" He's like, "People say they're kind of dead, they don't work anymore." And this is, again, 12 years ago. And I was like, "Who told you that? They totally still work." Which is funny, because we still use them today. But he was just like, "Somebody had told me they don't work anymore." And I was like, "They..." anyway, "They work, I promise." But anyway, and then I don't hear from him for five years, and then something else happens. It's just weird, these long extended periods of time. But then, every time, every moment, I tried... Five years later, it was a call, it was like, "Hey, Tony's doing this thing. He wants your opinion on it." So I spent like two or three hours with his team, consulting, giving feedback, as much ideas as I could. And like, "Cool, thanks." And then, nothing for two years, and then something else, and then... Little things keep happening, and happening, and can do more and more together. And then- Matt: What did you learn from that? You think that's just- Russell: A couple things I've learned. Number one, I'm sure you guys get this a lot, people who want to work with you, they show up and the first thing they show up with is, "All right, I got an idea how we can make a bunch of money together." Right? They always come, and want to figure out how they can take from you. And I was so scared, and grateful, I didn't ever ask Tony for anything. The first time I asked Tony for anything ever was 12 into our relationship, after Expert Secrets book was done. I had just paid him $250,000 to speak on our stage, and just finished the interview promoting his book. And I was like, "Hey, I wrote a new book. Do you want one?" Matt: Wow. Russell: And he's like, "Oh." And he took it. I'm like, "Cool." And then, a week later, I'm like, "Ah, will you interview me on Facebook with this?" He's like, "Sure." And then, he did, and that video got three and a half million views on it. It was crazy, coolest thing ever. But it was 12 years before I asked him for anything. And I had- Matt: Wow. Russell: ...served him at as many different points as I can. I think the biggest lesson from that is that... And I get it all the time, people come to me and it's like they're trying to ask and take. It's just like... I get it, and it makes sense. But it's just like, "This game's not a short game. If you do it right, it's your life. This is your life mission." Right? Matt: Yeah, that's good. Russell: And so it's just understanding you're planting seeds, and you're serving, and if you do that, eventually good things will happen. And something may never happen with Tony, and that's cool. I do stuff for a lot of people, and nothing ever good ever comes from it. But hopefully something does. Sometimes it's indirect, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's just karma, or whatever you believe in. But if you just always go with the intent to serve, not to like, "What's in it for me?" It just changes everything. And then, if you do that, if you lead with how to serve, stuff comes back to you. But if you lead with trying to get stuff, it just doesn't work. The energy's different in the whole encounter. You know what I mean? Matt: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: So I'm sure you guys have felt that with people, when they first come to you, and it's just like, "Ah." Matt: So is there a point where you... You went to his house. Russell: That was cool. The thing I can say is it was really cool, because most times when I'm with Tony, you're around people. In Fiji, it was fun seeing him, because he's more personal and stuff like that. But it was really special in his home, because it was him and his wife, and it was cool. It was fun just seeing him as him, like as a kid. And even my wife, like, "He seems like a kid here." He was so excited, and showing us his stuff, and all the things. Matt: Ah, well, guys, listen. Russell: Anyway- Matt: A few more questions, because I mean, man, you've been at it for almost two hours, dude. I can go all night, and I know he could. But Brea Morrison, give it up for her for letting us be here. Thank you so much.

This week, Steph is working on a movie with Master Ken of Enter the Dojo. So Dan & Chris chat movies and Dan rants a lot. So if you've been missing a ranty episode, here you go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfsjoJAe6vc Brian goes over one of his favorite old sayings from marketing legend Dan Kennedy. Transcription They all go lame. Hi, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live. I'm Brian pombo. This is a show that we record live on a daily basis, bringing new business ideas, concepts, talk about principles, strategies and tactics in business, specifically for business owners, executives, the people that are in charge. So hopefully it's find you good today. This is a little lesson that I heard years ago from Dan Kennedy. And it is one of my favorites that I'm surprised I don't think I've ever dedicated an entire episode to this one. But it is it was a big one for me. And it's…we'll see how this hit you. So Dan is involved in race, in the race track business. And he has he's had horses, and he's raised himself and so forth. And he talks about this term called, they all go lame. It's in reference to horses, they only have a certain span of life to where they're useful on the track. There's a point at which they aren't anymore, you know, age, injury, everything else that comes comes with the territory, right? Well, he uses it in reference also to people. Because the plain fact of the matter is, especially if you're an employer of people, or if your fear if your business is dependent on people, which most businesses are to some extent. And the term, the idea is that they all go lame, that every person has a high point to where they're doing really well. But there will always be a point at which they don't perform at the same level, in that position long term. It doesn't mean you can't work with them from that point on, but you can't expect the same level of performance their entire life, it's just not going to happen. It's not natural, and plain fact of the matter is, that I didn't quite get and I think it was part of my age, as being a very young and not seeing enough of life and not really having enough people around me kick the bucket is that people die, everyone dies. It's going to happen, eventually, you will not be able to be you will not be able to depend on anybody. Because in the end, everybody eventually kicks it. Or they go missing or they get, you know, what's it called, you know, lifted up to heaven, you know, and so forth. It doesn't matter, but they're not going to be here. They're not you can't depend on any human being. We're all flawed. And we're all we all have a body that eventually runs out on us. Right? And so that it's just a fact, they all go lame. And we always get amazed when someone who has done amazing things, stops doing amazing things at one point, they don't perform whether it be an athlete, you know, your Tiger Woods, your whoever it is it any athlete, eventually, they slow down. All athletes do that and that's a very specific thing to think about, especially in terms of resources you think of from the physical, but it also comes from the mental, you know, any politician, any, let me think of a business leader. An example that that Dan uses is, is Michael Eisner who ran Disney and saw the he oversaw the largest renaissance of any company of that size ever, in the history of human beings. Right. And it's a big, pretty big feat for a CEO and eventually, you know, Chairman, CEO, and so forth. That's a big deal. But eventually, he went lame, eventually, whatever it was caught up, and he wasn't able to perform at that same level when he got ousted. Not directly, but eventually he got he got he moved on, and someone else took over. And that's just what happens across the board. You have to this is two major pillars that I talked about. One, it's the negative pillar from being relationship reliant. So I talked about being relationship Reliant. That's what life is all about. And business is specifically all about being relationship reliant, realizing that all that matters is your relationship with those around you,

One of the biggest drawbacks of the coronavirus pandemic has been the psychological toll of dealing with the uncertainties of this health hazard along with all the social and financial limitations that it could bring about. As a results we are seeing an increase in the number of depressions and suicides during this tough period. On this program Daniel and Pouya discuss the issue of depression and suicide during the pandemic and offer solutions on how to effectively prevent or manage both. The advices given here are not meant to replace the those of mental health professionals and if you are suffering from symptoms of depression or suicidal thoughts make sure to seek professional help as soon as possible.   Photo by Jonathan Rados on Unsplash   Daniel's Social:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danmolgan/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Danmolgan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-molgan-41812352/   Pouya's Social: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pouyalj/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/pouyalj LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pouyalajevardi/   Episode Transcript... ----more----   SUMMARY KEYWORDS pandemic, people, depression, extroverted, nations, introverted, extroverts, seminar, pressure, harder, problems, psychological toll, active, suicide, airbnb, world, challenge, life, literally, social SPEAKERS Pouya LJ, Dan   Pouya LJ  00:09 Hello, and welcome back ladies and gentlemen to yet another episode of the b2b podcast joined as always with Daniel Mulligan, how's it going, buddy?   Dan  00:16 What's up, buddy? How's it going good to be here with you for yet another awesome podcast. Let's talk addition beyond the present here with you man life is great. Fortunately, we're hitting a lot of great news worldwide regarding the progress towards the basically the coronavirus pandemic right now worldwide, particularly with respect to the you know, vaccination because the fact that Pfizer and basically vaccine and a few others were somehow kind of slow to move into to transfer to different countries because of you know, the all the temperature requirements. Now, just today, it was announced that the Sputnik V, the Russian vaccine actually is more than 91% effective. And as you probably know, that was basically made with the older technologies, which means it doesn't require any specific equipment to be transferred, it can just be moved around by a simple refrigerator anywhere around the world. And that is going to make it much faster and supply vaccine to more developing nations or poor nations around the world to accelerate the process of getting out of this goddamn pandemic. So that was a very good news overall, of course, in the same country, we're getting some other bad news about the politics, but then again, politics is rarely a happy place for most people, right. So generally, life is great in terms of business, gradually, the world is somehow coming to terms with the pandemic, we're gradually seeing improvements in terms of employment numbers all around the world, or at least in those nations that I'm currently active in. So overall, it's been great. And the hope that this pandemic is soon going to at least be alleviated and eventually conquered hopefully, by the end of the year, is just probably the best news we've gotten so far and couldn't be any happier.   Pouya LJ  01:51 No, absolutely. That's true. It's it's been it's been devastating here. And it's continues to be and that's great news to hear that there there are being things are being facilitated towards vaccination in a variety of countries, not just to developing the developed countries, but also the developing countries. However, in the meantime, we are still in the midst of the pandemic and to talk which brings us to today's topic, which has people dealing with depression and suicide during this pandemic, because a variety of Yeah, from variety of reasons, from the lack of activity, perhaps to not being able to contact with others, loss of jobs and economic hardships, caused people to retreat mentally, perhaps, to a degree, depressed, and the worst case is, unfortunately, commit suicide. Now, what are your thoughts very broadly on this topic, during this pandemic?   Dan  02:50 First of all, what a great topic you pick Pooja x for this show, I agree with you completely. And the reasons are multitude when it comes to the reasons why we are seeing higher numbers of depression and extremely higher numbers of suicide, which is just unprecedented, basically. But then again, as you put it out yourself, it definitely does make sense. I mean, you would definitely expect such things to happen in this current situation, given the fact that the pandemic has pretty much made it impossible to be human. I mean, what makes us human, I was watching a speech by Chancellor Merkel. And despite the fact that she has been quite harsh, basically, with the restrictions, which I think she made the right decision, because Germany was getting out of control. And she made a lot of basically new sweeping rules to make sure that people are staying at home. And she was in one of her speeches actually was saying that, oh, all the things that we have done, is actually making us less human. So she admitted it openly. And I really admire her courage for that, too, as a global leader to come and say that, she said that all the things we say we should not be doing are the things that we should technically be doing to be healthy and happy. I mean, physical contact with those around us getting close, being social, communicating frequently, leaving the house being physically active, moving around, eating well, and above all, not always panicking and being anxious. Oh my gosh, I'm going to talk I'm going to tell you this right now, how to get the virus. Literally, I was in a seminar yesterday. Of course, we conduct this seminar, under the strict rules of the basically health guidelines to make sure that first of all, the number of attendants were kept limited. And secondly, maintenance major, everybody wears masks and have the distance. And in that seminar, we actually talked about a similar topic. And ultimately, a lot of our attendance set like I am just my biggest problem isn't the goddamn virus. It's the psychological toll that it has had on my life. Now, in the same seminar we took, we took a survey and we realized, generally this pandemic has hurt the extroverted population far more severely than the introverted ones. I mean, like, we were just we ask people, so which ones in this class for example, or this environment are more likely to be introverted? We collect You know the results, who is going to be like extroverted, we've got the results. And realize the ones who reported to be more extroverted are the ones ironically, who find it almost impossible to deal with one of our tenants, they're like, you know what I've been doing this for like, I'm when I wouldn't when it first happened, I told my husband, this is going to be like, oh, a couple of months, maximum, maybe two, three months. And I just can't go any further. I'm just literally done with this. And obviously, that pressure and that psychological toll isn't just on that lady within our center. But it's basically describes perfectly what is happening to billions of people around the world right now. It's the same level of pressure and anxiety. So I guess the biggest tool that it had on us, other than the fact that we can't really do a lot of things we normally have always taken for granted. But it's more about that sense of, you know, presence, always worrying if I'm going to get infected or not always having to watch any one of our attendance. Like, look at my hands. I've been watching this every friggin 1015 minutes, and I'm done. So all of these things are going to create problems. And this is definitely going to affect us negatively in terms of our mental health and psychological well being. So obviously, as you pointed out, basically, this issue is tremendous. It has affected all of us, some of us more than the others. I mean, those of our listeners right now who tend to self report themselves as extroverts probably have been hurt, hit hit the hardest. And ironically, we've had a couple of introverts in our audience who said, Hey, I love the pandemic, it's the best time ever, I don't have to leave the house, I can work in my pajamas. And I can simply read books all the time, I don't see anyone's faces Oh, normal. So it really depends, I guess, on the person you're talking to. Right. So definitely, this pandemic has not been as harsh on certain people, especially, I guess, on those who come from wealthier backgrounds. I mean, those who are are basically wealthy in general, who have had assets before the pandemic. Now, most of them are richer in most nations that I'm currently active. And actually, whether it's those who work in real estate, those who have, you know, a couple of stocks. Now, you remember that games, basically stopped stocks, guys, I mean, that was incredible, basically. But what I'm saying is, those who have been wealthier headed much better off. Unfortunately, those who were middle class or lower middle class, they are the ones who are hit the hardest, because not only they have to face with all of the natural psychological impacts of the pandemic, they have even lost their jobs, many of them and they don't have even money. So on top of all of that, now, they have financial problems, too. And as you probably know, in the field management, we say, no crisis ever occurs alone, and always is followed by other crises, because one thing leads to another and this continues, right. So because of all of this, now, we are seeing a tremendous impact on the psychological well being of people around the world. And of course, it is a mental health crisis. And we need to help people to find their way around and to hopefully make it to the end of the pandemic, basically intact.   Pouya LJ  08:09 I couldn't agree more. Yeah. So that there's There are multitudes of why somebody would face challenges mentally, perhaps, you mentioned a lot of them, of course, economics. pressures could be another, you know, potential problems that people are facing. And sometimes that takes a toll. Now, to a degree, especially, so it's really, I guess, it really depends on the causes of the mental pressure and depression, perhaps, but to a degree, it might really not be avoidable for for some people under some circumstances, or it might be for others, perhaps to a degree. But either way, I think there should be then there are ways to, you know, minimize this pressure, just mental pressure. And I want to put a disclaimer here, neither myself or Daniel are not, you know, experts in this subjects. We're not licensed   Dan  09:04 or not certified healthcare professionals. These are meant purely to inform you, and it's not going to replace the advice of a professional psychiatrists.   Pouya LJ  09:13 Perfect. Yeah, that's what I was going with this. So just if you do have problems, please seek professional help. But we're merely here to give our own proper advice based on our expertise. But no licenses here. So I just had to put that disclaimer out there. But from your perspective, what are the things people especially extroverted people, you like yourself, because you're one of them? who's dealing fairly with this challenge? Oh, and people who have, you know, financial difficulties, what would you How would you, you know, advise the people of these two categories mainly, for sure,   Dan  09:49 but I'm actually I'm gonna give you both answers in a moment because I know my answer, but you on the other hand, I'm sure also all of our listeners know about this that you are at slightly more on the introverted sign and I'm more on the shorter side. So I'm actually curious first about you. Did you really feel that toll and pressure on you there in this basically, period? I mean, how do you feel as somebody who's more introverted than extroverted?   Pouya LJ  10:13 Right? So, this is actually a funny question you ask because especially being around somebody like yourself, yes, I'm definitely much more introverted than your. So I always consider myself more like, Yeah, probably in the middle, but edging towards the introverted side. But actually, this when they make happen, and I did, then I realize how much I in fact, am extroverted. Because I started missing people. I   Dan  10:37 was like, No, I just want to see people.   Pouya LJ  10:40 And phone calls. Don't just introverts   Dan  10:42 feel a pain, man, can you believe that even those, of course you are not a hardcore introvert, obviously, because you're more on the ambivert side. So you have both sides to your character and personality. But of course, I talked to a few really hardcore introverts who didn't have much problem, but I'm pretty sure even like a very standard introvert would still feel a lot of things is missing in his or her life.   Pouya LJ  11:04 Absolutely, because as humans, this is just those human interactions. And you know, personal touches are essential to our existence. I mean, again, yes, there are always exceptions to these, quote unquote, rules. But typically, we as humans do crave that, you know, interaction. So it was it was, I just realized how extroverted I actually am. And, yeah, so I mean, of course, you can do phone calls, you can do video calls, group, video calls, etc, all of that good stuff. But at the end of the day, there's something that is about, you know, physically being in the same place at the same time, that has a, a, you know, a comforting feeling that is always missing in these interactions. Yeah, but I still don't definitely have the hardest of times, I'm sure. Probably compared to people like yourself, but it did hit me a little bit, especially deep into after months have passed the pandemic, it definitely did hit me.   Dan  12:06 Especially you living in Canada, and and you guys are all, you know, law abiding citizens and nice guys, like you never, never, like violate anything. So I'm guessing it was much harder for you guys as well, are those nations who really followed all the health protocols? Because in some nations that I've worked in, pretty much nothing I mean, right now, for example, if you go to countries like Russia, dude, these guys have opened their strip clubs as well. So I mean, that's it's very hard to wear a mask when you're getting strict, basically dancing right there. But overall, it's, what I'm saying is it hasn't affected people equally in different nations, for sure. And since this issue really is an international issue, you see major and measurable differences between nations among their citizens, based on the rules, conventions, and how well the people follow those rules. They seem, I think that's incredibly important, basically. So as expected, of course, for us extroverts, the pressure has been much harder. Although I personally have done my very best to make sure that my social life is not going to be affected so much. Now, in addition to having basically meetings, online, from morning to night, pretty much I felt my entire schedule, make sure I'm always working. And I'm always in touch, especially communicating. And for me, that's very important. I also managed to whenever we could to actually create, you know, events and seminars as much as possible to fill up that gap if you will, even though because nowadays, it's much harder to attend, for example, like a full on party, because obviously limitations and there's no possibility of dancing. But seminars, it's a lot more feasible given that you can actually create social distancing on the audience, and so on and so forth. So I tried my very best to remain as social as possible. And be really that when it comes to extroverts, they reading to do their best to get out of the house, whatever way they can. Now, for me personally, I also have always taken my basically, sports seriously taking my fitness seriously and my workout very seriously. So during the pandemic, my actually my record has actually increased in almost all the things I do. And nowadays I exercise three times per day, so morning before going to work and basically in the afternoon when I hit the gym and at nights just for you know, relaxing walks. So I actually ended up exercising more during the pandemic, you know, than before. Ironically, it was pretty interesting. And now, fortunately, in my case, I did not have to deal with the financial aspect of the pandemic because all of our businesses, except for the ones regarding real estate, with respect to Airbnb business model, were not affected that much. So pretty much all of our businesses remains active because we managed to link them all online, except for the ones regarding the tourism because we have basically the as it proposed, Previously, on one of our posts about this Airbnb model, we actually had an episode about this completely discuss the details. So that sector because it's linked to tourism I was heavily influenced until a while back when the borders gradually got open in certain countries like Dubai, for example. But still outside of tourism, and Airbnb, Reynolds, pretty much all of our other businesses were active during the summon, in some cases actually became more profitable than before. However, and I know that in this case, I am not representing the majority of people around the world. What is instead, the case is that most people around the world unfortunately suffered financially, they lost their jobs, they tap into all of their savings. And they started, you know, accumulating credit debts for consumer basically products. And this is a very, very bad and very grainy view of the future for most of these people, because now they have to work for years just to get out of the debts they accumulate during the pandemic. So for that reason, I believe that we need to create a plan a game plan to approach both our social lives and our financial lives. Many of those so called depressions that you mentioned, or even suicides have to do with their finances. I mean, let's be honest, if you really lose your job, and then you have no income, and you have no job and no work for two years, you're, something's gonna, you know, click in your head, like, Man, I'm done with this, I'm, where's my shotgun? And you're going to have some problems, obviously, right? So for that reason, I believe we need to have a game plan to address both issues. Because our depression, in most cases has to do either with our basically emotional problems or our financial problems, because both are equally challenging to our basically psyche. And we have to find a way to address both. And obviously, I think the key here is how we can address both separately, depending on the nation culture and their lifestyles.   Pouya LJ  16:45 That's very comprehensive, I think you hit it right on, it's, it's definitely a challenge. So what I can say to those people is that you're not alone, you know, Bear Bear that in mind, and notice that this is a challenge for a lot of people. Some are luckier, of course, than others, perhaps, or more prepared, perhaps. But at the end of the day, this is this is a, this is a collective challenge. That should be a hopeful view, meaning that you're not alone. Because a lot of times these mental pressures, or more pressured by the fact that you feel like you're left out, you're alone, nobody's there with you. But at least even if it's challenge, it's a collective challenge. And I'm sure we'll get past in one way or another. Okay, so we're coming to the end portion of the show, and I want to give you the time to, you know, give it like a bring everything together if we didn't say something, do so. But before that I just have a news, which is just   17:51 what is it?   Pouya LJ  17:52 Now, the BTB podcast is also available on iHeartRadio. And iOS for the website.   Dan  18:00 I Heart Radio. That's right. We're now on radio, baby. Come on.   Pouya LJ  18:06 Yeah, so so this is this is another good news. I just received the confirmation. So congratulations to us. And   Dan  18:12 first of all, I want to congratulate you, you are the world's literally the best producer, at least for me, you're the world's best Podcast Producer, good job for you know, making the progress really, you put a lot of effort into this arranging, everything's using AI to generate, you know, the transcript of our conversations, creating new ways to publish it. And really amazing man, I congratulate you for the hard work. And yet I Heart Radio, beyond the present podcast. Oh, yeah.   Pouya LJ  18:40 It was much appreciated. And anybody who already is on the platform, I'm sure you're gonna get a kick out of it. If not deco, take a look at the platform. It's actually quite quite nice for, you know, podcasting. And they also have live live radio. So they should do that. Anyways. So getting back to our subject. Now, the time is yours, the platform is yours. if we missed anything that you wanted to add, or you want to bring everything together, please do. So   Dan  19:07 let's write very well. So we discussed in detail today about the issue of depression and suicide. We brought about the causes, but we haven't fully offered solutions of like in the last part, give a few solutions for those of us who are suffering from depression right now as we speak, or are perhaps, goodness forbid, are contemplating perhaps suicide. When it comes to depression. Of course, that's a far more prevalent issue than suicide right now. And if you all listen to us right now, and you feel depressed, you feel like your life makes no sense and that you're losing that sense of pleasure. First of all, know whether or not you have those symptoms. Pretty much depression is defined as you losing motivation and pleasures of the daily life that you used to have and no longer can feel. At the same time you also feel less motivated. So you feel like life is not as pleasant as it used to be or you don't have as much motivation. These are all right signs of early signs of depression. And you need to take action immediately. Now, what does that mean? remove the mask and start kissing people on the streets. No, don't do that, like, well, I got vaccinated, I want to kiss everybody don't do that as dangerous don't do that. So instead, what you got to do is to try to make your life social, even if you are a hardcore introvert, find ways to get social online, perhaps, or events where it's not online, but you can actually maintain your focus and also social distancing. At the same time, try your very best to remain focused on achieving certain goals, you've lost your job, you're running out of your, you know, savings, it's all okay, you could temporarily use credit, just to you know, make ends meet. But please do know that right now, most governments around the world are offering some sort of financial support to their citizens. Now, if you're living in those nations where that's not possible, still, you could be able to create some form of income. So if you're unemployed, you have no job and just said, like, man, I got no money only wires and no money, get out of the house, or at least search online for ways to generate income or find a new job, trust me in the same economy that we are dealing right now. Now, there's a lot of demand for different types of basically jobs. So it could be a courier, it could be a delivery guy. And so well, I work as an accountant, I don't want to be a delivery guy now friends on, I know, but it's a crisis. And it's much better to be active and doing something than not doing so sitting in your home and think that all the good old days and your work in your office is not going to change it. Yeah, it's not as fun to be a delivery guy or find other means of employment that are now more in demand, perhaps, if you're having it experience to work online with some other companies, but the key is keep yourself active and engaged. Success equals goals. The pandemic, unfortunately, has forced a lot of us to forget about our goals or have simply none. set new goals. Ask yourself, what are the kind of goals I can achieve during the pandemic? You want to go even further? Tell yourself, what are some opportunities that the pandemic will present me that I could never ever, ever have? For me right now, literally, the pandemic is an opportunity. And for me, the end of the pandemic is both very happy and very sad. It's going to be very sad, because I am literally going to run out of time for a very special period of opportunism. On the other hand, for a lot of people just imagine, just imagine, like you feel like Dude, pennies on the end, in seven months, I got only seven months to do all these things. Once you change your perspective, not only you will not suffer through the pandemic, as I haven't, but you will actually benefit from it right? So ask yourself, what unique opportunities does pandemic presented me, perhaps deep thoughts, meditation, self analysis, setting new goals, having deep conversations with your partner you haven't had for a long time, or finding new ways to perhaps, you know, get yourself active to open new hobbies. The pandemic is not all that bad guys, trust me. There's a lot of opportunities. They say, within every obstacle or setback, there is a hidden gift. What is that gift for you? What gift has this pandemic brought for you? Yes, the pandemic can bring you some gifts, guys, trust me. Now that's for your emotional aspect of it. Financially, if you're struggling, the story applies. Do not sit on your sofa, watch the news and say, Oh, my government is not releasing the goddamn you know, relief effort button do something I need the paycheck now. Don't sit on your ass and just wait for the government, you know, handle it, you know, a check. Instead, ask yourself how can I generate money right now. But I'm an accountant, I'm not going to work as a delivery guy. Well, you want to be unemployed, it's much better to do something that not to do something right, and get yourself out of the house or engaged to start generating income. Because the fact of the matter is, if you make very bad or poor financial decisions are in this pandemic, it might take you literally five to 10 years to get out of it. This whole pandemic could last for only two years, and then you can have to pay for it financially in terms of, you know, credit payments and credit card payments for the next seven 810 years. So why do that? Why not, instead, find a way to live below your means and maintain and control your finances. Because by doing both of these things, you first of all, get yourself busy, active and moving, which is the key and antidote to all forms of depression. And secondly, you will make sure that your finances will not basically be left without any care or any attention by doing both. Hopefully you will increase your odds of beating depression leading the pandemic And ideally, hopefully benefiting from the pandemic.   Pouya LJ  24:40 Well said, Well, I couldn't so this this whole change of perspective is really really gold out there. I don't it's a gym. I don't think a lot of people really realize and it's obviously easier said than done. When it's done. It's done, you know? Alright, well okay with our company. To the end of the show, as always, thank you then for joining us. My   Dan  25:03 pleasure, buddy. Glad to be here with you.   Pouya LJ  25:05 Thank you and thank you everybody for tuning in. As always now, you can tune in and iHeartRadio as well as you heard in a few minutes ago, until a later episode. Have a good one.

Vihreät on feministinen ja antirasistinen puolue, joka tavoittelee kaikkien aikojen parasta kuntavaalitulosta. Miten se tehdään? Haastateltavana puoluesihteeri Veli Liikanen (vihr.). Vihreiden kuntavaalislogan on "Huomenna Suomi on vihreä". Mitä se tarkoittaa? Helsingin vihreiden kuntavaaliohjelmassa todetaan, että sujuva liikenne ja ilmastonmuutoksen torjunta edellyttävät, että ruuhkamaksut voidaan tarvittaessa ottaa käyttöön. Parkkipaikkojen hintojen pitäisi Liikasen mukaan jatkossa määräytyä markkinoilla, eikä niitä tulisi ottaa huomioon rakentamisessa, koska siten ne myös nostavat asumisen hintaa. Vihreät tavoittelevat kohtuuhintaisten asuntojen lisäämistä etenkin pääkaupunkiseudulla. Miksi Pekka Haavisto suosio Ylen presidentinvaalikyselyssä oli vain yhdeksän prosenttia? Onko pääministeri Sanna Marin (sd.) niin valovoimainen, että hallituksen onnistumiset satavat SDP:n laariin? Kuinka paljon politiikassa on kyse sukupolvikysymyksistä? "Olen katsonut huolestuneesti sitä, millainen tulotaso-odotus nuorilla on. Sodan jälkeisillä sukupolvilla on ollut toisenlaista niukkuutta myös", Liikanen toteaa. Hän kertoo, että vihreiden tavoitteena on myös vähentää syrjäytymistä ja mielenterveysongelmia. "Mielenterveys ei ole vahingossa noussut vihreiden vaaliteemaksi. Moni uupuu, apua ei ole helppo saada, ja mielenterveyden takia työkyvyttömyyseläkkeellä on lähes 60 000 ihmistä. Kunnissa voidaan tehdä asialle paljon", Liikanen toteaa. Toimittajana on Linda Pelkonen.

On this week's episode of the Stansberry Investor Hour, we're doing something a little different. Long time listeners may remember that on January 3, 2020 (Episode 135), Dan shared with everyone his Top 10 Big Surprises for 2020... Well today we'll take a look back and see how Dan did. Why do this? Dan wants to hold himself accountable. Too often, financial media will just make claims and predictions all day long and never review them down the road for any sort of accuracy. At the Stansberry Investor Hour, we want to do things differently. So Dan wants to be 100% transparent. He covers exactly what he said at the beginning of the year and how those discussions look with the benefit of hindsight... including the topics he was way off on... and the topics he called with incredible accuracy.... It's an episode you won't want to miss.

Across the world, families have traditional rituals to celebrate the relentless and depressing march towards the dead of winter and this year, with the added bonus of a global pandemic thrown into the equation and the near constant assault on our collective mental health that this brings, why not start a new tradition by listening to some idiots banging on about movies? I'm talking about the Bad Dads of course, and with any luck some of our inane chatter might distract you from the very real worries about illness, death, the economy, social unrest etc which will all still be there after the hour and a half you spend listening to our drivel.There's nothing more festive than inflicting horrific injuries on yourself, whether it be from over-eating on Christmas day or a suicide attempt gone wrong, so sit back, don't relax because let's face it that's impossible and listen to us discuss our Top 5 memorable movie injuries. Maybe your favourite movie maiming made the cut?Somewhat improbably, Howie had never seen Gremlins. A Christmas Gremlin virgin if you will, which given the time of year seems incredibly apt. Then even more astonishingly we found that our one time collaborator and Bad Dad regular listener, Adam, from the Sleeperwire podcast had also never seen Gremlins. So Dan was bumped from the schedule and we sat down to chat about this Christmas movie (or this movie set at Christmas if you prefer) with our virginal friends. You will literally hear us talking about this movie! For free! Amazing.We finished up this extravaganza with a look at Raymond Briggs' 1982's The Snowman. A British classic, we had no idea whether this permeated the cultural zeitgeist in other countries, so having Adam on to share his perspective was always going to be enlightening. A meditation on love, life and the inevitability of death, what could be more appropriate to conclude this weeks episode? Thanks once again for tuning in. We hope you are well wherever you are and that you make it through this utterly barren time of year. If you are interested in being depressed by us, you can usually find us annoying people on twitter - @dads_film, on facebook or even on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com.Until next time, we remain...Bad Dads

In a very busy year, Bitcoin has flown relatively under the radar... despite reaching all-time-highs at the beginning of December. Bitcoin is up around 152% year to date. We're steadily seeing higher highs and higher lows. So Dan brought Bitcoin Bull and legendary value investor, Mark Yusko, onto the show to discuss the rise. Mark is the founder CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management, which currently has around $2 billion in discretionary and non-discretionary assets under management. He is also the Managing Partner at Morgan Creek Digital Assets... and has been very bullish on Bitcoin for years. He calls Bitcoin a "better form of gold, a digital store of value." Dan and Mark have a long in-depth discussion on the world's most popular cryptocurrency. Dan plays devil's advocate and grills Mark on Bitcoin every which way... What happens if the government tries to ban Bitcoin? What if someone wanted to hack the system, couldn't they steal all the Bitcoin? Won't some new innovation come along and eventually replace Bitcoin? Mark responds giving a ton of incredible insight and information you likely haven't heard anywhere else. Listen to his discussion with Dan and more on this week's episode.

With votes still being tallied in several states days after Election Day, this race has been closer than many in the mainstream media expected. Our mailbag has been exploding with hundreds of questions from listeners about the impacts of each side winning could have on the markets. It's an extremely complex issue that could have big implications for you and your money. So Dan decided to bring in geopolitical expert, Marko Papic, onto the show for this week's interview to help him answer some questions. Marko works as partner and chief strategist at Clocktower Group, an alternative investment asset management firm where he leads the firm's strategy team providing bespoke research to clients and partners on geopolitics, macroeconomics, and markets. Marko is also author of the book, Geopolitical Alpha: An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future. Dan and Marko talk about the implications of a Trump victory versus a Biden victory, the likelihood of the Senate switching, as well as some industries that could explode whether Trump or Biden is elected. But Marko has a warning for the bulls. He says that his research shows there's about a 30% chance there could be a big 'hiccup' that currently isn't being priced into the market...

Tom and Michael chat with Dan Nelson from Excalibur Homes about the specifics of the Atlanta Market.  --- Transcript   Tom: Greetings, and welcome to The Remote Real Estate Investor. On today's episode, we're going to be deep diving in the Atlanta market. And we're here today with Dan Nelson. And I'm also here with   Michael: Michael Albaum.   Tom: All right, let's do it.   Tom: Before we jump into the interview, let's touch on some of the quantitative aspects of the Atlanta market. So this information is coming from the Census Bureau, Macrotrends as well as John Burns. First, I'm going to talk about the population in Atlanta proper, just over 500,000 individuals in the greater MSA population, there is just under 6 million so 5,000,800 and we've seen a population growth of 2%. Over the last year, the median household in Atlanta that's $71,000. The existing home values year over year has increased by 5.5%. And the effective apartment rent has increased by 2.4%.   The home value entry level according to John Burns is at $196,000. The existing median home price is $279,000, then median single family rent is $1,364. And the year over year rent growth of that single family has grown a whopping 5.6%. The single family gross yield is 7.8%. Jumping into a different category. Let's talk about the occupancy rate. So the occupancy rate in Atlanta is 91.3%. The number of unique units properties are artists 2,331,002. And of that the owner occupied mix up 59% of that or 1.367 million, renter occupied and makes up just over 750,760 9000 to be exact, and vacant right now is a little bit under 200,000. And that's at 8%. All right, let's jump into the interview.   Excellent. So before we jump into the Atlanta specifics, Dan, I'd love to hear a little bit about yourself and the company that you work for and all that good stuff.   Dan: Yeah, my name is Dan Nelson. I'm the VP of Sales with Excalibur homes. I'm a third generation realtor. My grandmother, Mary Nelson was just recently inducted into the DeKalb County Hall of Fame for realtors, which was exciting for the family. My dad, Mike Nelson, the founder of Excalibur started the company back in 1985, he had a primary focus towards property management versus sales looking for a little bit more stability for himself and our family. While he was at the same time simultaneously was in the National Guard, flying helicopters, my brothers and I all grew up within the company. So we started in, you know, Middle School in high school with learning turnkey, and construction and landscaping during the summers as well as once we were old enough to drive taking administrative positions within the company, learning everything from the ground up, essentially how to each department operate, understanding each job and also working each job for a couple years at a time.   I took a brief stint down in Florida, working in the multifamily industry with some with a company out of Tampa called 908. Development, they did a low income tax credit company where they did a high rise in downtown St. Pete. So I handled the lease up and stabilization of that project that was in the 2009 to 2011 timeframe, I had my Florida real estate license down there. While I didn't need it for that job, particularly, I moved back to Atlanta in 2012, I had my Georgia real estate license here. And that was about the time 2011 2012 we started seeing institutional folks and through the Atlanta market, doing things we've never really seen before buying properties on a level that was kind of unheard of in the SFR space, you know, typically they were not really big players and this type of market until then.   So when I came back, it said, Hey, Dad, you know, we're going to go buy a couple hundred houses at a time, you know, not five, not 10. So it's a very exciting time for us to go through and one learn how an institutional level underwriting works, how they're evaluating homes, you know, what they're going to consider capitalize expenses versus what a mom and pop investor might. And the level of buying was very interesting for us to learn how to navigate and compete with some of the larger funds out there at the courthouse steps, essentially, you know, we'd have teams go out on the Tuesday of the month when they were trying loans. And we'd go out there with a big stack of certified checks and hope that we would win as many bids as possible. As well as putting out you know, 50 to 100 offers a day on the MLS trying to capture as many opportunities as possible.   So that, for me was probably the most valuable experience in the shortest amount of time for real estate related to acquiring investment properties for investors. And that experience has translated very well to assisting our mom and pop investors as well as Roofstock customers that are entering Atlanta's market to understand how big of an area we were in and each individual sub market that we're in and how different types of properties are going to perform over a certain period of time. And from there, I got promoted to Vice President of Sales. So now my job entails growing our team, you know, marketing and making sure that we're bringing in more customers assisting customers like yourself, acquiring as many properties and good opportunities, giving good counseling advice as to what type of investment strategy might be best for certain buyers, whether it's, I'm looking for a capital gains type play, or I'm looking for more of a retirement play, whatever it may be, depends on which investors and what stage of their life and what's most important to them.   But we take that into consideration much like you guys do to building a customized buy box for certain buyers. Excalibur as a whole is kind of a full service company, whereas we manage about 2500 homes here in metro Atlanta are one of the larger companies in metro Atlanta, with a pretty large footprint. We're in 12 to 15 counties. We're located here in Alpharetta, Georgia, which is about 30 minutes north of Atlanta itself. And we've been here for 35 years. The property management is what it is we're obviously going to handle properties for owners make sure that we're addressing tenants leases moving in tenants address Seeing work orders to maintain properties etc on call maintenance. But at the same time, we have a sales division that's going to help people acquire and build portfolios or help them exit the market at a certain time.   Tom: So, Dan, super interesting. Full disclosure, I'm an Excalibur customer, a happy Excalibur customer. But one thing I didn't know was that Excalibur had been in business since 1985. And and you given the background, I thought it was interesting, talking about how, you know, things changed in 2010 2012. All this institutional capital came in, how did all of that change the process, specifically around like evaluation, and then any other changes with management and what kind of changes that that look like?   Dan: On the acquisition side, it definitely sped up our timeframe. So whereas traditionally, you would go out, take a client to a house, walk through it, you know, determine exactly what your plan is, prior to making an offer. We're now sending out sight unseen offers and making our best judgment on renovation budgets based on our experience and how much renovation we do, and we're doing, you know, millions of dollars in turnkeys, and large renovations, as well as new constructions, we have a very good pulse on what's happening in the construction side of the market, which is very beneficial to our clients. The timing of it is you've probably seen this before, when you're trying to acquire a home, there's a lot of people trying to acquire homes. So from last year to this year, in September last year, we had roughly 20,000 active listings   This year, we're down about 48% in the month of September for 2020. So obviously, the demand keeps increasing supply has been going down, which makes it more competitive for us to get properties under contract. So our technique is putting out offers with our best judgment on what the property value in its current condition in estimating what a renovation is going to cost us on the front end, so that we can get that property under contract before they see 1520 other offers from other investors and owner occupants that are still competing in this price point. And then from there, we'll go out there and one of the main selling points on Excalibur is we're able to go out there and you know, one to two days with the construction team and say it's exactly $12,000, or it's exactly $5,000. So if we were off on our initial judgment, we know within a matter of days that we can renegotiate this deal, or we found something that gives us the opportunity to pull out because it's too significant for us to one be able to renegotiate with the seller or to it's beyond the comfort level of another investor and something they might be willing to spend for a renovation.   So that's one of the main things is the speed of which the transactions are happening right now and the competitiveness of the market. So I think it's it's no secret that Atlanta has been a good opportunity for people nationwide and worldwide. So once institutional guys got here that created a level of competition we weren't ready for and we got used to. And now we're kind of changing with the times on a monthly basis instead of a yearly basis.   Michael: Dan, kind of in that same vein is more of a strategy question. Are you the offers that you're writing? Are you giving them an expiration date of 24 hours or 48 hours that the seller is forced to give you a response? Because in some markets, like especially in California, it's so hot, it's so competitive, you want to give the seller a deadline so that they're not looking at other offers, but also want to be flexible enough so that they consider your offer, as opposed to they know they're getting 10-12-15 other offers? How do you play that?   Dan: The short answer is yes, in most cases, we're going to give them an expiration of 24 hours from the time of delivery. The long answer is it's a case by case scenario. So if we can get a listing agent on the phone relatively early on in our underwriting process, when we say hey, these numbers look pretty good. I want to call and make sure this property is available before my team spends half an hour putting together a contract package or rootstocks team putting together a contract package for your customer.   If we can get them on the phone and find out and kind of take their pulse of where they're at. Are they expecting offers? Or are we the first one, we can kind of change our strategy based on feedback, that listing agent somewhat forthcoming with in a lot of instances, but I would say over 50% of time, you don't get somebody on the phone, you say I'm not missing this deal. I'm making the offer, I'll just put an expiration on there.   Michael: Sure. I think that goes to hammer the point that we harp on so often that this is such a relationship centric business, you know, you can get that person on the phone and you're agreeable, and they're agreeable. There's a lot of stuff you can glean from that conversation that know is a lot of like shedding light on the situation, you know, that you had no idea about going into?   Dan: Yeah, and it's also a good opportunity for us to explain who we are, if they're not familiar with Roofstock or Excalibur. Give them a little brief history of our processes. You know, there's a lot of investment companies that will throw offers out there. Their technique is every time I'm going to go ask for a significant discount after the inspection. We try to make sure our reputation is such where we make an offer and if we do have to cancel the agreement because of the findings in the inspection, we're typically not tying them up for the entire length due diligence period. So that one, while it may not have worked out, they're not going to, you know, brush our offer to the side the next time or two, we make a competitive offer. And we go and find out the findings are in line with what we thought and there may be a minimal reduction, but it's something that both parties can live with. And, you know, the seller achieves their goals as well as the buyer finding an opportunity and a competitive market,   Tom: Relationships, relationships man.   Michael: Yeah, relationships and also reputation. I mean, that is definitely going to proceed, folks, I think much more so than they realize, especially if they're repeat customers in the same market. I know that if someone sees the same players pulling the same tricks over and over again, there's no way that anyone's going to want to do business with them. And that kind of stuff gets around right? You hear about those kind of folks pretty quick.   Dan: Absolutely.   Tom: Let's go ahead and jump into Atlanta, a lot of good stuff to cover. And the way they want to start this discussion is talking about different pockets in Atlanta. So as much as we can use kind of landmarks, either, you know, cities or freeways, how would you typically talk to an investor, you know, in thinking about the different pockets of the different types of returns that you're going to get?   Dan: We kind of look at Atlanta, more like a clock. So you've got major interstates and highways running through Atlanta going south to north, we're looking up the 75 corridor, more pointing towards the nine or 10 o'clock, our beef got Cobb County running up that way. On the east side, you've got Paulding and Douglas County's directly north is Forsyth and we can kind of just start, I guess we'll just work our way around from swell nine o'clock. So directly north of Atlanta, you've got Roswell, Alpharetta, coming and Dawsonville. Those are traditionally higher priced markets with very high rated schools. So the opportunities there are are going to be less common. Most of the time, when we do find opportunities up that corridor, they're going to be in Cumming, Georgia and Forsyth County, which is an excellent place to invest. But over the last six months, I may have bought five houses, you know, which is a small number compared to what we're typically doing on an annual basis because the inventory is lower, and the pricing is a lot higher.   Tom: And when talking about higher pricing, we're talking 200,000 Plus, right?   Dan: Yes, so the medium median price up there is probably going to be the 250 and higher. So you're not going to have a lot of homes that are going to meet the rental house metrics where the rents don't quite keep up with that purchase price. Now, if we could buy there all day, we would focus there as much as possible because of how we expect that area to grow and, and how the schools are performing. So North metro Atlanta as a whole, when you're talking about Cobb, Cherokee, Forsyth, and Gwinnett, and Holme counties, those are all very, very good opportunities for you to buy in as a whole. Obviously, there's going to be schools that range from lower caliber to much higher calibers, but as a whole, they're going to have better quality schools, you're going to have better appreciation rates, but you're also going to see that is intertwined with higher property values.   So with that being kept in mind Gwinnett County and Cobb County have been two very good sources of rental properties for us to buy with blending a higher HPA value, the home price appreciation value with a good cash flow value. So our philosophy is typically built around. We're not always looking at cash flow only. We want to look at how the properties can perform the tenant caliber in a certain area, the length of tenancy, turnkey expenses related to those types of tenants, and the appreciation value and exit value. So we're looking at the internal rate of return as a more important factor into the equation versus the cap rate only. But that goes also back to what we talked about before is what type of investor are we talking to? Are we talking to somebody that's retired and is looking for passive income, so they don't care about appreciation? They're going to leave these properties to someone else. So the monthly cash flow is very important to them, and they don't care how the property appreciates, or is this a younger investor that's building a retirement strategy as part of their portfolio that wants to take advantage of home price appreciation and the monthly cash flow is not quite as important.   As long as their debt service payments are covered, and they've got some extra income each month. They can set aside for reserves and turnkey expenses.   Tom: I got a question for you, looking at that this clock looking at Atlanta is a clock a question that will sometimes get is you know, you have these smaller cities on the outside, like how far out to that nine o'clock, would you still consider that part of the Atlanta Metro like Dallas Rockmart Temple egg At what point would you say Ah, that's pretty far out where if the economy within Atlanta, you know, people aren't really desperately commuting into there.   Dan: Yeah, our footprint is rather large and we consider everywhere we are metro Atlanta, so we're roughly a 50-55 mile radius around from Atlanta. So out on that west side that you had mentioned, we would consider Villa Rika. And Dallas and Douglasville and we've recently are getting into Temple. So that's almost on the Alabama line. I wouldn't consider temple quite metro Atlanta. But we are now including that into our portfolio and our footprint. That's an area that I've liked over the last seven or eight years due to expansion in the city, there's only so much land available inside the perimeter. So OTP, which is outside the perimeter seems to be a very good opportunity due to most people are willing to commute a longer way in metro Atlanta versus different parts of the country, just because we were set up differently. And we can talk about transportation later.   But I would consider that West Side a nice path of progress. We've had opportunities there with cheaper land expenses, and with how much our dirt costs here in metro Atlanta, that's been a really good opportunity for builders to build entry level homes that also fit the model for a rental house. So when you're looking at price points that are going to make sense between 150 and say, 240. You're not seeing a lot of that being built anywhere. But that west side and the South Side corridor of Metro Atlanta. So we've been very bullish on Villa Rika, Douglasville and Dallas, because we've had good calf rates, we've had average or above average school districts, and the rental demand has been really strong out there.   Tom: That's great. That's great.   Michael: And but at the risk of sounding silly, Dan, I'm going to ask the question, anyhow. Why do people live in Atlanta? And why are people move in there?   Dan: Well, there's a lot of reasons to be here. Obviously, our cost of living is amazing. So your dollar stretches a long way here. We've got a temperate climate for the snowbirds move in South we don't have Boston's winter, nor do we have Miami summer. So that's a big reason. We've got relatively good schools, it's it's a great place for families. There's a lot to do here. And now it's becoming a big hub for you know, video production and things like that. We're now on the east side, Hollywood, you know, the city of Atlanta itself has a lot of entertainment value, whether it's major sports or entertainment itself, as well as the music scene and your short drive away from a very large man made lake where I live Lake Lanier, which is a lot of fun if you're into watersports, or boating in general. And you're only an hour from Blue Ridge Mountains for people that like to camp or hike or just do the outdoorsy things, we've got a little bit of everything here. And and obviously it's it's an affordable place to live.   Michael: Great. And who are some of the major employers that are either there now or that you know, are coming into the area?   Dan: Yeah, we obviously have a large handful of the Fortune 500 guys like Home Depot and Coca Cola ups Delta's here as well, as well as the CDC. So I think those are It's no secret where they're located. One thing was interesting related to you guys, you guys are more in the tech field than I am. But I saw a company Deluxe, I believe, was announced last month that they're putting a new facility here in Sandy Springs, which is just outside of the perimeter in Atlanta. And they're going to have a fin tech operation that's creating about 700 new jobs, which we thought was pretty exciting down there.   Michael: Very cool. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Atlanta International Airport, the busiest airport in the world?   Dan: Oh, absolutely. And when I get to travel into different parts of our nation, I get a little bit jealous of how easy it is to get. And   Michael: I was in Atlanta a couple times. And yeah, just getting into the airport like, Man, this is a frickin city in LA. So, I mean, it is just remarkable what they do at that Airport.   Dan: The first experience there is always pretty overwhelming. Once you get used to it, it's it's very easy to navigate. Now here lately, it's been a little bit easier, you know, traffic's been down since everybody's working from home, etc. And the airports kind of experienced the same type of effect.   Michael: I was just gonna ask Dan, you were mentioning that the kind of Metro radius spans out, you know, about 5055 miles or so. So, as folks are looking at different industries that are moving in different companies that are coming into the Atlanta Metro, how should they be thinking about work movement, employee movement? You know, if I find that a company is moving into the north side of Atlanta, is it appropriate to be thinking that folks living in the south southern part of Atlanta at that six o'clock mark on the clock would be traveling?   Dan: Well, that's what's kind of unique about Atlanta is a lot of people have a 3040 and even one hour commutes in the car. Not a lot of people are using public transportation because it was set up, you know, incorrectly. It's not super convenient. People would rather sit in their car and listen to a podcast like yours or listen to the radio for an hour rather than the hustle and bustle. That's the Marta train or bus system. If somebody's coming into Atlanta and sees that, you know, their companies can be located on the north side. There's options related to different earners, whether it's a higher earner or somebody that's an entry level position. So that's what's kind of nice about North metro Atlanta or the southern side is that You're going to have different housing options that are going to play into your specific budget that makes it a little bit easier for people to spread out and say, this works best for me individually and my family individually.   Tom: On continuing the clock rundown. So we're at about we've gone kind of noon, you know, higher end less of a cash flow more of an HPA, we went to nine o'clock that West Side Douglasville talking about kind of a good blend kind of a more popular more recently, why don't we continue our way around it going down to six o'clock, I think that's a little bit more the airport area, what kind of return profile and all that continuing a little circle around.   Dan: So you're looking at places like Clayton County and Henry County or even South Fulton for that matter are typically going to be higher cash flow areas where you can find rental properties and opportunities, they're going to be a lower price point. And I think there's a lot of us out there that said, Hey, I'm ready to start investing in real estate. And I don't want to spend $250,000, I would rather spend, say 140,000, or $130,000. So there's going to be a lot more opportunity for areas like that to achieve what you're looking for, what you're going to be looking at there is a higher cap rate scenario. So you're going to have a higher rental rate related to that purchase price in an area like that. But typically, you're going to have a lower rated school system typically going to have a lower appreciation value. And you might experience a higher credit and vacancy loss. And you might experience more frequent turnkeys.   Now, that doesn't mean it's going to happen every time. But on average, it's going to happen more often in areas like that. So you're kind of blending the good with the bad there and say you know what, I like the cash flow value of this property. And I'm willing to take a little bit more of a risk on some of these other things happening. But when you do that, we want to make sure that our clients and customers are coached to say, let's make sure that you're set up with a reserve, if you do experience something like this. So if you're one, you've got to replace your tenant, and you already have to repaint a house painted, you know, we pay roughly $1.10 a square foot for an interior paint with walls trim and doors. So if you're looking at a 2000 square foot home, and you're going out there and spending a couple thousand dollars to repaint it, year two then that's you know, it's a big chunk of cash that not everybody's willing to experience, a lot of people want to come into the market, say, I'm buying a house, and it's going to make me money from here on out.   You know, that's that's not how investing works for everybody. And I'm sure that's not how it works in the stock market for them either. So we just coach them to say, here's what you might experience in an area like that. But there's a lot of positives of being down there building a portfolio like that. And you may experience a tenant that stays for 10 years and never calls you once and pays on time every time. Or you may replace your tenant every couple of years and deal with some you know, above average turnkey expenses. But that's going to be more common in those types of areas. So you've got Henry County, I like Stockbridge and McDonald a lot. They've got some marginal schools that are are, I would say average where you can find good cash flow properties over there. We still do a lot over on the Clayton side. Jonesborough has a lot of really high cash flow opportunities there. Again, the negative stuff we've already discussed. But the positive there is that the return is really good when the tenant stay.   Michael: Dan, you're familiar with the 1%? Rule right?   Dan: Yes.   Michael: So is that in South County? Will we be looking to find properties that may meet that metric?   Dan: Yes. So while we can still find opportunities like that, there's a lot less of them now than there used to be. And that's due to this supply and demand that we've been talking about. So with that being said, we're getting close to the 1% rule on average. And every once in a while we're getting the 1% rule. You got to factor into sometimes those are going to take into account having an attached property, which would be a townhouse. We don't typically recommend buying condos down here. But a townhouse would be an attached versus a detached single family home, those are typically going to have a higher HOA payment per month than what you might experience with a detached home for a similar price point in a similar area. So while you've got that 1300 dollar rent on $130,000 property, you might see a 85 to $150 a month HOA whereas if you found a detached property with that rental rate, typically the HOA is going to either be zero in an area like that or much smaller than what you might experience with a townhouse   Tom: Are HOAs pretty common throughout Atlanta?   Dan: They are, they're very common part of having boots on the ground like Excalibur with you guys are with our clients during our due diligence period, we're typically getting a copy of the covenants and restrictions to make sure that one we don't have a leasing restriction or cap. You know, if there is a cap, it's pretty risky for people to go in and say this is going to work for me forever because they might find out losing a tenant Three years later, cap has been met, you're no longer allowed to lease this house. So we want to take that into consideration. We also want to make sure that the HOA covenants weren't written in a way where they can go back and change the rental restrictions later with a vote that we may be included on but It may not go our way. So those are things we'll look at during the due diligence period to limit our exposure to something like that having being forced to sell at an earlier time than you had projected.   Michael: Did I hear you right when you said you would steer folks probably away from condos down in the Atlanta area, but not from townhomes.   Dan: Correct. Most of the time. condos, if they're going to be in an area that our clients are going to want to be our tenants are gonna want to be or my employees are going to want to be typically the HOA and condo fees are going to be pretty high and they're going to dip into the cash flow significantly whereas the townhouse typically will experience a slightly better appreciation and these price points and it will have a lower Hoa fee.   Michael: Got it. Got it. Okay. And I want to circle back to property taxes. But go ahead, Tom, and they want to finish up on three o'clock.   Tom: Yes, look at the clock through so All right, we've gone north, we've gone West, we've gone south, let's make our way over to three o'clock. So like the Lithuania's and Stone Mountains and…   Dan: Yes, so Stone Mountain Decatur like Sonia, those are all going to have, again, higher cash flow opportunities and lower price points where you're not going to get that on the north Metro side, I think the one difference is on Decatur, you're going to have different pockets. So you could have a part of Decatur that's trading in the millions and then maybe five minutes, 10 minutes down the road going to the hundred and $30,000 price points, there's a little bit of a difference in what you're going to find out there. We're obviously not going to be finding rental homes in that million dollar pocket. But there are good opportunities there. Again, those are that's going to be an area where the public schools aren't performing quite as well as what you're gonna see on the north side or the west side. Or even there's a couple schools that we like on the south side as well. It's just a lower average of them.   Outside of that there's a there's a lot of opportunity for fix and flip or forced equity plays in DeKalb. County, whether it's Stone Mountain life onya or Decatur. So if the risk tolerance for the investor is a little bit higher, and they say hey, you know what, I'm okay with not doing a move in ready home, I've got 3040 $50,000 for you guys to not only fix something but renovate something and upgrade it, then there's opportunities there from time to time where you can spend a little bit more money have a little bit more day one equity and generate a really good return based on what type of rents were able to generate for something like that.   Tom: On the furthest reaches east. Do you guys manage over an Athens?   Dan: We do not manage out in Athens we do a lot in Gwinnett County, and Logan Ville is an area that I liked a lot for a very long time buying rental properties. They've got good schools, and it's a little bit more rural, but it's a very strong rental demand. And you get a lot of bang for your buck as far as the houses go out there if we can find the opportunity. And that bleeds into Walton county right there on the on the east side as well. So that's an area that we've liked out there as well.   Michael: You good on the clock, Tom.   Tom: Yep.   Michael: Perfect. So Dan, I know from county to county property taxes can vary pretty widely. But are you able to give folks a real rough broad picture of what they could expect to say in property tax what they could expect to pay in property taxes? And talk a little bit about how property taxes work is based on purchase prices at some county assessed value.   Dan: Yeah, essentially, county by county and zip code by zip code, we're going to have different millage rates for for each area, the tax assessor are going to have an assessed value. So they're going to use that as a calculation to say, you know, if our assessed value is x, and our millage rate is x, we'll multiply the two to come up with our tax bill in different areas are going to have different, higher and lower taxes. So whereas Fulton County's got pretty high taxes, going a little bit farther north and Riverside, you could be an Alpharetta, Fulton and have really high taxes or Alpharetta, Forsythe and have much lower taxes. So we're going to look at that on a case by case basis for the investor. And a lot of times the listings or projections that investor might see are not going to accurately reflect what they're going to get. So we'll give them an idea of based on what we're seeing and the appreciation that we're looking at from the assessed value now to when you purchase it and the new values applied, you might expect say a two or $300 increase, they've got a good idea on how they're going to budget that.   Michael: Great. And so as an investor looking to identify what their property tax rate might be, does the assessed value have any correlation to the purchase price or the fair market value or if there's some kind of regularly assessed new assessment at some kind of regular interval that independent of a sale, it's going to increase or decrease just kind of depending on what the markets doing?   Dan: So typically, you know, if you own a property for a while the assessed values not going to significantly go up even if you're renovating because they don't know you might see something where somebody purchased a home last year for $100,000 but $30,000 into it and then we buy it for $150,000 you're going to see a pretty significant jump In the taxes from the previous year to this year, due to something like that the home is identical when you're selling it, typically the assessed value is going to go up at a reasonable pace based on what's happening in the overall market. The assessors aren't always typically going to go into each individual house and say this house is worth X amount of dollars, they're going to kind of use metrics from how a certain cities performing or a certain zip code is performing.   Michael: Okay?   Tom: Have you guys had any success in challenging the assessed value in trying to lower the property taxes?   Dan: About 50% of the time? It's kind of like contesting an appraisal, you know, the problem with that is, is you have to know what you're getting into, because it could go the other way, too, you know, with an appraisal, you say, Hey, I think you're wrong. Here's why. And they say, Oh, yeah, I was wrong. Now, I'm going to do it the opposite way.   Michael; I'm gonna go way low.   Dan: Yeah, recently, my family has a house up on the lake, where we didn't quite agree with all that was assessed, and we had an appraisal, and they still weren't willing to change it. So it really depends on what county you're in, and who you're talking to. It's very localized government. So at that point, it depends on how successful or how lucky you might get and how valid your case might be.   Michael: So it sounds like a sale might trigger a new assessment, a sale of a property could trigger a reassessment. Right, so well, they're going to put out those bills annually. So when they see that the property is traded hands at a much higher value, then they're going to take notice of that. Yes.   Michael: Got it. Okay, cool. Talking about kind of price points, you touched on a little bit kind of north, south, east and west. But maybe you could touch on average price point for a three, two single family and what the average rent might look like to give folks an idea of where based on their budget, where might they should be fair, that they should be? Where should they maybe consider looking?   Dan: Yeah, if I generalize it, I would say if I was looking at a higher cash flow opportunity for $130,000, I'm typically looking for something between 1200 and 1350. k, let me use a different number, because they're not going to find anything like that in the north metro area. So if I said, hundred and $50,000, then I might be looking somewhere between 1400 or so probably for the rent. If I was $150,000, say in a really good school district on the north side, I'm typically going to be looking at 1275 to 1300. So there's a pretty good gap there. And on the you know, the higher cash flow stuff, you could probably get something closer to 1% rule every once in a while. But on average, it'll be closer to that 1400 1425.   Michael: So the Delta in rents between I guess, within the south side of the north side is about 150 to $200 a month, would you say?   Dan: Roughly, and again, this is all going to be specific to each individual home and each individual city, but that's probably a good rule of thumb to generalize that.   Michael: Okay, fantastic.   Tom: Is section eight, pretty prevalent threadably. And we'd love to hear your guys's experience, we have an episode coming out, or might come out before this one where we talked to an attorney about section eight, just talking about how different is from, you know, city to city anyways, I'd love to hear your input.   Dan: Yeah, we do manage section eight, we don't manage a ton of section eight, my brother would be a little bit more well versed since he's on that side of the company on the management division. But as far as I know, the housing authorities react a little bit differently, some are a little bit easier to work with than others. For the most part, our experience has given us kind of an end to where we know how the system works. So we can do things rather efficiently now. So while we would prefer non section eight over section eight, as far as management and the workload that goes along with it, it's not something that has as much of a stigma that would say as it used to, I know a lot of landlords say, I don't want to deal with that. But in the city of Atlanta, it's not like you can refuse it.   So if your only opportunity is a section eight tenant, then that's something you're going to have to acknowledge and rent to you can't just deny an application due to section eight in certain areas.   Michael: Dan, I want to ask you about a real hot button issue that everybody's talking about COVID-19. A lot of folks both on the buying and selling side are where sky is falling prices are going to plummet renters are going to stop paying rent. curious to know what you've seen out in Atlanta, both from a price point perspective on the sales side. And then as a rental collection side on the management.   Dan: Yeah, related to sales from 2019 to 2020. On attached and detached we saw 2% increase in the average sales price. So still continuing to go up not as quickly as it has due to our economic recovery, but we're still seeing increases and we don't really have a reason to believe that that's gonna change mostly due to our low inventory and high demand. So that being said, we haven't really been affected by COVID-19 or the pandemic. I think the main thing as far as our jobs as real estate agents and realtors has been occupied showings has probably been the biggest hurdle so it's a little bit more difficult to get everybody's schedule along. And make sure people are following proper protocols with, you know, coverings for their shoes hands and face and disinfecting the home and things of that nature.   But with a vacant property, they're still selling in a matter of hours and sometimes just a couple of days. So we're moving product very quickly, the appreciation from last year to this year for detached housing has gone up about 7% in metro Atlanta, whereas attached only went up about 4%. So for the people out there concerned more about the internal rate of return versus the cash flow detached seems to be a better opportunity in metro Atlanta. As far as how that's affected us on the rental side, in the property management side, I would say during the height of the pandemic, we had about an 8% change and rent collection, but that has been steadily getting better month by month. So it was not near as significant as other parts of the country, you know, due to a lot of different factors of one us being a central business and to reopening a little bit earlier. So things you know, didn't seem quite the same in our part of the country as it did in others.   So outside of that we're actually having a record year as far as leasing properties, you know, in previous years and our highest volume months. You know, during the summer, we're typically expecting 70 new move ins are 70 new leases, whereas this summer, we're doing, you know, 140 150 so we were…   Michael: Holy smokes!   Dan: We were doing a great job getting people moved in and following safe protocols with some different approaches that we took to closing our office to the public and changing out our lock boxes to accompany showings and move ins and things of that nature. So we worked around what was in front of us and found a way to be really efficient with what was going on.   Tom: That's incredible about the appreciation and just for clarification for folks who are not familiar with the term detached or attached a detached would be a single family home where an attached to them would be possibly like a condo. So even more reasons to invest in single family over over condos that that huge jump in appreciation over condos.   Dan: Exactly.   Tom: That's fantastic.   Michael: I think Dan, that just goes to further drive home the point that it's so important to understand your local market, nationally might not be the same story as what's going on locally. Atlanta is the prime example. We hear doom and gloom, but really, you guys are killing it.   Dan: Right.   Michael: So that's That's great to hear. Great to hear.   Dan: Yeah, it doesn't look the same. But we're still getting it done.   Tom: A few more questions. Our last couple of minutes we have here. So a term investors like to throw around is near my son Charlie shining into he's throwing around some investments. Yeah, exactly. is the term investor friendly. Right. And that could have to do with rent control eviction moratoriums, where does Atlanta sit with regards to rent control and that kind of stuff?   Dan: Well, that's fortunate that we don't have to deal with that we've seen in other parts of the country that have you see investors leaving kind of hurts the tenants more so the investor they can pull their money out and go reinvest somewhere else, and now they've got less product and opportunity for them to find a rental house. So we have a large rental market here, because that's not something that we have to deal with locally. And it's not something we expect to have to deal with anytime soon. As far as the evictions that has been something that we dealt with during the pandemic, because our courts were closed just like everybody else's were. So Excaliber's philosophy was let's get with our owners, our landlords, and let's work out payment arrangements with tenants. Let's forgive late fees that obviously we couldn't go to court and, and, and argue about anyway.   And let's make this as feasible as possible to collect what we can collect during these times and get everybody back on track. And that's reflected in the change of percentage of our collection not going drastically the wrong direction. So the courts have reopened, and we're getting pretty caught up. So anybody that was unable to make payment arrangements or their situation wasn't able to change, we've been able to release most of those properties as we're able to get them out through that process.   Tom: That's great to hear working with the tenants and the owners and coming up with payment plans and being human about it. So that's, that's great to hear.   Michael: Tom, I don't think I have anything else.   Tom: I got a good question to end with Dan. So we've been away from Atlanta for five years, you Lance and you got to get a meal. Where are you getting? Where would you record? Where would you go to get your meal in Atlanta where you haven't been there in a long time and feel free to use, you know, North suburbs or wherever, wherever else. So   Dan: That's a good question.   Tom: Tell you what, you gotta throw two meals in there. You get a fancy meal and you get Yeah, this is my go to you know. So two meals.   Dan: That's a good question. I would probably say I want to get some local pizza Antiquos. They've got a couple different locations around Atlanta. I don't know why I like it so much. I do. I just do. It's delicious. It's a little bit light and airy trust.   Tom: Like an Italian kind of, you know, thin crust.   Dan: Yeah, yeah. So you can smash more pizza than you would want to.   Michael: Such a good point.   Dan: Other than that, I have a really good friend up near where I live that owns a barbecue restaurant called Q barbecue that I like a lot. So I would probably go back to that order, whatever their sampler platter is and just work my way through it until I go to sleep   Tom: Beautiful   Michael: Does Atlanta have their own style of barbecue?   Dan: Not really, you know, Atlanta is kind of a melting pot, which is why, you know, we're growing so rapidly. We've got people that do it kind of in a Georgia way, which is a blend of some of the Southern ways, but you've got, I think everything out here, but Texas, I think Texas is the only people that can do Texas barbecue. So we don't try to do that. But I would say this, this one's probably more Kansas City style with a little bit of South Carolina mixed in with the vinegar based sauces and stuff like that.   Michael: I'm drooling now.   Tom: Sounds great, awesome. Any final thoughts for investors looking at Atlanta,   Dan: Contact Roofstock. Today, we've got new opportunities going on the site every day. You know, Excalibur is the boots on the ground as the local broker with just this last year, we've partnered up with you guys on that side. We've obviously been managing you guys for many years now. But keep an eye on the site. There's new inventory going up, just remember that it's going quickly. So if you see it that day, make a decision and give us an opportunity to get it under contract for you. And from that point, I think you'll be pleased with the process that Roofstock has put in place and calibers local knowledge will kind of help you throughout that process, making sure you're making a wise choice.   Tom: Thank you so much, Dan, this is a very informative.   Michael: And Dan, if folks have questions about the Atlanta market about Excalibur what's the best way they can get in touch with you,   Dan: You can visit our website at Excaliburhomes.com, we've got a web portal there where you can send us a message and either myself or my team will reach out to you responsively. So you'll probably hear from us same day in most cases.   Tom: Fantastic.   Michael: Dan you're the man, thank you so much for taking the time to hang out.   Dan: Absolutely it's a pleasure. And we'll talk to you guys soon.   Michael: All right. Take care.   Tom: Dan, thank you so much again for jumping on and thank you everybody for listening to The Remote Real Estate Investor. If you enjoyed this episode, enjoyed the podcast. we'd love it if you would subscribe and give us a review. All right. Happy investing.   Michael: Happy investing.

What do underwear models, Frank Sinatra impersonators, and a partnership with Anheuser-Busch have to do with selling alcohol? For Saucey, it was about changing consumer behavior in an industry that hasn’t truly been disrupted since the 1930s.  Chris Vaughn is the founder and CEO of Saucey, an alcohol delivery service. Since launching in LA in 2014, Saucey has broken into 20 metro areas and has continued to grow.  Getting off the ground wasn’t easy, though, and on this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Chris takes us through the trials and tribulations of bringing Saucey into the market — from regulatory issues to investor and customer skepticism. Plus he explains how they pushed through the hardships and used edgy creativity to break into a market that was set on shutting them out.  Key Takeaways:   Bring On The Crazy Ideas: When working with smaller budgets, it’s critical to think outside the box with your marketing efforts. The money might not be there to do customer acquisition in traditional ways, so shifting to a scrappy mindset may be key. What partnerships can you form? What unique campaign can you launch that is outside of the traditional ones in your industry? Tune in to hear how Saucey generates new and noteworthy campaign and partnership ideas that generate results.  Disrupting An Undisrupted Industry: The alcohol industry has remained relatively the same since prohibition ended in 1933, mostly because of harsh regulatory guidelines and big brands owning most of the market. But, as buying behavior has moved online, enterprising companies like Saucey have capitalized on new opportunities. Why your first customer matters: Landing your first “name brand” client can make every future sale that much easier. Many companies got their start by being able to point to a well known first client, and seeming larger than they actually were. For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Welcome to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles. And today on the show we have Chris Vaughn, the CEO and Founder at Saucey. Chris, welcome. Chris: Thank you for having me. Stephanie: Yeah, I'm excited to have you. It might be 9:00 AM here, but I'm trying to get into the beverage mindset right now. Thinking about my 5:00 PM drink. Chris: Yeah. Nice, good. I like that. Stephanie: Yeah, I know. So Saucey, tell me a little bit about what it is and how you started it, the whole backstory. I want to know it all. Chris: Sure. So we started Saucey in late 2013. We really had this hypothesis that... I guess even before it was a hypothesis, we have this idea that you could have basically anything you wanted delivered, but for some reason you couldn't have alcohol delivered. In some major cities like New York, The Bodegas would run it over to you and whatnot, but for the most part in a city like LA, where we're based, that really wasn't an option. Found that to be really interesting, particularly given that the buying behavior around alcohol seems to be such an impulse driven buy. I know I'm going to have dinner tonight. I know I'm going to buy groceries at some point this week or next week, and delivery for those categories, mirror that behavior. Chris: Grocery delivery is more about saving me the time of shopping the whole store. Food delivery is this convenience driven thing. I know I'm going to have dinner, but it's kind of, "What do I feel like having?" And alcohol is this heavily impulse driven by where maybe I have dinner and it gets to be eight, nine o'clock at night, I'm watching a show or Netflix or whatever it may be. And I feel like having, some wine or I feel like having a cocktail, or beer, or whatever it is, or some friends are going to come over and they text me, "Hey, you want to get together?" And then and then you need to buy something. And so given that the buying behavior was so again, I think a non-planned purchase occasion we found that delivery would be the perfect fit for that type of purchase. Chris: So we started to look into the industry a little bit, and I think that the things that really opened my eyes was there clearly have been very, very little innovation in the alcohol industry really since [prohibition 00:02:32]. Most of the innovation had taken place on the brand side, creating new brands, new brand categories, but very little to do with how alcohol gets distributed or purchased. It was also fascinating to see that the brick and mortar landscape had effectively been built out to mirror that type of impulse driven buying. There's more liquor stores in the United States than grocery stores or gas stations. And that mirrors this behavior of, "Oh, I feel like having something." Run out to the corner and go get it. Chris: Then lastly, I think we clearly identified that there was a huge brand loyalty when it came to the products. I'm a Bulleit Bourbon drinker, I'm a Tito's vodka drinker. I'm a Coors Light drinker, whatever it may be, but almost no loyalty when it came to retail. Yeah, I'm on my way home. We'll stop here. I'm on my way to my friend's house I'll stop there. With the exception of some major holidays. Major holidays, go to Costco, stock-up or some of that type of buying. We found that delivery would be the ideal use case where we could not only capture more of a customer's purchases than any of the traditional brick and mortar players, but obviously service and provide a solution to this need of this impulse driven buying, or this last minute buying. Chris: We actually came up with the idea where... or how we came up about Saucey was I had floated it by a very close friend of mine at the time we were working at another company, and my girlfriend at the time, now wife with three kids we were camping up in Yosemite and we went up on this big hike, and I just couldn't get it out of my head. And I was talking through it with her and she was like, "I think you should do this." I came back and shared it with my close friend, and another close friend of this company called Text Plus where we were all working. Daniel Leeb, and Andrew Zeck. Andrew Zeck was one of their head mobile engineers, and ran their whole iOS team. Daniel Leeb was effectively leading their product of those teams. Chris: I said, "Listen, I think there's a big opportunity in alcohol delivery. And I think that the margins are there to support the business. It's a little brutal in food and some of these other categories, I think we can do it and alcohol, and here's what I think it could look like." Immediately we started working together. Nights and weekends spending a lot of time on the weekends and late into the night, trying to put this thing together. Dan did all these initial mocks of what it would look like. We didn't have the name Saucey at the time. We were trying to think of different names. Andrew was starting to program what the prototype would be, and we were working on doing all the specs. Chris: And then I was out trying to find who our first liquor store partner was going to be working with legal counsel and then subsequently talking to the ABC and some of the regulatory committees, or the regulatory bodies on, "We would like to do this. How do we do it, not only in compliance, but what are some of the issues you guys have in this industry, and how, as we're thinking about it, how can we maybe solve some of that stuff?" Like underage drinking, and be more proactive about ID verification, or there's cash under the table transactions, have everything go through credit cards. It was a fascinating time, we started working on that, I want to say October, November 2013, we really got our heads down and we launched in May 2014. Chris: Our first ever delivery. So remember Andrew dispatched it, Dan and I drove it. Was a bottle of Johnny Walker black label, to a guy named Vincent Rella who we actually ended up hiring, not that long after. Stephanie: Oh, that's great. Go Vincent. Chris: Yeah, it was interesting times. Stephanie: How did Vincent find you? First customer, did he actually find your app, or how did he even stumble upon you guys? Chris: I think Vinnie had loosely known Andrew. We all posted on Facebook, and we did all these things, and he saw the post and just said, "Oh, I'll try that." And then we ran the order to him and he goes, "Yeah, I know that guy." And then it was exciting. And of course those early days, we got one order, two orders in a day. And we did all the deliveries ourselves, taking turns on a schedule throughout the week, having to rotate who is going to be dispatching, who was going to be out delivering. An internal irony to the story was we wanted the service. We wanted to be able to order a bottle of wine, or a case of beer or something to your house, and so we built it. But what we actually ended up doing is just all of our time, seven days a week was out delivering to everybody else, and then we could never use it ourselves. So it was interesting. Stephanie: How it works. When you guys were doing that, any funny stories that you remember from when you were personally delivering, or doing the pickups and drop offs? Chris: Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of interesting stuff. I think- Stephanie: Here we go. Chris: ... we did probably a thousand orders between us before we started really hiring any outside couriers. At the time alcohol delivery was also very new, which I think is interesting. When you think about delivery as a category, food delivery has been around for decades, grocery delivery has been around for decades in one form or another, used to be able to call it the corner grocery store or place a fax order, and have things brought to you from your local market. Alcohol delivery in most major metros started six or seven years ago with us and a few others. And so it was a very new behavior. I think all the customers in the early days, the first additional hurdle, everyone was just asking, "Is this legal?" Everybody. Investors, customers, et cetera. Chris: We had to do a lot of work, both in our email content, as well as in our investor materials to walk through conversations we had had with the regulatory bodies, what the law says, how we think about these different things. So those early were just like, "Is this legal? I don't know, I'll try it sounds cool." Stephanie: Like sneaking out behind their bush, like, "Okay, drop off the goods." Chris: Exactly. And we'd show up in 25, 30 minutes and they were blown away, but we definitely had a couple of customers open their door, just totally nude, and totally unfazed. And you had to do a double take, and then, "Can I see your ID?" They'd walk back, come back, still totally naked, hand you their ID, you'd scan it and then turn over their order. That definitely happened more than once. Stephanie: Odd. Chris: People with unusual animals or pets. There was one customer that had like a snake wrapped around her arm. I remember one of those delivered, and was trying to hand it to her, and the snake's on her arm. And we were like, "Wow, this is some interesting stuff." But also lots of just, fairly standard and normal deliveries for the most part, people just super excited to use the service, and check out what it was all about. Stephanie: Yeah. That's really fun. So what kind of challenges did you run into when you were starting this, and working with these agencies and whatnot? Chris: Yeah. Licensing and working with licensed retailers is a challenge. The regulatory environment of alcohol being different on the state by state basis. So you're effectively dealing with 50 countries in the US, as opposed to having the rules all be the same. You can't ship alcohol across state lines, spirits and other things. So there's just a lot of barriers and a lot of reasons as to why Ecommerce has not taken place historically in alcohol, while fashion, and consumer electronics, and even cars and all these other things have picked up. Big followings in the Ecommerce world, set up at East Coast warehouse, a West Coast distribution center, take online orders, ship them out to everybody, and then optimize more distribution centers, see a faster delivery times. Chris: In alcohol, there is a whole series of barriers. One, that you mentioned is regulatory. You have to work with a licensed retailer, or get a license yourself. You're going to get a license yourself, and you don't previously have one that can be a very long and arduous process as to proving you are who you say you are, there's something in alcohol called the three tier system, which means you can only effectively be a manufacturer, a brand like Anheuser-Busch, a distributor like Southern & Wine Spirits, or Southern Glazer's, or a retailer. And if you're one, you can't be the other. So alcohol flows through about three to your system. There's some exceptions in wine, obviously, but it divides up the industry in many ways. Chris: There's many reasons why, I think even in like the private equity world there's been roll-ups of laundromats, there's been roll-ups of car washes. There's been roll-ups of grocery chains. There's been roll-ups basically any category you can think of. When it comes to alcohol, it can get pretty difficult because when you're trying to roll-up a bunch of liquor stores or roll-up a bunch of these licensed entities, these different regulatory bodies want to know every single person that has even a fractional amount of ownership. So you could have a PE firm, or a venture firm, all of a sudden being in a situation where they're having to go back to their LPs to get identification cards for people to list them on licenses. And so it's just a very challenging environment as to how people have been able to operate in this space. Chris: I think also because of the shipping regulations you had a lot of categories that were it's not as simple as setting it up and shipping. And then take that a step further when you think about fundraising, or capital, a lot of endowment funds, pension funds have carve-outs for things, like don't touch anything to do with alcohol, tobacco, firearms, pornography. So there's entire institutions, or very large venture funds, or funds of funds that have invested in all these different VCs that in those early days just wouldn't touch alcohol as a category. So when you think about building a service in an Ecommerce space where you can't ship all over the place, that's a challenge. Everywhere you go you have to deal with licenses and/or different regulatory guidelines on a state by state basis. That's a challenge. Chris: When you're looking to raise capital, large sums of capital to go and attack this big problem. And there's a whole swarms of buckets of capital that literally can't touch the category. That's an uphill battle. And so most, I think the capital injections into the industry have usually been families that have come in, or you've seen someone's creating a brand. They usually do these friends and family rounds. But again, very little going into like a big marketplace, or very little venture or private equity money pouring into the space over the years. Some of the big challenges that we had was in all of those buckets. We launched in LA, but then dealing with even expanding into other cities, looking at the regulatory environment as you go into other markets, thinking about licenses and protecting our partners' licenses, and ensuring ID verification, the way that payments worked, worked properly. Chris: You just have to be very careful on the regulatory side and on the capital raising side, you have to be very resourceful in thinking about who your partners are going to be, and who you'd be able to raise capital from. I think some of that's changed now, particularly during COVID and the acceleration of a lot of things online, you're seeing all sorts of barriers, and regulatory guidelines be changed or altered in some ways to adapt to this new normal, and that includes capital as well. But back then, it was very much a little bit of a taboo service, and taboo marketplace that we had to raise money for. Stephanie: Yeah. I was just going to say, with all of those things you have to think about, and then you also have to think about building local marketplaces to find the drivers, and find the retailers, and the customers, how did you figure out which steps needed to come first without getting overwhelmed? Because that whole list that you just gave me, I'm like, "Oh, I would have given up, that's like very intense and I don't even know where to start." So how did you unravel that, and figure out, "Here's things that we want to focus on first?" Like, did you focus on the product, or the regulatory aspect, or did you like divide and conquer? Chris: We divided and conquered I think the way as founders, we've been extremely fortunate that we just work really well together. We still hang out together. We're still very close friends today. That's not always the case with people who have been working together for over six years this closely. But we couldn't find a better group of people to work with and just have inherent trust in each other as we're building this thing. A lot of my role in those early days was the regulatory, and compliance and working with the different regulatory bodies, legal councils and whatnot, and that really was gating factor one. You don't do that correctly, as we saw with other services, you could be shut down tomorrow, or your ops could be turned off, and then you could also have that stigma against your business. So you got turned off, you were a little blahzay about how you were thinking about the rules in a regulated environment. We had to be just above reproach when it came to that. Chris: Two, Dan, and Andrew were really focused on the product and engineering. And then when we put those things together, it was a definitely collective effort, but that also fell heavily on my plate as it related to capital raising. So Dan and Andrew in many ways we're running and setting up a lot of the operations and business product, the design, the roadmap, and I was out there bringing in the dollars, and making sure that we don't all get arrested. It was very good in the early days to be able to work that closely together. And obviously that's permeated throughout our, our journey over the years. I think yeah, we knew early on that it's a big opportunity in the space and that you'd have to be willing to take on a certain amount of brain damage if you were going to build something great here, and that's a bit of a moat. Chris: We've seen a lot of people dip their toe in alcohol, realize there's all these compliance things or whatnot, and just give up. We've I think over the years have developed a little bit of a specialty or become known as entrepreneurs as the guys that are willing to go through just crazy amounts of complexities and brain damage when other entrepreneurs maybe wouldn't take on those challenges, and love it or hate it, that's become our specialty to some degree. Stephanie: That's great. Tell me a little bit about some of your early marketing efforts. They looked pretty unique, and I was hoping you could touch on that and talk about how you acquired some of your early customers? Chris: Sure. The early days you had very small budgets. When we first launched, we were effectively bootstrapped and very shortly after launching had raised a small amount of money from an angel who was a terrific early believer in the company and maintained support throughout the years. But I mean, how do you make as much noise as possible with very small budgets? And we just had this approach of we're in the alcohol space. I think, our first thing we looked at was retail alcohol does marketing very poorly, or in a very boring way. If you look at how customers are adopting any type of brand or brand category or marketplace, usually there's a little bit of brand identity, or something you're trying to communicate to them. Chris: Retail alcohol's literally just, "Hey, we have Smirnoff, it's on sale. Come to me. Hey, I have SKYY vodka, it's on sale. Come to me." There's almost nothing... even if you look at the brand names and logos of most of the major alcohol retailers throughout the country, they're just like gimmicky whatever. We knew that we wanted to take more of the marketing style that takes place in the on-premise world — bars, restaurants, hospitality, leisure, et cetera — that I think translate some of these alcohol brands' vision to the customer very well, which is not, "Hey, come to our bar restaurant, hotel, whatever, because we have alcohol here." It's come here because it's a good time. And you'll be here with friends, and all these things that alcohol subtly sits in the background. Chris: We wanted to mere that type of approach over to the off premise world where it wasn't, "Hey, come here cause we have alcohol." Or, "Hey, we're alcohol delivery." Or, "Hey, get beer delivered." Or whatever maybe. It was trying to communicate fun and interesting messages, plans for people, different things they could do in their city. Wild and crazy activations that just got them excited, and just falling in love with the brand. And then subtly, by the way we deliver beer, wine, spirits, mixers, snacks, ice cream, all this type of stuff. So our activations really mirrored that philosophy of saying, "How are we going to deliver plans to people, or excitement to people?" Chris: One of our first big stunty activations, we partnered with a terrific company, LA company called MeUndies, which is the world's most comfortable underwear, and we just said, how do get a bunch of attention together, and do something that customers would love? And we came up with MeUndies underwear models, delivering sleepover packs that were pajamas and underwear, and a bottle of tequila, a bottle of wine or whatever it may be. It was male and female underwear pairs. Underwear models going out, and delivering. So anybody who ordered- Stephanie: Were they just in their underwear? Chris: They were just in their underwear, so you have anybody who ordered to have this female and male underwear model would come and show up at their house and deliver their sleepover pack. And we structured a great partnership together, rolled it out and we got just shy of a hundred million press impressions inside of a week, basically for free. Chris: We also did on Frank Sinatra's birthday in December, we partnered with the Sinatra family, Jack Daniels, and I believe it was Universal Music and anybody who ordered Jack Daniels, it would be delivered by a Sinatra impersonator. And they'd give you an LP and sing songs to you and do all this type of stuff. We did a handful of other really stunty activations. We took a page out of Uber's book. We delivered cuddly puppies, and donated proceeds to different animal charities and all sorts of stuff like that. Then we backed those types of campaigns with other things that we could afford at the time, which was we did a lot of door hanger campaigns. We did a lot of early stage for direct mail to 21 plus mailing lists. Chris: We did a lot of Facebook ads, Facebook native ads at the time. In the early days of any marketplace, you can acquire tons of customers on Facebook, relatively cheaply, and then your CAC start going up. So it's always a challenge to figure out as you saturate a channel, or saturate a market, how to change either how you're running the ads, or new ways to acquire customers or not be so dependent on one channel. But in the early days it was bracketed as deliver wild and crazy activations that get people talking about us. And then let's backfill that with a little bit more direct response media that maybe they heard about us from a friend because we did this crazy thing, and then they saw some Facebook, and then they saw us on their door. The combination of those things hitting people multiple times really drove a lot of that early adoption. Stephanie: Yeah. That's really, really fun. I love that story, is such a good idea and a good reminder to be creative in the early days and get the most bang for your buck. So what does your customer acquisition look like today, and how are you measuring that? Chris: It's a little different today running across a lot more channels, but I would say that a core tenent of our marketing has always been our referral program. We think that that's the best way that anybody's going to adopt a new service or product is hearing about it from a friend. And so we always push our referral program. It's always been our highest performing and fastest conversion customer acquisition channel that we do run ads across tons of different paid media channels. Obviously, the social, podcasts, radio, out-of-home, less so out of home right now for obvious reasons, and then we do a lot of partnerships with the big alcohol brands to drive awareness through some of their channels. We work with different influencers and then have started exploring some things like streaming, and whatnot. Chris: I think the most fascinating things that have happened on all these channels during COVID is obviously about 50% of somebody's alcohol purchases. It's usually fairly split between on premise and off premise. Bars, restaurants, stadiums, hotels, et cetera, over here. Grocery stores, alcohol delivery services, Ecommerce whatever over there, and half of those purchased venues effectively got turned off. So you had this influx of 50% of somebody's buying jump over to the other side, the off-premise buying behavior. And then you had people not wanting to go wait in lines and all this type of stuff. And so the search traffic went through the roof, time to first conversion shortened at rates that we had never seen before. We had higher intent, customers coming in, and just looking for alcohol delivery, "Is this even possible? Is it possible in my city?" Chris: We've been fortunate enough to have a great ops team that we've expanded dramatically, our footprint. We've launched dozens and dozens of new markets and cities over the past few months, been acquiring customers in all those new markets and cities. Partnering with terrific brands to help drive awareness and let people know that they can use the service. Then acquiring people at very different numbers than we've seen historically, an example would be when COVID really started to kick off, our Facebook customer acquisition costs dropped to about a 10th of what it's been for roughly six years. Time to first conversion, which share is usually around 14 days, someone downloads the app and they're waiting for that first use case. Chris: "Oh I feel like having that bottle of wine. Oh, I'm watching a show, I'll try ordering six pack of beer." Or whatever it is, dropped down to effectively a day. People were just searching for the service, found it, used it. And then second purchase happened before that 14 day mark as well. So you went from having time to first conversion be 14 to 20 days, and then it's all about getting to that second and third purchase. You had purchase one, purchase two, basically happening inside of that first purchase period of time. The customer acquisition costs on a lot of major channels dropped to a 10th of what they normally have been. Then we saw other people willing to spend a lot more media dollars. And then obviously when you think about marketing as well, so much of it is just how you cut through the noise. Chris: If you go back there's a lot of terrific documentaries on Netflix about history ad agencies and all this stuff, but there wasn't tons of marketing being thrown at people the way it is today, back in the fifties and sixties. And so a creative ad, like the Volkswagen think small, or something like that could just cut through everything and take over a nation. Today, it's very difficult. How do you come up with campaigns that cut through the noise that feel genuine that people respond well to? But when you had entire industries been negatively impacted by this pandemic and pull back, a lot of their marketing spend, a lot of that "marketing noise" had died down. And so if you were a service that was still operating the ability to just make sure the customers knew about you was in a heightened state than it had been in. Chris: So there's been a lot of changes over the past couple of months, both in terms of how we do marketing operations, and work with our customers. But yeah, we've obviously been very blessed by sheer dumb luck in this sense on being in a category that has been positively impacted as opposed to negatively impacted. Stephanie: Yeah. That's amazing. Very cool to hear about the time to first conversion and all that. How would you guide someone to create a marketing campaign that does stand out among the noise? Like even outside of a pandemic, and how to make sure it's authentic, but also unique. How do you guys even think about that when building your campaigns? Chris: Yeah, I mean, it sounds cliche. It's just put yourself in the customer's shoes. Be a customer for a day, go on to social media, take a drive around, look at the billboards, look at the signs. Look at the ads that are being served up to you. What's attractive? What do you like? What stands out? What feels cool? Having a barometer for just what I think really impacts somebody is important. And then translating that into your own campaigns is key. We've done most all of our stuff over the years in house. In terms of ad copy, and ad creative, and CRM, creative and copy, and all that type of stuff. But it's just putting yourself in the customer's shoes, what feels genuine, find brands that you really like what they're doing, and they feel honest and interesting and original, and they create interesting templates and guidelines. Chris: There is a creative agency called Gin Lane, which has since pivoted into creating their own products that built these templates for a whole bunch of companies, one being Hims & Hers, and a handful of other very well known brands today. But yeah, I mean, it's just what feels honest, what stands out, and do things that get people talking. It's fairly simple, but I think our barometer's just always been if you do what gets people talking, and is cool and genuine, then people will talk about it, and they will share with their friends. If you do something boring, or off-putting, who cares? Stephanie: Yeah. You'll be like everyone else. I love that. So with all the changes that have been happening, what updates did you have to make to your website, if any? Is there anything that you completely changed to try and... website or app either one, or like, this is a new user that's coming in, or now we have this new group that we need to focus on retaining who has never been here before. Any strategic updates or changes that you've made to your mobile or desktop presence that have really positively impacted like conversions and revenue and whatnot? Chris: Yeah. I mean, some of the initial stuff was very simple. It was just categories. So obviously coming into the app in those early days, people were looking for anything from wine, but also PPE equipment, and masks, and gloves, and hand sanitizer, and things like that. A lot of our stores and markets carried those things, toilet paper, paper towels, et cetera. Canned soup, frozen pizzas. So we've had that stuff for years, though a lot of people don't necessarily know it, but it was just making sure that that was very prominent in both our content marketing, as well as in the app and the website. So when people showed up they knew that that was available and they could use it. Then operationally, it was obviously it was getting out in front of a lot more people, so rapid expansion of our delivery footprint and neighborhood coverage throughout the country, so that more and more people could use us. Chris: Then obviously all the communication and work that went into little things operationally, like in certain States that require signature capture at the time of delivery, not just ID capture, but signature capture as well. Working with different people to get those signature capture requires lifted. So you could have more of a contactless delivery, it's not the same as delivering a sandwich where it can just be left at your door. You do have to see the person. You do have to visually identify them and scan their ID. But that can still happen in a contactless manner, where they just hold out their ID, you scan with the phone, and nobody's swapping goods or anything like that. So yeah, there's little things around COVID protection, primarily around contactless delivery, and ensuring a signature capture was waived in certain States. Chris: Showing more prominently categories of products that people were looking for, but particularly around stocking up or staying safe at home, or staying safe with PPE gear, putting up protocols to all of our retail partners on how they need to be picking and packing products and operating at retail. In some cases helping them source their own protective gear. Then yeah, on the site and in the communication email... I was recently speaking to somebody else about this, but we just had to basically torch all of our content marketing that was planned, where March was all March madness. We had tons of ad campaigns and things lined up for that going into different sports seasons, sports openers. All of that media and content pretty much could be very tone deaf if you just went as is. Chris: So all of our planned content marketing and even some of our campaigns and video shoots or photography, all those things, were basically just nixed it all and had to start from scratch on the marketing side. But the team there did a fantastic job. Stephanie: Yeah. It seems like there's so many things that were changing and you guys were able to act really quickly to pivot, and showcase the products that were already there and personalize it in a different way. Yeah, that's really awesome. What metrics are you looking at to measure success for your business? Chris: For us, alcohol's a little bit different than food. Food you eat every day, or dog walking was a big category. People that I remember early days, some of these venture guys, I don't think quite understood the category, not speaking about our investors, speaking about other people that we would pitch, and they ask things like, "Well, we saw this dog walking app and the retention is... they get used like nine times a month." Are people going to use your service nine times a month?" And it was like, well, I'd say, "Well, that dog is alive every day of the week, no? So if the dog is alive, it needs to be walked every day. Right? And if people are working then yeah, they need a service to walk the talk every day of the week that they're at work." Stephanie: Why are you comparing us? Chris: Yeah. Or even food you need to have food, and am I going to cook? Am I going to buy something at the store? Am I going to have it delivered? But when it came to alcohol, it's a little bit, I'd say roughly 15 to 20% of your customer base and in alcohol is really the people that drink a little bit more frequently, or several times a month. It's not as exaggerated as like sports betting or gambling where some instances we've seen platforms where 0.3% of the customer base is driving 70% of the revenue. And it's all about maintaining that 0.3%. In alcohol it's finding the people that enjoy the category, maybe have a wine in the evenings, or a couple of times a month or whatever it may be, and nailing that customer use case. Chris: Then we have other customer use cases where people just use for gifting, or people use us as their office for gifting all their employees, or having office happy hours, or having business orders. So it's really segmenting and cohorting all the different types of use cases, and customers that relate to this product. It's obviously a big space over a hundred... these are pre COVID numbers, but alcohol is roughly a little over $200 billion a year in sales, in the US. Roughly 55% off premise, 45% on premise. It's a big space, and it's all about finding obviously the people that use your category. I think as we think about just our marketing may change, or customer acquisition may change, or who the customer is, it's always just identifying those use cases. And some of those use cases have obviously changed right now. Where we're supporting more of that on-premise behavior. Zoom happy hours, people socially drink it with their friends, but from home. It's been interesting. Stephanie: Yeah. I really liked the idea of putting the users into cohorts based on why they're using the product. That's a really good point. The other big topic I wanted to talk about that could be probably a whole entire episode is all around partnerships. I want to hear what it's like partnering with these companies, like the industry that maybe hasn't really been online, the alcohol industry previously, what does that look like behind the scenes? How are you going about partnering with these companies right now? Chris: Yeah. Partnerships is a huge part of our business, both on the marketing side, as well as just how we operate as a company. We're a marketplace for the most part. We partner with existing retail locations where we'll partner with a store in a geographic area and then funnel all the volume and requests effectually to that store or a handful of stores in that area. So partnering with liquor stores and retail stores all throughout the country. And then we partner obviously with the Diageos, and Bacardis, and AB InBevs, and those guys of the world. When we first got started, the first ever brand partnership that we did was with Anheuser-Busch, and they actually reached out to us. It was this is this $200 billion market cap company. And I think they had just started their first digital team, which was less than half a dozen people up in a garage in Palo Alto. They called the beer garage. Chris: A guy by the name of Mike Raspatello reached out to me on LinkedIn and said, "Hey, I'm from Anheuser-Busch. We saw..." I think probably because of the MeUndie's campaign, "We saw what you guys are doing, and we want to have a conversation about how do we work together? We're trying to take on digital for the first time, and we're part of this beer garage." It get morphed into what later became ZX Ventures, which became like a venture team of theirs. And then is this big team now of hundreds of people over at Anheuser-Busch, back then it was mostly, I think Mike and a handful of people up in Palo Alto. He reached out, and he's like, "Yeah, we're talking to Instacart, we're talking to you guys, talking to one or two others." And we did a campaign where we promoted certain products in the category. [inaudible 00:39:47], and Stella Artois, and a handful of their portfolio products, and saw could you increase by featuring different brands? Could you increase their share of category? Chris: For them it was, "Our historical share of beer category is X at retail, in this new online world, how do we make sure that it is more than X?" And every brand has approached it that way. We are X percent of our categories in retail, how do we make sure in online we are more than X? We ran the campaign and did extremely well. Mike was absolutely instrumental in that, and terrific at Anheuser-Busch. He'd probably hate me for saying that, he's a hilarious guy who's in Chicago now and catch up with him. He's one of my favorite people, but yeah, we ran this campaign and they came back to us afterwards and they were like, "Man, you guys just worked so seamlessly with us. It went so smoothly it didn't go as smoothly with some other people. How big is your company? You guys got like four or 500 people?" And I think it was just Dan, Andrew and I at the time. I was like, yeah, totally. Totally we have 500 people. Stephanie: Huge backend helping us here. Chris: Exactly. I was hesitant to let them know, but I was like, "No, it's three of us right now, and a handful of couriers." And they were like, "What?" It was interesting in those early days, it was a little bit of fake it till you make it, in making us feel much bigger than we were in year one. That helped us get some of those very early partnerships. And then obviously as we started doing more and more creative stuff a lot of brands came knocking at our door. In many ways, outside of just promoting people in categories, or integrating them into our content, we did some big activations and made a lot of noise with different people. Like you saw with the Jack Daniels, and Sinatra impersonators and stuff like that. Chris: In many ways I think people started to treat us a little bit like a creative agency, they'd come to us to say, of course, we're going to do paid placement, but what else do crazy people come up with? We'd come up with all sorts of cool stuff for these brands. And in many ways we became like an outsourced agency that would help them with that stuff, or even help them with some of their Facebook spending. "Hey, we're currently with agency X running Facebook ads, they're telling me a customer acquisition cost of 137 bucks is fantastic. Is it fantastic?" We don't know, it sounds great to me. They have all these slides and whatnot, and we're like, "No, that's atrocious. That was absolutely terrible." Stephanie: Yeah. Oh man. Chris: "Let us help you figure this stuff out." So in the early days it was again, just being extremely helpful, but then sometimes that's not always scalable being very handholding and helpful with each brand. You can't translate that at our team size to every brand. And so it was coming up with a lot of templates and guidelines. Finding out what's effective. How do we translate what's effective to each brand? Today, our team on that front does a terrific job of still being able to come up with really creative and interesting campaigns with companies and execute on them. I think the biggest change that I've seen is in those early days, a lot of these... they're like institutions. These brands, or portfolio holdings are just huge, had very rigid brand guidelines. Chris: I remember working with a big very famous champagne brand, and effectively the model was they have a brand authenticity team that is just protecting everything related to that brand. And they spend months specking out what a campaign looks like for billboards, TV, all this stuff. And we were effectively just another channel to put that campaign into. And that just didn't work. We speak to our customers in a very unique way, and you take this billboard and then just put it in Saucey, and it looked very foreign. People recognize it as a foreign object, and don't respond well. And so the brands that earlier were able to say, "You guys know your customers better than we do. So we're going to give you relatively all the creative freedom to speak to them, with some approvals." Those were the people that performed the best, and those are the people that have continued to perform the best. Chris: I think the biggest change that I've seen is you've had a lot of these huge alcohol companies go from having zero person digital teams to having fully built out futures in digital teams. Then the biggest next step was those teams doing a fantastic job of working with senior leadership at those organizations to get them out of the more rigid guidelines around brand identity and being much more flexible in how they both think about campaigns, creative talking to people, et cetera. And that's been a huge shift for them. Stephanie: Yeah. I love that story, especially about Anheuser-Busch. And it's just a good story that highlights the importance of finding that first partner and really giving them, like you said, like a frictionless experience where they walk away like, "Wow, that was easy. I didn't really have to do anything. And the team just took care of it for me." Even if it semi kills you to begin with, like that doesn't have to be a for everything, but maybe first big fish, [inaudible] like, "Here's our partner." Is what can bring all the other partnerships your way. So yeah, such a great reminder. All right. I want to move into a lightning round, I know we don't have that much time left. So lightning round brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud is where I will ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Chris, are you ready? Chris: I'm ready. Stephanie: All right. What is your drink of choice? Chris: I like Michter's Rye neat. Stephanie: On the rocks, or how do you make it? Chris: Just neat, Michter's Rye neat, is my favorite. Second favorite probably be Tito's Martini. After that probably jumping into beer or wine. Stephanie: All right. What's up next on your Netflix queue? Chris: I'm big into murder mysteries and prison documentaries and things like that. So probably something about international drug trade, or world's toughest prisons in Russia or something along those lines. Drives my wife absolutely crazy. Stephanie: Oh, man, that sounds very interesting. Also, our producer, Hilary said, "Neat means no ice, Steph." Got it. Thank you, Hilary. I apparently do not know alcohol, so that's on me. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about, and who would your first guests be? Chris: I've thought about this a little bit. I think that I personally, when I was first starting working on businesses or trying to build a career, you see the end result of all these people, and you miss a lot of the details that got them to where they're at, or got them to how they think about the world and where they're at. Guy Raz, obviously, with How I Built This does a fantastic job of telling the idea of a company from start to finish. I'd love to even know the backstory before that of a lot of entrepreneurs. How did you get to the place where you wanted to jump off a cliff and start the company? You can have a little bit on the company, but really how did you shape what ultimately became this person that's willing to take risks, and do all these different things? Chris: I think to be totally honest, my first interview would probably be my co-founder, Dan Leeb. He has an unbelievably interesting story. I've that all sorts of twists and turns in life. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met. I would start a hundred businesses with that guy, and it would be an interesting one to listen to. Stephanie: Cool. That sounds good. I would definitely listen. And I love the story or founders stay together and stay friends because you always hear that not always being the case. So it's really fun hearing that. Yeah, you guys continue to be good friends to this day. That's awesome. The last one, what is your favorite piece of tech, or an app that's making you the most efficient right now with work? Chris: Just my phone. My phone, and these ear buds it's 90% of what's happening. Stephanie: All right. Chris: But yeah, I'm on the phone, most of the day, working with teams, video conferencing so these AirPods, or AirPod Pros with the noise canceling, that's a game changer. I got three little kids running around working from home, so we got a noisy household. So you got to be mobile and be able to communicate with everybody. Stephanie: Yup. I can relate with you there. And I almost forgot the hardest question that I need to ask you. What one thing will have the biggest impact on Ecommerce in the next year. How could I forget that one? Chris: I mean, outside of what's already happening with COVID, I think the biggest changes will be regulatory. We'll see what happens, but things like telehealth, or telemedicine, or even grocery, or even alcohol where you're seeing a lot of the legislation and regulations that have been sitting on the books for decades or 70, 80 years in many ways are all being revisited right now to adjust to this new normal. People have been trying to push for those legislative changes for years and years and years. And it's just been under the stack of papers, because, "Why is this so important?" Sort of, "Who cares, we'll get to it eventually." But you're seeing a lot of that accelerate right now. And I think a few big changes depending on what industry you're in, could really unlock an entirely new world for certain Ecommerce categories. Chris: So I think legislation driven by change of life, change of pandemic, I think will be very interesting to watch. And I think you'll see not only new categories come online, but the dramatic acceleration of some of the existing categories. Stephanie: Well, I love that. That's a great answer. I'm glad I remembered to ask that question. Well, Chris, this has been such a fun interview. Where can people learn more about you, and Saucey? Chris: You learn anything you need about Saucey at saucey.com. If you want to learn about me, I guess you'd listened to this podcast, go from there. I don't have a huge online presence, stay relatively private. But I think that, you want to learn more about Saucey, go saucey.com. Stephanie: Cool. Well, I like being exclusive source, so for all things, Chris Vaughn, you're welcome everyone. All right. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. It's been great. Chris: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.  

In this week's episode, Dan is back! So Dan and Sacha talk about failure. What it means, whether it even exists and when quitting is okay.    AUDIENCE QUESTION OF THE WEEK What is your relationship with failure?   WEEKLY TASK Sacha to continue on Sirens and do “shit” loads of the Prose course.  Dan to do a full draft of WWC5, finish planning a client project and have some author photographs done.  

Working hard has been known as the main pillar of success but is working hard truly all you need to be successful? A quick glance at professions that demand intense effort and long hours such as construction workers and busboys shows that there is no direct relationship between hard work and success. In other words almost all successful people are hardworking but not all hardworking individuals are successful.    In this solo edition of Beyond the Present podcast Daniel will shed light on the other equally as important pillar of smart work that allows you to do better things, do them in a better way, and do them with better people! If you want to work both hard and smart in whatever you do to obtain the best results and improve them over time then this program is for you!    Daniel's Social:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danmolgan/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Danmolgan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-molgan-41812352/   Pouya's Social: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pouyalj/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/pouyalj LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pouyalajevardi/   Episode Transcript: ----more----   SUMMARY KEYWORDS work, customer, construction worker, hard, hours, day, income, increase, money, people, smart, bad apples, life, arrive, simply, business, success, thinking, higher, job SPEAKERS Dan   Dan  00:14 Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast, the solo edition. My name is Daniel Molgan. And welcome to this show where we're going to talk about the paradigm of smart work versus hard work. You see, guys, unfortunately, a lot of the times when we talk about success, people are asking me So Dan, I want to be successful. So the only way of course is to work harder. And guess what, I completely agree. I believe that hard work is the essence of success in all areas of life and anybody you look around who are truly achieved and accomplished individuals, you kind of realize that they are real hard workers. But here's the truth are all people who are successful, hard working, I mean, does being hard working itself lead to success or those who aren't are successful, they tend to be hard because that's very, you know, different. For example, think about construction workers think about busboys, think about, I don't know, those who tend to work day and night, basically very little. And they're always working, let's say farmers or working on the field, let's say I know, as I mentioned earlier, like construction workers, so these individuals are hardworking, but they're not rich. So this clearly shows that a relationship between working hard and acquiring major success in life, while that's very, very important, but there's no direct relationship here. Because if we thought that big, you know, somehow being hard working makes you successful, then perhaps the only option you would have is to simply work harder at whatever you did. But the fact of the matter is that that is not the way to acquire you know, major wealth or success. So today we're gonna talk about the other elements of basically success which are not necessarily just about working hard, but rather It's about creating a lifestyle where you somehow tend to get higher and higher on the scale of income as well as profitability. While Of course, from any hard work individual. You see, whenever it comes to any area of life, whether it is I don't know, learning a new language, whether it is to lose weight and gain muscle, whether it is to start your own business, ultimately, there is always going to be an element of what we call sweat equity. That is you have to work hard at it. And that is always there. But the question is this, you can work hard at a task that is inferior, or you can work hard a task that is superior. And it's quite obvious that once you work hard at a superior task, this will yield higher results. So let me give an example here. Let's say you're a construction worker, and you work very hard to work 12 hours per day, at the end of the day, you're going to get your minimum wage, which is about let's say 15 bucks an hour, right? So after having worked all day long and have only slept, let's say I don't know, six hours. So you have have spent a tremendous amount of time working almost 18 hours. I mean, like, that's a lot, right? And at the end of the day, what you end up with is not a lot of money, right? However, what if you know you were a, let's say, Elan Musk, he also sometimes puts very long hours at work. But despite the fact that he might spend sometimes what I don't know 16 hours a day working 18 hours per day working, does that mean that he necessarily makes this amount of money as somebody who was a construction worker? Of course not? And the answer is because Ilan musk works on higher value tasks that will then allow him to yield better results. So in whatever you do, you should ask yourself, first of all, what is exactly my major, basically, path in life? What is exactly my major goal in life? What am I trying to accomplish and what is my main direction? Once you know that you can ask yourself All right, I have this skill. I have this ability. I know what to do with this and that and I wants to build a lifestyle surrounding, basically success in this regard. And then he asked yourself, so how can I increase the value of what I do? You see, working hard is very important, no doubt about it. But of course, if you want to work hard all the time, at some point, you're going to face with some resistance, you're gonna be faced with some difficult because there's only so much time that you can have per day, there's only so much energy that can actually put into your work. And because of all of these things, you generally find it very hard to sustain that level of, you know, very hard work for many years. Because if you do so, then you will what perhaps we'll face with other issues like health problems, like family issues, relationship problems, because at some point, you just simply don't have enough time to actually dedicate to your basically, you know, career or your studies or preparations or all of these things. So, because of this, as you somehow you know, get older and as you go up through the basically food chain You want to focus on not only working harder, but working smarter. Now what is exactly working smart. Working smart can be defined as doing things more efficiently, or working on things of higher values. So for example, let's say you wants to arrive to your destination that is a few, let's say 100 miles away, you have a few options. You can go on foot, you can use a bicycle, you can use a motorbike, you can use a car, or you can use a helicopter. Now all of these options are going to allow you to arrive at your destination, whether you move from this place or that place on foot or on a helicopter, you will arrive there. The question is how fast and at what cost? So perhaps if you want to go on foot, you don't need anything. You don't need any instrument any equipments just you know, start walking, and maybe after a few hours, you arrive there. But if you want to fly there on a helicopter now you need to actually invest in it in advance a helicopter and a pilot's To try to arrive there on time. So this is the paradigm of smart work, which is cost and benefit analysis of what you want to get done in your life, and then trying to create new ways of adding value to your time so that the same amount of hours and days and months and years do you put into a certain you know, activity will then be spent on another activity in order to give you the chance to actually work harder and get better results. So because of this, I want to now start off with challenging the listener with one simple question. From your point of view. What do you think is the best approach and the most important thing to do when it comes to improving the value of your time? Now there are very, you know, various options because the simplest way to increase your income, for example, is to work more hours at whatever job you're currently doing. That's okay. But what are the other ways by which you could probably increase your income while having the same amount of workload? The first option would be to increase whatever amount you charge, you know, per hour, that's one option. Option two is perhaps trying to create a new business, and then having other people work for you. So you free up the time so that there are more people working now this way, you will be spending the exact same amount of time at the office. But since it involves the work of many other employees, you will then have a chance to actually increase the overall profitability. The last one, of course, is to dramatically change, you know, the entire field that you work in and start doing new things and new activism might actually be of higher value. But whatever you do, what truly matters here is how can you start thinking in terms of working smart, and then hopefully, that'll allow you to actually focus your attention on you know, more valuable activities and actually do for yourself in order to you know, gain the most results. So having said that, now let's think of your life. As of now, you might say, well, then you're right. I totally want to just start working smart because I do not want to work hard. Well Now think about three types of individuals in the modern world, we have the one time who is extremely hardworking. We have one type who is extremely, you know, focused on, you know, working smart, but they just don't really want to put in the work. So they are a little bit lazy, perhaps or they have this, you know, dream of those listeners call it the Tim Ferriss style of four hour work, basically, what kind of person and then you have somebody who's going to work hard and smart, so who in the end is going to smoke all of them? I think the answer is obvious, right? So, because of this, I believe that an ideal approach is combining the two because unfortunately, those who tend to you know, look for shortcuts and easy ways of earning, you know, an income. Unfortunately, in most cases do not achieve that. In most cases, they actually find themselves stuck in situations where they simply don't have, you know, an opportunity to fully fathom what they want nor achieve big goals because you know, if you are, you know, working in a marketplace, you're obviously competing with other people in it. And if you want to focus on just working smart, and not trying to put in the effort, then what happens here is you simply fall behind those who do especially if they are also smart workers, right? So because of this right now, I want to ask you a question, ask yourself how much of my time that I put into my work, I put in terms of trying to increase the value of my basically income and my work? Because once you increase your value in the marketplace, of course, you can earn higher income? Secondly, am I really willing to work hard, because unfortunately, laziness is one of those issues that we all have to struggle with on a regular basis, because we want to somehow get the job done, but Well, I mean, there's just the SPN on TV and I want to watch the match and I kind of want to also, you know, hang out with my friends. So I mean, life is short man. So I believe in you know, creating and striking a balance between Working hard and working smart in order to achieve, you know, long term, basically professional goals in your career. So if you really want to make the most of your career, then you have no choice but to combine the two. That is smart work and hard work. So let's talk about both Actually, let's talk about implementing both strategies in your career from today in order to actually make the most of them. So ask yourself, how many hours per day, not per week, but per day understands. Those who are successful did not think of themselves as working, you know, per week. In our society, those who judge their work in terms of basically, minutes and hours are oftentimes the highest paid and the most accessible. And ironically, the least successful ones. Oftentimes they judge themselves in terms of year like how much do I make per year. So just imagine like, for example, a very highly successful surgeon thinks about how they shouldn't how much he makes per hour while Unfortunately, let's say a truck driver might think of how much he makes per year. So you want to first change your time perspective, focus on the minutes and hours instead of months and years. That's number one. And number two, ask yourself, How am I willing to increase, you know, both the amount of time that I work more minutes and hours per day, as well as the quality of those hours, because that's really important. So right now, whatever job you have, you can just simply calculate your hourly rate just right now take your annual income divided by basically 12 to have your monthly income, and then literally count the number of hours you work per week. So for example, if you have a job and an office and you know you do that nine to five thing, five days a week, you can actually you know, calculate like, okay, so I worked for example, eight hours per day, and I work five days a week, so that's gonna be about 40 hours a week. So whatever income you got, you know, two by 40 and boom, you get your basically hourly rate. So that of course gives you a great chance to, you know, figure out, for example, how you can go around it, because let's say if you work for 40 hours a week, then it can actually even go further. So 40 hours a week is going to be 40 times four is going to be like almost 160 hours a month, and then divided by 60 even can get your let's say, you know, hourly or even minutes by minutes rate. And this will then allow you to know exactly how much you're worth. And ask yourself, alright, I make exactly this amount of money every minute, okay? Whatever it is, whether you work in McDonald's, whether you run your own business, whether you I don't know, are a creative type, you know, you're you know, minute by minute rate, and then you ask yourself, alright, so this is my minute by minute rate. Now, how can I increase that there are a variety of ways one, increase the type of work that you do, perhaps we have to move out of McDonald's and maybe start your own for example, restaurant, right? Or perhaps you have to work with better clients. One of the things I really like about working international businesses that it gives me access to a global market, because the same services offered in different countries have very different values. So for example, one service one consultancy service offered, let's say, and I don't know, let's say in Europe could cost you let's say, I don't know, for example, 100 euros per hour, while the same service could cost basically somebody else $2,000 an hour or less if you move to Dubai, right. So by literally let's just moving from, for example, Berlin, to Dubai, you can offer the exact same service and instead of being paid 100 euros an hour you are now listen, pay $2,000 an hour. That's a great move, right? So this is one of the you know, paradigms of smart thinking, How can I offer my service in the best possible location? Or this maybe it's also product depends on the situation, right? Because not all products are sold equal in different markets. And then you ask yourself, How can I find a better way to you know, serve better customers. Secondly, increase the quality of your current customers right now. So you might be dealing with a lot of, you know, bad apples, here's my advice, and it's always been the same, get rid of the bad apples as soon as possible before they spoil the whole pot. You see, there's nothing worse for your success and happiness than to work with people that you don't like. Now, obviously, I mean, we all want to be below you know, in a perfect world, you can always, you know, see a lot of great people great customers are coming, you know, in and out, and you're just so happy. But the fact of the matter is that ironically, a very small percentage of all of your clients and customers at a time will inevitably be those will be called bad apples. And also remember this customer that used to be a good customer could become a bad customer over time, by the changes in circumstances his or her lifestyle or situation in the economy. So just because a customer was the best customer does not mean that he or she will always be the best customer. And in most cases, the opposite also applies. So ask yourself right now, how much stress? How much difficulty Am I experiencing by having these bad customers? If you're working with somebody else, ask yourself in my office, which people are causing me the highest amount of stress could be your colleague, could be your boss could be I don't know, the Vice President. And you ask yourself, Is there any way I could change and not deal with these guys in my work, maybe we should change our department, maybe you should even change your job and get a job elsewhere. But the best thing you can do to increase your productivity is to actually stop working with people that drain your mental energy. And that makes you unhappy. Because the surest way to fail is to work with or for the people that you don't like. So, right now, ask yourself, whether you are working as a secretary and you know in a small company, whether you're working as a You know a doctor privately, whether you're running your own business, whether you are working I don't know as a waiter Do you really enjoy the kind of clients you're dealing with on a regular basis if you wanted to get you know somehow these bad apples if you will out of your life could you get started right away and do so because once you focus your attention on removing these bad apples, initially you will have less income it's true. For example, bad apple customer will make you very you know, feel very upset. But at the end of the day, whether you're a dentist I mean he or she comes to your clinic gets the teeth done and goes now you will be upset and probably even depressed after a while but you get the you know, get your money if the operation you know, the teeth are fixed and I got my money. So, you're saying Dan, okay, so I should tell my let's say, you know, customer from hell who happen to have bad teeth to go home and not come back. And that way I'm going to lose money today as true When you send your bad customers home, you're going to lose money for that day. But what this does is it creates a vacuum free time, and a drive to replace the lost income. You see nature's like this, when there's a vacuum created, this vacuum must be filled. So once you, you know, you know, by yourself and intentionally get rid of a bad customer, you create a vacuum, and this vacuum must be filled. Guess what will fill that, you know, vacuum, a better customer in most cases. So, the same thing applies if you have a job, you're saying, well, then I really feel stress in my workplace. I feel like that my colleagues are abusive, and my boss never understands me. I even told him yesterday that I had a problem with my family and I needed to have a day off and he said I don't care go back to work. So you're saying but then I need the money. I gotta make the mortgage payment. I gotta I gotta pay no. feed my family and I'm telling Right now to quit your job and find a better job, you're saying, but that doesn't make any sense because I have to, you know, feed my family, I'm not really sure about this. So you will end up putting up with the BS of your boss or your staff members, your colleagues trying to make the ends meet, but guess what happens, you will not be engaged at work, you will not be very happy, and your income will not increase. So you will keep accumulating those negative emotions inside. At some point, boom, it bursts. And you say, Oh, I quit. But by then it's too late. Because you have been working to that end job. It didn't like for three, four or 567 years. You did not work on improving your skills. Because whenever you came home, you were so depressed, just had to just you know, chill to get rid of all the stress. So you don't have the time to work on yours to improve yourself your abilities, learn new skills, and at the same time you had no energy or motivation to look for better opportunities. So years have gone by, you have lost your skills or at least you know, remain to the same level. And now have lost the motivation to even look for better opportunities and boom, all of a sudden you say I had it. Or worse yet, your boss says, You're fired. And boom, it's like, what the hell am I going to do? The problem is you are not prepared for it, you are not prepared for, you know, making these changes to make your work smarter to improve the quality of your work, because in the long term, doing the kind of work that you really enjoy, with the kind of people that you like to associate with, will lead to far better results than putting up with the bad clients, the bad colleagues, the bad bosses that somehow give you money in the present, but will then ruin your future and your growth perspective. So because of this, I want you guys to start thinking long term in your careers from now. Whether you are a you know, simple nurse, whether you are I don't know as I mentioned, it doesn't matter what your career is, you should think long term. Do I enjoy working at this hospital do I enjoy being in this Place do I enjoy the kind of people I serve? How can I improve the quality and serve better people? These are the kind of questions you have to ask yourself on a regular basis. And this will allow you to change the way you think, and hopefully be able to change the paradigm of your work that will then allow you to work smarter, those who work smart think long term, so they invest some money and effort at the beginning. so evident, they're actually losing a lot, right. But in the long term, they would be making a lot more than those who simply want to just get through the day and just get a paycheck. That is why it's very important, crucial to start thinking long term, planning ahead and beginning to combine smart work with hard work. With that being said, I will never underestimate the importance of working hard. That's quite important. And if I were to give one advice to anyone who wants to make their lives better, I'd say work harder first, but working hard first is just first There's a second element and that's called working smart. So both are important. And by doing the work on both simultaneously, it's kind of like the wheels can you like drive a car with only one wheel or like, I don't know, a bicycle, you need at least two wheels to get any vehicle running, right? So in this situation, you want to focus on that you want to focus on building the ability to somehow work smarter. That takes effort that takes time, but it is completely possible. Alright guys, that's all the time we have for I hope that this little short talk gave you the motivation to combine smart work with hard work and try your very best to hopefully make the most of your experiences in your workplace. Whether it is you working as an employee or running your own business. It's all the time we have for any questions, feel free to contact me on the social media anywhere you can find me at Dan Mullen and of course you can contact basically the person to show Pouya LJ as well, in case you wanted to discuss things regarding the topics of the show or any other ideas. And of course, I'd like to see you guys in person if you have the chance or simply send me a message and I'll be glad to answer all of your questions. Have a great one guys and take care

 If you're feeling extraordinary stress because of events in the news, you're not alone. This week, Stacey talks to Dr. Mark Heyman about simple things people with diabetes can do to manage better (and give themselves a break). Dr. Heyman is a diabetes psychologist and the Founder and Director of the Center for Diabetes and Mental Health. He was diagnosed with type 1 while in college. Check out Stacey's new book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! In Tell Me Something Good – parents going an extra mile to make their kids feel included and a big challenge ends but we'll talk about "T1D 24/7" This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! More information on mental health and diabetes: ADA Behavioral Diabetes Institute  ----- Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android Episode Transcription Stacey Simms  0:00 Diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop created for people with diabetes by people who have diabetes, and by Dexcom, take control of your diabetes and live life to the fullest with Dexcom.   Announcer  0:17 This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  0:22 This week, let's talk about stress. And let's talk about the not so great effect it can have on diabetes. Now you're in a cycle of not just physical issues, but emotional ones, including guilt.   Mark Heyman  0:35 The guilt comes from I think a lot of times people feeling different or still don't. They're all alone, and that everybody else with diabetes is doing great. And I'm the one who is having trouble.   Stacey Simms  0:46 Dr. Mark Kaman is a diabetes psychologist and founder of director of the Center for diabetes and mental health he was diagnosed with type one in college, we're going to talk about some simple things we can try to do to manage the stress that these days Seems to be unrelenting in Tell me something good parents going an extra mile to make their kids feel included and a big challenge ends This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Welcome to another week of the show. I’m your host, Stacey Simms, really glad to have you along. If you are new, we aim to educate and inspire about type 1 diabetes by sharing stories of connection. My son was diagnosed with type one right before he turned to he is now 15. I don't have diabetes, but I have a background in broadcasting and local radio and television news and that is how you get the podcast. This is not the show that I thought I would be doing this week like many podcasters I have an editorial calendar I don't always stick to it, obviously. But I have things planned out and I have interviews that are you know in the can waiting to be aired, but I thought this was a really good Subject to talk about right now. Because as I just said, I don't live with diabetes, but boy, we are all living with stress. And I thought, what are some things we can do to figure out how to better live with diabetes or with you know, whatever your health issues might be, everybody has something, I have my own autoimmune disease, how can we just take care of ourselves in a time where this news, as I said, just seems to be unrelenting? So I put in post in a Facebook group Diabetes Connections of the group, which I hope you're in, by the way, if you're not, please join it. You know, I was really worried about her everybody was holding up. And so we talked about self care. And we had a really nice thread of comments. Of course, that's still there in the group. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look at your own, maybe get some advice from it. But I also I decided to call in the experts, and I very much appreciate Dr. Heyman jumping on with me. We hadn't talked before. He was more than willing, and I'm sure we'll have him back on again, and I'll get to his interview in just a minute. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop and One Drop is diabetes management for the 21st century. One Drop was designed by people with diabetes. For people with diabetes. One Drops glucose meter looks nothing like a medical device. It's sleek, it's compact, it seamlessly integrates with the award winning One Drop mobile app, sync all your other health apps to One Drop to keep track of the big picture and easily see health trends. And with a One Drop subscription you get unlimited test strips and lancets delivered right to your door. Every One Drop plan also includes access to your own certified diabetes coach have questions but don't feel like waiting for your next doctor visit. Your personal coach is always there to help go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the One Drop logo to learn more. My guest this week is Dr. Mark Heyman. He is a diabetes psychologist and a CDE and the founder and director of the Center for diabetes and mental health Mark was diagnosed in college right before I mean immediately to weeks before he had a long planned trip to Paris, and he talks about that we get to that at the end of the interview, and I asked him a little bit about his diagnosis story. But I wanted to talk to mark about how we can handle the mental load that has just been relentless all of this year, I'll come back at the end of the interview and just tell you a little bit more about how I've been handling things I've done some things I think are good. And some things I know haven't really been helping, but we'll talk about that after the interview. Here's my talk with Dr. Mark Heyman. Dr. Heyman, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so eager to hear what you have to say. And I know you're busy. So thanks for jumping on.   Mark Heyman  4:37 Thanks for having me, Stacey. Appreciate it. How are you doing?   Stacey Simms  4:41 I know, that probably wasn't the first question you expected as the psychologist but, you know,   Mark Heyman  4:45 how are you doing these days? You know, I'm hanging in there. It's you know, I think that it's a strange time to be a psychologist as well as to just be someone living in this world. You know, we're, you know, we're all kind of trying to process the news on a daily basis. And, you know, I have A 16 month old middle daughter, so trying to take care of her and juggle my work and childcare and kind of all of the stress there. So I think overall, I'm doing pretty well, but definitely am feeling the stress and stress of what's going on with COVID. And with the rise and with the the unrest that's happening right now. So thank you for asking,   Stacey Simms  5:20 Oh, my goodness. Well, it is, as you say, it's such an extraordinary time. And there's really no words left anymore. It's such a cliche, right? We all get those emails in these challenging times in these extraordinary times. But as you said, we've had this COVID situation for months now. It's sort of built on low boil, and I think we kind of learned to live with it in the background. And then of course, the events of this past week. Protests, riots, questioning a lot of people, even if they're not physically doing things and leaving the house, trying to figure out, you know, where do I stand? What do I want to say? We're all on high alert. Where are you telling people that you're speaking to to, to kind of I don't want to say Step back, necessarily, but maybe break it off into smaller bites, what do we do?   Mark Heyman  6:05 Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that we can do. The first is recognize that everything that we're feeling right now is normal, that anybody else in that same situation would be feeling would be feeling unsettled and unrest, feeling stressed about, you know, what's going on in the world right now. I think oftentimes, we have these situations where we feel we're feeling something and we feel guilty for feeling it, I shouldn't feel stressed, I shouldn't feel I shouldn't feel x. And I think that taking a step back and recognizing that, you know, these feelings are really normal. The next thing is really to talk to other people and to be able to vent to have some have a sounding board table to get your feelings out. Because that doesn't necessarily make the feelings go away, doesn't make them better. But certainly to be able to share about other people and get get affirmation and get validation for those feelings, is a super helpful thing that we can do as a way of processing And then also taking a step back. And, you know, recognizing that Yeah, the world is in a in a tough spot right now. But also, we don't have to over engage with what's happening. We have we taking a step back and taking a break from social media sometimes just that taking a break from the news can be a really helpful thing to give yourself some perspective. So that when you dive back in and learn about what's what's going on in your car, take start thinking about what you might be able to do to help the situation. You can see that from a fresh perspective.   Stacey Simms  7:33 Yeah, I think especially in a time right now we are we are being challenged to pay attention. And you know, and I can only come to this through the lens of what I have, which is a white suburban mom, right? You know, we're being challenged, pay attention. You know, learn, speak up, let other people know what you're thinking. But that doesn't mean be on twitter. 24 seven, that doesn't mean you have to watch all of the news is that what I'm kind of hearing you say   Mark Heyman  8:01 Yeah, I think that one thing that we think is that if we that we want to be in control, not necessarily of the situation, but certainly be in control of our feelings and be in control of our, our environment. And I think that one one thing that one way that people try to get control over those things, is they do something called over engage, they engage with the news, and they end they get involved with it, because they feel like the more that they know that and the more that they see the the ever changing landscape, the more control they'll have. And I think that that's a it's a certainly a valid point. But there's also some of the downside to that. Because Because as you're following Twitter, you know, constantly, it's stressful, and you're constantly looking for the changes, and that's stressful. And the reality is, is that on a minute by minute basis, nothing's changed. Nothing's changed in a sense that is going to really probably change what you do or how you react and so yeah, take take a step back and and recognize But over an aging doesn't actually help with your stress and sometimes they can actually make your stress worse and you know, increase it as well.   Stacey Simms  9:11 All right, let's bring diabetes into this because that's really you know, this is all about here on Diabetes Connections. And I don't live with diabetes, but I am I'll be honest I'm worried maybe it's a mom thing and I see the people in my Facebook group and I'm we're part of this larger community you live with type one. I mean, stress is bad for anybody but on top of type one diabetes. I'm gonna sound like a hypocrite because I was talking to this with my husband last night and he was pointed out I live with an autoimmune condition. I have ulcerative colitis laughing at me like why are you worried about diabetes you have to take care of yourself to which I really not, I'm not eating great. I'm not exercising like I normally do. So again, bringing back the focus to diabetes, but I guess any chronic condition you live with type one. Are you feeling more stressed? On top of diabetes   Mark Heyman  10:02 Yeah, I definitely am. I'm definitely feeling more stressed because I mean for lots of reasons one is that you know, I you know, I'm a stress eater so when you know when I when I'm stressed out and when I'm around food like that's that's one of my coping mechanisms for better or for worse and so that doesn't do great things for my blood sugar's also just stress in general is definitely impacting my blood sugar's but I'm seeing you know a lot more variations than I had before as well as sleep certainly my sleep isn't great because of the stress right now and when when out sleep while my blood sugar's definitely are hot running higher which makes me not feel great but also makes me more frustrated. So you know I'm a I work with people with diabetes and help them manage their stress. I certainly have a lot of those same stresses and so it can be a challenging a challenging thing to balance. One thing that I've done to really, really kind of helped myself is a couple of things one I had been really intentional about exercising. Luckily, I have a little bit of flexibility in my schedule and so I'm able to exercise on most days and I find that starting my day off that exercising helps my blood sugar's and also helps my stress. Also just cutting myself some slack and being kind to myself around my blood sugar's recognizing that, you know, I'm doing everything that I can to manage them the best that I can. And sometimes they're not gonna cooperate. And that's true anytime, but especially to when we're in a time of stress, where with all these other variables going on, just, you know, being kind yourself and giving yourself some grace and some slack can be really helpful and recognizing the time will pass. And that that will that may be a time where we can be much more intentional about our diabetes management, but also, it'll be smoother sailing, hopefully, because the stress won't be a compounding variable there.   Stacey Simms  11:53 Well, and that's such a great point because I was going to ask you and you pretty much answered it, but you know, when when someone With with tight diabetes control or someone who really is trying to manage Well, you know, if they have a very stressful time like this and their management, I'm gonna put this in air quotes, you know, slip. So you're seeing higher numbers or more variation. And then I think a lot of people have have guilt on top of as well. How do you deal with the guilt and not blame yourself? You mentioned trying to like dial back and see the bigger picture, it's not gonna last forever. Is that one of the things you'd recommend?   Mark Heyman  12:29 Yeah, I also think that, you know, connect with the community, whether that's on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or in real life you can and recognizing that everybody else is going through the same thing and everybody else is having, you know, more erratic blood sugars right now. It's really valuable because the guilt comes from I think a lot of times people feeling different or feeling like they're all alone, and that everybody else with diabetes is doing great. And I'm the one who is having trouble and that's why I try to be really Open about you know, the challenges that I have with my blood sugar's like with like with my patients off kind of take out my phone and show them my CGM graph and show them that my blood sugar's are nowhere near perfect, because it makes them feel like you know, it takes some of that thing of that guilt away of recognizing that Yeah, I can certainly make better choices sometimes. But diabetes has a mind of its own and being okay with riding those waves is is critical for our mental health. Because if your only metric of success is keeping your blood sugar between those lines, and yet the only way you can not have stress in your in your diabetes life is by having perfect blood sugar's you're setting yourself up for failure. So we need to have a different way of looking at it.   Stacey Simms  13:45 Every once in a while mark, I'm just I'm stopped. I I can't even imagine what it is like to to live with type one just so much that you have to do and I have somebody you know, I have my kid in my house that I've we've accepted for 13 and a half years and everyone's While I keep thinking, gosh, it is really such a burden. But that's neither here nor there. You know, but just to hear you put it like that. I'll probably take all of that out.   Mark Heyman  14:08 But the way, let me say something there is, I actually try, I actually encourage people not to use that word Burg, because it kind of becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. You say diabetes is hard. It's such a burden. And you're right, I'm not gonna argue with you there. But then you, but then we won't talk about how big of a burden it is. It kind of gets it makes it it snowballs and grows and becomes bigger. And I think that when we say, you know, we have all of these things going on, we have diabetes, and COVID, and the George Floyd and all of all of these confounding things. And we say in diabetes becomes even bigger, a bigger burden. It's almost like this expectation that it should be, and sometimes it is, sometimes it's not, but we don't want to have people get to a point where they say, Well, I had diabetes and therefore this automatically means that you know, You want to I always give people the space to be able to, you know, see whether it's a burden or not, but not automatically assume that's going to be.   Stacey Simms  15:08 I love that. And I'm always working on being better at language. And I really appreciate that. You know, it's, it's, it's one of these things where, you know, you want to help and every once in a while, you know, you really, I slip on that, so I appreciate it. Um, but, but Okay, so but let's keep going on that right. Okay, so I'm a caregiver, I guess a little bit less so because my son is 15. And it's like when he was two when I was doing everything with him. Any advice for me, in addition to not standing around saying this must be such a burden for you? How can I upload, right? I mean, which he's doing great. He's got his own way to manage stress. We're talking a lot. He does exercise quite a bit, which has been really helpful. He's connected with friends, but as a parent or caregiver or spouse, any advice for us so that we're not putting more stress And the person we're trying to help.   Mark Heyman  16:02 Yeah, I think I think take a step back and recognize that you know, that he has it, he's got this taken care of and that you're certainly there to help him in whatever way that you can. But from what you're telling me, it sounds like he's doing really well, doing really well without responsibility. And so, and you know, when you're in, but certainly kind of the same thing about, you know, over engaging on Twitter around the protests right now. I think that over engaging with your son around diabetes, especially when there's not a whole lot you can do right now. I mean, because you're doing really well. That's add stress to you. And so if you're able to kind of take a step back, take a step back and not over engage with it doesn't aggravate him, but also gives you some space to recognize and also gives you space to recognize that but also see that he's doing well and give you the confidence that you need to continue to get that debt back because as she grows up and it goes to college Sunday Jimmy great scope for you to have.   Stacey Simms  17:02 We're working on it.   Mark Heyman  17:05 It's a never ending process.   Stacey Simms  17:08 That's great advice. Um, what are some small changes that you might encourage people living with diabetes in these crazy times to do?   Mark Heyman  17:18 Yeah, so a couple of things that I would recommend, I mean, just like just a simple tip is, you know, one of the things that is that people have really struggled with, that I've been talking to, over the past three months when we've been in quarantine is kind of the routine has been pulled out from under them, so they don't have to go into work anymore, they may not be able to go to their favorite restaurant or go to the gym. And so and diabetes can actually be a great grounding tool, because, you know, diabetes takes routine. And so making it so keeping keeping your diabetes or TF right now can be really helpful one for your management, of course, but also your mental health because if you know that every morning, going to check your blood sugar, change your CGM site every Thursday or whatever that was Is it can kind of give you some some grounding with it within your day. That's number one. Number two is do your best to stick to a fixed irregular diet. Especially, I mean, I know that this is a little bit late coming, you know, two or three months into this. But, you know, we talked about people who are who have really are having a hard time with blood sugars because they're home now and there have been a food all around them and so finding ways to kind of to to keep on eating healthy to the best of your ability and in a way to help you manager manage your blood sugar's can really, obviously make your blood sugar's more stable, but also help you manage the stress around those blood sugars. And then the third thing and this is one of my favorite tools that I that I use all the time I use it personally it also I also recommend to my patients to use is mindfulness. And what mindfulness is, if you don't not not familiar with it is being aware of your experience in the present moment without judging it. So You know, right now I feel stressed. And just recognizing Yeah, I feel stressed. You're not judging it, nothing, nothing good about it by being stressed. It just is. Right now I can tell you right now my blood, my blood sugar is 253. So I'm on the higher side. And I could I could look at that and say, I can't believe it's that high. It's, you know, I'm, I must have done something wrong. I'm an awful person with diabetes, and I just can't manage my diabetes, right? Or I can look at my blood sugar mindfully and say, Okay, well, I'm gonna look, my blood sugar's to 33. That's neither good nor bad. I feel a little frustrated with that. But that feeling of being a good or bad and just be able to recognize what you experience, because if you're able to do that, it gives you a little bit of distance from it, and doesn't let you get wrapped up in the story of what you know. What does that 253 mean about me? What is that frustration mean about me what is you know, whatever I'm experiencing mean about me because we all experience things all the time. We have thoughts and feelings and bloodsuckers, then You know, whatever all the time and be able to recognize that notice them without putting a story behind them can be really, really helpful. I think that's really also helpful for what's going on in the world. You know, recognizing your emotions and your thoughts and recognizing that those are normal experiences, but you don't the judge, you know, if you feel sad, if you feel angry, that is what you feel. And that's okay. So I'm a big fan of mindfulness. I could talk about it all day long. It really diabetes. But I think it's a really, really helpful tool, especially when things are overwhelming like they are right now.   Stacey Simms  20:39 I'm trying to remember I read it, but I read somewhere recently, and it's exactly what you're saying is you know, when you are feeling out of control, and you're feeling very emotional and you're feeling angry or sad or stressed, you know, to kind of breathe into it, and let yourself feel it. And that was a revelation to me. It has helped me so much it just kind of calmed me down to hear that that was okay to do. And I guess that is a bit of mindfulness.   Mark Heyman  21:05 Well, exactly, because because humans don't like to feel uncomfortable about anything. We don't like to feel physically uncomfortable. We don't like to feel emotionally uncomfortable. And so our go to strategy with those things is avoidance. We avoid, you know, you could think about doing your life you know, you want to have you have to have a difficult conversation with your husband or your kid and you put that off, you avoid it because you don't want to do it because it's not you're not going to feel good. If you go to the dentist and take them for granted. Because definitely not going to get and what would happen if you recognize that you're scared to go to the dentist or that you're that you're uncomfortable having a conversation, but you do it anyway. And notice the thoughts and feelings that you have when that happens, but you don't judge them. You just notice them and say right now I'm feeling really nervous. And that's okay because that's that's that's what anybody in my situation would feel. It doesn't mean anything about me. It just means that I feel nervous. And doesn't mean that comfortable. But it's just a recognition of what my experience is right now.   Stacey Simms  22:09 I don't know if you can answer this, and I'm a little uncomfortable asking, but I think we should talk about it. You and I are not. We're not people of color. Yeah. And so I don't want to say I don't want to try to put myself in somebody else's shoes like that. But I cannot imagine the stress right now. In the not only in that community, but in the diabetes community for people of color. Yeah, I mean, you because we can say, you know, turn off the news or be careful about this. But I think it is to the point right now, where many people and again, I'm probably saying something stupid here. So please forgive me. This is my perspective from where I sit right now. But you know, you can't turn it off. It's part of who you are. I'm wondering if you have any advice, perhaps for that community?   Mark Heyman  22:54 Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that I mean, I would be the only advice that I have, and I'm not sure this is great advice is to keep to keep talking. I think that I, what I've seen on this in the social media community is with people of color as well as people, you know, people, other people in the community, it's a lot of support, and a lot of like, and a lot of one of one, one, a lot of wanting to listen. And I certainly want to listen, I want to understand better because I know I don't understand, and I can't understand and I really want to try, but but I and it's going to help me to understand better if people of color in the diabetes community, continue speaking, and continue letting me letting us know what they want us to hear. Because I'm all ears.   Stacey Simms  23:49 We mentioned a few small changes that you might be able to make any big changes that you'd like to see people kind of work their way up to.   Mark Heyman  23:57 I think that can mean continued. This is a general But continuing to learn to learn about these issues and just continue and continue to have a thirst for knowledge and understanding around them, I think that I'm at that's, I think that's the best thing that we can do right now. And then really the most effective thing because that will hopefully not trickle but really expanding into bigger changes that we can all be a part of, and that we can all be we can all be helpful with. But I think that for our mental health, I really think that small changes are the best way of going about this, and then really trying to taking one day at a time and one one change at a time. You know, change is the big changes are so overwhelming, and they oftentimes feel impossible. And so breaking them down into smaller changes, just like we've been talking about with you know, maybe a bigger goal in mind. So maybe the question is not necessarily what what are the big changes but what are the bigger goals that we have for our mental health around diabetes, for diabetes management for our, for our inclusion, and what are the small changes that we can make that are moving us towards that goal. And certainly I can't tell you or anybody else what their what your goal should be. But I think that I think that defining that goal and really taking some time to think about that can be helpful in in helping you to define the small things that you need to make in order to get there.   Stacey Simms  25:27 Before I let you go, and maybe I should have started here since it's our first time talking. Let's talk a little bit about your diabetes story because you were diagnosed in college, right?   Mark Heyman  25:36 I was it was 21 years ago on Monday. So I was I just celebrated or just memories I should say my guy ever my 21st I aversary on Monday.   Unknown Speaker  25:47 Correct is beer. Sorry about that.   Unknown Speaker  25:50 Legal?   Mark Heyman  25:53 Exactly. Yeah. So I was 21 when I was diagnosed that it was the end of my third year of college. I was at UCLA and No, I was for the for probably a month before I was diagnosed I was getting I was not feeling well and just kind of getting progressively sicker and sicker was all over the, in the typical symptoms. The problem was is I had this dream of going to France. I've been studying French for a long time. And I got I got an internship at the US Embassy in Paris for that summer. And I was, and I really didn't want to go the doctor because I was scared that they were telling me something was wrong, and I couldn't go to France. And so I put off going to the doctor for a long time. I couldn't tell you how long but it was a you know, something a couple of weeks. And finally got to a point where I just I was walking to class one day, last week on June the first 1999. And I couldn't go anymore. I'm like, I have to, I got something's got to change here. So I ended up going to the Student Health Center and I took a finger stick and it's at high. And I was like, well we know high, medium, low. By Tapi, that bad and the doctor has struck me in a chair and said Don't move. So we call the paramedics and they stopped me to a gurney. And the problem is that I was at UCLA and UCLA the Student Health Center is as at one end of the quad of a quad, but there was no road access. So the the angels had to park across the other end of the quad. And I had to be wheeled across the entire quad in front of, you know, the entire school to go to, you know, into the journey to go to the hospital. So once you tell you Medical Center, and we've diagnosed there, the next day, I had an appointment with my new endocrinologist and Peters was on call that day. And so she was she became my endocrinologist and spent a couple hours with me the next day and teaching me about diabetes and you know, giving me insulin and she's at the edge like, you know, there's other questions I can answer for you is like, well, I'm supposed to go to France in two weeks. Without hesitation like Well, of course your vote. So I want to tear it to each actor by diagnosis. I want to prepare us. I had no clue what I was doing. I would email her every couple of days my blood sugar's, but like it was, I mean, on the one hand, it was the best thing that could happen to me. It gave me the confidence that I needed to know that diabetes was not gonna stop me from doing anything. On the other hand, I was flying blind. And I survived. I was just fine, but it makes for a good story.   Stacey Simms  28:27 It's a great story. Wow. And how was the How was the internship? diabetes aside? Are you glad you went?   Mark Heyman  28:34 Oh, yeah, it was awesome. I mean, the internship was, you know, it was it was government work. hope we'll put it that way. Like I got, I got to live in Paris for the summer and you had a awesome apartment, the middle of the city and got to go and travel all around. And it was it was unbelievable.   Stacey Simms  28:51 Sounds like a once in a lifetime. I'm so glad you were able to go. Yeah. And then how did you decide that you wanted to work in the field that you Now, I mean, how do you get from being diagnosed in college to, you know, helping other people with diabetes with their mental health?   Mark Heyman  29:07 That's a funny story. So I kind of towards the end. So I majored in political science in college. And so as I was leaving college, after my diagnosis, I realized I didn't want to be a lawyer or didn't do, I didn't want to pursue anything kind of in that realm. And I came to the conclusion that I wanted to go into psychology, and a part of me wanted to do something diabetes related. I didn't, I was lucky that when I was first diagnosed, I was I was doing okay, psychologically, I didn't have a whole lot of big challenges other than kind of the normal diagnosis stuff. But I was really interested in you know, how this affects other people. So I did some research, and realized I wanted to become a psychologist, but not specifically around diabetes. However, to get into graduate school in psychology, it's really competitive. And I use a story. And so diabetes him like a good story to tell about how I wonder what people with diabetes and so I took That story, not really thinking that would ever come true. And it kind of did. I went to and I did research in diabetes, I saw patients who had diabetes, and I realized Not only do I love doing it, but it's also a huge need. And so, you know, I love it. It's a lot of fun, and it's really challenging. But I feel like I can use my own personal and professional experience to really make a big impact in people's lives. It's wonderful.   Unknown Speaker  30:27 Okay, and I have to ask you, you said you have a toddler. You have a baby.   Mark Heyman  30:31 Yeah, I have. I have a 17 month old. Yeah, it's wonderful. I was born last January, and now she's, she's walking and she's just starting to talk. And it's so cute, but it's a lot of work. Oh, that's fun.   Stacey Simms  30:43 have you all been, you know, at home for the last couple of months together?   Mark Heyman  30:47 We have. Yeah. So even though we had childcare we had my parents are in town here. So my parents were helping us out a couple days a week and we had some nanny help. But once this all happened, we kind of isolated ourselves entered just now getting back into letting my parents take care of her again. So, which is a great relief. But it's been, it's been a lot of fun and a great blessing to be able to spend time with her over the past couple months, but it's also it's taken a toll on, you know, my work and my I mean, my ability to do work that I need to be doing. So it'll be good to when we can get back into a more normal routine, hopefully real soon   Stacey Simms  31:25 as we start to wrap this up, you know, we've we've kind of, I guess we've scratched the surface on managing stress and diabetes, it really is a never ending issue, is it?   Mark Heyman  31:34 No, it's not. I think that we have I think that we have a lot more questions and answers here. You know, especially both both with Russell diabetes, as well as, how do we live it live in this kind of crazy world we're in right now, as well as living in this crazy world with diabetes. And so, you know, I wish that I had all the answers, but I think that we need to keep asking the questions because without the questions, we're not going to get any answers.   Stacey Simms  31:59 Mark, thank you so much. Spend some time with me. I'd love to have you back on to answer maybe some listener questions and go through more of this. But thank you so much for your time.   Mark Heyman  32:06 Oh, you're so very welcome. Thanks, Stacey.   Unknown Speaker  32:13 You're listening to Diabetes Connections with Stacey Sims.   Stacey Simms  32:19 I'll link up some more resources about mental health and diabetes, including Mark's website. And I said I was going to talk a little bit about some things I've been doing. I'll tell you the best thing that I have been doing to manage this stress is walking my dog. I walk my dog just about every day, and we don't walk particularly quickly. Boy, she would love it if I would run with her. I'm not a runner. And we are very, very fortunate to live near Greenway. So I'm able to escape. It feels like an escape, I promise. I mean, it's just green, and it's usually pretty quiet. It's getting very hot here. I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. And most people who walk and run do it very early in the day or later at night. I don't mind it so much and I'll go out you know, 1011 o'clock in the morning. They have the place to myself. I'm careful with my doggie and we make sure she has water and all that stuff. Don't worry about her. But walking the dog listening to podcasts, sometimes listening to nothing really helps. And on those walks, I do not listen to news. I do not listen to news podcasts. I do not listen to serious issues. I listen to stupid comedy podcasts, like Game of Thrones podcasts, and some other fun ones. You know, pop the group, maybe we'll make a podcast list of things to listen to when you want to distract yourself. Another thing I do that I do think helps is about half an hour before I go to bed. I try to do an hour but I'm kidding myself. About half an hour is I disconnect from Twitter and Facebook. I'm in bed, you know it's late. I'm seeing so much later than I was before this, you know, it's almost midnight, but I'll stop looking at the news. If I'm not really ready to go to sleep. I'll read a book for a little while or I'll play Solitaire on my phone. But I'm done. Sometimes I cheat. I mean, sometimes gosh, there's been nights you know, especially last week where I just I felt like things were changing moment by moment and I needed to see and I know that wasn't healthy, but I couldn't help it. I needed to know that was tough, but I know a lot of you feel the same way. And then the things I'm doing that are not so good as I'm definitely eating more junk and eating more than I was before. That was the worst for me. Honestly, back in April, I think April, I kind of felt like, ah, who cares, we're going to be indoors forever. No one's gonna see me again. And I'm just gonna wallow in this and I eat a lot of really bad junk food. And I've been drinking more alcohol, which is really unusual for me. And you'll laugh. I mean, drinking more alcohol means I'm drinking like once or twice during the week. I usually have like one or two drinks on the weekend. And that's it. But those are things that I've noticed that I'm doing because I'm stressed out. But doing this podcast helps me immensely hearing your stories. Being able to tell some stories and having something to do right. Having something to work on is really valuable. So let's get back to it. Tell me something good. I love that in just a moment. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dexcom. And we started with Dexcom back in the olden days before share. Yeah, in 2013. When Benny started using the Dexcom share it. So trust me when I say using the share and follow apps makes a big difference. Benny and I set parameters about when I'm going to talk to him about diabetes, how long to wait, all that kind of stuff. But it helps us talk and worry about diabetes less. If he's at a sleep over or away on a trip when things are back to normal. It gives me so much peace of mind. It also helps if I need to troubleshoot with him. And this is what I love. We can see what's been happening over the last 24 hours and not just at one moment. The alerts and alarms that we set help us from keeping the highs from getting too high, and help us jump on those before there a big issue. Internet connectivity is required to access separate Dexcom follow up to learn more, go to Diabetes Connections.com and click on the Dexcom logo.   And tell me something good this week, I was scrolling through Facebook. I'm in a ton of diabetes groups and I mute all of them because otherwise it looks like diabetes book to me, right? It's everything. It's relentless. So I mute the groups and then I will Want to see stuff? I go back and look, I saw this in a Dexcom group and it really caught my eye. I will post the picture of it in our Facebook group for Diabetes Connections. So Dan writes, my seven year old was feeling crappy about being diagnosed and wearing a sensor. So I did what needed to be done and made him feel better with my permanent sensor. Just the outline color to come. His reaction was priceless. And yes, I cried. And this is an amazing tattoo. It's a I mean, it takes up his entire upper arm like elbow to shoulder and it's an octopus, which I'm assuming he already had. And then the sensor is kind of in the octopuses. tentacles. tentacles. That's right, right. So it looks it just looks amazing. And then people in the group, of course, started chiming in with, you know, with really positive comments for him, but also, you know, hey, I have a tattoo or I have this idea. And people started talking about diabetes tattoos. And then somebody said, which was what I was thinking because it does CG six on it. What are you gonna do when you're on the g7 in a few months, and Dan said, I don't know. Maybe another tattoo Somebody else said no, that octopus has seven more tentacles, just put it there. And I guess he's gonna come back and show the truly finished product. But it to me it looks finished already, but I guess there's color coming so hopefully we'll do a revisit and we'll show you the finished tattoo then and a follow up and I guess kind of a wrap up to something that I shared. I think I only shared this on social media, the diabetes family connection, the T1D 24/7 challenge. This was for the entire month of May. And the diabetes family connection puts on different programs they put on the diabetes camp in my area. These are the guys behind Project 50 and 50. Last summer were two guys with type one summited the highest peak in all 50 states in 50 days. And while there was a an injury and an accident, they did finish and so it was pretty incredible stuff. But their 2024 seven was a challenge that asks people to move every day for the month of May. They said you know no days off for managing T1D no days off during this Challenge. And there were some rules and interesting little things that of course, they want the people to maintain social distancing. And it was a fundraiser as well, they had a Spotify playlist. One of my favorite things about this is the warnings we all got because this playlist was not moderated for explicit lyrics. As I said, these are the guys who put in our diabetes camp. So a lot of parents on their list. We appreciate that heads up you guys. So congratulations to the diabetes family connection for a really big and well done fundraiser. I'm sure they'll be doing more like this and some of them are in our Facebook groups. So we will continue to spread the word. If you have a Tell me something good story, let me know email me Stacey at Diabetes connections.com or, you know, just give me a shout out on social media and we will get it on the show because it's my favorite part of every week. So tell me something good. If you're listening as the show was first released later this week, the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions is going to be kicking off this is the atheist conference for the a DA and it is their first virtual experience. What does that mean for you and me? Probably not much. I have never been to the scientific sessions I was thinking about going this year. But of course, it did not happen. But this is the time when a lot of studies come out. This is when a lot of the companies that we all follow release big news. So please stay tuned. I'm going to try to follow as much as I can on social media. We do have shows planned in the weeks to come with everybody that you would expect. I'm really excited to be able to share some of these studies. Some of these things are embargoed. But after the Scientific Sessions, I would say probably by next week, this time, I think we'll all have a better idea of where the study's on technology stand, and probably one or two surprises because every year something pops out from this thing that's either a breakthrough study or something that didn't work out and completely stopped or you know, somebody from outside the ADA scientific session says, Look at me over here, so we'll see what happens. But I hope you'll follow along. I'll do as much as I can to give you the information now, and then go in depth with the newsmakers As they come on the show in the weeks to come, thank you to my editor john bukenas from audio editing solutions. Thank you for listening. I hope you got something valuable out of today's show. I hope you'll continue to engage and let me know if I can help what you need what you want to hear. You know, I made fun kind of earlier in the show about these are challenging and difficult times. You know, man, they really are and we need each other more than ever. Thanks for being here. I'm Stacey Simms. I'll see you back here next week. And until then, be kind to yourself.   Unknown Speaker  40:34 Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Sims media. All rights reserved. All rights avenged   Transcribed by https://otter.ai

On today's episode of Quiet Light, Dan Ashburn joins us to discuss negotiating terms with your suppliers. Dan is the co-founder of Titan Network, the Mastermind for Amazon sellers, the China Magic, the immersive Mastermind discussed in another episode. Tune in to pick up some awesome tips about how to save cash and boost the overall value of your business. Topics:  How he came up with this concept. Why face-to-face interaction is important. Forecasting sales, inventory requirements, and pay-out per unit. Using market data to help with forecasting. The formula/numbers Dan uses. Making sure your offer is win-win. Timing your requests. Having perseverance when it comes to your requests. Traveling to China. Transcription: Mark:       Shortly after you buy a business, you're obviously looking for any opportunities to increase your return on investment. Sometimes that's through growth, sometimes that's through different ways of cutting expenses. But oftentimes looking at your suppliers and the terms that you have with your suppliers can be an easy way to free up free cash flow or get better terms or be able to even get different rates. But how do you go about actually negotiating those terms? How do you approach the suppliers, especially when the relationship is new? If you're on the sell side, the same sort of questions applies; how do you approach suppliers in a way where you can increase your return on investment by negotiating better terms? Joe, I know you talked to someone about this and have some good tips here. Joe:          Yeah, Dan Ashburn from Titan Network. You know what? Just in the podcast, I'll just tell you right now, Dan goes through a step by step process to basically walk people through what to do, how to do it and get better terms with your supplier. And the ultimate result, whether you've got a straight-up e-commerce business, a Shopify store, or an Amazon business, or whatever it might be, even retailers that are out there importing from overseas. I hear it over and over again that when you make the right connection in the right way with your supplier, you can get better terms. The end result is more cash flow. More cash flow means you've got the ability to buy more inventory as you try to keep up with growth, which is often a good problem to have. But Dan talks about it quite a bit in there. And the piece that is forgotten and not all that talked about is people are always trying to drive top-line revenue. But if you can negotiate better terms with your supplier and then get a better reduction in the cost of goods sold, it's going to boost your overall value as well. Joe:          Hey, folks, Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage, and today, I've got Dan Ashburn on the line with me. Dan is the co-founder of Titan Network and I think China Magic as well amongst another a number of other pretty fancy titles and credits to your LinkedIn profile here that I'm looking at, Dan, but that's as far as I get with fancy introductions so why don't you tell the folks that are listening about yourself and about your background and what you do? Dan:         Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me, Joe. So, yeah, I'm the co-founder of Titan Network Mastermind for Amazon Sellers, co-founder, and co-organizer of China Magic, which is a trip where we take 100 people twice a year to source products over in China. We've taken over 500 people now and the co-creator more recently of Amazing Selling Machine. And then my team and I are responsible for delivering eight figures in sales on Amazon per year through my brand management agency. Joe:          That's an awful lot. How do you do all that and not lose all your hair? You got a nice head of hair there. So this is a prod for people to go to the YouTube channel as well. Dan:         Yeah, for sure. So I have a good team around me. I've got a good management team. I've got an executive assistant who makes me look really good. And then, yeah, I just got good people around me so it's pretty cool. Joe:          Okay. There are not a whole lot of Amazon sellers that we have on the podcast and that I deal with on a regular basis; I've been doing this for eight years that have a beautiful British accent. So tell me about that aspect of it. You've got; I don't know how many you said in terms of Amazon sellers, 1,600 that you work with or something like that. How many are typically US-based versus Europe based? Dan:         Yeah, it's a great question. I'd still say the majority of the market is in the US. I'd probably say it's a 70/30 split right now. However, Europe is growing and it's growing fast as markets like Germany, etcetera pick up. And if you combine the combined sales volume of Europe to the US, then it's a good opportunity. And Europe is definitely picking up. A lot of the Europeans are obviously using US as their main channel as the US seller are then coming out over into the European market to diversify. Joe:          Okay. So a quick side note before we get into the meat of this discussion is that Amazon has just made it a whole lot easier to transfer a European seller account. So that's real positive news. It doesn't necessarily have to be a stock sale anymore. It can be an asset sale and it's easy to transfer so positive stuff there. But today we're talking about a little bit of your China Magic experience and your China experience in general and negotiating terms with your suppliers to improve cash flow and to improve your bottom line and boost valuations, which is a breath of fresh air because you can't; you wrote that line when we talked about it because most people don't think about valuations when they're working with suppliers and things of that nature but you do. Dan:         Yes. So you've had Scott Dietz on a number of times now. Scott was very much a mentor of mine over the last few years and something Scott really instilled in me is what's good for selling your business is good for building and running your business. So installing that, combined with the challenges that I come across so many sellers have; there's one thing in this business that stops growth and that's cash flow, its cash on hand. We all know there are only three ways really to grow the business, sell more of the same products, sell additional products, or sell the same products in new marketplaces are really only the three ways. All three of those ways take cash and they take cash flow. So we very quickly; my team and I launched this, my team and I really set our minds over the last couple of years to how do we solve this problem for the accounts that we're involved in, the brands that we have stakes in, and the people that we're working with across Titan Network, China Magic, etcetera to really solve this problem. And that's where this working with a supplier to fund that growth, that whole concept really came from. And I'm really proud to say that the last year or so, the last 18 months, we've been getting some pretty impressive results where suppliers are letting us go north percent down, 10% on shipment, 90% two or three months thereafter so it's really positive. Joe:          One of the things I hear often is, yeah, I just got back from a trip from China. I was able to do this. I'm getting better terms here. I reduced my cost of goods sold here. I ate way too much and drank way too much and I feel like I'm a member of their family now. Is that what everybody has to do? Do they have to get on a plane and go to China to meet the manufacturer and supplier or is it just something that helps but there are other ways to do it? Dan:         Look, there are other ways; there are always other ways to do it. You can get this done over a Skype call or a Zoom chat like we're having now but if you're serious about growing the business and you want to go in and get the times that you want, then every time in every case, physically being there in China in the room, staring the person in the face, building a real relationship with that person gets the better result every time. And where we've had a good result virtually, it's always been as a result of following up physically with someone. So we've already been earlier in the year or we may be met them at the last Canton Fair but there's always been that physical interaction. And I think what people underestimate about China is the business culture out there is relationship-driven. It's all about building that relationship. It's all about going and having that male drink and some of the alcohol stuff that they put in front of you to really build up that relationship. And there's so many benefits to that relationship much further beyond payment terms and cost of goods sold even down to stuff like it's coming up to Chinese New Year that productions run is full. And because you have that relationship, they bump you to the front of the production line, which keeps you in stock. Joe:          So let's get to specifics for the audience then. For people that are; and talk to them as if maybe they're your clients, they may be somebody that just bought an Amazon business from Quiet Light Brokerage or they're somebody that listens and is getting expert advice from folks like you. What are the first few steps that somebody should take? And I know this is general information for general people, specific would be if you were talking to one. What do you advise somebody to do? Dan:         Okay, cool. So first off, we need to understand what terms do we need to achieve and what are we aiming for? What's our goal? So the first steps or so of executing this process before you got to China or before you attempt to do this virtually is we need to put together a sales forecast. We need to understand what am I expecting to sell over the next 12 months and include uplift for Q4 based on historical dates or if you're selling seasonal products, make sure you're including all of that uptick and then break down what you plan to order. So once you forecasted those sales, understand what inventory requirements you have and what your current order rate would look like with your supplier over the course of that year. Then figure out with that information what is the payout per unit on your sales? So you need to calculate the Amazon payout per unit after all fees and marketing costs. So within our brands, we work to operating 10% advertising contribution or true A-costs whatever you want to call it. And we factor all of that in and we figure out after storage fees and etcetera, what is our P&L per unit? Joe:          Did you say 10% advertising; is that what that was? Dan:         Yeah. So as a PPC contribution, margin, or a true A-cost; whatever you want to call it. Once we're out of the launch phase and we're in some maintenance we factor in a 10% margin for advertising. Joe:          It's great, we do key financial metrics anytime we list a business for sale and typically see the ad cost somewhere in that 8 to 12, 8 to 15% range so 10% is a good number. Before you go on too far, so you've talked about doing a sales forecast and of course, that leads into inventory need forecast. The question often comes up, what's the best software if there is such software for inventory management and sales forecasts? Do you use some or do you create it with Excel spreadsheets? Dan:         So we keep it simple. We do all of this in Google Sheets. We have adopted a new inventory management system and I'm pretty impressed with it if you wanted to talk about that. But we do all of this in a basic Google Sheet template. And if you want, Joe, I can have that template sent out to your subscribers. But yeah, we just use a Google template, we use a Google sheet and we just manually plotting in numbers, manually forecasting out. It's nothing fancy. If we want to work with someone at more advanced than we'll offset pull in an accountant or a bookkeeper; someone that's more savvy with the numbers. But we're just using historical data to forecast the future 12 months. Joe:          And you're pulling that data from Amazon or from QuickBooks; where are you pulling it from? Dan:         Yeah. Typically, depending on the account that we're working with or depending on whether it's an in-house brand or a joint venture type relationship, we will take the initial data from Amazon. So we'll take your initial sales data. And then if we can sanitize that data with actual validated bookkeeping records, then obviously we will do that. But for the sake of this exercise, it doesn't need to be 100% accurate. This is a forecast and everyone knows; I think what everyone gets is they get that analysis paralysis on forecasts. Because I think what if I don't meet the forecast or how do I know what it's going to sell? You've got to take the best guess and if you haven't got 12 months of trailing data, go use tools like Keeper to look at your number one like for like competitors trailing 12 months of data. Just use data in the market to be able to inform your own self forecast. Joe:          So doing a cash flow forecast or I'm sorry sales forecast leads into what your inventory needs are. You're doing that in Google Sheets and what's next from there? Dan:         So before we can move onto the next stage, we then have to figure out what our payout per unit is, because these three pieces of data, the sales forecast, and the inventory need forecast as you call it, and then the payout per unit factoring in a rough 10% advertising contribution. That gives us all the information that we need to be able to produce an accurate cash flow forecast. So what sellers I find out doing most that aren't taking on external cash or external funding, they're kind of running on this system of hope. They kind of think or hope they'll have the cash in the bank for the next inventory order, but they're not really forecasting enough ahead to say, will I have enough cash on hand to be able to fund my next inventory order to meet demand of growth and not run out our stock at the same time? But without those three data points, without knowing how many you're going to sell, what inventory you need to meet that demand, and what your cash payout per unit is, you can't put together a cash flow forecast. So once you've got those three data points, we then put together our cash flow forecast. So to give you sort of a demonstration of this, we base it on our current term. So let's say typical terms, 30% deposit, and 70% before shipping. That's pretty much most the market. Joe:          Pretty standard. Dan:         Yeah. So we will forecast our cash flow based on those terms for the products that we want to negotiate. So you might have one product with a supplier or you might have 10 but you just do it for the group of products that you're talking about with the supplier. So we'll have the sales forecast at the top of that cash flow forecast. Then we'll have a payout forecast which is based on sales. It's just that payout per unit multiplied by the number of units we expect to sell in that month. That gives us our total cash pile for that given month. We then factor in some fixed costs. So things like employees, software, training, salaries, costs that we know we're always going to have. And then we might factor in some ad-hoc costs like travel conferences, going to China Magic twice a year. God, I'm plugging that. So we factor in those hard costs and then that gives us a forecast month by month, January through December. If we go for the annual calendar year of what our cash on hand looks like. Then we just have to plugin based on what we know we have to order what cash output; what cash outlay do we need to factor in based on 30/70 payment terms. That then gives us an accurate view of where we're going to have a deficit on cash, where we're going to be up on cash, and what that looks like for the next twelve months. Does that make sense? Joe:          It does. You sound like a grown-up here, running a business with real numbers and doing some analysis. Dan:         I'm trying to. Joe:          Congratulations. And that's what you teach the folks at Titan Network as well. You're going through this with them Dan:         Yeah. Joe:          And do you produce video walkthroughs on how to do this with examples? Dan:         Yeah. So we've got like the whole step by step. Within Titan, we have something called masterclasses and we've got an entire master class on supply payment negotiation with all the templates, negotiation, soft scripts, ways of approaching; I'll give you some secret sauce in a minute but even like a presentation that we use to present this information to the supplier, all of that is all inside of Titan. And our Titan members; I mean, the results that we're getting, someone got a 50 grand credit line off the back of this. Joe:          Wow. Dan:         I can't count how many now; it's got to be 20, 30 members in the last few months alone that are getting terms, even just improved terms like 20% down because the raw material costs are quite high, but then they're not paying 40% until 30 days after shipping and the remaining 40% until 60 days after shipping, which means they've been selling the product likely for 30 days before that balance is due, which just opens up so much opportunity because you can afford to sell more product cause you can order more inventory. You can afford to expand into new markets because you can afford more inventories. Or you can afford to launch new products. And for anyone that's doing some serious money in this business, they know launching products is the fastest way to grow it. So, yeah, I mean, the results are quite stellar and we're doing some good things in time for sure. Joe:          It's all good stuff. Everybody listening certainly needs to do it if they're not doing it now. So once you've got all this information, the forecast and estimates and things of that nature what do you do with it? Dan:         So once we've created that cash flow forecast based on our current terms, so 30/70 we then produce a second forecast and we play around with those terms. So the example of I'm looking as a reference in front of me here is 20% deposit, 35% 60 days after shipping, 45% 90 days after shipping. And this is actually a live case study on one of the ASINs that we run. So we will adjust the cash flow to the new terms to then demonstrate what that does for our cash flow. And at this point, this is all internal. This is all internal reporting, preparation to support and enable the negotiation. So I know here, just look, I'll read us some numbers because obviously, I can't cast the screen. On our 30/70 our cash on hand column across the bottom January was in this example 5,000, February is 3,000, March goes into a 2,000 deficit, April goes into a 4,000 deficit because we've paid out that 30% deposit on this inventory order. Joe:          Can you just with those numbers do you have a ballpark total revenue figure as well? I'm just curious. Dan:         Yeah, we do. So down here we've got a total payout figure in this example because we haven't got the retail cost in here. We just track basically what cash flow we receive from Amazon so it's on the end of the column. But if it scales up; this was an example of a new product launch achieving 300 in the first month to a thousand units in the 12 months; very, very conservative forecast. Joe:          Okay, so what happens when you flip this to the new terms that you're trying to achieve? Dan:         So interestingly, the cash outcome; so at this point, we're not forecasting what additional inventory we can get so the cash outcome at the end is the same. So December, for instance, in the 30/70 on this example, the cash outcome for December, cash on hand sorry is 79,000. It started at 4,000. In the after states 20/35/45 again it's 79,000 at the end of the year in terms of cash on hand. But the difference is I don't have a single deficit in my 12-month run because I've been able to achieve better payment terms. So that's sort of step one of this process, cash flow forecasting existing terms and saying where your deficits are and then making sure that you can negotiate payment terms that mean you never run out of cash. You never need to go into any credit line, credit cards, any sort of equity or debt financing, because you're always going to have positive cash on hand to fund the growth of your business. Joe:          So what do you have to say to those people that are listening saying, okay, I got this, I'm just going to ask for these better terms and they don't do this work and they don't do a presentation the way that you want, what it is their supply going to say? Dan:         It's funny, actually, because one of the things we normally go to; this is a typical role play and if I ever talk about this on a stage and you lied and or anything like that, this is how it typically goes. You send an email that goes, hey, I need some better terms. Can I pay you the balance after shipping? The supplier email backs no. You sit there drinking FML like, what am I going to do? Yeah, most people just go give me better terms, a supplier goes no. And if you think about it, these factories; these suppliers, how many brands are asking them daily? How many of their customers because they're supplying hundreds if not thousands of customers. Joe:          Yeah. Dan:         I'm just saying give me better terms. I hope you sat there as a factory owner going well what's in it for me? Joe:          Right. Dan:         You have to answer that question of what's in it for me. It's got to be a win-win relationship. Joe:          Let's get to it then. The next stage is I mean, obviously, you're seeing so no deficits, which is great. The entrepreneur is sleeping better at night. They've got a little more cash for themselves, but also cash to probably buy more inventories which is what's in it for the vendor, right? Dan:         Absolutely. So with everything we do, we have to approach these relationships as a win-win deal. Having been to China more than a dozen times now, I've taken over 500 people. I have been involved in a number of these negotiations at lower levels and much higher levels. It is all about the relationship. It's all about the win-win. And you have to present what's in it for them. Why should they risk that workflow, their cash flow? Because I sense you're asking them to fund your business. Why should they risk that inaudible[00:20:16.2]. So the outcome for everyone has to be a benefit. So the way we do that is there's a five-step process to presenting a win-win. And this is what we break down into a presentation and we've got templates for etcetera. So Step 1 is the opportunity and the conversation that you're trying to get across is there's a big opportunity to make more sales. That's kind of the message you're trying to get across. And the reason it's better to do this in person as well is you can take; if you've got like a logistics manager or sourcing agent on the ground. All of our Titan members benefit from Titan sourcing, so we provide this to them on the fly. But yeah, if you've got that on the ground, you can then have that person translate but also be like an internal ambassador for this process. So step 1, the opportunity. There's a big opportunity to make more sales. Step 2, the challenge. The challenge is I can't order enough inventories to fund and meet the demand of my growth because of cash flow. And that's the challenge that you need to communicate. You can't fund your growth because of cash flow, and that's limiting your ability to grow because your sale is outgrowing your cash impact. I lose sales and as a result, the supplier, the factory that you're dealing with is going to get smaller orders. The solution is better terms so we can order more inventories. The whole objective here is better payment terms, more cash on hand, and allowing you to order more inventory just to grow faster; to compound that growth faster, the benefit, larger orders for the supplier, more sales for us. So that's kind of the five-step story that your supplier, your factory really needs to understand from this process. I'll read… Joe:          Read them off. Yeah, you were just going to do it. Yeah, read them off real quick one more time. Dan:         Opportunity, challenge, impact, solution, benefits. So they really need to understand each one of those points and then we're going to break down exactly how we do that. Joe:          Okay. So look, I haven't been to China before and I want to ask you about that a little bit, but I know that there are benefits for the manufacturer because you're going to be placing more orders. What's their recourse if you don't pay on those notes or is the risk so low because you've been there, you've met with them, didn't rush on building a relationship. Dan:         So you're not going to get this sort of payment terms on your first order. We have, however, had a number of success stories on their first order, even just slight movements like 20/80 on the payment terms or a slight reduction in COGS because we're guaranteeing more orders. We are getting some traction on first orders. This is more for sellers who are probably more your audience, Joe, who are sort of gearing towards exit. I've got an established relationship inaudible[00:22:54.8] the second to third order is kind of the sweet spot that you can start bringing this up. And if you bring it on early in the relationship, every time you place a bigger order, you can revisit these terms, you can revisit the relationship. So for the factory, yes, of course, there is risk involved, but they're weighing up the relationship with you and there are other insurances and stuff that you can bring up without getting too technical. You kept their eyes on ways of ensuring the order and stuff which can give a lot more confidence to the supplier but we don't do that most of the time. It's just purely based on the relationship and your order history. Joe:          Okay, so any more steps after the 5 that you talked about there? Dan:         Yeah there is. So that's the story we've got to present but when it comes to actually presenting that you've got to back that story with data. So they have to believe you and they need to see the numbers for themselves to tick that logical box. You've ticked the emotional box, you've got the relationship. They believed your story. Now you've got to present the data to back your story. So the six-step process to presenting the win-win, one is the growth potential, two is a product by product sales forecast. So that forecast to we produced in the beginning, we're just going to take the sales aspects of it and present that in a nice presentation. We're going to then present the order values to meet that demand and we're going to show them the before and after. We don't get into showing them the internal cash flow or the profit or anything like that. We just show them on the current payment terms this is what we can afford to order, on the new payment terms this is what we can afford to order. And what they're going to say is an order of say, 5,000, 10,000 units but with the new payment terms, I might be able to order 20,000, 25,000 units. So they're going to see a drastic change in the volume of units that you're able to order if they just work with you on the payment terms. Now, once we've done that, there's two other points. We always present what out of stock means. So most factories and suppliers don't really understand what it means when you're out stuck financially from a sales perspective. Sure they're being hammered; you're sort of getting on email, you're getting on Skype, you're doing you thing saying well I need this order, can you push it? Can you put it to the front of your production line and you're sort of pressuring them. But because you're pressuring them so much they're not really thinking about the impact on sales. So you can show the cost of being out of stock from a point of re-launching, lost sales velocity, lost growth. So maybe you've lost a couple of places in rank which has actually brought your growth percentage down, the momentum of growth. And for them, they're not going to be getting as frequent orders because that volume is down, meaning you're not placing as bigger orders. So you can still present the loss to them as well, which is a nice sort of stick to underpin the whole thing. And then finally you go right to solve this problem; this challenge, to order more from you and to recover was it, defend against that potential loss of being out of stock. These are the payment terms I need. And you just present the data to back the story. And it's quite easy, there's a whole template towards it in terms of how we do that. You can use screenshots out of your Amazon seller central accounts to back the data; you can use Keeper screenshots within the presentation as well as just sort of showing screenshots of that spreadsheet you really want to be showing the analytical graphs to back that data because it really gives that visual representation. Joe:          I'm sorry so let's just put in the; so for every 10 people that go through this process and try to renegotiate terms to go through the full process, they do it right. They do the projections. They do everything that you've talked about so far, which I think is eleven steps after they're doing the sales forecast, do 9 out of 10 of them get better terms or 10 out of 10 or 2 out of 10; what are the odds? Just put it into a realistic perspective for the audience. Dan:         So if you are already working with the supplier, you're already in communication. You're not just… Joe:          Yeah, let's assume that somebody has been placing two, three, four, five orders. A lot of people if they hadn't done this, they'd been placing the order for two or three years. Dan:         Yeah, so that person I would be as confident to say that eight in 10 people. I am yet to come across a relationship of that stature that's established with good communication where you won't end up better off. Now, you might not get the terms that you want straight out the gate, but I guarantee if they value your business, which they should do by that point you've got a relationship, you will end up off in a better place. So 90 to 100% of people will end up better off. 80% of people will execute to a point where it impacts customer for sure. Joe:          And this includes a trip to China because you're presenting it in person? Dan:         Yeah, this is like optimum. You've gone to China. Think about how many requests these factories and suppliers get from brands in the west as they say it asking. And then think about the percentage of people that actually get on a flight, fly to China, sit in the office, drink sake and do all that good stuff. That is going to be like 98 and 2%. So who are they going to prioritize? They're going to prioritize those showing real commitment. Business is about commitment. Business is about doing what you said you would do. And I think that's all this is. It's as simple as that. Joe:          Yeah, the 80% of people that have established brands can certainly get better terms with these vendors. Are you seeing; obviously they're ordering more and with higher volume orders comes lower cost of goods sold. How do you negotiate a lower cost of goods sold? Is it strictly volume based or do you make that part of this overall presentation that you're looking for terms and lower COGS at certain levels? Dan:         Yes. So what we do is we hold that conversation. So in any negotiation, you need the person you're negotiating with to say yes a few times. You need to get them to agree and we need to chip away at the yeses. So what we do is we hold that COGS conversation right until the end. So once we've gone through showing the growth potential, the product by product sales forecasts, showing the order values to meet the demand before and after if they give us these terms, the impacts of being out of stock, and then say this is the payment terms we want and always start higher, by the way. Always start higher than you actually need because there will always be a piece of negotiation. They will turn around and say, yes, hopefully. That's the goal. That's our amount in agreement. It might not be what you want, but they might say, well, on this one, we'll give you this and if you meet the demand, then on the next one we'll give you this. We might be a bit of an up curve. We then turn around and just say so now I'm placing a bigger order, I get a better price, right? And you'll find about half the time they'll smile and laugh at you and say, yes, the other half the time they'll say, let's talk about that in the next order. But yeah, you have to put a bit tongue-in-cheek in whether you have to build the relationship, play on the relationship. Joe:          Is this done over dinner or is it done over a desk; how do you see it most often done? Dan:         Typically, it would be done; in most cases, it's going to be over some sort of food environment, some suppliers and factories would like to get the business done and then go for dinner. Most likes to get the relationship piece in first. They want to sort of learn about you, your family. They want to give you some food, take you to lunch. And then during that process, we'll then bring it down to the conversation. Now, it's important to say it won't always happen there and then in the room. A lot of the time you'll present this, you'll throw in that thing at the end that says, so now I'm placing a bigger order do I get a better price and be a bit cheeky with it. And a lot of the time they're going to turn around and say well, look, we need to run our raw material costs. We need to look our production workflow. We need to speak to our internal production manager. We'll get back to you within a few days. So depending on how long you're in China, it could be back when you were in America or back in Europe. You'll jump on Skype and they'll go, okay, cool we've run the numbers. It makes sense. Yes, we can do that. So it kind of happens like a bit of a fluid conversation during the social aspects. Sometimes you'll sit in an office and just get it done. But most of the time it would be over some sort of lunch or something like that. Joe:          I got you. Okay, any other steps that you want to review? Dan:         No, we're good. So really just remember, it's a win-win. Do your internal prep; what they say is the success is in the preparation, success in the planning. Do your planning, and then make sure you're presenting it in a way that presents it as a win to them. And yes, you can achieve this virtually over the internet, but you're going to have 100% better results. And if it's okay, Joe, I've got some examples here, actually. Joe:          Yeah. Dan:         So Case Study 1, 30% deposit, 70% before shipping, after 0% deposit, 100% percent 60 days after shipping. Joe:          That's a beautiful outcome. I can't imagine anybody would be upset about that. Dan:         No, it's cool. That was actually inaudible[00:31:13.0] and my business partner and Sarah, who's head of Titan Sourcing that negotiated that one. The next one was 30% deposit, 70% before shipping after we got a 30% deposit because the raw material costs were quite high on this product, which you have to still work with them on, and then it was 20% percent before shipping. So we pay sort of 50% and then we got 50% percent 30 days after arrival at Amazon FBA, which meant we had 30 days of sales before having to pay the remaining 50%. Case Study 30% deposit, 70% on the approved inspection report. That was a bit of a quality assurance thing there. After we got a 20% deposit, 35% 60 days after shipping, 45% 90 days after shipping so that was a nice one. And then finally, the fourth one and I've got some bonus tips at the end if you want them, Joe, 20% deposit, 80% before shipping. That was the terms we had so it was a bit nicer on the frontend. After we got a 10% deposit, 40% on landing in the USA, and 50% 60 days after landing. Joe:          Wow. Dan:         And these are typical; I can stand there and say now these are just four cases that we've done we've got a whole Titan network full of members that are doing the same. Joe:          Yeah. No, I want to hear about the bonus tips. Also want to hear briefly about China Magic and maybe we can have Athena on to talk about it. Just let me ask; go ahead into the bonus tips and then then I want to talk briefly about China Magic. Dan:         Yeah, sure. Because there's loads of benefits above and beyond obviously COGS and terms. Joe:          Yeah. Dan:         Okay, so tips to success face to face always will produce a better result. They often pay for the trip and that's what you got. Think if you're looking at a cost offset, you'll often get to pay for the trip in the renegotiation. Always ask for more than you need; really important. You probably won't shake hands there and then as I said. Make sure if you come to see the boss, you don't want to be waiting on a middle person or a middle man so they then you have to go and sort of do the translation. You want to be in front doing the deal with the boss. Before you go into that environment, before you even head out to China, if you've got a representative from that factory or you've got a sourcing agent that handles that relationship for you, then get them onside. So run through the presentation with them first so that when they're in the room, they've already done the thinking, they're already standing there, and they can get the buy-in of the boss in the room. Consider consolidating your orders to one supplier. It gives you more buying power. And one thing we're a big fan of in Titan and in China Magic is leveraging an outside adviser. Because then you can play the whole good cop bad cop. If you want to maintain a good relationship you can bring in someone that's like an external advisor to crack the weight a little bit and you can call them your finance person. You can call them whatever you want to. That allows you to do that. And remember, every relationship and supplier cash flow is different so you have to really; don't just tell them what you want, understand what they need, and bring the two together. And this is counter-intuitive but it's often being willing to pay more to achieve the terms especially in the beginning. So one thing you can do is if they're not budging, you can afford to give them a dollar bum pull over here now on a product to get them to nudge on the payment terms which is still going to give you more cash on hand and then come back to renegotiating the COGS once you're up at the higher volume because you've been off to some of the growth. Joe:          I like it. Dan:         And also take gifts as well; take presents. It works. It depends; there are controversial views on this. So Kian Golzari for instance who is a sort of an expert on China Magic everything; he's doing sourcing and product development. Kian loves; he's from Scotland, he's from Edinburgh, he loves taking some Scotch whiskey with him. Other people take chocolate. There's the whole red envelope with some cash in it for the children but that one's a bit more controversial. But yeah, just my advice would be take something that's important; not important but personal to you, and then that creates a talking point and it creates more of a relationship and a bond. Joe:          Okay, that sounds great. I think one of the most important things I see people that are running great businesses and eventually sell them, they're great businesses, do great for buyers. They really have been to China and they always wind up with either better terms or better COGS. It sounds like a scary place to me, though. I've never been so is China a scary place? Dan:         It really isn't. So when I first got involved in the early days with China Magic I went out there as a guest speaker and then ended up becoming a co-organizer with Athena. I thought the same but when you land; if you think like Guangzhou where the Canton Fair is. That's where we go. It's the biggest product sourcing Fair in the world. I think they start setting up 5 million products on display during the Canton Fair. They're used to receiving hundreds of thousands, if not millions of westerners through that fair over the course of 12 months. The airlines are efficient. The flights are cheap. I mean from the US, the flights are $500 on a good day it's $400. Joe:          Wow. Dan:         Yes. I mean, it's really cheap. That's for obviously economy. I got a first-class ticket; I mean first-class pod for two grand. Joe:          Wow. Dan:         So yeah I mean it's cheap. We head out there and we're picked up by a nice comfortable bus and we stay in the Four Seasons Hotel which was rated Forbes Best Business Hotel in the world 2019; the one where we go. So they look after us. We've got five staff service and food, good internet. We then head over to the fair. This isn't a market; there are other markets like Ebru and stuff which are a bit more like rack markets, Canton Fair is a professional establishment. All of the suppliers there are paying serious money to have a booth at this fair. So if they don't speak English themselves, they'll employ English speaking representatives. So you can have a really good conversation there. Sometimes you have to work with a bit of culture and there are definitely cultural barriers that you have to learn, like receiving a business card with two hands and showing that respect. It goes much further and Ken covers all this in China Magic. We go into depth like we spend some of that four hours just going into how to have a conversation with a supplier so that they know you are educated. But yeah I mean, to cut a long story short, it really isn't. Like I walk around in my shorts and my t-shirt, I go down and they've got little smoothie bars now I'm on the streets by the hotel. It's quite a pleasant place. Joe:          Fantastic. How do people learn more about Titan Network and then China Magic and again I think we ought to probably have somebody on for China Magic and what that event is all about because it's; I don't know, it's the next step. I don't know if I would want to go on my own and I assume that you would not recommend that. You go with a group that does this on a regular basis. So tell us about how more people learn about Titan Network and in particular this cash flow management renegotiation, all of the different steps that you've talked about. Dan:         Yeah, sure. So if you want to know more about Titan Network, we're an invite-only membership organization for Amazon sellers. We're going from strength to strength. And the thing about Titan Network is it's created by sellers for sellers. So it's not about any one person's success. It's not like a guru led thing. You can learn it at TitanNetwork.com. That's where you go and learn about Titan Network. And if you feel like you want to find your tribe and your family, then take a look there and you can apply for Titan Network. If you want to learn more about China Magic go to ChinaMagicTrip.com. It's got the full trip details on it. I'm going to give you access to a little special link. If you go to ChinaMagicTrip.com/masterclass we go into a bit more depth on these payment terms upon negotiation stuff. And it's got off-screen shares. You can actually see some of the slides. And that's all out there free of charge so you can go and take a look at that. Yeah, I'd love to do a follow up about China Magic. I'll bring Kian on, I'll bring Athena on and go into the depths of like not just payment terms and cash flow, but how do you build these relationships and how do you find these factories that you're not going to find in Ali Baba, how do you improve the quality, how do you differentiate products in 2020; yeah, we could talk about a lot. Joe:          Well, I think it's a great service to the people that are Amazon sellers or even just not Amazon sellers, other people that sell-off of Amazon need better terms as well. Dan:         Yeah. We're seeing Shopify sellers. We're seeing a lot of these influencers on Instagram that are realizing they've got an audience. If they apply a physical product to that audience, they're going to make money. We're seeing all these guys come along now because it doesn't matter whether you're selling on Amazon or Shopify, physical products are physical products. And to your point about going alone, there are seasoned travelers out there that will have no issue in visiting China themselves. But for me, it's about return on my time, a return on investment on my time so if I can go with 75 like-minded sellers at a similar point the journey led by multiple seven and eight-figure sellers, get shown 30 years' worth of sourcing experience across Marcy, Kian, myself and the team in a couple of days; so condense that learning period, get the COGS on payment terms on it and every single evening mastermind for four hours a night on every single area of the business, that to me is a bigger return on my time than just going over to China myself. So that's kind of my view on it. Joe:          Yeah, if I was in the e-commerce world myself, I'd be in. I'd want to bring my son though so he enjoys the world travel. Maybe in another life, I'm out of the e-commerce business myself. I'm an entrepreneur at Quiet Light Brokerage only. So listen Dan, I appreciate all the time you spent here. I think its great advice and I know from experience that people that exit their business for the maximum value end up doing a lot of the things you've talked about so thank you. I appreciate it. Dan:         Yeah, no there's just a final closing point now. We should tie this back to valuation. So you'd go how does this make my business worth more? Well, I think I'll just spin-off three raises in my head to maybe cut this in. One is it's going to make you more attractive as you've got solid foundation relationships with your supply chain and you're not relying on Alibaba or some sourcing agent. Buyers want to know you've got the full foundation. Two if you've got more margin, you've got more profit, more profit, bigger valuation. And three, if you've got better cash flow and more cash flow on hand, you can compound that freight faster which means you achieve your valuation faster. So that's how they tie it back to valuation. Joe:          And again, I say it and I'll stop saying because Mark keeps correcting me there's no fifth pillar. All of the things that you're talking about make you a better business person; somebody that others will trust because you're instilling confidence in them that will bring you better value as well. People if they trust you they're willing to pay more for your business. So Dan, great stuff, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Dan:         I appreciate it, Joe. Thanks for the time. Resources: Titan Network China Magic Masterclass China Magic Trip Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com  

Back in April, Dan did a handful of online live radio shows featuring tons of great Philly music. Unfortunately, two of those shows were lost to the ether after they happened. So Dan put them back together in the studio for your listening pleasure. Enjoy the playlist from April 8th, reassembled and better than ever. Go to 25oclockpod.com and click the blog post for the full playlist. 

Typically, this is a bonus series that we do over on our Patreon. However, due to COVID-19, we thought it'd be nice to give you guys a little bonus eppy to help you get through the day. Life Itself comes highly recommended by Julio of The Contrarians podcast. So Dan finally sat down to watch it and brought Ashlee along too. How much does knowing Dan Fogelman wrote and directed this contextualize the whole movie? Why is Annyong(Ashlee's dog) the Emotion Gestapo? Did Dan cry, or was he a real manly man? All of these questions are answered as well as many more! Review us on Podchaser for Charity: https://www.podhttps://t.co/S6Se6pySdBchaser.com/users/netflixnswill Couch Potatoes Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1966430233603079/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/netflixnswill/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/netflixnswill Email: netflixnswill@gmail.com Website: https://www.netflixnswill.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/netflixnswill Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/netflix-n-swill/id1142744188?mt=2 

Talvisota päättyi (tänään tasan 80 vuotta sitten) 13.3.1940 raskaiden taisteluiden jälkeen. Ulkoministeri Väinö Tannerin rauhanehtoja selostanutta radiopuhetta ei kuitenkaan seurannut helpotuksen huokaus vaan kollektiivinen suru. Ehdot järkyttivät ankaruudessaan kansakuntaa, joka eli sodan viimeisiin päiviin asti siinä käsityksessä, että sotamenestys on ollut suomalaisille myönteistä. Suomi oli taistellut 105 päivän ajan ylivoimaista vihollista vastaan ja ollut koko sodan ajan siihen asti ennennäkemättömän kansainvälisen huomion ja myötätunnon kohteena. Talvisodan taisteluiden myötä nousivat esiin ikonisina käsitteinä niin talvisodan henki kuin talvisodan ihmekin. Ne voimistuivat suomalaisuuden suurina tarinoina, kun vielä sodan jälkeenkin maa sai säilyttää laillisen järjestyksensä ja valtiollisen itsenäisyytensä. Itä-Suomen yliopiston sotahistorian dosentti Pasi Tuunainen kertoo minkälaisista tekijöistä rakentui talvisodan ihme, eli pärjääminen taisteluissa Puna-armeijaa vastaan. Sodan kulttuurihistorian tutkija Tuomas Tepora Helsingin yliopistosta puolestaan analysoi talvisodan henkeä ja talvisotaa yleisemmin kansallisen kertomuksemme peruskivenä. Toimittaja Ville Talola. Kuvassa Helsinki 13.3.1940, rauhaa juhlitaan - tosin suruliputuksella. (SA-kuva)

Theme Song: End Title (Hyper Potions Remix) - Materia Collective The Xbox Series X and PS5 are just around the corner...probably. So Dan and Antonio discuss what features and/or changes they want to see to get them to buy the next generation on day one! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Huge thanks to Gamer Vs. Tailor for their support! Go to gamervstailor.com for more information on the first every cosplay school in Las Vegas! Follow Antonio on: Twitter: @AKLTrifecta Facebook: AKLTrifecta Twitch: AKLTrifecta Download Project Sota on Game Jolt! Follow Dan on: Facebook: ThePerpetualPlayer1 Instagram: ThePerpetualPlayer1 Twitter: @PerpetualPlayer Twitch: ThePerpetualPlayer1 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/newgameplus/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/newgameplus/support

So Dan has Coronavirus. Also, movies! Downhill, The Photograph, Emma., and Sam Mendes’ utterly peculiar 2009 comedy Away We Go.

Our guest today, Dan Blank, sure seems like a man who loves his work. On his own podcast, the Creative Shift, he’s a warm and engaged interviewer. In his emails, he’s genuine and engaged. Is he selling his book and his services as an advisor to authors developing their platform and launching their work into the world? Sure, but it never feels like he’s selling. It feels like he’s sharing.Wouldn’t we all like to feel like that, and have our readers see us that way? We were hoping Dan would share his magic sauce and we’d all go skipping off towards easy street down a rainbow path, but it turns out there’s some work involved here. So instead, we talked about process, from the way you manage your personal trolls to the way you manage your emails, and then we talked—buzzword alert—authenticity, and finding the things you genuinely want to share with the people who are a match for your work. (You can download Dan’s free guide, 5 Ways to Immediately Connect with Readers, here.)Episode links and a transcript follow, and that’s it for shownotes, because man has it been a couple of weeks. It’s been February for at least a year, right? And I thought January felt long. A few things you can do to help us out or get more #AmWriting:Review us in your podcast app.Join the #AmWriting Facebook GroupSupport us with a little cash, and get periodic #SupporterMini episodes (next week: #OutlineShortcut) and weekly #WritersTopFives every Monday that isn’t an unexpected school holiday that kicks my ass. FanFaves include Top Five Details to Flag in Your Publishing Contract and Top Five Ways to Win at Newsletter Subject Lines. As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode. LINKS FROM THE PODCAST#AmReading (Watching, Listening)KJ: Such a Fun Age, Kiley ReidHow Could She: A Novel, Lauren MechlingRed, White, & Royal Blue: A Novel, Casey McQuistonSarina: The Starless Sea: A Novel, Erin MorgensternDan: Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew RobertsBonus: Clementine, The Life of Mrs. Winston ChurchillOur guest for this episode is Dan Blank, and you can find more about him at We Grow Media.This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting for details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ (00:00):Hey listeners, KJ here, if you're in with us every week, you're what I like to call people of the book. And some of us book people discover somewhere along the way that not only are we writers, we're people with a gift for encouraging other writers. Maybe that comes out in small ways for you, but for some of you, it's a calling and an opportunity to build a career doing work you love. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator provides book coaching to authors (like me) but also needs and trains book coaches. And if that's got your ears perked up, head to authoraccelerator.com and click on become a book coach. Is it recording?Jess (00:41):Now it's recording.KJ (00:43):Yay.Jess (00:43):Go ahead.KJ (00:44):This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.Jess (00:48):Alright, let's start over.KJ (00:48):Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Now, one, two, three. I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is our podcast about writing all the things - fiction, nonfiction, essays, book proposals, all the things that I list every week because this is the podcast about sitting down and getting your writing work, whatever that is, done.Sarina (01:20):And I'm Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of 30-odd romance novels and my new one is called Heartland. You can find more about me at sarinabowen.com.KJ (01:31):I'm excited for Heartland. I was just crawling all over your website today for no apparent reason. Anyway, I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of The Chicken Sisters, a novel coming out in June of 2020, as well as How To Be a Happier Parent, which is out in hardback now and in paperback this summer. And I am excited to say that we have a guest today. So let me just introduce him. Our guest is Dan Blank. He's so many things that I don't know what to put first, so don't judge me by how I rank these. But he is the host of The Creative Shift podcast, the author of Be the Gateway: A Practical Guide to Sharing Your Creative Work and Engaging an Audience, the creator and wunderkind behind the We Grow Media Organization, and a man with a true passion for what he likes to call a human centered approach to reaching your audience. And I would have to say that Dan has a human centered approach to everything. So, welcome Dan.Dan (02:32):Thank you for the lovely introduction. I appreciate that.KJ (02:36):You're welcome. A couple of weeks to go. We recorded an episode on what we do all day and you don't have to convince either of us that the most important thing that we do is create. But we both struggle to put that first sometimes because of all the other stuff that feels pressing. And all that other stuff is mostly about marketing, and promoting ourselves and our work, and getting it out in the world and communicating with our editors or agents or audio book recorders or cover designers - just so much stuff. So we are hoping to have kind of a two-part conversation with you: if getting the work out in the world is the second most important thing, how do we do that better and smarter instead of just chasing shiny new opportunities and how can we get it done? And full disclosure here, before I stop talking, I think that you love connecting your work with people or at least it feels that way to me. And Sarina and I both would like to feel that way. So I have dubbed this #HowToLovePromotingYourWork. And that's not a challenge or anything. I did not ask you a question. How can we start? What should be my first question?Dan (03:59):To me, it always starts with clarity. And I totally agree with you, that for a writer it begins with their craft. It begins with what they create, why they create it, and of course their ability to do so. And then from that, it's about the idea of connecting it with people. I find that a lot of people absolutely do what you say, they struggle to create because of all the other important things in life. And sometimes it is distracting. Like going on a co-host website for no reason and just spending time there, which I do all the time. But a lot of times it's critically important things like kids, and job, and to feeding your family, and that sort of thing. So when I think of the idea of productivity and getting writing done, a lot of what I think about is that battle for clarity. Of knowing what is the most important thing, and knowing it in your bones, and having made decisions around it. And I think if you don't have that first, then it's very difficult to start weighing things in your day. Of like, well I should volunteer for that, I should do this, maybe let me just check that out, and someone told me about that book let me check that out, or let me get back to email. So the place I like to start is talking about clarity, but I'm not sure if that's starting too far back for you.Sarina (05:23):I would love to jump in and tell you that you're already saying some things to me that really resonate. Because my relationship to productivity and to my clarity of purpose has changed so much over the last five years and not in a healthy way. And I'm sort of struggling to go back to where I was. Well, I started writing romance novels out of frustration about five years ago, because the things that I had been working on were not working, not finding a market. And so I wrote the first couple just out of joy and just for fun. And I accidentally became a romance novelist because the moment that my first romance came out, then I found success. So everything started to work for me. But the problem is now that my relationship to that work has changed so much because of reader expectations. And now my inbox is full of people who want things from me. Whereas, when I first started writing these stories, they were just for me. I mean, I had the hope that somebody would read them, but now I literally get messages every day from people who are demanding that I do a particular thing next. And it's really messed me up a little bit. You know, when I sit down in front of my computer in the morning now, I have all those voices in my head and they want certain things to happen in my fictional worlds and they want certain books next. But I'm on deadline on this other one. And you know, cry me a river, right? Because I have an engaged audience, but sometimes it's too loud.Dan (07:19):Yeah. I mean, KJ knows this about me. I work in a small studio here in New Jersey and on one of the walls is nothing but photos of artists, and writers, and musicians who inspire me. And I pick photos of them when they are either very young, before they've had success, or when they're sort of in that moment of risk. And I stare at them all day. And you talking about that thing that a lot of people have, which is I don't want to write to an audience, but I want to feel that my life is filled with an audience. And how to navigate that is a tricky thing. And as I look at that wall right now, I think of how all of these other creators had to deal with that, too. You come out with a successful album, or painting, or show, or performance, or book and you're immediately thrilled at the success and then saddled with that success. And you're also talking about not just in your head, you're talking about, it's like infiltrating your day through email, and probably through private messages, and things like that.Sarina (08:20):Yeah.Dan (08:24):Now we will get to the crying. I mean the first thing I think about that, is the ability to compartmentalize it. And sometimes that is a system you create. So you have a virtual assistant who is actually in your inbox and moves things to different places so that you're not always confronting them at a bad moment. That's one way to do it. Another way to do it is to sort of reframe feedback from readers almost in a community marketing role. So you're expecting this. And the way I like to think about that is to have a process. Because if we think about anyone, JK Rowling, anyone who has a big fan base, and all day long fans come up and tell them about their life there's a real emotional baggage to that. Let alone if they're saying, why don't you do this, why don't you do that? If it's reframed as this is a marketing role, this is a reader connection role, this is a me being there for people role. In a background way that might be a way to compartmentalize it in your mind, but then the service that you're doing of engaging with them, it's a whole different thing. You have a process by which to process that. And again, I think KJ knows this from from my work, but I have this little thing I call creativity cave trolls and it's basically anything that distracts you, takes you off of your clarity. And I imagine that this is one of those cave trolls for you. And the whole concept behind it is not that you want to kill the troll, the troll will always be there. It's sort of this dumb, lumbering thing that will always be a part of your life. And the way that you manage that is that you build a system to manage it. You're always going to get these emails so let's plan for those emails and let's find a way to process them. Again, it could be hiring someone, it could be flagging them in your inbox, and you deal with them only on Mondays from 4:00 to 8:00 PM. Or you have a script that you use, something where if you know they're going to come and take you off track, we find a way to process them. And then hopefully that would give you more mind space to create and then fewer things to take you way off the rails.KJ (10:40):And I think that we all struggle with that inbox full of demand. Whether it's reader demand, like Sarina gets, or editor demand, or school volunteer demand, or just all the things. My inbox right now is full of direct messages from social media and many of them there were, 'Yeah, I sure I would love to be on your podcast, actually.' But they all require sort of a processing time that is very real and that's so annoying. Why can I not just process them in the amount of time that it takes to read them? That's a little crazy, but it's just like, why does it take me 40 minutes to crank through three emails?Dan (11:35):Can I really dig into email? Is that okay? Cause I'm so passionate about this. Okay, so I know this is another thing KJ and I've talked about in the past, which is my philosophy that your inbox is not a to do list. And the problem I think a lot of people have with email is they ask for it to do too many things. And it's one channel. So a number of ways to even think about what you just said. And that's to: one, turn off the notifications. If they're going to go to Instagram, or going to go to Twitter, let them go to Instagram and Twitter. Don't also have them pop into email because then that's a bottleneck for everything. Another way to kind of lighten the load is to think about having different inboxes for different purposes. So one thing that I do is I have almost every newsletter that I get (and I get a ton of newsletters cause I kind of study them) I have an email inbox (a Gmail account) just for newsletters. So the email that I use every day gets almost no newsletters. And I unsubscribe from everything. You know, if I buy something from Guitar Center and they accidentally put me on their newsletter list, I actively unsubscribe from things, I actively route things to different inboxes. And the idea is the fewer things I have to even look at and sort through, the more clarity I have to manage the things that are there. So that's sort of the first thing I would say with email and the second thing is, again to sort of have a process to process the inbox. So I'm one of those really, really, really annoying people who's basically always at inbox zero. And that's because I'm always offloading things from email. So the super quick version of what I do is I don't consider my inbox my inbox. I use Apple mail and they have like a flag folder and Gmail has a star folder. So right then and there when I open up email and they all pop in in the morning, I don't really read them, I flag emails that I have to look at. So everything I don't flag just goes into the endless archive. I don't worry about deleting them, I don't move them into folders and pretend that I'm like a librarian of my inbox cause that takes a lot of time and decision making power. Then I just go to my flagged folder and there are just the 16 emails I flagged let's say that day. And from what I do then is I try to process what I can quickly. Like if I can just do a one word or a one line reply back, I do that. And for anything more, if it's client saying, 'Oh, can we do it out here and I'm gonna add this to our agenda', I move it out of email, I put it in the folder I have for that client. I move it into another working process, I don't keep it in the inbox. And for things I can't process right away either I leave it in there until later in the day or I email that person and say, 'Thanks, I'm going to get back to you within 48 hours on this.' So I always take action on it and where I can't take action, I at least set an expectation that I see you and you will hear back from me at a certain time. And that sort of has worked wonders for my inbox. It's been a very long time since I've ever worried about email because that system works for me. So I typically end the day with a totally empty flags folder.Sarina (15:05):Huh. I love how analytical that is because it seems like maybe I could manage that as I'm analytical about most everything, but I also hear you sort of saying that I should just get over my anger at some of the things that people email me.Dan (15:24):Yeah, I mean I think that there's such a power, there's such an energy that it takes and I like the idea of how do we flip that? How do we have a script that we can send to these people? How do we have a thing in your website that says how you deal with it?Sarina (15:39):Oh, I have the thing, it's just that people don't pay attention. It says in beautiful pink letters right above my contact form. Like, 'Due to the volume of questions Sarina cannot respond to questions about publication plans, audio plans, paperback dates, et cetera. Between the newsletter and upcoming releases we have you covered. Thank you for understanding.' And every day I get an email that just says, when is the audio book coming out? Or something like that. But it's partly this, I've had to cross this little personal rubicon where pretty much before last year I really believed that everyone who reached out to me with a question deserved an answer, and promptly. Because that person's about to throw down $15 for my audio book. And then I just had to come to a place of, 'Well, I won't ever produce another thing again if I'm always answering that question.'KJ (16:38):It's not a bad problem to have.Sarina (16:41):I saw it as a problem.KJ (16:42):I know you do.Sarina (16:44):Well, I actually don't respond anymore to that particular question and I definitely do not respond anymore to, 'Is there ever going to be another book about so-and-so?' Because, like I've said, I've reached this place where I can't actually reply to everything or I won't finish the writing goal of the day, but it feels bad not to tell that invested person that I can't answer your email. Except it says right over the contact form basically click here to see all the public plans. Like, if you're curious about a thing, here is the page for that. So yeah, I'm a little stuck.KJ (17:38):I know you have a virtual assistant, they could just weed those for you and have a canned response that says what the pink letters say, only friendly, not that pink letters aren't friendly. And then you would know like, okay those people all got an answer that basically said nothing, but I didn't have to do it. When I was getting my New York Times emails, I had somebody do that for some of the years, depending on the years, just, you know, volume of submissions, blah blah blah. Because I did feel like everyone deserved at least a basically automated response. It's hard, cause arguably everyone doesn't deserve a response. It's sort of like the social media direct messages for me. And that's an interesting one, Dan. Cause I don't actually ever go on this particular platform, but I have such a large following there that I don't want to shut it down. That's why the Twitter dm's come and my assistant handles most of them, but these were all things she couldn't handle. Somebody who was cleaning it out, but I don't know. I mean you've probably thought of that and there may be reasons that you haven't done it, or haven't done it yet.Sarina (18:55):Well, I have somebody on some of these platforms. But of course Facebook makes it difficult.KJ (19:04):Yeah, Facebook won't let you.Sarina (19:05):Yeah. Like if I share with my Canadian assistant, my login, then Facebook will flag me as not a real human.KJ (19:16):Really, Facebook messages are like the bane of my...that should have an audit. You should be able to have an automated response that basically says, 'I don't do Facebook messages.' or you should be able to turn it off.Sarina (19:28):Well, Instagram is actually even worse because they pile all of the actual messages in with so-and-so reacted to your story or whatever.KJ (19:38):Yes, that's a new thing that people can like make a little clapping sound under your story, which is fine. That's delightful, clap for my story. But now it's in my dm's and yeah.Sarina (19:49):Well, at the risk that I've just spent the last 10 minutes sounding like a horrible human who doesn't like having invested readers, I did listen to your podcast, Dan, when you were helping someone who was a nonfiction author, develop a more authentic relationship with her Facebook following and she was, I believe, a client of yours. And her topic was something very accessible, but also sort of serious, which was divorced, I believe. And you said the word authentic enough times when I was listening to it that I thought, 'Okay, okay.' So this is another lesson I need to take from you. And basically after I listened to that episode, I cut out a bunch of the things I was doing on social media that didn't feel authentic to me. And I basically came home and I wrote a list of when do I feel the most authentic in my social media communication. And then I just hammer that list lately. Like those are the things we're doing now because I feel the best about them. And I was left wanting to hear how that might change when you're dealing with people who write fiction though, because obviously somebody who counsels others who are going through a divorce has a very one-to-one relationship with helping that person. And since all marketing is sort of problem solving, but the problem I'm solving for you is just that you have something to read this weekend and you didn't before, so it's a more tenuous relationship with that follower. And I just wondered - you must have thought of this and I was curious about it.Dan (21:46):Yeah, I was thinking of this and I think it was maybe in Jennie Nash's newsletter this morning. She referenced like a Harry Potter podcast whose tagline was something like, 'We don't read for escape, we read to become more human or to more fully, you know, be a part of life.' And whenever I think of like a novelist, or even a memoir writer, I think of that. Which is, to me, it's not just about escape, it's about connecting to something within someone, a worldview, part of their identity, a theme, a possibility in life. And I think about how for a novelist that can be a part of what they share. And I also think a lot about the duality here, which is the author is not the work. You know, the work is the work and the person behind it is the person. Yet as a fan of a book, or a fan of a theme, or a story, or something like that, we can get engaged with the person behind it. And that's why we love seeing cat photos or dog photos of an author who doesn't write about cats or dogs. And we have little in jokes that aren't part of the book, they're a part of that. And I think about sometimes there's a crossover. There are things that novelists can share that is about the identity and about the worldview. So if you pick just big obvious themes about love, or friendship, or duality, or commitments, or whatever, you can think of lots of little things that one can share that they align with, the reader aligns with, and also kind of fits with stories. But I also think it is about being what you want to see in the world. The word authentic I think is a very challenging one, cause we like to think it's just what we want to do. It's like who we are. But authentic, you've got to be careful with that, too. Like what is authentic? If we were being authentic, we'd all be wearing pajamas right now. You know, we'd be in big comfy chairs, there'd be ice cream surrounding us, that's very authentic to how we'd like to be. But we're all probably wearing more regular clothing, we're sitting in a desk chair, we're sitting up cause we're on a podcast. And I think that we get to filter how we're authentic online. And I think that with this question or what you're sharing here and I'm thinking about, and even your other one, I think a lot about Bruce Springsteen. Partly because I'm from New Jersey and partly because the few times I've been actually right next to him, I'm surrounded by mobs of fans, and behind them are fans, behind them are fans, behind them are fans. And here's someone like you, who doesn't have enough time to get to everyone and he's had to find a way to be okay with that. And he is (to me) the great construct of an image of authenticity. He has an authenticity he's showing you that is true, but it's also a filter of what's authentic.Sarina (24:52):Yeah, well sometimes my readers help figure out these themes for me.Dan (24:59):Oh wow.Sarina (25:01):So well, yeah. So, of course I write in series and my series tend to have certain themes running through them. One of them is hockey, one of them is Vermont. So people will post in my Facebook group, news stories all the time that remind them of little things that have happened in those books. Like this past weekend, a goalie made a goal for his team by basically flipping the puck all the way down the entire length of the ice and scoring. So, when things happen that are newsy, those things will turn up in my reader group. And so people help me identify what are those external, internal. Like the blend of what people take away from fiction and put there. And for example, I had a book three books ago where a character's avatar was Lobster Shorts because of his picture. And he was known as Lobster Shorts for the entire book and people have been posting lobster printed clothing items since the day that book came out. So sometimes I get a leg up on what it is that people are charmed by or taking away from the stories, but sometimes it's mysterious to me and I have to sort of blunder my way through the conversation to figure out what's resonating and what's not.KJ (26:38):Well, I was looking at some notes from our interview with Marika Flatt a couple of weeks ago. And she had had this thing on her website about finding the theme of your work. Like the huge theme, not the individual theme for books. And I had was writing down sort of samples for me and samples for you. And I had written something like that your theme is romance can be hard but fun or something like that. Like, you know, it's complicated, but there's a joy in it and a humor in it. And to me, that's what comes across in your social media and that's what's authentic about your writing and your connection - is that there is always the humor. I mean, joy may not be the right word, cause sometimes it's kind of a snarky humor. But yeah, finding the funny in tough situations, to me, that's part of your brand.Sarina (27:38):Well that's the thing is it's great when people help you figure out what your brand is. But from where I sit, I'm looking at other romance authors and I see so much that's really not me. Like some romance authors, they're part of their brand or their family is part of their brand. And I'm more private than that, I don't share that much. It's possibly because I'm older and more circumspective, didn't grow up in a sharing culture, but I do struggle with that, too.KJ (28:13):What, with what you're not?Sarina (28:15):Well, just that I'm reluctant to share things that other people might share.Dan (28:19):One thing I look at a lot online is people that seem to be sharing so much as I really try to see, well where are their boundaries? And I'll notice things where someone has a big following and they're sharing their family, sharing their home, and their spouse, and their kids. And on that, well where are their boundaries? And if I look for them, I often see them where it's like, oh, they do share their kids, but it's never more than once a week. It's not always, but often a profile view, or it's at home and they never mention where they live, or the school, they mention them by nickname, they share their home, but it's only in a certain way. It's one thing I like to think a lot about is the agency that everyone needs to choose what and how they share online. Because I agree with you. Everyone needs to have their own boundary and it's a different place for everyone. And I like to think of it as an opportunity to define - you know, I'm going to share this interesting part of myself, whether people care about it or not, because who I am. And I'll share a little bit of this other thing, but only so far. And I think of that even in the offline world with polite conversation with how people talk and introduce themselves and how they're open and they're open to a certain degree so that they can get along and feel human, but then they protect the things that they feel should not be for public consumption either.KJ (29:43):So Dan, one of the things that I have done because of you and that I respect about you, is that you are really big on finding pretty much exactly what it is that we're talking about here. That authentic thing that we want to share or sort of the flip side of that is the audience that we want to reach. And by that you don't mean, you know women aged 18 to 35 living in big cities. You know, you mean who are we and who are we trying to reach? And you have some sort of ways to help people get at that. Can you talk about how we can figure out what our theme and our audience is if we're struggling with it?Dan (30:35):Yeah, there's a lot to take into there. I think in general, you wanna allow your audience to surprise you in a positive way. And I think sometimes we put up these rules about what we're not, and that closes us off to what we are or what we can be. So, one easy place to begin with this, and I'm not sure if this is too simple, but a lot of writers I speak to, they don't know where they fit in the marketplace. They don't know who their comparable books or comparable authors are. And they feel disconnected from social media because they feel they started too late. Is a conversation there a little too far back or is that okay?KJ (31:17):No, that's a good place to start. And let me just say that everyone feels like they started too late on social media.Sarina (31:25):That's true.Dan (31:25):Yeah. It's funny, this is something that I'm working into my next book and it was a part of the mastermind I run. Which is a couple of weeks in, I used to do a little video saying, 'Oh you're not behind.' And I noticed everyone loved that and I started moving it up and now I actually share that video the day before we start the mastermind. Because I found that even on day one, hour one, people now come in feeling behind from a lot of things in life and it already sort of makes their experience of things so much more difficult cause it's like showing up to a beautiful retreat and on day one you walk in and you already think everyone else knows what they're doing. They're dressed better than I am. They know where to go. Like it's sort of casts a shadow on the whole thing. So in terms of what you're about, I guess there's two main ways I think about it. One is internal and one is external. The internal way is I have a lot of different exercises I go through with people to get real clarity about what do you care about, what would you fight for, what would you rather spend time on more than anything else. So I have a process called clarity cards and it's really this idea of looking at not just what you create, but your whole life and thinking what matters to me. And some of that is task-driven. It's you know, your family, your health. But some of it is I've had so many people go through this and there's a lot on there that is about their fiction, and about their memoir, and about their nonfiction work. And what they're doing is getting really clear of this is who I am, this is what I believe, this is what I write about, but this is also why I spend my time there.KJ (33:02):Can you give us an example, without sort of calling out a person? Like what would be one of those themes that might pop up on these cards?Dan (33:12):I'll use myself as an example, cause it's the easiest thing to do with no preparation. You know, for myself, I am an introverted germaphobe who is scared of going out and doesn't travel cause I'm scared to fly. Yet I have this business where I work with writers and it's typically more in the marketing end of things. So, what that means when I look at that (and I tried to describe that really pathetically) so when you look at the themes that I care about, well because I genuinely care about people who create, it's writers and it's not just writers, it's people who create. Because I feel like if you're doing that, you are advancing our culture and you are taking a risk that other people are not. So you are my people. So one, I'm already defining it there. It's not just I help writers with marketing. It's the deeper why of why do I spend all my time? Why is my wife an artist? Why have all my friends growing up been artists and writers, photographers and performers all day now? I'm at 10 years of this company and all I do is talk to writers and creators. So it's that drive part of it. It's not just I help writers market things. It's the deeper why there. Then, I look at how you started this conversation, which is if we're not creating, nothing else can happen. So what I think a lot about is the creative process and like the photos on the wall here, I meditate on this idea of having clarity of what you create and embracing, of going all in. And when I look at stories of writers, or performers, or creators, I look at the ways where they did have to isolate themselves. They had to sacrifice, they had to have the world laugh at them, laugh at their idea, and persist anyway, and only later did they see what the genius was. Also because I believe in the creative process, I mean I'm working a few blocks from where I live. I have a very small life geographically and other things I kind of said tongue in cheek before (Oh, I don't like to fly. I don't like to go out.) well that's allowed me to embrace this idea of having a life that's dedicated to my family. I'm either with them or I'm here working with writers. So in a way that's a very small life. And what it means is that I've had to say no to a lot of things because I want to embrace those two things as fully as I can. So to summarize, if you look at my Instagram, or my newsletter, or my podcast, you see those themes coming up. It's who I am and that gives me a lot of latitude to not just say, 'This is the marketing for writers podcast where we teach you how to sell, sell, sell.' Which, sure, it's part of what I do, but it's maybe paper thin when you think about all the things holding that up and all the things that I love talking to writers about. And that's what I think gives me, you said this very generously earlier, which is like you seem to love what you do. And I do. And that's why I love what I do, because I've just explored - if I don't like to go out, and I don't like to fly, and I do this job marketing with writers, like how is that the thing that fuels me? And I wake up super excited to do this work.KJ (36:31):It is so hard to take the time to work through that thought process. But it's really, I think, important and rewarding and also a great thing to think about at the start of a new year and a new decade. Going back and revisiting if we feel like we've already done it, to go back and try to find those themes and find that clarity. I'm loving this as a general thought. So to bring it all back home to this question of, okay, how can we love marketing our work? I can answer that for you, but I want you to answer it.Dan (37:13):If you know why you create, if you make creating a priority in your life, which does mean a lot of decision making and turning down other potential obligations, and you believe that the work that you are creating has a purpose and that can be a lower case P, it can be an uppercase P for you, that this work can and will connect with someone, and you care about this for all whatever deep reasons you have, sharing that work is your ability to just communicate that, to just say, this is what I believe and why, and I'm sharing it with good intentions and not shoving it down your throat. As the idea of wanting to fill your life, not just with, I wrote these books and they're on a shelf at a store, but living the life of a writer is someone who fills their life with moments, and experiences, and other people who care about these themes, or these types of work, or the conversations you have. And I think that does look different for everyone. But in general, it's not just about how do we get it done. It's how do we build a life that feels fulfilling in what we create, how we share that with other people, how we connect with them, and how that comes back around. And I firmly believe that creative work is complete when someone else experiences it. Because half of that work is what you intended and half of that work is what the reader brings to it. And I think that that is utterly, totally, completely magical.KJ (38:50):I love that. And magic is my word of the year. So, now I'm especially delighted that we're sort of wrapping up on that note. So, to shift gears, I forgot to warn you, but I hope you remember that we ask everyone what they've been reading and loving of late and to give you a moment to regroup, Sarina will start. Ha ha, you're on the hotspot.Sarina (39:22):I am digging into The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.KJ (39:27):Oh, I have that! Is it good?Sarina (39:28):You know, the beginning is great.KJ (39:31):I just finished Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid and I am currently reading a book called How Could She and I forget who the author is. And I'm having this really interesting experience that maybe even gets down to what we've been talking about, which is that I don't like the people in either of these books. I don't think you're meant to, if I'm not enjoying a book on some level, if I'm not getting something out of it, and if it's not well done, if it's not fulfilling, I don't finish. And I 100% finished Such a Fun Age and I'm gonna finish the one that I'm reading right now, but in both of them, they both really center around people with what I would call kind of a sour view of life.KJ (40:40):And in a lot of cases, a sour view of pretty good lives. Now Such a Fun Age has a lot of characters that are hugely demographically different. It's got themes of race, and class, and money. So not every character is sour about their privilege, but none of the people in these books feel very hopeful. And so I'm not having very much fun with them, even though I'm reading them. And I don't quite know what to make of that. They are more challenging than reading, you know Red, White, and Royal Blue, which is so, so totally on my bedside table and I'm super looking forward to. So I guess there's that, there's different themes. But yeah, it is this question of do you spend more time reading about characters that you would actually like to spend time with or characters that you maybe have a different life outlook and maybe you want to know more about? Maybe that's where I am with those. It isn't that I don't recommend, I wouldn't mention the book if I didn't like it. It's just, it's a different kind of liking. It's a weird kind of liking. Your turn.Dan (41:57):My turn. I'm 200 pages into the thousand page biography on Churchill called Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts.KJ (42:08):And do we like this? Do we want to spend more time with Churchill?Dan (42:14):It's interesting really, for probably the reasons you just said, a very complex character, very complex era. And this is a newer biography and it seemed to be the one that balanced (by all the reviews I could read) a lot of different thoughts, recent things that have come out, new archives that were not available earlier. So it seemed to be a very recent, modern take on a very complex subject.KJ (42:46):I just heard about a book that was about Churchill's wife and it's new and I am trying to find it, but I am stymied by the fact that there are actual human beings named Anna Churchill, and I think her name was Ana. Just throwing that out there and I'll find it for the show notes that there's apparently an interesting - I actually don't even know if it's sort of a fictionalized version or if it's a biography, but that she was apparently a really, really interesting character. So you can follow up, if you need more Churchill. Alright. Well, this was great. We really appreciate it. Before we sign off, tell people where they can find you and what you've got going on right now.Dan (43:40):You can find me on my blog at wegrowmedia.com. The podcast is called The Creative Shift with Dan Blank. Social media @Danblank and I have a little Facebook group called The Reader Connection Project that I've been doing a lot of teachings recently on social media for writers. We have a thousand writers in there, you're welcome to join. And I do a lot of different programs on the idea of how to connect with your readers and all the different facets around that from marketing, to book launches, social media websites, and then even what we've talked about a lot here, which is productivity for writers. So you can check all that out. Thank you.KJ (44:26):I'm going to give a co-sign to the idea of signing up for your weekly email because it is really good, and really heartfelt, and an excellent example of the genre, which I guess wouldn't be surprising since you read a lot of them. Sarina, you want to take us out?Sarina (44:45):I will, right after I sign up for Dan Blank's weekly email. I would like to remind you all to keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game. This episode of #AmWriting with Jess and KJ was produced by Andrew Parilla. Our music, aptly titled unemployed Monday was written and performed by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their services because everyone, even creatives should be paid. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s episode of My Disney Class Podcasts, Howie and Ryan welcome Dan Zehr, teacher, and host of the extremely popular Star Wars podcast called Coffee With Kenobi. Howie and Ryan have known about Dan’s work for some time and have been really interested in learning more and then after Ryan met him at the Disney Indy Meet, they learned that not only was he an incredibly genuine guy but the amount of projects and impact he’s having in both the educational and Star Wars Fandom circles is incredible! So Dan may not be a droid but he’s definitely the guy you’re looking for if you want to be inspired to bring your content to life in meaningful and engaging ways.   Not only is Dan the host of Coffee With Kenobi, a podcast that seeks to examine the Star Wars universe through a critical lens but he is also an English teacher at the high school level. He finds critical thinking in mythology and storytelling fascinating, as it helps us to understand more about our culture and ourselves. Dan has a Master’s in Teaching and Learning and loves film, as well as literature. He is also a member of The Rogues ( as Blue Leader ), a network of educators from Star Wars in the Classroom. Dan lives and teaches in central Illinois with his wife and three boys. On the show today you will hear all about how Dan inspires students in his classrooms to make their learning meaningful and personal to them. He shares several of his classroom projects and philosophies that are sure to inspire you to stretch your teaching and practices hopefully will encourage your students to reach for the stars. We will also hear about Dan’s podcast, his passion for Star Wars, and some of his side projects like STEAM into Star Wars and a commercial he did for Target.  After listening to this episode we feel strongly that you will agree that the force is strong with this master of teaching, Jedi Dan Z!  

Introducing When Your Dream Job Disappoints When your dream job disappoints is an issue that can cause great distress in your life. You go for the dream that you think is going to make your own life wonderful and after awhile it seems less than great. But what causes this to happen after you put in so much effort to get to where you are. Well when your dream job disappoints it's more often than not that it either doesn't match up to what you thought it would be about. Or it just becomes normal, and as we all know normal stuff doesn't seem sexy and glamorous. It is just normal stuff that we have to do to go and pay the bills. We lose track of the reasons why we wanted to do it in the first place, and that is when your dream job disappoints. So lets start by looking at email that we received that made us look at this subject in today's podcast episode Dear David, i saw a link you put on Linkedin talking about why do people go for the dream job anymore...would you mind expanding on this? You encouraged me to start my own nursery child minding job and i love every second. I am slightly surprised that you are now changing direction Claire Morgan So now let's look at the Linkedin post: Being honest you see a load of inspiration on Linkedin that in my view misses the point totally. Everyone talks about getting "The Dream Job" all the time, and find your passion and you never work again. But does anyone really want a dream job at all? Doesn't everyone simply want a life that they can do what they want when they want and forget the job? Why is everyone so hung up on finding the dream job? Do what you have to do to earn the cash and then LIVE the dream instead. In the todays podcast episode When Your Dream Job Disappoints - we of course break down the subject in the only way we know. Honesty all the way. So what do you think about the subject When Your Dream Job Disappoints? Should we care at all, or just be glad that we are in a job? Drop us a line at joinupdots@gmail.com and tell us Return To The When Your Dream Job Disappoints If you enjoyed this episode with when your dream job disappoints, why not check out other inspirational chat with Clayton Morris, Dorie Clark, and the amazing Niall Doherty You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy Interview Transcription Of When Your Dream Job Disappoints David Ralph 0:01 Once upon a time, there was a guy with a dream, a dream to quit his job support himself online and have a kick ass life. Little did he know that dream would lead him into a world of struggle, burnout and debt, until he found the magic ingredient and no struggles became a thing of the past. I of course, was that person. And now My dream is to make things happen for you. Welcome to Join Up Dots. Intro 0:27 When we're young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling in Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here's your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph. David Ralph 0:52 Yes, hello there. Good morning, everybody. Good morning and welcome to a Join Up Dots is a Join Up Dots hit Halfway through January, the sun is shining. And, and to be honest, I would do anything rather than this at the moment. It's one of those things, and this is what I'm going to talk about. Because it's when you create a job that looks sexy for a certain point of time, after a while, it stops becoming sexy. And you, you, you change, and you realise that the motivation to do something isn't quite as strong as it was previously. And I'm going to explain about that. Because I think so many of us go into jobs, and we are brilliant. They've got this new job. It's fantastic. Yeah, and I'm really inspired. And then after a while, you kind of hit or, you know, it's not as good as I thought it was, and then afterwards, and that's called normalcy that is no more see where it becomes normal. And then when you're normal is a lot sexier than other people's, it stops being sexy. So you see these people all the time, you know, living these amazing lives and when you speak to them, they seem really sort of bored. with it because it's just become their normal. And so today, today, my young friends, yeah, I could be doing anything other than this, but I'm doing it because I it's my job. And that's what we have to do. And it's gonna lead into a link that I put on to a post I put onto LinkedIn. Let's get it straight David. And a response that I had from a lovely lady that I knew a couple of years ago, Claire Morgan, Claire Morgan, and so it's all going to come together. But before we start before we start I just want to say thank you to pre guys I spent all weekend with and why we're Ben David and Pete Pete from Sutton Coldfield. Ben from I think it was was door glass door somewhere. And David was all the way down in Adelaide, Australia and they connected with me for my two day podcast course and we sat there tend to form really tend to to both days going through what makes a podcast Six Figure event. And I think I think they were blown away. To be honest, when I spent all my time saying to people, the success of a podcast is nothing to do with the recording and the microphone, and people still don't get back. But I sat with David and Pete and Ben. And hopefully guys, hopefully, we're going to see some big profits coming into your life because it's better for you. And now you know how to do it. You go ahead. So that was brilliant. Really enjoyed that. Also, I'd like to say thank you to Dan, who actually visited the Join Up Dots, HQ, yes. He's come up into the office on Monday evening. And he was a guy that I trained on online businesses, probably about six months, eight months here ago, whatever. And he's still getting ideas coming to him all the time thinking should I do this? Should I do that? So I sat with him and I said to him, let you know how to do it. Up to you, you know exactly how to do it. And I sketch this stuff out on a bit of paper for him. And you could see a penny dropped, a penny dropped. And he suddenly realised that making a living online isn't hard. It's really, really easy. And I'm going to say it again. Because I say all the time and fingers crossed, people are going to get this. You find the value that other people want. And then you give it to them. You make them see that value, and then they pay for it. And it's really, really easy and everyone who sort of come through my coaching, they get that they get that and if I haven't quite got it, there comes a moment when they can see it. And then I go oh my god, yeah, there's opportunities everywhere. So Dan visited Join Up Dots Hq and he met my my silane my daughter and he came in my house. I mean, he went down to the pub and met my wife. I gave them the Join Up Dots tour. And proven night I could just see he wasn't quite with me. He was We've made but he's brain had already switched because I think he's now got it. He can now see how easy it is to make money online. So Dan, I salute you, sir. You are not only a sexy individual, but you are now Yo Yo Mama, I will be absolutely honest. You're my mate. And I want to see you do as well as possible. Okay, so let's get on to today's podcast episode. And this, this was an email, I was thinking to myself, what should I talk about? And then I received an email this morning, and if that makes sense. So this was the email database, I saw a link you put on LinkedIn talking about why do people go for the dream job anymore? Would you mind expanding on this? You encouraged me to start my own nursery childminding job and I love every second I'm slightly surprised that you are now changing direction Claire Morgan. And so the list expand on my my thinking I speak to so many people, okay. And they are hung up on the, I want to do something amazing, I want to do something sexy, I want to go for the dream. And I understand but I really do understand that. But over the last few years of talking to literally hundreds of you, and now realising that very few actually then go for the dream. It's because it's too big. Now, I've started thinking over a period of time, but and this is comes with the motivation of doing Join Up Dots as well because because I do so well financially, there's a part of me that things I don't really want to do anything else, you know, I'm quite happy to float around, especially when it gets sunny. Find other things to do. Van do my dream job and I'm doing business with my fingers my dream job because people always say to me, oh, it must be amazing and it is. It really is amazing. But I can find out the things to do. And I've started to wonder and I'd love you to drop me a line or come over to Join Up Dots, whatever. And tell me your point of view on this, because I'm starting to think that the dream job isn't important. But it is having the dream life. You know, does anybody really want a job? A job is something that you have to do to pay the bills. But if you can pay the bills easily, then why would you worry about the dream job, you'd fill your time up with doing things that you want to do? You know, I love getting in the car driving along with the music on exploring places going for a pub lunch, just sort of just wandering around, really, you know, I just love that a little bit of adventure every now and again. And this month, we're going away for a couple of nights with some friends. And then next month, I'm going to Iceland for about a week. And then on in April, we got something else and I just spend all my time planning to do things away from the job because I now can and I'm just thinking about it all the time. So I put this post up on LinkedIn, and it said, Would love to know your comments being honest, you see a load of inspiration on LinkedIn that in my view misses the point totally. Everyone talks about getting the dream job all the time and find your passion, then you never work again, find your passion. But does anyone really want a dream job at all? Doesn't everyone simply want a life but they can do what they want, when they want, and actually get the job? Why is everyone so hung up on finding the dream job, do what you have to do to earn a cash and then live the dream instead? And so, I keep on talking to people and I say to them, Look, it doesn't matter about the big sexy being let's do a few small things. Let's be pragmatic on it, to pay your bills, get your debts down and give you the free time to then go and do other stuff. And once you start learning income streams, you can just do more and more and more, you know, I could literally do 100 A week really, and I don't because you get to a point, you know, when you do get lazy and you think to yourself, I can't really be bothered. But then people come along to me and they go, why aren't you doing more with this? I go, I'm doing. Ready. I can't be bothered, really. But there is so many opportunities out there. Why don't we just learn how to make money online? Simple as that. And so when you think to yourself, or I need to pay my mortgage off, just being like, okay, let's create the value for paying the mortgage off. And it's quite easy. I say the word easy again, because if you think to yourself, Well, I make 30 pounds a day. Now 30 pounds a day, 600 pounds a month, 900 pounds a month. Okay? So you are literally biting into quite a hefty chunk of a mortgage. Now, I think in the United Kingdom, most most mortgages around sort of 900 1200 pounds or whatever. But if you suddenly I'm making 30 pounds, which isn't life changing, but it is constant every single De Vayne you pay your mortgage up really, really quickly, you've been suddenly got 1000 pounds a month or 900 pounds a month, but you didn't have which you can then pay off our debts. So you only need to get that small pragmatically built, income stream coming through. And what I like doing is creating leads for other people's businesses. So when you drive down the high street, when you drive anywhere on Earth, you will see businesses that are reliant on other people's customers. So when you know how to do online traffic generation, all you've got to do is actually pass that traffic to them and say, if 10% of our 10 pound for every lead or whatever, and monitor it. And once you get it going, you don't even have to monitor it yourself. And I'm going to keep on banging on about this. I really am because you don't actually have to be doing the work. You build the thing. Then once he starts flowing, you then build another one and you move on, you know, I am doing, I've got five or six things at the moment, operating, and some of them are barely very small and they only pay me back maybe, you know, 80 pounds a month, whatever. But 80 pounds a month suddenly means but, you know, my phone is paid for, or my mobile phones or my kids have or whatever, you know, it's somebody else's money that comes in, which means I've been got an extra 80 quid to Ben spend on something else. And that's how it builds, you end up paying for all your debts based on other people's money. Yeah, it's not your money. You just look at it and think, okay, I want 600 pounds a month extra? How do I get this? Right? What I need to do is get 20 pounds a day. How do I do that? And I think the quickest way, as I say is to drive leads into other people's businesses, and there's hundreds of them, you know, 7.8 billion people on the planet and you can just keep on doing it. Doing it doing, it's what I teach. It's what Do and everybody out there who's been for my coaching will now know, they get that Penny drop moment, but I realised that opportunities are everywhere. So yeah, I put that post on. Why is everybody so hung up on finding the dream? Because I now think, is it the dream job that you want? Or do you want the dream life? You know, if somebody said to you, there's 3000 pounds a month, don't do anything. would you go? Oh, no, no, I still need to get the dream job. I don't think you would. And so there's so many posts on LinkedIn, so many posts on Facebook and stuff, and I just looking at them and I'm thinking, I think they're missing the point. I think people I think that ultimately, we're all lazy. You know, even the ones that are hard working and I work harder than most people. I think we still push comes to shove. We would love to do something that we want to do it in our own time and create like maybe a dream hobby. That takes out tonight. We're not forced on monetizing it, but it gives us the engine Women and we wake up each morning and do it, you know, Join Up Dots. When I'm doing it, I love it. But Join Up Dots is the lead generation Join Up Dots and I speak people across the world connect with me, I've been speak to them. Some of them I never see again, some of them. I was talking to this person during the week. I won't say any names, I won't say any genders. But I gave him an hour. So of my time they came through by email, and then I sent a nice email back and I said, you know, if you ever need to talk, you know, just drop me a line. And I had nothing to do that time. So they did. And so I connected in zoom, and they were across the world. And I gave him about an hour of my time. And it was all thank you so much, David, thank you so much for you know, your help and your assistance. I said no problem at all. You know, that's what I do. That's what I do. You know, that's I'm here. And I said, I'd really like to get onto one of your courses. Could you send me the invoice and I'll sign up for it. And then finally, if that's what you want, so anyhow, send the invoice down. And then about two days later, I get the most horrible email Back from this person, just you know, just, I won't say the words, but if you imagine the worst words that you can think of directed at me, and I just went back to him and said, well, thank you for your understanding. And we're obviously not a fit, you know, but you get that sometimes she gets some people talk about, but the majority of people that come through, I am about Penny drop moment when you see them go, yes. Okay, I can see what you're saying. This is how we do it. So for all of you out there, oh, I've had a response actually, about this LinkedIn post. And I've just seen this. This is Robert load or low day, and he's a gentleman in I think, Berlin, in Germany, but I was connected to God. He says two years ago, I'd be surprised if it was two years ago. And he says, David, in regards to your post here, I remember that you gave me the last push I needed for starting my coaching business two years ago. So I followed my dream and so far, it is still my dream job. I can help people and do what I'm good at, and all that without getting totally stressed out. So thanks again for your support. So that's great. So Robert, you know, he has found a dream job. And he's been doing it for two years. But I think there will come a time where but but it's not the dream anymore. And that's because you've grown, you've, you've moved into bigger things, and your vision is different. And you realise that what interests you, you know, when I was five years old, you know, I used to want to dress up like naughty and do jigsaw puzzles all the time. Now, I like to do jigsaw puzzles, but don't often dress up like naughty, we change we move. And if we were the same people, as when we first met, and when you see people split up and I go, Oh, you've changed and you've been a cause of bloody change. You know, I've been with you for 30 years. You've got to change. You've got to move on and you've got to reassess what you're doing in life. And I'm just in that stage at the moment of reassessing what I'm doing because I think I'm here to make a difference from you guys. And if we're aiming for the bar to be too high, but you can Can't see the dream because you don't know yourself well enough. Why don't we just get you earning some money and then, you know, walk around on a beach on a Tuesday morning? Yeah, do it that way and they maybe the dream will come later. You've taken that pressure off and you can move into into pasties new huh. I wonder, I wonder if this is the right direction I feel like it is and that's why I say these things on the podcast to get people thinking and stuff. But um, yeah, so you know, if anybody wants to connect with me or drop me an email or whatever, you're listening to these podcasts and you're thinking, Oh, you know, I'd like to do this or maybe I don't want to do bass or you want to do you know, learn how to podcast or whatever you want to do or just say hello, just drop me a line. Join Up dots@gmail.com or you can book a time and I'll speak to you one to one and we'll see each other and we'll try and reach out and touch until you become like Dan, when you can come into my office. And he said to me people say it's a shade. This isn't a shade. I said no Dan, I know is not a shade. I know it's not a shirt. And when he bought me a lovely pint and we sat there, and yeah, he's my mate, he's my mate. Until next time everybody. Think about your life think about is to dream too big. Should you just be earning some money? Would you prefer to have more time just be yourself just floating around just enjoying stuff. Whatever you want to do is up to you to make it happen. But it always comes down to the offer and providing value to someone. If you're not providing value, you are not going to make money and money unfortunately, makes the world go round. Until next time, I will see you again look after yourself. Cheers. Bye. When your dream job disappoints.Are you ready to start your own podcast and really make it work for you bringing customers and profits into your life and your business in the easiest way possible? Or perhaps you've already launched and aren't getting the results you want? If so, I'm going to teach you the information that you need that makes all the difference to your success. Now, don't be fooled into believing what others are teaching you when it comes to what matters. your podcast, get those results. podcasting success is not about the podcast. It has nothing to do with a recording or equipment. It has everything to do with understanding your market and making those customers come to you time and time again. This is raw 100% live behind the scenes podcasting mastery, not shown anywhere else. If that's of interest, head over to Join Up Dots and book a time to speak with me to make sure that you're a fit for our next course. This is podcasting mastery live at Join Up dots.com. When your dream job disappoints that's the end of China. Unknown Speaker 18:39 You heard the conversation. Now when it's time for you to start taking massive action. Create Your life is the only life you will be back again real soon. Join Up Dots Join Up Dots Unknown Speaker 19:02 Jolly Jolly

Itämeren pohjaan on upotettu sotien yhteydessä ja sotien jälkeen arvioiden mukaan useita kymmeniä tonneja erilaisia kemiallisia taisteluaineita. Upotuksia on tehty myös Skagerrakissa. Merenpohjassa lepää muun muassa sinappikaasua ja fenyyliarseeniyhdisteitä kuten adamsiittia ja Clark-yhdisteitä. Aseet ovat tynnyreissä ja puulaatikoissa, joista kemiallisia aineita on alkanut vuotaa ympäröivään meriveteen. Taisteluaineet ovat vaarallisia ihmisille ja meriotuksille kuten kaloille. Verifinissä Helsingin yliopiston kemian laitoksen yhteydessä tutkitaan Itämeren kaloja ja niiden kemiallisten taisteluaineiden jäämiä. Hanna Niemikoski on tutkinut adamsiittia ja Clark-yhdisteitä kalanäytteistä väitöskirjatyönään. Tulosten mukaan paikka paikoin lähes viidennes ja Skagerrakin alueella jopa 95% kalanäytteistä sisälsi taisteluainejäämiä. Haastateltavana ovat Verifinin johtaja Paula Vanninen ja tohtorinväitöstutkija Hanna Niemikoski. Verifin tutkii kemiallisia taisteluaineita Kemiallisten aseiden kieltojärjestön toimeksiannosta. Työ on erittäin haastavaa ja tarkkaa. Muun muassa Syyrian kemialliset aseet tutkittiin juuri Verifinissä. Laboratorio joutuu vuosittain osoittamaan pätevyytensä vaativissa testeissä. Ohjelman lopuksi Paula Vanninen kertoo työstä Kemiallisten aseiden kieltojärjestölle. Toimittaja Sisko Loikkanen. Kuvassa toisen maailmansodan aikainen japanilainen hylky Palaussa Micronesiassa. (All Over Press)

We all know that the hardest part of writing is getting started. So Dan discusses three story starters from fellow comic book writer and novelist, Neil Gaiman. Mark reads a paragraph from the deliciously dark writer, Christopher Moore. And Dan describes the writing skills he used as a panel moderator.

"Your gifts will make space for you." Joe loves a quote and Aisha Jackson is FULL of them. Ok. So Dan is in Waitress, Joe is Frozen, Aisha has done both. So we obviously had to call her!  We pose the tough questions like ... "Which show do you like more?" and "What do you like most about Joe's performance?" Totally kidding. We spend an hour with Aisha and talk about everything from getting fired, the heartbreak that goes with having to choose between jobs, and race in musical theater. We talk about building Broadway shows from audition to previews, and possibly the most intense audition story you've ever heard. Her credits include Beautiful, Waitress, Frozen, and, one of Joe and Dan's favorite off-Broadway shows, Witness Uganda. Also Aisha just got a HUGE job that will become public soon, but WE CAN'T TALK ABOUT IT!! But we will :)

We welcome back Dan Didier from The Promise Ring to talk about the album “Very Emergency.” Why do you ask? Because today, September 28th, 2019 is the 20th anniversary of this album’s release on Jade Tree Records! To that, I wanted to find a fun way to celebrate and talk about the album. So Dan and I connected earlier this week to discuss many things including the inspiration of the album artwork, the backlash at the time, the one video they did for the album, Kim Colleta’s honest opinion of the album and also her prowess for taping NBA games on VHS, and finally we read some reviews on the album from AV Club, MTV, and Pitchfork. If you haven’t, you should listen to this album now, get a feel for it and take an hour as Dan and I discuss, laugh, and then laugh some more about this album, time, and how many times we had to go to the internet to remember something. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/washedupemo)

Special Interview with Dan from Pasfield Plumbing Josh: Good morning. Good morning on this wonderful morning that is this morning, and I'm here with Dan and he's going to introduce himself and why he started business. So Dan, tell us a bit about your business. Dan: Howdie. We started our business for getting some freedom. Josh: Yeah, cool. And that's a great reason. A lot of people decide to start business to either get more money or do something different or get some more freedom or be able to at least choose their working hours. And my understanding is you're trying to build a family as well? Dan: That's correct. Yeah, we've got one daughter and that's probably enough for us. Josh: Enough? Enough, definitely, I'd say. That's one more than me and I can totally say that's enough. I've got 10 nieces and nephews and no way would I want to have one full time at the moment. Too much other cool stuff to be doing. But you're still managing to make time to be able to spend time with your family and still manage the business at the moment? Dan: Yeah, we are. I mean, obviously we're in the building stages of our business, so we are time poor. We would like more time, but we know that comes with more time and development on the business. Josh: Yup, yup, yup. It's always a bit of a battle, especially when you have to wear multiple hats and you have to be the salesman, the businessmen, the every man or woman. You can be all these things, all at once, and then still have time to be a dad and a husband. So balancing that can always be difficult. Knowing, I guess, that you need to balance it gives you the ability. Being aware of it lets you at least put your time into different containers. And that's what we're all about, is all about automation and making sure you're getting your time back. So you've got your first employee as well, which is really exciting times. It's exciting stuff. And what would you like to see come in your business in the next 12 months? Dan: Next 12 months ... more workflow from the customers that we would like to see. More private customers, more people who ... Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who call up through the website or whatever platform and they have problems and we're here to help kind of thing. Josh: Cool. Dan: We'd like to grow our team with one more plumber on hand and we would also like a bit more time for us- Josh: Yep, yep. That's all really, really good goals. And do you know what you'd like to see out of those things first? Like, I guess a marketing approach first and then cruise onwards from there? Dan: Hundred percent. Yeah. So we can't really move forward with our goals until somebody comes on to help, another plumber, but once we have that other plumber, then we'll be able to drop back a few hours per week and focus on getting the website built. Josh: Yeah. Cool. Awesome. That's really good stuff. So you've been in business now about two years or so, coming on two years? Dan: Yeah. Correct. Josh: Yup. And what would you say for anyone out there starting their business or not even started. They've just got this brain fart in their head and they want to see something happening with it. What would you say is the advice that you would give them? Dan: Forget any opinion or idea that you have as being the only way. Be open-minded. Listen with two ears. Speak with one mouth and be ready to work very hard. Josh: Yep. Yep. I could not agree more. As I was saying earlier, it's kind of like you have to choose. If you're happy working full time, would you be happy to work double full time, working an 80-hour shift, knowing that you're building up this fantastic thing that's going to flourish into the future? It reminds me a bit of what we call the bamboo story, which it goes that you plant a seed and it takes up to five years for that seed to really take off, and you plant a seed and you're watering it, you're nurturing it. Anyone else would be looking at you like, "You're stupid. Why don't you just go plant something else that's actually started to grow quickly?" But then, after five years, it goes from growing only a few inches to 80 feet in a matter of months. And that's what it is all about, being a business, I think. You need to know that you need to plant these seeds and really need to push forward, knowing that you've got good common sense goals. Because if you end up shooting and you're not aiming at anything, you're not going to hit whatever your target was. Dan: 100 Hundred percent. You need to have goals. You need to know that the moment that you're in the early stages that that's not going to be permanent. You know, it is exactly the bamboo story. You know, you're growing at the start and you can't expect to all of a sudden become self employed or be the boss and then earn the big bucks or, you know, achieve the goals that you want. It takes a lot of time. That's why not everyone becomes self employed. Josh: That's exactly right. And the people that do sometimes have very unrealistic expectations, and that's why businesses fail in the first 12 months and in the first five years, in the first 10 years, and all these other different metrics that you hear about. They just don't hang around long enough or they had very unrealistic expectations. I've got a friend who's come to me and he said, "Oh, Josh, I've got this fantastic idea for an app." And I talked to him and he goes, "Oh, but you can't steal my idea." And I'm like, "Well, you haven't really ... ". It's like saying, "I've got this fantastic idea for a new type of wood." I say, "Okay, cool, but you have nothing or no practice or process in here to allow for this to happen." But he wants to have his million idea purchased with just being two sentences on paper. And that comes down to I guess all the planning around your business and making sure that you've done the proper planning and you have a business plan. You've scoped things out and you've done a SWOT analysis and things like that. But more importantly, knowing that that needs to be reviewed and that no way sticks and is the one thing. Did you make a review at the start of business, whenever you first started, a couple years ago? Dan: Yes. Yes, we did. Josh: Have you gone back and reviewed that recently? Dan: We have and the fact that we had a review, we had goals to reflect back on and we kept that on the wall in our office. So we see them every day and we work towards them and we had our champagne moments when we achieved those goals. Yeah. You have to have your goals clear and you have to know them and you have to see them every day and in those moments when it's so hard and you're like, "What am I doing? Should I give up?", you need to look at those goals and you need to punch forward. Josh: Absolutely. And keeping in mind the goals, but also that your life circumstances change, your knowledge changes. A lot of people that we help out in business, they start off as a technician and they're looking to grow their business. And as I've said, you can't really do both. You're only one person, or two people, depending on the size of the business, and you can't just go and jump in and expect to be able to have 40, 60 billable hours and then still be growing the business. And I know from myself how I've gone through those growth pains over the years. So it's important to have those goals, but know that what you've written there, it can be adjusted. If you didn't get the jet ski by the time you had the business for two years, it's fine. You can adjust that and make it the three-year goal and then know that you've achieved some other things. And write down the things that you achieve, even though it may not have been on the original scope. Like, maybe you've decided to do this really cool documentation system or marketing thing you weren't going to be doing before, or some of the stuff ... we're talking about the quoting and lead generation stuff ... and maybe doing that is more important and is going to ultimately lead to a bigger, better goal. We have more bamboo instead of just one shoot growing 80 foot in the air. Dan: That's right. Hundred percent. Josh: Well, it's been really great speaking with you and I've enjoyed our time here. And if you do have any plumbing requirements around Southeast Queensland, don't feel afraid. We'll chuck the contact details on this blog article and in the description below. If you do have any questions or have any needs, feel the love to send us some feedback there on iTunes. Enjoy and stay good!  

Without this one thing, he would never even let his wrestlers step on the mat. On today’s episode Russell talks about a lesson he learned long ago from Dan Gable about knowing you’re going to win, and how he applies it to his life today. Here are some of the awesome things to listen for in this episode: Why his daughter’s soccer team didn’t believe they could win, and how that effected the game. How hoping for success is giving yourself an excuse to fail. And how Russell applies one Dan Gable quote to his relationships, business, and when he competes in sports. So listen here to see why knowing you will be successful is the key to making it happen. ---Transcript--- Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoy being here. I try to make a fun, exciting, cool podcast that I would actually want to listen to. So hopefully you guys are enjoying this. If so, make sure to go to iTunes and subscribe, that way you make sure you get all the future episodes that are coming up. With that said, let’s jump into the theme song, and I got something really fun to talk to you about today. Alright, so my lesson for you guys today stems off of going and watching my daughter play soccer this weekend. My daughter, Ellie, she is into soccer and she loves it, and up to this point she’s always been on the, I don’t know what they call it, not the league teams, but like the local Boise league. So it’s like, not a super hard league. So for the last couple of years, the team played together and got better and better to the point now they just thrash everybody. So this year they decided, “Hey, we should go up and go to a bigger division.” So Clickfunnels sponsored them, well I say Clickfunnels, it was really me. I don’t feel good taking money out of Clickfunnels to sponsor, but we sponsored them. And now they got these cool jerseys that have a Clickfunnels logo on the back, which is kind of cool. And they’re playing in this new league and they had their very first game this Saturday. And they’ve been working really, really hard, they got a really good coach, they got good people around them, they’re practicing hard and the girls are doing just awesome. And they’re trying to figure out, this next level, where am I at? Am I going to be good? Am I going to be bad? What’s going to happen? There’s all that fear of the new thing, right. And before we left, I remember Ellie saying, “Well this team’s way better than us, we’re going to get killed.” And she was telling me that as we were driving to go to the soccer game. I’m like, “You can’t say that. You can’t go into a game thinking you’re going to lose, or you’re going to lose. That’s just how it works. You can’t do that.” And I remember watching as they got out on Saturday and started playing, they did really good at first. It was a tied game for a long, long time. Then the other team scored once and then it was like, boom, boom, boom, scored a bunch of times in a row. They fought well, but they ended up losing in the end. But as I was watching them, it reminded me of this video I used to watch, this movie back in my wrestling days. It was a VHS tape that I bought that was talking about arguably one of the greatest wrestlers, and definitely the greatest wrestling coach that’s come out of America, and his name’s Dan Gable. Dan Gable, if you look, he’s like, I talked about him before on this podcast, he’s like the Michael Jordan of wrestling. His name’s synonymous with wrestling. When you hear, “Who’s the greatest wrestler of all time?” people say Dan Gable. So Dan’s amazing and as good of a wrestler as he was, he then went on and started coaching the Iowa, Hawkeyes and they won like, I don’t know, 20 championships in a row afterwards. And he’s one of the most winning-est coaches of all time, of any sport. As good as an athlete as he was, he was an even better coach. So this video we used to watch, it was him coaching his athletes and told Gable’s story and talked about his only lost he ever had. He only lost once in high school, excuse me, he lost once in college, his very senior year, his last match he lost, and he got so upset that he started training for the Olympics, and he worked out 7 hours a day and went to the Olympics. And the Russians specifically said, “We’re going to train an athlete just to beat Dan Gable.” And he went to the Olympics, and not only did they not beat him, but nobody even scored a point on him in the Olympics. And that’s why Dan’s like this legend in our sport. And so he tells that story in the beginning of the movie, so you get all excited. And then it shows him switching to coaching and then what he’d do with his athletes. And I still remember this quote, like Tom and Terry Branch are these twins, who Tom is now the head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes now that Gable is retired. But I remember him saying in the video, “We used to do stuff that’d make a billy goat puke. That’s how tough Gable’s practices were.” And they showed the practices and talked about  everything. They talked about the mindset and the mentality and all the things that you have to have. But there’s this one quote that I remember I didn’t get when I was a teenager. I used to watch this all the time and Gable said, “I would never let an athlete step on the mat unless he knew he was going to win.” And I remember thinking that, “Well, what if he loses?” And I didn’t get it at the time. But I used to watch that, literally once a week, we’d watch that. Sometimes multiple times a week, because it’d get us all motivated and pumped up for wrestling and for our tournaments. So we’d always watch it ahead of time, me and my wrestling buddies. And every single time that line would come up, it would stick in my head, and I didn’t quite get it. He’d say, “I would never let an athlete step on the mat for me, unless he knew he was going to win.” And as I got through my later years of high school and started competing at a college level, I started understanding that. It was interesting because I, and I’m sure if anyone’s done sports before you probably had this before. But for example, one of my best friends, one of my favorite people, we would wrestle together at wrestling practice, and I had some weird mental thing where I just, in my head subconsciously I thought he was better than me. So every time he’d wrestle, he’d beat me. And not like a close match. He’d beat me like I was a little girl who’d never wrestled before. It was bad. And then me and him would go to a tournament together and we’re in the same weight class, and I would win the tournament and he’d take like 5th. Or we’d go to this tournament and he would lose to somebody by 5 points, and I’d wrestle that same person and I would tech fall him, which means I’d win by more than 15 points, so they stop the match early. And it was just like, for some reason, every time I’d step on the mat with this one guy, my friend, in my head I didn’t think I was going to win, so I’d lose. And it was so frustrating, and so, it just drove me crazy. I don’t get it. I beat all the people you lose to, but I can’t beat you. What’s going on? And that’s when I started hearing this message in my head from back when I was watching this Gable video. “I’ve never let a wrestler step on the mat unless he knew he was going to win, before he stepped out onto the mat.” And I started thinking about that with my daughter. She stepped out on the field and she did not know she was going to win, in fact, she thought you know, we’re probably going to lose. So they went out there and they lost. And I thought of that, how many times in life that message applies. And obviously for the context of this podcast, it has to do with your business. How many times do we get into business where we’re like, “I hope I’m going to succeed. I hope this is going to work. I hope, I hope, I hope.” That’s the equivalent of me stepping out on the mat and saying, “I hope I can beat this guy.” Which means I don’t know if I’m going to win or not, but I hope I can. Right, that’s the mentality that you’re stepping on the mat. And if you do that most of the time, at least the majority of the time you’re going to lose, because you’re hoping you’re going to win. Dan Gable said this, “I don’t let any athlete step out on the mat unless they know they’re going to win.” They may not win, but they must step on the mat knowing they’re going to win. When I step into a business I don’t say, “I hope I’m going to be successful.” I step in knowing I’m going to be successful, knowing I’m going to win. Knowing that no matter what happens, no matter what the trials, the problems, the ups, the downs, the sleepless nights, things like, I’m know I’m going to win. Because if you go into it hoping you’re going to win, when those things pop up, the trials, you’ll be like “I knew I was going, I hoped I was going to be successful, but I kind of knew it wasn’t, in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t going to be successful.” You let yourself off the hook if you’re hoping it’s going to be successful. You can’t go into something having hope, and thinking I hope I’m going to win. Especially going in thinking, I may lose. You’ve got to go in believing a hundred million percent that, “I’m going to be successful, I’m going to win. I’m stepping on this mat and I’m going to beat that person. I know I can beat them.” Otherwise Dan Gable wouldn’t even let you get on the mat. He would look at you and be like, ‘Nope. You have doubt in your mind, I can see it. Therefore I’m not going to let you compete for me. I’d rather lose this match, have a forfeit than let you step on the mat not knowing that you’re going to win.” And that’s the kind of mindset that he demanded out of his athletes, and that’s why they won the 20-whatever NCAA championships in a row. Because he’d never let an athlete step on the mat unless they knew they were going to win. So for you, as your coach in this marketing sphere, in this business realm, I want to make sure that you guys go in with the same thing. Don’t step into a business unless you know you’re going to be successful. If you don’t know you’re going to be successful, it means you’ve got to step back and spend some time on yourself, on personal development and understanding yourself and your own skillset and believing in yourself enough that you can go out there and have success, otherwise it’s difficult. If I didn’t know I was going to be successful every single day walking into the Clickfunnels office, if I was scared, if I had fear and anxiety and all those things. And I’m not saying those things aren’t there. There are times I’m definitely scared or nervous or excited or all those things, but I know that when I step out on the mat that I’m going to be successful. At 10x Growth Con, when I stepped on the mat, I knew I was going to be successful. And if you watched the first one, I did, I made 3.2 million in 90 minutes. The second one I failed. I fell flat on my face, but regardless, when I stepped on that stage I knew I was going to be successful. Same thing at Funnel Hacking Live, same thing when I speak at other places, same thing when I’m selling on a webinar, I don’t go into hoping it’s going to be successful, I go in knowing it’s going to be successful. And that’s the mindset you’ve got to have. So if you don’t have that mindset yet, it might be the thing that’s holding you back. You’re hoping you’re going to be successful, and because you’re hoping you’re willing and able to let yourself off the hook, and that’s why you’re not hitting the goals and the things you want. So that is my message for you guys today. For you to go out there and again, use this for business but use this as a metaphor for all aspects of your life. There’s the girl you want to ask out on a date, there’s the business venture, the partnership you want to do, there’s the relationship….whatever that thing is, you’ve got to step into that having absolute confidence, absolute certainty, knowing that when you step out on the mat you’re going to win. And if you do that your likelihood of winning will go up. It’s the weirdest thing. You know, me losing to my buddy over and over and over again because I had this seed of doubt in my mind that man, he always beats me, let alone the fact that I beat all the people he loses to, but because I had this belief that he was going to beat me, he beat me. And it was just that, it was a belief and it’s something you can shift, that you can change. And I wish I would have understood that at a deeper level back then, but I understand it now, and I want you guys to understand it now. Because it will make your jobs, your business, your growth, your relationships, whatever you’re looking for, so much better when you go into it with absolute certainty, knowing you’re going to win. That’s my message for today. And with that said, I’m going to leave you guys. Think about that, and if you’ve enjoyed this please, please, please go to iTunes, subscribe to the podcast number one, number two leave a comment, and if you really liked it please take a screen shot of this and post it on Facebook or Instagram and tag me. Do @RussellBrunson and that will tag me on Instagram. If you do @RussellBrunsonLive they’ll tag me on Facebook. And use #marketingsecrets. I’d love to hear what you guys are thinking about this and other episodes. And with that said, appreciate you all, thanks so much for everything and I’ll talk to you guys soon.

Another day, another Podcast!  We start off today, by me once again ruining Dan's intro.  I literally do this every time, but he doesn't always share this part. What are the topics for today?  Well, I have no internet.  Spectrum has been broke at our house for a long time.  Jamie recently went to Canada, so we talk about his trip.  He was gone for 5 days, and he had no internet, so we couldn't even talk to each other.  There is a full vlog about it that you can see here:We talk quite a bit about how things worked at the Cabin in Canada.  The cabin he was at is off the grid. So Dan had a lot of questions about it!The Great Alaskan Race Movie is coming, and yes, I am excited.  I think it's time they make a movie talking about Togo, and Leonhard Seppala !  Podcast Notes by Jess Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ccmousepodcast/Instagram: https://instagram.com/ccmousepodcastYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ccmousepodcastSend us a Voice Message!https://www.speakpipe.com/CCMousePodcast Show Hosts Info:RFSDanTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rfsdanInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/RFSDanYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/RFSDan Jess from Snow Dogs VlogsInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/SnowDogsVlogsYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/SnowDogsVlogsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@snowdogsvlogs  

Futucast on palannut tauoltaan! Isak ja William palaa mikkien ääreen vieraanaan Puolustusvoimien entinen komentaja Jarmo ”Charles” Lindberg. Osallistu keskuteluun Twitterissä: twitter.com/futucast Lyhyet klipit ja tiimin arkipäivää Instagramissa: www.instagram.com/futucast/ Jaksot videon kera Youtubesta: www.youtube.com/channel/UCQPojdjir3suCXQA_09P0ag Älyttömän makeet nettisivut: www.futucast.com

Back at it again with another Podcast!  We start off talking about dog movies!  I will not watch a movie with a dog if I know that the dog dies.  I just can't do it. We talk about some of the corny dog movies out there, and which ones I have watched.  We also talk about my favorite animated dog movie!  Dan has seen some of these movies as well!  We also find out what breed of dog I always wanted, but knew I could never have. Our conversation shifts from movies to names.   We talk about our names, and our nicknames, and who is allowed to call us by them or not allowed to call us by them. That gets us talking about celebrities that live in Michigan.   18:24  TikTok and Instagram KickedThe dogs are almost at 300k on TikTok!  And Dan got kicked from the Instagram live stream!  He is trying to reach 1k followers on TikTok so he can start doing fun TikTok live shows!  So Dan got kicked during a live stream for playing copyrighted music.  We both agree it's about time that the music industry jumps on the bandwagon and figures out a way to make it so we can legally play music while streaming.  We want to share our music with our community!37:00  The Dodge ChargerYes, I have a loaner car right now.  It's a Dodge Charger, and it goes way faster then it needs to.  It's a super fun car to drive. But there is a good reason I shouldn't have this car.  I really did have my license taken away when I was only 16 years old for too many points on my license.  Listen to the podcast, and I tell the story The conversation goes to the seat belt conversation. Click it or ticket!  Dan and I remember when wearing a seat belt wasn't required.  In Michigan you still don't have to wear one while riding in the backseat of a car.  What are your thoughts on the seat belt law?  I know it's a foreign thing to younger people to even consider not wearing one! We also talk about the importance of helmets.  We both agree that you should wear them. Dan has a great story about why helmets are so important.  52:00  Off TopicWe got so off topic of what we wanted to talk about, we almost forgot about the topics we wanted to talk about on today's Podcast!  Let's talk about Ninja!  What are you opinions on Ninja leaving Twitch?1:00:00  Changing the Date of HalloweenYou are just going to have to listen.  What do you think I'm going to say about this?  For those of you that don't know, We carve over 100 pumpkins with the help of friends every year for Halloween.  It's my favorite holiday!  I think my answer my surprise you.  Dan has an opinion on this as well!1:19:00  Speakpipe Question from AddieAddie is getting braces, and wants to know what our experience is.  I have never had them, but Dan has a great story about braces! Podcast Notes by Jess Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ccmousepodcast/Instagram: https://instagram.com/ccmousepodcastYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ccmousepodcastSend us a Voice Message!https://www.speakpipe.com/CCMousePodcast Show Hosts Info:RFSDanTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rfsdanInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/RFSDanYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/RFSDan Jess from Snow Dogs VlogsInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/SnowDogsVlogsYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/SnowDogsVlogsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@snowdogsvlogs

It's the height of summer! Time for fun! Time for swimming and cookouts! Time to get out there and have a good time! So Dan and Maureen hear. But they do this podcast, which means they track the news. And this week, Maureen has decided to rebel. No more news. She is done. She has decided to go to the moon. But Dan has rented a booth in a co-working space in Santa Fe and demands that the journey continue. What are we learning, SaysWhovia? How does one process 2019, in particular this last week of 2019, which has devolved into a slurry of sewage and anger. The same way as always! Talk through it until either Dan or Maureen has heatstroke or loses a tooth. Maureen dreams of such sweet release. But no, there are tweets to discuss, and 2020 candidates, and Brexit. And the moon. There is always the moon. And each other. Come to the green at midnight, SaysWhovia. We will look at the stars together and eat ice cream. SHOW NOTES Dan's back on the road this summer, so Season Two of The Hitch is OUT NOW. Weekly episode drop on Mondays! Maureen's new book The Vanishing Stair is OUT NOW. NOW! Support Says Who and become a citizen of SaysWhovia by joining our Patreon today! You really can join for just a dollar. Or more if you want! Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo We love Darth

Today's podcast is about Kira the Husky Puppy update, Dan's son Graduating from High School, The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance trailer was released, and of course, being true to the heart YouTubers, we had to talk about upcoming Vidcon 10, that we will be attending!These past few weeks for both of us have been crazy!  I got a new puppy, Dan's son Graduated from High School! So things have been crazy.  Dan and Crystal had a house full of people for the graduation party, and as always, there was too much food.  So it's leftovers for the next week!  What is your favorite thing to do with leftovers?  Do you just eat them as is?  Or do you get creative and make new things out of leftover foods?3:50Time for the weekly puppy update!  I am sure this will be happening for the next few weeks, but you don't mind do you?  It's better then the Game of Thrones Minute right?  I am working on crate training Kira, and potty training Kira.  Those are the two big things we are working on.  And trying to get her to stop putting everything into her mouth. So Dan and I have a good chat about all the updates with Kira for this week. 12:03Petcon is coming!  Jamie and I and all 3 dogs are going to drive across country with all 3 dogs to attended Petcon in Los Angeles, California.  http://www.petcon.co if you are in the area and want to me us and the dogs, or Dan and Crystal, as they are coming to hang out as well.  14:25Oh Vidcon.  We have such a love/hate relationship with Vidcon.  This will be our last Vidcon, unless something amazing changes.  So if you want to meet us at Vidcon, get your tickets and lets do it! Dan and I discuss what the plans will be for next year since we aren't going to do Vidcon again.  We discuss the people we want to see this year, and who we hope to get a chance to talk to this year. 21:27TanaCon is coming to Vidcon.  Tana who through TanaCon last year and made a bunch of videos hating on Vidcon, and the creators of it, and the staff, is actually a featured guest at Vidcon this year.  Dan and I give our thoughts and opinions on this.  I can tell you this, we both think it's just a ploy to try to get more people to the event.  27:39The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance is coming!  The trailer for The Dark Crystal Series on Netflix came out.  Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSV42j8lccg .  And for those of you that may not know, The Dark Crystal is my favorite movie of all time.  Yes, Kira is named after Kira the Gelfling from The Dark Crystal.  So I am SUPER excited about The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance.  Do you think we should do a live reaction stream on the CCMouse Podcast YouTube channel where Dan and I watch the original Dark Crystal together along with you?  I think it would be amazing!  Podcast Notes brought to you by JessFacebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ccmousepodcast/Instagram: https://instagram.com/ccmousepodcastYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ccmousepodcast Send us a Voice Message!https://www.speakpipe.com/CCMousePodcast Show Hosts Info:RFSDanInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/RFSDanYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/RFSDan Jess from Snow Dogs VlogsInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/SnowDogsVlogsYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/SnowDogsVlogs

This is the audio for our video here: https://youtu.be/YSf3m9siUwo In this episode we take a very gentle stroll through some of the issues you might face when there are two guitars in the band. Clearly this is an almost endless topic so we’re starting with the really basic stuff. We’ve all been there with volume struggles, tones not working together, poor definition of parts… and worse than all of that: not knowing what to do about it. So Dan and I talk through some ideas that may help before indulging in some petit jammagé at the end. Where the gremlins begin… SORRY ABOUT THE DEAD CAMERASWe had a massive whoopsie-daisy in this episode with cameras. Particularly annoying as we are actually doing something different and no doubt you’ll assume there’s some kind of foul play going on. It's not the case, we just lost media from two cards. Arrrrggggg!!!!Before the cameras die, Mick’s guitar is panned slightly left; Dan’s slightly right. During the jams however you’ll hear Mick right and Dan left because that makes more sense when you’re looking at our pedalboards. We didn't edit the jams at all so they are a bit meandering. We left it all in as the sounds are interesting even if the playing isn't ha! HOW DID YOU MAKE THE BACKING TRACKS?I used the Drummer in Apple Logic to create some grooves. Then I called up the loop library in and simply dragged in some bass parts. During the filming I was playing it from my laptop over our PA speakers, enabling Dan and I to jam over. I then simply put the tracks underneath the show audio, lined it up, and did a super basic mix. That’s it. Enjoy the episode, we hope it helps spark some ideas and inspiration to play with other humans! (Or machines, ahem). Pedals & stuff in this episode… Dan’s board: • Schmidt Array SA525 Switcher Boardhttps://www.schmidtarray.com/sa525 • Sonic Research ST-300 Turbo Tuner MiniUSA: http://bit.ly/2AYjob5Australia: http://bit.ly/2mR1s8c • JAM Pedals Rattlerhttps://www.jampedals.com/rattler/ • Analog Man Mini Bad Bob Boosterhttp://www.buyanalogman.com/Analog_Man_RGW_Bad_Bob_Booster_p/am-bad-bob-booster.htm • Fredric Effects Dresden Synth Fuzzhttp://www.fredric.co.uk/dresden-synth-fuzz • Boss VB-2w Waza Craft VibratoUK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2j1ZyQfAustralia: http://bit.ly/2zeZWWx • Hartman Analog FlangerNo longer made • Keeley D&M DriveUK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2oTblU1USA:http://bit.ly/2rfACMdAustralia: http://bit.ly/2pUDUAE • Analog Man King Of Tonehttp://www.analogman.com • Analog Man ARDX 20 Dual Analog Delay & Amazeohttps://www.buyanalogman.com/category_s/513.htm • Red Panda TensorAustralia: http://bit.ly/2URKYlb • TC Electronic Sub’N’UpUK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2djv9dbUSA: http://bit.ly/2vmA2wAAustralia: http://bit.ly/2ZzUb0r • TheGigRig G2https://www.thegigrig.com/g2 Mick’s board • Schmidt Array SA525 Switcher Boardhttps://www.schmidtarray.com/sa525 • Boss TU-3S TunerUK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2nUhodTUSA: http://bit.ly/2nntRpcAustralia: http://bit.ly/2Li9A0Y • Analog Man Sun Face BC183 Fuzzhttp://www.buyanalogman.com/Analog_Man_Sun_Face_p/am-sun-face.htm • Mythos Pedals Argo Octave FuzzUK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2UT0EVwAustralia: http://bit.ly/2UTfbR3 • The Massive SecretNo info yet • Kingtone The Duellisthttps://www.kingtoneguitar.com/product/the-duellist/ • Klon CentaurNo longer made • Boss DC-2w Dimension CUK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2QITxIGUSA: http://bit.ly/2zkob3QAustralia: http://bit.ly/2CQ9IhY • Dawner Prince BoonarUK & Europe: http://bit.ly/2lXzfON • Analog Man ARDX 20 Dual Analog Delay & Amazeohttps://www.buyanalogman.com/category_s/513.htm • Neo Instruments Mini Vent IIhttp://www.neo-instruments.de/en • TheGigRig G2https://www.thegigrig.com/g2 Why do we have preferred retailer links? Find out here: http://www.thatpedalshow.com/partners Interesting bits and go-to sections…- Intro playing - now that’s a lot of modulation! 00:00- What are doing today? 3:35- Our pedalboards and amps: 6:56- A funky choppy example: 8:25- Unison guitar? 12:30- Different chord voicings… and then a capo: 16:30- Inversions and voicings without a capo: 22:40- And back to unison for a bit of gain structure chat: 25:44- EQ & frequency, fat and thin…: 33:28- …and thin and fat: 38:00- Introducing effects to rhythm tones: 41:00- Movement with modulation in rhythm parts: 44:57- Volume problems: 49:25- Jamming over backing tracks: 53:19 Guitars in this episode:• Fender American Vintage ’62 Stratocaster – Mick’s video at http://bit.ly/2cQv3yT• Fender Custom Shop ’63 Telecaster – Dan’s video at http://bit.ly/2dlZJ6K Amps in this episode• Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III with standard speaker• Sovtek MIG-50 with Custom Bob Burt 1x12/Celestion Alnico Cream speaker We hope you enjoy this episode. Please subscribe to our channel. You can buy TPS merch to support our efforts https://www.thatpedalshowstore.com We are on Patreon – crowdfunding for creativeshttps://www.patreon.com/ThatPedalShow Please visit our preferred retailers!UK & Europe: Andertons Music http://bit.ly/2cRvIvtUSA: Riff City Guitar & Music Company http://bit.ly/2cyOYjDAustralia: Pedal Empire http://bit.ly/2mWmJQf

Apple canceled AirPower: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/29/apple-cancels-airpower-product-citing-inability-to-meet-its-high-standards-for-hardware/ So Dan went with a charging mat from Studio Neat: https://www.studioneat.com JackBox Games April Fools Day gag, Everybody Help Grandma: https://jackboxgames.com/2019/04/01/everybody-help-grandma-is-coming-soon-to-the-jackbox-party-pack-6/ Cloudflare adds free VPN: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/1/18290615/cloudflare-1-1-1-1-vpn-dns-resolver-security-privacy Just after Moltz paid for three years of NordVPN: https://nordvpn.com Amazon Prime members get a free year of Nintendo Direct: http://fortune.com/2019/03/29/nintendo-switch-online-amazon-prime/ Dan likes Golf Peaks: http://afterburn.games/golf/ Lex likes Catastrophe: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4374208/?ref_=nv_sr_1 Dan likes Get Shorty: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5761496/?ref_=nv_sr_2 Moltz doesn't like anything. Except for his AirPods 2: https://www.apple.com/airpods/ Our thanks to Oregon State University E-campus. Want to take the fast track to your career in technology? Earn your computer science degree online from Oregon State University E-campus and tap into unlimited career possibilities in any field. Learn more at ecampus.oregonstate.edu/rebound. Our thanks also to Legacybox (http://legacybox.com/rebound), the world's largest, most trusted, digitizer of home movies and photos. There's never been a better time to digitally preserve your old home movies, film reels, and photos. Go to Legacybox.com/REBOUND to get 40% off your first order! Our thanks as well to Indochino (https://www.Indochino.com), where you'll find the best made to measure shirts and suits at a great price. Use the promo code "REBOUND" and get any premium suit for just $359.

The Syracuse Orange men's and women's basketball teams are both in the NCAA Tournament this year. So Dan and John are joined by former TNIAAM WBB beat writer Corey Crisan to chat about how far both teams can go, and predict their own brackets. There's also beer, of course. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we are talking about inspiring people and impacting lives through philanthropy and joining us as Dan Rashke, CEO and owner of TASC, Total Administrative Services Corporation, which is the nation's largest privately held, third party administrator of employee benefits. Dan has made huge impacts through the his philanthropic work. It is something that is dear to him and is built in to the moral fabric of his organization. So Dan, welcome to the show.

On today’s episode you will hear part two of three of Russell first presentation from Funnel Hacking Live 2018. Here are some of the awesome things you will hear today: How Russell went from having 12 businesses and always making only 3 million dollars, to figuring out that he needed to focus on just one. Why you need to focus on the “what” and the “how” to get from zero to a million dollars. And hear some stories of how a few other people were able to make it to Two Comma Club by focusing on the “what” and the “how”, and having only one funnel. So listen hear to find out why the “What” and the “How” are so important. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell again. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. We’re going to continue with day two of my initial presentation from last year’s Funnel Hacking Live event. I hope you’ve enjoyed it so far. If you are enjoying these, please take snap shots on your phone and then post them on Instagram and Facebook and tag me. I’d love to see them. And also use the hashtag Marketing Secrets. And with that said, let’s jump right into the intro music, and then we’ll pick up on the next part of my presentation. Inside of Clickfunnels and Funnel Hacking Live and all sorts of stuff, there are basically a couple of phases we’re going to be taking you guys through. The first phase in your Clickfunnels experience, is we want to give you guys all the tools you need to free yourself. Now, that’s Clickfunnels but we also have tomorrow afternoon, we’re going to be showing you guys some new features and tools and things that are coming out inside of Clickfunnels. It will continue to free yourself as an entrepreneur so you can focus on getting your message out to people, without all the techie stuff behind it. Let Todd and Ryan and the geniuses focus on the tech stuff, and you can just focus on selling what it is that you sell. So that’s coming out. Number two, we want to give you guys the education you need to create your future. That’s what these events are for, the books, everything is create an education. And then the third thing is to help give you guys a vision to impact the world. So the first phase is freeing yourself, the second phase is creating your future, and the third phase is impacting yourself. Now, during my first presentation I’m going to be walking you guys through what I call the Funnel Hacker’s Vision. I want everyone here to see where you guys are going. One of the biggest things I find with entrepreneurs is that they don’t really know where they’re going. They’re excited, they’re passionate, they start running and then they start doing some stuff, and they have some success and then everything starts falling apart and they get stressed out and then it’s all over the place. How many of you guys have felt that a little bit before? You’re my people, yes. I understand this. And it’s interesting, when I was growing my companies over the last ten years or so. I remember we got to a million dollars in sales and I started trying to decide, “How do you go from a million to ten? And ten to a hundred?” I wanted to understand that process. What are the tools, what are the things that I need to know as an entrepreneur? And I remember buying all sorts of books and courses and things, and they were great. But what they basically said, the goal of the entrepreneur, the entrepreneur is amazing at the beginning, but then you’re kind of a nuisance and you need to step away and let other people run the company.  And all the books about management and hiring people and plugging people in……and I agree with that, but I’m the entrepreneur, what am I supposed to do? If I go from zero to a million, and I want to go from a million to ten, and ten to a hundred, what’s my role? Where am I supposed to fit in? The interesting thing here is that the problem with entrepreneurs is that the thing that makes us awesome, happens to also be the thing that makes us terrible. The same thing. You’re like, how is that? That’s confusing right. So I have a question for you guys, how many of you guys in here have more than one business? Who here has more than 2 businesses? Three? Four? Five? Six? Holy cow. Seven? This is like that thing of like, who travels from the furthest away. Who’s got more than nine? Holy cow, you guys are worse than I thought. This first presentation is to help free yourself from this. I understand this more than you will ever know. So my business, this is what happened. And I want to know if your journey has been similar to this at all. This is what happened. I got excited, I started learning all this marketing stuff. I was on fire, I had all this passion, I was like, ‘I’m going to do this.’ And I started creating my first business and the cool thing about an entrepreneur, the thing that makes us amazing, is the hardest part of a business, getting it from an idea phase and getting it into orbit. You look at big companies, and what do they do? They bring in these amazing entrepreneurs, put it into orbit, and then they go hire MBA’s and all these people to come in and they’re like, “Just don’t crash my baby.” And then it just kind of stays in orbit. But getting it off the ground is the hardest part. So as an entrepreneur I get excited, I get the idea, the vision, I start creating like crazy and I get to a million dollars or so in sales and then I’m like, I don’t know what to do now. I’m going to…..and you look at it, you’ve got a million dollar business, it’s great. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to create another one and then I’ll have two million dollars coming in. That’s the first thought. How many of you guys, that’s the first thing your mind went to as well? You’re like, “I’m going two businesses. I got one business and I need to start creating the second one.” And then what happens? The second one starts creating, and it’s going and you’re all excited and you’re like, “Boom, we got to a million dollars.” And you look back and this baby you had before, what happened to it? It died. And you’re like, “Crap, okay. That one’s dead. I’m going to make another one. This is at a million bucks, I’ll make the next one.” So you go create the next business, you put it all together, and you’re ready for it, it makes a million bucks and this one dies. And you start on this path and you keep doing it over and over and over and over again. How many of you guys can relate to that? Okay, this was my life, for ten years of my life. Just so everyone is super clear with that. So I understand this more than anyone. I remember the first time I got a business, my first business I got to about 3 million dollars a year. I’m like, “This is awesome.” And I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna…” and I got stuck at that point. I couldn’t figure out how to scale it. It was at 3 million, I’m like, “Okay, if I launch a second business and I get that to three million, I’ll make six.” And I launched the second one, that’s what happened. And this one died and this one got to three million and it was like, ugh. We did all the work for the whole year, end of the year I got my taxes back from the accounting guys, looked at it and I’m like, “Crap, we did three million dollars. That’s what we did last year. Dang it, we need another business. Let’s do another one.” So we did another business, put the whole thing together, launched it, going up, everything. The tax returns come at the end of the year, I look at the thing and I’m like, “Three million dollars? We have three businesses now, how are we still at 3 million dollars?” So I did the smartest thing any entrepreneur can do, and that next year, you can ask, this is a real thing. You can ask Brent or Dave or a lot of people who were there. I had this idea in January after we did tax returns, I’m like, “Okay, we keep launching a business a year and we’re stuck at three. How about we launch 12 this year.” And we did. Pre-Clickfunnels by the way, so this was like hand coding, it was horrible. We launched that one, launched the twelve, and one or two of them does okay and it’s like, ‘Oh it’s going awesome.” And these other ones all crash. And then tax time comes and we get this thing and I was like, “We have 12 companies, how did we do 3 million dollars again?” And all the sudden I realized that the problem was me. If you look at great companies, look at Apple. There is a time when the entrepreneur is the most amazing thing in the world. Steve Jobs came in, took Apple and blew it up, and then guess what happened. He started screwing everything up. They had to fire him, they had to kick him out. So they kicked him out and then they figured things, got systems in place, everything structured, and then they’re like, “We need someone to innovate because now we’re just stuck.” And they had to bring the entrepreneur back to blow this thing up. So I’m looking at my thing as we started launching Clickfunnels, one of the big concerns a lot of people had around me, on my team, but also people in our community, they’re like, “Russell, this is awesome, but I know you. You’re going to launch this thing and then you’re going to go to the next thing.” How many of you guys didn’t use Clickfunnels for a more than a year because you thought I was going walk away from it and move onto the next thing? That’s a real thing. I got that from a lot of my friends like, “This is awesome, but I’m not going to use it because I think you’re going to move on to the next thing.” So I consciously talked to Todd and Dylan as we were starting this, I said, “Okay, I’m going to focus all my effort and it’s going to be hard. But I need to focus or else, this can be something great, but only if I focus. And it’s going to hard for me, so I need your guys’ help. I need to be able to put my creativity into something.” So we did that, and we launched CLickfunnels. Now, I’m going to walk you through the different phases, but what I realized is that the skill set that entrepreneurs have to go from zero to a million dollars is one thing, and about a million- two million, about in that range, we have to shift where we focus our creativity. At the very bottom here we call it the creativity switch, because I knew what was going to happen. And this is, again, if you read any business books they’re going to say, “as soon as you get to this point, now you gotta hire a manager and teams and people and all this stuff.” And it’s awesome, you do need that. But I guarantee that most of us creatives, if that’s our job and that’s our role, we’re going to wake up in the morning and we’re going to dread going to the office. How many of you guys wake up and you’re like, “I’m going to go hire someone today. Yay.” No, I cry when I hear that. I don’t want to do that. I want to? How do I focus that? So what I learned from going zero to a million, and a million to ten, and ten to a hundred is I had to shift where I focusing my creativity. Shift it from launching a business, launching a business, launching a business, to launching a business and then how do I grow that business? How do I drive more traffic? What are the offers I creates? So I’m going to show you through this presentation, where did I shift my focus? Where does it have to be? Because I want you guys to understand that, because a lot of you guys, and I see it….How many of you guys got your first Two Comma Club Award and then the second one came really, really fast afterwards? A bunch of them. Usually the first one’s the hardest and then it’s like, “Oh crap, that was easy.” And the next one comes and the next one comes, the next one… We have someone in two days that’s getting 7. Because it’s easy, after you learn the process it’s easy. So for us, our minds going to go to like, do it, launch the next business, launch the next business. It’s like, if we just shift our creativity from business, business, business to business and then shift it to offers and front end offers, back end offers, shift it to traffic, then all the sudden everything we’re doing is compounding and our businesses grow bigger and bigger and bigger. So that’s where we talk about that creativity shift we have to take as entrepreneurs. Now one thing I want to stress with this presentation, over the next four days that we’re here you guys, we’re going to be talking at different levels of this. Some of you guys are in the phase where you’re, like from startup to a million dollars. How many of you guys are in that phase where you’re somewhere between zero and a million dollars right now in your business? Awesome. Some of you guys are in the middle phase. How many of you guys are at a million to ten? How many of you guys in that phase of your business? Awesome. How many of you guys are from ten to a hundred? How many are in that phase of business? Okay, so one thing I want to talk about, because I don’t want you guys feeling overwhelmed as we’re going through a bunch of stuff. When we talk about stuff, I want, some of you guys will be like, “This is a cool strategy, but I’m not ready for it yet. This is something when I’m like this big, that’s what I’m going to do.” So don’t stress about it. Be like, “I remember when I get to ten million dollars I’m going to focus on this strategy, but not right now.” Or “When I get passed a million dollars I’m going to focus on this strategy.” So as you go through the next four days just understand that. Every presenter, every speaker is going to speaking to different parts of this. Now, I’ll try to reference so you guys know, “this is like where you’re focusing at for zero to a million.” “This is where you’re focusing for a million to ten.” “This is where you’re focusing at over here.” Okay, so some things you’re not ready for, don’t stress out just be like, “Cool, I’m going to come back and watch the recordings or whatever when I’m ready, when I’m going from ten to a hundred, or from one to ten.” Things are going to be broken down through here. So I’m going to kind of go through this journey with you guys on what to expect from zero to a million, a million to ten, and ten to a hundred. Does that sound like fun? Yeah. Alright, so number one going from zero to a million dollars. This is what I call the what and the how. This is where you as the entrepreneur has to figure out what in the world am I selling? And how do I actually sell it. This is the only thing that matters in this phase. If you were hiring employees in this phase and you are buying desks and getting big fancy computer systems and stuff, you did this wrong. The only job going from zero to a million dollars is this, figuring out what it is you’re selling. What does the market actually want? Not what do you want to create? What does the market want? The what. And then what is the system I’m going to use to actually sell it? So the what is what you’re selling, the offer. And then how is how are you going to sell it. The question then is, “Russell, how do I know if what I’m selling is the right thing, or I’m selling it the right way?” And the reality is, when you get the right what and you get the right how, you will know because you will go from zero to a million dollars really, really fast. The market will tell you. The market will say, “That’s awesome. I want to buy that stuff.” If you’ve been stuck in a range below a million dollars for a while, it means you haven’t figured this out yet. You’re selling the wrong product, it’s not what people want. Or you haven’t figured out the right way to sell it. Because as soon as you figure out the what and the how, your business explodes. Our 258 Two Comma Club members, I’ve watched them. I’ve been watching people try, try, try, try and all the sudden, as soon as they figure out the what and the how, boom, going from zero to a million dollars is fast. That’s how you know that market wants what you’re selling. If you’re stuck at 6 figures, 150-200 thousand dollars, in that range, you’re not selling the right thing. People aren’t excited about it enough, or you’re not selling it the right way. So the what and the how. What am I selling and how am I selling it? We have a lot of presentations during this week about how do you create your offer. How do you actually make something that’s sexy and amazing that people are going to want to buy? And then what kind of funnel should I use to sell it? We some of our amazing funnel hackers, going to be sharing the different funnels. We have a whole bunch of different types of funnels. I wanted you guys to see this. If you look at all the presentation line ups, each funnel, each presenter has a different type of way that they do their how. A different type of funnel. Some people are doing a webinar, some people are doing high ticket, some people are doing trip wire, some people…everyone’s got different things and I’m not going to tell you, “This is the best funnel for your business.” I want you guys to look at all the different options and be like, “That’s the one for my business. That’s the one that’s going to work for me.” And then use that one. Pick it, and that’s going to be the how. So figuring out the what and the how. The market will tell you and you’ll know because you’ll go from zero to a million dollars fast. But that’s it. That’s what’s happening in this phase, the what and the how. Now, how many of you guys have read the Expert Secrets book? Who hasn’t? Alright, nobody….If you look at this book, the whole point of me writing this book was to help people understand the what and the how. What are you selling? We talk about creating offers, finding your market. This is the what. Then how do I sell it? Using stories, using funnels, this book is the what and the how. So if you’re stuck, you should read this book over and over and over. I spent ten years of my life bleeding to bring this to you, so you could understand the what and the how. That’s what’s going to help you understand. So that’s, if you’re stuck, that’s the book to start studying and learn over and over and over again. It’s going to give you the what and the how. There’s a lot of presentations over the next four days that are going to be going deep in this as well. The first thing we’re always going to be selling is the opportunity switch, and we’ll get into that a little bit more later, but that’s what we’re going to help you figure out. Alright, the other thing is going from zero to a million, I want you guys focusing on just one core funnel. How many of you guys, that stresses you out? We get people all the time like, “Russell, I’ve got 800 funnels in my account, I need to upgrade.” I’m like, “800? Are you doing well?” They’re like, “No, I haven’t started making money.” I’m like, “You should just do one and just make that one work.” 800? This is a real thing we get in our office sometimes. “Russell, I can’t afford the $97 a month payment. I need more funnels.” What? Delete the other ones, they’re horrible. There’s no way, if you’re struggling with the $97 a month payment, that you got a what and a how that’s right. The biggest focus, at the very beginning, you gotta be focused on one core funnel. When we launched Clickfunnels, it took me six different variations of the funnel. I tried one what and how and it failed. I tried the second one, third on, fourth one, fifth one, sixth one, boom. That one hit. We went from zero to a million dollars in about a week. I was like, “Oh man, this is it.” Guess what I didn’t do, luckily, because most of think when we launch this funnel it’s going to be amazing, and then what’s going to happen is you’re going to get bored with it before the market does. All my Two Comma Club members, by the way, just really quick, if you just keep focusing on that first one, it’ll grow to ten. Most of you are like, “Oh sweet. What’s the next one?” That’s what we do as entrepreneurs. We’re insane. I don’t why we do that, but we do that. We understand, your ability to get 7 figures, there’s a direct correlation between that and your ability to focus on one funnel. One. So don’t stress out about 20-30. Focus on one funnel. Focus on that. How many of you guys here read the Dotcom Secrets book. Yeah, thanks. So in the Dotcom Secrets book I talked about a concept called the Value Ladder. People come into your world and they start, typically they’re not going to write you a check for a 100 thousand dollars day one. Maybe they will if you’re amazing. But most people it’s not, you have to build value to people. So you come in with something usually lower ticket in the bottom and you send people up and they get more value, and then they trust you more and they’re willing to invest more money. So I almost feel bad, I shared that in Dotcom Secrets, and what happened is everyone was like, “Okay I need to create…” the come to me like, “Here’s my value ladder. I’m going to go from here to here to here.” And then explain like 30 different steps of the value ladder and they’re trying to create all of them at once and everything. I’m like, “No, the value ladder is where you’re going, not where you’re starting.” Understand that someday I’m going to probably go here. But I’m not creating 18 funnels to start, I just need to know where I’m taking people. So this is the Clickfunnels value ladder. Oh, now you guys know what we do.  That’s it. This is the Clickfunnels value ladder. Now a couple of things that I want you guys to understand about this. When we launched Clickfunnels we didn’t start at the bottom of the value ladder. A lot of people try that, it’s more difficult. So what we do is we start in the middle of the value ladder. The middle of the value ladder is, the reason why I like is because it’s typically more expensive, which it gives you the ability to spend more money to acquire customers. That’s why I try to get people so often to do webinars, because webinars are such great middle of the value ladder things because there’s so much profit in them. So typically you can spend a lot of money to generate leads. That’s the core, that’s what we’re driving to people. So all you guys should be looking, what’s the core thing I want to sell? A couple of things about my core offer I like to do, I like something that’s infinitely scalable. Where the more I sell, the more I don’t get stressed out. Some of you guys have businesses where you stop selling stuff because you’re like, “The more people we sell, the harder it gets.” I want to try to figure out something that’s infinitely scalable as your core thing. And that’s typically where you start. When people come in and join my inner circle, or my other coaching programs, my goal with them is figuring out like, just do one webinar. My inner circle members know that I have a rule that I’ve yelled at almost all of them at least twice. Anyone want to tell them the rule? Who remembers what it is? Wanna say it loud? You have to get to at least a million dollars before I will allow you to create your second funnel. Because this is what happens, “Russell, I’m working my webinar. Russell, I’m doing this thing. Russell, I launched it. Russell, it blew up, it’s going crazy.” I’m like, “That’s awesome.” They’re like, “So my next offer…” I’m like, “No, no, no, stop. Please stop. You just created this baby, you gave birth to it. I know you’re tired of it, but there’s so much value to that. If you would just focus on it for the next 12 months it will make you a million dollars, probably 3, probably 5, probably 10. But you gotta focus.” I tell them all, “As soon as you make a million dollars, then I will allow you to create your second funnel.” I want that in your guys’ mind set because so many of you guys are creating a funnel and make $10 grand and then you’re creating the second funnel, you’re making $5 grand, you’re creating the third..you’re in this thing forever where your wheels are just spinning. It’s crazy. I did that for ten years. It’s hard, it’s painful. It’s so much easier to double down on one thing. So focus on one funnel, right. So for us when we launched Clickfunnels, this was the one that worked, we focused on it, and again you can start comma two after you make the Two Comma Club. Now the second thing, after this funnel is working and customers are coming, you’re making money, we’re at about a million dollars, what’s happening is we’re building up pressure. I want to build up a bunch of pressure so that when I release funnel number two people will go crazy for it. If I would have launched Funnel Hacking Live before I launched Clickfunnels, guess how many people would have showed up? No one. Nobody would have come. I know, I did events before and nobody ever came, it was really stressful. True story, the first Funnel Hacking Live we had 600 people signed up, and I was so scared the day of, I was hiding in the back and I’m like, “No one’s gonna…” because I had done events before where very few people showed up, and I’m hiding in the back and I remember peaking through the curtains, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, they came.” I was so excited, because this happened before. So what happens, when the focus is, you’re focusing on your core offer, you’re building customers, getting people to love you, fall in love with you, all that kind of stuff and then you can release, now here’s my second funnel. For a lot of people, then it’s like you released your backend funnel. It’s like, “Hey, now we have a high ticket thing.” But you’ve got all this pressure built up and they just go crazy. That’s where we get a lot of people here and they go and after they’ve been running their webinar or whatever it is for their funnel for a long time, then they launch the next thing and they’re like, “My first funnel took my like 6 months to get to the two comma club. Second one I did in a weekend.” Yeah, you built up a bunch of pressure because people wanted to give you more money, you released it and then boom, it’s really easy the second time. And it keeps getting easier and easier and easier. So I want to kind of walk through some stories of people who figured out the what and the how and I want to show you how fast they blew up. The first one, some of you guys may know him, this is Dan Henrie. Is Dan in the room? He must…How is that so quiet? So Dan, I know his story really well. The reason why I know this really well, is one night after he moved into the new Dan mansion, he was drinking a lot and then he made me this video. I’m going to show you guys a little clip from it. “I know. Russell, listen I’m drunk. It’s cool. Listen, I have to tell you something man. Look, I’m good at what I do. I am. I’m good at what I do. I hope I’m in the right group because I’m flippin’..I said “flippin” Am I in the Dotcom Secrets Inner Cirlce group? Bradley can you tell me? Please tell me if I am? Hold on, because I’m a little drunk. I think I am, yeah. Listen Russell, I’m good at what I do. I’m good at Facebook ads, I’m good at all that. But your perfect webinar, thank God Bradley. Can I say something about your perfect webinar, my friend? Listen, I get it, hold on, you know I gotta say this. You know I want to speak at Funnel Hacking Live, but I get it if you don’t want me to do that because I’m whatever, I cuss a lot, and I’m a loose cannon. I get it, though I would never do that, but I understand. I do get it okay. “So forget all that crap. I just want to give an honest thank you. Because look at this stuff, God, I can’t believe I’m actually censoring myself while I’m drinking. Hold on, look at this. Look at this right now. One webinar, one mother effin’ webinar, okay. One mother effin’ webinar, look at this crap right now. That right there, and the third floor is not even lit up, bro. The third floor, that’s the…you can’t even see it because it’s not lit up because all the lights are off. But bro, that’s one webinar okay! This right here is a fish light.” Alright, I’m going to stop here. Okay, so Dan, he struggled and he struggled and he struggled and guess what happened, he figured out his what and his how and he went from zero to a million dollars in how fast? In five months. That’s what we’re talking about. You guys want to hear the other cool part of this story. I’m sitting at my house and my phone blings saying that someone is streaming into our group and I look and it’s Dan drunk, and I’m watching at first and I’m like, “oh man.” And then I’m like, “Oh man, this is awesome.” So I’m like, I jump on my computer and the second it ends, I download it and we turn it into a video ad, selling my book, post it back up and check this out, right now it’s got 3.7 million views. This video has sold thousands and thousands of books for me, so thank you Dan, I appreciate that. That was amazing. Alright, so there’s Dan’s story. Jamie Cross, where’s Jamie at? Over here, this is Jamie. She didn’t know I was going to talk about her today. Jamie was, last year came to Funnel Hacking Live, the first time you came, right? And she was creating a business and she was trying to figure out the what and the how and she was struggling. She is a herbalist, herbal…yes, that. She makes herb stuff, and she makes her own soaps, her own lotions and a whole bunch of amazing things in her home. And she was trying to figure out, “how do I sell this?” and she figured out an amazing product, she figured out the what. She has an amazing product, you guys should all give her money because it’s legitimately amazing. She has an amazing product, she couldn’t figure out the how. She came to Funnel Hacking Live to try to figure it out. We talked about Perfect Webinar. And what’s funny about her is she’s like, “How do I sell, I’m selling soap and lotion. I can’t do a webinar.” How many of you are ecomm people are like, “Russell, your webinar sucks. I’m selling physical products.” A couple of you guys are saying that to me, I get it. So she didn’t say that. She’s like, “I gotta figure this out. I know the what, but how am I going to sell this.” So she tried doing webinars and all sorts of stuff and eventually she made a four and a half minute perfect webinar facebook live, and in the first 90 days went from zero to 90,000 dollars in sales and has been blowing up ever since. Isn’t that amazing? Yeah. So figure out the what and the how. This is the first phase you guys, if you’re not there. This is the, all you should be thinking about every single day, “What am I selling, how am I selling it? What am I selling, how am I selling it?” And you put it out there, and then the market will tell you if you guessed right. If you didn’t come back, back to the drawing board. What and how, what and how. What am I selling, how am I selling it? What am I selling, how am I selling it? Put it out there and the market will tell you if you’ve failed or not. That’s the game. As soon as you know, then you can blow it up. Next one, Liz Benney. Unfortunately Liz isn’t able to be here this time. Same thing with Liz. I started working with her, she called me up, she joined one of our coaching programs. The very first call I had with her she’s like, “Russell, my goal is to make $50,000 in the next 30 days.” I was like, “That’s a horrible goal.” She’s like, “What?” I’m like, “This is the deal. We have to figure out your what and your how. It’s going to take a little while and it’s probably not going to happen in 30 days, but we’re going to try some stuff and figure it out. And as soon as you figure it out, then you can make 50,000 dollars really, that’s really actually small thinking. But it’s going to take more than 30 days to figure out this initial thing.” So I kind of set her expectations, and she went out there and spent the next four or five months figuring out the what and the how. She figured out what to sell, she created the product, figured out how to sell, created a webinar, and as soon as it worked went from zero to Two Comma Club almost overnight. Next one is Natalie Hodson, is Natalie in the room. Yeah Natalie. Give her a huge round of applause. You’re going to have a chance to hear from Natalie here in about an hour or so, which I’m very excited for, to hear her presentation. I don’t want to spoil the whole thing. But last February she came to an event, and afterwards she launched a book that went from zero to Two Comma Club in like four books. Crazy. An ebook, a $37 ebook, amazing. She figured out the what and the how. And there’s over 258 other stories just like that in this room you guys. I want you to understand, that’s the first phase. Zero to a million is figuring out the what and the how, the what and the how. And you gotta figure that out. Are you guys committed to that, figuring out the what and the how? And if it doesn’t work, don’t get stressed out. Some people launch something, it doesn’t work and they’re like, “Ahh. This doesn’t work. Funnels are a scam. Russell is a scam. I tried the thing and it didn’t work.” No, you gotta, Clickfunnels I had to do six, and I’m pretty good at this game, six funnels before we got one that worked. Was it worth it? Yeah. I don’t want to be that annoying guy that talks about money and stuff, but it was worth it. Six funnels! Holy crap, yes. You will make more when one funnel hits than you will make in a lifetime of hard work otherwise. So is it worth it? Yes, it’s worth it. Figuring out the what and the how, the what and the how. And the market will tell you. And as soon as it lets you know, then you take off and you explode.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, your beloved hosts attempted to watch Bambi, Disney's classic animated tale of adorable animals and murder, with their adorable nephews.  However, the nephews were more interested in banging their plastic toys together and throwing s**t across the room, so the endeavor proved fruitless.  So Dan and Chrysten decided, "F**k it, we'll just watch it ourselves cuz we live for this s**t."  And here we are!   Bambi is the story of a newly born fawn named Bambi, a sweet if not somewhat clumsy lil' fella.  Alongside his woodland friends, Thumper the bunny and Flower the skunk, Bambi and his buddies learn a lot about life, love and friendship in the forest.  This is a film that traumatized many children of the 80s and nearly bankrupted the Disney animation studio of the 40s.  Both of our hosts loved this as kids, but will it cause the emotional scars in them as adults as it did when they were clumsy little fawns themselves?  Join us and find out!  And don't forget to RATE, REVIEW & SUBSCRIBE!

Over the last few weeks, Dave has been traveling to a ton of different events.  In his travels, he always has take-aways. Listen to some of his Aha Moments from the road recently. Tips and Tricks for You and Your Business: Creating your Story Inventory (1:00) Your Calendar (5:30) The 4 R’s (7:00) Results (8:00) Dave’s confession (10:00) Mistakes in life (14:00) Quotable Moments: "People pay for outcomes more than they pay for time." "It’s marketing that makes people take action." "You can’t serve people without selling." "You can’t grow until you buy." Other Tidbits: Hear more stories like this at Funnel Hacking Live February 19-23.  Get your tickets now before they are gone! Important Links: FunnelHackerRadio.com FunnelHackerRadio.com/freetrial FunnelHackerRadio.com/dreamcar ---Transcript--- Speaker 1:     00:00         Welcome to funnel hacker radio podcast, where we go behind the scenes and uncover the tactics and strategies top entrepreneurs are using to make more sales, dominate their markets, and how you can get those same results. Here's your host, Dave Woodward. Speaker 2:     00:17         Welcome back everybody. This is going to be kind of days ramps for the road. I've been traveling quite a bit. I'm going to start kicking up even more recently here at. You've got a lot of things going on, so it's been a lot of crazy thoughts. This is we're going to be a Potpourri of thoughts and things that had happened. I had been doing a lot of reading marketing books that person development books, business books. I'm speaking to a ton of different people recently, so this is going to be some of a whole bunch of just block, but I want to get it out to you guys and want to make sure you can share with us and make sure you understand some of the value that a of what I'm seeing these days. So first one is, and I've talked about this one before, but I cannot stress the importance of a story inventory. Speaker 2:     00:57         So right now if you do not have a story inventory, you've got to write this down, air lock this thing, uh, do whatever it takes to make sure that you don't forget, start creating your story. Inventory. Store inventory is one of the things you're going to use whenever you find yourself in a situation that you have to explain things. It's all goes back to the kind of like bridges that Russell's talked about for years and it's been so fun. I was with Russell and Dan as we were traveling. I think we were in Chicago last two weeks ago and when we landed it was fascinating because all of a sudden we land and I think I had made, it was a red eye flight. We had an hour and a half, two hours of sleep exhausted and all of us were just kind of dragging. Speaker 2:     01:39         Would come down the escalator. As soon as we hit the escalator, a land down to the bottom. It's in the Chicago airport, it'll hair. You have these underground pathways that just lead forever. I'm sure it's due to all the snow and stuff that get out there, but we hit there and above these walking. I'm walking little escalators, but walking paths, motorized, walking past, whatever you call those things. Soon as we got down there above them, are there all these little crazy lights and russell literally state totally changed. It's like, oh my gosh, I totally remember this place. I remember exactly this place and I was here with my dad and his state totally changed and Dan and are like, whoa, Whoa, whoa. We gotta capture this. So Dan grabbed his camera. He's like, all right, what backstory? What are we talking now? What are you talking about? Speaker 2:     02:26         So the key to a lot of story inventory, you've got to have a backstory. You got to help people understand what's going on. So the backstory to it was Russell and his dad, the last time Russell was in that airport that you remembered was with his dad when he was in high school and they were coming out for the national wrestling, a meet and the emotion that Russell felt it was the craziest thing for me to see was literally changed from being exhausted to totally in state of being in that moment with his dad and when you're telling your stories, you've gotta be able to get in that moment for yourself. Tell bring other people into that moment with you. And Dan was just doing an amazing job as well. Russell, tell me about this. How were you feeling when this happened? How are you feeling when this happened? Speaker 2:     03:07         Tell me about this. And so we're on this walk, this electronic moving path. Dan's in front with the camera. I'm on the other side with the different cameras looking at film and the story has Russell's telling us all of the raw emotions as a teenager that he had with his dad going to nationals, setting the goal, setting the dream of someday, Dad, I'm gonna. Be here, and it was fascinating, fascinating to see exactly the state that person can get into and then help other people get into that. A similar type of estate, so when you're telling your stories, first of all, you got to create a story inventory. Then you got to practice your stories. It's kind of like a comedian. Russell made mentioned this on his podcast. I've heard it from Dean Grasiozi. I was talking to a buddy of mine, Keith Yackey is going to be doing some, uh, he's doing some standup comedy and it's interesting to see all any comedian. Speaker 2:     03:56         They basically start practicing their jokes. They've, they know certain jokes they're going to land for sure. And then they'll always toss into kind of a teaser or testing joke or testing story and they start practicing these stories. I've seen this with Russell where he will practices stories multiple times. You'll end up telling a story to me. I'll tell it to bread. I'll tell it to John. He will tell it to todd and Dale and seeing what type of reaction does he get out of it. Tells Julie and then keeps fine tuning and fine tune and then you'll take that story after he's told her one on one and then start doing small groups and then I'll actually do it on a podcast. Then they'll do it on facebook live. Then they'll actually take it like right now he's actually in San Diego just about ready to go on stage here in the next 45 minutes to a group and to make sure that every single person is a part of of exactly what's going on and so they can feel it. Speaker 2:     04:47         They can test it, they can understand it, and they can experience that. So the whole idea behind this is to make sure that you're practicing your stories at different levels to perfect them so that you can actually tell them what the same impact with the same emotion as if it was happening to you live right then and there. So great storytellers have the ability to get into that state. I've seen it with Tony Robbins where he's told the same stories that a thousand times, but it can get in the same state, which then helps other people get in that state, so when you look at it, storytelling, a mixture, you're creating a story inventory and then start practicing those stories. Talk to the different people, see what the reaction is. Asos, we, you know, loving care about. You say, what can I do to make this story better? Speaker 2:     05:25         How can I connect better with you? How can I get more emotion out of what I'm saying? That you can actually feel it because stories are all about eliciting emotion and feeling so that's the first thing. You have a store inventory. Practice your stories and make sure they work. The next thing. This totally, again, these are all random. Next thing here is a calendar as a reflection of your goals and your priorities. I've been doing a lot of things. I'm trying to become a better dad, a better husband, a better at every little aspect of my life, but really focusing right now on a lot of family stuff. I spent a lot of time with work and I love what I do and I love my kids and my family even more and that's why I do what I do, get my calendar doesn't reflect that as much. Speaker 2:     06:05         Um, I'm a huge believer in, in dating my wife, but I don't, it's not in my calendar. And so I started actually putting it at the beginning of the month yet. Okay sweetheart, what are the actual dates we're going to do this and this month I've got a ton of travel. So I was like, holy cow, had I not done that, I would've missed three or four dates for my wife because I'm just not in town on the weekend. So we actually are doing our dates midweek and had I not actually set a time in advance and blocked it out on my calendar, those never would have happened. So realize that your calendar actually is going to reflection of your goals and your priorities. Uh, for me, one of the things I'm really trying to get better at is working out on a regular basis. And so you'll see at 5:00 in the morning, I'm at the gym, do Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and that's in the calendar. Speaker 2:     06:49         It's right there. Uh, it makes it a priority, spending time attending my kids' Games, uh, there in football right now. So football games or are super important and that's what's going on right now. Did you focus on making sure that you're looking at your calendar and your calendar is a reflection of your goals, your priorities. You'll find that you actually get more things done. Most importantly, you'll get the things that are most important done first. And next thing I want to talk to you guys about is the importance of outcomes. I would have been, right now we're spending a lot of time creating what we refer to as the four Rs. That's a four r document. Alex Charfen talked about this quite a bit. And whole idea behind this is each position, each job description actually has four rs to it. The first one is the role. Speaker 2:     07:29         The role basically is what's the title, what's the compensation, what's the overall all ideas far behind that. The next thing is the actual requirements of that job, so what are the things they actually you have to do? Third thing, they are the results and the fourth thing then would be, I'm sorry, the second one is the root is the responsibilities, so one of the things I doing on a regular basis, they need to to actually do, to get the third thing, the third thing, then be in the results and the fourth thing then will be requirements, so the requirements, so you need to have a this skill or this skill or this skills as kind of a bare bones basic type of requirements. So those. That's what brief references as far as the four r document. If you wanna find out more about it, check out. Speaker 2:     08:07         Alex sharpens a Huffington post article, so you just Google for ours. Alex Charfen, it'll come up, but I want to talk to you right now about when you start looking at those. For ours, the one that's actually most important that it's a in the document is actually third and that is results. One of the things we find as we start working with a lot of people that you've got to employees and you start to look at your own life. Too often we get focused on what being busy and busy. This means nothing. All that matters is what's the outcome. It's and people pay for outcomes more than they pay for time. So it's not the time or the task that matters. It's what the outcome is. And I've seen this happen a ton and uh, as I've hired consultants, I've worked with people, I don't care what it takes to get it done all at once. Speaker 2:     08:50         I want it done. So whatever it takes to get it done, that's what I want to pay for. A same type of thing. We've had contractors over the house doing different stuff. I'm like, I don't care how many hours it takes. I just want this one thing finished so I will pay you to get it done. I don't care if it takes you 10 hours. If it takes two hours, I'm going to pay just for the result I'm paying for the outcome. So when you start looking at hiring people and you look at your business, focus on what are the outcomes when you're looking at selling, what people want to buy, our outcomes they want. What I want is I want to actually get a facebook ad up and running, making money. That's my outcome. I don't care it as far as understanding ad manager and all the different tasks and everything else. Speaker 2:     09:29         What I want is I want the outcome. Uh, if you're a consultant and you're looking and you're working or an agency, people want the funnel built, they want, they don't care about all the time and effort you put into it. All they want is the end product. So as you start managing people, as you start looking at products is realize what people want are outcomes. And so focus more on the outcomes. Then a long laundry list of all the to do's and everything else. So if you focus more on the outcomes, you actually will get more outcomes. And that's what people want. Most. Number four is a confession here. And this confession actually is, I have ruined my family. I have totally ruined them. I have it. They can't go into the, can't see anything on TV. They can't go to the grocery store to go shopping without thinking like a marketer. Speaker 2:     10:12         My entire family now, things like marketers as funny. The other day I, my boys were home and they were talking about, uh, uh, I forget exactly what it was like, oh my gosh, did I totally messed this up? If they had closed it this way or this way or this way, we actually would have bought from him. And I'm like, you guys all think like marketers. It's been a ton of fun, but our conversations these days revolve a ton around marketing. My boys are a little bit older. I gotta get, I've gotTa Chandler's 22, Parker's 20 Christians, 17 and Jackson's 15, but it's fun. I'm almost all listened to Russell's marketing secrets and we spent a lot of time watching funnelhacker radio or funnel hacker TV and it's been fun because they started thinking more like marketers and the reason why it's as you look at ruining your family in that way, it's really kind of fun because now conversations are around marketing and realize the whole reason why marketing matters so much is it's marketing that makes people take action and if you start looking at the way people take actions and moving their life, it's the marketing that gets put in place for them to actually think and to take the actions that they need to actually make things work in their life. Speaker 2:     11:21         So for me, it's actually as much as I've ruined the middle and they all just think like marketers, it's been a ton of fun. So I'd recommend a. spend some time with your kids and your family and talk more about marketing. I remember years ago we started off watching shark tank and I was. I spent a lot of time with the kids. Said, okay, I need you to tell me how much is that company worth while they want $100,000 for 10 percent of the company? Well, what's that mean? The value of the company, his head, so all of a sudden they're doing math without realizing they're doing math, but I guess dad, that's, that's a million dollar company. Is it really worth that? Well, let's listen to and find out, and so as you start paying attention to marketing and you start having those kinds of conversations, it's actually a ton of fun. Speaker 2:     11:59         Your family. More importantly, you actually will find that it starts motivating your family and your kids to start realizing what's it take for them to set things in their own life in motion. I'm number five. Here is one of the things that kind of ties into similar thing as far as marketing, but the idea here for a lot most people don't understand is you can't serve people without selling. I'm going to do a podcast later that's going to talk about my fear of selling, but for years I was always afraid of selling and what I've realized is I you cannot serve people without providing opportunities for them to buy and too often as marketers and as as people who are doing this as a business, the selling asking for the sale is so painful. It's so hard. It's like, no, I just. That's so far in my comfort zone. Speaker 2:     12:48         I don't want to do that. Realize until there's an exchange that there can be no value given and I really want to make sure you understand that you cannot serve people until you sell them something. All the free content that you put out there, all of the things that allows them to opt in until they actually spend money with you. That's the only time that you can really serve them a everything else that you can be adding value in their life, but there's no true service given until they exchange money and it goes back to the whole idea as far as people who pay play. In other words, people who actually pay you money, those are the people who are going to take action and until they take action in their life, nothing else matters. There's so many people sit on the sidelines of life consuming massive amounts of content, but they never actually implement that or take action. Speaker 2:     13:36         So realize you cannot serve people until you sell them something and you can't grow until you buy. So you need to be on both sides of that coin. You've got to be a buyer and you've got to be a seller, and the more you sell, the more value you will be able to give to people. The more you buy, the more value be able to consume, which in turn will then help you basically be able to serve people at a greater event later in your life as well. So please understand the importance of selling. I'm sure a lot is random potpourri type of thoughts I've had going, but I want to make sure that you understand this. The last one here was a one where actually refers to golf. Uh, so we just bought a house, built a house on a golf course. Uh, it's something I've always wanted to do. Speaker 2:     14:18         I used to play golf when I was younger and it was always a fun, fun experience for me and I thought, you know what, these days I actually want to live on a golf course and have my kids get involved in golf. So as I mentioned, my boys are getting older and my wife's an avid runner and so it's been one of those things as a family, since we actually live on the golf course, we can go out real even late at night and just hit a couple of holes and just have fun as a family. It's been kind of a fun family sport, but one of the things you'll find in golf as far as the way people keep score is you'll hear people talk about par, about bogey, about double bogeys birdies, eagles, all kind of stuff. So real quick lesson in keeping score in golf par is what a good person should be able to get for that whole. Speaker 2:     14:58         So that's kind of the benchmark. So if it's a par three means you should be able to get the ball from the tee, shot into the hole in three shots. If the for. Obviously it's for if the par five, it's five shots to get there. So that's par. A birdie is one less than par. So it's a par four and you've got to three, you got a Birdie, and if it's an eagle that means it's two less than par. So if it's a par five and you got three, you got an eagle, which is like amazing. On the flip side of the coin, we can go in the other direction. A bogey is one over par and a double bogey is too overpowering. But the real issue, when you start taking a look at what a double bogey really means and how this applies to you and your own life, typically the reason you hit the reason you get a bogey is because you had a bad shot. Speaker 2:     15:44         That's why you're one over par is because you've got a bad shot and you're having to correct for that. A double bogey comments when you have a bad shot followed by a stupid shot, and what I mean by that is frequently when you're. When you're playing golf, you'll hit a bad shot and then you'll think, you know what? I know I'm kind of in the trees over here, but if I hit, I hit my ball just right and I get just underneath or between these two branches I can actually get on the green and not only saved my buggy, but actually might actually get to a par and she take a stupid shot trying to do this miraculous shot in an effort to save, save par, and what happens is you're taking a stupid shot and you're going to end up with a double bogey or possibly even a triple bogey. Speaker 2:     16:25         So the reason I mentioned that is in life, the same thing happens where sometimes we make mistakes. There's nothing wrong with making a mistake. The hard part is when obviously you make a mistake and then you make a stupid mistake right after that, trying to compensate for it. Whereas in golf, the easy thing to do is if you make a bad shot, instead of trying to hit this miraculous shot, just take an easy shot, a simple shot where it's going to put you back in the fairway, which is the main green. If you just, instead of you're in the rough, you're in a bad shot. Instead of trying to hit this miraculous one, just take a simple shot, put it back into play and then take another shot from there. Same thing in life where in life, if your find yourself sitting there where you take something happens and it's just a bad decision, don't make a stupid decision trying to compensate that. Speaker 2:     17:11         Just take a safe shot, make it easy and then go ball ball and make it happen. So those are some of the thoughts I've been having recently as I've been out to do it. A lot of the crazy stuff as I've been traveling, I run across all these crazy thoughts and ideas and I just, uh, I tend to run it down and sometimes I just throw them at you. Hopefully there was something of value here. If not, I apologize you spent the last 15 minutes. Listen to me anyways. Have an amazing day. If you haven't gotten your tickets to funnel hacking live, by all means, I don't know why you wouldn't, but please go to funnel hacking live.com. We'd love to see in Nashville it's going to be February the 29th, a 20th through the 23rd of two Thousand Nineteen February 20th through 23rd 2019 in Nashville. Speaker 2:     17:52         Can't wait to see you again. If you don't mind. I love to get feedback from you. If you're liking these types of podcasts, especially this one, I know I'm all over the board on this one, but if it's a value to you, let me know. Send me an Instagram, a personal message or facebook pm or email me or whatever, reach out to me. Let me know what your thoughts are. I appreciate it. Again, if you don't mind, rate, rate, rate, and review this on itunes and share this. Thanks so much. Have an amazing day and hopefully our paths will cross soon. Speaker 3:     18:19         Hey everybody. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to the podcast. If you don't mind, could you please share this with others, rate and review this podcast on itunes. It means the world to me or I'm trying to get to as a million downloads here in the next few months and just crush through over $650,000 and I just want to get that next few 100,000 so we can get to a million downloads and see really what I can do to help improve and and get this out to more people. At the same time. If there's a topic, there's something you'd like me to share or someone you'd like me to interview, by all means, just reach out to me on facebook. You can pm me and I'll be more than happy to take any of your feedback as well as if there's people like me to interview more than happy to reach out and have that conversation with you. So again, go to Itunes, rate and review this. Share this podcast with others and let me know how else I can improve this or what I can do that do to make this better for you guys. Thanks.

What I learned from WWF, Disney, and Marvel about creating your own universe, so you can better serve your customers. On this episode Russell talks about legends in marketing and wrestling that he has surpassed. He also explains why it is important to create a universe inside your company. Here are some super cool things you will hear in today’s episode: Why Russell has always looked up to both Dan Kennedy and Dan Gable, and why he feels like he has actually surpassed them. What it means to create a universe in your company and how some of Russell’s followers have been able to do it. And why you should be thinking about how to create a universe of your own for people to follow and get excited about. So listen here to find out how Russell has surpassed a few legends and how he’s been able to build his own universe inside of Clickfunnels. ---Transcript--- Hey, what’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, tonight on the Marketing Secrets podcast I want to talk to you about creating your very own universe. Hey everyone, I’m not sure if you listened to yesterday’s podcast but I recorded that like 5 minutes ago, and I’m still walking around the track and I just got excited about another idea that I want to share with you. So here we are. So today when I was at my kid’s field day, all day, boiling in the sun I was listening to Dan Kennedy and man, I just love listening to Dan Kennedy’s stuff. Of all the marketing, of all the people I study, he’s the one I most consistently go back to. So take that for what it’s worth, I don’t know why.  I think he is the most entertaining, he always stimulates my brain with these new ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and patterns, it’s really cool. One thing that was interesting, this is kind of a tangent, hope you don’t mind. It’s funny, you know when you learn about legends, and there’s this legend and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this person is amazing.” After I gave Dan Kennedy, this huge, talked about how great he is, now I’m going to kind of tear him down accidentally. I don’t mean to, he’s still the man. But it’s so funny, for example in the wrestling world, the greatest wrestler, the legend is Dan Gable. He’s like the Michael Jordan of our sport. He went through high school and college and didn’t lose any match. And his last match his senior in college, he lost it. And then he became so obsessed with that he started training again and ended up three years later winning a gold medal in the Olympics, and what’s crazy about it is not a single person scored on him in the Olympics. In fact, before going to the Olympics the Russians were like, “We’re going to create an athlete specifically designed to beat Dan Gable.” They just wanted to beat the American’s so bad. That was the whole goal of the Russian team, “Let’s beat Dan Gable.” Which was crazy. And they, as legend goes Dan would work out for about 7 hours a day here in the states and then he’d have to go to bed at night. And then he knew as he was going to bed at night that the sun was rising in the Soviet Union, that the Russians were training and he couldn’t handle that, so he’d wake up at night and he’d go out and run at night because he didn’t want to be laying on his back sleeping while the Russians were training, which is so many cool metaphors. So Dan is the man, he is the legend, he is wrestling. But what’s interesting now, you fast forward, and I’m actually going to give Dan credit for this. So Dan brought his style of wrestling to Iowa, the Hawkeyes, made the Hawkeyes the dominant team forever and everyone rose up to the Hawkeye level.  And I look at wrestling today, it was built off the shoulders of Dan Gable. It’s pretty cool to watch. But the other day I went back and I watched some of Dan Gable’s wrestling matches, because now we have YouTube and everything is archived, it’s so cool. I’m watching Dan Gable’s wrestling match, again, the legend, the Michael Jordan of wrestling, the greatest of all time. I’m watching these matches, in fact, I watched the match he lost his senior year in college. I’m watching this match and I’m like, this feels like a high school JV wrestling match. The level that we compete at today as a country is insane. It’s way better. Most people nowadays could go back and would have competed against Gable and they would have destroyed him in his prime. But he was the legend and he pushed the sport forward and now you look at you know, fast forward however many, 40 years later and because of his influence this whole things has grown. But if you look at him pound for pound versus the dudes who win the NCA pound for pound, they would destroy Gable. It wouldn’t even be close. So I tell you this story because I had this funny thing. When I was learning the public speaking world, I studied Kennedy. Kennedy would tell these stories, him going to these Peter Lowe events, there’d be 20 thousand people in the stadium, they’d be selling stuff, and that’s where I got my inspiration. That’s where I started studying and learning and where I mastered stage presenting because I wanted to be like Dan Kennedy, which is insane. I studied him forever, and I studied all the people he trained. That’s my whole foundation of where Perfect Webinar and Expert Secrets book and all this stuff that I teach comes from. Fast forward to 3 or 4 months ago and I’m speaking at Grant Cardone’s 10x event and there’s 9 thousand people in the room. I remember thinking, I bet this is what it was like when Kennedy spoke at the old Peter Lowe events when there was 20 or 30 thousand people in the stadium. Can you imagine, they would do that once a month around different parts of the country. They were on these circuits and they were speaking and I was like, he must have made so much money. I did my pitch, made $3 million dollars in 90 minutes and I’m just like, I am experiencing a little bit of what Dan Kennedy experienced. And then what’s crazy, it’s so crazy. So I’m listening to him today in his training course and he’s talking about Peter Lowe events again, and I’m boom, pulled back a decade ago when I was first learning about stage presenting and all this stuff, and what was crazy, as he’s telling these stories and he’s talking about how much money he would make at a Peter Lowe event, he said, “We’d have 20 thousand people in the room, I knew exactly how much money I would make. I would average from a typical stage presentation in that room, I would walk away with $100,000 in my pocket.” I was like, “Wait, what?” which means he would make $250,000 or so, he’d get half of it, that’s the way the speaking world works. He’d walk away with 100,000 and take that home every single time. He’s like, “I’d speak twice a week, sometimes. But at least once a month, but I was making over a million bucks a year as a speaker.” I was like, “What?” This comes back to my Dan Gable. I’m like, “Dan Gable, if I would have lived when you lived and I was as good as I was today, I could have beat you at a wrestling match. I could have beat Dan Gable, the legend. How crazy is that.” Now I’m looking at this and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve literally beat the Dan Gable of the marketing world. I beat Dan Kennedy. I did more in 90 minutes than he did in an entire year at the Peter Lowe events, speaking at 20 thousand plus persons multiple times throughout the year.” Anyway, it just blew my mind. So that’s one of those weird things, but if you look at it like, if it wasn’t for Dan Kennedy’s influence on me and his influence on other speakers that I learned from, this whole thing, he evolved the entire thing to put it where it’s at today. But I bet you right now, especially after going back and looking at, recently Dan’s old presentations and old pitches, my guess is any of you guys that master the perfect webinar could out sell Dan without even blinking. In fact, I would bet a lot of money on that. So it’s fascinating. I don’t know why I went on that rant for the last 6 ½ minutes, but I thought it was interesting. So there you go. So let me praise Dan again now, because he is the man. I’m talking about both Dan Gable, in case he listens to this someday, and he’s like, “Russell, you’re a punk.” No Dan, you are the man. So please, all bow to the legend Dan Gable, you are the man, I love you. Same with Dan Kennedy, so I’m going to talk about Kennedy though. Like I just said, of all the guys that I study, it always comes back to him, he’s the one I study and learn from, I love it. In the course I was going through today, which is crazy, 5 hours of being out in the sun on 1 ½ times speed, which means I got like 8 hours of Kennedy smushed in my brain today, which was really, really fun. And a bunch of cool things wrapped around that I could share. I could do days worth of podcasts on the cool stuff I learned, but this is the one that was really, really fascinating. So he was talking about companies, and he spent a lot of time talking about Disney and about their enterprise and how Disney works. How it was created, how it was crafted, how they built these universes and inside there’s characters and there’s storylines and there’s all these things happening inside the context of this universe that Disney’s created. Then he started talking about Jim McMahon, the WWF, talking about this universe. There’s opponents and people and fans and merchandise, he built this entire universe. There’s good guys, there’s bad guys, and people want to live in and experience this universe. Then I started thinking about WWF, excuse me not WWF, the MMA. Looking at that whole world that Dana White created. It’s this whole universe. He started talking about other ones, he talked about Playboy and Penthouse, and Hustler. Anyway, from all sorts of aspects of life, from Disney to pornography and filth and everything in between. But he talked about these companies that are so big. He started talking about the net worth of these individuals. He talked about, I can’t remember exactly, the WWF dude, Jim McMahon, or whatever his name is. I think WWF does like 2 or 3 billion dollars a year and McMahon’s net worth is 500 million dollars or something crazy like that. He said the reason why he’s had so much success, the reason why these things live on beyond a product or anything is they created an entire universe. Inside that universe there’s all these things. There’s characters, there’s heroes, there’s villains, there’s storylines, there’s all this stuff, there’s merchandise, there’s all these things that have been created. Then he said, “You know, I’ve tried to create some portion of that here inside of GKIC.” and I started, again, started flashing back to a decade ago when I first got into GKIC world, which is Glazier Kennedy Inner Circle, and I joined Bill Glazier’s mastermind and I started going to Dan Kennedy events. I remember because I’d listen to all the CD’s ahead of time, and I would hear these stories about these people. The Ron LeGrand’s of the world, and Rory Fatt and I’m blanking off the top of my head all of these guys. John Alanis and all these people who are using Dan Kennedy style marketing. I remember listening to his tapes and I remember going to these events, this universe and I remember seeing these people I’d heard about. I heard them on CD’s and tapes and Dan talking about them. I remember meeting them and shaking their hands and being so awkward and so nervous and wanting to get autographs. I remember going there and buying Dan Kennedy t-shirts and courses. I was in this marketing, nerdy universe. I started thinking about that and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” Without really knowing pieces of it, and obviously I’ve known pieces of it, you’ve read Expert Secrets, I talked about creating a mass movement and trying to take people. But I was like, if you really look at this, I feel like inside of the Funnel Hacker movement, inside Clickfunnels. We’ve created a universe. And it’s not just, it’s multifaceted. I remember when Todd and I were first brainstorming on Clickfunnels, one thing he said, “I want to build something that creates a whole ecosystem of other companies around it. We kind of saw this a little bit with InfusionSoft, they didn’t really capitalize on it that well. But I want people who’s full time jobs are using Clickfunnels to help businesses.” It’s funny, we were, I was speaking at this government thing, you guys probably heard the episode a couple of podcasts back. But before that, I was trying to figure out, how many jobs have been created inside the Clickfunnels universe? I was like, you know what, as of today we’re at 64 or 65 thousand members, let’s just say each of those entrepreneurs are using Clickfunnels, it becomes a job. So 65 thousand jobs right there. But the average company has anywhere from 3 to 30 employees, so let’s say 3, so it’s conservative. So 60 thousand turns into 100 thousand. And then you think about the other businesses that have popped up. The agencies, the designers and the freelancers, and the copywriters, and the customer support. All these other sub-jobs that come. And then you look at when somebody, when we sell t-shirts, there’s the entire t-shirt company, there’s all those jobs that are created. When we’re selling physical products, books, CD’s….When I do a bestselling book, it’s not just me that makes money on that. There are the publishers, the printers. We were trying to do the math and we got to about half a million jobs conservatively created because Clickfunnels is a thing. Half a million jobs and probably more than that, but that’s what we were able to draw a line to as we were doing our low case estimates. So it’s probably more than that. So in this universe it’s created half a million jobs. Inside of it there are heroes. I look at, you know, people I talk about all the time, speakers at Funnel Hacking Live, the stories I tell on my podcasts, and my Facebook Lives and my different places. These people become heroes, and then besides heroes there’s villains. I remember, if you guys watched the book launch last year, we had Julie Stoian who is like the hero and Dan Henry who is like the villain, and there’s fighting back and forth and there’s things happening. It’s just crazy. You come to our events and we’ve literally done two comic book animated videos at the events. We’ve got t-shirts that everybody buys, we have people right now who will only where Clickfunnels clothes. We have our swag store coming out where we have socks and watches and hats and coats and merchandise. Anyway, it’s fascinating because, I always tell people this and you’ve probably heard me talk about this, the hardest part is seeing the pattern, but as soon as you see the pattern and you’re aware of it, then it’s like, “Oh my gosh, now I see the pattern, now I can amplify it.” So now that I’m aware that my job is to create this universe, it’s like, wow how do I actually create this universe? How do I create super heroes? If you’re at the Funnel Hacking Live event when Kaelin Poulin got onstage she talked about how you have to give your customers an identity shift. You’re shifting their identity and you’re bringing them into your universe. They’re coming to this universe to have a whole new identity. And then what she said was so cool. They make millions of dollars of their swag drops. Twice a month they do swag drops, they sell clothing, and they said the swag drops, the clothing is like giving a cape to a super hero. They’ve had an identity shift and now you’re giving them a super hero cape and now they are a part of this person. I was like, oh my gosh. That’s what we’re doing, we’re bringing people in this universe to give them an identity shift. We’re giving them a cape in clothing, we’re giving them a name, a place to belong, and it’s just excited. Anyway, I shared that with you because today as I was sitting there in the heat listening to him talk about these companies and the universes that have been created, that people were plugging into, that is the new vision, that’s the pattern. Now that I’m aware of it, it’s like, how can I amplify it? What else can I do? What did WWF do to build their universe? What did Marvel do? What has DC done? What has Disneyland done? Now it’s time to start studying these companies that have built these universes and try to replicate and figure out what they’re doing. So that’s the next thing I’m going to be geeking out on. So I just wanted to share with you guys, so hopefully you guys can start that journey with me. It’s been fun. One of the cool side benefits or side effects of me being in this role of the chief cheerleader of Clickfunnels is I get to share these thoughts I have and I get to test them out on our community. And then I get to see people who are grabbing onto them and implementing the same stuff. It’s fascinating. When we started this whole Funnel Hacker movement and I was like, I think I’m onto something. It was like an inner circle meeting where I shared it and Brandon and Kaelin were there, and Kaelin’s company at the time, Brandon and Kaelin’s company, it was Tuelle Time Fitness, which was Kaelin’s maiden name. And after talking about the Funnel Hacker movement, people need to self identify with the cause and the movement. And she was like, “Oh my gosh, no one is ever going to self identify with my last name.” So on the flight home she sat there, “I gotta change everything.” And they had a million dollar business and they still were like, “We have to change everything, if we’re going to actually take this to the next level we have to shift our branding, our name, everything.” Which is crazy. I guarantee 99% of people, if they would have heard me in that same room they would have been like, “Nope, my brand is good. People know who I am.” Instead they’re like, “No, if we want to get to the next level, we have to change everything.” So they went and changed, on the flight home she renamed it, she landed and voxed me like, “Russell, it’s Lady Boss Weight Loss, we’re starting our movement.” I’m like, “What? You changed?” “Yep, we’re deleting everything, we’re changing everything. We’re on.” And boom, within weeks the whole thing was moved over and it was launched and it was rocking and rolling, which is just insane. They’re doing stuff, and they’re pushing the edge, they’re teaching me stuff now. I’m like, oh my gosh. This is so cool. I look at Alison Prince came into our world a little over a year ago. Some of you guys know she spoke at Funnel Hacking Live this year, and same type of thing. We’re talking about these movements and talking about Lady Boss, and she was like, “Well how do I create my own movement, my own universe, my own whatever you want to call it?” So she created one called The Because I Can Clan. Why do you call it that? Because I can. Why do we do this? Because I can. She’s like, “I want to create people that have the ability to do whatever they want in life because they can. I don’t want people that can’t do that.” So she created this movement called the Because I can Clan. And now she’s doing it and she’s taking this and building a whole community and she’s made millions of dollars now inside of her business, but she’s building a movement and people are having success with it, and it comes back to this whole concept of because I can. And now she’s doing this and I’m able to watch what she’s doing. I’m like, all these things I’m learning back from her, because she’s taken this idea. So in case you’re wondering, why does Russell share all this random stuff that he’s thinking about? It’s because I love it when I share it and I see you guys implement as well. Because we all have different perspective on it. When I hear universe, I think of one thing, you hear something else. The way I implement is going to be different than the way you implement. So please take this stuff and implement it, if you’ve got a business. If you don’t have a business yet, listen to yesterday’s episode and let’s get something up and cranking for you so then you can start geeking out and going deeper on these things. But if you’ve got something happening, start thinking about this. This is a world we create. You think about just the comic books, DC and Marvel. Think about how many movies are in that franchise and what’s happening, it’s been fun to watch. I  was never a comic book guy growing up, but man, I’ve been obsessed with the movies because it’s so fun to see what they’ve done inside these universes and how they bring all the characters together. It’s exciting, there’s a lot to learn from it, that we can apply back to our businesses. Alright guys, with that said, this is one of my longer podcasts. I didn’t know what I was going to talk about and I got excited. There you go. Appreciate you all, you guys. Now it’s time to start crafting and creating your own universes. With that said, appreciate you. If you love this podcast or get anything from it, please go to iTunes and subscribe. We’re going to be doing a lot of new stuff here in the very near future, with the new channel and I’m excited and would love to have your guys’ feedback. Appreciate you all, have an amazing day, night, where you are in the world, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Ben returns to the office to find we all got way into Dragon Ball and Monster Hunter in his absence. Only lengthy discussions of hockey jersey numbers, arcade high score controversies, Sword of Sodan, and the Mario movie can return us to normalcy.