Podcasts about so joe

Don't forget to visit the following:https://knockstargivesback.com/give-backhttps://thesolaracademy.com/https://www.solciety.co/ Speaker 2 (00:42):Solarpreneurs. We have another exciting guest today. We're back with another episode. Hope you guys are doing well today. We have someone that's been a long time coming on the show. If you're on Facebook, you had to have heard of him by now. We've got the one, the only Solar Joe. Solar Joe, thanks for coming onSpeaker 3 (00:59):Today, man. Thank you for having me, but I'm actually a good and bad cause. First of all, thank you for having me on the Solarpreneurs podcast. I've been a big fan of yours for years, man. And um, I just being invited on is, is a big honor. So thank you. But I did, I have to follow Jory Sullivan's story. I mean, how was anybody starting that one, then I'm going to do that to me.Speaker 2 (01:23):Well, we might have a few, we'll have a few between that. So don't worry. You're not going to be right after him.Speaker 3 (01:30):Some crazy stuff. That was a good one.Speaker 2 (01:33):Yeah, this is awesome. But no, we're excited to have you on. And um, I just said Solar Joe, cause I don't even, I don't even know how to say your last name. LikeSpeaker 3 (01:42):I'm still trying to figure it out myself, but uh, I think it's something like MousakheelSpeaker 2 (01:47):Mousakheel Okay. That'sSpeaker 3 (01:50):Really the number one reason why having a nickname, solar, Joe, I would go into, I would go into a home and you know, after I leave, I would write my name, Joe Mousakheel and my phone number. And they would save it in their cell phone as Joan was skill and my number. And they would never find me like, who was that guy? What was his name? So I decided to start doing solar Joe, whenever I left. I said, save that in your phone. That's Solar Joe. So when they look it up, they just remember solar started selling it and I come up. So that's literally how I got solar done.Speaker 2 (02:21):Okay. It makes sense. Yeah. No, I figured out, I figured that was part of the reason where's that last, where's that name from even what does thatSpeaker 3 (02:28):My family originally? My, both my parents are from Afghanistan.Speaker 2 (02:33):Oh, okay. Gotcha. That's crazy.Speaker 3 (02:35):So when I was a kid, I would say on propaganda, Stan, everybody, like, where's that place? What Afghanistan? What is that? Now? It's Afghanistan. Everybody knows that it's a different dynamic and I was a kid.Speaker 2 (02:47):That's awesome. Hello name? Can't say I've had, uh, anyone of Afghanistan descent here on the show. So you're the first to say that anymore. Well, cool man. Um, no excited to have you on. And um, yeah, for those that don't, everyone should know Joe at this point, but yeah, he has probably the best, uh, Facebook group for solar. He runs a solar objections group. Um, and they do a lot of like live streams in that, on how to overcome objections and really just some awesome content. So definitely if you're not in that group, I would suggest go and join it today because you're not going to want to miss the fire he has on that.Speaker 3 (03:24):Thank you so much. And I feel like I'm just like the host, right? I'm just like, yeah, let me get the best soul pros in the country to do interview. They give trainings and try to organize it. Yeah. So that the page is clean and it's really like, we're getting good value content as opposed to like recruiting and kind of spanning stuff. So I think prior to making sure it's clean and try to get as much value as possible, but thank you so much for that.Speaker 2 (03:47):Yeah, for sure, man. No, I'm trying to, we, I have Facebook group as well, so we're preneurs, but all I know I don't do as a near as good of a job at managing it in bringing on quality stuff on that. So I'm trying to learn from your Facebook group as well, but no, thank you. Yeah, we appreciate everything you've done, you know, bringing value and um, you know, teach other solar pros. So Joe, do you want to tell us kinda how you got into the solar industry and how you, uh, I don't know, decided to start the Facebook group and everything like that?Speaker 3 (04:18):Well, it started a long time ago. Well, before I even moved to California, which is 2004, I was in Manhattan. And um, back in the day, like late nineties, early two thousands, everybody was a computer specialist, right. Everybody was at, and that's where the money was. I was working and making good money, but it was like, I wasn't passionate about it. It was like a ceiling. And you were like, this is all you're gonna make. This can do for the rest of your life was like, it wasn't. I was excited about it. So when I came to California, which has its own story, I decided to switch things up and I really was excited about sales even in Manhattan because I would see the guys that sales department like happy, excited, running around energized, and our department be like boring another day, you know? So I was always like interested in the sales.Speaker 3 (05:06):So I came up to California. I was like, all right, this is my opportunity to try something different. And I just excelled. It just came naturally to me on day one. Um, whatever it was will become the number one salesperson in the company, um, top salesperson for the year. And it wasn't because I was special gift in a sales. It was like that competitive spirit and people like when you want to win and you want to figure it out, like you're going to be creative. You can think of things that people are doing. So that's when I got my, I was like, all right, I got something I'm pretty good at sales. I'm pretty good at getting people excited, getting marketing. Um, and then I got into insurance for like seven years because it was one of those jobs. You actually work nine to five and still being sales.Speaker 3 (05:54):There's not many sales jobs. You could be working nine to five and still be it's like, oh, sales jobs are like, you have to work nights and weekends cars, you know, stuff like that. So I had opportunities to get a nine to five sales job. I was like, let's go. I did that for years salesman of the year. But same thing happened though. It was like, it was just a job. Right. I was just doing it to get by and get a paycheck. I was never passionate about it. One day a customer came in and he was like frustrated. He was like, man, I got this solar job. And people are looking amazing people aren't buying it. And I had to we'll talk to me coming through what it is. And he wasteland to me, I was like, this is too good to be true.Speaker 3 (06:36):You're making money. You're saving money has been in their environment. Like what are the negatives? And it was just like, just people who don't get it. I was like, Ooh. So I started like Googling and researching and figuring this out. And I was like, I have something here, you know? So I started getting really excited. Um, and my wife at the same time, I was helping her start her own insurance company. So about after three years I felt like she was good or the world oil is running a machine. I said, all right, my opportunity jumped into solar. So I was fully aware of what solar was and how it works. I thought, right. So at the beginning of 2016, I said, you know what, let me work at the company where Elon Musk is putting his time and effort. Like he's, he's running solar city pretty much as I thought. Right. Um, and then when I worked there, I found out that's not the case. It was just not what I thought. Um, one of the, it was great though. Cause I got great training. They flew me out to Vegas. Uh, I mean I got, I read every word of his lease and PPA, you know, so I knew exactly what it said, what, what they were on. I won a couple of poker tournaments while I was out there, which is nice.Speaker 3 (07:44):I came back all this knowledge, but the thing was, this is the manager told me, he said, you know, I was like, Hey, there's no ownership options. It's just like, how am I going to almost don't want to own the solution. That's going to come later in the year, like end of the year, I was like, well, what am I going to do? You know, like, that's not an option for me. I said, you guys, I know it's not, you it's me. You know, I got to go find some other opportunities. So I was really into like ownership. Um, so I said, let me look for a place that does only ownership. Uh, so I worked at a place, I don't want to name names, but I was there for like two years and salesman of the year. Um, the great, it was just also was, it was like kind of felt like I wasn't doing what's best for the home.Speaker 3 (08:26):I was kind of like forcing whatever the company had. You know, I don't talk to the owner. I was like, you don't have to have these issues about like, I'm feeling a force-feeding thing, two chefs, more options, and they're made different finance options. You would say just shove it down. Their throat, exact words to me. I said, I just can never forget him saying that to me. And I was like, no, it is not the energy. I felt like I needed to find something that was going to be helping the homeowner as opposed to helping to sell the company. So I decided to go on my own and figure that out. So I started working with companies that are installers. Um, and I started doing solar, a seminar tour of California, which was amazing. Um, worked with set and city to city county all over California, full of restaurants of homeowners, the week full of appointments. Like it was just like killer. I like all 2020 books, but guess what happened? I've been struck down. I wouldn't from a high to zero, so I really had to start figuring stuff out. And that's what I was my, my, my first virtual was right after the app and I'd never did a virtual before that ever. Um, and I said, you know what, when I do something, I'm all in. I'm not like, oh, you just try it out.Speaker 3 (09:49):I'm not going to, when I do something, I'm let me pivot. This is a good time to pay that. So I started just trying to focus on like training, giving value content. Um, so about a year ago I decided to start the Facebook page, uh, Solar Objections now first book group. I mean, it wasn't like, I was just like, oh, let me figure it out. Let me do something. It was like from years of experience using Facebook groups, I figured what is going to be the most engaging value content. Like I feel like you're going to start a Facebook group. You should be the best person in that group. Right. So that's, that's what I did. Like, I would be a big banner of engagement. I would give you comments, whatever, you know, whatever it is. Um, there was this one time I remember a bill Murphy.Speaker 3 (10:34):I'm sure he knows. So he did a contest. Um, it was, um, whoever had the best objection handling for, I think it was, um, not right now or something like that. I answered it came up and uh, you are for $250 to sit a winner. It was crazy content, crazy engagement I won. And after that, every objection I would handle, I feel like I kept getting the highest end gate. I kept getting high comments, like highlights, high reactions. I said, you know what? This has something here. Right? So I felt like, objection, handling is a big deal. But also the word objection means more than that, right. It just means like what's going on in these homeowner's minds that had this option and they're not doing it right. That's insane. And that's what I feel like our job as a solar community is to get past like, let's figure out why then I go and sell it.Speaker 3 (11:28):So we got all the industry help them. Um, and so I was doing that engaging content and just having fun with that. Um, and it was on fire from the beginning, just a hundred to 200 people every week, just joining on their own. And then one day, um, Brett Williams, who I'm gonna have on my one year anniversary show said, he said, uh, one day he was just like, you know what? We should do a, you know, a live action role play. I always say that we should do a role play. You're on live stream. I said, okay. I'm like, okay. And I went to that Wednesday, that Wednesday, I just went to my first live stream. I had a modest album out. I'm not sure if you know who he is, he's a solar feast. And he decided to get on there and I did terrible.Speaker 3 (12:13):I was awkward. I just jumped into it. And it was like, it was terrible. Right. It was amazing. I mean, he was like tremendous like tone and overcoming objections. Closing me. It was like, I was amazing. I was like, there's something here. I was like, this is awesome. So then I got next to him. I liked Johnny Kinzer and then Glenn Meyers. And it was just like, this is fun. Right. It was just like, it wasn't even work. It was like, I'm talking to people, we're doing role-plays or having a training, you know? So it just got addicted to me. And it wasn't even like a job. It was like golfing on the weekends. It's fun. And it was the best part. It was, everybody was enjoying it too.Speaker 3 (12:58):And then, and then more people hear about it. The more people get on the show, then you'll get Michael Donald, or they get Jake has this, like it's bigger, big on his son. And so it was just like, my biggest thing was I always do is two things. I do it. Okay. I just do it. There's no, don't be scared. Just do it. And the second thing is I tried to be as creative and different as possible. And those two things is taken to me where I've gotten so far. I'm not saying I'm anywhere yet, but I definitely Excel from what I've started from this, this year. I never, before a year ago I do a live stream that I do a virtual, this all started one year ago today. Wow.Speaker 2 (13:35):That's awesome. Well, congrats on hitting almost the one year anniversary. That's a big accomplishment and I'm yeah. I can tell you just have that excitement. I mean, I can't help just like smiling and getting excited about solar when I hear you talk, let's go, go. And so I love that. Love that. And yeah, I think it's for sure as you know, um, I mean you're in LA or something, is that where you're at Sacramento SAC. Okay. Okay. Well I'm yeah, I'm in San Diego. So obviously all of California is pretty competitive. Um, you know, with the solar. And I think that SanSpeaker 3 (14:06):Diego, San Diego I'll tell you right now, most solar beasts I've ever seen in my life. So many solo monsters. And so Cal it's crazy. I like every time I can name like probably 10 right now, but I mean, how did you guys do it because of SPG and aSpeaker 2 (14:27):Everyone wants to be down here. He got the best weather and beaches and stuff like that. True. I guessSpeaker 3 (14:34):If you are the best solar pro, you can choose any of her to live. You might as well as San Diego.Speaker 2 (14:40):Yeah. But no, that's really what it comes down to though is just be indifference and, you know, just having your own spin on things. Cause especially in competitive markets, I think that's the only way that you're getting cells is if you're different. Cause every door we go through, every homeowner we doctor, I mean, they've usually got multiple quotes. They've talked to multiple people. So if you don't know how to crush these objections, overcome them and be a true professional like you and you know, other guys are teaching. Um, I think it's going to really going to be really tough to succeed for sure. So I also, yeah, I wouldSpeaker 3 (15:11):Add one more thing is caring about the audience and caring about the homeowner. It goes hand in hand, like you can go ahead and like a lot of people I noticed like love training and they give awesome value, but then you don't, they don't get the engagement. And sometimes it's not because they don't have awesome training or some values because people don't like to be talked to or don't be like to be like, um, I don't know. I feel like you're in college and he's sitting at a place where he's just giving a training deal, like engagement, people care about what they care about. So that's why I feel like I really work because I listen to the audience. I really try to figure out what they want, what they're, what they're leading. And I even asked him, I'd be like, Hey guys, you know, give me some feedback. What do you like? What don't you like? And I would take that and I would really use that because at the end of the day, that's what I'm doing this for is the audience. Right. And that's where they gave his from. So really caring about the audience and that homo wonder solar is to me is like something that's so crucial. I don't think people really underrated individually how much we should really care about. Yeah,Speaker 2 (16:13):For sure. No, I love that too. And it's something I'm trying to do on the podcast is just ask people like what, what day would you like about the podcast? What don't you like can get feedback? And I know you try to do that in a group too. Um, I heard John Lee Dumas, you heard it, the entrepreneurs on fire podcast. It's one of the biggest like entrepreneurial business podcasts out there. And he still to this day, hops on phone calls with just like, you know, random listers and says, Hey, can I call you and just say, Hey, what do you like? What, what needs improvement on the show? So I think that's a key factor. Anyone that's trained to build an audience since even, you know, as you're trained to sell your homeowners. I think it's something we can do as solar salespeople. Hey, what did you like about the process? What didn't you like? And uh, yeah, that's something super important in just making improvements in our sales process. And as we're trained, both trying to build audiences to, um, add value to, for people we, I want to ask yes too. Yeah,Speaker 3 (17:08):Definitely. Yes. Like these guests are amazing and it's like, they give so much value. It's it got to be about them, what they can offer in one thing I want to make sure I add is like there's value from the most, the least experience for the most experienced, there is value to get from them. And I'm telling you like, even somebody who's like six months in a solo, like a Joelle gossip. I don't know if you know him from, uh, Miami. I mean, this guy is a beast and he's only six months, but he, because he's different. He's funny. He's outgoing, like, right. So like, to me, it's not always about like, oh, you're seven years experienced. I mean, you got to learn from you. Like, no, it's like, there's some people kind of right off the bat, like myself. I first month with a new company I worked at after solar city, I was a salesman of the month, the first month. Right. But I'd have to knock on any doors. I just walked into a closing always to be a lot easier. Right. So anyway, I don't know I was getting onto it. Yeah,Speaker 2 (18:06):That's good. No, that's a good point that, I mean, I've, I've been doing this five years. I, I know you've been in it forever. It happens all the time where I get people coming from alarms or other industries that like outsell me their first month. And I'm like, what the heck? I got five years. These guys are coming in, out selling me. ButSpeaker 3 (18:24):I think the solar industry is unique that way. And it really is because how many Indians you can, the person coming on the first day make as much money as the most experienced solar professional. There's not many cars out there called know nothing about solar and just be the best hustler and power bill getter and appointment setter. And not knowing anything about solar and make a hundred, $200,000 easily in today's platforms. Right. And like, you don't even need to know sellers to make money and sell the industry. And that's what I started to figure out. Yeah,Speaker 2 (18:58):No, that's super unique. Yeah. I mean, I'm on, I'm on a team right now where we have probably 30 ads on our team that just came from alarms like months ago. And they're used to being on the doors, you know, like 12 o'clock and knock until nine o'clock at night. So they're coming and they're like, oh, that's that same thing we do in solar. Right? Like they don't know any better. And here I am knocking mighty now like three, four hours a day thinking I'm going hard. These guys I'm going go on all day. Yeah.Speaker 3 (19:24):But then it is a numbers game, more doors. You're going to get more.Speaker 2 (19:29):Oh no. So it's like, no wonder these guys are out selling me so a hundred percent. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I wanted to ask you, Joe. Um, I know you've as you're coming up on your year anniversary with the group and everything, like what, what was the goal was you started the group initially. Did you like envision it growing to this point? Or what was your goal starting up the Facebook group?Speaker 3 (19:48):Well, zero expectancy. I don't expect anything. I hope for the best, but I always try to be genuine. I will always try to offer value, try to help. Um, a big influence on me is Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V um, not so much that I'm following him, but he gives me good feelings that I'm doing it. Right. Right. Like you don't have to make a thousand dollars on each person. You talk to, you just give value and things work out in the end. It's proven that that right there, because I'm not making money out of Facebook or I'm not, it's not like I'm monetizing it. Just try and get value. But I talked to like, I mean, so many people every day, right. I'm able to give advice and that's always comes with it. So give me, give me, give it value. Uh, be able to, um, I just feel like I'm able to do it.Speaker 3 (20:38):It's not, it's just hard to do that. So if you're in Facebook groups and you feel like you're the most engaging person and you have some good creative posts and you're out there doing it, you may be able to do your own Facebook group too. Right. So it's not hard. It's just about wanting to do it, making it like a hobby, doing it every weekend, taking a real, like making sure you're you care about the audience. Um, give value, give, be funny, be creative. Um, you know, being gay to get people down there, like it's not, it's not somebody gets a brain surgery. It's somebody you really want to believe you believe and to do it, you know? Yeah.Speaker 2 (21:11):No, that's, what's cool. I think we both know like the money in solar is like selling solar. Like I don't think you're gonna make more money anywhere. You can make someone waiting to be made. So it's like people that think we're making big money by me doing this podcast. Are you doing the Facebook groups? Like, no, we're not. I mean, that's not where the money is at and we're making the money in solar and solar ourselves. That's what I appreciate what we're doing. And what I'm trying to do too, is like, we're just trying to spread the value and um, you know, help others. And I've gotten, like you were saying earlier, I've gotten probably more value than anything. Like, I don't care necessarily if tons of people are listening to podcasts, but just by talking to guys like you, like, uh, you know, Mike, O'Donnell all the other high level people we've had on like Gary or Bible.Speaker 3 (21:59):I feel like if it was no audience at all, I could do that once a week and talk to these amazing solar pros alone. I'm getting value out of that. Right. I'm learning so much and I'm like a sponge, so I try to pick up and learn as much from everybody. So that's a great point. That's another thing why I value it too. I'm learning each week too.Speaker 2 (22:16):Yeah, I know. So it's so awesome to be able to do that, but yeah, I mean, with that being said, do you have any future plans for the Facebook group or, um, I don't know any, any exciting stuff coming up with that or what's your plan for the future with the Solar Objections group?Speaker 3 (22:31):I mean, it's kinda like, uh, you know, I guess I golfing on the weekend, what's your goal with golf in the weekend? Our goal is just to get better and better, have fun doing it and get more people that want to do. And with me, um, you know, like that's how I look at it. It's not, I'll look at it as like, oh, I'm going to take over the world. I'm like, I I'm having fun doing it. You guys want to join me too. Let's go. Um, but I also like the interactions, um, personally, like people don't know who I am, but now they feel like they know me better because they see me on video talking every day. So they feel like they message me. Hey, Joe, I got a question about this. Like I really do value that, uh, part of it too.Speaker 3 (23:06):So, um, I will just try to make sure people know more about that. We can do strategy sessions. We can talk, give advice, um, besides that not much, um, uh, I'm part owner and the solar academy now and, uh, awesome chief for there. So a big part of it is too is making sure that the training is out there in the industry. Um, I think you are a big believer in the same thing, right? Like third-party training is so important and that's what, I'm really a big believer. I'm not a big believer of recruiting for like a platform, like, uh, tools like EPC or solar company. Because I feel like just going to recruited you, you can be good at it, but you might just waste your time. And I do anything. I can't make you be good at solar. Right. But I can know that at all, for education training that you will not lose it, that that's going to be something you can take with you no matter where you go. And I know you can get the value out of it. Right. So that's why I feel like the recruiting, the training is where my natural instinct is towards. That's not to say that, but it's really about giving value, but also making sure that there's the people know there's another training there's trainings out there. Yeah.Speaker 2 (24:13):No, I love that. And yeah, I'm sure you would agree. But when we first started in the industry, it's like, it was so tough to get training from outside sources. It's like, do you learn from your manager? And that was about it. Right? So now it's so cool. What you're doing while other people are doing the current?Speaker 3 (24:26):Well, my first training was, uh, when I worked at that, you know what my first set of restraining was at the first company, um, one right alone, one, right. To run along. That was my, that was my solar training should not be happening. I think that's a good point to bring up. Um, is that like a lot of people want to go from doorknocker to closer, right? That's the natural instinct. You don't want to just go for, you know, you want to do it all. If you can do it and make more money. But at the end of the day, what's going to happen is that you're going to not have the right information, help that home monitor. And you're just trying to make more money. And that's where I think initially is missing, is a solar training, a closure training, right? Like that extra level of knowing what you're talking about, knowing how to explain things, not a design things, knowing what the roof looks like, knowing the different parts of the roof, knowing the electrical nine, a breaker box like this doesn't come naturally people to know that.Speaker 3 (25:23):And a lot of people would rely on the company to give a true training. But no matter what company you work out, it's not gonna be, it's gonna be their training, right. It's gonna be what's best for the company. What's best for the product. It's not gonna be what's best for them. And that's, to me, it's like, yes, no matter where you work, the reason why they don't want to train you then best possible is because you'll go, cause you have all this training and knowledge. Now you can just go use that, but I didn't want to train, like you ever heard them say like, I want you to know as little as possible. I want to keep, I know as little as possible. Right? I want you to be brainwashed. So what I do cause that's, that's how we're going to make the most money together. Right. And that's why I feel like I don't want personally, that was the little as possible. That's ridiculous. Right? Like why would you want somebody doesn't know anything? I want the person that as much as possible, I'm gonna help them level that off. Yeah.Speaker 2 (26:10):No, I love that. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Joe, I wanted to jump in, obviously you're the Solar Objection guy and that's what people know you as, and I know you've had, you know, tons of the best on your live streams. Um, just hearing what they say to overcome specific, specific objections. So I wanted to jump into a few of that. Give our listeners just some, uh, actionable things. They can do some, uh, you know, maybe some one-liners things like that. So, um, yeah. Is that okay with you? If we do some, uh, I don't know, a few objections, you can give us some highlights of what the best are out there to overcome some objections.Speaker 3 (26:45):Let's go, baby. I will. Well, you're not a homeowner, so I might not treat you like, just like a homeowner, but I'll do my best to answer the objection. Give them the lines that youSpeaker 2 (26:53):Okay. Cool. So yeah, let's, let's just do a few objections. Um, you know, let's, let's act like we're in the home and everything over overcome these objections. So, uh, Joe, um, yeah, you know, we've been looking into solar for awhile. Um, but yeah, we're moving probably in like three, four years. So we just don't think it's, you know, it might make sense for us. So that's, what's been holding us back.Speaker 3 (27:16):I totally understand. And you know, moving in three, four years, like people don't know exactly when they're going to move and if you're gonna move three, four years, they feel like you want to have this big star and then you have to change things. Let me ask you a question though. And the next three, four years, how much money do you think you're going to spend, but Tricity?Speaker 2 (27:35):Um, I dunno. I mean, I guess we're like 150 bucks a month right now. So, uh, what does that mean? It wasSpeaker 3 (27:42):About 1800, 1800 a year, right? Yeah. Um, and then over the next four years, you're looking about what $7,000 maybe increase rates. It could be eight to 10. Maybe if you got some crazier rate spikes, right. That money is being spent no matter what would you agree? So instead of throwing that money away, we can put it towards the solar system that you're going to be getting your money back. When you do sell your home. Now, the goal is to make sure you have the right advisor to make sure you get the right system at the right price to know that set up for you. So you don't have these crazy extra costs that should be associated with it. And also getting a real estate agent who's green certified to make sure they understand how to help you sell that solar system to have you have that, those two things you can be in. Good shape.Speaker 2 (28:29):Boom. There you go. Love it. Love it.Speaker 3 (28:34):Yeah. I don't understand is that they're spending money on electricity anyway, you know, and that's that's yeah,Speaker 2 (28:40):No, that's huge. Yeah. I love the, you know, renting versus owning comparison. And I think once people understand that it's like clicks in their head, for sure.Speaker 3 (28:49):Well, whenever they give me numbers specifically, I like to use that against them. And that's why you said that, like, if you said different words, I would've made, they'd done a different objection, but when they see numbers like that, then they had those numbers stuck in their head. And now you can really put that money in there. Cause they said it to you. They said four years. Right? So now you say, well, four years, that's $10,000. Do you want to throw that money away? Do you want to pay yourself? Right. So I try to use the what they're saying again. Yeah.Speaker 2 (29:15):Love it. Love it. Yeah. Powerful. Um, all right, let's do another one. How about um, yeah. You know what, Joe, I love this, but I just don't really want to have another loan. Like I dunno, we're trying to keep debt down. So we might just want to like save up until we can like buy a system and not have to like do alone.Speaker 3 (29:35):Well, you sound just like my wife. She said the same exact that's amazing. She's like, I would tell you she got two car loans. We got a mortgage and we have, she does not want any more loans such told me. But what I told her was that they were spending money either way. And if we're going to get alone, why don't we get the best loan possible? What's the best thing possible. But the loan that you make the most money on, right? So you can get more loans. That's making you a lot of money or would you stop getting load? Which keep getting more of those loans. More of them, I guess let's go, right? Like bones aren't bad. If you make money on loan, that's amazing. How many times can you borrow money and make money guaranteed? Yeah,Speaker 2 (30:15):That's true. That's true. Boom. We're doneSpeaker 3 (30:17):A car loan and then we'll fix it with a solar loan. How's that sound?Speaker 2 (30:21):That's dude. That's so funny. I know if people have like, you know, loans on their cars and RV outside and it's like on, at one another loan, it's like, are you kidding me? You have like three loans and now you don't want a loan. That's actually good. And kind of be like savingSpeaker 3 (30:36):You money. This is the thing. Sometimes I miss the wind or solar pro hill here, this the automatically go to PPA or leaves. I don't like allowing you can do that. I'm not seeing anything wrong with that. And I don't want to go with it. But sometimes the homeowner just doesn't understand how good the Sloan is. And then once they realize a good loan is then maybe PIP is not the best option for them. So I think we should really make sure Homeland knows how amazing these loans are. For sure. Especially if we do it right. Because if you do it wrong, it could be bad. Right. But I'm talking about the right advisor, give them the right option.Speaker 2 (31:07):Yeah, definitely. And so as you're getting so many objections and what you're hearing from other people, how do you recognize Joe? If people like have true objections or just, you know, just treat it as kind of an excuse. What do you look for as you're hearing homeowners to be able to kind of identify if this is okay, this is just kind of excuse, or this is like legit, objection, anything you lookSpeaker 3 (31:27):For, always listened to the homeowner. And I even tell him a joke. Like I have these big ears for a reason, it's to listen to you better. Right? Like I really, I really focused on trying to listen to them what they do. Um, but sometimes there is conditions and the more experienced you get as a solar pro, the more you find those conditions and tell the homeowner. No, but that's powerful. You want to be able to hold on, to know in a lot of situations and then maybe this would be able to towards the ambassador program or referral program. Um, but if they're in the right, uh, if they're not a condition, right. Everybody knows what condition is that there's no way to overcome that objection. Right? There's no, there's not objection. Right. But most of the cases are objections. So I feel like it's, to me, it's like, I'm going to a homeowner and offering them a $10,000 check that we get the split.Speaker 3 (32:13):As long as we both sign. Like, it's ridiculous for you to say, no, I understand. Right? Like you don't know me. You don't know whom, what you're signing. It's a lot of money like that feelings, you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, it sounds great, but what's the catch what's going on. So I always try and make them feel like, yeah, I totally get it. I've been there. I don't, I'm not here to like sell you something. I'm here to give you options that you may not know. You're better aware that you're not, not be aware of. Great. If you don't want to do it. That's awesome. That's no problem. But at least you should know all your options. So you make the best decision for yourself and your family. Does that make sense? Yeah. Awkward silence is good too.Speaker 2 (32:55):Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, no, it's true. And yeah, I mean just straighten objections down and really listen to people. I think everyone appreciates that. And I mean, I, what I do is I write every objection down, you know, ask them do the fact-finding this beginning of the stage. And just the fact that you're writing it down and checking them off as you actually answer their concerns and objections. I see almost just like a weight lifted from people's shoulders as you're like overcoming the things that they told you and, you know, getting close to the cell. I think it's super powerful. Um,Speaker 3 (33:24):Okay. Right. Like they want to, they don't want to feel like this is the first around crazy question. Like this is normal. Like my wife just had the same thing I talked to her about. Like that's, that's makes no feel like, um, this is really happening in my own world and they can relate more. And like when they hear their wife complaining about the lungs, like, oh, that's a normal thing that people have to know. Talk about supposed to, based on that, like my conversation with my wife about going solar. And it was just based on that, just having that car was cause it does a real story. Right? Like I didn't make that up, but by my wife with a loan, that's a real story. And that's what really helps me have real genuine stories you can use to convey to the homeowners. Yeah.Speaker 2 (34:02):So powerful. They hear it from someone else's perspective. Okay. How about this one, Joe? Um, here, here's one we hear in California probably more than, than other states. Uh, yeah. You know what I like this seems like it makes sense, but um, yeah. You know, I should probably go, I know there's like a bunch of other companies out there, so can you leave that? Do you have a card? And then, um, I want to go get a few other quotes and then I'll get back to you, Joe.Speaker 3 (34:27):Yeah, of course. This is like what I do. Like I don't actually work for a company. I actually worked for the homeowner because I want to make sure that you're getting exactly what you need. So what I can do is help you with that. But if you want to do your own, of course, I'll let you do that. So what we can do is set up another appointment after you're done with your quotes. And what we're going to do is I'll show you my best option. So you know, all the options and you choose the one that makes the most sense. So when you think your last score you're going to get next week or maybe 10 days from now?Speaker 2 (34:54):Um, yeah, probably. Yeah. I mean, we want to get it done kind of quick. So maybe like two weeksSpeaker 3 (35:00):To me. It's no problem. So do you think you'd get all your quotes done within two weeks?Speaker 2 (35:04):Uh, yeah. That's yeah. That's fair.Speaker 3 (35:06):Okay. So can you do me one favor? Um, just don't sign with anyone yet just to make sure I can give you that last option before you make any final decision. Would that be fair? That's fair. Okay. So today is the ninth. I actually have the 15th or 16th available, which better for you?Speaker 2 (35:24):Um, let's go the 15th, I guess.Speaker 3 (35:27):Perfect morning. Afternoon, afternoon works. All right. 12 or two, a two o'clock boom. So what I did there was really focused on not trying to sell you right now anymore. Right? Like you don't want to tell the person, no, don't get caught right now. You can do that. Just doesn't work for me. Like everybody's personalities are different and you can do whatever is better for your personnel works for me, but that it would work for me in the past. And what works for you today? I tried to really listen to them and get their quotes. And when they do talk to me, I let them know why, what my option is and how it's different than theirs or they like it. Great. If not they chose the other one. I did everything I could to help close that one. Yeah.Speaker 2 (36:08):Got it. So yeah, something that I've seen too, Joe, I mean, obviously in California, what's annoying is sometimes people are just cutting margins, cutting margins, and then left with nothing. And then just that's what drives me nuts about people competing. Is they just to get the sell? They dropped their commission. I don't know, a hundred bucks a kilowatt maybe, or something basically make nothing to get the cell. So it's like, come on bill value and actually add some values that are just competing on price all the time. But, um, what do you do when you have, if you're, if you're, you know, closing like that, going back, like let's say you come back to the home and um, you know, they dropped their price a ton, like, okay, Joe, um, we got another quote. It's like 10 grand cheaper than you. So what do you do at that point? Do you, um, try to like build the value and do you have any stories of where you've still gotten this sell? Like, you know, selling a lot higher than other quotes that people haveSpeaker 3 (36:59):Gotten? Well, I'll not be $10,000. I to get 10,000, no, it always comes down to every boat is different and it's really conducted educating the homeowner. Right? Like if you don't let the homeowner know that saying I'm getting 18 panels, it doesn't mean anything. How many times have you heard that Taylor? Like, oh, I'm getting 18 panels. Yeah. That means nothing. It doesn't mean anything. So like, but solar post-talk talk like that with the homeowners. Yeah. You got 17 panels here. So they think that's normal talk and it's not right. And so educating the hallmarks and know why they're making their decisions on what financing option to choose, what solar panel choose, what inverter, the choosing, what, um, uh, other upgrades they may not know about like Mr. Homeowner. Um, I notice your roof, you're gonna have different parts of your roof. I think it'd be good to have Heidi conduit in the attic.Speaker 3 (37:58):Oh, you can do that. You know that it can really separate you from the competition and making sure they know the differences and just really educating, but also like before educating listening, a lot of times when we're solo consultants, we're so focused on selling what we have and I'm just like naturally against that. I'm always like trying to figure out what the homeowner wants. Um, and sometimes you can be missing a crucial part of the game. Um, so if somebody okay. For me, I'm a little different, I try to be different. And there's so many kinds of homeowners out there. So let's think of the worst kind of homeowner we can think of. Okay. We've a homeowner. He was on the phone. He's like, Hey, I don't want to deal with you. I don't want you to come over. Just send me your quote over the phone.Speaker 3 (38:41):I got 10 other folks. I know exactly what I want. I know how it works. I know everything it takes. Um, and I asked him, if you do go solar, do you have like friends and family neighbors? Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm a guy. Everybody knows. I'm the reason searcher. I'm a solo guy. You know everything about solar once. I guess everybody's gonna follow me now in that situation, a lot of people would just drop their drawers, give it everything well or say, I can't help you see you later. Right. We, I don't want to waste my time with you. Right. It's going to be one of the other. So what I do, I think approach as well. Do you want, I ask them a question like, so tell me, why do you want to buy solar? And they'll go over all the reasons why.Speaker 3 (39:25):And so then I asked him, why don't you want to sell solar? And then add that, then they'll try to give me the reason I like, well, that's not true. That's I start over and go me objectives for them to be a solar pro. Okay. Okay. Then I'm recruiting that homeowner to actually sell solar. Now we sell the objection to have like, oh, I don't know anything about solar. Well, I'm asking you to be very experienced advisor. I build to walk you through the whole process. Oh, I, I it's, I, I'm not gonna be able to get on a platform and take too long. Actually it takes one to two hours. You'd be ready to go. So it goes from like, what? I didn't know that now I'm completely different than everybody else. They talked to their siding on my team and they give them six or seven referrals. We're about to sign up. Well, that's crazy. Let's start by talking about the different people are going one direction, go the opposite direction. And that's where I really strive, like my, what my sales game. That'sSpeaker 2 (40:22):So powerful. And yeah, that's something I've learned from, uh, well you J solar academy for sure is just, um, you know, having a basic knowledge of actually like the technology and like panel upgrades, those things. Cause guess what? 99% probably of other salespeople don't know the technology. They don't know, uh, how to recognize if people are going to need it panel upgrade or not. They don't know how to, um, you know, tell if the roof is going to need work. So things like that, if you can take the homeowner out or Hey, Mr. Homeowner, did you actually see this on your panel? Do you see this about your roof? He recognized those things and the other people that are coming, uh, didn't recognize it. Guess who they're going to want to go with. They're going to want to go with the expert and the person that actually, you know, told them the truth about these things and recognize it before that happens.Speaker 3 (41:08):Yeah. Yeah. There's like two different kinds of sales grow. Right? There's going to be the one that's sales. So just focus on excitement, getting the soul, get the next stage. And then you had the techie guys who were just like, want to explain everything thoroughly, you know, the electricity and all the roofing, all that stuff. Right. What the, what the key part that's missing is the in-between connecting those two things. The solar academy to bring it to the table, brings to the industry. It's not one or the other, it's not having the knowledge sales savvy or combined with a tech savviness. And that's where you get a monster silver on the next level,Speaker 2 (41:44):A hundred percent. And so yeah, for our listeners, um, take the time to really, um, you know, learn the objections, go in Joe's group, listen to what other experts are saying. And then also learn the technology piece of it's learning how to be an expert, learn how to explain those things. And I like what you're saying about actually like, you know, recruiting homeowners to, um, sell for you and get your referrals.Speaker 3 (42:07):Um, that's something that think about this, right? Like the biggest players in the game, millionaires and solar have one thing in common to me, I've talked to all of them and I was looking at as many as I can. I mean, and one thing that all in common is that the referral masters, they are, the referral came to have homeowners lined up referrals. So I was thinking, wait, why not? Instead of making the homeowner sell a solar, why not get be a solar pro? And then, so I actually bought the domain that'll yourself, solar.com just because it was available. And I was like, that's perfect.Speaker 2 (42:43):That's sweet. Yeah. Cause I can imagine like sometimes, you know, you're pulling teeth to get people, to give you referrals. But if people are like, you know, if they're coming more from the mindset, oh, I want to sell solar. I want to actually be on the team. Then they're actually, they're going to be much more effective. I would imagining getting referrals,Speaker 3 (42:59):Right. This is the best part. Even the ones who were like, you know, I'm just going to do it, get my own solar system. That's it even they're like, this has happened to sweet email me. Like I know I wasn't going to sell, but I have a neighbor I was talking to about it. He wants to go sell their stuff. I might as well make the commission on it. So now he's actually sending another customer that not a referral because he's actually the solo pro on the deal that I get to split the commission with him.Speaker 3 (43:25):That's the thing, that's the thing I feel like what's missing is not, it's not like, oh, we need both two things. And then the stream is tools, which is like power or tighten or, you know, any price you can sell. So it from everybody use the tools, right. But you also need the training. Right. And then sometimes we'll get the order wrong. And I would say, it's like this, I know solar is not like being a doctor, but there is some similarities to it just because you're fixing things, helping homeowner out yet, you really have somebody in your hands that you're taking care of. So imagine a doctor who a person wants to become a doctor. Okay. Now they have a choice. They can either get all the best tools in the world and just right off the bat, or they could start with all the best training in the world. Now what you want is the doctor. The one who wants to be a doctor should go towards,Speaker 2 (44:17):Uh, the best training because you, can't notSpeaker 3 (44:23):Opposite in the solar industry. The tools we'll figure out how to use it later. Let's switch that let's reverse. Let's get the training out there. And then you will get the tool thatSpeaker 2 (44:34):It's like, I've got this drill. Not sure how to use it, but, uh, but it's the best one on the market.Speaker 3 (44:39):Open your mouth. It looks amazing though. That's awesome. That's a good point. How many people started working at a company? I started blasting that company. Oh, it starts. They can do on, and this is not going on. This is problem. And they started, they have one installed. They're working out the whole time and that's their experience. Maybe it wasn't the company's fault. It might've been the solar pro there. I know.Speaker 2 (45:04):I know. That's why. Yeah. Sometimes what drives me nuts sometimes in the industry is people just hunting for like the best read, buying the best pay. And they've only got like one install under their belt and they're already hunting for better pay. It's like, come on, man. You're going to go look for better pay. That has zero training. When you have zero install,Speaker 3 (45:24):This I've always been. Even when people are trying to run through the bottom of the red lines, I would always still be like, well, are they getting adequate? Like to me, everybody should get out of run. Or what happens is the breaker box. What happens if there's like, you have to ask, it's not just red lines and red lines. Plus does everything else work too? I knowSpeaker 2 (45:44):A hundred percent. Yeah. People forget about that. So yeah. Um, super good points, Joe. And I wanted to ask you as we're wrapping up here, how, uh, what's the craziest objections you've heard in your group? Any, any stand out over the past year? Crazy ones.Speaker 3 (46:01):I mean, there's so many like, um, crazy objections when the one that's like to me, there's two of them. That's really like, just mind blowing is real estate agents. Just to me, that's the, one of the biggest things hurting this whole industry is that misinformation and real estate agents and mortgage professionals are giving out to the industry and they think they know more than everybody else. Um, so that's the most, yeah. Most frustrating objection. And I get a little, the most amped up with because they act like they're so like nonchalant about it too. They're like, yeah, no, it doesn't add value. Just cause the other house wasn't worth the same. It's like now people are getting so that's to me is like the most frustrating. But also when, um, people call it solar, a scam, it's like, okay, that means you just like, you just no talking to you anymore. Right? Like I can't even have a conversation with you to me. That's the problem with like, when you have somebody, you came out conversation with like that's to me, like my goal, like this day in my life, it's just a good conversations all day long, like this one every day, all day. But I'm begging people. I'm not convincing people. I'm just like, if you're here to listen, I'm here to help. I'm here to talk to each other. So that's why I like respect. I get the respect that can have the conversation. Yeah.Speaker 2 (47:20):I know. That's a huge pet peeve of mine is when, like a third party, like a real estate agent. The other day I had someone's financial advisor, like all my financial advisor told me soar doesn't make sense. Okay. Do they even know what this is? They have solar themselves. Like, no,Speaker 3 (47:36):But maybe a lot of money. Yeah, no, no, no. They know what it is. They know exactly what it is. And that's what the problem is. Because if they take the money out to pay for the solar system, that's less money. They have to play with it. So why would they tell him, oh yeah, he has money. They're saying no, no, not at all. It's like asking a taxi company. How do I buy a car? No buying cars, bad idea. You shouldn't do that you should just call us tomorrow when you can get up, you know, like, well you ask me for advice.Speaker 2 (48:05):I know. So yeah, those guys. Yeah. They gotta be silenced somehow. I dunno if we got, gotta start a strike against them, but it's like stop losing those deals. If you're know financial advisor, real estate.Speaker 3 (48:17):Oh, we just need to teach them. We need to just educate them. I'm like, guys, I've been trying this for years. It's not working. I don't know what else we got to do. The problem is that people don't listen or don't want to listen. Aren't going to get trained. They're not going to learn. The first key to being a good student is to be coachable, to be ready to learn. If you're not ready to learn, you're not gonna learn anything. Yeah,Speaker 2 (48:39):I would agree for sure. Um, so Joe, um, I know we got to wrap up pretty soon here. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you're doing with soar academy? I know you mentioned your, um, yeah. Working with them more now. You're this SI chief revenue officer. Is that right? Yes, sir. Okay. Let's go. And yeah, they're doing some pretty incredible things. I know you guys just had a little retreat in Vegas. Um, yeah, I was sad. I missed out on that. Looked like that. Freaking awesome. With good time out there.Speaker 3 (49:07):Um, yeah. Connections, great people. I learned a lot. I mean, lifelong connections. It's just crazy. How, when you spend time with somebody in person for a few days, you get to know that person completely different than just from clubhouse or from Facebook, you know?Speaker 2 (49:23):I know. Yeah. It looked fun. Did you guys end up doing the skydive and stuff? I saw that was part of it or something.Speaker 3 (49:29):Yeah. So skydiving is one of those things you have to pay plan for how much you gonna pay me to do that? Nothing. No, like why would I jump out of planes? Actually, it's a funny story. A homeowner was talking about side diving and he was like, oh, I love skydiver. I skydive all the time. I was like, I might be skydive, you know, in a few weeks. Um, and he was like, well, if you skydive, I'll make sure I'll definitely buy your deal from you. But like, okay, that's an occasion where I'm going to go scratch out because at least I'm getting something like that's where my mind was shifted. I was like, well, I can get paid to do this. Let me just read on this now.Speaker 2 (50:09):Nice. So when did you send him the picture of you in there then? And then he signed the next day?Speaker 3 (50:14):Yeah, no, he definitely goes to me after that, but still, well, you know what I would do is that in house skydiving? I don't know what that's called. Oh, theSpeaker 2 (50:24):Indoor skydiving. Yeah. That's yeah. That's fun.Speaker 3 (50:28):As long as my life is not at a risk, I'll definitelySpeaker 2 (50:31):For sure. Oh, cool. And so yeah, with solar academy, do you guys have a, I don't know anything exciting coming up with that or what's uh, what's your role with thoseSpeaker 3 (50:39):Guys now? It's been amazing. It's like, they haven't even launched before I joined and now we're actually launching and I'm getting so many people like asking me about it and how, how can I get, oh, what is it? What is this other guy to me? I was word. And I just explained it very simply. It's two really main things. We're going to have an awesome solar closer training. Okay. I'm going to be able to help companies add solar to the game or they can installer and add the sales part of their game. Like if you need help adding solar or getting to the next level, solar, get on a zoom with me, I'll be able to get you in the right direction.Speaker 2 (51:16):Yeah. So guys check out Solar academy, JKS solar, Joe, and they're doing awesome things with that. And then go join the group. Any anywhere else people can connect with you, uh, Joe or anywhere else. You want to point our listeners toSpeaker 3 (51:28):Everybody get on the Solar Objections, Facebook group. If you're in solar capacity, like at all, and you want to know what's going on in solar, who's talking to solar. You want them to see the solar trainees? You want to get valued content? Not just for me. Like I said, I tried to host it. Awesome. Solar froze like a lot of posts. I don't even say anything. And you get a 50, 60 golden nuggets. And these posts go through the Solar Objections group. And in that group, we have an awesome live stream every Wednesday at 4:00 PM, PST 7:00 PM EST. This week, we have an awesome solar pro. His name is Jake Wilson. I'm not sure if he gonna, is he going to be going into the future, but go back and check that one out. We'll give you about a solar refinance, but every Wednesday, 4:00 PM, PST check us out. We're going to be live with the different, new, awesome solar pro. And we're going to have our one year anniversary show on August 11th. Um, hopefully will be out by then August 11th, Brett Williams. The one that sparked the idea in the first place will be our one year anniversary guests. So definitely check out that live stream for sure. Let'sSpeaker 2 (52:33):Go. So guys go hop on the group. Um, yeah. Tell Solar Joe, you appreciate them for coming on the show today and then go join the yeah. Get on the live streams too. Um, what I've been starting to do is, you know, make a note in your phone or something, keep track of these one-liners. So you heard Solar, Joe overcome a ton of, you know, objections today, and then you're going to hear even more when you get in this group, keep track of the ones you like and start using them because I think that's what happens guys, get on these trainings and things like that. But if you're not actually, you know, writing down the ones you're going to use the one-liners the, um, you know, overcoming the objections, then you just forget about it. So that's the thing for hopping on these trainings, make sure you're actually utilizing and implementing the content that you're hearing. So Joey, appreciate you coming on. Um, any final words of advice or anything else that's helped you, you want to leave with our Solarpreneurs before we say goodbye here?Speaker 3 (53:25):Two things, man, like first thing I wanna really excited about Peru. Um, I mean, that's going to be skin some of the excitement over the silver academy and knock star, uh, uh, daddy pesty putting it together, man. And I'm so excited about going down there. Awesome. Solar pros are going to be taking, trying to build some, uh, orphanages or buildings for young youth, uh, any help out there. So that's really amazing and that's going to be later in the year. Um,Speaker 2 (53:51):That's the website for that? So do you know the websites?Speaker 3 (53:55):Um, solar back I think is one of them stood back. Um, so it goes back.com https://knockstargivesback.com/give-back I believe too. Um, but I'll make sure what that, you know, for sureSpeaker 2 (54:08):In the notes. Yeah, I think it's, yeah, https://knockstargivesback.com/give-back, but yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. You guys can go check that out.Speaker 3 (54:14):Awesome. And the last thing I say, guys, you know, I am open. I am here for advice. I'm here to help. I'm here to give value anything you need. Um, I offer a free strategy session. Uh, it's a zoom or a phone call and make a nice, easy to get, to just go to thesolar.academy. Can I get easier than that? Right. You get a free zoom with me and we get to talk shop. Uh, I'm not going to be salesy push in any direction they want to help you out. See what I can do to give you value. Just check it out, go to thesolar.academy, thesolar.academy.Speaker 2 (54:45):All right. So yeah, take advantage of that. I mean, how cool is that you get solar Joe himself offering to do a call and help you take yourself to the next level in the solar business. TaylorSpeaker 3 (54:55):Is the man. Everybody's awesome. Pretty such great guests. Uh, check it out. All the show is the one or Sullivan was amazing. I just, I just listened to Alan. Those are off the hook. You do great at these LGS. Great question. I really appreciate being on your man. Yeah,Speaker 2 (55:09):No, I love it. Yeah. And thanks for coming on. That's all we're trying to do is, you know, up-level ourselves hear from experts like yourself. So thanks again, Joe, we'll be connecting with you more and guys tell Joe, thanks for coming on today. And with that being said, and we'll talk to you soon, Mr. Solar, Joe,Speaker 1 (55:27):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 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 solar learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry. And it's called Solciety. This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and to help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds. For, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety's closed the public and membership is by invitation only, but Solarpreneurs can go to solciety.co to learn more and have the option to join a wait list. When a membership becomes available in your area. Again, this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you again in the next episode. 

Primary ballots are in mailboxes now! Today friend of the show, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks Mike McGinn joins Crystal on the show to discuss the front runners in the mayor's race, how candidates need to be making the case to the public in these remaining weeks before the primary, and the psychology and emotion that drives Seattle's voting decisions. And Mike delivers a fundamental election rule: Message quality multiplied by message delivery equals impact. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @frinchfrii and find today's co-host, Mike McGinn, at @mayormcginn. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources: “No incumbent in Seattle mayoral race, but candidates still running against City Hall” by Daniel Beekman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/no-incumbent-in-seattle-mayoral-race-but-candidates-still-running-against-city-hall/  “Poll shows many voters still undecided, Bruce Harrell leading race for Seattle mayor” by Daniel Beekman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/poll-shows-many-voters-still-undecided-bruce-harrell-leading-race-for-seattle-mayor/  “For the first time in years, there are 2 serious candidates for the King County executive” by David Guttman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/race-for-king-county-executive-pits-experienced-well-funded-candidates-against-each-other/  “Seattle's mayoral candidates have plans for homelessness, but they're staring at an uncertain future” by Scott Greenstone: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattles-mayoral-candidates-have-plans-for-homelessness-but-theyre-staring-at-an-uncertain-future/  “The C Is for Crank: Correcting the Record on Compassion Seattle” by Erica C. Barnett: https://publicola.com/2021/07/13/the-c-is-for-crank-correcting-the-record-on-compassion-seattle/  Publicola Elections Coverage: https://publicola.com/category/elections/ South Seattle Emerald Elections Coverage: https://southseattleemerald.com/tag/2021-elections/ We the People Power Voter Guide: https://www.wethepeoplepower.org/voter-guide-2021   Primary Elections Endorsements: The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2021/07/14/59065522/the-strangers-endorsements-for-the-august-3-2021-primary-election  The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/who-supports-who-in-seattle-elections-endorsements-roll-in-for-mayoral-council-races/  The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/06/28/the-urbanists-2021-primary-endorsements/  350 Seattle Action: https://350seattleaction.org/2021-elections    Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks - and a fire Twitter follow also, the excellent Mike McGinn. Mike McGinn: [00:00:59] Yeah, you can find me on Twitter @mayormcginn. I just can't let go of that handle - it's just too good. But I'm really many years past it now, so thanks for having me on the show, Crystal. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:11] No, absolutely. But you know what, you're always there to provide context and an informed opinion - and it's usually insightful, and useful, and often spicy. We get spicy McGinn a lot of times, and I like it. Mike McGinn: [00:01:25] I'm not running for anything anymore so I'm just pure truthteller mode. No, 95% pure truthteller mode. I pull some punches. I do pull some punches still, Crystal. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:35] Well, what I want to talk about is - ballots should be in your hands today, tomorrow. If you're listening to this, ballots are arriving in Washington State for primary elections. So it's a big deal. We've seen a wave of endorsements be released from major political organizations, media organizations - both The Times and The Stranger. So it is now time to vote - a lot that we've been talking about, all the candidates that we have been talking about - now the rubber is hitting the road and communication plans are in full effect. Mailers are hitting mailboxes, commercials are on TV, digital ads are all over the place, so how are you seeing this race standing right now, Mike? Mike McGinn: [00:02:23] Mayor's race - I think at this point we're really down to three viable candidates - is where I would start. You can look at - fundraising numbers is one way to look at it, major endorsements is another. And Bruce Harrell has the Seattle Times and in early polling, he was what, at 17% or 18% or something like that, which is when you think about it, kind of low for an incumbent, somebody that the City knows. He's not incumbent in the office, but for being known. Lorena González has The Stranger endorsement and lots of labor endorsements, got a big IEC from labor coming out. The theme of her campaign is her personal resume primarily is what she's running on. But she has the drag of being from the City Council. I don't know whether it's 29 or 39 City councilmembers that have run for mayor, and only Norm Rice actually pulled it off. And he had the tailwind of the Rainbow Coalition from Jesse Jackson running for president. And when he announced that coalition, that was the following year from the Jesse Jackson race, and he just vaulted in. And also a very skilled elected official. I mean, "Mayor Nice"? Who gets that nickname, "Mayor Nice"? Crystal Fincher: [00:03:44] You didn't get that nickname? Mike McGinn: [00:03:51] [Laughter]. And the other thing is - when you look at it is the right track, wrong track numbers in the City have been off the charts on all of the polls that have come out to date. And so if you're associated with what's been going on, that's going to give you a headwind. I think that the third candidate in the race and full disclosure, I've endorsed Colleen Echohawk in the race. She's talking about the issue that people say is the most important one - homelessness - that comes out on top of almost every poll. That's the focus of her campaign. She organically raised a lot of money through vouchers - got there first, didn't have to hire people to collect them as opposed to the other candidates, and is the outsider. The other candidates in the race are credible and have been treated as credible, but I think at this stage when you look at the fundraising numbers and the endorsements, I think it's going to be very hard for Andrew Grant Houston or Jessyn Farrell or Casey Sixkiller to come out of this primary with where they stand right now - the combination of institutional endorsers, dollars, message and political base that they're bringing into it. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:10] So based on the polling that's come out, a number of people are looking at this as, okay, on the - conservative and progressive are different when used in Seattle than when used in outside of Seattle- Mike McGinn: [00:05:24] Let's use right lane, left lane. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:26] Right lane candidate being - looks like it's going to be Bruce Harrell, by polling and indications there, it appears to be that he is leading the right lane. And the left lane as you just talked about, it looks to be Lorena González, with potential Colleen Echohawk on her heels. How are both making the case that they can run against a right lane candidate and when? Mike McGinn: [00:05:59] Well, and that's interesting. Part of the reason I think Bruce - well, the right lane always consolidates more than the left lane. It's like that Will Roger's joke about, "I don't belong to any organized party. I'm a Democrat." So the left is never powerfully organized and the right tends to consolidate. The other right lane candidates didn't really take off. And the left lane candidates all have a little more juice in them. And actually, given that Jessyn decided to endorse the Compassion Seattle Initiative, I'm not sure what lane she's in at this point, but both. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:32] Well, and I think that's been a problem for her. Mike McGinn: [00:06:34] Yeah, I think that's been a problem for her because this is a year that unlike prior years in which you had the Chamber of Commerce uniting with the King County Labor Council to decide on a candidate - that's what they did with Durkan, that's what they did with Murray. We're now back to - that's what they did with Mallahan, as I think about it. Right, and I got some union support but the Labor Council and a lot more of the unions went with Mallahan because labor was for the tunnel. Labor was for the tunnel and I actually heard from service worker unions that ended up endorsing him and they said, "We're taking a risk, all of our brothers and sisters are mad at us for supporting you because they really want the tunnel." Crystal Fincher: [00:07:15] That tunnel. Mike McGinn: [00:07:17] Yeah, that tunnel. So even though I was clearly the candidate for transit and working people against what I believed was a corporate bureaucrat who was running in the right lane, they still went with him. You still see that happening in politics today. The construction unions still have a lot of influence. So do the firefighters - they're quite conservative. And the Labor Council. In this case, we don't have that - where the Labor Council and the Chamber are ordaining a leader. So we're seeing a business backing Bruce - they're consolidating behind Bruce. You're seeing labor consolidating behind Lorena, but you're not seeing all of the progressive left consolidating behind Lorena. You see it breaking up into more pieces there. So the argument as to, against Bruce, is insider versus outsider. And I think that's going to be a huge challenge for Lorena in the general - right track, wrong track numbers. It's about the mayor but it's also about the Council. I ran in 2013 and I wanted the electorate to say, "Well, if you see conflict between the mayor and Council, look at what people are advocating and pick the person on the right side. By the way, that's me." That was my argument. But if you're close to City Hall, you might be able to do that - but people who are further away, they paint everybody with the same broad brush and it can be hard to distinguish yourself. And I just think that when you look at the polling to date and how low Lorena's numbers have been for somebody who's run city-wide multiple times, it really suggests she still has to go out and get a lot of votes. You probably got to get to 25% or so to get out of the electorate. So she's got to get from wherever she's starting - a long way. Everybody does, and Bruce has a shorter path to get there, but everybody's got to go a long way and the question becomes, does Lorena have a ceiling because of the negativity towards the City Council? Crystal Fincher: [00:09:34] That's a really interesting question. I guess the variable that I'm also looking at in this is looking at candidates independently. It's always a different scenario than looking at them head-to-head with another candidate. Bruce, also being an insider, does that neutralize that whole insider argument? Really, and to be real, Colleen is a former head of the Downtown Seattle Association-ider. So it's not like she's a radical outsider. Mike McGinn: [00:10:03] I don't think she was the head of the Downtown Seattle Association. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:05] Was previously. Mike McGinn: [00:10:07] I think she was just on the Board, but maybe I'm wrong. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:09] On the Board, on the Board. Mike McGinn: [00:10:10] She was on the Board, right. But just for the record, that's a spot that's given to the Chief Seattle Club. They are automatically on it because they are downtown and the DSA wanted a homeless provider on their Board. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:22] Which is the case for a lot of different organizations. They have different spots there but also not known as a left-leaning organization at the same time. So looking at their policies and being associated with that from a policy standpoint does not quite paint the picture of an outsider in the way that a lot of people think of outsiders in terms of politics. A lot of people would view that as a more establishment qualification on the resume, but neither here nor there. I think the bigger point I was making is that - does the fact that Bruce was formerly a Seattle City Council member, briefly mayor also - does that negate an insider argument if both people are former Councilmembers within Seattle-elected government, or does that more even the playing field and get to more of an issue-based stuff, or does the insider versus outsider argument still carry? Mike McGinn: [00:11:22] I think that Bruce carries that baggage too. He's helped by the fact that he's been off the Council a couple of years, but he does carry that baggage too. There's no question about that. I think if the question is how would Lorena - if Bruce has consolidated the right lane and people are fighting for the left lane, the question becomes how would Lorena do against Bruce in a head-to-head and how would Colleen Echohawk do in a head-to-head? And I'll bet you, that in those types of heads, Colleen would do a lot better than Lorena. I would bet you that. But of course, we're only going to get to run one of these. That's the way it works. But if there were polling done, I bet you what those head-to-heads would show as well. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:10] Always an interesting conversation on if there was polling done. And one of the things that we both have browsers refreshing right now is that the Northwest Progressive Institute, NPI, is actually going to be releasing public polling in the Seattle City Council, the mayoral races, several Seattle races. So that's going to be interesting to see actual public polling come out. They anticipated it being near the end of this week. Let's see if that actually comes out today. It wouldn't surprise me if it wound up being early next week, but we certainly are keeping our eyes on it. Mike McGinn: [00:12:47] I also think you have to take a look at the messaging of the candidates. Bruce's messaging is, "I'm a decisive leader. I know how to get things done." That's also Lorena's messaging - "I'm a decisive leader, I know how to bring people together to get things done. And look at my resume, I'm a progressive." Colleen's message is, "I've dedicated my life to helping homeless people in Seattle, and I'm an expert on homelessness which is the most important issue in the city." And I think that the headwind that both Lorena and Bruce face in the general is that they're saying that they know how to get things done, but the public says, "Yeah, but you had your shot." And that's the biggest headwind that both of them will face in the general election. Crystal Fincher: [00:13:35] Yeah. I'm also curious to see how much attention is paid to their donors and what their donors say. Because one, I think - continuing issue that we have in Seattle elections is ignoring that, and then being surprised that candidates vote pretty consistently in line with where many of their donors are at. That does not mean that their votes are necessarily bought. It just may mean that, "Hey, people see someone who has values that they feel are similar, that they feel is representing them." Not necessarily that they're buying it but that they see kinship there. And it really is telling where corporate interests see their candidate, and where labor and progressive interests see their candidate. And looking at the overlap between where major donors to Ed Murray, major donors to Jenny Durkan - and then look to see where those are at in the current races - a lot of them with Bruce Harrell. So is what we're signing up for really different if the traditional backers, if the coalition of donors looked similar to a profile of prior coalitions of donors? I wish we paid more attention to that in Seattle politics. Mike McGinn: [00:14:58] I agree. And clearly the kind of the business side donor class is consolidating behind Bruce and they're going to have an independent expenditure for him. Labor is consolidating behind Lorena and they're going to have a big independent expenditure campaign for her. And it's hard to cross your base. It's hard to tell your base they're wrong. That's like an axiom of politics and you're absolutely right. It's not that it's pre-negotiated or bought, but it becomes hard. And we saw that in play with Lorena when the police contract came up and the King County Labor Council urged a Yes vote on the contract, Lorena voted Yes on the contract because that's what labor wanted at the time, and the Community Police Commission wanted a No vote on that. We saw it very recently with the vehicle license fee. A stakeholder group came forward and said 75% of the $20 vehicle license fund, like $7 million a year - real money, but not big money in infrastructure. And the climate advocates and the alternative transportation advocates asked for, so the Council respect that. And labor said, "No, put it into bridges." The laborers, the carpenters and the King County Labor Council went down and said, "Nope, take the money from walking, biking and transit, put it into a bond for bridge repair." And that's basically what Lorena did on that one as well. So you get the situation where the base, the people that pay for your elections - it gets hard to cross them on tough issues, on high profile issues. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:47] I would just ask that as people are voting, consider that. Consider where their base is and what their history is of voting in line or not in line with those considerations. And certainly I know a number of people who agree with Lorena on a number of issues and that issue for a lot of people is the most challenging one. It's like, "Oh, but that police contract vote." is a sticking point for a number of - particularly further left-leaning progressives and where they're having a challenge in there. But there's issues with that with every single candidate almost - although I did - someone referred to Andrew Grant Houston as - what did they call him - the Elizabeth Warren of the race because he has a plan for everything, like well thought out and well organized. But I would say, aside from him, most - just anecdotally, a lot of people are like, "I love this candidate except for major issue where there was a problematic vote or a problematic issue." Jessyn, it's Compassion Seattle. With Lorena, it's that police vote. People got stuck with Colleen on the initial indication of support for Compassion Seattle, which she later said she's not going to be voting for and she does not support. But that gave people a lot of pause. So there's a number of those with candidates. Mike McGinn: [00:18:16] And I think over on the progressive side, that's absolutely right, and there's a little bit of - kind of arguing over who's in fact the most progressive. Although I think we can say that all of them have very strong progressive credentials. You don't represent homeless downtown, or come from Lorena's background and she's done great things in other areas. But clearly, your point about labor is good. By the way, Bruce Harrell voted for that contract too. And Colleen asked for them to vote No. It's an interesting thing getting elected as I did in '09 without a lot of institutional endorsements. It meant that I actually had a lot more freedom of movement. Everybody was trying to figure out where I would land. At the same time, I also didn't have a whole cadre of people behind me who were looking to back me up and stand up for me when I got in. Crystal Fincher: [00:19:14] That is the thing. Mike McGinn: [00:19:15] It's an interesting mix. But it really did - people were really wondering when I got in, in 2010, well, where is he going to land? Because in the primary- Crystal Fincher: [00:19:25] I was one of those wondering in 2010 where you were going to land. Mike McGinn: [00:19:25] On the other hand, it gave me - it meant that I didn't - this is going to sound a little trite, but honestly, my biggest concern was responding to the voters because I had gone around the institutional endorsers for the most part to get to win. The Stranger endorsement was big, and I picked up some service worker unions and other individual endorsements but nothing like anybody else in the race did. So that makes a difference in governance as well as you pointed out. Crystal Fincher: [00:20:01] Yeah, absolutely. And to be clear, the City of Seattle races are not the only races happening. We have a number of races. One, King County Executive race where certainly the two front runners are Dow Constantine, the incumbent who's been there and certainly in a strong position, versus Senator Joe Nguyen. What's you're read on where that stands right now? Mike McGinn: [00:20:23] It's hard to say. I think that Dow, after 12 years in office, is going to be facing the same time for a change sentiment. But I think Joe has to make the case for change. I think if you look at - and Joe Nguyen has got a great progressive record in the legislature and you can hear his values when he speaks. Dow has to explain the Youth Jail, he has to explain the Mariners Skyboxes, he has to explain the bailout of the Convention Center. He's got to defend his record and explain why he is the agent of making things happen now after 12 years based on where things stand. So I think that's going to be a big challenge for him. I think that is somewhat of a lower profile race. It doesn't necessarily deserve to be a lower profile race. It just is - the mayor's race is going to use up a lot more of the media coverage than the County Exec race will. So Joe has to make the case. He's got to aggressively pursue the change argument and what his values were. But it can happen. Look at Girmay vs Larry Gossett - it can happen. People can make a decision that it's time for a change even if they're not particularly angry at the incumbent, but they just think that the incumbent isn't delivering to their expectations of what they want to see at that time. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:59] Yeah. This is going to be an interesting race to see, especially at the primary point. I think looking at the point where Joe Nguyen got into this Executive's race - before he got in, Dow, obviously incumbent not challenged by major Democratic candidate before that, was running away with all of the endorsements. After Joe declared, they've really split most of the endorsements. It has not been strong one way or the other. They've really been splitting a lot or just blocking each other's endorsements. There isn't enough for a consensus in a lot of places. So I think the insider, more activist, more involved, and people who pay attention to those stuff all the time - which is a small percentage of people - are indicating that they view this certainly as a race. It's a whole different thing than communicating with voters who don't pay attention across an entire county. That's a heavy lift, a really heavy lift. And so for me, the question is can Joe Nguyen communicate that same kind of thing that makes the insider race competitive county-wide before the primary? Certainly, they have a lot more time for the general, assuming he makes it through which he should. But man, that's a lot of communication to people who don't pay attention. Mike McGinn: [00:23:29] Who will be low information voters, right - which is why that kind of background, that insider or outsider thing takes on a larger influence in races like this. It comes in and they already have a frame for deciding the race. And what you were just talking about is something I call the "perception primary". Some people might call it the "money primary". But it's not just money - it's a perception and it's spread by the insiders. And the thing about the perception primary is that people can be entirely wrong, in the perception primary. And that's, I think, one of the things you're highlighting here. Again, I'll go back to my own experience. In 2009, Greg Nickels had almost all the major endorsements and a lot of money. And the idea that he was vulnerable was actually the reason that I could get in the race. Nobody else would get in the race. He couldn't be beat. So the perception primary was keeping people out of the race. They said, "Well, we can't win the perception primary. We can't even get out of the perception primary." So I think that's always a challenge for a candidate is - can you survive the perception primary and I barely did. I barely did, let's be really clear about that. But I did survive it, but then once you got into the actual primary, I took first place. So I think there's a thing that happens where we all get sucked into the perception of the race. So clearly, Joe has political insiders or the politicos, whatever you want to call them. People are like, "Yeah, Joe has got a shot." But now, he's got to take his case to the voters. That's a very perceptive observation. And the same thing is true - I'll circle back to the mayor's race. There was a whole lot, I was doing a whole lot of - same thing happened in my '09 race. Remember when Jan Drago, a longtime City Councilmember got in the race, it was almost literally a headline of "Now it's a real race". Well, her highest polling numbers were the day she got in. And the two highest vote getters in the primary were two people who had never been in office before, me and Mallahan. So that was a case where the perception primary was just way off. And mayor's race, there's been a perception primary but this is a remarkably wide open race, more wide open than I think we've ever seen in my time watching. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:57] It's pretty wide open. One thing that we talked about in terms of, hey, who appears to be leading here based on polling - the leading vote getter in polling is Undecided, really at this point- Mike McGinn: [00:26:10] By a lot. We are engaging in some of that perception primary stuff too by saying message, dollars, institutional support should lead to votes based on what we know. But we could be wrong - because the nature - yeah. The biggest leader right now is Undecided. So, once the paid media lands and once the media decides how they're going to frame up the race in the last few weeks - will really decide which candidates can propel a little bit and get to that finish line. Maybe they're starting in a different place to get to the finish line. I think two weeks before the ballots drop, I was polling 7% in the mayor's race, ended up at 28%. And Greg Nickels was polling at 22% and he ended up at 25%. So, he spent a lot of money, it just didn't move his numbers because he was in a context where he just couldn't. And I was. And in 2017, I said, "I'm going to do this again," and the exact opposite happened. I started with a higher number and I went down because these people heard about the other candidates and they wanted someone new. So, it really drove home to me just how important the context of the race is, not what the early polls show. It all happens when the money drops and when the voters start paying attention - what movement do you start seeing then? That really happens. Crystal Fincher: [00:27:48] Yeah. Now is when the race for real regular people begins. A lot of people realize that the race is happening once they get their ballot in the mail. It's like, "Oh, this is a thing." And usually along with their ballots, they're getting four mailers a day from here on out most of the time. So, it's going to be real interesting to see how effectively people can get their message across. And that's not an easy thing to do. It takes - you have to penetrate people's consciousness at multiple points, multiple times - in order to make a real impression. And so that takes - certainly a significant budget and just good message execution. Mike McGinn: [00:28:40] Well, good message too. That was part of the point I was making about '09. But I really learned it in 2007 when I worked on the - Roads and Transit campaign. So, to refresh people's memory, the legislature decided to - that a regional Roads and Transit ballot would go in front of the public in 2007. And it included money for light rail but it also included money for highway expansion. And the Sierra Club - we decided to fight it because we believed it was bad for global warming. And I think we got the Cascade Bicycle Club with us and no other institutional endorsers. A few elected officials joined us late. But it was all the elected officials, business, labor, most of the environmental groups supported the Roads and Transit ballot measure. They said it's the only chance to get light rail. They had $5 million to spend and the polling had them at like 56%. They ended up, I think, at 44% on election night. And we spent about $50,000. We had no money, but we had a really good message. And they spent $5 million, they didn't have a good message. So, here you go. I now feel like I'm in Marco Lowe's Politics class. It's a mathematical equation, it's really simple. It's Message x Message Delivery = Impact. And if your message is - it's the only math you have to know in this. If you got an awesome message and zero delivery, no impact. And if you got a billion dollars of delivery and your message is a zero, zero times a billion dollars is still zero impact. It's both. You got to have a good message. You got to deliver it. And now, we're going to find out who's got the message in these races that actually moves voters. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:40] Yeah. And a lot to learn from it and that will certainly inform how the message is developed in a general election. Certainly, your race - a number of races - have been instructive just for me personally in terms of how effective a message can be. But in a singular rallying issue, certainly you and transit- Mike McGinn: [00:31:02] Kshama and 15 in her race- Crystal Fincher: [00:31:06] Yeah. And Kshama was the other one - 15 Now. Mike McGinn: [00:31:10] 15 Now, yeah. And I think that- Crystal Fincher: [00:31:12] That was huge. That was very instructional for me. Mike McGinn: [00:31:15] I think that Bernie Sanders got into that first race against Hillary Clinton, thinking he was just going to be a message candidate. I mean somebody to carry this message and use the race as a way to distribute a message. And he discovered his message about the power of Wall Street and the power of billionaires was really powerful. And all of a sudden, he was in a real race. The reporters say he didn't think that was going to happen and maybe if he'd realized that sooner, he might have won that one. Because you want to race differently when you're trying to deliver a message and when you're trying to win. But it's another example of how someone can have tremendous amount of institutional support, but somebody can come in with a better message and lap 'em, or at least give them a good run. Crystal Fincher: [00:32:04] Well, Obama versus Hillary was message versus establishment. Mike McGinn: [00:32:08] Great example of that. And so it's not necessarily about experience, or resume. It's about what the voters are looking for right then in a candidate. And you can run a race that - it's the context that's going to decide it, ultimately, more than the candidates. Crystal Fincher: [00:32:33] Voting is an emotional decision. Voting is not a logical decision. And to your point, it really is about how you can connect, how your message and the vision that you're painting connects with voters. And if you can tap into what they're feeling, both their frustrations and their aspirations, that is the key. Like - "We don't have to be here. We can be in a better place. I can bridge that gap and get us there." Make that connection to the voters - that sticks. And helping to have, I think, in your case and Kshama's case and certainly looking nationally in Obama's case, but on a local level with a number of people, to be able to paint a very clear image of where you can go. You were very clear on your vision. Kshama was very clear on her vision, to the point like other people have no problem repeating and defining where you stand. And I actually think that's kind of the crux of where people have challenges with candidates. It's like, "Okay, explain the candidate to me." And if they have a hard problem doing that, that's a problem for the candidate. They need to be able to say, "Oh, Kshama is 15 Now candidate. Mike is the transit candidate." Mike McGinn: [00:33:56] The fact that I rode a bike actually delivered a lot of message. I was an environmentalist who cared about transit and walking and biking and alternatives. Those things really mattered. And if your supporters can't explain why you're running, you have a problem because so many votes are actually gained by your supporters carrying the message on your behalf. So, it's got to be really simple - people complain about sound bites and I understand, because they feel like it oversimplifies the issues, but the reality of somebody running for office or running an advocacy campaign is they have to be able to boil their message down and express it in a way that actually has impact and conveys meaning to people. It's a lot harder than it looks to do that. It's a lot harder and I think people don't fully appreciate the role that a few words can play in delivering a message that moves voters, or moves people to action in an advocacy campaign. I think of "Defund the Police", everybody is picking on Defund the Police - that it hurts Democrats, and it may well hurt Democrats. But that wasn't a message invented by Democrats to a bunch of people in swing districts. That was a message invented by activists to call attention to the role of policing America. And by that measure, it seemed like a whole lot of people were repeating their message. And again- Crystal Fincher: [00:35:38] A whole lot of people repeating the message functionally. In several areas, including here in Seattle, more movement both in rhetoric and in policy than we have seen in the past 20 to 30 years in most instances. And a clear delineation between action that is inconsequential and what is just rhetoric - like a reform conversation - versus Defund is a clear bright line of if we aren't addressing the resources involved with this, if we're just tinkering around the edges of maybe some trading and stuff, that that actually is not getting us where we need to go. Mike McGinn: [00:36:17] And I think that is just completely on point, Crystal. It came from a constituency that's been yelling for decades, if not longer, at not being heard. And somebody is now hearing the message and having to confront it and respond to it - the criticism that, "Well, it's not a perfect message and it might hurt somebody else over there," that's kind of a secondary concern to the activist who's been ignored already. Crystal Fincher: [00:36:45] 100%. 100%. Mike McGinn: [00:36:47] Now having said that, I've noticed that that's not a prominent phrase in this year's City Council or mayoral elections. Crystal Fincher: [00:36:57] No - no it's not. Mike McGinn: [00:36:58] But it served its purpose in the moment and now people have to move and find a different way to try to move the debate. And actually, I think that is- Crystal Fincher: [00:37:05] But it actually set the stage for the debate that we're having now - and determine the lanes and set the parameters. So now, there are discussions about what percentage of funding, how're we going to divert. And so it's not an explicitly Defund conversation - but starts with where are the resources, what are we doing with the actual funds, what are the budget numbers and items. And so kind of like talking about the bridge, or the tunnel - the tunnel, the tunnel, the tunnel was an issue that stood for a whole set of policies. Mike McGinn: [00:37:43] It stood for climate. It stood for using tax dollars wisely. It stood for equity - that transit was a better investment than highways. All of that was in play there. Boy, it kind of takes me to another topic I hesitate to bring it up, but there's a little bit of a test. This year is a test. Two years ago was a test too of where is the electorate right now on a lot of these things. The Compassion Seattle Initiative is an example of that. Now, it's written in such a way that people can see things in it that aren't there or not see things in it that are there. The vote is happening. It's become a little bit of a litmus test for left to right, but not completely. I saw former City Attorney Mark Sidran speaking up - I saw an article he was speaking up at a Belltown forum - saying you can't support Compassion Seattle, it's too lenient on the homeless. So, I think this why I'm laughing because there's such a swirl around this issue. But I think that's kind of one of the issues out here - is homelessness is clearly the most important issue in the city right now. That's what's showing up on the polls, and that's what people care about. But then you have to dig a layer deeper, what does that mean? What kind of city are we? Do we go to, "Yeah, so we need to build more housing," or do we get to, "We need to kick them off the streets and parks"? And that's the other thing that's kind of really very much in play this year. And the fact that Compassion Seattle is on the ballot and who's backing it - now that we see who's backing it, now that its contours become a little more clear - you can see that in a way it's designed to try to boost voter turnout of those who might vote for the right lane candidate. Crystal Fincher: [00:39:50] Absolutely. Mike McGinn: [00:39:50] That's what it feels like to me. This is a political ploy more than a reasoned solution. And we declared an emergency on these six years ago, for crying out loud, but we haven't really treated it like an emergency in that six years. It was just - and there's only so many task forces or government structures and emergency resolutions you can pass before the public goes, "Well, what the hell are you going to do?" And that's really a big issue. Is it a progressive response to homelessness or not a progressive response to homelessness? That's going to be a task for the Seattle electorate in the City this year. I know which side I come out on, and I hope the City comes out on the right side of that too. Crystal Fincher: [00:40:34] Yeah. I mean it is in reality. And Erica Barnett, in PubliCola, actually did a great piece this week on - what do its advocates say versus what does the text actually say? They're very different things. It is clearly not a progressive policy. It is clearly being, trying to be - it's dressed up in progressive clothing - from the name on down and what they're saying. So, it will be very interesting to see, but that's one of those where the simple messaging on that - the easiest way to message, the simplest way to message is very deceptive and it makes it seem like, "Hey, this is finally going to do something and take care of something and people who don't just want to see people swept. But hey, there's money for this and they're going to help." You can message all of that in a way that a lot of media organizations are carrying without question, and the text doesn't jive with what their messaging is. Mike McGinn: [00:41:38] I have a sense that the confusion about what it really means will hurt it in the same way that it hurts many initiatives. That initiatives always often suffer from the public response if it's not well thought out, it's not well-thought through, that the legislative process enables things to be a more nuanced approach. And I think that that is going to be a drag for the proponents of this getting it through, which is good, from my perspective. But even so, its level of popularity overall even without those negatives of we're not quite - maybe it's not built right, maybe it's got some bad provisions in it, maybe it's not well-thought through. I still think the level of support is going to be so high, even if it fails, that it kind of shows how fed up people are with no action from government on this issue. Crystal Fincher: [00:42:37] I agree with that. The issue is that people are so tired of this problem not being taken care of. It's been declared a crisis in overlapping jurisdictions - that it's been the top priority - and people have seen the issue get worse, not better. So, it is something. It's doing something, and some people I think are just willing to say, "Well, it's time to do something, and we've seen politicians dither for years. And so we have to do something." That is the challenge, I think the biggest challenge. Mike McGinn: [00:43:10] I don't know whether it passes or fails. Even though I was kind of leaning on it, I think it might fail, but I also think it might pass. Back then, maybe here's a close. Maybe we've reached the end. I think that that we have to do something kind of feeds back to the County Exec race we talked about, feeds back to the mayor's race - how that will affect people that were more in the position to do something and those that weren't. And even how it affects the race between Nikkita, Sara Nelson, and Brianna Thomas. Granted, none of them are incumbents but one worked for a City Councilmember and one is clearly the right lane and one is clearly the left lane. Crystal Fincher: [00:43:52] Technically, two have worked for City Councilmembers, but Brianna currently- Mike McGinn: [00:43:56] Oh that's true - Sara did for many years. I shouldn't say that, but Brianna more recently. Actually true - Sara worked for City Councilmembers for quite a long time and was working for Councilmember Conlin when I was mayor and we interacted with her quite a bit. So, yeah, I think that this overarching sense is something that's going to be feeding into all of the races and what's the power of that - given the specific people in the race and their personalities and their platforms and their supporters and their messaging - remains to be determined in each one. But I think it's a powerful driver in all of the races. Crystal Fincher: [00:44:32] Yeah, I agree with that. I think people are fed up and impatient at the moment. For what is the question - they are unhappy with where things are at. Most people do feel like things are on the wrong track for one reason or another. And so what to do with that is the question. Mike McGinn: [00:44:53] Never seen wrong track numbers this high, never seen them this high in my years of following it. It's really astounding numbers on the wrong track. Well, let's Crystal, you and me, we're trying to get the City on the right track in our own ways. And maybe not everybody agrees with our ways, but I'm for all the people out there fighting to make it get it back on the right track. So, maybe we'll lead back with everybody. Crystal Fincher: [00:45:21] Yeah, I'm with you. Getting things on the right track, taking action. I do think people have to - I do think people owe an explanation, who have been in power - an accounting of what they have done with that power. And I think that we are seeing in a lot of different places - certainly, with - Republicans are not hesitant to use whatever power they have and wield it in whatever way they can. I think a lot of frustration with Democrats is that a lot of people say, "Hey, you have the power to enact so much change and not much is happening," and feeling frustration with that. Certainly, that's not universal. Republican inaction is notorious. But people have to account for the power that they have. And I think people are like, "Dude, I'm electing you to use your power to do something." And I think people who can make the case that they will do something with the power that they have will fare well if they can communicate that effectively. Mike McGinn: [00:46:23] And I'm not running for office, so I'll say this. I think the voters too, have to hold themselves accountable as well. There's a little bit of, it's not easy to cut through all the rhetoric and the misrepresentations and all the rest. But ultimately, get out and vote this time - like we get the elected leaders sometimes that they get past us or they get in. And it's up to the voters to really hold them accountable. So, take your time. You don't have to take my word for who the right candidate is, or Crystal's, or any endorsers. Take your time to dig in and definitely take your time to vote. It's a low turnout election year. Sorry for just being - but it's a low turnout year. And what we know is people are calibrating their arguments and their policy positions based on who they think is going to vote this year. So, you get out there and you vote and upset the applecart a little bit. Maybe you can get some people in there who are more progressive. Crystal Fincher: [00:47:26] Yeah. And I think I said it in another show - vote your conscience. For me, I am a strong believer that in primary elections, a lot of people are like, "Well, am I throwing away my vote if I vote for someone who I feel is not in the lead?" And that's a whole host of people because right now, there's lots of talk about who's in the lead - although to be clear, Undecided voters are the plurality of voters right now. But vote for the candidate who you feel most closely matches your values because whether or not that candidate makes it through, that is a statement of values and that's a statement that all other candidates pay attention to. If X candidate that stands for a range of values doesn't make it through, but they're 15% of voters, especially in a general election where more than likely no candidate is going to be approaching 50%, probably not 40%, probably closer to 30%. They're going to have to put together a cohesive platform that can consolidate the other voters. And if they see that, "Oh, man, I am not going to get out of this without addressing climate. I'm not going to get out of this without meaningfully making sure people feel safe, without meaningfully addressing the issue of unhoused people on our streets." Make sure that they take notice of where you actually stand in terms of your values. And you don't have to compromise in a primary election. The choice in the general will be between two people and that's where you have to kind of look at, "Okay, what's the better choice, neither of them probably are going to be ideal on everything but the best choice." But vote your values now, please. Mike McGinn: [00:49:11] Let me put it this way - 90% of the elections, I'm with you. And boy, would I love some ranked-choice voting in a race like this. I would love to see ranked-choice voting in - so order the ones you want. So, you won'thave to worry about the strategic vote. But I think there are sometimes some races you want to vote for the person who you think stands the best chance of winning the general too. And I think this might be one of those as we talked about earlier. I think sometimes you have to look at that one too. And that certainly I think was a factor in getting Biden through the election. I think one of the reasons that the Black voter supported Biden so much, in addition to having a relationship with him and knowing where he stood, was also knowing they didn't want to take a chance on Trump. And they thought Biden had the best shot. Crystal Fincher: [00:50:03] And mistrust of other voters that they would vote progressively and not betray the vote that people might take if they voted their conscience. Yes, yeah. Mike McGinn: [00:50:13] Yeah, and so it's a tricky one. I wish strategic voting weren't a thing. I think there are sometimes when it is. And so that may be where we are this time too, but you can't and you shouldn't vote for somebody if you don't feel good that they're going to advance the causes you believe in at the end of the day. That's the thing that matters. So, do your homework, folks. Crystal Fincher: [00:50:38] Do your homework. We'll certainly include a lot of links - lots of organizations have endorsed - we'll include links from a variety of organizations - Times, Stranger, Urbanist, PubliCola, Transit RIders Union. There are a number of organizations and you can read through their rationale about why they made the decisions that they made. I find that helpful in sometimes trying to wade between which candidates I'm debating on. But please do that. We thank you so much for taking the time to listen to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, July 16th, 2021. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was activist, former Seattle mayor, Mike McGinn. You can find Mike on Twitter @mayormcginn - that's M-C-G-I-N-N. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. And now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live show and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get the full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show today at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time.

So Joe and Anthony get a visit by "Kitty" the chihuahua in the tampa studios, then Anthony tells us about a man freed after 11 years of a 22 year prison sentence. Joe has his usual antics and a whole lot more! Tune in every Monday night. Chiampa.org

So Joe and I couldn't schedule right today, but luckily I'd been dying to do a Father's Day special… We're still on for next week though!! The clue for next week is in the episode; email me at mokshareviews@gmail.com or send me a voice message to win a prize :) --- 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/moksha-davaloor/message

Episode 35: Rural ResponseA discussion about how small and rural communities can respond and structure their response to active shooter events.Bill Godfrey:Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your host of the podcast and today's topic we are going to talk about active shooter response and active shooter incident management in smaller communities or rural communities where there's not a lot of resources. I've got with me today three of the C3 Pathways instructors. We've got with is Joe Ferrara, who has not been in for a while. Joe, it's good to see you back here. Thanks for being here.Joe Ferarra:Good to be back.Bill Godfrey:Absolutely, and we've got Adam Pendley from law enforcement. So Joe's with fire, I guess I should say that, fire EMS. We got Adam Pendley, one of our law enforcement instructors. Adam, good to see you.Adam Pendley:Yes, sir. Nice to be here.Bill Godfrey:All right. So guys, the question of the day is, and the discussion point that we want to have is for those communities out there that are smaller communities, or rural communities, that don't have a lot of depth and resources, how can they still respond to these events and structure their response in a way? And what I'd like to do just so the audience can kind of follow along is kind of follow the checklist process in terms of the flow of the thing, which is going to lead us starting off with contact teams. So Adam, talk to us about some of the challenges when you have a limited number of officers, how do you stretch those resources for your contact teams and to do the security work needs to be done?Adam Pendley:Sure. I think for initial response to an active shooter event, that initial contact to address the threat, one of the things we find when there's less officers working in a geographical area is this idea that there's an increased chance that you're going to have a solo officer entry. So we'll start there. Across the country, many departments are training to the idea and adjusting policy to the idea that we may have to have a solo officer entry to at least put something down range to stop the killing, to get the suspect's attention off of the innocents and maybe toward the officer so they can address that threat. So solo officer entry is a conversation that all departments, but especially those that might not have as many resources on duty at a particular time of day or in a particular geographical area, they have to consider solo officer response.Then as that additional officer arrives, that linkup procedure and understanding how do you turn it from a solo officer response into that first contact team. And of course, when we use the term contact team, in a perfect world, we want that to be three, four, or five officers. But a contact team might just be those two officers. Both of them who are doing the security work with their weapons platform, facing the threat, eliminating the threat, somebody available to talk on the radio, and somebody... The two of them being able to kind of get that 540 degree security with each other, an extra set of eyes is always important. But that might be the entire size of your contact team. And as additional officers arrive, maybe from another jurisdiction, they know to form up as a second contact team that may also only be two officers.So I think it's important to be creative and tactically sound and realize that as we attend training and exercises, just be cognizant of the fact that how do we change our training to address making entry into a building with just one or two officers, and how does that change the tactics a little bit. With time, more officers will arrive. And so, how do you transition to building some additional teams on top of that?And then that gets us into our discussion, which I know we've discussed quite a bit, about the fifth man, that tactical group supervisor. And it's not always a hard number. In some instances the third officer arrives, might have to stay outside in and coordinate the resources that are eventually going to arrive instead of having all resources inside. Or some communities that we've worked with their plan is to have all on-duty resources go inside and then as additional resources arrive, hopefully one of them can extricate themselves from inside the scene and then come back out to kind of take that fifth man function. So it's very jurisdiction specific on how you get creative.Bill Godfrey:So Robert, I'm curious, Adam's talking about reducing the contact team size, which obviously I think makes sense when your resource is constrained. What are the implications for that in training? When you're trying to train your law enforcement guys how to work in contact teams is there a difference in the way you need to train them and in the tactics that they need to use, if it's just a couple of them?Robert McMahan:Well, I think the biggest difference is we're actually doing it in training and working through what it looks like to have smaller numbers of officers on a contact team. And often our rural small jurisdictions don't get the same amount of training because they don't have the trained dollars. But when you're looking ahead towards this kind of incident, you've got to make that sacrifice somehow to get that training done so they know what they're doing. Officers that are responding in these hot situations that don't have that trainer are more at risk to getting injured or killed and not solving the situation without that training. So trainings got to be the first thing that to be addressed in these.Bill Godfrey:Okay. So we've got a couple there on how to reduce some of the team size, looking at solo officer entry and reducing the team sizes. I think everybody can kind of nod your head and see that. Do we still need a tactical, do we still need a fifth man when we're resource constrained? What do you think?Adam Pendley:So, yes, absolutely. The thing that is very important to realize is that the call for help has gone out so more resources are coming and if you only have three or four deputies or police officers that are on duty and they're all inside, and we know from experience that many of our buildings, especially in rural areas, once you get inside a building, the radio doesn't work anymore. So now you have follow on resources that are entering blindly if they don't have someone outside as a guide or a gatekeeper to what's going on. And a lot of our radio systems, you'll have a car to car type function that would work well so you can have two or three officers inside and that third or fourth officer that's outside that can use that car to car frequency to establish what's going on inside to establish a strategy of some sort.So when those mutual aid officers finally arrive, or even from a callback situation, we know in some communities, they have a plan to call officers at home and they quickly throw on a gun belt and there and out the door they go to the scene. And when that officer arrives, they really do need that tactical direction. So I'm not comfortable sacrificing the tactical group supervisor in these situations because I've said this many times, one more gun inside the crisis site might not be nearly as valuable as managing the 10 more guns that are on their way.Bill Godfrey:That's a really interesting point. And Adam, it kind of reminds me of the one group we work with. It was a very rural county out in the Midwest, and on a good day, they had three law enforcement officers on duty, four if you counted the sheriff, if the sheriff himself happened to be there. And they actually, after they went through training with their volunteer fire department, came to an arrangement with their volunteer fire department that all of the armed officers would go down range as quickly as possible to try to deal with the threat, and it would be the fire department's responsibility to take care of all the outside stuff, to get all the incident management positions stood up and kind of coordinate all of those other items on the checklist that needed to get done.And then as soon as the officers that were down range felt like they had just a little bit of stability on controlling the threat and it was warm enough, they would then have one officer back out and go grab the medics to kind of bring them in. I thought that was a pretty... I thought it was pretty creative, and quite honestly, a fascinating look into the mindset of a rural community who's used to having to rely on each other and make things work. I mean, I can think of any number of city or metro agencies where the idea that law enforcement would delegate those tasks to the fire department would just be crazy. But I don't know. I thought it was pretty interesting way. Robert, how does that strike you?Robert McMahan:There's a lot of things that can be done to spread the workload to maybe some unconventional areas. Everybody's got some form of road and bridge that can be brought into help control perimeter as far as access at least, maybe not the security element, but they can provide that access control to the scene and around the command post and other areas. You've got civilians within your community that may be formed into groups, that may be able to be accessed to help out with some things like a reunification program.You could get reunification on the school side, but you can also get some pieces of that from various civilian groups that come in and help staff some of those positions. So, they've got to be creative in how they can fill those things with maybe some non-commission personnel in some of those areas. And planning ahead is a big part of it because in a lot of rural areas, there's wildlife officers, there's forest service officers that we don't normally think about in these responses, and they may not even be on the channel to hear the call for help. So in the planning part of it, if they're thinking about, "Hey, there's these types of officers out in the area that we can maybe call in on." Think about calling them early on in the response.Bill Godfrey:Interesting. So before we get too far afield, down range on the other stuff, because you mentioned a couple of things I want to come back to, but before we get there, I obviously want to jump over to the medical side. So we talked a little bit about that initial law enforcement [inaudible 00:11:06] and the contact teams, but Joe, I'd like to tangent over to the medical side, and to me it seems there's a couple of challenges or potentially a couple of challenges here from not having enough staffing because you're a small or rural community, you've got limited access to the number of medics that are on duty. But also I've seen an awful lot of rural communities where the fire department is volunteer, doesn't have medical capability, they've got an EMS system that works very well for them, but then there's some challenges there because how do you operate when the medics are downrange, but then you also have to do transport. So Joe, can you talk a little bit about some ideas and thoughts on how to make those resources work and how to kind of plan ahead?Joe Ferarra:Sure. So the interesting thing about rural America is, as compared to the metropolitan areas, where you already mentioned that in metropolitan areas we tend to operate in silos, where we do our police, we do our fire, we do our EMS. But when we get out to rural America, the great thing about it is it's a whole community approach, everybody works together, whether that be volunteer fire, or a small fire department working with either a partnered private EMS agency, or a countywide EMS, and then working with law enforcement.And take that one step further, or one other layer on top of this, in many small communities, we have public safety officers that are triple certified as police, fire, and medic, and we'll kind of circle back to that. But in the basic concept where we might have two paramedics on an ambulance and we have however many volunteer firefighters that would show up for that incident, let's just say four them show up on an [inaudible 00:13:00] initially, we're going to have to be really creative because we don't want to put those non-medically trained personnel down range with a security component and ask them to do advanced triage. But we also don't want to lose our personnel and our ambulance because the key to an ambulance on an active shooter event is that is our mechanism to get to the hospital. And without that, we're going to lose time... Great, we have an ambulance, but we have nobody in it.So smaller communities, I think working together, maybe using your fire department as your drivers for the ambulance so you can free up one EMS personnel from a two person unit, and having one paramedic stay with the ambulance, and the other paramedic now get with law enforcement as a rescue task force, and there's your security component and your medical component going downrange and taking care of the patient, ultimately getting them into the ambulance and transport them out of there.So there needs to be all those partnerships looking to mutual aid agreements, looking to other parts of the community. And like I said, I applaud rural America because I think they do the best job at the whole community approach because they have to, they have to have all those pieces. They don't have resources to throw at it like a metropolitan area does.Bill Godfrey:It's interesting, Adam mentioned earlier the idea of doing callback, and I'm kind of reminded that most volunteer departments work that way. How realistic is, do you think, [inaudible 00:14:32] on the EMS side, on the medical side, I shouldn't necessarily just say EMS, but on the medical side for a rural community or a smaller community that's got limited resources, to be able to set up some sort of callback program. Is that going to work fast enough, you think, Joe, to get some medical help?Joe Ferarra:I think so. I mean, for the most part, depending on the model, let's say it's a public utility model or it's a third service EMS. Certainly there's depth there because they're working in shift work similar to how fire departments work so it should not be too much of an issue to have a depth and a callback list. And then if it's a contracted third service or contracted private ambulance, depending on the size of the company, I mean, they could have regional and statewide resources that can be there from a callback perspective.Certainly counties also should work with their emergency management because let's not forget the certificate and need process that occurs in EMS across this country. If I want to be a ambulance provider in that community, and maybe my business is normally transporting a patient from the hospital to the nursing home, the law usually requires, and it's going to be different by jurisdiction, that that ambulance be available in time of emergency. So there are other resources and that's where it's key to tap into your emergency management because they have the reach out to all those other agencies that can assist with that patient transfer.Bill Godfrey:Okay. So let's just kind of recap where we're at. At the basic response level we've got to have on the law enforcement side some certified, armed law enforcement officers to deal with the situation. And on the medical side, we need some trained medical people that are trained and equipped and certified to whatever level the community wants, to also be available to go deal with the situation. We've talked about a couple of ways to stretch those. So let's shift gears and talk a little bit about how to manage this and some of the ideas, robert, you started going down that road a little bit, on some of the ideas for some of the additional ancillary rules that we know need to be filled. Where do we go with that, Adam?Adam Pendley:Sure. I mean, once you get outside of those... That are downrange in the crisis side, there's still a lot of jobs to be filled. So let's take the command post for example. So you have your contact teams and medical and RTF doing their job. You have some sort of tactical in place, tactical triage and transport. It's ideal to have someone handling the triage group function and the transport group function separately, but that might have to be combined into one function so that you have that one fire EMS person downrange making those decisions.But at the command post level, and that's really where you can leverage a lot of help. In many areas there's three or four law enforcement officers that are helping with scribing and helping with talking on the radio and helping doing some other things, same thing on the fire EMS side, they have a trained firefighter that's in there helping scribe and manage resources and keeping the incident commander informed. When reality, you may only have the ability to have an incident commander from law enforcement, a medical branch director from fire EMS, and then you have to train in advance to the point that Robert made earlier is these are training opportunities that you have to develop during a policy development and training and exercises, find those people that can be trained to do those jobs.If I were running a command post in an area that has a fewer resources available, I would reach out to my civilian staff and train them on how to help as scribes in the command post, how to use the radio, how to make resource requests, how to go to the dispatch center and help answer extra calls for service that are coming in. And not necessarily calls for service, but all those calls for information that are going to be coming in. So every part of your civilian staff that works, in not only your agencies, but in the city and public works, like was mentioned, they can all be trained up to do those ancillary jobs when they're called to duty.Bill Godfrey:Yeah. And Robert, I think you were kind of going down this road when you were talking about the perimeter responsibilities, certainly for the outer perimeter. And I know we've got one of our instructors that worked in a smaller community and she had a fairly creative way... I've worked out a deal with our public works department to respond with the garbage trucks and the dump trucks to be able to quickly close down the roads and be able to isolate an area. And while that didn't get used on an active shooter event, it did get used on a bank robbery quite effectively. I mean, are there some other ideas that stick out in your mind about where to get some other resources and be able to kind of backfill some of those ancillary roles?Robert McMahan:So one area that communities can consider is, sometimes they're called CERT teams, civilian emergency response teams. Other agencies have community safety volunteer programs. And if you don't have them in your rural areas, it's something that you could think about starting up getting your community involved and trained to do certain roles like traffic control and other various needs within that emergency response.Bill Godfrey:Yeah. I think that's a great idea. Joe, you got any that jump out in your mind?Joe Ferarra:Yeah. One that jumps out at me and you mentioned CERT, there's another area and this is through the health department. So if the emergency management or the agency directors work with their health department ahead of time, many health departments across the country have what's called MRCs or medical reserve corps. And these are made up of, they may be retired nurses and doctors in the community, or even current and practicing ones. And they're actually in a response mode. So there's a potential there, and I'm not talking a response mode of eight minutes, advanced life support on scene, but they're going be able to support the operation. So imagine being able to get some doctors and nurses to the scene, and that's where your health department and that where it is key to work with emergency management because they have those connections.Bill Godfrey:Yeah. And I guess in some ways... You mentioned the medical reserve corps. I mean, if you're in a smaller or a rural community, it's not just at the scene you're going to have the problem, your local hospital's going to have the problem too.Adam Pendley:Absolutely. And so that all ties into that personnel recall as well, that we mentioned earlier, and also your emergency management. So on both of those, remember, even if you have resources between on-duty and mutual aid that you're able to handle the incident, all of those resources are now pretty much out of service. It's a very stressful event, you may have officer involved shooting protocols that you have to follow.And that happened in an incident that I was involved in, it involves civil unrest. We had a lot of units tied up responding to the civil unrest, and as a responding agency assistant chief, the calls I started making was for emergency recall right away because all of those units were now going to be out of service for a long period of time. And so getting that process started early is very important, I think, when you have a limited number of resources.And then secondly to that is, again, another early call, if somebody can remember to make it very early on in the incident, is reaching out to that county emergency manager because they're going to also be able to bring some of their staff in to help with a lot of the administrative type stuff. But they have plans for trying to call in additional resources. So it's a way to get all of those things started very early on. So somebody has to make that decision and make that call very early to get that going.Robert McMahan:So another area that I just thought of is a lot of rural communities have some kind of incident management team, which could be another call-up resource to come in and help out with this kind of thing. And as I was sitting here, we were talking about hospitals and their resources in these communities. Remember, in some of these communities, and I lived in one before I got into law enforcement where the hospital was 60 miles away. And so it's going to take time to transport patients to that hospital, a lot of time, and so we might think about having that agreement with that hospital to fly resources to the site to get some more advanced care on the site until we can get patients transported that far away.Bill Godfrey:Yeah. That's interesting. I mean, there's a few... I'm not aware of any here in the US, but certainly overseas, there's a few models where they have physicians and physician staff that are either assigned to the medical helicopter, or are available immediately to be deployed to the medical helicopter. It's really interesting. What strikes me about this conversation is we're talking about a lot of ideas here, and I think there's a lot of really good ideas about how to do this on the response side. But the thing that really catches my attention is, I'm not sure that you're going to do a whole lot of this at the time of the incident. This has got to be done before the bang. We're talking about a lot of planning. Where's the best place for that to occur within the community. If we've got some firefighters or some police officers, or medics that are working and serving rural America, who do they turn to to say, "Hey, listen, we need to work on this a little bit?"Adam Pendley:Well, I think mainly that work has to happen together. That's the first thing is you got to get everyone at the same table at the same time, but I can tell you from a law enforcement perspective, I've been called many times by local entities in the community that want to host an active shooter exercise. But that almost always involves some tactical officers demonstrating what it would look like, what gunshots would sound like as they're running down the hallway. And then we begin to treat a couple of patients, but then that's the end of the exercise.The reality is is we need to think about everything else that's going to need to be done. And that's where the conversation really begins because honestly, most law enforcement officers in this country are ready to do the tactical part. And yes, we need training, but that's not where we need the exercise and the policy development. We need the policy development in making sure that all of these creative ideas can happen without somebody standing there and saying, "Oh, I can't do that. The policy doesn't allow it." Or, "I can't help drive that ambulance because state law doesn't allow it." That's where you have to dig deep now to answer those questions. So when you ask a public works person to use his truck to block traffic at an incident, does his union contract allow him to do that? Those are the kinds of questions that you have to dig deep and get the answers to now so you're prepared to be that creative on scene.Bill Godfrey:Joe, what's your thoughts? You're working as a medic in a rural community, where do you start?Joe Ferarra:So Adam already mentioned that it starts with the agencies, but I'll take it one step further in that. In every community and in our great country, there's a comprehensive emergency management plan. And the purpose of that is to plan for emergency response. So we start with emergency management, emergency management has the relationships, hopefully already, that they put together to design a response plan. And then you work through all the iterations of that, that may involve, "Okay, well, if the governor declares this a disaster area, can we override XYZ regulation and deal with these things?" But in my book, that's clearly a comprehensive emergency management plan function.Bill Godfrey:Robert, what about on the political side or the management side? Is there an opportunity with a city manager, or a county manager, or the mayor, or the elected officials to ask them for their help in opening doors and kind of greasing the wheels? What are your thoughts?Robert McMahan:Yes, absolutely. And these are key people that have got to get involved in this on the front end, before the bang, as you said. And figure out how they're going to enable the resources that they have to respond to this. And where the agreements are, are they in place with the hospital 60 miles away? Are the agreements in place with other resources that they've got to have to answer this kind of call?So those political leaders, sheriffs, and I'm not even thinking chiefs of police because we're talking so small here, but maybe there is a chief of police, town marshall, county managers-Bill Godfrey:County judge.Robert McMahan:... county judge, all those things need to be brought together to figure out what these legal issues may be and what these logistical issues may be to get these agreements in place. And so everybody knows what needs to occur and that it can occur when this happens.Bill Godfrey:So guys, let me ask this bottom line question. So no question, this is a difficult challenge for a resource constraint community, no question about it. But bottom line, fixable and doable?Adam Pendley:Absolutely.Bill Godfrey:Joe?Joe Ferarra:Yes, absolutely.Robert McMahan:Absolutely.Bill Godfrey:Yeah. And I think so too. In some cases you've got to be creative and it may not be easy to get buy-in from everybody, but I think there's a common need here. And it seems, if you're willing to commit to a little bit of work and plan ahead of time that it can come together.Robert McMahan:Absolutely. Those pieces that we teach in active shooter incident management that need to occur, these communities need to come together, these community leaders need to come together and look at that, realize what their shortcomings are, and figure out, "How are we going to get this done?" And it may not happen when that bang goes off, it may not happen as quickly as we want, but it can happen and we need to plan ahead on how we're going to do that.Bill Godfrey:Absolutely. Well guys, thank you so much for taking the time. I will say this, I'm kind of reminded a little bit here on the 10 part series we did on the 10 questions that the mayor or the city manager should ask their police chief or fire chief together to talk about that. If you're out there in a rural community or a resource constraint community, and you're trying to kind of figure out where to start that political conversation, you might want to revisit some of the series of those 10 questions the mayor can ask the police chief and fire chief because there was some good stuff. They can arm you with the kind of things that you can approach your elected officials with. And if you get their buy-in, they can really begin to open doors. If they didn't have relationships and couldn't open doors, they probably wouldn't have got elected in the first place. But just a thought out there for our listeners.Robert, Adam, Joe, thank you so much for taking the time to come in guys and talk about this very important issue. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us for the podcast. If you haven't subscribed, please do so on whatever device that you consume your podcasts on. If you have any suggestions, ideas, or questions, please email them to us at info@c3pathways.com. Until next time. Stay safe.

Have we finally moved past the dreaded phone call waiting line? I can hear you cheering from the other side of the screen because so are we.  Chat support is becoming more common as we advance into a more technologically advanced world. When you visit a website with a burning question, that little pop-up box is the perfect alert to greet you. Cue the sighs of relief!  Throughout this post, we will review two of the most popular customer service strategies for 2021: Live Chat Vs. Chatbots. What is the difference between Live Chat and Chatbots, you ask? We'll highlight everything you need to know as a small to medium-sized business, including:   Live Chat What is Live Chat? Live chat is an online communication app. It allows you to interact with your customers on your website in real-time through messaging compared to email or over the phone. This option is designed to be quick and easy and answers the users within seconds. In other words, Live chat is a real person, managed by service agents within a company. Live chats offer efficient solutions to customer issues with limited frustrations. Most B2B companies have utilised this app on their websites and are converting because of it. Do customers like Live Chat? Consumers like Live Chat because they are greeted with instant responses. Complex queries are interpreted easily with Live chat and can process customers without the difficulty of technical terminologies. It can be significant for customers who do not fully understand your service or product yet.  Live chats also allow for agents to share their screens to further assist with customer queries. This option is not available to Chatbots and can be superior if your product or service requires detailed assistance for your customers.  Is Live Chat important? Customers tend to prefer talking to an actual person when they have genuine questions. Live chat widgets allow for more human connection. Humans can understand, empathize and overall communicate better with other humans. Your customers can get a sense of your brand and the agent's personality. It can help to quickly build rapport and establish an authentic relationship.  You can observe your customer through their online journey through their tone and sentiment. It can give you valuable insights to optimise for further development. Responding quickly to a potential customer or a lead will leave them with a better impression of your business. It will be beneficial when it comes to converting.  Why use a Live Chat? Live chats are a great option to create trustworthy relationships with customers and solve in-depth queries. But, as you scale up your business, handling various chats at once may not be feasible. This is where Chatbots may come into play.    ChatBots  What is a Chatbot? A Chatbot is a programmable addition to your website that imitates human conversation through text to answer questions and queries. The Chatbot works automatically without the need for humans. When programmed correctly, Chatbots have the potential to move customers down the sales funnel more quickly. Are Chatbots really effective? Imagine having to reply to hundreds of customers all at once, often with the same question. If you are a small or even medium-sized business, the chances are you will not have many people available to answer questions all day. It may mean customers are still waiting for a response at the end of the day, who will later switch to your competitors.  Do customers prefer Chatbots? Chatbots bridge human limitations by responding instantly with relevant information and guidance. It can save you money, time, and energy in the long run. These Chatbots are designed to answer questions and continue the conversation to drive customer engagement.  Chatbots generally don't need any human intervention, which is optimal for businesses with a limited budget or employees. Chatbots can bring value to customers by becoming a self-service source of information. This strategy allows your customers to find the information they need at any given moment. This instantaneous interaction will leave your customers feeling satisfied. That means no more listening to telephone music as you wait in line for your call to go through. We have all been there, and we all know it is not a great experience. When to use Chatbots? Businesses usually implement Chatbots as their primary source of information for their customers. They appear on landing pages to introduce the customer to your page and are predominantly on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page.  If the Chatbot is unable to answer the questions, it gathers enough information regarding the topic summary, customer details and demographic, product data regarding the specific product or service. The Chatbot then forwards this customer to a specific agent who can assist with the customer's query. This approach will save your business time and energy and will result in a simple customer service workflow.  It sounds like having one less thing to worry about. Who needs a Chatbot? There are several reasons why your business should consider using a Chatbot, which includes: 24/7 customer support, scale-up your business, help your customers quicker, targeting millennials, better user interaction, more affordable. Chatbots, however, are programmed and cannot always give answers beyond what they're programmed to say. Although, with more and more advancements in technology, we know that it's only a matter of time before this problem is no longer occurring.  The best thing you can do for a customer is to answer their questions. A Chatbot has a quicker response rate to humans. However, these machines still have their limitations.  How to know when to use Chatbots and when to use Live Chats? Trustworthiness and cost-efficiency are two of the main priorities for most small to medium businesses. When it comes to deciding whether to install Chatbots or rather utilise Live Chat on your website, you must understand your customer, your business goals, and what is feasible. We've learned this in many of our debates where a combination of both is the best solution.  You can use Chatbots to automate otherwise manual processes that a Live Chat agent would have to say "Tell us your name and number." Do you know what I mean? And then save the human-based interaction for things that couldn't be programmed in the Chatbot or through machine learning and AI for the time being that is. Would you agree, Joe? Transcript James Banks:Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the Web3 Marketing Debate Show. I'm your host, James Banks. Joseph Chesterton:And I'm your host, Joseph Chesterton. James Banks:And today, we have a niche debate. Live Chat versus Chatbots, which one is better for business? So for this debate, I'll be backing the Chatbots, go the robots! How about you, Joe? Joseph Chesterton:Of course, I'm on the Live Chat side of the ring. James Banks:Alrighty. Well, without further ado, let's get started. So Joe, why would you say... Or actually, I think for this one, we're going to need a definition. Joseph Chesterton:Oh, I was about to say, do we need a definition? James Banks:We need a definition of terms. So, I'll kick this one off. So a Chatbot, you've been on a website where a little bubble pops up in the corner. It asks you, "Hey, how can I help you today?" Or, "Can I help you with ‘blah'?" And it gives you some options, or prompts you to start typing.  You start typing, and then before you know it, it's either answered your question or then it palms you off to a Live Chat operator. Which is a good segue way to explain what we mean by Live Chat, Joe? Joseph Chesterton:So Live Chat is, you type your message into the little Chatbox, and then someone on the other end is sitting there, and they reply back. So it's Live chatting. James Banks:Yeah, of course. And it's obvious why Chatbots is better because it's automated. You're not relying on a human being, and you have to pay by the hour to do this correctly. Or would you say otherwise? Joseph Chesterton:How many times have you gone to a website you've typed in, whatever it is. And then it comes back with a response that was not what you asked in the first place? James Banks:Is it the Chatbots' fault, or did the person programming the Chatbot do a poor job? Joseph Chesterton:Isn't the Chatbot capable of being programmed the right way in the first place? James Banks:Potentially. I mean, that's arguable. But a lot of it goes down to people thinking Chatbots are genius, whizzbang AIs. They're not. They require someone to say, "Okay, when someone says something, say this back." And of course, you can program it for every single thing that some person could have to say, that's not possible yet. It will be with machine learning and AI advancements.  But I think a lot boils down to whoever designed the experience of the Chatbot, which has done a poor job. It can cause the opposite of what you would have a Chatbot in the business to do. That is to improve customer experience, and it does the exact opposite. It takes away from the customer experience.  But I don't see how Live Chat is exactly the solution to that. Joe, it could go the same way you get a poorly trained Live Chat operator and produce a negative customer experience rather than a positive one. Joseph Chesterton:Have you ever been to a bank and used one of the bank Live Chats? James Banks:Yes, it's terrible. Joseph Chesterton:It's a Chatbot. It's not a live person. You can't replicate the customer service of someone answering the questions straight up. I can't remember what I was trying to do on the bank's website, but the response was, "Do you want to sign up for a credit card?" And it was completely different from what I was doing. James Banks:Because the Chatbot was poorly programmed. It shouldn't have asked you that. Joseph Chesterton:Maybe it was perfectly programmed. That's the point of the bank. James Banks:Yeah. The bank, all they care about is bottom lines. They don't care about customer experience. Joseph Chesterton:Yeah, but they should. That's the whole point. James Banks:Exactly. But whose problem is that? Is it the platform, the Chatbots, or how the banks are running their business? Do you see we're comparing apples to oranges here? Joseph Chesterton:Well, there's a reason why the big four banks are in the top five biggest businesses in Australia. James Banks:And most top five hated organisations in the country. But let's not get too sidetracked from what we're debating here. All right. I'm going to throw some spanners in the works. Chatbots can be extremely useful if you understand your audience, have a good track record, and data on every single question that they have either put through from help desk, email support, or so on and so forth. You analyse and make human-driven decisions based on how you can create and build workflows that could potentially be automating a manual activity. That means saving money and arguably producing a better customer experience because the answers are immediate. The person doesn't have to wait to connect with a chat agent. They get their answers immediately. Joseph Chesterton:I was going to say that if you didn't mention it. Which I knew you would but, that is probably the main factor, time. So people want to have the answers straight away. If you look at all the good Live Chats, either services or businesses using it properly, they're almost instant anyway. James Banks:Yeah. Joseph Chesterton:So you could say that if you do it right, then that's a novel point. James Banks:So we've talked a lot about chat and Chatbots for customer support. What about using them for lead generation? Like why would you say Live Chat is better than using a Chatbot for lead generation purposes? Joseph Chesterton:Would you say that it is a suitable lead generation?  James Banks:Well, we've tested this at Web3. We've tested Chatbots on landing pages that drive highly relevant commercial traffic versus ones that don't. Usually, we see at least a 30% increase in customer engagement. So when I say customer engagement, you also take that further to customer conversion.  That is someone giving us their name, email, and or phone number. We would consider that a captured lead. Having Live Chats on the website increases our ability to capture those details by approximately 30% on average. That's through the testing that we've done in the past. Joseph Chesterton:So you're saying that Live Chat wins? James Banks:No. Not necessarily because you've got to have someone on Live Chat, trained that knows how to handle a sales lead. And then if you want people coming into your site and hitting it 24/7, you want to resource that. It gets very costly to do.  You look at the classic multi-step form funnel, that is, we have a choice question. A classic example we use is that a free 120 point SEO audit will point out all of the problems with your website and send it back to you in a report for free in under a day. So the first step in that funnel would be for them to give us your website.  Then once we have their website, we can then usually forward them through to provide their name, email, or whatever it is, a little bit more about their business. So that would be a traditional form-based process.  You can build it into a Chatbot. It creates a more native experience, and there's less resistance there because it doesn't feel like they're being pushed down a marketing funnel, even though they are. So that's where a Chatbot can be very effective from lead generation.   Joseph Chesterton:And I guess it goes back to your original point of, "As long as it's been programmed, right?" James Banks:One hundred percent. I think this is the biggest problem. Even on both sides and particularly with Chatbots, everyone has experienced bad Chatbots. It's not that the idea or the concept of a Chatbot is bad, or it shouldn't be on a website. It's whoever has built the Chatbot and the data that they fed into it, and the pathways and everything in between. They haven't done a good job on the customer's needs, wants, pains and desires, and then being able to provide them efficiently with good quality solutions.  A lot of that is customer experience design and customer journey mapping. We've done this before and do this a lot at Web3. And it's such a critical cornerstone component to make any automated system successful. Whether it be a Chatbot or a multiform process, or even a website customer journey, per se. Joseph Chesterton:What I would say works well is both. So one of our service providers, they have a bot. Initially, you type in the message. If it isn't right, then some other options potentially are. If it isn't, then it says something like, "Speak to support." You type that in and it goes directly to support. James Banks:Yeah, it checks you are a paying customer through the Chatbot. Once it figures out you're a paying customer, it puts you in front of a person. So the person isn't wasting their time with people that aren't actual real paying customers. That's a great example. And I think you're right. We've learned this in many of our debates where a combination of both is the best solution.  You can use Chatbots to automate otherwise manual processes that someone in Live Chat would have to say "Tell us your name and number." Do you know what I mean? And then save the human-based interaction for things that couldn't be programmed in the Chatbot or through machine learning and AI for the time being that is. Would you agree, Joe? Joseph Chesterton:Yeah. For example, they have program responses. So it fits like 60% or even more on a growing basis based on what they're getting, like the data that they're getting from it. James Banks:Yeah. Joseph Chesterton:So, it's constantly improving. And then if they can't, obviously it just falls back to Live Chat, but it means that they then have to hire less- James Banks:Absolutely, at the end of the day, what business problem you're solving, you're making a manual process more efficient, more cost-effective, and creating more scalability in your business.  So if you're interested in implementing Live Chat and Chatbots on your website, and you've got no idea how to approach it. Feel free to drop us a line at web3.com.au. We've done this for many businesses before, and we'd love to help you out.  Joseph Chesterton: Talk to us in our Live Chat. James Banks:Is that still enabled, Joe?  Joseph Chesterton:It's there. James Banks:Awesome. Well, that's a wrap for another episode of the Web3 Marketing and Debate Show. Tune in next time, we'll be talking to you all real soon. Have a nice day. Discover more at: https://www.web3.com.au/ https://web3.com.au/live-chat-vs-chatbots/

Guest Co-host:  Kevin Davis:  kevinkaera@comcast.netPodcast Guest:  colavito711@gmail.comJoe's Website:  https://www.gojourneylife.com/ Transcription:Kris Parsons00:01Welcome to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do it too. Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.Ray Loewe00:15Good morning, everybody. This is Ray Loewe. And I'm sitting here in scenic Woodbury, New Jersey, with our engineer Taylor, who's going to make sure that everything runs well today, as he always does. And we're going to be talking to a couple today of the luckiest people in the world. And if you remember correctly, the luckiest people in the world are those people who take the time to personally design their own lives. And then they live them under their own terms. And when you think about it, what could be better than to be able to take control of your own life and live it under your terms. There's no better way that I know of to make your life get better and better and better. And the name of our show is changing the rules and the luckiest people in the world often have to change a lot of the rules. You know, we've got a whole lot of rules put on us. And they accumulate from childhood all the way through adulthood, and the luckiest people in the world are able to sift through and sort through those rules and choose those that are important and significant to them. Because when you're living your life under somebody else's rules, you're not living your own life. So today, we're fortunate enough, we have Kevin Davis, co-host, and Kevin is our guest for this entire month. And Kevin and I did a couple of podcasts over the last couple of weeks. And Kevin, say hello to everybody.Kevin Davis01:44Ray, thanks so much for having me back. I mean, you never know after the last one, but it is an honor to be here co-hosting with you. And I'm excited about it.Ray Loewe01:52Oh, come on. The last one was a great podcast because you and I got a chance to talk a little bit about how the luckiest people in the world know what they want. And you know, you really can't design your own life unless you know what you want. And you and I were able to talk about a couple of these five points, and I'm going to bring up. The luckiest people in the world are able to design their own lives and to be able to float as life throws things at them. Because their lives are purpose-based. They're mission-based. They're values-based. And they're based on the excellence that they bring to the table with their skill levels. And the final thing is they kind of culminate in people being able to truly like their day. So, Kevin, you introduced me to this guy by the name of Colavito that we have on here today, a good number of years ago. And he's an extraordinary, extraordinarily interesting guy. So why don't you take a minute and introduce them to our guests, and then let's start putting him on the spot and seeing if we can get tips on how to get more meaning out of our lives.Kevin Davis03:11Well, super, thanks. So I'm really excited that we have Joe Colavito. With us today, Joe and I have known each other for years had the just the privilege and pleasure of working together at a company in the past. And you know, there's a lot of things I could say about Joe and his career. But maybe if we boil it all down, you know, Joe just loves people. And if you meet him, he's just one of those guys where you don't want that time to end. And I'm sure you're going to get some of that energy through the podcast today. So Joe, thanks so much for joining us today. It's great to have you here on the podcast.Joe Colavito03:47Hey, it's my pleasure, Ray. And Kevin, thanks for having me. And as you know, I love changing the rules.Ray Loewe03:55No, you love really beating up the rules, I think?Joe Colavito04:00Well as my old boss, who Kevin knows, yeah, Doug Buse used to say, I thought the rules were simply suggestions.Kevin Davis04:09They're not news to me.Ray Loewe04:12You know, I'm gonna have to get a t-shirt made up with that. The rules are simply suggestions. I think that's great. You know, let me start out from it. Because Colavito means full of life.Joe Colavito04:25Yes, it does. And some say that I'm full of life and others say that I'm full of it. Yeah.Ray Loewe04:32Well, both are pertinent for this podcast today. So, let's kind of get into some of the stories that you have and some of the things that you can tell us about purpose. And I think that's probably the one thing that we ought to focus on today is because I know a lot of what your firm is based on and what you do in coaching people is to help them find out what their purpose really is so start the conversation for us, Joe.Joe Colavito05:04Yeah, and I think that you know, for the listener, I hope that this encourages you because you have a purpose. You can know what it is. And it's already been something you've been doing. You just didn't have the words to define it.Kevin Davis05:22So that's a wonderful opener, Joe. Unpack that for me. You're teasing me right now.Joe Colavito05:30Yeah, so I'm going to start with a high-level definition, and then I'll take it down to ground level. Does that work?Kevin Davis05:36Yeah, that'd be great. Joe Colavito05:37Okay, so my high-level definition of purpose is that it's your reason for being and your built-in navigation system. So if you can clarify your purpose, you can simplify your path career in life, and you can amplify your fulfillment and impact. That's the high level. Ray Loewe05:57Okay, so you have some examples of that. I think you gave us a couple of stories when we were talking before. Ah, I'm gonna pick on somebody Dennis.Joe Colavito06:08Yeah, so Dennis entered my life. Right when COVID was shutting down the world. I was introduced to him and you can't make this stuff up by a gentleman by the name of Joe Hope. And Joe Hope called Joe Colavito. So hope called full of life, and said, Hey, got a guy that is in a bit of a tough season. He's an amazing man, loves his wife, loves his four-year-old daughter. But he senses that he's lost a bit of his purpose and value. Because right after setting up his deer hunting stand in the middle of the night, he was riding his ATV back along the same path he had gotten thereon. And he woke up in the hospital unaware that the rain had washed out the road. And he was paralyzed from the waist down.Ray Loewe06:56Oh, wow. And this is full of hope. Right? Joe Colavito06:59Well, this is Joe hope introduced me to Dennis right. And so Dennis basically is a great guy. But suddenly, the rules have changed. And the rules have not been changed by him. They've been changed by his physical condition, he can no longer do what he did, which was to scale ladders and be on roofs and fix HVAC systems. He actually Kevin was in one of the large class A office buildings in Atlanta that our former company used to own gotcha. Okay. What a small world how it comes back, right. And so here's the statement that changed everything for me, you know, and about this time last year, he literally said, so I just can't go find a job because I don't have the value that I had before. And I was able to look him in the eye virtually and say, Hey, Dennis, I need you to write this down. Your identity has not changed. Your purpose has not changed. And your value has skyrocketed. Do you know how many people are out there that needs somebody like you who's been through trauma and tragedy, but has learned to make a full comeback and experience life's full potential? How many people need you in their corner? You can do so much more for him than I can. Man, you're more valuable than I am? And I could sense him being reinflated. Yeah. So Wow. Ray Loewe08:34So this is what you do for people or two people. Is that correct? Joe? Joe Colavito08:39Yeah, I prefer four versus two. It sounds so victimized. Ray Loewe08:43Well, sometimes, you know, we need to be done to Okay, just because we don't see the values on the table. And, and I think values and purpose are things that you have to search and find they just don't show up all the time, the way we would like to see them.Joe Colavito09:03Yeah, which actually Ray a great segue, before I forget, let me take you back to the ground level definition of purpose, which is why I can confidently say that everyone has one, you can know what it is, you can clearly define it and you can live it out. Okay. So purpose is an individual's unique design to improve the status quo for others. That's it. So everyone's making it complicated. They're talking about how you have to find it, they're attaching it to their work, you know, they're misdefining purpose, which is causing them to miss the fulfillment and impact that comes from purpose. So it's just an individual's unique design to improve the status quo for others. And Dennis can do that better. Having been through that trial, then it could before.Kevin Davis09:49Now, Joe, what's interesting to me, is that's a very others-centered statement. It's not about me, it's about what I can do for others. And I think that's very, very powerful.Joe Colavito10:05Yeah, and that's Kevin you're quick and you're sharp and so is Ray, right? That's the difference-maker when I focus on me, a, it's boring, be it can be quite, you know, depressing. And you can start to just kind of corkscrew yourself down into self-pity, depending on your circumstances. But when I'm always focused on others, and I'm trying to fulfill my purpose, then all I have to do no matter what was happening in COVID is reach out to one person that's hurting more than I am, and then lifting them up. And this is a principle when you lift others up, you rise with them.Ray Loewe10:44So we all ought to do right, we ought to be aware of the value of others, and we ought to be aware of what we can do for others and not what we can do for us.Joe Colavito10:57Absolutely. But the first thing you have to be aware of is how do you show up in the world? So what is your gift? So I'll share mine just because it might help. So my purpose is to encourage everyone to experience life's full potential. Now, wouldn't that make sense given that my last name is full of life? So I just want everyone to experience life's full potential. But that's not enough having that defined? Does the world no good? Does me no, good. So what I am and you guys are we're men of action, right? So what I do is I anchor that purpose with a promise. So I attach a promise that activates it and every conversation situation. And here's my promise. My promise is to never let you settle for less. Settle for less than what experiencing life's full potential. Whoops, we just looped around, and it starts to feel like the flywheel is going Whoosh.Ray Loewe11:49Yeah. So give us a couple more stories and examples. You know, Mr. De shows up every once in a while in your stuff.Joe Colavito12:00Yeah, well, you know, Mr. D is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and actually want to thank Steve Franklin, who I believe you've got coming up on your show. In a while. Dr. Steve Franklin had this brilliant idea to go interview 100 100-year-olds. And when he realized, you know what a large task that was I begged him to let me go out in the field with a video camera. And I ran into Mr. D. So Mr. D is the only person in the world that's ever looked up to me. That's of adult age. That's for the listener. That's because I'm five foot six, with shoes on, yeah. Okay, so Mr. D, I meet him in his, you know, assisted living home, I see his 12 by 12 room, very modest. With a couple of beautiful pieces of artwork on the wall, He leads me over to the general store that actually has his grandfather's general store sign hanging in it. And I watch him basically fill out a little yellow ledger, as, as the patron start to come in and buy, you know, little supplies or a coke or a candy bar. And at the end of the day, he's got $37.50 tallied up from the general store. And I asked him, so what do you do with that? And he says, Oh, I do what I've done my whole life. I give it away. I'm like, okay, back up for a second. Tell me more about your life. And he goes on to tell me about his father who was from Cuba, and a master cigar roller, and he moved to the plant in Tampa, which is where Mr. D grew up. And Mr. D used to shine shoes in front of the cigar factory. Brown ones were a nickel, black ones were a dime, have no idea why it was different. And at the end of the day, he would maybe have you know, $1 -$1.25 in his pocket, he would take it home to his mother and give it to her. And I asked, well, didn't you buy like an ice cream on the way home or a piece of candy or anything for yourself? He goes, No, I just got so much joy by giving it to my mother. That followed him all the way through when he had his first home and too many fruit trees in the backyard to eat all the fruit. He hung it in little bags on his neighbor's doorsteps. When he painted 84 pictures, he was a renaissance man. Later on in his later life. He painted 84 amazing oil paintings. There was one left in his room and two left in the store. Yes, he'd given the other 81 away. But the most amazing part of Mr. D's story. And the reason I share this last is what I want you to learn as a listener is we all should learn something from the way that Mr. D rolled. Yeah, sure. He rolled 200 cigars every day by hand. But the way he rolled was everything he received, he gave away freely. Oh, and by the way, his cigars were pretty good. There was this guy and Kevin, I might need, I lose my memory sometimes. He hand-rolled them he put them in a box he addressed it himself and he sent them off. The guy's first name was Winston and I never get the last name right?Kevin Davis15:05Wasn't even English dude. Yeah, he had something to do with the war. Church something right. When I Wins, Oh, yeah, it was Winston Churchill. Oh, yeah, that Winston.Joe Colavito15:17Yeah. So in addition to rolling cigars for Winston Churchill, he also had a number of other famous people that would come to the back gauges to smoke one with him. And so like you, Ray, he found his joy in getting to talk to interesting people every day.Kevin Davis15:34That, you know, you said something in there that's so profound, you know, that he shared, he found joy in giving. Wow, I mean, that's if you think of everyone wants joy, they want happiness, they want satisfaction. And he learned early on, Joy is in way more in giving than and getting, profound wisdom there.Joe Colavito15:59He just reminded me of something, Kevin, I'll keep it brief. Mr. D was so talented, in addition to the oil paintings, and as he was waiting for new patrons to come in, he would take you know, the plastic bag, we all get at the grocery store that we wad up and they take over our pantry or some other container. Yeah, His hands were so talented that he could take one of those bags. And while he was talking with you, without ever taking his eye off of you, he would fold it down to the size of a cigar and it would not move. That's amazing. And I was like, blown away. So while he's doing that, I'm like, in addition to painting, you know, is there anything else you did? He goes, Oh, yeah, I built my own house. I did the electrical. I did the plumbing. He says, but I always love to sing. I'm like, okay, I've only got three minutes of tape left. What can you sing for me? And he's saying it's a wonderful world. And it literally lit me up. Like I was at a concert, I'd paid $1,000 to be in the front row.Ray Loewe16:56Now how old was Mr. D? Where was he in the in a span of life here?Joe Colavito17:02He was okay. He was 105.Ray Loewe17:05Amazing. And so here he was 105. And he's still doing so he can give things away.Joe Colavito17:13He's waking up at 430 every morning to pop popcorn. And to make coffee so that when the store opens at 730, everything will have the smell and the look that he wants it to have and he'll be ready to serve right out of the gate. So 430 to 530. He preps goes back to bed for an hour gets up, does his prayers, and opens the store at seven every day at 105.Ray Loewe17:36Okay, so what other interesting people have you met along the way over here? That's an open-ended question. Yeah, I can see it with Dan 100 miler.Joe Colavito17:52You know, Dan's a common friend of Kevin, and I probably a worthwhile conversation. Yeah. You know, when I first met Dan, Kevin, he was, you know, an internal wholesaler as you were. And it wasn't until we had relationship for a few years that it kind of came to be known that he was a crazy Dan. I mean, crazy man. He was, you know, running these 100 miles, you know, ultra marathons.Kevin Davis18:18Yeah, on purpose, I might add, that wasn't an accident, it actually looked for them and went out and did them. He's a nut.Joe Colavito18:23Actually signed up for them. And so recently, my path recrossed with Dan, and so this isn't really a story that I was there for Ray, but I think it's an awesome story. So would you mind if I shared it?Ray Loewe18:36Go go go, go.Joe Colavito18:41Okay, so Dan, in his first 100-mile race, it's called the bear 100 out in the mountains of Utah. It's just a casual, 23,000 feet of elevation change while you run 100 miles all the way through the darkness of the night. Kevin Davis18:56I don't think my car could do that, Joe.Joe Colavito18:59Exactly. Exactly. Right. So at the 18-mile mark, he's running on his own, it's been much harder than he thought it was going to be the elevation changes early and they're trying to get people to drop out if they don't have the endurance to stay in it. And here's footsteps behind me turns around, and a lifelong friendship is created. The quick version of that story is Fad Gillum runs up behind Dan Wilkins. There's 80 runners in the race from all over the world. And Dan says go ahead and pass me and Fad says No, I'm good man. And Dan says, No, seriously, you're younger, go ahead and pass me and Fad says what's going to become a legacy-making statement? No, I like the pace you're running at. By the time that race ends, they've been lost in the woods because some hunter took pink ribbons off of the trees because it was ruining his elk hunt. And they find their way back onto the path. They finish in 28 hours, 15 minutes, and 13 seconds hand in hand photo finish so they could experience the victory of kind of winning at the same time. Okay, fast forward the tape they now host a race called Hell and back. And Dan just let me in on this private story. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing it. He's at the 60-mile mark. Fad is not running in this race, even though they typically run these together ever since that moment, you know, several years ago, and Fad shows up unannounced at the 60-mile marker. Dan is hurting. He takes Dan's shoes off, he takes his socks off. He pours cold water over his feet, he dries his feet, he puts new socks on new sneakers on. And then he says Dan, I'm going to be your Pacer for the last 40 miles. I'm going to run the race with you. All right, let me fast forward, what we do is we teach people how to live and work on purpose. And the first step is you've got to go back through your trials and your triumphs within the context of your identity so that you can get to a purpose that is clearly defined. That could only define you It couldn't define anyone else in the world, because there's only one of you. And here it is you ready. This is Dan. My purpose is to be a pacer for others to run with endurance toward joy. Because only an ultramarathoner who has created a race called hell and back would know how to do that. And his promises to always remind you why you entered the race. So let me just play that out real quickly for you guys. Hey, Dan, I'm struggling with Debbie, it's over. I'm going to get a divorce. How do you fulfill your purpose? He says, Well, first of all, I remind you that you know, a marriage is a race. Your career is a race, parenting is a race, everything's an ultramarathon. It wasn't supposed to be easy. So run with endurance toward joy. And I see Yeah, that's nice, Dan, but I'm still going to get the divorce papers, I'm calling the attorney. And he says, Hey, let me keep my promise to you. I'm always going to remind you why you entered the race. Tell me, when you first met Debbie, what was it like when you first had Jessica, talk to me about what you know, were the best years of your marriage, you're gonna give all that up. So and I could go on and on a person comes into him at work and says I'm thinking of leaving, he can have the same conversation, he can see somebody who's lost a job, no matter what conversation situation there is. There's one purpose, there's five missions, family, friends, career, community because you are one person navigating on purpose in all situations. And Dan's awesome at it.Ray Loewe22:29You know, we're unfortunately, we're getting near the end of our time, time flies when you're having fun over here, but if you had to look at this concept of purpose, how many people percentage-wise in this country really have a grasp on what their purpose is?Joe Colavito22:47I wouldn't be able to put a percentage on it. But I'm going to tell you a little secret survey that I do with every person I meet. So every person I meet, that's new, I say, hey, somewhere in the conversation, so sounds like you're a person of purpose. And they nod and I'll say, Would you mind sharing your, you know, your one-sentence purpose statement. And they say something like this? Well, I did it years ago. It's in a journal. I remember doing it. When I read Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life, I'd have to go back to the book, and reader, I hope you hear this with the love that I intended. If you have to go back to a book, to look up what your purpose is, how could you possibly be living it out every day, and therefore you're forfeiting the opportunity to experience life's full potential. So let me anchor that in a 1900-year-old quote, If I could Ray, 1900 years ago, Marcus Aurelius, this is AD 121 said this, and this is why I do what I do every day. People who labor all their lives, but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time, even when hard at work. So if you're out there and you're listening, and you're hard at work, and you're finding that you're either running on empty, or that you've arrived at a false summit, and what you thought was gonna be there, the good life isn't there. And you're lacking the fulfillment and the impact that you know, you were made to be, but you don't know how to get there. Pivot back to purpose. Kevin Davis24:20So, Joe, in the closing minutes here, you know, I'm sure a whole lot of people are sitting here going, Wow, this, I gotta do something about this. What would you recommend? What's one simple kind of next step that listeners could take to say, hey, how do I start to think about my purpose and maybe pivot back to that? Joe Colavito24:43Find somewhere where you can get off and be alone with your own thoughts? Don't be afraid to go into uncomfortable places. And I'll just list off some questions Top of Mind, who am I? Why am I here? What do I do best? What's that thing that I do best? What makes my heart jump the most? What greatly disturbs me to the point I have to fix it right now? And how do I make the most lasting impact in the lives of others? So if you start to answer those questions, you'll find that all the way back, and I'll just quickly give you an example. So what do I do best? I encourage people, what makes my heart jump the most when I see them light up on purpose, what greatly disturbs me that quote, I just read you, and how do I make the most lasting impact on the lives of others, I lead them to, to a true vision of themselves. And so our program opens up with this statement, I only have one goal, I want you to see a clear vision of you. Because when you do, you're gonna have more fulfillment and impact than you've ever had. And everything in your life is going to be better. Ray Loewe25:56You know, I think we have to close there. I don't think there's anything more to say and, and we'll put on our podcast notes, how you can get a hold of Joe and see his website and, you know, get back into what's the meaning of why we're here? And how do we do that to have a more fulfilling and more exciting life? And we're going to Joe, thank you so much. You're obviously one of the luckiest people in the world over here. And you're also one of the most interesting people. So thanks for being with us.Joe Colavito26:27It's my pleasure, Ray. And thank you, Kevin. Yeah.Ray Loewe26:31And next week, Kevin is bringing us to Lance and Penny Davis. Maybe they're related to Kevin and it's gonna be one of the most intriguing interviews that we've ever done. So stay tuned. And we'll see you all next week on changing the world, changing the world by changing the rules first. And Joe, thanks again for being with us, Kevin, thanks again for being with us. And we'll see you all next week.Kris Parsons26:59Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do that too. Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world is gonna have to see a different man

Joe and Jenni Biggs are willing to talk about almost anything. This vulnerability is not only a wonderful character trait, but it makes great podcast content. So Joe and Jenni bring us into the often-thought-about-rarely-discussed part of our relationships conversation: sex. They reflect on their story. The beauty of physical affection, the power of physical affection, and ultimately the effects on a relationship – both good and bad. If you've ever had questions about physical boundaries in dating. Ever wondered if they even matter, why they matter, of how to make them. Please learn from Joe and Jenni. We are thankful for this conversation and think it can bless you mightily. Let's talk about sex! For those interested in Do Good Shop click here This episode was edited by Mike Loretto For info on Mike's work as a Spiritual Coach: mikelorettocoaching.com

All episodes are available at https://TheNeuroNerds.com.  Follow @TheNeuroNerds on Twitter/Instagram and Like us at Facebook.com/TheNeuroNerds.SummaryIt's Halloween time and this year is definitely going to be an odd one with social distancing in full effect. So Joe and Lauren talk about how to stay safe, but still, have fun during this pandemic Halloween. They also discuss horror movies and Halloween costumes. What are you dressing up as for Halloween? Please share on our socials!Check out The NeuroNerds Amazon Shop at amazon.com/shop/theneuronerdsPlus get a free Audible trial at http://www.audibletrial.com/theneuronerds! Currently, The NeuroNerds are reading our fellow stroke survivor, Kavita Basi's book ‘Room 23.' Join us!Credits- Support The NeuroNerds podcast on Patreon and join our NeuroJedi High Council at www.Patreon.com/TheNeuroNerds- Co-hosted by Joe Borges and Lauren Manzano- Find Joe at http://joesorocks.com and @joesorocks on Twitter/Instagram and submit your stroke/brain injury recovery story at https://www.joesorocks.com/submit-your-story- Find Lauren at @laurenlmanzano on Instagram, @tankbbg on Twitter- Produced by Joe Borges and Felice LaZae, http://felicelazae.com, @felicelazae on Twitter/Instagram- Edited by Cory Jennings- Sponsored by Avid Technology and our Patreon Supporters

Check out humanscomefirst.co.uk for the summit and newsletter. About 6 months ago now, Joe and I started a little pet project. Something to keep us entertained while the world was on lockdown and while I hid from my homeschooling kids. It very quickly became the highlight of our week and gave us both the chance to talk about something we're really passionate about - marketing. And it's grown into something more than that... You may have noticed we took a little break over the last few weeks. It's not because we didn't want to be sharing our thoughts on marketing and sales anymore - we hadn't run out of things to say - but we had run out of time. But, as the craziness of the last few months has started to settle down, we're back with season 2 of Humans Come First. To kick off season 2, we've got some really, really exciting things to share with you… First up… and for the first time ever… we'd like to take a pause and shout out our new show sponsor… AdRoll. AdRoll is a cross channel engagement platform that's easy to setup and roll out - helping with Instagram ads, Facebook ads, Email and etc etc check them out on AdRoll.com Secondly, TMM has some exciting news to share - and this is the first time we're publicly speaking about it… but in January, TMM is launching is membership platform - complete with One of the things both Joe and I get a kick out of is bringing marketers together to hear some really interesting shit from the industries brightest… learning from what others have done and what they think - what better way to learn, right? So - Joe and I have pulled together some of the best Human-centric marketing, sales and customer success people we could find and rolled them up into an online two-day summit… all the learnings… all about putting the humans at the centre of your growth… no cost. With speakers from Privy, AdRoll, Drift, HubSpot & Verblio - people like Dave Gerhardt and Kevin “KD” Dorsey - it's going to be a lot of fun so get signed up at humanscomefirst.co.uk and check out the full speaker line up! And not only that but each of the speakers has agreed to give up their time to help aspiring marketers from underrepresented communities - the whole thing is going to be amazing. This time we're also going to change up the format a little - Rich and I will still be offloading our thoughts on various topics, but this time around, every couple of weeks we're also going to be bringing in a guest speaker that Rich and I will interview. We're also firing up a mailing list this time. You'll find the link at humanscomefirst.co.uk and in our show notes. It's not just a spammy - we've launched another episode type of list - it's so we can open up a two-way dialogue. We want you to reply… We'll share extra content, the show notes - I'm sure we'll have some free shit to give away… Joe will knit crochet for everyone that signs up… So check it out at humanscomefirst.co.uk And don't forget to check out AdRoll.com.

Dr James de Lemos: Hello, my name is James de Lemos. I'm the executive editor for Circulation, and I'm delighted to be joined here by Tim Gardner professor of surgery at University of Pennsylvania and our long-term associate editor in charge of cardiac surgical content at Circulation; and Marc Ruel, who is professor of cardiac surgery at University of Ottawa and the chair of the department there and who for many years has led the cardiac surgery supplement issue. Mark, Tim, welcome. Marc, please introduce this issue for our listeners. Dr Marc Ruel: Thanks so much, James. It's a very exciting year academically for cardiac surgery. We've had a lot of great developments from new data on long-term patency and outcomes with radial artery graphs through the results of the ischemia trial. And I think the 2020 themed issue around cardiovascular surgery is exactly in that framework. I think it will garner wide interest. It has a number of original papers, six original research articles, two more translational papers included in those six. We have two research letters. We have two frame of reference papers as well. And one state-of-the-art piece on exynos transplantation. We always keep in mind to have those issues very relevant to surgeons and to gather the very best cardiovascular surgery science. But in the same token we also want to make sure that they are relevant to the wider cardiovascular community. So I think, and I hope that everyone will enjoy this issue as the very best that's happened in cardiovascular surgery over the year. Dr James de Lemos: Well, thank you, Mark. Let's get started with discussion of the first paper and one that I'm actually quite excited about. This is long-term results of the radial artery CABG in clinical outcomes trials. What did the investigators look at in the study? Dr Marc Ruel: I think this is a very important paper, which adds to the increasing data around long-term benefits of arterial grafts, multi arterial grafts, and more specifically the radial artery. So here's a paper mostly from Australia. First author being Professor Buxton, who is a very well-known senior surgeon who has been really a grandfather in this field. And the last author is David Hare who is a cardiologist, also professor in Australia. And essentially there were two radial artery comparative trials that have been undertaken many years ago, well over a decade ago, when we now have 10-year data on those two trials. One of the trials compared the radial artery to the right internal thoracic artery. And the second trial a little bit smaller to the saphenous is vein grafts. So it holds 400 patients in the first randomized comparison and around 225 in the second, i.e. the radial versus saphenous vein. So it's wonderful that this is very long-term data. We have 10 year patency data, not on all patients. There was a distribution as to when the angiogram or the CT scan would be performed for patency over the course of the 10 years of the study. But the follow up is excellent and there are actually patency as well as clinical differences between the groups. And maybe I can say a couple of things around those. So, in the radial versus right internal thoracic artery cohort, there's both a patency and a mortality as well as a major adverse cardiac events benefit for the radial artery over the right internal thoracic artery. And yes, you've heard right, the comparator is the right internal thoracic artery. Now a couple of chatty it's all the Redis in there had to be done as a free graph. So they are connected. This is an art technique that everyone is very comfortable with and you have to use a six or seven Oh one friable internal thoracic ultra. So it may not really provide or present the call the way at its best advantage. If you will, there may be some benefits or a loss for not having it as a pedicle, but nevertheless, and in the second comparison, looking at the radio versus 225 patients, there was a patiency advantage for the radio Herceptin in Spain. But partly because the comparison was less power than the first, there was no major adverse cardiac event or even mortality difference. So I think again, aligns with the data that we know the arc trial, as we all know, 10 years was neutral. There was no benefit to internal thoracic arteries versus small one, which regards to anything repeat revascularization based mortality. And we know have 10-year data recently published that shows that the radial artery in pooling patient level data from many randomized clinical trials leased their survival benefits. So I think it's fair to say based on available data now with this team issue in 2020 in the fall, that the best second RGO is very likely or radio RV and too many people surprised. Dr Timothy Gardner: Yeah. If I could just add my perspective, there's an editorial by Steve brings on this. This really does solidify the data about long-term radial, artery patency. And that was when I came away with, it's not so much the comparison of the radial on the right internal thoracic, but the fact that the radial artery would be like held up very well. Dr James de Lemos: If you're referring a young patient or considering a young non-diabetic patient for cabbage at this point, was you select a radial artery or right internal memory? Dr Timothy Gardner: Well, I probably would favorite as a second graph the right internal thoracic artery rather than. As a free graph, but I certainly wouldn't hesitate to use the radial artery as the second graph there as a third grade. My competence in the radial artery continues to grow in this report reinforces that. Dr James de Lemos: Excellent really important study for both the cardiac surgeons and the cardiologists that read our journal. Let's switch gears and talk about bowel surgery, Tim, the camera Cardiolite study drills deep into different strategies for repairing the mitral valve. What did we learn there? Dr Timothy Gardner: Well, first of all, this study, which comes from Mark Raul's unit Benson Chan being the first author and address the issue that repair with resection of the mitral valve made me to functional stenosis of the valve. And that has been a concern among surgeons and that has led some surgeons to prefer non-lethal the resections repair. And this study was very carefully done and actually demonstrated that the data did not support the fact that resection versus preservation is this okay with the riff? So I think that, you know, there are various ways to repair the valve. And if you go back to the original descriptions of mitral valve repair resection was a major component for many people in many studies. And this is a reassuring study that either approach appears to be effective without badly under sizing the annulus that there should not be residual mitral stenosis. Dr James de Lemos: Tim is one of these materially easier to do in the operating room. So then it would emerge as the preferred therapy or is it really going to be surgeon dependent. Dr Timothy Gardner: I think it’s fairly surgeons dependent. I mean, we have technical variations for a lot of operations, and I think it's when the surgeon is comfortable with Mark. You might want to comment on that point. Dr Marc Ruel: Yeah, I agree with both of you. I think it's very reassuring because there's the orientation of where the last issue is. Small. The patient's exposure is not knowing that you can use theater technique and in some cases not have to go on to the pathway. We Muscle is a reassuring avenue. So I think every surgeon has her or his preference, but it's nice to know that both these can be used interchangeably without any drawback to the patient. Dr Timothy Gardner: Let's switch gears and talk about a paper that I think has pretty profound implications for both of our specialties. And this is an observational analysis from the RS trial, evaluating the association of postoperative atrial fibrillation in the long-term risk of stroke. Mark, what did you think of this paper and its implications? Dr Marc Ruel: This is a very interesting piece that comes incidentally from the heart trials. So non related to what we were Just discussing before the 3000 patients or so of the art trial were followed at 10 years. Mostly with regards to major adverse cardiac events, et cetera, anything that's related to the question at stake at the time, which was single internal for us, incidentally, the authors have ready data regarding the incidence of stroke at 10 years. And they were able to use those and go back to those stations who have postoperative atrial fibrillation and see if there was a correlation, even when accounting for other factors in the patient profile. So interestingly about 24% of patients have had post-op and post-op you, is defined in variety of ways for this particular study, it was defined as 30 seconds at least of atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter during the index hospitalization after the operation. So I think this is a very fair and square type of definition and those patients and those who have the CBA incidents by 10 years was 6.3% versus those who did not have postoperative 3.7%. So this is obviously a significant numerical and also statistically significant higher risk for those patients who have post-operative a-fib. So there's a number of caveats around that. All the risks for post-doc are often the same ones that may lead to the risk of stroke over the long-term. So I think we should see this not as probation. But that should be not even as an association. But certainly as a correlation, but it is really unique data that has not been produced before. Like postoperative is so common after cardiac surgery. It affects many of the patients that both the cardiology and cardiac surgery individuals have to treat. And I think the more information on it, the better, there were a number of interesting observations warfarin, for instance, even though the incidence of post-op 24% was used in only about 8% of the overall trial. So one may debate, have these patients being anticoagulated enough also, would there be a way to provide enhanced surveillance to patients who have post-op in order to maybe catch them prior to them having a cerebral aspir event? So I think it's really very interesting data. I would like to briefly provide one last tidbit of information, which I thought was very, very fasting. So the authors used the CHADS two score in order to kind of ascertain your overall risk attributed to which regards to stroke in those patients. So this is probably the latest and best iteration of the Chad score if you will. And they found that in patients with a score of less than four, so it was zero to three. There was no difference with regards to the incidents of CVA or in signers versus those who have post-op after the operation. However, when the score rich four or higher. This is rare to you where the risk was concentrated. So that particular cohort of patients seemed to be the one where I think the efforts with subsequent studies should be concentrated in order to intervene and hopefully catch these patients who may have atrial fibrillation without having it. Dr James de Lemos: Does this change your practice at all? Do you think, I mean, I guess it's interesting for me because obviously I see a lot of these patients back from surgery and I've tended to candidly ignore short episodes of peri-operative atrial fibrillation. And this really raises questions as to whether that approach is wise and needs to be revisited. Dr Timothy Gardner: I agree completely on the other hand, I think that targeting patients, I mean, I think the last point that Mark made about the patients that ended up with problems with higher AFib and with consequences had other risk factors associated with their risk of stroke. So this continues to be a really tough group to manage. I think that one question that we all have is do the, the, the new novel oral anticoagulant agents provide better long-term protection. As a topic for another important study that should be coming down the pipe pretty soon. Dr James de Lemos: And I'll just point out to our listeners that at the American heart association meeting in November, that late breaking trial will be presented called search AI cardio length that will evaluate extended monitoring creature fibrillation after surgery. And I think that will build off, of this theme that perhaps atrial fibrillation after cardiac surgery is a more important tissue than many of us considered. Let's move to the next paper, Tim, this is really right in your wheelhouse in terms of surgical. So specialization. And this is an interesting paper. I thought evaluating variation and congenital heart surgery outcomes across centers in the U.S. and this group really evaluated a large proportion of dissenters doing congenital heart surgery in the U S. Dr Timothy Gardner: Yeah, absolutely. And they made use of the STS database. They've got good data and it is a multi-institutional review group, really looking at how to optimize outcomes. And I think that, the assumption is that regionalization with more attention to high volume centers, especially for the most high risk say neonatal heart surgery is the way to go. But this study actually while demonstrating significant hospital variations also demonstrated that and reading their conclusion. Now a substantial portion of potential improvements that could be realized on a national scale are related to variability among lower risk patients. And this makes me think back to Dr John Kirkland, who was maybe the first one in our field to actually develop a checklist of important steps and management strategies during the surgical procedure in the early post-operative period. He worked with IBM on that. And I think that lesson here that I take away from it is that volume may be important, but not just for the high risk neonatal population, but for all congenital heart surgery patients. And it really is an important specialty. And there may be some opportunities for improvement just by standardizing sort of management of even the lower risk patients. This is one of several reports from this multi-institutional group that is focused on data from the STS database in congenital heart surgery. Good job demonstrating these variations in outcome. Dr James de Lemos: Yeah. And I think tremendously important, right? Because these lower risk in general procedures may be more like other procedures that cardiac surgeons do. And I think you make a great point that these systems based approaches to minimizing variation do seem to matter. And I wouldn't have thought that the, this is another one of the theme really here in the issue where we have a lot of studies that are challenging the way we thought about, common medical and surgical problems, really a fascinating piece. Let me take a moment here to introduce a new member of our team for the themed issue. Mike Fischbein, who's a surgeon scientist at Stanford, a practicing cardiac surgeon on the faculty there, but also runs a large and very successful basic science laboratory. And he has joined the surgical team for the themed issue to add his particular expertise in the evaluation of the basic science papers. Mike, welcome to the team. I think our readers and listeners will really benefit from having your perspective. And I'd like to have you now please talk about the basic science papers here in the issue. Dr Michael Fischbein: Thank you very much, James. It's really a pleasure to be part of a team. The paper that I'd like to discuss today is a feature of basic science paper entitled a Single cell Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Dynamic Cell Populations and Differential Gene Expression Patterns and Control and Aneurysm Human Aortic Tissue. This is from Scott LeMarie group from the Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. I think this study is very important. It's focusing on the ascending, thoracic aortic aneurysm, as you know, ACE and aortic aneurysms are the second most common aneurysm after abdominal aortic aneurysms. One of the risk factors of ascending aortic aneurysms is that as they grow, they can tear dissect or rupture. Both of which are life-threatening currently the only treatment option is prophylactic surgery. And this is really based on size criteria alone. Now, while over time, we've established that smooth muscle cell loss and exhale and matrix breakdown are important during this process, really the molecular mechanisms or pathophysiology is poorly understood. Therefore, limiting development is novel drug regimen, and this manuscript, the authors use single RNA sequencing to compare the aneurysm wall to normal control. Aorta is taken from transplant recipients. One of the benefits of single cell RNA sequencing is that allows one to identify the cellular components or heterogeneity within the aortic wall. And it also allows us to see the aneurysm relevant transcriptome changes in the major vascular cell types within the aorta. The authors identified 11 major cell types in the aorta, including a number of different smooth muscle cell subtypes and to Celia's cells, fibroblasts and inflammatory cells, including T-cells and macrophages. They found over 500 altered genes comparing the aortic wall to normal control. Mitochondrial dysfunction seemed to be altered in several gene types and they identified a transcripted factor ERG, which stands for Erythroblast Transformative, specific Related Genes to be important in maintaining the normal aortic wall function. And this was reduced specifically in smooth muscle cells, fibroblasts and endothelial cells. This is really an exciting target that may lead to drug development in the future. So thank you very much, James, for allowing me to participate in the group. And I think this will be an exciting paper for the readers. Dr James de Lemos: So Mike, thanks so much. Really appreciate your perspectives here. Another really interesting area that is quite forward-thinking Mark is this idea of 3D printing. Theotic roots and conduits. Tell us about this paper from Joe Woo’s group. Dr Marc Ruel: This is another great contribution from Joe's lab. Looking at the issue around bell spring, and many would call it bear hair because essentially they preserve and surgeons go to great pain and great strides to try to recreate if you will be normal slash nets, these geology and aortic root sinuses. And many of us, when we do this operation are taking great minutia and creating those. And there's a number of things that happen. And all of these techniques vary from the more approach of just taking a straight to, and essentially reinventing the native aortic valve and connecting the coronary buttons. So Joe's lab wanted to study this with regards to the translationally relevant outcome of opening velocity and closing gossip with regards to the RP pal. And they've done this 3D printed biomechanical study, aware they have used for signing LT. Val, that'd be put into these different configurations, some including Neil, if you will, some including what we call a bell solver type of breath and using the natives or signing as a control in the same 3d biomechanical model. And essentially the conclusions of the study, which is free, elegant be performed and Bree compelling from a data point of view is that a simpler appears to be better too many. I'm sure the investigators I'm sure what will be many readers price. These trade routes' configuration without Neil sinuses seem to have the lowest coast opening and closing velocity. So it would suggest that this may translate into longer term durability of the valve. Now, there are other reasons why someone, for instance, the one I do this operation, I like to use Valsalva graft. It's not because I so strongly believe that Neo sinus type should be there is because it also gives enhance an easier reach to the corny about adding a vertical followed by a horizontal type of pattern I find is a bit more reliable and it may not really matter what the opening and closing philosophies are because those files are not intrinsically abnormal. So they may last for many decades going forward. But nevertheless, I think this is a very important study and series of experiments, and we're very happy to include it in the theme this year. Dr Timothy Gardner: Yeah. And if I could just add the thing that I admire most about this study is that not just how they come up with this innovative, 3D printing way to model, but the team included mechanical engineers and bioengineers at Stanford, and that's adding real substantial science to what some surgeons have theorized about. So this is a small study, but the results are quite interesting. Let's talk now. Dr James de Lemos: It's about this remarkable Primer that we've had on critics, transplantation. This is something I wouldn't have imagined five years ago would be something we'd have even considered close enough to clinical application to publish in circulation. But what's different about this now and what should our readers look to in the future with this technique. Dr Timothy Gardner: This paper comes from a group at the Mass General [Hospital]. They've continued to work on Xenotransplantation as a possible solution to the need for new donor organs. And I think the most remarkable thing is after almost silence for 10 years, they have outlined the possibility much more realistically now of coming up with Xenotransplantation as a usable alternative, based on some very important basic science work that others have done in baboons and that they have model into additional experiments. This is what was a very informative article for me. And it's still some ground to cover, but they've really worked away at the science and think that they believe that they're nearing the point where they know transplantation or for cardiac replacement is a possibility. Again, amazed I sort of thought Xenotransplantation was an impossible dream 10 years ago. And here we are, perhaps at the point where it is more of a realistic possibility. Dr James de Lemos: Really remarkable. When you think about these technologic advances that are getting so much closer to clinical application. Well. Dr Timothy Gardner: Thank you both. I'd like to take just a moment to recognize Sara O'Brien in [the] Circulation Editorial Offices in Boston for her remarkable contributions yet again, to pulling this issue together and keeping Mark and Tim and Mike and myself on task to bring this issue home. And thank Mark Tim and Mike for pulling together. What I really believe is far and away, our finest issue. We're talking here in my opinion about multiple studies that changed the way we think about cardiovascular surgery and its complications, including atrial fibrillation that affects all of us in cardiovascular medicine. Dr James de Lemos: Marc, would you like to make some final comments as we wrap up today? Dr Marc Ruel: Absolutely. I could not agree more with your statement, James. I think this is a team effort and I want to be cognizant to the leadership of Circulation for as the premier cardiovascular journal, recognizing the importance of cardiovascular surgery in the field and dedicating an issue through what is best that's happened over the last academic year or so. We want this issue to continue for all time. And I think it's very well started and it's growing nicely. And thanks to the efforts of many, including of people on this call today. I hope that our readers will like it and I foresee it will garner interest even beyond the strict fields of cardiovascular surgery but to the entire cardiovascular community. Dr Greg Hundley: This program is copyright American Heart Association, 2020.

Today's episode features Joe Saul-Sehy from Stacking Benjamins. Before creating a massively popular podcast, Joe made a lot of money mistakes. This all came to a clash when he was working as a financial advisor, owned his own business, and still could barely get the money to get home. Now Joe is bringing finances into so many homes via a unique comedic angle. Listen, learn, and let us know what you think about this awesome episode! Episode Summary Joe's Background Joe was in high school and remembers seeing news specials on money-saving tips He also got inspired by the movie Wall Street But it took Joe a long time to actually put it into practice His parents pushed him to work hard but money was taboo Making Money Missteps On his first day at college, Joe spots a long line at an American Express Credit Card table He talks about blowing money at the mall and fancy meals at Ruby Tuesday for his friends Then things get real when he gets a bill and his parents refuse to help him His credit was destroyed and the interest started building Even in his professional life, he thought he had an earning issue, not a spending issue But we know from famous athletes that a spending problem will always overcome earnings Joe started earning more money with his own business but kept racking up debt Keep in mind, his business was as a financial advisor The breaking moment is when he has no money or credit to buy gas to get home Joe had to dig for change in his seats just to get home Turning Things Around Joe realized he needed to "hide money" from himself This meant automating money to go into separate accounts that he didn't see He also realized that he couldn't go cold turkey Joe gave himself an allowance so he could buy some of those entertainment items He said it's important to not be too restrictive or else you'll relapse Entrepreneurial Journey Joe says he's a bad employee He would always clash with a boss Joe admits he also wasn't a great boss at first He might hire people too much like him Or spout off ideas through the day not thinking his employees would take that as direction Starting Stacking Benjamins Joe sold his business at age 40 This was inspired by a colleague who walked away because it wasn't fulfilling That person, Chris,  stepped away to go climb mountains across the world Chris would then go on to start an adventure travel company Inspired by this, Joe decides to go back to school to become a teacher/coach He realized quickly that it wasn't for him So Joe starts dabbling in a blog and creates the  Stacking Benjamins podcast He wanted to take the unique angle of comedy They took it really seriously and even would attend comedy classes Pulling From Others Joe recommends the book by Austin Kleon - Think like an artist He really recommends people look at others in their industry and pull all the best parts It was actually a car podcast that was hilarious to him that inspired the Stacking Benjamin theme Joe says he actually wants a finance show where no one learns a thing about money In reality, people learn a lot but it doesn't feel like a class He would go on to pull from a board game podcast, car podcast, and even a little kids podcast Key Takeaways Imposter Syndrome: Joe was a financial advisor but still struggled to follow his own advice. We all need help on this journey. Let Others Inspire You: Don't feel guilty about taking takes from others as long as it isn't inspiration. Call to Action Change, assess, repeat. Start to source ideas from others and try them out. Don't just be stagnant! Join the Community We’d love to hear your comments and questions about this week’s episode. Here are some of the best ways to stay in touch and get involved in The FI Show community! Sign up for our exclusive newsletter Join our Facebook Group

The recent ammonium nitrate explosion that leveled most of Beirut has sparked many discussions about explosives. So Joe and Rob explore the history of explosives, from the invention of gunpowder in 9th century China to the massive explosion that killed JFK’s older brother in WWII. They’ll stop along the way and talk about the 100 Years War and the invention of nitroglycerine and TNT along the way.

Welcome to Homestyle, a podcast from The Daily Advertiser that’s all about life, family and the stories they inspire. Two best friends — Leigh Guidry and Joe Cunningham — host, sharing their hobbies and ideas for family fun.  Episode 40: Going Back To School It's August, and although it's not a normal August, it's still back-to-school time. So Joe and Leigh talk about the challenges, the decisions and the lessons they're learning as they prepare for the school year. In this episode you'll hear: --how this year looks different for Joe, Leigh and their families --the decisions they're making as parents and teachers and an education reporter and how they're making them --what they're worried about --what they hope we take from this experience We want to hear from you! Find us on Facebook and on Instagram (@Homestylepod). Leave us a review and be sure to rate our podcast on Apple Podcasts. Catch up on more episodes of Homestyle at theadvertiser.com.

Welcome to Homestyle, a podcast from The Daily Advertiser that’s all about life, family and the stories they inspire. Two best friends — Leigh Guidry and Joe Cunningham — host, sharing their hobbies and ideas for family fun.  Episode 40: Going Back To School It's August, and although it's not a normal August, it's still back-to-school time. So Joe and Leigh talk about the challenges, the decisions and the lessons they're learning as they prepare for the school year. In this episode you'll hear: --how this year looks different for Joe, Leigh and their families --the decisions they're making as parents and teachers and an education reporter and how they're making them --what they're worried about --what they hope we take from this experience We want to hear from you! Find us on Facebook and on Instagram (@Homestylepod). Leave us a review and be sure to rate our podcast on Apple Podcasts. Catch up on more episodes of Homestyle at theadvertiser.com.

Many of us know the basics of distillation, but only a few know the true science. Today, we’re joined by Tripp Stimson of Barrell Bourbon and we ask all the hard questions on distillation that we’ve always wanted to know. This is really for the geeks at heart because it goes into pH levels, yeast strains, malting processes, and so much more. Listen close to the expert because it’s definitely one show where you will learn something new about the distillation process. Show Partners: You can now buy Barrell Craft Spirits products online and have them shipped right to your door. Visit BarrellBourbon.com and click Buy Now. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about bourbon in the movies. What are your goals for the year? Tell us about your background. Let's talk about grains. Does it matter where the grain comes from? What happens after getting the grain? Does the size of the mash tub matter? What is the percentage of mash to water? What's the best way to mix the mash? How long is the process? How do you know the mash is ready? What grain do you add in first? Talk about malted grain. What happens next? What is the consistency of the product when going from the mash tub to the fermentation tank? Let's talk about yeast. What about a mash rest? What is the chemical breakdown during fermentation? Why do some people do closed vs. open fermentation? What determines the number of days for fermentation? Do different grains change the process? What is sour mash? Let's talk about the pH of the water. Is the flavor more consistent in a sour mash process vs. sweet mash? Do you use a bourbon backset in a rye mash? What happens after fermentation? Talk about the shape of stills. After the still where does it go? What happens in the doubler? What are heads, hearts and tails? What are the health risks of the process? What's the difference between the column still and pot still? When do you get the waste out? How do you control the proof coming off the still? What is the argument for a low entry proof? Does it have to be the exact proof listed on the label? How do you get a final proof when using multiple barrels? How do you clean the equipment? Does an older still produce a different flavor? What are you looking for when picking rum? Support this Podcast on Patreon 0:00 Let's give folks a reintroduction of like your background and where you got in to the industry and how are you qualified to teach us about this? 0:09 Let's go ahead like where's your degree here? I was the only one you could get to sit down. 0:14 He's only one answer call. 0:28 This was Episode 263 of bourbon pursuit podcast featuring news reviews and interviews with people making the bourbon whiskey industry happen. Before we start the podcast, here's your weekly bourbon news update. Last week, we revealed the news first on social media that a demolition permit has been submitted to take down the 130 year old national distillers Rick house in Louisville, Kentucky. The building has been deemed unsafe by structural engineers. There's a partial collapse of the roof and the interior support being 1:00 are deteriorating with significant amount of moldy buildup. It's sad to see this historic building be torn down after all the years of neglect since it was never being used. Now on a bourbon release news, the 2020 edition of Yellowstone limited edition Kentucky straight bourbon will be on shelves in September, featuring a seven year old straight bourbon finished in French Armagnac barrels. Approximately 5000 cases of this bourbon are being produced at limestone branch distillery, bottled at 101 proof, it will have a suggested retail price of $99 and 99 cents. In bourbon pursuit news. We're continuing to select more and more barrels for our private bourbon club. This week, we selected two more barrels at four roses and oh ESB and an OB sq. Both 10 and a half years old. This is going to make 22 barrels selected so far this year, and we're not done yet. So if you want to see how you can support this podcast, and get access to some great private barrels, along with 2:00 First access to pursuit series. Join us patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit. This is one podcast. We were super excited to record. Way back on episode 88. We did a back to basics about bourbon. And now we're going deep dive into the distillation process. It's all the hard questions on distillation that we've wanted to know. And we've got Tripp Simpson from barrel bourbon here to go all scientific on us. Listen close to the expert because it's definitely one of those shows, where you're going to learn something new about the distillation process, bourbon pursuits UP FOR A People's Choice Award for podcasts and we need your help. Go to podcast awards, calm and register to vote as a listener. I know registering sucks, but please vote for us and the People's Choice and the arts category. It would be really awesome to win this thing. Now do you want to get some awesome bourbon rye and rums shipped straight to your door? barrel bourbon now has online ordering you can get 3:00 award winning products right now. Go to barrel bourbon calm and click the Buy Now button. With that, enjoy today's episode. Here's Fred Minnick with above the char. 3:12 I'm Fred Minnick. And this is above the char, as I hope this old forester 1897 in my hands, I turned it to the back and I read this quote, The truth is, I prefer whiskey, Laura Howard. And that's from the alienness A TNT show. There's like an engraving on here. Not really entirely sure what the connection between old for certain alienist is. I'm sure it's in a press release or something that was emailed to me that I just didn't read. But 3:48 I will say the bottle got me to thinking about all of the incredible moments bourbon has had in pop culture. Whether you want to talk about Blanton's being 4:00 Everywhere have Pappy Van Winkle being written into the intern's or justified basically pouring more bourbon than most people do in their lifetime on a single episode, or you want to go back to, you know, the 1960s where it was seemingly on every single show with a man smoking a cigarette in a back corner. But I'll tell you my favorite. My favorite connection to Hollywood is the hustler JT s Brown is basically a drink of choice and they talk about bourbon and its qualities that you know you didn't really see a lot of most people when bourbon is in the conversation. It's just part of the conversation. Well here here's a drink tastes so good. You like it. Now let's keep talking about taxes or killing uncle john or whatever. Whereas in like the hustler, they actually did talk about how it was made. They talked about 5:00 You know, eight year old bourbon being the very best, and so forth and so on. And so we get a chance and you want to go down like movie lane and you want to watch an old flick while you're quarantined and bored up to your eyeballs. Go check out the movie, the hustler. And while you're doing it, make sure you're pouring yourself a little JTS Brown. While I may not be the same, it's pretty cool to drink the same thing as Paul Newman. And that's this week's above the char. Hey, if you have an idea for above the char hit me up on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or whatever. Just look for my name Fred minich. Until next week, cheers 5:43 Welcome back to the episode of bourbon pursuit the official podcast of bourbon, Kinney and Ryan back in our usual recording station with a friend of the show. It's been on here a few times already, but this time, we're taking this kind of the next level because this was a a listener requested show of saying like, Listen like 6:00 We understand we go on the tours, we get the 51% stuff all the time. But like, Where's that we need to answer some hard questions. And, you know, we always go back. And I think it was like February 2018. We did like a back to basics sort of month, way back then. And we kind of got an overview of some of this, but this time, I'm really excited because we're going to be going deep dive into the distillation process. Yeah, it's, uh, you know, we get on these tours all the time. And sometimes I know what they're talking about. And a lot of times I'm just nodding my head. Yes. Like acting like I know what they're talking about. So yeah, I'm super excited love having Tripp on his front of the show, and he's getting to test out his new, you know, equipment he paid for. So we appreciate it. We always appreciate Barrow and being able to help support the podcast, have all this nice new equipment too. So it's, yeah, absolutely. So no, super excited about it. Because, yeah, we're like we've always said, we don't know shit about distilling. So we're glad to have someone here who does so 7:00 There are people that went to school for this so that they do know what they're talking about from time to time. Absolutely. So let's go to introduce our guest today. So today on the show you've heard him before in previous podcast, but we have Tripp stimpson. He is the master distiller and Director of Operations at barrel bourbon. So Tripp welcome back. Thanks for having me guys. Good to be here. Yeah, absolutely. So Joe keeping you busy. Always, never dull moment. So what's you know, we were talking earlier, talking about your goals with some Joe goals for the year. Are you guys coming off that big banner year of 2020, all those metals, large blogging, I guess, lofty, lofty goals. We've got looking at doing the usual probably for bourbon batches. We've got a right three batch. It'll be coming out here soon. We actually brought that with us today. 7:45 We got some infinite releases. We've got dovetail. We've got. We're doing some fun things with finishes. I don't want to shine the light too much on that. Well, we can talk about that another time. But there's some really, really interesting things coming out coming down the line this year. So 8:00 Stay tuned. salutely So before we kind of dive into a lot of this stuff, I think people need to know about, you know, your background and sort of like, you know, we've I think we've talked about it before, but like, let's give folks a reintroduction of like your background and where you got in to the industry and how are you qualified to teach us about this? 8:18 Like, like, Where's your degree here? I was the only one you could get to sit down. 8:23 He's the only one answer call. 8:27 Okay, um, so, my backgrounds in biochemistry, molecular biology, degrees from college, I went straight from college and started work for brown Forman as a research and development scientist. I spent 8:43 10 years 10 years with brown Forman in various roles, analytical chemistry, benchtop chemistry, microbiology, doing a lot of distillery sciences and easting and distillery efficiencies. Left brown foreman, I started a consulting company 9:00 There was really focused on the craft side of the business. At the time, there were people just getting into this glorified distillery business with these great dreams of if you build it, they will come kind of ideas. And I wanted to really bring a level of expertise to these people that show that it wasn't all really a bowl of cherries, you know, this is really what you're going to be doing for whole areas. 9:30 And lay it out there real time and say, you know, this is your investment. This is how long you're going to wait for your return. And this is how hard you're going to work. And really put that into context before people would take the leap. So I did that for a handful of years. And met Joe through that process. We began working together six been six years, six years ago this year. And we've been working together ever since we're very similar view on 10:00 On the approach to everything, and it just works. And he sold you on the dream of distillery. 10:07 We're working diligently. 10:10 We're getting there. still dreaming it up. 10:14 So you know, you're you have this idea of also doing distillery but you know, we really kind of want to go and really kind of really pick your brain here. Because as we start getting into what does the distilling process look like? Like I said, let's kind of let's kind of go a little bit, you know, start from finish. And, you know, I think this is really gonna be focused on a lot of the bourbon nerds and the bourbon geeks out there that really want to dive in, they want to know exactly like, you know, what do you have to do to make sure that there's no contamination, no bacteria, like our pH levels of thing. Or, like, you know, when you're in the fermentation, like, everybody never buys tanks, so special fermentation tanks, that's Ryan's thing. Everybody's got their special fermentation tanks. You know, like, you know, how much gas can really come off there. And that's 11:00 Because you see some that have, you know, clothes, you have some that are open, you have some that are outdoor, you have some that have huge vacuums on them. So I think we'll, we'll tackle some of those things there. But you know, I guess let's start at the very beginning of the distillation process. And I mean, I would imagine it just kind of starts with grains, right? It does. And it's always funny to me, where, you know, we always jump in, and we talk about the distillation process. And to me, I always think of that is starting a movie halfway through, you know, you've left out so much of the important stuff prior to this distillation process that really affects your distillation. So if we go all the way back to, 11:37 to the grains and deciding what your grain bill is going to be, and how we treat the grains, where does it come from? How do you mill your grains? particle size actually plays a big part in this when you're milling your grains, if you go down to say a powder versus like a grist like the beer guys would use the you will get different fermentations out of both of those. Okay, so let's let's hit that point. 12:00 Right there. So, assuming you're using different kinds of machines to get the different, like I said the different variable of like, Is it a powder versus like a, I guess like a grist or whatever it is a grist or grit, grist, grist. Okay, is this is this me being like city slicker? Like I don't really know what Grif means. I don't either. 12:19 But I heard him say grist 12:22 like grist mill. Oh, you've heard grist mill before right? Like I like I like for grits. No, I'm kidding was like say I was like, I like grids and grits are like basically ground up corn. So it was like, Is it is it like that kind of that kind of size right there and smaller than that? Well, I mean, it's, it looks like sand. It could be like thick sand in your hand versus say almost a powder. Okay, and what you what you've done, there's a handful of different Mills, people use roller Mills, hammer Mills. 12:53 You can use the cage Mills, and they're all going to do a little bit different type of grind on your grind. 13:00 Is it kind of like so like when you do coffee like say like an espresso is like a real fine, you know, write it up coffee like real dense. Whereas like a pour over something is like more kind of bigger grained, our guests are sure type of texture. Well, and let's go back to what the whole goal of what we're trying to do here, we're trying to take this grain this will say a kernel of grain, and we're trying to make available as much of that starch as we can before we move into matching. So ideally, you would think the finer we can grind it, the more available the starches. So you take that and you go across all these different ways of milling the different types of Mills, and how they get to that grind. So some mills and throughput are going to create heat, well, you don't really want heat, because then you start to really denature the starches that you can't use in your fermentation to create alcohol. So there's different Mills will require different throughput and there are 14:00 certain ways to use each meal so that you get the right particle size without generating the heat. Well, I'm gonna go even before the grinding, like to the actual grain and the growing of the grain, okay, and like the soil and the regions they come from can witness a distilling podcast. Well, you said you want to go all the way back to the grain. So let's do it. Let's do so because you are distilling like, you know, and removing a lot of things from the original I guess grain itself doesn't matter like which region it comes from, or which type of soil or type of grain it you know, from corn to corn, not saying like corn or wheat or corn butter from different varieties of within that species. Yeah, absolutely. And even go step further and every year, you know, annually. If we have a lot of rain, you're going to get a different grain than you got the year before. And, you know, one test that many distillers will do is they'll look for aflatoxin. So if you have a really rainy season, you're going to get some molds out there and aflatoxin being a bye 15:00 product for mold can show up in the corn that's delivered to your distillery. So aflatoxin actually will fluoresce under a UV light. So if you take a thing of grain and you put a UV light over it, you see specks of 15:15 fluoresce grain aflatoxin, and then if there's any aflatoxin you don't know that you won't accept. Yeah. Do you know that run? You know what aflatoxin was? I didn't but it does sound like a mold or fungus. 15:28 I know. I know the Yeah, I know what fluorescence and like infrared and you know, and normal bacteria is kind of starting to yet inoculate themselves. It's like It's like a fish poster. 15:41 Alright, so at this point we are now we're now milling the the grains and stuff like that. We talked about the size of it, I guess. Let's let's kind of go on to the next portion of this. Okay, so we've got our we've got our grain the size we want. Now we're going to move into mashing, you're going to use no warm water to further break down that grind to make the 16:00 available. So in this process, you're going to either have a malted grain that's going to provide the enzyme, or you're going to add an exogenous enzyme that you've bought from a company who's isolated and concentrated this enzyme that you're going to add same time. Either way you do it, the goal is the same. You want to take these large, long chain carbohydrates and cut them down into small three carbon sugars, anything over a three carbon sugar the East can't do anything with. So these enzymes are going to cleave these long chain molecules into these smaller chain molecules during this process to prepare for, you know, the actual fermentation process. So these these big mash tubs that we usually see when we go through, I know we've seen them at heaven. Hell, we've seen that a few different places. I mean, is there is there a size that these things usually end up being like as a recommended sizes? I mean, can it be as small as like a child swimming pool versus something that's a huge tank. I mean, the the 17:00 The science will remain the same, no matter what size you use, the enzymes are going to work at the same temperatures. But the mash tub is typically size with the size of your process. So you're not going to have a big monster still on a small match stub. And inversely, you're not going to have a huge match to a real small steel. Now with these because they I guess, multiplied like, well, this the East isn't added yet, but right now yeah, we're not we're not there yet. Okay, don't jump back. Don't jump ahead. Because I got another question here. Which is, you know, you said about adding warm water. Now I know when I go to these things, and you touch them like they're pretty they're hot to the hand. Yeah. Like what's the I mean, what's the when you say warm water? It's not like bath warm, right? I mean, you're adding you're adding some I would say some scalding hot water to it or something like that, that or it's heating up like what right what's going on in there. So I say warm water because at this point, you you've likely recycled warm water off of something else. So you've you've taken cold water, probably off of 18:00 Through a condenser or something, taking that heat, you recycle that heat into another process. So in this let's just say it's into the cooker. So you're taking the warm water off something else into the cooker with these grains while adding steam, either your direct injection or your jacketed or maybe you have tubes in your in your cooker either way, you're adding heat somehow, and you're really on your way to almost a boil. And then you're going to add you're going to add these grains at different times for different reasons. And these different enzymes are actually going to work at different temperatures. So you've got to be careful because if you if your enzymes are in and you go above a certain temperature then those enzymes are gonna be nature they're not gonna work. So you're not going to get your conversion. 18:44 So if you have like a like a 500 gallon say whatever magic cooker Is there like a certain percentage of you know, the match to water that you are like, what is that percentage? I guess you you, you know, you run you can run a thin beer. What will 19:00 We call a thin beer or thick beer or anything in between the two. You don't want to go too thick because then your yeast isn't going to work. It's going to be too thick, there's too much pressure that yeast isn't going to isn't going to be active. If you go the other way, and you go real thin, the yeast is going to perform well. But now you've used all this energy up to that point to have a fermentation. But you could have actually had some more grain in there. So you're getting more bang for your buck, let's say. So the trick is to find out how thick Can I go maximize the alcohol from the fermentation without going so thick that it starts to suppress the yeast. Gotcha. So I guess another question with the just the mash tubs in general and the cookers, you know, I think the ones that I've seen usually they meet inside of it looks like a KitchenAid mixer. Yeah, right. They've been having they're sitting there spinning everything around and trying to keep that going like is that is that normal industry standard that that you have that or is there sometimes there's, you know, somebody with a broom and a broom handle they're trying to just like mix it around on a canoe pad. 20:00 Can you pass that's how we mix up our stuff. 20:04 You know, I've I've seen it done about every which way you can imagine, the canoe paddle is definitely a thing it does happen. On your larger scale distilleries, though, you're gonna have a nice agitator. The tubes on the inside or the coils are going to be for your steam, either coils or jacket. You can go either way. But yes, I mean, that's pretty much an industry standard. So how long does a typical process like this usually go when you are when you're trying to mash and you're trying to basically add water to the grain to start basically making them change their molecules. I don't really know if that's the right word I'm looking here for but try and change their properties a little bit. 20:41 It Again, it's going to depend on how much you're trying to do one time. So let's say let's let's operate off say 1000 gallon working capacity. You know, you're gonna you're gonna go and you're going to add your corn, your hot water, you're going to go to a boil, you're going to cook for, you know, 30 minutes 21:00 45 minutes, whatever, wherever you land in your profile, then you're gonna start to cool down, put some rye in there, and you're gonna cool a little more. And then that's where your enzymes start to work. You've got your alpha and your beta amylase, enzymes 21:13 that work at the 155 and the 135 degree ranges. So that's really where you're going to start to get a whole bunch of your conversion is right there where the enzymes are working. And then you can hold it there for another, you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Again, this is going to be a little bit of trial and error, depending on your facility. But you're probably looking at two and a half, three and a half hours, probably for a full mashing, cooking session before you go into your fermenter. And how do you know it's like, ready? Well, you I mean, that's the trial and error part. I mean, you you start with a basic profile. And at the end, you see if there are things left on the table. You take measurements of a different of a bunch of different stuff through your fermentation and we can talk about this later, that actually will measure 22:00 You will actually give you ideas of your starch conversion, your, your the fermentation, how much sugar is left over which there shouldn't be any, right? So if there is you've had problems with yeast or some other variable, you measure all these things and you come up with the most efficient profile. What if you didn't have any instruments like back in the day? And you just said, yeah, exactly dip your finger in it and taste it like as Can you tell from that? I mean is there you can, if you were to take just a basic mash early on, right before you start your fermentation, you tasted it will be sweet. It will have sugar sweet properties to it. At the end of your fermentation when you taste it, it's going to be sour. So once you taste the difference in the two then you know on the front side what you're looking for. So another question that I had about looking at the grains that are going into you know, you had mentioned at first like you add in things a little bit later, like you add in the ride later and it's like so is there is it because corn 23:00 has different property. And that's why you added in first or do you add in my first like, what's the like which grains you choose first because of just the chemical nature of compound of it, the corn traditionally is is the hardest to get to based on its physical structure, the kernel itself, breaking all of that down and actually getting to the available storage is the most difficult in corn. So why you boil the crap out of the corn first, then everything else is at cooler temperatures. So you start you work your way to the top and then back down. 23:32 Right You don't want to eat really don't want to cook right too much. And then the malted barley, the barley is is traditionally just for the enzyme at the low percentage. Now as you increase that percentage, you can actually you can get some good flavoring from it. But malted barley traditionally is for the enzymes. What about any other like multi grains that you put in there like does that affects the time that you come in? Because I know if you melt something beforehand, it's probably gonna affect what you're doing. doing the math 24:00 process. Absolutely. And you can you can malt just about anything you want to. And you're going to get some enzymatic capability out of that multigrain. The enzymes are still going to work in the same temperature range. So even if you decide you want a malt corn, you can't go up and boil that corn. And just because it's multicore come back down, and the enzyme gonna work, you still denature the enzyme once you go above that temperature. So Alright, so I think we've kind of got this part now ready to go to have some yeast? All right, well, I think at this point, well, I mean, it's it usually leaves the cooker right? And you have some sort of vacuum or tubing or something that gets it to a fermentation tank. Correct. That's great. And so kind of talking about, I mean, because you've been in this process before, like what does it look like to build a system that is either like vacuum sucking, whatever it is the pumping moving all this stuff from yet not probably vacuum it's probably good to have a Dyson hooked up. 25:01 Got a water pump, very powerful. Yeah, but kind of talk about some of those, those things that maybe people don't see. So, you know, let's start with the most efficient way on a large scale, you're gonna have some nice stainless steel pipe, you're gonna have a really nice pump. And when it's time to go from the cooker to the fermenter, you're going to push a button on your switchboard and it's going to open a valve your pumps gonna kick on, and you're going to empty the cooker into the from how many gallons per minute we're talking my language is. 25:29 Obviously it depends, you know, there's a, 25:33 there's a piece of your process that this fits into, you know, you've you've cooked for so much time. Now it's gonna take you if you've got a pump that runs 25 gallons a minute, you've got 100 gallon tank, it's gonna go a lot quicker than if you have a 10,000 gallon tank and a 25 gallon a minute bomb, sure. So you size everything so that it takes the right amount of time to move the mash from the cooker to the fermenter and that will change whether you're running 100 gallons or 26:00 thousand gallons. 26:02 So again, that's engineering but you basically work it into your, your process. And then on the other side on the craft side, it can be, it can be anytime it can be pulled out and you know, drain into a bucket, take the bucket, dump it into the fermenter it can be hooked a hose to a smaller pump and run a hose across the floor to a fermenter. Any way that you can with some sort of sanitary good sanitary practice, get the cooked mash from the cooker over to the fermenter. I mean, whatever makes sense. That's I mean, you can do it 100 different ways. So from anybody that's never visited still, you know what these look like? Why, why couldn't you have a cooker and a fermenter do the same exact thing. You can, you can so if you wanted to do one fermentation a week, you could have a cooker, or even even distillation. Let's do the whole thing. You could actually have a pot still that you could cook your grains in 27:00 ferment in and then also distill from. The problem with that is that you've now occupied one space to do all three things. The idea around having typically one cooker and three to four fermenters is that you can set it up so you're doing something every day. No, you're not waiting on it to finish all three. Exactly. Yep. Exactly. I gotcha. I gotcha. So the other kind of question about this is like, when I know that we've had the opportunity to go to distillery and you know, you can put your hands on the mash and everything like that, but give folks that are listening kind of understanding of like, when something is actually going from the cooker, to the fermentation tank, like, you know, is it like, Is it just like water at this point? Or is it basically like water with a few crumbles like, kind of talk about the consistency of what this product is at this point. It's, again, if you're running the thicker, if you're trying to run a thicker beer, it's going to be just a little bit thinner than oatmeal. And if you're running a really thin beard, 28:00 It's it's gonna be cloudy water. And then it'll be it'll look like really muddy water, I guess consistency wise, and you're usually trying to like hit the middle ground with both these spectrums, right here is that kind of what most people are trying to hit? Yeah, it's trying to for your facility trying to maximize the yeast performance as well as the grain throughput, so that you're not sacrificing alcohol so you're not leaving alcohol on a table. Alright, you either want to be a Miller light or a stout. You want to be like 28:33 somewhere in the middle there. Yeah, sorry. So now we got to the point that we've got we've got a product going into the fermentation tank, right? That's right. And we've seen it usually there's there's a pipe that somebody moves and it's draining into there. Sometimes it actually drains sometimes like from bottom up sometimes like it can be can can can be pumped in there. See I said it right pumped in there. Yeah. So So at this point when it starts filling up talking to the process. Well, let's talk about yeast for just a second and then and then 29:00 Well in waiting. 29:02 So there there is a few different ways you can go about using yeast in your fermentation process. The most frequently done most frequently used and easiest to use is going to be a dried yeast. So you you order a dried yeast and known quantities from a manufacturer. They tell you how much you used to use for whatever product you're making. They'll even give you a few little flavor notes that that yeast is going to create. You take that in the recommended quantities and while this fermenter is filling up, you take the yeast and you throw it in. Done. That's it. How many different varieties of yeast are there for say like bourbon production? Oh my goodness, any thousands or Yeah, it could be could be. I mean, it's, again, we're talking about natural species. So you can have one and it can mutate while we're sitting here having this conversation. Not really that quickly, but 29:58 pretty close throw right? 30:00 match. Yeah, it'll take right away. There are there are a lot out there. But oddly enough, there are fewer than you would expect available for folks like you and me who were if we were to buy from somebody, that's why you got some guys in Danville that specialize Exactly. Farm solutions. Yeah. So there's, there's another question, this one came from one of the Patreon communities because we knew going into this that it would be tough to ask a lot of hard questions. So we kind of reached out to them. And so Richard hundred asked, you know, during the mash rest, is there a temperature there that affects the final profile that actually goes into potentially the final product? Or is like basically do you wait for that? That master like come to almost like a like a lukewarm state before you start actually pushing it or pumping it into a fermenter? So it's a good question. Let's, let's assume for a minute that when we talk about him, I'm not exactly sure the context in which he's referring to a match. 31:00 But in my experience, I have done what we'll call a mash wrist in certain types of raw fermentations. And the idea behind that is during that rest period, it actually gives the enzymes time to continue to break down starches. And that's really what that that resin or starches or in rare case, proteins. 31:23 That's really what that rest is allowing time for. And I'm assuming that's what he was asking. And if not, I'm happy to come back and revisit what yeah, 31:33 it's close enough. Yeah. All right. So we're in the fermentation tanks you've added to the yeast at this point, we've got, you know, this is where the magic happens, right? You get the bubble start in the form, you got that crust layer building on top. Now, what is what is the chemical breakdown that's actually happening that we're watching at this point. Basically, what you're looking at is starch molecules being converted into alcohol and co2 on the very 32:00 base level that's that's what's going on. So the alcohol is created the co2 bubbles off. And that's what you see. That's why it looks like it's boiling even though it's not. And then I know that we've been to some distilleries and when you're watching the boil it sometimes there's like, it almost looks like rent almost like like there's blood in the water. Like is that just like fats and oils from corn? Yeah, it's oils from corn. Yeah. And it's like hypnotic, always like that. I'm like, oh, man, something 32:25 that's like, just take your breath away. I don't know and know what to like, if you put your head down. It's like, like, you almost lose your breath sometimes. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend doing that. Because that can be pretty dangerous, especially for mentors that are closed. That's what's wrong. Me. You will find open that door and you get a face full of co2. It can knock you out. Yeah. So kind of talk about the the idea of why somebody would do a closed fermentation versus an open fermentation. And why you see some that have, yeah, you see some that have almost like the submarine doors on them like submarine windows. And then you see some that just have huge vent hoods on top of them do so. 33:00 This is this is the age old argument that, you know will never be solved about why we do open top fermentation versus a closed top fermentation. And, you know, we can get into Cypress and stainless, you know sometime too as well. But when you look at an open top fermentation the idea that people some people have is that it's a sanitation issue. So a lot of people will use a close top fermenter for that reason. So I'll back up and say that if you condition your yeast properly, and this is not necessarily the box yeast but if you condition yeast properly, prior to adding it to your condition, like push ups or 33:42 sprints 33:44 Yes, basically basically it's a yeast training program. fermentation. 33:53 And as funny as that is, it's really what you're doing is you're you're putting the yeast in in the environment, similar to 34:00 What it's going to see in the fermentation. So yeah, it's basically like training for marathons what I like to say, CrossFit for you. Exactly, yeah. So how he said, You know, there's like thousands and thousands, and they're living things like how do you prevent from those thousands and thousands of variables from taking over that particular? Is it like, you have so much of that particular yeast that it's dominant and can outcompete other yeast strains, or how does one bad apple not get in there and start taking over. So up until you start your fermentation, everything is pretty much we'll say, sanitized, you know, you basically boil the grain, everything is clean up until it goes into the fermenter. So at that point, you have basically allowed the environment to interact with your clean mash. So that's when potential bacteria can send in potential molds, that stuff that's in the air that you don't see but that we all know is there. That's when it starts to interact with your mash. Now if you have a strong yeast strain, that is beneficial 35:00 properly, it's going to outcompete any of those naturally occurring micro organisms in the fermentation so that you don't have to worry about something else taking over. Also, as soon as that yeast starts working, if you can time that properly to where you add your yeast as your fermenters, filling up, that yeast is going to start to create co2 and create an anaerobic environment, which is an environment that's lacking oxygen, which means those bacteria and mold spores are not going to grow. Gotcha, that makes sense. Yeah. And so this is where the magic is happening. So this is also you know, when we when we go when you visit these things, and you see these, these fermentation tanks, we'll get into the I think we'll get into steel versus Cypress in a minute. But one question that I've always had is like, sometimes they're like, Oh, we do three or four days. Some people are like, oh, we're six, seven day. what's what's the determining factor there to say like, Oh, it's gonna take this many days or like, Oh, we let it go for 10 like, does that really matter at the end of the day? So yes or no 36:00 A lot of it again is going to be strain. A lot of it's going to be how thick a beer you run how much starch is actually in that how much is available on that fermentation for conversion. If you run a thinner beer, and so you don't temperature control your fermentation, and you go from say a 70 ish setpoint and it skyrockets into the 90s it that yeast is going to roll through every available amount of starch in that fermentation very quickly. So you're, you're gonna get 36:30 a large majority of your alcohol in that first 12 to 24 hours. And then depending on how well your your your enzymes work, you get your secondary fermentation and that's what the additional days are for. If you run a thicker beer, and there's physically more starch in there that's available to convert and you want to control your temperatures in your fermentations through chilled water, no more coils in the fermenter 37:00 Then you can actually take longer to convert all of those starches. And basically what that does is allow you to make up for say weekends or holidays or things like that you control the temperature was drags it out longer and there you run a thicker beer so there's more starch in there. So the process just just physically takes longer. It's not like a barbecue and low and slow isn't necessarily 37:26 not necessarily in this case. So like do different. So like rah rah whiskey versus a bourbon or, you know, American malt or whatever, do they you know, each grain have different fermentation days, I guess required for them. 37:41 Again, it goes back to starch content. Yeah, I mean, the the fermentation times are really going to be determined by you know, thickness or your beer, the type of yeast strain you're using and whether or not you want to control the temperatures are good fermentation. People always talk about like, rather like Oh, it's such a pain. Yes, because it gums up everything's like 38:00 So is it like a thicker beer? Or is it So traditionally rye is gonna have a whole lot of protein By comparison, it has a lot more protein than you're going to see in any of these other grains. And for that reason, you get that the foam I mean, people talk about gumming stuff up and foam and that sports protein. So if you if you eliminate that protein, then you can eliminate the problems with rapper mutations. So when you do fry, are you like, Alright, I get my a, my a list, yeast over there can do the most burpees push ups to take this on, because it's going to be a bit. 38:39 There are yeast strains that are going to perform better in awry than others, okay? But also you still got to take care of that protein. And that's really what's going on is that protein, they, if you if you've ever seen a rat fermentation go awry. See what I did there. 39:00 It will almost balloons out the top in a lot of cases. And what that does that proteins actually holding all that co2 in there. So now you're starting to suppress the the performance of the yeast. And if you do that, it's just going to slowly gradually slow your fermentation till it stops. And when you stopped prematurely, you've left all that converted starch on the type. So now instead of getting, 39:25 say, a seven or 8%, beer 9% beer, you're getting a, you know, one, two to 3% beer, because your fermentation didn't go all the way to completion. So go get that paddle. 39:36 Learn enough or do you have to scrap it? Well, rule of thumb is you never scrap it, you know, you got to figure out a way to make it work. You know, one of the things that that Joe always refers to is, you know, when we first met he asked me what do you do when it goes wrong? And just, I just roll off the cuff. It never goes wrong and 40:00 You know, he probably loved it. And he did. And he still tells that story. And at the time, I didn't really understand why I said what I said, but, but what what I'm saying when I say that is that you have to be ready for these things, you have to understand what's going on, so that when your raw fermentation goes awry, you have something some protocol in place to say, okay, you know, we're sitting here looking, the proteins are thicker, in this particular fermentation than usual, we need to make a corrective action, and just knowing what to do to combat each of those problems that comes along, then it you know, it's expected, you know, it's not when something if something goes wrong is when something goes wrong, right. And if you operate with that mindset, then you're just prepared. Yeah, absolutely. And so we're still in the fermentation process here. And I think we skip this step, because there's one thing that we'll always talk about, and that's the sweet versus sour mash, right. I mean, this is where this all happens in this stage to correct That's right. So kind of give Transcribed by https://otter.ai

ExecThread isn't a recruiting firm. It is a platform, a community, a marketplace, trying to do something that's paradigm-shifting in the executive recruiting market by using a unique crowdsourced approach to bring much-needed transparency to the ‘hidden job market'. ExecThread has amassed ~15,000 retained executive searches to-date, and made them available on the platform to their members.When Joe Meyer decided to test the waters for a new executive-level role after his time spent at Apple following the acquisition of his last start-up, he found the process excruciatingly inefficient. A large part of that frustration lies in the fact that the vast majority of executive-level job opportunities that you often want to pursue aren't publicly-posted, and hence are hard (if not impossible) to access.These are often the confidential job opportunities worked on by retained executive search firms, though the only chance you have of finding out about them is if you're directly approached by the recruiter, or someone in your network tells you about them.And the chances of that happening are pretty slim. Even if you are well-pursued by executive recruiters, you're still only finding out about a sliver, a microscopic sliver of the opportunities out there. So Joe decided to solve that problem by bringing more transparency to these much sought-after opportunities.What he built was ExecThread, a close-knit exclusive network where members help each other by sharing career opportunities, vetting other applicants for membership, and breaking down the traditional barriers of the executive search ecosystemWhat also came out of the build-out of this highly curated network was another remarkable outcome.Nearly half of the ExecThread's 50,000 members come from underrepresented groups (which over-indexes the national average at the executive-level by over 2x), an unintentional outcome driven by ExecThread's underlying value-proposition of bringing much-needed transparency & access to confidential exec-level jobs. Not only is ExecThread breaking down the $40-50 Billion executive search industry, but is doing it with inherent bias' removed as well, and as a result is leveling the playing field.Oh, and did I say that all member referrals are automatically granted access. So, let me know if you want in by sending me an email through the form on my website, or apply on your own at ExecThread.

So Joe reads Q again and it it was amazing.... --- 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/behindtheleaves/message

In this month's edition of TIL we will talk to Joe and Cainan about computer encryption and Microsoft Teams. Then we will also talk about IT / PT office visits So Joe tell us about Encryption What are we doing with encryption? What is the program used for this process? How will it affect our users? Cainan tell us about Microsoft Teams again and what is the latest update? Any update on timeline for people to start using. Jonathan and Joe tell us about the upcoming office visits.PT visitsIT visits Closing recap and banter.

Episode Notes [“Coffee” Theme by Cambo]Gabriel Firmo: Alright, so welcome back to State of the Arts, a podcast by two idiots on NBN. My name is Gabriel Firmo.Lucas Bezerra: And I'm Lucas Bezerra. And Happy 2020!Gabriel: Yeah, welcome back. It was surprisingly quick, the break.Lucas: It was extremely quick. Well, the break was quick, but traveling back was not. I think you took a direct flight from Brazil.Gabriel: Yes, it is the worst.Lucas: I did not. It's not the worst for you. I mean, jumping around on airplanes wasn't fun. But we're back. We're here recording our third episode of State of the Arts.Gabriel: Yeah. And so what is the...? We have a pretty traditional question to start the year?Lucas: Yeah I mean, I figured we'd just do a little recap of 2019 and our favorite arts-related thing that we did. It could be like, one in Northwestern, one out of Northwestern.Gabriel: That we did or that we consumed?Lucas: That we did, that we consumed, I guess is a better way to put it. That we saw, experienced.Gabriel: Okay, okay, that makes more sense. Yeah. Do you have one like right off the bat?Lucas: I've got one for my Northwestern.Gabriel: Okay, go for it!Lucas: It isn't really at Northwestern. But yeah, it was during my time here; as soon as I got here, basically. So the MCA last year had a Virgil Abloh Expo. And that Expo was really cool. It really showed like his sort of vision of what design and what art is, and he's got a lot of--Gabriel: That was out here at Northwestern?Lucas: No, that was in the MCA, like in Chicago.Gabriel: Oh, okay. Okay, okay. Okay. Yeah,Lucas: But it was while I was here, I guess this could be my not Northwestern.Gabriel: I mean, I guess that kind of counts for it? There's no hard and fast rule.Lucas: No, but I kind of want to showcase something from Northwestern. Gabriel: Okay, sure. Lucas: So let's leave that as my not Northwestern-related.Gabriel: Yeah. This year I went to--so Giovana, my girlfriend, she surprised me with tickets to Next to Normal, which is my favorite musical of all time. Lucas: Just to be clear, not Next to Normal at Northwestern.Gabriel: No, no--That was also amazing.Lucas: That was really good.Gabriel: But there was one that was playing in a nearby town. And I was surprised with tickets and we went, and it was like it brought me to tears on like two different, three different occasions. Just like throughout the runthrough. And that was just like crazy. I had never seen any of my favorite musicals live before and Next to Normal, it's just like so near and dear to me. So it was crazy good. Definitely highlight of my 2019. Next to Normal at Northwestern, also very good,Lucas: Also very good, yeah.Gabriel: But it would be kind of terrible if both of my highlights Northwestern and non-Northwestern were both Next to Normal.Lucas: Yeah. Next to Normal was the first thing that I did here, arts-related. Well, that I went to. But I have to say maybe my highlight was going to--So our guest on the second episode, Joe, his band, another Northwestern-based band and a third Chicagoland group had a performance. They had a gig, North Side of Chicago. It was a little bit after we interviewed Joe. So, he told me about it, and I went, and both his band was great, but also the other Northwestern band. So I'm just gonna, I'm gonna shout them out again. So Joe's band is called Morning Dew and the other band is called Honey Butter. And they're both really good.Gabriel: Damn, I really need to go to one of these.Lucas: You really do.Gabriel: I did not manage to go last quarter.Lucas: It was a lot of fun. And it was full of Northwestern students and just good energy, you know?Gabriel: Yeah, I mean, that sounds--I'm not a big concert person so I always get a little bit "eh," but for music on like the smaller scale where it's not the enormous super packed concerts I feel like it'd be more fun just in general. For my Northwestern thing, I think Dolphin Show 2019 was Hello Dolly. And I remember Hello Dolly being so extraordinary--and like both of mine are musical theatre.Gabriel: Man, Hello Dolly was so good it made me want to write stuff again and sing again. I hadn't written in a good while, and I hadn't performed any music for a very long time because I had stopped taking classes when I came here. And I remember I came out of Hello Dolly and I turned to one of my friends and was like we need to start some project together because I am so inspired.Lucas: Yeah.Gabriel: Because, for a student musical that thing was--not even for student musical just completely even out of its context it would be one of the best shows I've ever seen. It was so, so, so, so good.Gabriel: So actually our guest for this week, because we have a guest every week is Elynnor Sandefer. She is someone I'm super excited to interview. She's an old friend of mine at the school, but also just kind of someone that I met tangentially through my creative writing classes. She was one of the most unique writers there. Like, there are a lot of very good writers at Northwestern, and for sure, Elynnor is one of them. But specifically, like her style and her choice of topics was always one thing that was just so out of left field that makes her a very, very unique writer, and she was actually one of the first people I suggested when we start with the show.Lucas: Yeah, so I'm excited. I met her today, didn't really get a chance to talk to her that much. I’m excited for this.Gabriel: Yeah. Let’s go to that now!Gabriel: Ok so, we are here now with our guest, Elynnor.Elynnor Sandefer: Hello!Gabriel: Would you like to kinda introduce yourself, say what you do that’s artsy...Lucas: Why do you think we asked you here, I guess?Elynnor: I'm Elynnor, I put words together and make them do things. Optimistically, good things. I'm here because Gabriel has had some writing classes with me and thinks that my work is weird.Gabriel: Yeah. I think it's good, also. Like, disclaimer.Elynnor: That can be the same thing.Gabriel: But very weird.Elynnor: Yeah. Thank you.Gabriel: Like, that is...I mean, we'll get into that in a bit. I think like the standard first question that we ask everyone here, which is that like, necessarily, if you're doing art on a university campus, like you're pre-validation, essentially, like you're not getting any external validation most of the time. Especially for writers more than any other profession. So, with that in mind, why do you do it? Like when no one is in your corner, why do you still do it? Elynnor: Well, the work that I do is mostly writing. And for me, a lot of that starts with journaling. So I do it for my own brain before anybody else's brain. And in that sense, validation has never been that significant. Okay, that sounds wrong. It sounds like I don't take criticism. But everything I make is usually first for myself, which I find works for me. When I write things it is because I'm driven there by some kind of personal urgency. So to that extent, I don't really care if other people want to read it. I also haven't started trying to publish yet so that may change, will change, definitely will change.Gabriel: Okay. Yeah.Lucas: Yeah. I mean it from what I've heard about you and what you write... When I met you today, I mean, you asked me about my opinion on melons?Elynnor: I sure did.Lucas: And I've heard that you wrote an essay on whether boba is a soup.Elynnor: I sure did.Lucas: So you've got a wide range of topics, although they do seem to revolve around food somehow.Elynnor: Yeah, that's been pointed out to me. I don't know what to make of that. I don't eat that much.Lucas: So I guess like, where does the inspiration for this kind of stuff come from? Like, what are you trying...Where does it, how does it work in your brain? I guess.Elynnor: Um, well, I have a tendency to hyper fixate on things, often objects. So the cereal being soup is something I fixated on for a while last year. Melons are something I just find personally interesting right now because people don't seem to think that they have strong opinions. But if you ask them for an opinion, they almost always have one. Except for when they don't know what a melon is...like some people.Gabriel: Is that a call-out? I think that’s a call-out. ’Cause she asked me what a cantaloupe was, and I was just like, I blanked on it. I only know fruit names in Portuguese.Lucas: Not gonna lie, same. I mean, she asked me specifically about cantaloupes and I... No images came to mind. So...Gabriel: But like, I have read a little bit of your stuff, and so this is a really interesting thing is that you talk about these hyper fixations, which are some kind of like oddball ideas, but you do take them somewhere, right? You're not just writing about melons or just writing about, "Is boba a soup or is cereal a soup?" You do something in the nature of all nonfiction, which is something more profound out of like kind of surrealist or just kind of out of nowhere topics. So, what is exactly that process like? Because at least from my perspective, I also do a fair bit of writing and a lot of your topics I can't even really imagine inroads into that range, you know?Elynnor: Well, for cantaloupe, it was that my roommate was cutting a cantaloupe, and I realized I had forgotten about fruit, and I just hadn't eaten fruit in a long time. I started getting worried about scurvy because like citrus or something. But I don't know, I was watching her cut a cantaloupe. And it occurred to me that it just, I don't know, it would never occur to me to buy a cantaloupe. And I thought that was really interesting, because they've been a part of my life for a long time. They have them in dining halls, they're terrible in the dining halls and just generally average. So I use them in an essay I was already writing at the time as just like a joke about the realm of averageness. But yeah, I don't really know what the cantaloupes mean, except for maybe the fact that there are objects that are in everyone's life that no one really notices, but we care about...Elynnor: What do you think literature is?Gabriel: Oh God, you can’t drop that on me. This actually came up in one of my classes recently with a teacher who asked I think that exact question. And they disregarded genre fiction out of hand. So horror, sci-fi...Elynnor: That's not literature?Gabriel: That sort of stuff.Elynnor: That's a...yikes. That's a hot take.Gabriel: I think they were doing it like as a sort of, like, “Oh, it's the beginning of class and I'm going to do this to spur discussion.” Because it doesn't seem like that's their opinion, necessarily. But I was immediately as a genre fiction fan, like, "Ahh." Because fantasy is generally considered not literature.Elynnor: Okay, but I've read amazing works of literature that are fantasy in nature, and I'm angry at this person whose name I don't know.Gabriel: But so you are just like, "Anything is literature".Elynnor: Well, I think that art more broadly speaking is anything whose existence is conditional upon a very particular arrangement of human choice. And I think that, within that it's very difficult to differentiate between different kinds of art. Like if you've read the poem “38” by Layli Long Soldier, this is not in that book I mentioned earlier, but it's a great poem that you should read. And in it, she is referring to a specific action/event as a poem, and that is like one of her main claims. And I think that there's a lot of power in that and saying that, well, I guess in naming what you're making or naming something, something other than it is.Gabriel: Yeah, I guess it becomes just, if it's intentional, it's art that sort of almost, that level of simplification. Which I would get, like, crucified by some of my philosophy teachers for that, but I think that is a pretty good...I mean, you're the philosophy major.Lucas: I mean, it's almost in the like, I think of the “this is not a pipe” painting. Elynnor: Ah yes, The Fault in Our Stars.Lucas: I'm not sure... Yeah, I mean, it's just this sort of idea that the objects and the things that we conceive of as being what they are...Gabriel: Are totally a construction?Lucas: Yeah.Gabriel: So you can just say anything is anything.Lucas: I wouldn't go... I wouldn't say that.Lucas: But that's an idea. I guess.Elynnor: Sometimes it's fun to.Lucas: Sometimes it’s fun to.Gabriel: I mean, in that case, then I'll just say boba is soup.Elynnor: It obviously is!Lucas: I mean, she walked in here and called this podcast art.Gabriel: Yeah. That was, that was quite surprising.Elynnor: To be fair, I have not listened to it. No offense, I'm sure it's great. I just didn’t know about it.Lucas: Yeah, I think we're running out of time. We always end our episodes by asking our guests to plug something on campus that they are excited for related to the arts. Could be anything, I guess. So tell us what you're thinking.Elynnor: Well, I'm not involved with any publications or performance groups or anything like that, but my roommate and best friend is on the staff of Helicon, which is a literary and arts magazine. And you should submit to that because they want you to submit to that.Gabriel: I've read a good deal of Helicon, occasionally. I always forget about Helicon. And then I just, their book comes out, and I'll just see it around and be like "Oh!" I'll flip through it. It's really cool, what people do.Lucas: I've never heard of it.Gabriel: You should! There's very avant garde stuff in Helicon which is fun.Elynnor: If you're a visual artist, especially, you should submit to Helicon because I think visual artists forget about it. Because I think it's mainly marketed to writers.Lucas: Interesting.Elynnor: Yeah.Lucas: I like that.Gabriel: Yeah. Well...Elynnor: They publish anything. There's like a digital game thing on their website.Gabriel: Yeah. And their physical copies should be coming around soon, because it's winter, right?Elynnor: Yeah.Gabriel: Yeah. So it'll be up soon. That's really cool. Thank you for coming by. Thanks for talking to us.Elynnor: You're welcome. I hate talking to you.Gabriel: For listeners, thanks for listening and hopefully join us in two weeks. If we can manage to edit this in our regular time frame, and we'll be back with another guest and another question as per usual, so anything left to say Lucas?Lucas: No, thanks for listening. We'll see you in two weeks. All right.Elynnor: Google images of hairless cats!This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

On this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy and Smart Podcast, I welcome Joseph Reinke on the show to discuss student loan debt solutions. Joseph Reinke is the CEO and founder of FitBUX, Inc which is introducing innovative finance products and technology to the student lending industry with a specific focus on physical therapists. In this episode, we discuss: -How family, work and financial goals effect your loan repayment options -Why refinancing public loans may not be an optimal strategy -Practical examples of loan forgiveness strategies -The personal and societal importance of financial literacy -And so much more!   Resources: FitBUX Website FitBUX Courses  A big thank you to Net Health for sponsoring this episode!  Check out Optima’s Top Trends For Outpatient Therapy In 2020!   For more information on Joe: Joseph Reinke is the CEO and founder of Fitbux, Inc. FitBUX is introducing innovative finance products and technology to the student lending industry with a specific focus on physical therapists. Thus far in FitBUX’s beta test, they have helped PTs develop financial strategies on over $11mn in student loans. Joe has been in the finance industry for over a decade and is one of the few CFA Charterholders in the world who has experience in both wealth management and business valuation (globally, there are only 120,000 CFA Charterholders). He has hosted numerous live chats about student loans with SPTs across the country, presented at the California Student Conclave, appeared on podcasts, and written numerous financial blogs.   Read the full transcript below: Karen Litzy:                   00:01                Hey Joe, welcome back to the podcast. I am happy to have you back. Joe Reinke:                   00:07                Glad to be here. It's been a few years. I know that we see each other at different conclaves and different events and stuff, but it's been a few years since I've been on the podcast. Karen Litzy:                   00:16                It has. I know, I'm happy to have you. And, we'll talk a little bit about what a difference a couple of years make in a second. But the first thing I want to get to is student loans. So let's talk about first, cause I know you have a lot of data on this. You have a huge data set within fit box. So what is the average debt? And we'll stick with physical therapists. We don't have to go across the board, but the average debt for physical therapists loan debt. Joe Reinke:                   00:45                Yeah. So PTs or student loan debt. So we now have about 7,400 students and our platform, it comes out to about $900 million of student loan debt. The average is about $144,000 for PTs. We have some other graduate students that we also work with too. Before PTs, it's about $144,000 in debt. And like you just said too, it's like a moral, I know when we first came on the podcast years ago, we had like $30 million or something like that on the platform. And when I tell people we have like 850 $900 million down there, like, you know, congratulations like you know all the growth that you've had. And I look at it, I'm like, that's disgusting. Like the fact that there's graduates and it's like, okay, $900 million of debt, that must be a lot of people. It's like, no, that's only 7,400 people. Karen Litzy:                   01:35                Yeah, it's criminal, it's criminal. So let's say you've got 900 million in loans, the average of $144,000 which is mind blowing. So what are the options for these students coming out to help repay that loan? Joe Reinke:                   01:54                And the first challenge is trying to figure out how these things even play a role in the bigger picture. But then the government doesn't do us any favors. So right now there's nine different student loan repayment options and it's a minefield trying to figure out which one you should use. How does it play a role? Like what happens if I do this? What happens to my retirement, what happens to family planning? Can I get a mortgage? All these different things. And instead of just being like, okay, I'll pay back my loans, here's the answer. You've got gotta dig through all these things and that's where people get lost. So what we've done is simplify that into two strategies. Either you’re going to pay off your loans, or B, you're going to go on some type of loan forgiveness strategies. And the pay off loans is really dominated by the headlines of refinancing because that's what we get bombarded by in terms of advertisements. Karen Litzy:                   02:38                And what exactly does that mean when someone says they're going to refinance? Joe Reinke:                   02:43                Yeah. So refinancing means you go to a brand new lender and they offer you a brand new rate and a brand new loan and you're literally replacing your old loans with a brand new loan to get a lower interest rate. Okay, so like I know PTs they get bombarded by low road, which is one of our partners, but they get bombarded by a low road because a low road has a partnership with a PTA. So they just get bombarded. So we get everybody, everybody comes to us and like, well, I'm thinking about refinancing. I was like, well, why? It's like, well, I've got these things. That's what I see in my mailbox. And on the other side of that, they hear all these headline news articles about loan forgiveness and public service loan forgiveness and whatnot. So those two things dominate the headlines. But really it's even upload from that is either you're going to do a payoff strategy or loan forgiveness strategy. Joe Reinke:                   03:34                And what I mean by a payoff strategy is what we typically think about when we get a loan. Like you get a mortgage or a car loan, you make payments over a certain amount of time after that, it's over. You could do different things to be strategic with that. Like instead of doing a 10 year plan, you can do a 25 year plan. So you can make prepayment strategically and save money. You can do refinancing, you can see if refinancing is right for you. And those are the big things with the payoff strategies is just figuring out what's the most effecient way to make my payments. Now, unfortunately, one of the problems is that the loan servicers don't always apply your prepayments correctly, so you got to stay on them and make sure they're doing the right thing. But that's, that's a whole nother topic on that. Karen Litzy:                                           So quick question. When you say making prepayments, can you define what that is? Joe Reinke:                   04:16                Yeah. So when you have a payoff strategy so most of us on average, so like when a DPT graduates, they actually have between 10 and 20 loans. So when I say $144,000 in debt, it's not just one loan, it's like 10 to 20 loans. They're all different sizes, they're all different interest rates. And so what a required payment is the payments. They add up every payment on those loans and then say here's your required payments. So they might say it's $1,000 a month. So on that required payment, you don't have any say on that. You have to make that payment every single month. And then you don't have a say where it goes. They just throw it across all your loans equally. Okay. A prepayment is like the complete opposite. Joe Reinke:                   05:06                You have a hundred percent control of it, meaning you determine the dollar amount, you determine when you do it, but most importantly you can determine which loan that you want to go towards. So like if you wanted to pay your higher interest rate loans faster because that would save you the most money, you can do that. So the trick with payoff strategies is just knowing that general idea of the difference between a repayment, a PR, a required payment. And a prepayment is, well, how can I drop my required payment so I can increase my prepayment? Right? And so that's a lot of the tricks that we go through and mix and match the different plans to allow people to do that. And then you throw a refinancing on top of that and you can save even more. So that's really the payoff strategies. Karen Litzy:                   05:58                Yeah, it would seem to me that everyone should refinance to a lower percentage but like why wouldn't someone do that? Joe Reinke:                   06:03                It really depends. I'll give you a few examples. We might work with a travel PT for example, and with travel PTs. First of all it's harder because of the stipend. This is for OTs and nurses as well. It's a stipend, so it's actually hard to get qualified because they don't qualify that as income. So like we have nine lending partners, only three of them will do travelers first of all. So that makes it a little bit harder. But in that situation you're traveling so you don't know the cost of living when you're moving from place to place. You don't know how long it's going to be between contracts and you don't know, most importantly what your income's going to be when you stop traveling. So it's really hard to lock yourself into a refinance loan, even though you can always refinance again later, you might not qualify later to refinance. Joe Reinke:                   06:54                So oftentimes we do do refinancing with that, those types of individuals, but it's more strategic. So instead of doing like a 10 year loan, we might do a 20 year loan and instead of doing all their federal loan debt and refinancing, it might only be three or four of their higher interest rate loans. So just in case there's something there that they can't do they're not obligated to this huge monster payment every single month. So that's one example. Another example we see often times is, I'll give you an example. I just actually talked to somebody today. She had about $210,000 in student loan debt and she's paying it off. Mmm. And my thing was the tail are like, look, you know, slow down. Because when you do your budget and you're doing paper and pencil, all the numbers always looked like they make sense. But this individual just started working. Joe Reinke:                   07:49                They've never had a budget in their life. They've never had like real expenses in their life. It's like wait three or four months because you might decide that you can't make those payments. You rather do a loan forgiveness strategy and if you refinance, you can't do a loan forgiveness strategy anymore because private loans don't qualify for loan forgiveness strategies anymore. So just different situations will dictate. Does it make sense? And then sometimes the refinance rates are just not that good. So it just doesn't matter. Yeah, exactly. It's like stay there and just chip away at your loans. And I'll give you one more example, Karen. When you refinance, you also consolidate your loans. What that means is you merge your loans into one big, big, big loan. Karen Litzy:                   08:37                Got it. So for instance, if you took a loan from a bank or a federal loan or whatever, when you refinance did, so let's say you have a federal loan, does that federal loan is no longer a federal loan, it becomes a private loan. Joe Reinke:                   08:54                That is correct. And instead of having like 10 you might only have one big, big, big loan. So sometimes what happens, you have to understand how federal loans work though too. Like I said earlier, you have 10 to 20 loans, so every time you pay off one of those loans, your required payment actually drops. With the refinance loan, it won't drop because you have one monster loan, you never pay it off until the whole balance is zero. So sometimes people come to us and say, look, what am I goals is to buy a house in five years? And so if that's the case, we might turn around and say, okay, we'll stick in your federal loan. Because if you keep making prepayments and you pay these specific loans off, your required payment would go from $1,000 down to like $500 when you want to buy your house. Joe Reinke:                   09:37                Why is that a big deal? They use the required payment in the ratios for qualifying for a mortgage. So a lower lower required payment on your student loans, the easier it is to qualify for a mortgage. So that's some of the analysis that we would do to say, okay, well how much does a refi actually save you versus are you better off just trying to drop your monthly payment over time so you can qualify for your number one goal buying a house? And so that's what I meant earlier when I said these things. It is more than just the student loan strategy. Karen Litzy:                                           You've got to look at how does this thing play a role in the bigger overarching strategy, right? Because oftentimes I would think the student loan debt isn't the only debt. So can you explain how maybe you have to work around other debt as well and how to navigate all of that? Joe Reinke:                   10:27                Yeah. And I'll give you an example. We just did a poll and we also took some of the data from our members as well. And it was something like 68% have more than one form of debt. So that could be cars, mortgages, credit cards. And again, another example, I just talked to somebody today, and actually we get this probably four or five times a week where somebody calls us to talk about their student loan debt and we noticed that they have credit card debt. Okay. And we're like, look, you want to do this strategically with your student loans to drop your required payment as low as you can and focus on paying off your credit card debt. And it's like, I didn't even think about that. It's like, yeah, credit card debt, socks, get all of that stuff like as fast as you can and use the flexibility of refrigerator loans. Joe Reinke:                   11:10                That's another reason why you might not run a refinance is because the federal loans are more flexible. There's more options of what you can do. So if you have other debt, it may be allow you to pay that off faster. And that's why sometimes people go into the student loan forgiveness plans also in the short run is the drop that lower payment focus on something else and then go back to their student loan strategy and say, okay, now I'm going to go focus on that. What do I need to do to focus on my student loans now. Karen Litzy:                                           Got it. So it's all part of a bigger plan. So let's talk about quickly the student loan forgiveness because that's been in the news lately. I feel like there's been rumblings of that. It may not exist anymore, Betsy Devoss may cut it or what's the story? Joe Reinke:                   11:51                Yeah, so there's actually two different forms of forgiveness. Okay. And this is where people get confused. The actual repayment plan you're on is called an income driven repayment plan. And the government also says that these are things our student loan forgiveness plans. Long story short on these plans, your payment is based as a percentage of your income. And the payments really low is like 300 $400 a month. But for most of us, that means that we're not paying the interest that's being charged on loans, which means the balance of your loan Rose. And that actually will happen for about 20 or 25 years. And then under normal loan forgiveness at that 20 year Mark or your loans are forgiven, but you have to claim it as income and pay taxes on it. Joe Reinke:                   12:44                So your balance of what you owe will grow because they just add the interest of your balance, just like in your differing interests cause you're not making payments. Happens in these plans. Okay. So then you worked for 10 years or 20 years or whatever, and then your loan is forgiven. So in these plans loan forgiveness, they last for 20 or 25 years. Department of education forgives them. Okay. However, in this country, it doesn't matter what type of loan it is, it can be an auto loan, a mortgage, student loan. If it's forgiven, you have to claim that as income. Yeah, so like let's just use that example. $144,000 is the average person on our platform. If, you're single for those full 20 years, just working, whatever it is, your loan balance might grow, does being worth $200,000 in 20 years? Joe Reinke:                   13:44                So at that 20th year, the $200,000 is wiped out. You don't have to pay it anymore. But you have to claim that $200,000 as income, which means your ordinary income that you made that year. It's just here it is. You got to pay it. And so the goal on these plans is like the complete opposite. You're not trying to pay it off as fast as you can. You're trying to save for that tax liability as fast as you can. Cause like what we always tell people the number one risk on those plans, you don't know what the tax rate is going to be. That's right. It could be 35% it could be 80% it could be 60% now you also factor in like we just moved from California, so if you had $200,000 plus you made 120 grand because you're, you know, 20 years in as a PT in California and federal taxes, you're going to be in a 35 and 40% federal tax bracket. As of right now, plus a 12% tax bracket in California doubled on top of that. You should definitely move to Texas. Joe Reinke:                   14:50                But that's a big thing there. So that's normal loan forgiveness. Now there's another form of loan forgiveness. And this is the part that's been dominating the headlines where if you're on one of these plans, but you work for a nonprofit hospital, a hospital, it could be a full time teaching job. I mean you can say I don't even want to be a PT, OT, whatever anymore and I want to go work at Goodwill full time. I mean it just has to be at a nonprofit full time. And if you're on one of these plans working full time and you make 120 payments, your loans are forgiven in 10 years cause that's 120 payments and you owe nothing in taxes. Okay. And so those have been dominating the news recently because there's been 110,000 people that applied and only about a thousand people have gotten it actually approved. Joe Reinke:                   15:40                And people are like, Oh well that's less than 1% so that's like the big headline. You know, Loan forgiveness is failing. But when you actually dig into the numbers, over 90% of the people that have applied for that, it should never have even applied. Meaning, they don't even work in a nonprofit or they do work at a nonprofit, but they haven't worked for 10 years. Mmm. So they're finding the people for forgiveness and that they shouldn't even been filing it yet. And so that's where the news kind of distorts that stuff. But then at the same time, you have that percentage, two, three, 4% that is told the wrong thing by fed loan servicing. That's the company that, that does this. They're told the wrong monthly payments. They're told that their payments are qualifying even though they're not there. We're told that their employment qualified even though it's not. Joe Reinke:                   16:26                And so that's where the mass confusion comes in on that. I'm actually shameless plug. We just rolled out a new technology that actually tracks all that for you to make sure if you're on public service loan forgiveness, you're actually doing everything you need to do to get it forgiven. And we rolled that out. We rolled that out specifically because of all the headline news of all this stuff. People getting this stuff forgiven. They have nowhere to go to get the answer. So it's like well we can build this pretty easily. And it took us about three months to ramp it up and build it and it's like here it is and we're actually going to release that. We just got done testing it. It's going to be out in about a week or two. So yeah I'm excited about, it's given me a lot of gray hairs and a lot of sleep aside. I'm excited for it. Karen Litzy:                   17:07                Well I mean that's such a gift though. That's such a gift for people because there are a lot of physical therapists who work in hospital systems that would be considered nonprofits and so if they can just sign up for that and have something else, keep track of it for you. Like automation is so much easier in our lives. So this is a way to kind of automate your student loan forgiveness programs so that you don't have to keep track cause we've got a million other things that you have to keep track on. Because like you said before, you've got student loan debt, but then you may have credit card debt, you may have mortgage debt or you have a car loan. And so there's so much that kind of goes into this puzzle. I mean to say I did not realize that it was so, all this is so complicated because I graduated like in the stone age, you know, so I didn't really have all, I didn't have $144,000 in loans. Joe Reinke:                   18:01                Yeah, I mean it's amazing. And, that's why the big thing that I'm excited about. So like the average person that's gotten their loans forgiven so far has basically saved $62,000 okay. That's a lot. We're rolling this plan out for $5 a month and when we roll it out for the full 10 years, we're just charging a one lump sum fee of $300 if you just want us to track it for all 10 years. And it's like, you know, and we did that cause it's like guys, yeah cause somebody has, some of the people that signed up to beta test it for us. They're like dude we pay like a thousand dollars a year for this. I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no. Like the technology doesn't cost us that much to run like this stuff needs to be out there because again it plays a role in a bigger picture and fast forward, we haven't really disclaim this to very many people cause I don't know when it's going to actually roll out but it's supposed to come out next year. Joe Reinke:                   18:50                Like you said, all this stuff plays a role in the bigger picture. We're developing a technology where instead of just tracking the student loans, we track everything. Like, we help you set up the plan and as your 401k your retirement, your budget, your student loan plan, everything. And so to me, like when we say, Hey look, we're only charging, you know, $5 a month for this thing, it's making sure that it works. So when we roll out that bigger plan, it's like we got this piece checked off. We don't have to worry about it anymore. Cause again, I bring up those gray hairs. It gives me something else to worry about. Karen Litzy:                   19:25                There's always something else to worry about. So just one little part of it. So now, so let's talk about something that you had mentioned before we went on the air and it's, people don't really understand money. Karen Litzy:                   19:42                Tell me why you said that and tell me what people can do to better understand it. And on that note, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor and be right back. Karen Litzy:                   19:57                This episode is brought to you by Optima, a net health company. Optima therapy for outpatient is a software solution enabling therapists and staff to do their jobs efficiently and accurately. Their software provides anytime, anywhere access to documentation, even while disconnected and workflows that streamline patient care and save valuable time. You can check out, optimize new on demand video to learn what's in store for outpatient therapy practices in 2020 with some of the biggest industry trends along with tips and best practices to successfully navigate these changes. Learn about these trends for the new year at go OptimaHCs.com/healthywealthy2020 Joe Reinke:                   20:36                Yeah, so we have this big thing that like if you watch our courses that we released or go on the new website that we just released, we talk about our method and it's understand, plan, implement those like the big three things. You've got to understand, you've got to have a plan, you've got to have a way to implement that plan. And there's been a lot of chatter because it's political season and we've seen all the stuff about, Oh, this politician is gonna forgive X amount of student loan debt. And then another politician wants to one up and then say, well we're gonna forgive X amount and another politician wants to one up them and say we're going to forgive everything. And so it's like, well, you know, went up in each other to see who can get the most votes for this. And you know, I get the question all the time is what do you think about these policies? Joe Reinke:                   21:18                And I just turn around and say to people, it doesn't really matter because they're missing the root of the problem. You can forgive all the student loan debt. But like I brought this statistic earlier, over 60% of the people on our platform have more than one form of debt is not just doing loan debt. And it's not like these things like money problems didn't exist before. Student loan debt. I mean just before this we had the mortgage crisis. Okay. Like before that we had savings crisis. We still have people savings crisis, like retirement savings. I mean we talked about baby boomers and stuff like baby boomers. Like it's something that I saw a report the other day that 65% of them don't have enough to last like more than five years. Karen Litzy:                   21:58                Yeah. And they don't have student loans. And then isn't it true that the majority of Americans don't even have like a retirement plan or don't have that savings? Joe Reinke:                   22:12                They don't have anything and that they're dependent on social security, which the social security was never meant to be a retirement plan. It's supposed to be a supplement to retirement. But for a lot of retirement age individuals, that is their retirement. And I'll give you even more. I discussed the statistic I was about to write an article about this. Is something like 43%. It's somewhere in the forties, I want to say the low forties. I've got to look at the article again. It's in the low forties, that the super, that percentage of people in this country don't have enough money in their bank account to cover a $400 expense. Okay. So when we sit there and we talk about, Oh, well, you know, if we just forgave student loans, the problems of the world would be over. Joe Reinke:                   23:03                And it's like, well, no, no, no, no. You know, like, I give this example in a workshop all the time. I used to work a lot with athletes and statistically 60, the 70% go bankrupt within three years of being out of league that's in the NBA and NFL. Well, in those three years that they work and play football or basketball, they will make more money than the average American makes their entire working life span. Yep. They go bankrupt. Within three years, they had the complete opposite problem. They had all the money in the world and they still went bankrupt. So it goes back to that fundamental root of not understanding. And that's actually one of the reasons why, like we used to do, or actually we still, I shouldn't say used to, we do workshops. Oh, it's the last time I came on the podcast, like it was, I don't think we had any workshops before that. Joe Reinke:                   23:55                And then we started doing them. I've done over 120 workshops at different DPT programs and conclaves different conferences. And that was one of the big things that like, everyone's like, we love his workshops. Well, where can we learn more? And it's like, how, how do you explain this? Understand, plan implementing? And I couldn't find anything. So I was like, well, we're just gonna roll out our own courses. So we rolled those out about two months ago kind of in a soft launch type of beta test. And the feedback that we've gotten off of them is fantastic. So that's like our new thing that we just rolled out was the courses. The next new thing is that that public service loan forgiveness solution and the next year is like the big solution that we're coming out with. So it's exciting. But yeah, those courses, it's fun to see people taking them and being like, Oh my God, like this stuff is, makes so much more sense now. And it's, it's actually simple. That's my big thing. Keep it simple. Don't make it complicated. So, that's the bigger thing when I see the student loan forgiveness hype and all these political things, like it doesn't matter what happens there. You got to get that understanding. You've got to develop your plan, you've got a whole way, have a way to implement it. Karen Litzy:                   25:02                Yeah. And just so if people want to learn more about it, if you go to the fitbux website, it's under monies. Joe Reinke:                   25:10                Yeah. That is cool. Yup. Karen Litzy:                   25:13                What would you say in your opinion and in your work with people, what are maybe one or two fundamental misunderstandings about money that people have? Joe Reinke:                   25:18                I don't even know. No, I will narrow it down. This is one of the big things and this how we start off our workshops now when we start explaining some of this stuff. So, you know, and this is about a minute or two explanation on this, but then when I was back in wealth management, I would ask people what are your goals? And I started bucking those into three main groups. They would basically say my family goals, I have my work goal and then financial security. And what I mean by like family is like, okay, I want to do this. I wanna be able to buy a house because I want to provide for my family, my daughter, whatever it is. My work, my work, I want to have my work, have a meaning on life and an impact. Joe Reinke:                   26:07                People like I joke around with all the time. No, none of you went to school because you couldn't wait to have student loan debt. You went to school because you wanted to help people. That's what I mean by career goals or life goals. And then the third one was financial security. And when I started asking people, yeah, rank these, it was always in that order, family, their work and then financial security. But when I would ask him, where do you spend the most of your time? They'd be like, well, I spend about 90% of my time on financial security. I'm like, well, that doesn't make any sense. That's like your third goal. Like that. And then I would ask them, here's like, when you say a misconception, I would say, what is financial security? And they kept telling me a lot of money and I'm like, wait, wait a second. Joe Reinke:                   26:47                I just gave you that example of NBA players and NFL players. Lottery winners are the same statistics. They all go bankrupt. They have all the money in the world and they can't manage it. I used to manage people money that had millions and they were financial train wrecks. I know guys on wall street that were making million dollar bonuses every year that are financial train wrecks, so that can't be the case. So then I started looking at it and saying, well, what is it? And that's where we came up with the understand plan implements. Like those things is you've got to have a simple understanding. I mean I give examples of people that I know that are, have been barbers for 40 years. I mean they have no college education, they have none of this stuff and they live in San Jose, California, the most expensive place in the country. Joe Reinke:                   27:30                And they’re millionaires, like they had an understanding, a simple understanding of money. They had a simple plan, you know, and I joke around all the time about my dad. Like when I was 22 years old, like I come home from college thinking I'm like this big investment guru guy, right? Cause I'm a 22 year old punk kid and I'm just like, Oh I'm going to tell my dad. I'm like dad, you know, his strategy was always just, you know, he started a business when he's 18. Yesterday, he started, he bought it from my grandma and you're just put money in the bank and they would buy a piece of property and that's all he did. He never did the stock market anything. I'm like, dad, dad, dad, check this out. Like, if you would have done it, you know, in the stock market it would've been worth like $10 million. Joe Reinke:                   28:09                And he's just like, I don't give a shit. Like I don't know anything about the stock market. All right. That was his plan. It was simple and it works for him. Great. And then you had a simple way of implementing it. That was a thing that really lacked Mmm. Is everybody that I knew that had an understanding it and had a simple plan, it would taking them hours to implement it because it would have to do their own Excel sheets or they had these files all over the place. I've got gotta do it all by hand, but they did that. But those are the three big things. And so actually that's why people always ask like what's the technology behind FITbux and why do we do this stuff for free? Like why do we actually have people call us? And if we walk through their plan for free because we say the understanding and part is free and then the technology that we're building, especially for next year is going to be the part that helps them implement it. So they have to spend hours and 90% of their time doing that and they can spend that time doing something else. You asked about the biggest misconception that is the biggest misconception is what is financial security? It's not having a lot of money. It's those three things. Understanding, planning and implementing. Karen Litzy:                   29:13                And if someone, let's say someone were like me, so I don't have any student loan debt or credit card debt or any debt really. So if I wanted to use this technology, like does it apply to someone like me who's like, well, I don't have any debt, but I definitely want to try and buy an apartment in New York city, which we know is like not cheap. I mean, in all seriousness, to buy an apartment in New York city to get a decent apartment is $650,000. Yeah. And that's a lot of money. If I want to get an apartment with two bedrooms, it's like over a million dollars. Joe Reinke:                   29:43                Yeah. I was going to sell our apartment in San Jose and they got appraised that $900,000. And instead I was like, I'm just going to rent it and it's like $3,000. And then like I tell people, so I moved to Texas cause really I wanted to have a backyard for my daughter. And we bought like, it's like 0.3 acres and it's almost a 4,000 square foot house. It was a way too ridiculous. Like I don't use half the house and it's just ridiculous. And it was like 300 grand but yeah they like the technology but really on the next year. Joe Reinke:                   30:37                Yeah, definitely for people like you, it's actually for anything, and this is why so many people, we talk about the student loan stuff, but we already have a piece of the technology out to help people plan. And this actually leads to like the number two misconception that I would have to say when we sit down and people talk about budgeting. They used to always come to me and they still come to me and say, Hey Joe, I spend like $1,200 a month on my student loans. Is that a lot? And it's like I have no idea. Right? Because $1,200 for one person might be nothing for somebody else. Okay. And so what that means is when it comes to money, absolute numbers mean absolutely nothing. It all has to be relative. And the way we do that as percentages, so like when people sit down and look at their budget, they always look at absolute numbers. Joe Reinke:                   31:23                So if you go onto these budgeting apps and all this stuff, it's all absolute numbers and it's like, Oh well I'm going to cut, stop drinking coffee, you know, and boil and make my own coffee. It's like, great, you save $2 you know, a day or $50 a month. Like that might be 0.04% of your budget, but you don't want to learn something about retirement savings and taxes. I can save you like 10% like learn the learn. And so when you start looking at percentages, you start seeing where you should focus your time on. And so that's number one thing. But the number two thing would that allows you to do is then we could sit there and say, look we break this down very easily here, right? So we say the first formula is income minus expenses equals discretionary income. With that discretionary income, you can then do two basic things. Joe Reinke:                   32:09                You can either build assets or pay off debt and before you even decide what to do with that, we can upload it and say, okay, on average, a new grad PT for example, can take 30% of their gross income and put it to those two groups, assets or debt. You just got to figure out how you want to do that. And so if you have no student loan debt like yourself, Karen, you'd be like, okay, well can I do 30% can I do 35% can I do 40% once you figured that out, then it's, well, now what do I do? Do I do my 401K you know, do I have self-employed income? So can I do a SEP IRA? What about a Roth IRA? What about HSA? What about just brokerage accounts? Oh, well I also want to say for a down payment for the apartment, what do I need to start saving for that? Joe Reinke:                   32:50                What do I prioritize first? And then that, so that's the part that we'll have the technology that we have built now what we're building for next year is where we can say once you say, okay, this percentage is going here, this percentage is going here, this percentage is going here, implement link all your accounts into the profile. And they would automatically track to make sure you're moving those percentages and that you're doing it correctly. And so yeah, right now we only help anybody with student loans. And then we track the student loan strategy to make sure they're doing it the efficient way. And then next year we're going to roll out the bigger piece of the technology. And that was part of the preview with the courses is the courses talk about all that stuff. And that was like the first phase of what we're launching for next year. Joe Reinke:                   33:35                We just got the courses down early and we're like, let's get 'em out. Like people are asking for them. So happy to get those out. But yeah, next year if you want to sit down and talk, let me know. Karen Litzy:                                           I think I might have, I'm thinking about a lot here. So is there anything else that we didn't cover that you're like, Oh, I definitely want to talk about this. I wanted to get this in. Joe Reinke:                                           Like we've talked about the percentages. The reason why I'm so adamant on that is because then it makes life easy. And what I mean by that is if you say, look, I know 5% is going here, 10% is going to here, percent going there. Joe Reinke:                   34:21                Well guess what? You get a raise every year, so all you have to do is calculate and say, okay, well no, I just have to increase how much I'm going into those, those different areas. It's automatic discipline. You don't have to think about it anymore. And not only that, but like if you get a bonus or a commission or a tax return. Yeah, you already know the percentages. Take this here, take this here, take this here, put it here, the rest I can go use on vacation. Hell have fun with it and you don't have to think about it anymore. Instead, I see a lot of people being like, Joe, I just got this $5,000 bonus. Like I'm stressing about, do I put it in my investments? Do I pay off my student loan debt? It's like, well, if he's had those percentages that you don't have to think about anymore, you already know what you're doing with it. Joe Reinke:                   35:00                So that's, you know, one more like they played it was one last thing to add. That's one of the big things is those percentages I strongly recommended. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're at, if you have student loan debt or not. If you're saving for a wedding, saving for college, saving for you know, kids. By the way, if you do have kids and you're saving for college for them, don't do it. Save for your retirement first please. They can fund college other ways. But make sure you fund your own retirement first before you can fund your kids. That's one of the biggest mistakes I see parents make. They want to fund their, call it kids' college education and their retirement is lacking. It's like no on your retirement first on their stuff later. So those are the big takeaways. Karen Litzy:                   35:42                Awesome. I mean, such good information. I really appreciate all of this. And now this question I been asking everyone lately who come on the podcast and it's given where you are now with your life, your business, what advice would you give to yourself as that 22 year old punk going home to his dad more than he does? Joe Reinke:                   36:03                I wish I would draw my ego level way before. That was, I was an athlete at that time too. So you get once, yeah, once you stopped playing sports and reality starts hitting then and all of a sudden it's like Mmm, well not on this pedestal anymore. You get shot down a little bit. But no, actually at that time for me, my big thing was I grew up around, you know, the rule of finance because that's what my degree was and everything. I was around wall street guys. Joe Reinke:                   36:41                I had a plan for money coming out of school, but it was simply just to make a lot of money. And you quickly find out that if your motivation is money, you're going to end up burning out. It doesn't matter what you do. If that could be going to take a certain PT job simply because it pays more because you need to pay off student loans. So I guarantee you, you didn't go to school for student loans. You went to school to be a PT. So if you're going for income and that's your only reason you're going to burn out. Okay. And like I said earlier, I've seen guys making half a million dollar bonuses on wall street that don't even work in finance anymore because they're so burned out off of it. And it took me a long time to realize that you're not money that shouldn’t motivate you. Joe Reinke:                   37:28                It's whatever you're trying to accomplish, that it'd be building a technology that'd be treating patients. And if all you do is strive to be the best at building that, that certain thing or focusing on those first two goals, I talked about your family and your work and you're really focusing on those, that the monetary side will take care of itself in the long run. Like stuff will happen and take care of itself if that's what your main focus is. And like, I mean, fitbux is the living proof of that. I've said it from day one to our investors and everything. Don't ask me about revenue. Don't ask me about shiny objects. Like we talk about business owners all the time. It's one of the hardest things to do because you see so many opportunities out there. You're like, Oh, if I just do that, just a little shiny object, it's going to make me a couple extra thousand dollars, but it's going to be a distraction. Joe Reinke:                   38:18                It is not part of your main thing. Now you're chasing money instead of being focused on why you are doing what you're doing. And so that was one of the big things that I had to learn was, you know, it's not about making a million dollars or $5 million or $10 million. It's focusing on what you love doing and the recipe, it will come true. I mean like Karen and you're, you're a perfect example of that. You love doing the podcast, you love getting out there doing that stuff and helping people and guess what you've been successful at doing it. You've been successful as your PT career, all that stuff falls in line. If you're focusing on the right things and money's not the right thing to focus on is the bigger picture. What does money actually represent to you? What does it mean to you? Why do you want it? Because you can have all the money in the world. Do you want it to do something? Focus on that. Do something first and then the money will come from that because you're going to be the best at what you do. Karen Litzy:                   39:10                Great advice. I love it. And now where can people find more information about you? Contact you find more about Fitbux. Joe Reinke:                   39:20                https://www.fitbux.com/ As the website. As you said with the courses, it's just underneath money school. If you drop down the header underneath solutions, there'll be money school on there. That talks about our courses. If you want to come on and, you already know for example, that you want to do the student loan forgiveness strategy and you just want to sign up for our $5 a month tracking solution. You just go into solutions and sign up. We have a payoff strategy. We also had the loan forgiveness strategy. If you want to go in and use our refinance service, it's free. All you got to do is build your profile and schedule a call. We'll walk through making sure that refinancing is right for you and then go shop nine lenders. And if you have no idea what you're doing Joe Reinke:                   39:59                And don't feel ashamed, about 70% of the people that come on our platform don't have a clue where to even start. And that's statistically true cause we asked them have you looked at anything? And they say, I have no idea. And so we, that's all free too. We'll have you come on, you build your profile, we go through the payoff options, we go through the loan forgiveness options. And then depending on which one you feel more comfortable with, we'd go deeper and deeper into how to actually implement that strategy. I mean that's all free too. You just go to the website and click join now and sign up, schedule a call and we'll be talking soon. Karen Litzy:                   40:30                Perfect. And just so if people aren't familiar, it's fitbux.com. So Joe, thank you so much for coming on. This was great info. I learned, I learned a lot. So thank you so much. Glad that we can teach and it's always fun and hopefully we'll see you at another conference or conclave or something soon and I'm sure talk more. And everyone, thanks so much for listening. Have a great, great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy, and smart.   Thanks for listening and subscribing to the podcast! Make sure to connect with me on twitter, instagram  and facebook to stay updated on all of the latest!  Show your support for the show by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts!

In part two of a three-part series, Maura Sweeney '07 interviews Joe Cavanagh '99 about how his Holy Cross experience influences the way he practices law. Recorded September 11, 2019 --- Transcript Joe:                        The idea of doing your best, your excellence for God, for others, for clients in what you do no matter what you're doing, wherever you are, personal sphere, professional sphere, other places and I take that directly from Holy Cross. Yeah. Maura:                 Welcome to Mission-Driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host Maura Sweeney from the class of 2007, Director of Alumni Career Development at Holy Cross. I'm delighted to welcome you to today's show.                                 In part two of the three part series, we speak with Joe Cavanagh. Joe graduated from Holy Cross in 1999 and Cornell Law School in 2003. Joe joined his father and sister at Bliss & Cavanagh and became partner in 2013. Joe speaks about the value of his time on campus and its impact on the way that he practices law. There are a few fun stories from his time on the Hill, too. Mary:                    So Joe, I'm excited to talk to you next, class of ‘99, History major. You went to Cornell Law School, graduated in 2003 are also a partner at Bliss & Cavanagh in Providence, Rhode Island. You work in general litigation with a focus on business and complex commercial employment, personal injury and real estate litigation. You also advise corporate and non-profit clients in the areas of pre-litigation strategy, employment, contracting, negotiation and compliance.                                 You also do pro bono work at the TGC Memorial Fund as well as the Board of Trustees at the Ocean Tides School. And as we've talked about, you also received Super Lawyer of the year in 2019 for Litigation within Real Estate and Best Lawyers in America in 2017. Top Litigation Attorney from Super Lawyers from 2013 to 2018, and Rising Star back in 2012 and that was a positive premonition because it proved true over the years. But I also noticed that you received a Martindale Hubbell Peer Rating for strong ethical standards, which really stood out to be, can you talk to me a little bit about that. Joe:                        Interesting that you mentioned that Maura I'm not sure I had focused on that aspect of my profile. The Martindale Hubbell Peer Rating. I've seen it before in looking up other lawyers in the directory, but didn't know that I had necessarily garnered an ethical rating there. So it was very nice to hear. Maura:                 Oh, well congratulations! Joe:                        Thank you. Maura:                 Yeah. Joe:                        So yeah, as Mary said, we have a collegial bar in Rhode Island. You have quite a bit of contact with your colleagues and other firms in the courthouse or by phone and at depositions and there's an understanding that we're part of a smaller community where people don't necessarily take cheap shots or do things with the mode or the thought that they won't see this practitioner again in their practice, which might happen in bigger cities. So in a way it replicates a smaller college community like at Holy Cross, and I think it makes for a better practice both within our firm and around the state and for the whole system, the court system, the clients that are served by it.                                 So, within that peer set, I would be thought of as having high ethical standards it's nice to hear and I would like to think that's partly due to my time at Holy Cross and the way that, my experiences I had here on campus in a similar type setting. I mean, from having been here, it is a small community, things that happen are known and word gets out quickly. Sometimes you can't believe how quickly, like Kimball before breakfast the next morning, so that element of sort of honesty and accountability within a community is one that you kind of learn and sometimes make mistakes in that regard in a small college setting like this.                                 And then to have those experiences and realize that we're all in this together and that things you say or do will have repercussions, to move that into your professional life now and I would like to think a peer voted award like that is a reflection of a recognition of that. Maura:                 That's fantastic. Right. And it's similar to what Mary and I talked about, just the incredible importance of being recognized by peers and just how significant that is. That's wonderful. Maura:                 Well, and I'd love to hear a bit more about your professional journey since you graduated from Holy Cross because I know I only captured some of the bookends. Joe:                        Sure. So after law school I went to a firm in Boston, a large firm in many cities, in international practice to Mintz Levin it was a great place to begin my career. I met many wonderful people there and there was a standard of excellence that I was exposed to and sort of reared in that I draw on every day my experiences from being in that setting. There were actually some Holy Cross alumni that were at the firm that I was thinking about driving up here today and had an event like this causes you to reflect in ways that you don't usually busy business of life.                                 But when I arrived at Mintz Levin, quickly, the Holy Cross alumni network was at work sort of informally. I think they probably had read resumes of people are arriving, new associates and went out of their way to reach out to me and Scott Ford was class of ‘89 here I think at Holy Cross. Matt Hurley was ‘88 and I'm still in touch with those lawyers, I believe they're both still partners at Mintz Levin and things like on a Friday afternoon we'd go... If Holy Cross was playing in the NCAA tournament, they ring me up, we're going out, we're going to get some lunch and we watched the game and things like that. So it was the Holy Cross community sort of taking form in the professional setting. Maura:                 Well, I mean it's what everyone says that no matter how, if you wanted to escape Holy Cross, you can't really, because you wear anything purple or people find out that you have a connection and whether they went to Holy Cross or their neighbor or their cousin or their friend, we have a way of finding each other, which I think is wonderful. In a new setting it helps you feel a lot more welcome. So on a Holy Cross note, how has Holy Cross's mission influenced your life? Joe:                        So, I had the question in mind as I was reading ahead of time here, and I was just thinking back to the spiritual exercises. I went on the spiritual exercises actually not as a Holy Cross student, it was the fall after I graduated. They made an exception, let me come back and do that. Maura:                 Oh wonderful. Joe:                        With sports on campus that it had never worked out and so I was still getting the full experience here even six, eight months after I graduated. And, again I mentioned the community element of it, but the idea that you would incorporate your spirituality and your striving for excellence for God and others into your work life was something that I every day try to incorporate into what I do.                                 I think of the Saint Ignatius prayer, I still pray it multiple times a day. And I remember getting a little green prayer card at that retreat from... I think it was from Father Ford or Father LeBran who was still conducting those at the time and reading it and then quickly committing it to memory. I don't know where the card is now I might still have it but, just trying to plug into the experience of that retreat and the idea of doing your best, your excellence for God, for others, for clients in what you do no matter what you're doing, wherever you are, personal sphere, professional sphere, other places and I've take that directly from Holy Cross. Yeah. Maura:                 Well and it sounds like you don't even need the little card anymore since you have it committed to memory. Joe:                        No. I have. Said it enough times and it sticks. Maura:                 Yeah. Yeah. Jim:                        Just like an argument in court, right? Maura:                 Well, you've touched upon this already about the Holy Cross mission and how you've internalized it. And so I'm curious to know what mission drives you and how you've really formed your own mission? Joe:                        Well, I mean, I like to think the two mold together. It's very short concise terms, to get to heaven and bring others with me or to help others get there as well, I mean at its basic element that's what I consider my life mission to be and so that in the practice of law, I mean from day to day and hour by hour, the way that that often manifests itself is to make sure in that moment whether it's a 0.1 time block, a 10th of an hour time block for a client or more than that or preparing for hearings or depositions to just make sure that I'm doing things up to a standard that that is reflective of trying to bring my best and do my best with my talents and ability because that's in that moment what's going to further that mission.                                 That's what God wants me to do for those six minutes or 12 minutes or whatever and you just... and then you're in the car headed off to youth sports events or to family events and just sort of recalibrating that mindset every minute of the day. And then obviously in the professional sphere, it means when you're advising people taking into consideration much more than just their particular narrow legal issue- Maura:                 Right. Joe:                        ... and we have in our practice in Providence, the nice flexibility in that, in addition to representing some large corporate companies and major corporations in sort of big complex litigation, we're also small enough and we're in a small enough legal market that neighbors with personal matters can call and we can actually take those matters on and help them, or people with a small business disputes that probably wouldn't even get in the door at a larger firm and it's there that you can be more of a holistic adviser and looking at helping this person along whatever path that they're taking and it may even spill over beyond the law. You're thinking about the mission to help ultimately, how can I help this person get to heaven? And so that's my mission. Maura:                 It's an important one. Yeah. Maura:                 Well, and I'll ask you to think back to when you were a student at Holy Cross and what stands out most from your experience and how it's really prepared you for these moments of helping people with their challenges and maybe helping with some of your own challenges. Joe:                        I'd say first and foremost like Mary said, because we were both History majors at about the same time. So I think our experiences were probably very similar. The workload... I think we did a five course load at Holy Cross when we were here in the mid ‘90s and that seemed to be talking to friends at other schools, one more core substantive academic course than others would take. So there was always a lot of work and in the history department there was always a lot of reading and writing all the time and deadlines, constantly deadlines. Write papers tomorrow, 10 page paper due Friday, 12 pages due Tuesday, I mean really our litigation practice at Providence is not much different at all, so you kind of hone those skills. But also the sort of the demands of some of the professors.                                 I remember Father Kuzniewski, taking his History classes and we had a trip that we were taking out to Colorado Springs, the hockey team was to play Air Force Academy, that was in October of my senior year and we were going to fly out of Logan on a Thursday morning for the weekend games and I think we were leaving the Hart Center at 5:00 AM and we had a History test scheduled for that day so I went to see Father K a week or so before and I said, here's my conflict so I can’t take the test. Well let me know if I can take it when I get back or make another arrangement, and he said, "Well, what time does the bus leave the Hart Center?" I said, "5:00 AM we're going to be packed up and go." He said, "Okay, well this will work well."                                 He said, Ciampi’s is on the way to the Hart Center so why don't you stop by. Ring the bell at Ciampi at 3:00 AM and you can take your test from 3:00 AM to 4:30 AM that will give plenty of time to get up there and get on the bus." And that's what I did. I showed up at the Ciampi Hall at 3:00 AM and Father K set me up with a little space, I think he offered me some coffee and- Maura:                 It's the least he could do. Joe:                        ... I took my History test. In just the little mini capsule that was Holy Cross and then I was on the bus and we were off and we had a great weekend and work due on Monday morning when we flew back. Maura:                 And then when others were complaining about that 5:00 AM meeting, you said, "I've been up for hours, so I don't want to hear it." Joe:                        That's right. Joe:                        I wasn't worried about missing the bus. Maura:                 That is the priceless story. That is absolutely priceless. And do you remember, did you do okay at 3:00 AM? Joe:                        I did. I remember I got an A on the test. Maura:                 Well, see that's even more impressive, right? Joe:                        Yeah. Maura:                 Right. Joe:                        Yeah. I didn't get A's on every test but I did get an A on that one. I remember too Coach Pearl, who was the hockey coach at the time, he had a freshman study hall that he had posted on the board up there for the players to go to and I for some reason thought or assumed it was optional, like he would make the time available if you felt you were needing extra study time and otherwise, I was thinking, you just go to the library or maybe you didn't have anything to do that day and so you wouldn't go. So I saw there was a note on the board the day after I had blown off or missed the study hall, wasn't a blow up to me. It said, "Cavanagh, see me." And I did and he said, "What was the story last night? Where were you?" I said, "Well, I thought it was optional coach." He said, "Optional? No, no, no, that wasn't optional."                                 So he said, "Why don't you come meet me up here tomorrow morning at 7:00." And I said, "Okay, I'll be here." And he said, "And wear your workout clothes too." And so I came up to the front of Hart Center I remember this, I think it was a Friday morning and he was there and in a lawn chair outside with the paper in his hand and a stopwatch.                                 And he said, "Okay, Cav, down to the front steps of Kimball and back in less than five minutes or you do it again, go." And I shot down the hill and you wouldn't believe how quickly you can get from the front steps of Hart Center to Kimball when you're going on adrenaline and moving. But the minute you turn around and start going back the other direction, I was like, "Yeah, I'm still sore. I think I blocked it out, the whole experience." But it was demands like that are rearing you and preparing you for bigger things and similar obligations later in life so I had a great experience here playing hockey for Coach Pearl and definitely in reflection appreciate things like that from the community from the kind of the leaders or the instructors here. Maura:                 Yeah, they make sure you don't forget. Maura:                 How has your Holy Cross education influenced the way that you practice law? Joe:                        Well, it's like I was saying earlier, drawing on your academic experiences, your ability to manage time, you're looking at the faith mission of the college and the and the faith foundation that it provides, and then trying to incorporate that into your conversations and your thinking with your clients every day. Maura:                 Yeah. Yeah. And what has been the most satisfying or rewarding moment in your work? Joe:                        Well, I mean winning an appeal before the Rhode Island Supreme Court, winning summary judgment on big cases for some clients, those things jump out as kind of the most beneficial legal results. Winning a trial and having it affirmed on appeal in cases. But I think actually the matters that I've seen that have taken twists and turns and sort of winding roads through our superior court with multiple parties over years sometimes and then getting to the end of that road and having a satisfied client that knows that you stuck by them through the whole process and through ups and downs.                                 I've had a couple of those recently and it becomes at times... I don't want to say a war of attrition, but that's it. I mean someone comes into your office and they have something there may be emotionally really stirred up about something that just happened and they want to be in the court the next day and sue everybody and then one of the first conversations you have to have is like, "Listen, this doesn't happen. This is emotion sort of the raw feeling that you're going on right now, by the time we're moving forward in this case it'll probably subside quite a bit and it's going to be down to your legal rights and making sure that you want to keep pursuing those and protect your interests."                                 And then over time, for the clients to see that you are committed to that what I'd call sort of a higher pursuit and them sticking by you and you sticking by them to get to the end of that road where the emotion and the initial sting is sort of well past, those are the most satisfying moments for me. Maura:                 That's fantastic. Yeah. And I'm sure it's not easy too. I'm sure there are a lot of challenges along the way too and so not easy to stick by. So that's great. Maura:                 And then my last question for you is what advice would you have for someone who's interested in practicing law? Joe:                        Well, let's see, I would... like Mary had said, if someone's interested in going to law school, you'd really want to check the motivation and make sure that it's not just a logical next step that they hadn't thought too much about. But I would say that they'd want to go ahead and pursue it, but then keep an eye on how the technology of today is kind of changing the practice of law. I mean, so much is done just at your desk, at your computer on email or phone and see for us we can still comment that that's different and that's not how we began our practices and we can kind of feel the toll of that when you don't have as many face to face interactions with people and you think, "Boy, it's been a while since I've seen this person and why is that because I used to see them all the time."                                 And it's just the change in nature of things so I would think it'd be difficult if you've never practiced law at all where that wasn't the case, where hearings and conferences are routinely done now just by phone and video link and so I think I would tell them to spend time beginning in law school making sure that they spend time with their classmates and have real human interaction there and that they try to do the same with their clients. Maura:                 Well, and I think that speaks so much to what you both talked about of really finding the human element in your clients and really treating them like the person who they are and how that can get so easily lost with technology, and when things are virtual it's easier to create that distance and it sounds how important it is to really force yourself to make the time for real interactions. Joe:                        Absolutely. Yeah. Maura:                 Right. Right. Joe:                        And with other lawyers too and with judges and clerks and all the people that you come in contact with in a legal practice. Maura:                 Right, right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Joe:                        Thank you. Maura:                 That's our show. I hope you enjoyed hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the mission to be men and women for and with others. A special thanks to today's guests and everyone at Holy Cross who has contributed to making this podcast a reality. If you or someone you know would like to be featured on this podcast, please send us an email at alumnicareers@holycross.edu. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review. This podcast is brought to you by the Office of Alumni Relations at the College of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcasts. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney, and this is Mission-Driven. In the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, "now go forth and set the world on fire." --- Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.

You can be in one of the best jobs ever, but when you feel out of alignment, start relying on willpower to get you through a day, or feel like your best energy could be spent elsewhere, it might be time to seek new opportunities. Joe DiStefano has had fabulous career opportunities come his way but ultimately knew that he was happiest on his own with his health company, RUNGA, and podcast, Stacked.  Joe was instrumental in developing the training program for a popular obstacle and strength course. These types of training programs, and others, like Crossfit, have been massive in getting more people interested in fitness who never have been before. But Joe feels that certain types of fitness, especially ones where you treat your body pretty brutally, can be counterproductive to wellness. So Joe decided to listen to and trust what his gut was saying, that working for this type of company isn’t the right business for him. The decision came parallel with a willpower decision; he felt like he wasn’t living in line with his passion and his best energy was being spent away from his career. When the job you’re doing is taking more energy to get there and more willpower to see through a day, it’s impacting your performance, the energy at the company, and ultimately, your entire career. Joe knew he needed to invest his energy into something that wasn’t a struggle to get through. Motivation is good in theory, but shouldn’t be necessary in practice. Instead of quitting for the sake of quitting or to make a bilateral move, Joe made a strategic quit that was going to improve the quality of his life and career. The thing that holds back most people who are thinking about quitting is the thought that if they go, they won’t have their benefits, or secure income, or the money to keep paying the loan on the latest Mercedes. But there is so much abundance in the universe, we just need to trust. And quit that scarcity mindset! What helps Joe is actually picturing the worst-case scenario. By thinking about how you would handle the worst thing that could happen if you quit, you’ll probably realize it won’t be as bad as you fear.  We also talk about moving forward after a business disaster, finding incredible opportunities, and the most valuable skill we can all nurture. Are you scared of quitting what doesn’t serve you anymore? Do you find that you need to rely on your willpower to get you through the day more often than not? How can you be more mindful with your career intentions? Let us know in the comments on the episode page!   In This Episode: How fitness can be counterproductive to wellness Why you need to learn to listen to and trust your gut Why you need to invest your best energy in a career that doesn’t need the willpower to stay motivated What the difference between a quit and a strategic quit are Why you need to quit your scarcity mindset What happens when you envision the worst-case scenario How a huge business disaster can lead you to incredible opportunities Why self-reliance is the most valuable skill we can have   Quotes: “When you’re doing something you’re meant to do and you’re in alignment and you are honest with yourself, willpower and “motivation” isn’t a thing.” (17:35) “Maybe you just have a purpose to share, like Mozart did… You’re never going to be able to put your best energy into those things if you’re using willpower. Because willpower is not really a thing, that’s called resistance.” (20:38) “You’ve got to be open to whatever happens and be very aware of the worst-case scenario.” (40:41)   READY TO MAKE QUIT HAPPEN? Then you’re in luck! Because my online course, Make Quit Happen, is available to start now! It’s a six-week program in which each week we tackle a different step in the strategic quitting process so that at the end of the course you know WHAT you need to quit, you have overcome any quitting-related FEARS, and you’ve got HOW to make the quit happen all planned out! Sign up Sign Up Here!!   Links Listen to Stacked, Joe's Podcast Find Joe DiStefano Online  Follow Joe DiStefano on Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn   Check out the full episode post here Keep up with everything Quit Happens here Follow Lynn Marie on Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram Podcast production support by the fine folks at Counterweight Creative

All episodes are available at https://TheNeuroNerds.com.  Follow @TheNeuroNerds on Twitter/Instagram and Like us at Facebook.com/TheNeuroNerds.SummaryThe holidays are upon us!  So Joe and Lauren are discussing dealing with the stress of the holidays.  It's hard enough as it is dealing with the holiday chaos without a brain injury so The NeuroNerds are here to help with some tips for managing your stress, overstimulation, anxiety and more! If you are a stroke surviver and would like to be included in our #ChangeTheFaceOfStroke campaign, please submit a B&W photo preferably with a white background to hello@theneuronerds.com.Check out The NeuroNerds Amazon Picks at amazon.com/shop/theneuronerdsPlus get a free Audible trial at http://www.audibletrial.com/theneuronerds!. Currently, The NeuroNerds are reading our fellow stroke survivor, Mimi Hayes' book ‘I'll Be Ok It's Just A Hole In My Head.' Join us! Credits- Support The NeuroNerds podcast on Patreon and join our NeuroJedi High Council at www.Patreon.com/TheNeuroNerds- Co-hosted by Joe Borges and Lauren Manzano- Find Joe at http://joesorocks.com and @joesorocks on Twitter/Instagram and submit your stroke/brain injury recovery story at https://www.joesorocks.com/submit-your-story- Find Lauren at @laurenlmanzano on Instagram, @tankbbg on Twitter- Produced by Joe Borges and Felice LaZae- Edited by Felice LaZae, http://felicelazae.com, @felicelazae on Twitter/Instagram- Theme song produced by Sleep Deez, @sleepvision on Instagram, @sleepdeez on Twitter- Sponsored by Avid Technology and our Patreon Supporters

ASCO: You’re listening to a podcast from Cancer.Net. This cancer information website is produced by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, known as ASCO, the world’s leading professional organization for doctors who care for people with cancer. The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Cancer research discussed in this podcast is ongoing, so the data described here may change as research progresses. Greg Guthrie: Hi everyone, I'm Greg Guthrie, and I'm a member of the Cancer.Net content team. And I'll be your host for today's Cancer.Net podcast. As a reminder, Cancer.Net is the patient information website of ASCO, The American Society of Clinical Oncology. Today, we're going to be talking about some research highlights from the upcoming Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium. And my guests are Dr. William Dale and Dr. Joe Rotella. Dr. Dale is the Arthur M. Coppola Family Chair in Supportive Medicine at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California. He is also the Cancer.Net Associate Editor for Geriatric Oncology. Thanks for joining us, William. Dr. William Dale: Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. Greg Guthrie: And Dr. Rotella is the Chief Medical Officer of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Thank you for joining us as well, Joe. Dr. Joe Rotella: It's nice to be here with you today. Greg Guthrie: All right. Now, I also want to comment that William and Joe both served on the news planning team for this symposium, which means they helped select the studies that we'll be discussing on this podcast. So let's start off by discussing what is meant when we say “supportive care.”  William, what do you think when I say supportive care? Dr. William Dale: So supportive care medicine, and we have a Department of Supportive Care Medicine here at City of Hope, focuses on providing quality of life considerations for patients in a multidisciplinary way to emphasize functional status, to emphasize overall health for patients. Within supportive care, almost any part of the multidisciplinary team could be included outside of the cancer-directed therapy itself. As an example, palliative care exists as a division within our department of supportive care along with psychology, psychiatry, interventional pain, social work and some others. So when someone says supportive care, I think of everything outside of the cancer-directed therapy that we might do on a multidisciplinary team. Greg Guthrie: That's a great foundation to have before we jump into these studies. And the first one I'd like us to talk about is called “A pilot study of oncology massage to treat chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, also called CIPN.” So Joe, what is chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy? Dr. Joe Rotella: Well, peripheral neuropathy is a nerve damage which is often associated with neuropathic pain which can be of 2 sorts: sort of a constant burning or a deep kind of pain, or it can be more of a sharp and shooting type of pain. But it's associated with the toxicity of some common chemotherapy drugs, particularly those related to platinum and the Taxol family of drugs. And so it's a pretty common side effect of pretty common chemotherapy that's given to people with advanced cancers and not an easy symptom to treat. The typical pain medications that we would use for any sort of pain, for example opioids, don't always work that well for neuropathic pain. And, of course, there are safety issues and other concerns around using opioids. The other medicines that are often used might fall in the class of the medicines like Gabapentin, or anticonvulsants. And they also can have quite a few side effects and are just not terribly effective. So this study looked at a nonpharmacological approach to managing the pain of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. Very interesting, they looked at a standardized Swedish massage technique applied to the lower extremity, and then they had a number of other less intensive massage therapies that were used as a control. And they gave this 3 times a week over 6 weeks, and they were actually able to show a significant reduction in the symptoms related to the chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, and that it actually was sustained for up to 6 weeks after the massage treatment had been completed. So this was fascinating that we could apply what appears to be a low-risk treatment that seems to be free of significant side effects that falls in that category of complementary alternative medicine that is so appealing to patients, and that this actually showed results that lasted beyond the duration of the intervention. And the less intensive control interventions did not result in as much symptom improvement. So very interesting study. Greg Guthrie: Great. William, what do you think of this study? Dr. William Dale: You know, peripheral neuropathy is extremely difficult for patients to deal with in our treatments as Joe just pointed out, are kind of notoriously ineffective. It works for a few patients, but often it doesn't that well and the side effects are quite high. So looking for alternatives to medications is something that's on all of our lists. Too often patients, in some ways, either get medicines or they're left on their own devices. We don't really have good evidence base to tell them what to do. Even though this study is not huge, it was very well constructed. So we know what kind of massage was used, what kind of evidence we had, and that it had a longer-term effect. And I agree with Joe that it's really nice to have an alternative that we can say has evidence that we might let patients consider and that's outlined in a way that lets us say this was a causal relationship or at least seems to be that patients were put into these two groups and it really was the group that got this very specific Swedish massage that had these enduring effects. So it'd be great to see this in a larger group of patients and to know for sure if this will work from a wider group of patients, but as a starting point, to have an alternative to medications for such difficult-to-treat side effect with such quality of life implications is really exciting. The other thing I would mention and ask Joe about is they make the point that, these are licensed professionals. These were people who were expert at doing this kind of intervention. And patients sometimes ask, "Oh, can I get this?" And it would be nice to say just like any other intervention whether it was a medication intervention or a procedural intervention to say, "This is the way that this has to be done," and very specifically, what the outcome is expected. Too often we give vague information to people when it comes to so-called alternative therapies. But this was very specific to people trained to do this, presumably in patients who have cancer. Dr. Joe Rotella: Yes, I agree. It's actually important to have a sense of what the intervention is that is actually performing better, let's say, than control or better than placebo or better than no intervention. The more we can pin down exactly what works and what frequency, what intensity is needed to get the optimal results, the more we can treat this like we would a pharmacological therapy where we can say, "Here's precisely what I recommend for you. Here's the dose. Here's the frequency. This is where the evidence says you're likely to get the most benefit." And I think there are certain interventions in complementary alternative medicine where we're starting to get there, where we can actually say, "This technique works better than that technique." And I think that's when we can begin to bring it into the same sort of rigor that we do our pharmacological treatments. Greg Guthrie: Yeah, that's really great, just having an evidence-based approach to complementary therapies. So let's move on to our next study which is called “Anxiety, depression, pain, and social support in a large representative cancer population.” So what questions did this study set out to investigate? Dr. Joe Rotella: This study started with the recognition that pain is a very common symptom in patients with cancer and actually looked at what are some associations with pain? How does it relate to the presence of anxiety and depression? How does it relate to whether people have good social supports or not? Can we start to get a sense of how these things all interrelate to modulate the intensity and frequency of pain? And this study was interesting because it really looked at over 11,000 patients. And it was looking at patient-reported information. These were patients who were undergoing treatment for anywhere from stage I to IV cancer who were using a tablet to record their symptoms and information in a large academic center. And through this large database, a lot of analysis could be done to determine what were the key drivers of pain or modulators of pain. And what they found was a number of things were independently associated with the severity of pain in these cancer patients, included the site of the tumor. For example, head and neck cancer versus gastrointestinal cancer. The degree or severity of the disease, how advanced it was. Race and ethnicity was a predictor, lower income, all of these were independently associated with severe pain. But this study went a little further and looked at the effect of anxiety or depression and the level of reported social supports. And in all cases, if the patient reports high anxiety or high depression, it is associated with higher pain scores. But those could be further modulated by the degree of social support. So if a patient had low social support level as self reported, then the effect of the depression on pain was more. If they had anxiety and high levels of pain and the ones who had transportation issues, for example, tended to have even more pain. So with this really large database, we begin to get a sense of how these various factors interface. And it's not just a tumor type, it's not just a stage of the tumor, it's not just things like race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, but it's also the degree to which anxiety and depression are present and the degree to which there are social supports that can actually play a role in the level of pain that patients report. All of this would support this multidisciplinary holistic approach that we take in supportive care programs or when we're providing palliative care through a team. This really supports that concept that pain is not an island unto itself. The whole rest of the patients’ experience has a big impact on how they experience pain. Greg Guthrie: William, what are some patient takeaways from this study? Dr. William Dale: Yeah, to pick up on Joe's great summary of this, so overall, sometimes we have big studies but we don't have a reason for those studies to be big other than we happen to have a lot of data. What was nice in this study was they used the fact of a large dataset to show how the various variables interacted with each other. So in many cases, you can say well, if someone has a lower income or comes from a certain part of the world, whether a city or in an urban area versus a more rural area, they have worse outcomes. But, of course, those are very non-modifiable things. And it's perfectly fine to say it, but then what do we do about it? What made me feel good about this study was they said, "Well, if you have anxiety and depression, you can approach the problem this way. You can start to take care of those modifiable issues and that will help you with pain." Or if they live in a remote location, you could identify transportation. If you noted that they were living alone, for example, and they needed more help in the home, you could get that support. We all sort of feel that in our field, intuitively, that those things matter and are important. But this really started to connect the dots between pain and these other factors and how we might start to both take care of patients better, but to also start learning and putting the causal picture together about how this works. And to your question about patient outcomes, so the idea of patient-reported outcomes has become more common and I think for good reason to actually ask the patient, “What's going on? What's their experience? How are they feeling?” And this was nice because it put an emphasis on that. And in many cases as they reported—this was on tablet computers—patients and respondents to surveys will be more honest when they're talking to a computer than they were to people, especially if it's their oncologist. We know that they will often become nervous, that if they could tell the oncologist, "Oh, I'm having these other problems," that someone might stop their therapy. And so they don't want that to happen when they really need those outcomes so they can identify what's needed. So screening people for these problems, which we advocate for, this just emphasizes how important they are even for something as basic as pain management. And 1 other thing I wanted to mention, and Joe may want to weigh in on this as well, was this may help explain why we've had this so-called opioid crisis. And I don't want to overemphasize it, but if every time someone reports pain, our first instinct is to give them a medicine, especially an opioid medicine, and just increase the dose. Without identifying all these other factors, it's just an “If I have a hammer,” kind of solution to a problem, when really the multidisciplinary approach that palliative care and supportive care have always emphasized would do better even for something like the overuse of opioid medications. Dr. Joe Rotella: William, I really agree with you on that. Actually, the founder of the modern hospice movement who really started the whole palliative care movement as well, Cicely Saunders, had a concept she called “total pain.” And what it meant was that you may experience pain physically, but it is an experience that involves your physical being, your mental being, your social relationships, your spiritual concerns, that the whole person plays a role in how you experience pain. And whether we're prescribing an opioid or massage or a ride to the chemotherapy center, whatever else we're doing, that multidisciplinary approach that looks at all the experience of the patient, not just their physical experience, but what's happening not just in their body, but in their mind, in their heart, in their spirit. That's really the key to giving people the very best quality of life. And those interventions that are less physically oriented tend to be lower risk, they're tolerated well. It's just a question of getting that team engaged and providing that more holistic approach. Greg Guthrie: That's really great insight into this study. So let's switch to our third and last highlighted study for this symposium which is called “Racial/ethnic disparities in hospice utilization among Medicare beneficiaries dying from pancreatic cancer.” Before we delve deeper into the study, I think it's important if we define what hospice care is and what we may mean when we say disparities. So Joe, how would you describe these terms? Dr. Joe Rotella: Sure. Hospice care is a particular form of comprehensive palliative care that's provided to people near the end of life. Palliative care, supportive care is appropriate at any stage of illness when patients may experience stress or symptoms. But hospice care is designed for those patients that are near the end of life. And in our country, we have a Medicare hospice benefit which is in myriad insurance benefits, which means that it's generally a care that is accessible to almost everyone who is designated as most likely to be near the end of life. The Medicare benefit actually requires a physician to predict that it's probably the last 6 months or so. And it's a very comprehensive form of palliative care. It's really the gold standard of care for people who are nearing the end of life. And so what's interesting about hospice care though is even though it's comprehensive palliative and supportive care with a team right where you live in your home, wherever you call home, a lot of people don't access it at all or they don't access it until very late. Nationally, the trends are that about half the patients with Medicare who die actually get any hospice care before they die. And of those who do get hospice care, half of them get it for less than 3 weeks. And so it's really not fully utilized. And we could do a whole separate podcast on why people don't fully use it. But it's interesting then if it's sort of an underutilized service to try to determine either what drives that. And among other things, one way to try to understand it is to look at whether there are disparities. And by disparities, we mean, does 1 population seem to be treated or seem to be having outcomes that are different from another population who only differ, let's say, in race or ethnicity or gender? And so this study is trying to look at is there a difference in hospice utilization among Medicare beneficiaries who have a very specific condition? They're dying from pancreatic cancer. And again, large database looked at thousands of patients, and really, they were trying to see if there was an association between race or ethnic minority and the utilization of hospice before dying. Pancreatic cancer is a high mortality illness, and in fact, in this study, something like 64% of the patients did die during the course of the study. And there was a difference. Those from ethnic and racial minorities were less likely to initiate hospice care before they died. What's also interesting though is that disappeared if you looked at the very short hospice stay. If you looked at the patients who only got hospice for 1 or 2 or 3 days before they died. In that case, you don't see a racial disparity. But for that earlier hospice care, you do. This study can't explain why, but it really raises questions around why. Is it about how we present the option? Is it because there are different preferences for treatment near the end of life? Is it socioeconomic factors? Don't know from this, but what we can show here is just like with so many other parts of healthcare, there are in fact important disparities here that we should try to understand. Greg Guthrie: William, what are your thoughts on this study? Dr. William Dale: It's such a complicated story of why there are differences between groups. And this study has a great job of showing that we see these differences. I will reflect on my own personal experience of being in 2 different places with 2 different populations. First in Chicago where we had a mix of largely African-American patients and white patients, and now in Southern California where we have a group that's roughly one-third white, one-third Hispanic and one-third Asian. And just to take a simple thing like that, we all noticed differences in the communities with acceptance of the terms of hospice and end of life care. And I think we've all wondered gosh, it does seem like certain groups get it more often than others for a variety of reasons. And to have some data and a large dataset to show, that's really a good thing for us, so that we can advance to the next step of what are the reasons for that or as Joe just said, why is that? I note in the general population, about two-thirds of people when you ask them at the end of your life, what is your preferred location for dying? And two-thirds will say at home. And then when you look at the actual likelihood of where people die, it's about one-third that dies at home and about two-thirds that are in the hospital. Dr. Joe Rotella: Just to add a little bit more, there was something interesting kind of a side observation, and that is that in this particular study, although there was that disparity, overall, 74% of the patients actually did receive hospice care before dying. And so that's actually much better than that 50% or so that you see across the board for all people with all serious illnesses. And another set of disparities we might want to look at sometime besides race and ethnicity would be disease-specific disparities. Why do cancer patients have a higher rate of hospice utilization than patients with end-stage kidney disease, for example? Dr. William Dale: Yeah, that's a great point, Joe. And it makes me think of our ultimate goal when we talk about people having certain goals for their care including their end of life goals. And we use the term “goal-concordant care” so that people pass away where they want to. But boy, that is a moving target sometimes. And so it's helpful to just see well, where do we usually end up in terms of goal-concordant care. And cancer patients, I don't know what you think Joe, do tend to end up in hospice more often, but I still think the length of stay are pretty short even in the cancer population. Dr. Joe Rotella: I think that's true. And a lot of times, I think it may have to do with when the patient stops taking chemotherapy or some other direct cancer treatment. And in many cases, that's close to the end of life, and so then the stay is short. Dr. William Dale: Yeah, I think that's right. I do point out I'm at a cancer center. Our name is City of Hope. And so patients come here with that sense of their coming with hope for something. Usually some form of a new treatment or almost a miracle treatment that will rescue them. And we in the field are often trying to make sure patients understand hope for, can be hope for lots of different things. My old mentor, Bob Arnold, used to say hope for higher quality of life. Hope for meaningfulness. Hope for comfort. All should be part of the conversation. So broadening, again, beyond just the hyper focus on what can we do about this disease to a broader set of questions is probably the next thing we need to understand. Dr. Joe Rotella: Yeah, that'd be a great podcast [laughter]. Greg Guthrie: Well, I wanted to say I've heard the terms quality of life, multidisciplinary, and overall health a lot in our discussion today. And I think that that really just underwrites the role that supportive care plays in cancer treatments. And I think that that's just a great way to summarize the really interesting research that's coming out of this year's Supportive Care in Oncology symposium. So William, Joe, thank you for coming onto this podcast to talk about these studies and to show how they can help start to make improvements in patients’ lives. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us. Dr. William Dale: Well, thank you, Greg. We're looking forward to seeing these studies discussed at the conference. Dr. Joe Rotella: It was a pleasure. Thanks so much. Greg Guthrie: Thank you. ASCO: Find more research from recent scientific meetings at www.cancer.net.  And if this podcast was useful, please take a minute to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Google Play. This Cancer.Net podcast is part of the ASCO Podcast Network, a collection of 9 programs covering a range of educational and scientific content offering insight into the world of cancer care. You can find all 9 shows, including this one, at podcast.asco.org. Cancer.Net is supported by Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, which funds breakthrough research for every type of cancer, helping patients everywhere. To help fund Cancer.Net and programs like it, donate at conquer.org/support.

Today's guest set out to create a product to solve a problem in his bathroom sink, wound up with two utility patents, numerous copyrights and trademarks and went through lots of ups and downs along the way. This week we are having him on the podcast to recount the seller side of a two-part seller/buyer series on the build and sell process. It's always inspiring to hear stories of entrepreneurs who built something based on a need they uncovered. Nicholas Galekovic, the co-founder of Beard King had always been creative, going way back to the dawn of design in technology. He was active in the early days of the digital space, doing one-offs for brands and starting a small digital marketing agency. He had gotten used to seeing brands succeed and fail when he realized that it might be time to start building his own brand equity. Episode Highlights: Nicholas walks us through the process of jumping off the couch and creating the product. How the timing was a factor in the success of Beard King. The patent processes and how they played into the growth and eventual sale of Beard King. What Nicholas did that was outside of the box to make his product and brand different. How long it took him to pivot from US-based to overseas production. Why learning every day is part of the success equation. Nicholas's Shark Tank experience. Amazon's patent neutralization program and how it helps protect product builders. Nicholas shares his two must-dos for preparing the business for the exit. What his next adventure is and what he can now do with all that invaluable learning. Transcription: Mark: For those of you that are listening in your cars and not taking a look at the video that we have up on YouTube of this podcast. You can't see that Joe is actually supporting just the faintest hint of a beard. So Joe is this intentional or is it just the stress of Quiet Light getting to you. Joe: Oh my dear this is embarrassing compared to the guest on the podcast this week. His name is Nicholas Galekovic, there you go. I wasn't going to try saying that name. I know you aren't. But let's just call him the Beard King because that's his company's name or former company name. He developed a product to solve a problem, wound up with two utility patents, a couple of design patents, lots of copyrights, trademarks, and went through lots and lots of ups and downs as we talked about the podcast. He's essentially run up with his doctorate in product development, branding, marketing, things of that nature before he exited a couple of months ago. So this week we're going to have Nicholas on the podcast. He is the person who sold his business. So people get to hear about the process and what it takes. And then the following week we're going to have Raj the person who bought his business. So we're going to do a two-part series on who sold their business and who bought that business so people are going to see it on back to back. Mark: That's fantastic I love this series when we can do the buyer and the seller. Even if we can get just one of the parties on it's always super useful. I know I talked to somebody recently about the podcast and they told me that these are some of their favorite episodes. So we are going to try and get some more sellers on. I know I have a seller coming on here soon in the coming weeks of somebody who is going to tell their story as well. I'm excited about this because I love these products that come out of this practicality of I've experienced this, I had a problem, I solved it, I turned it into a business and not only just a little business but something pretty significant. Joe: Yeah, he's been on the Shark Tank, got an offer, got a deal, ended up turning it down rightfully so; intelligently so. He talks about utility patents, the Amazon program, and grants to patents, and talks about some of the great things he did right in terms of social media and video. He actually had Snoop Dogg who was tweeting about his product and brand which is pretty cool. And then he talks about some of the mistakes he made. You know things that if he looks back he does want to live, gone, I wish, I should have, I could have, I would have. But he points out directly what he thinks he did wrong and what he could do differently and just dropping some advice for folks that are following in his footsteps. Mark: That's fantastic. Let's go and listen to him. Joe: Hey, folks Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got somebody that just sold their business. Well, I shouldn't say just because it was in late spring of this year which is 2019. It's August 29th, 2019, my wife and I's 21st wedding anniversary. Thank you very much. Nicholas: Congrats. Joe: Thank you, Nick or Nicholas. Folks we have Nicholas Galekovic on the line and I had to ask him how to pronounce his name. I've known him for almost a year now and I've always screwed it up so I wanted to get it right. Nicholas, how are you? Nicholas: Good, Joe. How are you doing man? Thank you so much and don't worry my whole life I've heard the mispronunciation of my last name. So I'm quite used to that. I bring that into the branding side but I'm definitely excited to be here. Thanks for having me today so I can share my experience with you guys. Joe: We were going tell it you folks he's down in Florida and there's a hurricane coming in and pardon the lightning and whatnot but instead, he had a light just fall but we're not going to cut that out because you still are great. You sound great and it's life in the podcast where we're not professional; well I guess we, I don't know. Nicholas: Yeah we are. Joe: I don't know if we're professional podcasters. Anyway, I was going to say that is one fine looking beard. You should be in the beard business. Nicholas: Absolutely and I think by accident, by default I became in that business. Joe: You did, didn't you? So why don't we tell the folks because you and I have that little inside joke there; why don't we tell them who you are and your background? I'm going to let you do it. Tell them a little bit of background about yourself. Nicholas: Sure, absolutely. So you know I've always been in kind of the creative field and I really started to hone in on my expertise about eight years ago and I was doing more graphic design for other clients and really started to hone in what technology I like to use. So obviously Photoshop being the main one, Adobe Illustrator, I really got used to the Adobe Creative Suite. So I would just charge clients to do a flyer or one-off. I mean back then the digital space wasn't as big. I mean it has always been big but this is back in like the MySpace thing. So I even started off designing MySpace pages before I created havoc. Joe: You're aging yourself right now. Nicholas: I mean you know but I'm going way back. So then I'll just fast forward a little bit here and I started to hone in on my skill set of design. So then from there at a company called Kovick and Kovick was what I call a brand tailor. We really focus on helping companies with their brand identity, their strategy, website design, logo design, you name it. So I had a small marketing agency where I really started to I would say have success in business in that regard. But I always had a designer mentality we'll call it which later on down the story you'll see how that soon fulfilled me. And then I started to see a lot of these companies fail as far as whether they're small big or whatever and I would put my heart and soul into these companies I was designing. But then I realized I'm building all this brand equity but for other people in a sense. I'm still an entrepreneur but I'm doing it for the sake of their brands; which is fine. So then Beard King came about when I was just simply solving a problem that I had on the day to day basis which was trimming my facial hair. You mentioned the glorious beard hair. So it wasn't always this long and glorious but usually when it's a beard like let's say you're a size or small-sized beard you make some mess all over this thing. Basically, I just came out with this product called a beard bib and we'll dive may be more into the story in detail here but that's kind of how Beard King came about for four and a half years ago. And then I met you Joe last here. And then here we are right now. Joe: You and I and I think Brad. Right? Nicholas: Yes. Joe: We had lunch or breakfast may be down in Miami before the Blue Ribbon Mastermind; shout out to the Blue Ribbon Mastermind members. Nicholas: Shout out to Ezra; yes. Joe: A heck of a group of entrepreneurs there for sure. Nicholas: Absolutely. Joe: So we've been through the process of doing the valuation of getting your business ready for sale of getting it under contract and going through and selling it. We're actually later in the month going to have Raj on the podcast as well. Raj is the gentleman that bought the Beard King. So we're going to go full circle with the buyer and seller and hear Raj's story about how it's been going since he purchased it. And you and Raj have got along great. You're good friends now. You might be doing some business together in the future outside of the Beard King which is always great to hear. Well let's talk about the process because you have something or had something; Raj has it now that was relatively unique. Nicholas: Yeah. Joe: 100 plus businesses in the last seven years and less than a handful have had a utility patent on them. Let's hear a bit of that story you were making a mess in the bathroom sink and created something called the beard bib. How did you develop the product? Did you create one? A prototype from an apron at home or what did you do? What was the first epiphany [inaudible 00:08:25.0] and where do you go from there? Nicholas: Of course, so I mean I used to use a T-shirt. So you could picture you're at home, you're about to trim, it's either A. use the sink. Let that be the catcher. Get the hair all over. Try to clean it up. We all know that's super tedious. And being in 20 19 and then when I invented it that's four or five years ago so still though we're in this age where there's always a solution, right? There's always a product that's been invented. Everything's been invented and now you're just creating a better mousetrap. But in this case, I usually just use my T-shirt but then I wouldn't get like the little hairs all inside the T-shirt. And I'm like there has to be something like; I don't even know if Amazon was huge back then as far as how big it is now. But I think I just did some basic Google searching, Amazon searching, and I didn't really find anything. So I'm like you know what I'm just going to draw something together for myself. And I remember being home one night, I had a few glasses of wine, just chilling and I'm like you know what let me get up and start grabbing whatever household materials I could find. So I grabbed; it wasn't necessarily like an apron but it was almost like one of those hair cutting capes. I didn't know how to sew so I just; what's a man going to do? We're going to use staples. So I was literally finding whatever I can. And it was hideous but it actually kind of worked. So if you can imagine a product like a bib attaches around your neck and suction cups to the mirror as simple as that. Some of the simplest solutions are ingenious. And in fact, as the story goes along a lot of our customers are like I wish I would have thought of that like one of those things. And actually part of the story is funny because I remember thinking to myself well there's nothing out there I'm just going to use this for myself. I know how to brand a business but I don't know how to operate and scale a business. So I kind of let it sit for almost six months. And I remember coming across the Norelco or Panasonic clippers that tried to solve the same issue but with like a vacuum seal. What I found was; what my goal was the death of this idea. Let me just go and buy this product. And I actually tested it out but it didn't really work. It may be caught 20% of the hairs. But not only that sometimes people try to solve simple problems with these extravagant solutions which is unnecessary. So after that, I'm like you know what let me try this again. So I actually ended up manufacturing. I live in Miami so there are tons of manufacturers around here but of course with that comes greater costs. So I just tried a few. And long and behold I'm realizing in my mind, okay I have a company or I have a product called a beard bib but that's very limiting and so the branding mind starts to kick in. So I started thinking bigger scale. And I tripped up on during my naming process. Since I have all these processes and I saw ease of how to create brands it was easy for me to kind of just bootstrap that portion of it which sometimes a lot of people pay a lot of money for that. And I came up with Beard King thinking bigger picture; beard oils, brushes, washes, all these things. So I kind of accidentally got into the beard market. I did just wake up one day and said I'm going to get into the beard niche. And it just so happens that it also started to trend big time many years ago. But the trend was going up and I think that was from some other companies kind of breaking through. And yeah that's kind of the initial process of how I came up with the invention, prototyped it, tested it before even scaling it. Joe: You got off the couch and you actually did it. People have great ideas all the time but don't act on it don't know what to do with it. I'm going to just put this out there and then maybe we'll edit it out but seriously this is like an alcohol-infused invention. You sit and grab whatever you could in the house and started stapling things together and as you said it was hideous but it worked. And after several prototypes and a lot of money you wound up with was it; remind me, was it two utility patents and two design patents? Nicholas: Yes. So we can talk about the intellectual property side of things and again mind you as an entrepreneur you have to be willing to learn. So I didn't know anything about intellectual property maybe besides a little bit of trademarking but the pat world is completely different. So, of course, I did the initial patent process. The name of not a utility, not design but what's the one right before that? Joe: I don't know if there is one before that I thought it was designing utility. Somebody is going to have to call us and help us out. Nicholas: Right. Well, basically it just gets your spot in line for a year. So it allows you… Joe: Provisional patent. Nicholas: There you go. Thank you, Joe. You see your lawyer; I know, but essentially the provisional patent is your spot in line so you can kind of tweak and work on it but you can't go so far outside the scope. I mean it was five years ago that I did it so I forgot the name of it. And they're also not strong; they're really just your place in line. But if you have something that you really know you'd go straight for the utility patent. And what I found was I mean it took almost three years to finally get the patents that were issued. So you have to remember during this process; yes it's great for exit, it was amazing and we'll talk about that of how it all kind of played into the whole Amazon patent neutralization program. But going back in time the product went viral. And of course there's going to be knock offs and whether you have a provisional patent, a patent pending in this cut-throat industry, in this fast-paced e-commerce business, people don't care. They're going to still sell it. So this is kind of gets into the pat IP side of where when you do have a viral product that never existed before we basically created a new market; this beard bib market that never existed before. So it was flattering on one hand but obviously very aggravating on the other. We're losing money left and right with the knockoffs. Joe: Yeah. And that was for a period of time that was just too darn long. Looking back do you think that you could have done anything differently with the provisional patent and patent pending? There's just simply no real protection there. Nicholas: Yeah I mean the only thing I could say that you could do different which I never really like to say I'd like to do all that over again it's more like what did I learn from this. Joe: Yeah exactly. Nicholas: Would be perhaps accelerating the patent process. I think we chose the route because of cost. Usually, that's always when you have a company you don't have the cash to infuse into intellectual property. So I think we did the slower one, not the accelerated patent. Also as you're waiting for the provisional patent it gives you kind of time to pick and choose what elements that you want to claim or drop. Also, it's extremely hard to get a patent because some of these patent examiners they're tough. I mean it's not like they know you personally but it's like every little thing and then prior arts. So that's where you get into the field of you might think you invented something new but when they start stacking you against prior art; for example bibs in general, that was one of the prior art cited against our patent. It's just so difficult. So we have to kind of adjust to what parts of the application we want to claim. Joe: I was curious about that because anybody that I know that's filed a patent has said that they're going to say no and then you've got to pivot and go back at them with this other unique feature to your patent. How many times did you have to go back to that examiner until they eventually said granted; you're right, here's your patent? Nicholas: I mean looking through the docket history; by the way I mean first of all get a great lawyer. I'm not a lawyer so if you try to do things yourself you don't really know the ins and outs but I believe we went through at least three rounds per se and we still by the time we were getting ready to sell the business we'll have to talk about that with Raj when you interview him but there was a design patent still pending. So it took about like I said three or four iterations for the first utility and then just the next utility fell right after that a month later. So I think we got the first one in September and the next one in November and then you know. Joe: It was falling quickly. You were getting them quickly as you were preparing the business to sell. Nicholas: Correct. Joe: But from beginning to end from the time you decided to file for the patent until you got that last one in November of 2018 how many months or years was that process for you? Nicholas: It was almost about like I said three and a half years because again provisional patent was in the first year but that kind of only hold your spot in place. And then when you file for utility that time clock starts all over again. So that was one of the takeaways I was saying that I might have changed is just either going straight to utility and or accelerating. That's how you can probably get it faster. But in hindsight also being able to enforce your patent you're going to need cash to also enforce. It's one thing to have a patent. That's great. That's amazing. You know I actually literally; you could see on the back my wall right here that's a little patent but it doesn't mean anything if it was sitting on a wall. You've got to have cash to enforce. So that was the second part of this strategy was being able to have cash to take down these people. And we can probably segway into the topic of Amazon's pattern neutralization program. Joe: Yeah, I do want to talk about that. You know what I'd like to hear first because though? [inaudible 00:17:44.5] your story and the success that you found at the very end and actually helped Raj your buyer and propelled the business. I mean it was taking off by the time he bought it which is just great timing for him. But you had some great successes along the way with the Beard King and the bib. Can you just highlight a couple of those points? What did you do that was a bit outside the box that your standard e-commerce entrepreneur or Amazon FBA entrepreneur may not have done? Nicholas: Yeah. I think the first thing would be the branding and the marketing. You know with the named Beard King I started to brainstorm on okay how can we treat our customers different? I think even when we first met I would say King Joe or Lord Joe or Queen Sarah or whatever. Joe: [inaudible 00:18:31.7] is what your email add. Nicholas: At a royal day was the signature. So I really thought to every touchpoint, every detail; whether it's a phone call, email, flyer, or whatever it might be; packaging, everything was based around royal theme. And that's important to stand out nowadays especially with Amazon businesses just kind of being one out products and you kind of forget about the brand you just want function but to have that little extra piece; the second piece of that would be the video content. So I did a lot of the storyboarding, scripting, and writing of these pieces. I think the first one we hired one of my buddies to shoot it. And that first video ended up being picked up by a huge Facebook account like 9Gag or Unilab. And then once those big Facebook accounts picked it up it just goes viral. So I think within the first six to eight months of business that first video we did went viral. If anything I was a little self-conscious about it because people were making fun of it. But good or bad PR doesn't matter; it's great. Joe: I think if I recall in the package we put together we shared some of those links and am I remembering it right that Snoop Dogg tweeted out; as it Snoop Dogg or somebody else? Nicholas: Oh yeah. I think the meme was; so that was the meme portion of it but I think it went along the lines like you know a pissed off woman invented this. Joe: Yes, that's what it is. Nicholas: And so basically Snoop Dogg, Usher, even besides those accounts the big accounts; Facebook was huge on video and you can go viral a lot easier than you can today. I mean I think we're in the 40, 50 million views collectively across social media platforms which of course infused fire into the sales and this was right before picture going Shark Tank. So I imagine we had okay sales and then one month I think we had $80,000 in sales. I'm like how am I going to fulfill these orders? Joe: Yeah. Nicholas: That's a good problem to have but… Joe: So moving along with a story there and you just mentioned Shark Tank but we'll get to that in a minute as well. You were manufacturing in the United States which was more expensive. How long did it take you to pivot and move your manufacturing overseas? Nicholas: I think… Joe: I think you did right? Nicholas: Yeah, we did. I mean I think another pain point of any business or entrepreneur is when you're kind of forced to grow. Some people just want to grow but then you grow too fast and you can't handle it. But for me these types of pivots; when you're almost forced to do something it's kind of like working out and you've got to go to that next level of weight to kind of grow. So for me, yes we were manufacturing in Miami for an insane amount of cost per unit. And I did that also on purpose which I suggest people do because you don't want to invest too much with too many units and then they don't sell. So I was willing to see proof of concept. That was my first thing. Joe: Especially for you, because you invented the niche, a lot of folks are finding a niche that's already selling well and they're just doing that branding of their own product. They know there's; they need to get eyeballs. They know the units are going to sell if I can get eyeballs. You know it only had to get eyeballs but you had to educate the people what the product was. Nicholas: Right. Joe: So the video was fantastic. That's a very visual product. Nicholas: Absolutely. Joe: So at one point you did pivot and you moved manufacturing overseas. Did you figure that out yourself? Did you hire a company? Nicholas: Yeah. You know actually that guy originally; so I'm kind of like Bob the Builder, right? I'll piece everything together and when we were manufacturing Miami I was sourcing the materials from China. You just buy; my natural gut feeling like let me source material there, ship it here, and then make it here. So the problem with that obviously is the fact that it's super expensive to be shipping a bunch of material. So the same guy that I ended up ordering a lot of the material from we established a nice rapport and relationship he ended up kind of telling me on the side hey look I'm going to go up my own manufacture let me know if you need anything. So essentially not only did I create a niche but for this individual, he ended up starting his own manufacturing facility almost really based off of our product. And we were like his number one customer. So we had a long relationship. He was basically the only guy I used for the entire time and I think to this day the new owner is actually still using him. Joe: [inaudible 00:22:53.9] loyal; that's the story. Good relationships like that are great. I'm going to throw out there to some of the folks listening there are companies out there that can help with the manufacturing overseas. I just did a podcast with Zach Leonard from Gembah and he's explaining what they do and it's the exact type of company that you probably needed at the time. It would've made your life a lot easier. They do all the importing and shipping, the [inaudible 00:23:22.1] industrial designers on the team. I know their company; I think in Gembah is Austin, Enventys is down in Charlotte. They've been around since 2002. They actually did some of the industrial design work for the Miracle Mop and other products like that; a really, really impressive company there as well. They actually; really interesting for proof of concept like your new invention, new category that you created, they will actually do all the industrial design work, do 3D printing, do a video of the product, and then put it up on Kickstarter there's interest. And then if it's a success they'll take the orders but then they'll go manufacturing. So brilliant idea. It's; I don't know, I wish everybody listening that's an entrepreneur now knew about these different companies. Nicholas: Of course, it would make it; I mean that's why I said in the beginning of the podcast you got to be willing to learn something new every day because I didn't have experience in sourcing or manufacturing but I learned. Joe: Yeah. Nicholas: So it's great to have those companies but with that also will come costs. So you do have to have a little money. I'm sure it's not free. Joe: Yeah, they probably don't work for free that's for sure. Nicholas: No, they probably don't. Joe: Let's talk about Shark Tank. You brought it up; you were on Shark Tank. How did you go through the process? What was it like? Was it the biggest joy in your life or very very difficult? Nicholas: I mean it's obviously very stressful in the sense that they leave it open-ended. Like literally; and I think when I heard one of the other guests on the show talk about how they never really guaranteed anything and that's super true. Actually, the whole process took a year. So from the year that you audition until; and it could be different in any case, but the year you audition or the beginning of it then you go through several funnels of interviews, face to face Skype calls or Xoom calls like this and then eventually you fly out to LA and you pitch in front of the producers and it's still not guaranteed. And then they'll call next. And if not you fly back. And then if they choose you, you stay another day or two and then you just wait for your spot to be filmed and then you're still not guaranteed to be airing. Now the airing of the show is kind of like the pivot for the company. And not only that if you do film and you get a deal that's huge because it adds a lot of value to that shark to then want to close the deal with you. So by the time that we auditioned, filmed, and then I think there was like a six-month gap in between due diligence and finally getting that air date which they only give it to you like a week or two in advance. So imagine that, it's like you're always on your toes like are we going to get it, are we're going to air, are we not; but they just say do your business as if Shark Tank doesn't exist. Joe: That's hard to manage your inventory level if you're going to get that extra 10,000 orders next week. Nicholas: Of course and you can imagine I like to call the Shark Tank effect this kind of trickle effect because let's say you do air. The amazing thing about it is as we all know nobody really watches TV live anymore, or at least I don't. So you get that initial spike from viewers that are viewing it live. Of course, you can advertise that; promote it, but then you're on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, you're on all these things that you're kind of in the Shark Tank alumni books forever. So you still get spikes. I mean in fact we still re-air all the time; airports, I think it goes from ABC to CNBC. So that content is syndicated across all the platforms and it's great. So just to be on air alone the exposure is worth millions of dollars advertising. So it was a great experience. I definitely will go for it again if I can. And it was great. It was an amazing experience. Joe: I bet they would love to have you back with a second invention someday. That would be really; a good story for them too I could just see it really, really working. So we're going to fast forward a little bit. I just want to say one thing about Shark Tank I had another guest on that said that after you pitch a lot of entrepreneurs come pitch the same day they take them and they put them all in separate hotel. You have to go for an hour of council and then you go to separate hotels. Do you have to do the same thing? Nicholas: Yeah, that was absolutely true and I think I know the conversation that you were having with [inaudible 00:27:51.9]. Joe: So you had to go through an hour of counseling as well just to make… Nicholas: I was like alright can we go now? I'm good. But yeah it just depends. I mean it's very stressful you need to almost debrief because I mean I remember the call time was like let's say 6:00 a.m. but we didn't film until almost 12:00. And I was starving I'm like I literally pulled the producer and I'm like I got to eat I'm about to pass out. I imagine it's like the biggest pitch in your life. And that's another crazy thing to think about to kind of show anybody that's scared to pitch, public speak, to do anything like that. That was the first time I've ever even pitched a business. So it's like I never pitched a business in front of Joe or Bob or anybody. And then here I am in front of Mark Cuban, Lori Grenier, Chris Sacca, like all these major names that I'm like just doing my thing. And that's another cool tidbit of the show that I could probably add that you feel like you might be nervous and all that but not really because it's like having a conversation. They're intimidating, you're in there for like an hour, and then they condense it down to eight minutes. So it seems intense but it's TV guys. So just keep that in mind. Joe: Lots of editing. So the success on Shark Tank led to lots of knock offs. But you were working on the patent the entire time. And eventually, you were offered two utility patents, design patents, things of that nature. What did you do? We talked about this just as they started coming out and you mentioned the patent, the Amazon patent neutralization program, for those that are not familiar with it could you talk about that a little bit? Nicholas: Yes sure. You know this is Amazon's way of showing you know what guys we got to do something about this we know it's an issue and Amazon is such a huge platform. And I think that's why everyday people are kind of like well I want to do this too. And so sometimes dealing with some of these knock offs directly and strategically you realize they're just everyday people that didn't even know they were knocking you off. And then, of course, you have people that know that they're knocking you off and then they try to be slick and go around you whatever it might be. But the Amazon patent neutralization program is great for patent holders, inventors and it says look if you're selling this product you have a utility patent we're not going to be a lawyer but they hire a third-party law firm that instead of going through litigation which we could even touch on that quickly as I went through a litigation with a knock off that tried to sue me and here I am blowing cash which of course affects the bottom line; cash that I'll never see again. But circling back the program actually is instead of going through a long drawn out expensive process of patent litigation it brings in a third party and it says seller if you have a patent give us a list; I think it's 50 Asense at a time, we're going to reach out to all them. They have two weeks to respond. If they don't respond well then guess what? Automatically you get removed; the sellers that are knocking off. So it's kind of like they just said alright we bow out without saying anything. And then what we found was a small percentage of people opt-in. The opt-in process costs I think $4,000. I don't know if it's changed as of today. I mean it's only been a couple of months. So you opt-in with 4k, the other seller has now another two weeks to put in 4k and then you go through the process. I don't know what happens after that because I at this point in the business ended up selling it. And of course, this gave great hope for the new buyer because he's like wow we just got rid of 50 plus Asense, only two people opted in. I think this is great. So it just allows the inventor; because there's really nothing you could do for patents right now before that. You could do trademark claims and copyright claims but that portion of it what we found building our SOP's is that it's really outsourced. So it's crazy you could do the same trademark claim eight times and it doesn't get caught by the first seven agents so the eighth agent might pick it up and remove it but it's a game of Whack a Mole and man is it frustrating. Joe: Yeah. We'll talk to Raj about it. Nicholas: Absolutely. Joe: About the neutralization program and what it looks like competition-wise on Amazon now that they've got that program in there. Let's talk a little bit about preparing your business for sale and you've gone through this, you've got the benefit of hindsight. You did a lot of things right. Clearly, these folks have heard about Snoop Dogg tweeting about your product line, being on Shark Tank, and you got an offer but you ended up turning it down eventually. Just for clarification purposes that is the deal, right? You got the offer but you ended up not going with it. Nicholas: Yeah on Shark Tank we ended up doing a deal with Laurie. That's a funny piece; definitely watch as far as the way I close that deal. She was about to be [inaudible 00:32:38.0] I'm like why don't you make me an offer and she's like wait, what? Okay. So we got the offer but it was a rich 40% for 100k. Thank God I didn't take that deal. Looking back now I'm going to exit, imagine if I only owned 60% percent of the company. Joe: Yeah. So you did get an offer but you eventually turned it down because your business was exploding and growing. Nicholas: Financially it made zero sense but I wouldn't change it for anything. Joe: So then you're preparing the business for sale. We had a chance to meet again down in Miami at the Blue Ribbon Mastermind. So you've got that benefit of hindsight. To the audience that's listening now, that is running a business and may eventually exit or they never thought they could exit. What advice do you have for them in terms of the one or two things that they must do to prepare the business for sale and get them out? Nicholas: Well, first things first. I think having the benefit of hindsight is start a business to exit, right? Have an intent to exit because I don't think most people think about that. Even when I started Beard King I didn't think oh I wonder how this is going to end. I just thought it's going to always go up. And that's fine if you want to leave on a legacy or pass it to your kids or whatever it might be. But regardless I think you should always have an exit plan in the back of your mind and start there and then reverse engineer the business to always have a target to move towards. The second part of what I would suggest and probably would have changed for myself the beginning setting yourself up is the books. When you and I met back in January of 2019 you're like Nick look you got to get your books together. I mean obviously, if you're trying to sell an asset people need to see the numbers and the SDE based off of your last twelve trailing months isn't so strong. But you know what Joe I like how you said wait a little bit. Wait six months or and go get the valuation in the multiple that you want. So I think having your books in place, having the SOPs ready to be literally turn key is really the benefit to getting ready to exit your business. But if you do that from the get-go and you reconcile that every month it's much easier to do so literally in our case sell a business in two weeks. Joe: Yeah. The most difficult thing as a business adviser like myself, broker advisor is when someone comes to us and wants a certain value for their business and they ask is it worth this. And I can't tell because they don't have good clean financials. And by good clean financials, I don't mean that you don't run your personal stuff through the business. Most entrepreneurs do that. In fact a couple of things; I want to give a shout out first to Tyler Jefcoat at Seller Accuntant. So Tyler was great in this relationship; introduced us, good guy, you never hired him but he just gave you some advice and or did you hire him? I don't think you actually hired him to do the books, right? Nicholas: We ended up hiring him to do an audit sweep. Joe: There you go. Okay, so Tyler shout out to Tyler Jefcoat at Seller Accountant. The other thing is that there are generally four pillars; it's that risk, growth, transferability, and documentation. So if you do number one what Nick said was go into this with a plan to exit. Figure out what that exit process is like; figure out what the valuation process is like. Do you know audience what the definition of seller's discretionary earnings is? If you don't go to one of last three or four podcasts; Mark and I did an entire episode on what's a legitimate add back and it goes through that entire process. One of the benefits that you have now is that you've been there and you've done that. You've got that patent back there on your wall. You've sold a business. You've got the branding experience. You've got the manufacturing experience, the importing experience, the marketing experience; you've got it all. Now you just have to find that next great product and do it all again. And I see this every time; the first one you take some money off the table and the next one it's five to ten times bigger. And I'm hoping that's going to be the case for you. What is your next adventure? Do you have it sort of turning around back in your head or you're doing it or are you just taking some well-deserved time off from it? Nicholas: I'm sure like most entrepreneurs you could retire on a beach and then figure out what am I going to do with all this sand, right? You get bored. Joe: Yeah. Nicholas: You know taking a couple of weeks off to just reflect; your personal development I think is key to just kind of figure out your next move. And I think for me it's reflecting and learning from the mistakes and then creating an even stronger foundation even if it's from a corporate level, operational level, legal level; all these things that I learned on the fly. If you can set them up in the beginning with the intent to exit you're going to have a better shot at what you said; a higher multiple. I mean look selling Beard King was amazing but I think for me besides the liquid side of the asset I basically just purchased an MBA. I got a legal degree. Joe: At best you got your doctorate man; you learned so, so much. Nicholas: So much and I think it's that key takeaway of learning all those things hands-on versus just your standard education or self-taught on YouTube; it's invaluable. It's absolutely invaluable. Joe: I'm calling you Doc Galekovic from now on. Nicholas: I like it. Joe: [inaudible 00:37:54.2] because that's what you did for your own business. That's great. Nicholas: Absolutely. Joe: So listen we're running out of time, how do people find you if they want to reach out and talk to you about your story; maybe you can help them with their business or whatever the case is. It's always good to connect. How does somebody find you and reach out? Nicholas: Yeah, for sure. Definitely. You can reach out on Instagram. My handle is just my name so it's Nicholas Galekovic. I know that spelling is going to be tough but G-A-L-E-K-O-V-I-C, or you could shoot me an email directly. It's actually galekovic.nicholas@gmail.com. Joe: And we will put that in the show notes as well. Perfect. This has been fantastic. You're a good man. I appreciate you choosing Quiet Light Brokerage. It's been a pleasure working with you. I look forward to hearing about and helping you with your next adventure. Be sure to stay in touch [inaudible 00:38:43.1]. Links and Resources: Nicholas' Company Nicholas' Instagram Email Nicholas

Today is all about Barrell Bourbon. We had Joe and Tripp back on Episode 164, but it’s time we get an update on what’s happening with this team. We talk more about the flavors they are pulling from different states of distillation and how that goes into the blend as well as hearing about their newest release of the American Vatted Malt Whiskey. We then talk about some gripes with the TTB, take another stab at online sales, and then look to the future with new dovetail offerings while potentially phasing out other products. Show Partners: The University of Louisville now has an online Distilled Spirits Business Certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry. Learn more at uofl.me/pursuespirits. Barrell Craft Spirits has won a few medals at some of the most prestigious spirits competitions out there, but don’t take their word for it and find out for yourself. Learn more at BarrellBourbon.com. The 2019 Kentucky’s Edge Bourbon Conference & Festival pairs all things Kentucky with bourbon. It takes place October 4th & 5th at venues throughout Covington and Newport, Kentucky. Find out more at KentuckysEdge.com. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Distillery 291 is an award winning, small batch whiskey distillery located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Learn more at Distillery291.com. Show Notes: Bourbon Warehouse made out of shipping containers: https://www.wdrb.com/news/wdrb-video/bourbon-warehouse-made-of-shipping-containers-planned-in-j-town/video_100e2934-e0ca-5335-a956-83f9d9a9150a.html Bourbon Pursuit Yelp Collection: https://www.yelp.com/collection/Si779eiZUmjGomZP2pZLTg This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about barrel proof bourbon. What's new with Barrell? Tripp, what is your role? Do you taste every barrel? What flavors are you looking for? Do you think every batch is significantly different? How many barrels does it take to get the right flavor? Tell us about Batch 18. What is your ratio of barrels from each state? What notes do you pull from KY, IN, TN barrels? Where do you get the barrels? What makes up an American malt whiskey? Is the TTB creating new categories for you? How do you decide what to blend? Why do producers have non-disclosure agreements? How many employees work at Barrell Craft Spirits? Did you envision this growth? What challenges have you faced? Are distributors knocking on the door for the next batch? Any plans for Barrell Vodka? Are you pro online sales? What's next? Is it hard to make a new label for every product? Any plans to phase any products out? Is sourcing rum similar to bourbon? Why rum? What do you think is the next it category? Have you considered using armagnac? Tell us about Dovetail 3. What's the difference between finishing and aging? How much product is left in the finishing barrels? What are you passionate about? Any plans to distill your own product instead of sourcing? 0:00 I love bourbon, but I'm not ready to restart my career in be a distiller. I have a bachelor's degree and I want to continue to use those skills in the whiskey industry. So check this out. The University of Louisville now has an online distilled spirits business certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry like finance, marketing and operations. This is perfect for anyone looking for more professional development. And if you ever want to get your MBA their certificate credits transfer into Ul's new online MBA program. Learn more about this online program at U of l.me. Slash 0:35 pursue spirits when we're live it Kenny's dining room table we get ups man and you know and barking dogs. That's true. News Feed 0:43 is not the same without the UPS delivery and the dogs. 0:48 Were like all right, cut it 0:50 off. It was ok. back at it. 1:05 Alright everyone, it is Episode 221 of bourbon pursuit. I'm one of your hosts Kenny. And as usual, we got a little bit of news to run through. The 2019 bourbon Hall of Fame induction ceremony was two weeks ago, and I completely forgot to give them a shout out here on the podcast. But congratulations to Peggy know Stevens, Larry cast Wes Henderson and Evan Cole's mean on all their accomplishments. If you're interested to hear their stories and their appearances on the podcast, you can go back and listen to episode six 153 157 167 173 181 198 and 204. I guess we've been covering a lot of these people throughout the years. I'm glad to see that or be able to bring those stories to light. A new story was on a local level new station here last week. And it talked about a new bourbon where house being erected in Jefferson town, which is a part of the local area. But this one's quite different. You may remember us talking to music construction back on episode 137. And how their proprietary wrecking system is used in a lot of places that we see on the bourbon trail. But we're now also seeing a lot of palette ties warehouse is becoming increasingly more common because of lowering costs. Well, this new warehouse that has been planned is made of shipping containers. The developer wants to stack shipping containers six stories high and these plans were filed with the local Metro government. But at this time no bourbon distiller has been mentioned for the project. So who knows what this could end up being like because of air flow and other factors that plan that are in place. But the video news stories can be found with the link in our show notes. We talked a lot about the culture that builds around bourbon and the online community is a huge portion of that. Reddit, which is the biggest message board that's out there today has now surpassed 100,000 members in the our bourbon forum. We recently interviewed one of the Reddit mods for an upcoming podcast, which will air here in the next few months. We're continually moving forward with single barrel offerings that we want to have for our Patreon community. And the newest one that we are ready to announce is that we've been allocated a barrel of Eagle rare will be working through the process of nailing down a date and we will select eight Patreon community members to join us as we go to choose a barrel. Thank you to our partner Kagan bottle in the Southern California area for making this all happen. You can find hundreds of different whiskeys and Bourbons on their website and have them delivered to your door all around the country at keg and bottle calm that's keg the letter in bottle calm. And you can also learn more about what we offer@patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit. Are you going to be visiting Louisville soon and maybe looking for the best restaurants or whiskey bars to visit? Well, Ryan and I we live here and we built up a Yelp collection that helps you navigate our favorite places in the city. And you can get that link in our show notes as well. Now today's podcast is all about barrel bourbon, we had trip and Joe back on episode 164. But it's time that we get an update from what's happening with this team. They've been winning all kinds of awards. But we want to talk more about what they're doing inside these walls. We talked about the flavors that they're pulling from different states of distillation and how that goes into the blend, as well as about hearing their newest release of the valid American single malt. We've been talking about some of the greats we all have with the TTP, we take another stab at talking about online sales. And then we look at the future with new offerings. And of course looking at their new future dovetail offering. Now before you hear from Joe and the podcast, you get to also hear from him before above the char with Fred medic. So with that, let's get on with the show. 4:58 Hi, this is Joe from barrell bourbon. Bourbons have won a few medals, some of the most prestigious spirits competitions out there. But don't take their word for it. Find out for yourself, lift your spirits with barrel bourbon. 5:10 I'm Fred Minnick. And this is above the char. I often solicit ideas from listeners for above the char. This idea comes from Don Knotts. And Don is a longtime listener. And I really appreciate this idea, because it's one I've actually done a lot of research on, and I'm quite fascinated with it. And that's kind of the short history of barrel proof Bourbons. Have they always been this popular? And the answer is no. Now in the 1800s, they would actually advertise themselves as barrel strength or barrel proof. Or some would even say that they were fireproof meaning that they would catch on fire. And so that the proof in the 1800s was a way of advertising the fact that they were pure, they were real whiskey versus being adult rated with like prune juice, or water or tobacco spit or whatever the rectifier is a whole sellers were doing. And so barrel proof in the 1800s meant something entirely different. Now we kind of lose track of this barrel proof subject during Prohibition, and hundred proof kind of becomes the standard. And we don't really reset in terms of what has been bottled until the 1930s, specifically 1935 to 1942, really. And you would find some brands who are trying to market themselves as barrel proof or what they would refer to as barrel whiskey. Weller was one that probably did it the best, and they were going in the barrel at a very low entry proof, and it was coming out 108 212 proof. And in fact, the barrel entry proof up until like 1962 was 110. So the barrel strength bourbon coming out prior to 1962 would have been between 108 and 112. But we don't really see the explosion or interest of barrel proof bourbon until really the last 1015 years. But there's one brand we can point toward as being the most important for leading this trend, and that is Booker's. Booker's comes out in 1987, and was really the first to push the barrel proof conversation in American households. And you had Booker know going around the country, saying that you don't want to drink too much of this because it'll knock you back. Now the truth is that we don't really market it for like its strength for alcohol purposes. Today, we market it for the flavor intensity. And that's kind of where we are right now with American whiskey is we're looking at things in terms of how they taste, and people think that they find more flavor in the barrel proof products. But here's the thing. Don't be fooled ruled by the flavor necessarily, that high alcohol can actually mask a lot of flaws. That's why distilleries will cut the alcohol down to 40 proof to see if they find any flaws in the distillate or the barrel whiskey. So if you think you really like a barrel proof product, add a bunch of water, tastes it again, and see if it still has some of those characteristics that you like. Just because it's high in alcohol, doesn't mean it's good. And that's this week's above the char Hey, if you have an idea, like Don did for about the char hit me up on Twitter, or Instagram at Fred Minnick, that's at Fred Minnick. Until next week, cheers. 8:44 Welcome everybody to another episode of bourbon pursuit, the official podcast of bourbon and we're down here at down bourbon bar in Louisville, Kentucky, once again, we're gonna be talking about, you know, barrel bourbon, and they do more than just Kentucky, right? They update, they bring stocks from last different places. And their whole goal is to blend something that's truly unique and different. And it's never going to be replicated again. So each batches is like that. 9:08 Yep. So it's funny. Joe and I were talking before about people in Kentucky are laser focused on Kentucky only. And we were kind of guilty of that, as well. And we had our blinders on and, and then, with Barrow, they, you know, they're introducing a lot of stuff to the market. And you're like, Okay, this is actually good. And where's this coming from? Where else were you know, so it's like, I don't know, they brought a lot of stuff that I never thought I would enjoy. But I really enjoy 9:36 the offerings. They really do. I mean, even at the even the single barrel program that they offer, it's it's something that most people, if it was just anything else, they might stub their nose at it, but barrel is bringing out some killer barrels that are coming through their single barrel program. And you know, most of them are all distilled in Tennessee. And that's one of the things that I think it's starting to change those people's minds of really what else out there and they're kind of on the forefront of it. 10:02 Yeah. And even inspired us to start our own brands. So thank you guys. 10:06 For the catalyst. And not only that, thank you for these killer dog toys. If you haven't seen these are barrel bourbon, dog toys. Yeah, they're awesome beer. We always love having them they bring booze and now 10:20 I can't wait till next time. 10:22 So let's go ahead and introduce our guest today. So today we have the founder of barrell bourbon as well as the master distiller barrel bourbon barrel bourbon. So we've got Joe Beatrice and Tripp Stimson. So guys, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having us. So last time you were on was Episode 164. So Been a while now. And I would imagine that your next certain because you're carrying around all these gold medals that you're getting at all these competitions? 10:48 A little bit. Yeah, but it looks really good. And we go out 10:51 a little flavor. We were a lot of them. Yeah. 10:55 But it means like that Michael Phelps and bourbon. Yeah, got it kinda 10:59 kinda. How many? What did you come away with from from San Francisco this past year, because it was a lot 11:04 of this year, we won. I think it's three gold medals and three double golds. And we also we also picked up the best small batch bourbon over 10 years old and worn. 11:20 That's impressive. Who gets keep the mo 11:23 hasn't been the case in the display case. Yeah. 11:26 This is your week. This is not Yeah. 11:30 So before we start talking about more of the whiskey and some of that kind of things that gets people again, just a reminder, a little bit of your background and sort of where this all built out of because maybe they're not good stewards yet and haven't listened to Episode 164. But or every episode 11:45 or every barrel introduces right on above the char. 11:49 Yeah, I 11:50 should, I should have said that. It said, we're here with our good friend, Joe. Because I say that every single week. I said, listen to our good friend Joe from barrel bourbon. 11:56 He's our good friend because he pays us. 12:00 So I was going for Yeah, yeah. Well, we started this. We started the company. It's now it's stick around our six year and we've just been growing in leaps and bounds. This since we've seen you we have I had to make a list and had to write it down because it's too much because it was too much I was we're we've been really busy. We've done when we were here last time, we did our first release of the infinite barrel project. And since then, we've done 10 bottlings of it and just just remind you, the way that works is we started out by blending a large amount of whiskey. And then every time we bottle, we replace that whiskey. So right now there's, there are these whiskies from five countries and almost 40 different. I think it's 40 at this point, different distilleries, a product that's in there. We were going to talk a little bit about I guess later about dovetail which is which is our one of our new releases. We just finished our third bottling of that. We're in the middle of that. And we let's see, we did three barrel craft spirits products, which was a whiskey of bourbon and a rum. We did 12345 batch releases a new year. Oh gosh. About 250 single barrels and release of Canadian single barrel right, so 13:22 so you haven't been really that busy at all. Just relaxing 13:25 on the beach. playing golf, it just blends 13:29 and dumps itself 13:30 right around around golf carts and Northern Coleman. Yeah. 13:35 I don't have a golf yet. It comes 13:39 to the house. 13:42 So trip, what about you. So what's what's your car about a little more about your role and everything that you're doing behind the scenes here. 13:49 So I'm basically over everything that's operations. Bringing barrels in dumping barrels, putting blends together. I'll pull samples from all the different groupings and going the lab put blends together. and gentlemen, I'll sit around and taste all the different blends, make decisions on what barrels go with each other to create those blends. You name it. I'm involved in just about everything. 14:19 So the blends start with you or Joe, 14:21 like what is going in the blends just kind of it's a conversation. We know we're going to do something we talk about what we have. We fill in the gaps with things that we need. We only we ask each other question, what do you think it needs. And then we go back to our stockpile of barrels and say, well, in the past, we've had good luck with these particular flavors that we're looking for in this particular warehouse from this particular distillery. So then we'll bring those in, and we'll try it small scale first. If we like it, then we'll scale it up. And we'll scale it up step wise, to make sure we don't go too far. And it gives us room to kind of go back and forth a little bit toward the end, to make sure we we really hit it on the head. 15:03 It sounds like not to bring up another distillery. But we, when we do the Maker's Mark, you know, different states to do your own single barrel, it sounds like us, we go in and we're like, All right, we're gonna do all these different ones, and we're going to make our own barrel or whatever. And then you go back and realize that we should just start with something that somebody else did and work away from there, you know, because they have good flavors. So it sounds like a lot like that process for you all 15:27 it is. And it's a very tedious process, it's a 15:32 lot of time spent tasting different things walking away coming back. Again, like we talked about last time, Joe and I have similar palettes, but we're hypersensitive to different things that we may or may not like. So it works very well, when we have the conversation about putting our blends together because I may not get something that Joe gets, or I may taste something that joke doesn't. And we kind of we take each other's word on that and and just keep on pushing forward. Or you take that 16:00 I'm going to say are you tasting every barrel that's walking through this door as well? Because I know that you you're blending on a pretty large scale. So it's Are you like, Okay, well, these barrels represent this lot, and it should have some sort of similar profile. Are you are you really going through and sampling them all out? 16:14 We have, we have to look at him his lot, to some degree, because to taste every single barrel, I mean, we'd never leave, right? So we we spent enough time doing this, some people would think that's really a bad thing. You know, you get to stay there all day and just 16:28 drink whiskey. 16:29 We didn't get I guess it's one thing when you work in it versus actually doing it. It's 16:34 always hard and fast. So I mean, sometimes sometimes there is a lot of variation in a particular group of barrels. And sometimes there's not as much every barrel is unique, but it really depends on on what we on what we're doing. You know, it's sometimes we have tastes more than others. But I 16:47 would say the single barrels we do, we do handpick those. Yeah. But the batches we we try to rely on past experiences from the different distilleries, locations and put the blends good. 17:01 You know, it's a little bit different. As you know, we actually start with what we've started the whiteboard is a clean slate, we, once it's once something is done and packed up, we've been involved we we start with what are we going to do next? And then you know, the The first thing is, we come up with maybe a concept, you know, what is it that we want? What are we going for, we're looking for, what do we like about the last one that we make, we can tease out more and replicate. And that's really the starting point. And and you know, and then sort then the hunt is on between trying to find things that actually deliver that. But we spend, we can spend 17:34 two weeks a month on one particular blend, it's we have multiple projects going simultaneously at any given time. So 17:40 what are some things like he said that some things that trip likes that Joe doesn't and vice versa? What are some of those different flavors that you might like that Joe doesn't like for example, Katie and I, when we go pick our pursuit series, I know Kenny's searching for tannins, oak. And I'm like, let's stay away from those. I want more of the sweet kind of flavor. So what are those between YouTube and new Trump's? You? 18:04 know, there's never never it's always we always agree 100% on we're doing or it doesn't get the bottom. But 18:11 I think a lot of the differences that we talk about is it's not more of what we like and don't like, I think it's what we're sensitive to so certain stringency, these chemical notes. You know, if there are any certain off notes, like, especially in some of the new make stuff, I'm really hypersensitive to like a mildew note. So it's things like that. It's not that we like things that the other does. And it's the hypersensitivity to the different aromas and flavors that might be in there. Gotcha. 18:45 Well, what are those some of those aromas that you guys are really going for when you're when you're creating the blend? I mean, you said you start with a clean slate, but I mean, there's gotta be something you're like, Okay, like, dark cherries, or chocolate? Or, I don't know, carrot cake, like I don't know, like what's like what's like what's 19:01 marzipan, 19:02 bread, bread, bread pudding, marzipan, and the new all like the same sentence? 19:09 It's true. Well, I think one of things we really like our tropical fruit notes, juicy fruit, dragon fruit flavors, we love I love those. We love those. We love those. Anytime we can win him we can blend to that, will will just stop sometimes. And that's one of the reasons that badge 18 is is where it is in the sequence is that we blended that actually last winter, we bonded A long time ago. And it was a relatively small batch. But I love the story. Because as we were blending it, we were we were strips that we step our way up to the volume, like, we come up with the theoretical in the lab, and then we try to replicate it with the barrels. And as we do that, we we taste we stopped and we taste. And this one, we both at the same time said we cannot not add one more battle. And it was maybe two thirds of what we wanted. And we just stopped. Because it was exactly we had those super sweet notes at them in the middle palette of it. We just love that. We I think we look for a balance of the tannins and the grain. And I mean, that's, that's all really important. Balance is really key to us. We don't we try to make it as balanced as we possibly can 20:12 balance but without basically recreating the same thing over and over. So, I mean, there's, there's, there's got to be a lot of barrel junkies that are out there. And have you been able to say like, Okay, well, I think, you know, when we did barrel batch or bourbon barrel batch 12, like that might be pretty close to 16. Or you think like they're, they're all just worlds apart, 20:35 I think you're going to find some similarities in in all of them. Because you know, there's a, there's a, there's a grouping that we like, you know, we talk about complexity, we talk about fruit and flora, we talk about, you know, open battle, and all these different flavors that are out there. And all of those are going to mingle in different concentrations in all of our batches to some degree. So while some may be not day difference, I think you're going to be able to find some of those flavors in most of the batches. I would say something like maybe 12 or 14 is going to be a more traditional representation, which is going to be you know, an oak forward. traditional style bourbon, there's not a ton of fruit, there's not a ton of floral, whereas something like you know, back way back seven be was just loaded with that for floral note. So I think it Yes, the there are differences, but there are lots of similarities as well. 21:38 So when you're like making a blend, and you're trying to get those different flavor notes that you're looking for, how many barrels of a certain type of whiskey to make to get to that flavor. Like is it 21:50 such good? Or? Well, that's a really good question. It could be one yeah, it has to hit the threshold perception threshold of those particular compounds you're tasting. And sometimes one barrel will make all the difference. And that's it. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty incredible. Yeah, I kind of liked this live thing I can get. I'm getting instructions sent to me is ongoing. 22:12 dining room table, and we're live at Kenny's dining room table, we get ups man and you know, and barking dogs. That's true. News Feed is not 22:20 the same without the UPS delivery and the dogs. 22:23 were like, all right, cut it 22:26 off it. Okay. Got it. 22:30 Alright, so I guess back on topic now. So, you know, we we had the opportunity to getting a batch 17 and it was awesome. It was really I mean, it was out of this world as one of my favorite whiskeys of the probably the past few months. And now is 18 getting ready to come out. Is this released? what's what's the time Yeah, we're sold out. 22:50 We're sold on 19 is gone. We're 19 is almost gone. And we're teeing up 24 next month 22:58 Yeah, it's so you're running through the pretty 23:00 quick. We do about four releases a year yeah, for batch releases a year and then a and then the new year so it's really fine. Fine Bourbons give or take 23:09 Yeah, that's fine but sold out to it's it's available it's just it's all been allocated yeah right we still find it 23:17 right we don't have any money so that means we don't have any more with the distribute we've sold everything to distributor and then distributor now is pushing that means you've gotten your check and you've been paying 23:28 like yeah, you want to make sure that it's it's not sitting on shelves either right? You got to make sure you're still out there and doing your marketing and 23:35 we have two customers we have a customer we sell the distributor and then we have the the end customer who's in there so our sales are concerned with our distributor customer I'm concerned with you standing in the shelf or in the bar buying the product that's that's where we look at the world for sure. Yeah. 23:49 So talk about like the blends themselves because I know that a lot of these you're doing a lot of I don't know, tri state the way to really put it you know, you're doing some Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana. what's what's sort of like your ratio when you're when you're looking at these because, you know, is it is it you know, 35% Kentucky I'm sure it's different here and there. But like where where do you start at? Because there's got to be at by now. You got to have some sort of formula that you think in your head like okay, we know this is where we should start. How about you? 24:22 What's your Nashville? 24:24 Well, we stopped in the Nashville because we couldn't do the math on it anymore. Because there's different Bourbons, different Nashville's in from different states or Nashville's and then what percentage of those barrels and it was getting me know 27.2% it was was just the math was too hard, that we really truly don't have a starting point where it really the barrels lead us through at the barrels lead us into into what we what makes sense. And sometimes it will be more Indiana forward, but a lot of times it's Kentucky, it's Tennessee forward. And and then a lot of times we it's surprisingly, sometimes it's only, you know, 10% of 20% of a particular a particular group that makes that influence. So they really, do we have no real standard or no blueprint that we start with, we really do let the barrels lead us to the answer. 25:09 So in your opinion, when you're tasting each one of these different regions, different kinds of Bourbons, what are the notes that you're pulling out? Like if you're tasting something from Indiana vs. Tennessee vs. Kentucky? Do you? Do you think like where the distiller you're pulling from each has their own uniqueness to it? Or is it based by state like what what do you what do you kind of see that as 25:32 I think we have, let's back up and look at it from kind of the production standpoint where you have one, we're all in this same sort of region where we actually get four seasons, which is very beneficial for us. And then look at the different distilleries that are going to use different yeast strains with different grain bills to create these different flavors. And then you stretch those out in warehouses to say, Northern Kentucky, down into southern Tennessee, and you're going to see variations of flavor development across that region. So then being able to go in and say, you know, I'd like to get a spicy bourbon from Indiana, or I want to get a fruity or bourbon from Tennessee. I think you're able to do that. Because of the different again, you strain Nashville and then the difference in the warehousing. maturation. 26:36 Well, you know, the next question people want to know is where are you getting these barrels? 26:40 We go to the barrel store barrel get in place. 26:44 I mean, let me throw something I mean, if you want to go down this road, something completely different than we're working on speaking of different states, is we're about to blend a total different product and American valid multi product, which is so there are a lot of incredible American single malt produces in the United States. can't call it scotch. Because I mean in Scotland, and there isn't even really a category for for malt. It's either malt whiskey, which malt whiskey technically has to be a new barrels. And a lot of times the mall producers want to put it in US barrels. So we're going to be working with six or eight distilleries. We are we are working with six or eight distilleries from around the country. Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, New York, Texas. I think I may be missing one or two. And so we're getting barrels from all over the country. And we blending those. So you're going to see some real incredible regional differences. We when we when we put this together. That's going to be that's one of the next projects we're working on. That's 27:44 what makes up a malt American malt whiskey. Like, like somebody doesn't know. AK me? Yeah. 27:51 makes an American malt whiskey. 27:53 You want to do this? It's it's, it's it's multi barley. Okay. And so it's generally majority is multi barley. And there's and sometimes there's some corn in there. But for the most part, it's distilled malt, the single malt multiplies the 28:09 primary grain I got. Yeah. 28:11 Okay, great. So this is a little bit different than bourbon. Sure. 28:13 And there's some, there's a group that's actually lobbying, to the TTP trying to get a multi category to create something create something for us. us being the distillers. 28:26 What is it that you like about the malt that's going to, I guess, fit the barrel profile or blends or whatever? 28:32 Well, it's, um, 28:34 yeah, I was like, Can this compete with, you know, Forbes whiskey of the year as well? Like, how many medals can this one? 28:40 I don't know. I don't know. That's, that's sort of a nice, it's a nice accolade. We don't it's not our, our gold. You know, we really we love hearing other people talk about our products and, but the goal is to really is to make a product that people really love to drink. I don't know. I mean, this hasn't been done before. You know, but but it the inspiration of it was we we taste a lot of whiskies in and we know a lot of producers and and there is just an incredible amount of really high quality single malt produced in the United States, and they're relatively unknown. I shouldn't say that, I mean, of course, it's about colonies or by knows them and then there's less than a Reno's those guys, but there are a lot when you start getting into the smaller ones are a lot of people don't know. So we really wanted to bring that we want to bring that out. And, you know, and, and, and, and take our cut out, which is to take some of these great products, I mean, the world is our ingredients, and well as our pantry and take them and blend them together into something you know, even greater than the parts we hope will say 29:40 I want to say you keep going down this path and we were you know what, we'll talk about dovetail in a second because you were talking about all the TTV different categories like it seems like you're you're trying to make their job harder by making them just create new categories just for you like blending everything from here and there. 29:55 We're trying to make the job easier if they just go along. 30:01 Well, the difference the valid the valid Malden the malt whiskey is sort of a different, it's a different it's a different problem because there just isn't a category for what they want to produce, which is a a straight malt whiskey that is does not have to go into a new barrel. Because most scotch of all scotch is in us barrels. And there are different properties, different characteristics. And we're doing with this valid project we're doing a combination of whiskey that went into new barrels and whiskey went into us barrels previously as us barrels. But that aside, the whiskey category is is the one that was the category is sort of an really unusual one. because traditionally, a blended whiskey has can have 20% grand neutral spirit in it. So it's a category that's just that it was it was really looked down on a blended whiskey category. Our whiskies every one of our whiskeys is 100% whiskey, so 31:03 we're not doing Seagram seven and seven we're not 31:07 we're not putting brand new show spirits and and whiskey together hollering and all and go food 31:12 but we do 31:13 not you do you really awesome food coloring 31:16 speaking of blended way I found I went to state sale the other day and got a bottle of it's called golden wedding is like from the 30s or some wild and it was a blended whiskey but I was like all this is gonna be great I'm just in it was terrible. You could tell us neutral grain spirits with like, like brown died and it was on 31:35 the ground the Beatles Yeah, exactly. That was an ingredient of bourbon in the know it Yeah. In the early 1900s and it tasted 31:42 worse than that. I wish it was it was 31:44 color these kind of people he's Crisco to little bit but but so the dovetail is I think the dovetail is a really is an interesting project. Originally it was going to be our whiskey number six and so and what's in it, that was the name of that was the original idea. Well we have a series of whiskeys, we are barrel whiskey, and we do them in batches just like the bourbon so it was okay, this is the next one and and what it what's in this product is 11 year old Indiana whiskey that we finished in done vineyards Cabernet barrels done vineyards is is really incredible Napa Valley, hundred year old family vineyard. And they make an incredible, rich lush camber of Cabernet. And so we got the barrels and we and we finished that whiskey and then we took some Tennessee bourbon and finish some of it in in in rum casks. So our rum casks. We bring rum in from different countries usually comes in in a steel container because the barrels will leak over the place. We put it in x bourbon barrels. And then when we're finished, we dump it out and we take those x bourbon barrels that had rum in it and finish some bourbon in it for this product. We also have some special bourbon finishing late vintage board pipes. So there's a combination of different whiskeys in here with different finishes different proportions, we blended it, and sent the label off to the TTP and six months later. 33:14 And for everybody at home, this is what we're talking about the dope. 33:17 So what's what's the is we call it whiskey is a what's the category that this is followed. And so 33:22 this is technically a distilled spirits specialty, okay, which is in the same category that you can have bubblegum flavored vodka, and you could have 100% whiskey, so it's a little bit it's a little bit, it's a little bit of an odd category, 33:35 but it's fine that you have that because this is like the one product that I see like people are like this is actually really good. Like you've got to go out and get some and I'm trying it right now and yeah, I'm kind of floored like how really good it is. I mean you get you get those Bubble 33:50 Bubble Gum notes you get some 33:53 grape airhead you know those like to you come you come as a kid, you know, there's like, driven sort of like fruit by the foot. You know, like, 34:03 like you said, You love those Juicy Fruit kind of that this is like 34:06 get those know that we're happy to get those sugary kind 34:09 of great notes. So, 34:10 yeah, we want to bring you back to your childhood. That's what we're 34:13 I do I try to take everything I've had in my childhood. I'm like, all right, I taste this and that or whatever. So it totally reminds me of that 34:20 is one thing that you know, you just kind of kind of just piqued my interest a little bit when you were talking about like all these different barrels and all these different things you're doing you could almost open up like your own like week long vacation where bourbon nerd to come in. And they could just like, just pay you to be there for a week. And they could just sit there and just play around and experiment with everything and try to like make their own sort of crazy blend. I mean, because this was I gotta ask like how you 34:45 you got to this 34:47 idea that we should blend these two together? 34:49 Yeah, why didn't you stop at the the Indian thing is Evelyn in the Cabernet. Is it because like oh, that's been done whatever. Yeah, once I'm finished barrels, they're like so passe like everybody doesn't know 35:02 what we try we are always trying to try different new things. But we have these meetings where we all get together every every every month two months probably and we just brainstorm ideas what what is what is the most crazy thing we can do? What's the nice little story about the tale of two islands 35:20 so that was that was a meeting where we sit down and we needed some what we what we call it one off projects that we like to work on. And we knew that we wanted to use some of our leftover Jamaican rum from batch one and we want to do a finish so you know what we were going to do and we had like 20 samples set up in front of us and and what do we want to do this texture that finish and at the very end there was a blend of the rum with some scotch and we thought there's no way this is going to taste good. And it was one we liked the best so we put that in a bottle and called it tale of two islands and it was it was phenomenal so you're blending scotch now to 36:11 we do we do we do have we do blend scotch and infinite barrel we an Irish Whiskey Yeah. But these are those casks are 36:21 on but the those cat what I love about those casks is 36:27 it's a Kentucky distillery. So I can't say that which one 36:33 went to great distillery which I can't say that when we get the barrels 36:40 with both their names on there Why do you think that is like in the sourcing like I would think they would want to want to know like or want to be able to tell like hey this came from us like what why do you think they do that? 36:51 Well I think there's there's a lot of reasons why people do it but but part of it is they're protecting their trademark so in other words they wouldn't want us capitalize on their trademark so if we you know pick any pick any Kentucky this is already and if we username they would sue us you know, 37:09 federal bourbon brought to you by XYZ 37:13 and you know, Kentucky is a litigious state so it's sort of 37:16 Yeah, I agree. But I mean this is this is a fantastic blend like this is the first time that I've tried it and and it's definitely something that I was just kind of like Wow, I didn't 37:27 expect it this is the first like whiskey blend or whatever category it is you want to call it that I could eat this with a rebel most like it would go perfect yeah big fatty steak or even a dessert 37:41 yeah or just like a dessert kind of finished like 37:44 every day like really is you can taste it in like current bonds Nixon was big bowl cabs I like 37:49 I'm glad you like it you can you can pairs with so many movies tomorrow night. I'm like bottle 37:57 coffee 37:58 in your flask. Yeah, just part of the at the table there. 38:02 So what's what's next I just got I just got an I should clarify one point which when we when we do our brainstorming it's it's the company it's we all get together it's not just we spend too much time together anyway just doing stuff 38:16 in the company now. 38:19 Let's see 999 people 38:23 did you when you started Did you envision it getting this big do you envision getting bigger? The 2019 38:31 Kentucky's edge bourbon conference and festival Paris all things Kentucky with bourbon. It takes place October 4 and fifth at venues throughout Covington in Newport Kentucky, Kentucky's edge features of bourbon conference music tastings pairings tours and in artists and market Kentucky's edge 2019 is where bourbon begins. Tickets and information can be found online at Kentucky's edge.com from forest to still Bull Run distillery whiskeys are using some of the water in the US. 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What defines the similar to 91 Colorado whiskey is it spirit passion permeates every sip since day one distillery to 91 distillers from grain to barrel to bottle by hand, distinctive Colorado whiskey. Utilizing grains from the Colorado plains and water collected from Pikes Peak reservoirs to 91. Colorado whiskey is handmade the Colorado way. Everything matters to 91 Colorado whiskey has earned bushels of national and international awards for its spirits with the unique character in the flavor of a bygone era. Named world's best Bry in 2018 by World whiskey awards, seven liquid gold from Jim Murray's whiskey Bible to 91. Colorado whiskey embodies the traditions of the past, married with the boldness of the future, find a bottle near you at 291 Colorado whiskey.com. Write it like you stole it, drink it like you own it. Live fast and drink responsibly. Did you when you started? Did you envision it getting this big? do you envision getting bigger? Like what are you happy with where it's at? I mean, kind of talk about from a business standpoint. 41:03 We're happy with the growth. 41:06 I we're ambitious we want to be we want to be as big as we can grow. We're very happy with the control growth we've been having. We've been doubling every year and and we're it's where we're on track. We're absolutely on track to where we want to be. 41:21 How tough is it to like, I think you said you're like 100% up from last year? What are some of the challenges that you faced, like, I guess going from, you know, experiencing as much growth because like, for me a 20% growth is like chaos. In my biz I couldn't imagine doing like 100% growth. It still talks about some of the challenges or hurdles that you face doing that? 41:42 Well, we've been, we've been planning for business perspective, we've been really planning on this appointment, we have 10 people in the company. Somebody 41:51 somebody just 41:54 got the list 41:56 getting fired up. 42:00 Nine tomorrow, I keep getting texts like that. 42:03 It's just in. 42:06 But But to answer your question. 42:09 We're we spent a lot of time planning, we we plan our releases, we plan our production schedule, we we we account for growth within that. And so it's so a lot of it is logistics planning, getting the barrels to the right place at the right time getting the bottles, the corks, all that stuff, making sure that everything is everything is is lined up and correct. And we and we plan for our goals, which are which we've been pretty close. We've been we've been hitting our goals and exceeded our goals. So we're already anticipating that growth. So we're we've factored that into into everything that we do, you know, you've been selling through your batches very, very quickly. And our distributors sitting there knocking your door like Joe, we're ready for the next one, like Hurry up, when's it coming? When's it coming? That's such a complicated business. It's incredible, because well, first of distributor is sort of a generic term, we, we've put together a network of distributors across country, where with a couple of that we're in more than one state. But for the most part, we've been very careful about who we align with, because they have that they have to be the right size, we don't want to be too big. So we asked them to them, we don't want them to be too small, because they won't have the capital to buy the products that we need. So it's it's a very, it's a very, it's not such a straight line. And some are better than others, some are better others are planning and some will, will are right on top of the releases and others they need a monthly call to say by the way that you put your purchase order in and then it's not. It's not usually because they don't want to it's because they're they have a lot of products and they're they're torn a lot of different directions. But it's it's a very, you know, it's that whole aspect of the business is just it's just different. It's different from any other business. Because you have it's like you're dealing with 50 different countries. Every state has its own laws, is it is the federal there, but every state, every state can Trump it. And then you've got 13 control states, which, which are all entirely different. And they're all government state run. But each one of those has different regulations rules. So it's and then you have what's called franchise states, which are states that you make an agreement with a distributor, and you can never leave. No matter what the contracts are about. 44:26 This is not fun. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz you gotta be careful. Yeah, you partner with somebody and they kind of screw you over. And you're, you're you're stuck, right? You're contracted in for X amount of 44:35 time we've been we've had good relationships. Yeah. Because our products are selling and so there's, they do well, and then they're happy. But if you don't do well, then they're not happy, then that's a different story. 44:44 Oh, good. Yeah. So you're not going to come out with like barrel vodka yet? And then that's going to be sitting on the shelves is that? 44:49 I see. I think Fred's been telling us that we should do that. 44:52 Go. Yeah, he's an advocate. 44:56 How much he likes. 44:58 T shirts and hands and everything. NET? How much he loves it? Oh, absolutely. 45:03 So from your side of the business, would you guys be for online sales? Or 45:11 is that 45:11 original? My original business model I wrote was all online sales. Yeah. But because it's just and the thing is, the reality is, is it doesn't affect the distributors, it actually helps distributors, it would it would open up another channel and save them money. But they've got to see that point, the connection? Oh, no, the more we do with our do you think that is connected with them? Is it I mean, I guess just anything with bourbon or liquor, everything. So like old school, they don't want to change. They're like, I don't know, they're just stuck in an old nine. So you've got big aircraft carriers traveling. And in order to turn those around, it requires a lot of energy, 45:50 a lot of people and a lot of regulation. It's all that sort of stuff combined. Now, because I think we've, we've talked about on the podcast before we've had on the roundtables to kind of like figure out like, what, what's the discussion of, you know, why can't we open this up, like, when is Amazon finally going to start delivering to your door and prime next day, you know, dovetail next to you. And when people are going to start setting up online scrapers to go ahead and buy allocated products, like soon as it hits on Amazon or something like that, right? So the day could come, it probably will come it's just who knows when it's going to be. But I kind of want to talk about you know, a little bit more about trip, you know, the operation side of this, because I think that really what people want to know more about is is the blends and and everything that's going into this. So kind of talk about really what's next on the horizon for you all, and and are you worried you're going to run out. And because there's a thing that you talked about, before we started recording this, as you were saying that you guys are tripping over barrels at your warehouse, like you've got 46:47 that much stuff going on, you're ready to sell some, we'd be happy to take 46:53 that or we'll just go and make your own blend. Yeah, 46:54 there we go. So there is a blend. But 46:57 the process logistics get a little tricky when you've basically grown out of your space. So all the way back to what we order and when we order it. So Joe, and I'll have an idea what we're going to do. So we're so we're going to have a, you know, a dovetail and a batch of bourbon will have to infinite. And we'll just have a list. And then in our minds, we'll go through and figure out what barrels we think are going to go in each of those plus what we already have in house. So we'll ship everything in order. And as it comes in, it literally comes off the truck, goes to the dump trough gets dumped into the tank, empty barrel goes back out and onto another trip, because we don't have room to keep the empties in there. So that process goes on for an entire day when the trucks delivered, so that that's kind of how we get our base. And then once we have the base for whichever project we're working on, it then becomes the treasure hunt of what flavors are we missing? Where do we find them? And how do we put those together. But it is it's a bit of a logistical mess to do all that in, in a small space. And it was kind of funny the last the last time we got we had three trucks in one day and for our space, that's a ton. And we had to strategically place them in the facility. So that right up front where the tanks are, we had tanks, forklift dumped off, and then we just started working our way back. dumping barrels working because there was no room there was a path for the play. That was it can just 48:33 used to be a two dimensional problem. What was on the floor? Yeah. Now it's literally the three dimensions wrong way. It's like Tetris. I mean, Tetris, we're up for four levels. 48:43 Oh, wow. Just so people know, at least at least from at least I think my knowledge so a truck is about 96 barrels. Is that about what comes in? I'm dependent on how their ship? Yeah, yeah. 48:54 Or depends if they're up or down? 48:56 Yeah. So what up? what do you get for on a pallet, 48:58 what you do six pallets it for based on weight, you can get 49:03 lost, I don't do math, 49:04 okay. But you can do without the pallets, and you can get a few more. 49:08 So you ever more work? That's more human work? 49:13 Are you ever worried when when Joe or anybody else on the team, because we now clarify that there's 10 people on a team, 49:19 maybe 11 by now, 49:22 or none, when with like an idea comes up, and you're like, Oh, God, here we go another label. And like, you have to continue these these product expansion line, because you're still doing your barrel batch Bourbons got your infinite, you've got, you've got your rum. I mean, you've got all kinds of you've got your New Year's Eve bottle. So kind of talk about like, When is that going to end because you know, it's it's like a scale up thing that you're like a scale out thing versus like trying to scale up, that's kind of hard to be able to do, 49:54 I would say that. First off, we love to innovate, we'd love to do things that have not been done, we like to be creative, going, we've got a stack of ideas that if we had more time, we would be able to do. So we love that we don't want that to stop. When we talk about, you know, the batches and expansion and everything. When you look at someone who does a product the same way every single time, which there's something to be said for, they've already got a cola, they already have all that stuff approved, they know what's going into that bottle, it's just a matter of doing the same thing every time. Every time Joe and I put something together, we start from square one. So the bottle doesn't change, the shape of the label doesn't change, but everything that's on the label front and back changes, which means it has to go get cola approvals, and then come back to us. Everything that's in that bottle is going to be different, which means we've selected different barrels, we've come up with new ideas, we put different blends together. And then once everything is approved, we've we signed off on the blend, it gets bought cases shift. So every single time anything goes out from from barrel craft spirits, we've started from square one, to create that. And then on top of that, trying to constantly innovate and and better ourselves with each new product that we release. 51:18 So purposely inefficient, is that the best? 51:22 Well, the one thing that we have that is we spent a lot of time in the original label design, creating the structure of the label. And we have essentially a matrix of product. So and we fill in. So there there, there's, you know, buy type whiskey rum, right now, DSS and rum. And then there are different levels of of that were essentially three price points in all of our products going into those three price points, to make it easy for the customer and the distributor. And so then it's a question of creating the content for the label that fits that particular metaphor of that matrix. So we've we've, again, everything we've done is a lot of advanced planning, there's some things look haphazard, but they're really not. We've actually done a lot of the thinking about this already in advance, we spent a lot of time planning. 52:12 So with with all these, like line extensions and other things you're doing, are you looking at ever phasing anything off? Because it's it's a lot to keep up with everything and to continue blending? You know, great question seven different sort of releases. 52:28 Yeah, it is a great question. And I think 52:31 I think the the the public know, you guys will decide some of that when we when we love doing everything that we're doing right now, he said, but he's upset with it. Yeah, I mean, if you if you decide or the public decided that all of a sudden they don't like something, then we're probably not gonna do that again. But I mean, currently, we're having fun putting all this stuff out there. 52:52 The other thing too is, is if we don't like we have not done rum to yet, because we haven't found the rum that we've done. A Tale of Two islands, which is a limited release. But ROM two isn't out because we haven't found and we've looked at 100 different rooms we haven't found the right ones with it we're looking at we're about to do around project because we we did just buy a lot of ramen, I think that what we have is going to be interesting. It's combination of at least Jamaica, Barbados, Ghana, and maybe even Martinique, we'll see I'm not sure. And when that's right when that's right will release it but we don't feel the need to have it the only the only product we want to have out there all time is our bourbon and whiskey. But if the rye isn't the one we want, then we'll wait. Right three is we're kicking around right three right now. 53:41 That's been the sales like you don't you don't see a whole lot of the right on the shelves. Like that's kind of a really kind of hard to find product and I think correct me if I'm wrong, you were doing a few like single barrel rise this year as well. 53:52 We did we did a fair amount of single barrel Canadian rise. They were 13 years old. And they were they were they were 99 or 95%. Right? They were spectacular. Yeah, we 54:10 we have another Canadian Roz are good we 54:12 came right you know if you leave it alone, and 54:15 you may have a lot of those great big juicy for flavors they do as like, so I'm not surprised that like this. 54:23 Yeah. And then when we were about to acquire a lot of candy, right, and the first thing that trip days was bubble gum on it. It's so true. It's a very bubble gummy. How's that? 54:36 I got a question about source the buying round and sourcing. Is that similar to the bourbon game, like, is it similar? Totally, totally different? Because I know with bourbon, you got brokers and all that stuff. And you don't really talk I didn't. How's that process work with your you just get a one way ticket to the islands and hang out? Yeah, for a few months? Already? Yeah, 54:53 take a few 54:54 hands I figured out you can do. It's very different and depends on it depends on the silver, but but there is, there's a lot of spirits available. You just have to know where to get them in rum is rum. You know, aside for a couple of very specific distilleries, it's readily available. I mean, there's, if you you'll notice there's a lot of rums from Central America, there's run from South America out there now, you know, and and they're all very different. I mean, you know, some of them are just too much sugar. For us. It's, it's not what we want, we tend to really like those pure and kind of a funky Dunder, the fermentation distillation process, or just really heavy duty fat rums. No oily. 55:39 So if you guys do a lot of just bourbon whiskey and itself, then why run? Like why? It's, I guess it's one of those things, it's coming up. Well, now, I mean, look at it. You look at it from a business perspective, and you're like, Okay, like, we're gonna we're gonna chop off like the dead weight, like is from a dead weight to you? Or is it still like that's still like experimentation? Well 56:00 think about it this way. The person who drinks our rum is really a high end whiskey or bourbon drinker. So you're not going to take our rum and mix it with Coke. I mean, this is not a white rum or white rum. This is these are serious, serious products to drink. So it's a there's a natural crossover between some of the high end whiskey drinkers to some of these sort of vintage or really esoteric realms. They're not for everybody. And, and I don't even believe that rum is the next whiskey category. I think that this is that the people who drink the rums that we that we will bottle are a subset of the people who drink the whiskeys. They're not necessarily hardcore rum drinkers. Although they're the people who like rum do drink our rum, but it's not the general population. So we do it because because our customer likes it. And we like it. And you know, our promises. We only put in the bottle stuff that we like, 56:55 you know, you said rums, not the next category. 56:58 What do you think is the next category I think America was he's got a lot of room to go. I think we're, I think we're in the sick. My opinion completely. We're in the sixth inning of bourbon, we got a way to go with that. But American whiskey is there's a long runway on that. I think people are going to discover it the way they discovered bourbon. And that sort of fits our model. You know, we were looking at we look at people want to know what's new and what's different, what's exciting. We're always doing something new and different, exciting. And I think that if you look at that, that's what people like, and we're going to just keep doing that. I'll toss one at you because 57:31 I know that 57:33 you buy your whiskey. 57:35 We all go there. I know we're not going to get that without a chokehold here. 57:39 Yeah, actually, we already know. The 57:44 so a lot of people look at Armagnac as a as a as a kind of a good substitute for whiskey because it's it's, it doesn't have the same kind of flavor profile, but you do get some like very dark and condensed sort of flavors and floral fruity notes. Have you guys even thought about looking at Armagnac as a possible source? 58:04 Okay. new ones flavor? Yes, the answer? The short answer is yes. We don't know we're going to be out there. It's 58:12 3.5. Actually, we're already we just finished. 58:14 Finished, there's three more. 58:17 So So talk 58:18 to talk about talking about three real quick since it's probably going to come out. So kind of talk a little bit about like what was in the blend is a little bit different than we're drinking now. Like, kind of talk about that a little bit about that? 58:28 Yeah, there. The interesting thing about dovetail is that it is going to be a little bit different every time. But we do use you the same similar ingredients in that the barrels are the same. But, you know, grapes change every year. So the one that was in the barrels that we may get next time might be a little different than what we use previously. So there's going to be some flavor differences there, we might use a different number, we might use a Jamaican rum barrel instead of a guy in a Guyanese rum barrel, or all of those things are going to put subtle differences in there. But at the end of the day, when everything's put together, you still taste all of the same flavor characteristics, but a lot of them are in different concentrations. So it's it's a, it's a similar experience, but it's not the same experience. And I think being able to, to put all those compounds in there, in those different concentrations and let them vary a little bit as you go along. It's kind of fun to do it. 59:33 So another thing that you kind of piqued my interest, little bit too. I saw something from another friend of the show Wade wood or today and we're talking about finishing, it was more or less around like finishing versus aging. So you're talking about putting something into the barrel. And now do you all look at what you're doing is finishing like it's just in the in there for a short period of time, kind of marry some flavors you like really aging something in there? 59:57 No, I mean, everything we use is a Yes, yes. Yes, we put it in there for some maturation, but mainly, it's a finishing. 1:00:07 Yeah. 1:00:08 And some of us we have some whiskies. And we have some things we've been finishing for two years. 1:00:13 I mean, you'd have to classify that 1:00:14 would that would be I would consider two years age. Yeah. Well, 1:00:17 the funny thing is, you know, the I would think I think 30 minutes is finished, yours is probably age now the run finishing the run fish we do. I can be as short as two weeks. I mean, it depends on it depends on the particular finishing agent. And for us, one of things that we've really been careful about is we don't want the finish to overpower anything. fact, we, we don't even really want you to taste the finish, we want the finish to enhance the whiskey and make that greater than then either either parts. So you'll pick up some of the notes. You may pick up brand characteristics. But for the most part, what you're really tasting is something that's that is been created from the different finishes and the different whiskeys. So it's a totally different new flavor experience altogether. Yeah. So john, I want you to 1:01:02 taste it and go, Wow, what's that? I'm going to go back and taste it again. And then try to figure out what it is. And I know the bottom. Exactly, and we don't want you to take a sip of it and go oh, wow, that tastes like a big bowl cap. Yeah, you know, we want you to get 1:01:17 that deal. I know. 1:01:20 We actually that's that's probably an exception because that that cab is such an exceptional product. Right? That that it just brings out some beautiful nuance some 1:01:31 people about finishes, I guess there they have a concern that how much product is left in the barrels when your product goes into it. Can you talk about that

Hey, what's up everyone and welcome to this episode of The Auto Detailing Podcast. This is episode 399 this week's episode is brought to you by autofiber.com. You could save 20% on microfiber towels and accessories at autofiber.com, autofiber.ca and autofiber.com.au if you use offer code Jimbo. They also have a towel of the month which is rad and you should definitely join. It's like peanuts every month to join and you get a fresh towel to kind of sample to see if you would be interested in buying that one. Anyway, also brought to you by Housecall Pro. If you go to housecallpro.com/adp for Auto Detailing Podcast, you're going to get a free demo to see how this CRM or this customer relationship management software works. It's interesting. I've had a few other CRM companies reach out to me lately and kind of show me what they have to offer and it just reassured me how robust and easy to use Housecall Pro is from everything, from letting clients know that you're on your way in a simple kind of easy to tap button that connects to your GPS and so it gives an accurate ETA to your client, which is cool, all within the app. What I really like is I also have it automatically. So there's a button in Housecall Pro app that I hit finish when I'm done with the job and it automatically triggers a series of events that happen. So everything from the customer automatically will get a text thanking them for supporting my small business with a link to leave a review, which is incredible, seven days, and you can kind of preset this however you want. Seven days after the service, they get an email, the client gets an email again thanking them for the service, asking for a review and if there's anything that we can help them with. Then I have another sequence about three months out reminding them of another detail, six months out and a year out, all that get triggered automatically. They also get a postcard in the mail thanking them. So a lot of what we talk about in the Detailer Inner Circle is that you never know how or what form of marketing is going to work best for your client. So that's why HouseCall Pro makes it super easy. I don't have to think about any of this because automatically set up for me and I've set it up to do this on purpose. So again, all you have to do is input your client information, which you should be doing anyway in a centralized place, which is HouseCall Pro and then boom, boom, boom, boom. The job, the history, the customer history, you can set tags, all this crazy stuff. There's actually too much information to even talk about in an ad roll. So just go to housecallpro.com/adp. You'll get a free demo. You're going to get half off your first month if you choose to sign up. So yeah, do that. Anyway, so we're all good. All right now, now that we've got the housekeeping under control. This episode I thought would be really fun and it's actually something that I want to start and you probably saw by the title, it's detailing horror stories, right? As detailers, we have the kind of fortunate or unfortunate position that we're usually a lot of things, more than a detailer. We're a psychologist, sometimes a doctor, more times than not a marriage counselor. Sometimes you're a handyman, you're a plumber, you're a painter, you're a lot of things and a detailer at the same time, and I think that's because we're so close to most of our clients, at least this happens to me and I've actually been all those things. Anyways, so I wanted to create a new segment or a new podcast series of detailing horror stories. So today, it's from Joe Conley who's been on the show and Joe's an awesome guy. But I do want to invite you, if you have a detailing horror story to email it to me, jimbo@autodetailingpodcast.com and in the subject line put detailing horror stories and I will read your detailing horror story on a future podcast just like this one. I think it'll be fun. I think it'll be really interesting to hear what other people, other detailers go through. I know that there's a ton of detail in horror stories out there. So this episode today is going to be Joe Conley's horror story. Again, Joe has been on the podcast at least twice before, maybe three times and so I would definitely encourage you to search his name in Auto Detailing Podcast and find his previous episodes. He's a teacher full time, details part time and has had tremendous success with things like Google AdWords and all that kind of things. So I would really suggest you check out his episodes because he's a cool guy. He's a great guy and has a ton of valuable information. But today's detailing horror story is by him and this is his email. He says, "So I'm minding my own business detailing a fleet of vehicles at a funeral home that I've worked for before. I knock out a few vehicles in the morning. I take a break for lunch. I come back from lunch and there's a big metal box in the corner of the double wide, double deep garage that is humming away. It sounds like an industrial size AC unit, but no, it's actually a furnace for cremation. Oh by the way, fun fact. I asked how long it takes to cremate a body and the answer is about four hours. So not only am I detailing for the rest of the day next to a body being burned up, one of the funeral directors then comes out about a half hour later and gets .... A half hour later and lets me know he has to shut the garage door for a bit. He closed it, halfway, opened up the door on the furnace and turned the body over. I didn't know you need to turn a body mid cremation, but apparently that's a thing." So Joe says, "I challenge your listeners to send in their weird detailing stories. What is the strangest or grossest thing they found under a seat? How many manual cars did they crash by forgetting to reapply the parking brake after cleaning the brake boot? What's the funniest thing that happened to them while detailing?" So thanks Joe for writing in that story. That is very interesting and incredibly uncomfortable. Thanks for that little note at the bottom. I did manage to crash a customer's car, not because I cleaned the boot so well, and in fact I didn't get to clean the car at all. I was trying to reposition the car and at the time didn't know how to drive a manual well enough on a steep hill and crushed it right into the brick in slow motion. So thanks for making me relive that, Joe. I appreciate it. So yes, I want to encourage you, what are your detailing horror stories or weird stories? Have you ever detailed a car next to a body that's being cremated? That's one that I've never experienced and never heard before and kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies even thinking about. But anyway, I want to hear your detailing horse stories. Again, email them to me, jimbo@autodetailingpodcast.com and in the subject line write detailing horror stories and your detailing horror story will get a chance on the auto detailing podcast. Now I have a slight suspicion that I'm going to be overwhelmed by this and that's why I'm having you do it very specifically in the subject line so I can go through it. So if you do write it in, give me some time with it. But I promise that I will share your story on this podcast. So thanks for listening guys. Don't forget to check out HouseCall Pro, autofiber.com. Of course we have the Detailer Inner Circle and all the things. I appreciate you for listening and I will catch you guys on the next episode. I cannot wait to hear about your detailing horror stories. See you.   **Get Your FREE STUFF with HouseCall Pro here: https://www.housecallpro.com/adp ** Join the Autofiber Towel Of The Month Club - http://bit.ly/TowelClub JimboDaily.com - check out the Auto Detailing Podcast Store. DetailerInnerCircle.com - Take your detailing business to new levels.

Welcome to the 6th episode of our weekly podcast here at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram! In this episode, we talk with Joe Smith in Commercial & Retail Sales at CDJR, where we discuss the Ram 1500. Topics Discussed: Joe’s backstory and how he got in the car businessJoe’s Role in the DealershipTop questions that people ask about the Ram 1500What differentiates the Ram 1500’s ride from it’s competitorsRam 1500 Gas MileageRam 1500 Interior TechnologyRam 1500 Safety TechnologyWhat differentiates Miracle CDJR and Miracle Auto Group from it’s competitorsWhat Joe likes to do on his time off Transcript Opening John Haggard: 00:02 Welcome to the Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram podcast, where each week you’ll be able to learn the best ways to learn, purchase, or lease, maintain and accessorize, and really just how to sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible, when you’re ready to do so. I’m your host John Haggard and throughout each month right here we will have different team members join us from Miracle to bring you tips you can use. And by the way, we also post a transcript of each podcast. You can easily refer to it for information. If you want to go back and look without having to listen to the entire podcast, you can go right there and get the information that you were just listening to. John Haggard: 00:38 On this podcast, we’re talking with Joe Smith, he’s in commercial and retail sales at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. Our topic today is the Ram 1500 and really what makes the Ram 1500 so different compared to all of the competitors. Hey Joe, welcome to the podcast. Joe Smith: 00:55 Hey John. Thank you. It’s a pleasure. How Did You Get Started in the Car Business John Haggard: 00:56 Well, glad to have you. And you know, we always like to know before somebody talks about what they’re doing. How did you get started in the car business? Did you grow up from age six washing cars and stuff or how did you get in? Joe Smith: 01:07 Oh, well it’s kind of a funny story. I’m actually prior military and when I was coming back from a tour over in Japan, my dad recently moved around here in this area. I bought my first vehicle from here, kind of enjoyed the experience. And then few years later when I moved back here, while I was going to school, I saw that the dealership had an opening. Again, I enjoyed the experience here, so I figured I’d apply and at least try and see how I fit into the automotive industry here. John Haggard: 01:32 Hey, by the way, thank you for your service. Joe Smith: 01:34 Thank you. I appreciate that. John Haggard: 01:35 What did you do when you were in the military? Joe Smith: 01:37 I was a structural civil engineer for the Air Force. What is Your Role in the Dealership John Haggard: 01:41 Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. And so tell us what your exact role is at the dealership. When we hear a commercial and retail sales that that seems to sort of explain itself, but is there anything else you do? Joe Smith: 01:53 I do a little bit of everything here, so yes, you’re right. I do the commercial sales as well as retail. I also help do dealer trades for other salesman if we don’t have the exact vehicle here that the customers want ,and I have the ability to find them one and get it here in a timely manner to make sure they are fully satisfied. And I also help out with the backup finance department here as well. What are the Top Three or Four Questions they You Get From Customers about the Ram 1500 John Haggard: 02:12 Okay, got it. What would you say today, Joe, are the top three or four questions that you get from people when they’re saying, “you know, I see a lot of truck ads on television and just trying to decide should I buy a Ram 1500 or should I buy another brand”? Seems like I see a Ram commercial, then I’ll see another commercial then another Ram commercials. Like everybody’s fighting it out. Joe Smith: 02:31 Yes, definitely. There’s definitely a competitive market out there today. And top three. I would say that most people will always try to factor in there is going to be the towing capacities, cause I mean the trucks they’re going to be used for that and they want to make sure that the towing is going to be suitable for what they need. Then the next two things that I always get as well would be like your creature comforts… basically what kind of features have been added into the vehicle as well as safety features too. What Makes the Ram 1500 Ride Different from it’s Competitors? John Haggard: 02:55 All right. And if you were going to say, speaking of that, what makes ride of the Ram 1500 really different from its competitors? Joe Smith: 03:04 So what Ram has done that really separate themselves from the other competitors is that the Ram actually uses the five link independent coil springs. So it’s going to be an active independent there. All the other brands, they still use the leaf spring suspension. Now the Rams use that on the heavy duty trucks just for the higher towing capacity. But that independent coil spring plus there’s an exclusive air ride suspension that you can get as well. And no other truck brand has that out on the market. And those two things alone definitely separate the ride. And that’s kind of what contributed to making the Ram the motor trend truck of the year. John Haggard: 03:39 Okay. So I think what you’re saying like in just super simple layman’s terms, that each shock is sort of its own suspension system. So just because the left front is moving, does it necessarily mean the right one is. Kind of what you’re saying there? Joe Smith: 03:52 Correct. So when we do test drives here, we like to take customers over railroad tracks because normally in a normal truck with the leaf spring suspension, if you hit a bump, the whole truck’s gonna move once you go over on one side. But with independent it’s going to hit it as each wheel goes over it on its own. It’s not gonna just rock back and forth for you. Ram 1500 Gas Mileage Compared to the Competitors? John Haggard: 04:11 Gotcha. Now you know, if you’re a truck lover, you are a truck lover. I mean that’s the way people are. And back in the old days, the gas mileage was really low. So what’s been done today? If you’re looking at the Ram competing with fuel ratings and towing capacity, you know, compared to the competitors out there. Joe Smith: 04:27 So what Ram has done is they had actually adapted to their current 5.7 Hemi and they’ve actually got a mild hybrid system and it’s called the Hemi with eTorque capability. And what that’s going to actually add for you is the stop start feature, which a lot of vehicles have nowadays. And with that, that does actually save about 10% of your average fuel consumption while you’re driving using your vehicle. Plus with that eTorque system, it will actually give you a little bit better in the boosting on your fuel ratings with that feature. And what’s Nice with the eTorque technologies, it’s also incorporated with your towing technology as well. With the eTorque, you’ll actually get an additional 130 pounds of torque starting off the line. So most vehicles, you’ll start at zero if you’re pulling something, but with the eTorque right off the gate, you start with 130 pounds of torque. So it gets you off the line faster when you’re pulling the load. What Features Has Ram Done to Compete in Today’s Technology? John Haggard: 05:19 Gotcha. Now what about if we go to the interior in terms of features that Ram has done to compete with technology that’s current today? Joe Smith: 05:28 Well Ram has definitely taken the advantage on that. We do have the exclusive 12 inch touchscreen. It’s not standard on everything, but you can get that and that does give you a dual display if you want it to. So you can have your radio on the top, you can have your navigation on the bottom, you can move it around wherever you’d like to. But one thing that they also did to the Ram is they actually made the body style about four inches longer. So that’s going to allow for the back seats to recline back. Sort of like a mega cab would, just for that comfort for whoever’s riding in the back there as well. John Haggard: 05:59 Yeah. You know, someone says, well, four inches doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really is when you look at your feet down, I suppose. Joe Smith: 06:06 Oh it does. You’ve got plenty of leg room in the back. Plus you can lay it out. They did add in the panoramic sunroof now too. So if you’ve got that all the way open, everybody gets a good view of what’s above you. Another nice thing that they did add on that radio is they’ve upgraded to the fourth generation Uconnect, and what that’s going to give the customers is your Apple CarPlay, Android Auto. So say you did get one that didn’t have the navigation built in, you can plug your phone in and you can actually still use your navigation or the Waze app if you have that, and that will actually pop up on the screen for you as well. What About Safety Technology? John Haggard: 06:37 Gotcha. Now what about safety technology? A lot of people want to know what are the new safety features? Joe Smith: 06:43 So on the old body style, they didn’t really have much, but on the new one, they did definitely bring the Ram back to life there. So the Ram’s actually gonna have your blind spot monitoring now that they’ve put on these trucks for you. You can actually get the surround view camera on these things too. I love that feature. You could literally have the windows completely blacked out in a parking lot and as long as you have that camera on you can park comfortably without even hitting anything cause you’re getting that three 60 surround view camera there for ya. They’ve also added on your adaptive cruise control. You’ve got lane sense, departure, parallel and perpendicular park assist of the trucks nowadays pretty much can drive themselves. You just got to control the gear and the gas and the brake. What are Ram’s top Competitors John Haggard: 07:26 Ha, that sounds fun. Who would you say are the top competitors to the Ram? I mean people come in and they say, well I’m looking into 1500 and I’m also looking at these other things. Who’s out there, where someone’s really trying to make a choice? Should I go this way or the Ram? Joe Smith: 07:39 I know Ram’s definitely in the top three. I do know Ram has probably one of the highest rebates out on the market right now because they are being very aggressive with this new body style and they’re just trying to really take that leap to take the lead there. What are the Top Changes in the Marketplace Today In Terms of Purchasing a Vehicle? (Buying vs Leasing) John Haggard: 07:51 Gotcha. What do you see in terms of changes in the marketplace today for people as they go about making a decision to buy or getting research? Should I buy, should I lease and which trucks should I get? Joe Smith: 08:02 Well, what I like to do with my customers is I always sit down with them for a few minutes before actually starting the process, trying to understand their wants and needs. If they’re planning on keeping the vehicle for awhile, the retail financing would be the best option for them. But with today’s market, a lot of people typically want to get in something new every few years and that’s when I would also show them at lease as well. Cause that’s gonna allow you to continue to get into new vehicles with new features. Leasing nowadays is definitely taking the advantage. I mean, I think about more than 60% of the staff at our dealership here, they all lease. Ha. John Haggard: 08:35 Somebody told me a story one time. If you’re going to buy something or you’re going to do something, ask the person who actually does it for a living. What do they have? You know, what do they do? So it’s that much about 60%.? Joe Smith: 08:45 Yeah, I know all of the management here does and some of our salesmen here do as well. What Differentiates Miracle CDJR and the Miracle Auto Group From it’s Competitors? John Haggard: 08:50 Gotcha. What would you tell people about Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in terms of why someone should buy from Miracle Auto Group? There are a lot of choices out there and everybody says, “Hey, we’re the best”. Joe Smith: 09:00 You can always shop around and you’ll find a good deal here and there, but we are a business, but at the end of the day, we’re more so trying to establish a relationship with our customers too. So that’s why we did incorporate our VIP program here. So as long as you own the vehicle, you’ll actually have a lifetime powertrain coverage on it as well. And we’ve got a concierge service for the local community. So if you work or live within 15 miles, we’ll actually pick the vehicle up from you, do the maintenance, drop it back off to you. Plus we offer discounts through service. We’ve got an exclusive referral program. We’ll send you $250 each time that you send somebody to your salesman and they get a vehicle. It doesn’t even have to be new. They can get something for $5,000, and we’re still sending them a check. John Haggard: 09:44 Wow. Joe Smith: 09:45 Yeah. Is There Anything That I Didn’t Ask You About the Ram 1500 Compared to Other Trucks? John Haggard: 09:46 Is there any question that I didn’t ask you that a lot of people ask when it comes to comparing? Let’s go back, say to the Ram 1500 to other trucks? Joe Smith: 09:54 Not so much. I mean the biggest thing that people usually want to get on their trucks is they want to know what it can tow, how it performs and what kind of safety features that they’ve added in. Just to kind of separate it and make that decision a lot easier for them. John Haggard: 10:07 So this is kind of the top one, two, three and if you get past that, now we’ll talk about which one. Joe Smith: 10:12 Once you get past all that, it really comes down to trying to find that unique truck for you. I mean, do you want a certain color on the outside and the inside? Do you want the big screen? Do you want a bench seat? Do you want the Captain’s Chair up front? They’ve included a lot of options on these Rams. That’s why, with these, I always like to again sit down with my customers finding exactly what they are looking for, because there’s just so many options out there on these trucks now. What Do You Like To Do On Your Time Off? John Haggard: 10:37 Gotcha. So Joe, what do you like to do on your time off? Do you have any hobbies, recreation, things you like that are fun for you? Joe Smith: 10:44 Well, my time off, I’m mainly spending it with my daughter or I’m going to the gym or playing some golf here and there. I try and stay a little busy, but most of my time is spent here trying to make sure my customers are happy. John Haggard: 10:56 So you, uh, tell me about that golf game. Joe Smith: 10:59 I’ve been golfing for about 12 years now. I mean, I do pretty good. It’s always fun trying to, I’m left-handed too, it’s always fun to try and teach somebody when they’re right-handed… it’s a little challenging. John Haggard: 11:10 I bet. Do you get to play once a week anyway? Joe Smith: 11:13 I try my best to when I can, but most of the time I’m usually spending it with my daughter. What Do You Do On The Commercial Side? John Haggard: 11:19 That’s great. That’s Joe Smith, everybody. He handles commercial and retail sales at Miracle Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep Ram. And by the way, we were talking a lot, you know about retail sales and so forth, but commercial? Can you tell the difference between commercial and retail? What do you do on the commercial side? Joe Smith: 11:32 So in commercial, I mean, whether it’s a big business or small town business, we’re really being aggressive out here too cause we’ve had our commercial side running for almost two years now. So I mean we’re just trying to help out. So if you own a business, doesn’t have to actually go in the business name, but there are additional rebates and some other stuff that we can actually use for you to help save you some money. Plus, Ram has what’s called a business link, completely free to enroll. There’s no annual fees, but it does give you some added benefits through our service department as well. Closing John Haggard: 12:04 All right, Joe Smith, everybody again handling commercial and retail sales at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. Join us again right here for other topics on the podcast throughout each month. Our goal to show you the best ways to learn, purchase, maintain and accessorize your new or preowned vehicle and how to sell your vehicle for the highest resealed value possible, when you’re ready to do it. And don’t forget, we’ve also posted a transcript of each podcast right here on the website. You can easily refer back to it for information that you’d like to have right there at your fingertips. I’m your host John Haggard, and we’ll see you next time.

This week we are talking about add backs, what is a legitimate add back, and how they affect your business valuation. The value of a business is dependent on earnings but it is also dependent on the company's discretionary earnings such as the add backs of owner salary and benefits. Then there are those one-offs – those non-recurring expenses which are also known as add backs. Those are the add backs what we are dissecting on today's episode. A seller's due diligence when it comes to discretionary earnings can help buyers see their potential ROI without any grey area. Episode Highlights: Why we work off the seller's discretionary earnings and what that is. How discretionary earnings are a case by case calculation for each business. The three levels of add backs. Why it's important to take a scalpel to those third level add backs. Questionable add backs – what can fly what cannot. How math and logic are the key tools to determine legitimate add backs. Transcription: Mark: Alright, welcome back Joe. I know you just came back from Blue Ribbon Mastermind; Ezra's event. It was up in Seattle, is that right? Joe: Yeah, a beautiful city and a great event. On a personal level, I had a great time. I took my 17-year-old with me and just explored the city in off-hours. Business-wise I'm telling you Ezra Firestone is sort of the Tony Robbins of the e-commerce world in my view. He gets up there, he's real, he says it like it is, he shares his own information to the Blue Ribbon Mastermind members and it's such actionable, transferable information. And the level of entrepreneurs and intelligence at the Blue Ribbon Mastermind I think is nearly unmatched; it goes very politically correct I think, right, nearly unmatched? Mark: Yes. I think every conference that we come back from is our latest favorite conference. But Blue Ribbon and Ezra's events have been fantastic since we started going to them. And you're right he's just a fantastic guy. He gives a ton of information and has a ton of insight to share. So one of these days I'm going to get to go to the event instead of you because I want to get in on some of these. Awesome, glad to have you back, we do have a couple of conferences coming up. We will be sending these out in our email; our newsletters that go out every Thursday or Friday depending on when we get our stuff together so pay attention to those. Alright, this week Joe you and I are going to do the podcast. Joe: That's right we have two very special guests. Mark: Two very special guests; that's right. We're not bringing anybody else in on this one because we want to talk about add backs; what is a valid add back or what is a legitimate add back? And I know for a buying perspective this can be a little jarring the first time. If you're just coming into the acquisitions industry; if you're looking for your first acquisition and you look at a profit and loss statement that we provide you might be wondering well why are these guys throwing all these expenses back at me, these were on the tax returns shouldn't they be included? So Joe why don't we start with that? Why do we work off to this number of seller's discretionary earnings and what is seller's discretionary earnings? Joe: That's a good question and a great place to start. Just defining it simply is the best way to go. So when you're running a profit loss statement as a business owner; hopefully in Quick Books or Xero or something like that, you're going to get a net income line at the bottom. So let's say you do it for the trailing 12 months you get a net income. But there are certain owner benefits that you get as the owner of the business. You have an Internet-based business; you may write your car off in that business. You may pay yourself $200,000 salary in the business. All sorts of things like that they're generally owner benefits and then there are some one-time non-recurring expenses; these are things that do not carry forward to the new owner so they're classified as add backs. So net income plus add backs equals seller's discretionary earnings or SDE. It is what business is in this general category are multiplied by; they're valued at a multiple of the trailing 12 months seller's discretionary earnings. So that's the critical nature of an add back; it can make a tremendous difference in the value of the business when using a proper formula. If you don't do that the add backs properly you're either going to under inflate or in some cases, unfortunately, some inexperienced brokers might over-inflate the value of your business. So it's critical for both buyers and sellers to know how to calculate seller's discretionary earnings and what is a valid or legitimate add back. Mark: Yeah and I think on that the thing I would like to just add here and emphasize is that there are rules to seller's discretionary earnings. I know I've talked to some sellers, I've talked to some other brokers frankly outside of Quiet Light Brokerage and they feel as if well if you can make an argument for it then we can add it back and they approach this almost as if it's just a free for all as to who can make the best argument. The fact of the matter is there is an actual definition for seller's discretionary earnings and there are rules to follow. Now that doesn't mean that there aren't some situations that require interpretation. And we're going to go into some of those scenarios in this podcast today where you have to try and figure out is this a legitimate add back or not? But at the heart of seller's discretionary earnings when we are showing seller's discretionary earnings what we want to do is we want to show a baseline number for buyers to understand what is my potential return on investment? When you think about all the different buyers that are going to look at a potential opportunity, every buyer comes with their own set of assumptions, right? Some buyers might already have infrastructures set up to run a business; maybe they already have a marketing team in place or maybe they' already have a warehouse if it's an e-commerce business or if it's a SaaS business maybe they already have a development team in place. Those assumptions need to be worked into their own evaluation of the business. What we want to show is a baseline number so that you as a buyer can figure out what your potential return on investment is for you. And that's going to vary from one buyer to the next. So seller's discretionary earnings that's all it is; it's a baseline number, we want to be consistent from one business to the next that's why there are rules as to how we calculate this number. Joe: Right and even though combined we've got 20 years of experience doing this and have sold well over a hundred million in transactions just the 2 of us combined it's still a case by case basis and you got to dig into each particular business and get an understanding of the nuances of it to determine whether or not it's worth doing an add back based upon the size of the business and the total number of add backs and if it should be done. Generally speaking, there are 3 different levels of add backs; the first 2 are pretty standard, it's the third one that we want to spend the most time on today because of the nuances of them. But let's run through that first and second level. Mark, if you want to start off with that first level why don't you address the owner's salaries in add back. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. Joe, I like the format you put together here. You created these 3 levels of add backs; the obvious, the one time expenses, and then the ones that require a bit more interpretation. So the very top of the list here are these a level one obvious add backs. We have things like charitable donations; obviously, that's purely discretionary nature. We have accounting expenses such as amortization and depreciation. And then we have one owner salary. And I know there are buyers out there that look at this and say well why are you adding back somebody's salary; like you need to pay yourself some money? But this is a standard add back that we always include and it's part of the standard definition for seller's discretionary earnings. The reason for this is how you pay yourself as an owner, how much you pay yourself, and the format you pay yourself is completely discretionary. You could in theory not pay yourself any salary and just take distributions from the company from the profits. Or you can pay yourself a very large salary and run all your payroll tax through that which will show up on the profit and loss statement. What we do for the owner's discretionary earnings we do add back one owner salary. But there is an exception to this and that's if there's multiple owners that are working full time on the business. Because we know that if there's multiple owners working on a business you can't add back all of their salary. You can only add back one. Did I explain that well Joe or does that need more? Joe: Let's go a little bit more. What happens; what do you do Mark if you have 2 owners that are working a combined 25 hours a week, one is doing customer service and logistics, and the other is doing sales and marketing. Do you add them both back? Mark: I would add both those back. Joe: Okay. Let's flip it up; let's say that one is doing sales, marketing, logistics, and the other is a developer. And the level of work that that developer does still only takes 15, 20 hours a week but it takes a different skill set than the average person has. Do you add them both back? Mark: No, I would not add both those back. Although we will discuss this in Level 3 add back. I might adjust that second owner salary depending on what they're getting. But the reason I wouldn't do it is because of the specialized nature of it. So what we're assuming here is that the buyer is a single person who is coming in and needs to run this business. I wouldn't expect most buyers to have developer skills to run a business. So maybe you do; if you do, that's great you're going to do really, really well. But most people can't be that sales and marketing plus developer role. I've done this for over a dozen years now. I've run across that skill set a handful of times. It's not very, very common. Joe: That's right. So those are the; even though these are just Level 1 add backs there are some complexities to it that require some attention to detail on the nuances of one business to the next. The only other things that are pretty obvious in there are personal meals and entertainment, travel, mobile home…mobile phones; everybody's got their own mobile phone that expense doesn't charge for. You've already got that expense. Things of that nature are pretty much Level 1 add backs. Jumping on the Level 2 add backs it's really focused on those one-time expenses; things like a trademark or a copyright, patents, things of that nature. And then there are some that are a little bit deeper like legal expenses and lawsuits and enforcement letters and things of that nature even the thing that we have to do often Mark which is referring potential clients; people that we do valuations for that are not using a kind of software. We'll refer them out to a bookkeeper. So in this situation Mark, tell me if we're on the same page. We will get a call somebody has got a great business but they've got 3 years of data in an Excel spreadsheet that is not using any accounting software. Or they might be using Fetcher and piecing different pieces together. I would refer them out to a bookkeeper like CapForge, MuseMinded, Stellar Accounting, Catching Clouds; one of those and get them on Quick Books or Xero. And generally, that's a one time expense for them to build that, put that data in the software in arrears maybe $1,500, $2,000. To me, that is without a doubt a one-time expense and an add back; would you agree with that? Mark: Yeah I would and I'm glad that we agreed because if we don't it's just going to be an absolute brawl on the podcast, right? Inaudible[00:11:27.2] here is fighting with the microphones. No, absolutely that would be a one time expense. It's something that does not carry forward. But we have a great example of that with somebody who's been a friend of Quiet Light Brokerage for a while; Scott Deetz from Northbound Group. He's a strategic advisor who helps clients in a lot of ways. He does a fantastic job with his clients. Specifically a lot of Amazon stores but he also works with other companies as well. He does forecasting and a lot of preparation for an exit. And his fees are all one time expenses. Even though that you can see a monthly fee during that preparation, the goal is to prepare for an exit. So those are fees that get added back in the bottom line. So recasting books going back and trying to recast those books either in accrual format or just cleaning them up I would totally consider that to be a one time expense. As with the other things that you mentioned; the trademarks and the logo design, you shouldn't be punished for the expenses that are really necessary to be able to run the business or only occur once or will occur in the future.   Joe: Yeah. And there is again always nuances; sometimes an owner is going to buy a new computer. But it's their new laptop that they use and they're going to keep that and it's not going to carry for you then that's a one time expense; things of that nature, a case by case basis from business. So again nuances, deep-diving into the business, no 2 are alike. Mark: I have been hearing you say this for a long time our own kind of sliding into this Level 3. But in Level 3 you always say math and logic Mark; it's for math and logic. What makes sense? How does the math work out? And look this actually works out for Level1 and Level 2 as well. You have to use math and logic. But Level 3 is where we start getting into the interpretation of different expenses, right? Because these are the grey area ones where maybe it's not as straightforward as saying amortization and depreciation; that's a pretty obvious add back. Charitable donations; pretty obvious add back. So let's go into this Level 3 and get some examples on a case by case basis. Here are things that we've seen in the past which; look at Quiet Light we've actually had some pretty big discussions with all of the advisors of Quiet Light that we have this large group chats and sometimes we've disagreed in trying to work out how we should actually treat these expenses. And I want to start out with one that Joe you and I have talked about a lot and that would be events, trade shows, and Mastermind fees; how do you handle those? Joe: I almost moved this to the bottom of the list so we didn't start off with one that is pretty tough and it was talked about a lot. This is a case by case basis. If somebody joins a Mastermind group in the trailing 12 months prior to selling their business and they pay $20,000 to join that group, it's a one time expense; absolutely an add back, it kind of moves up to Level 2. But let's say they also choose to go to an annual event that that Mastermind group has. And they do that at their own expense; let's say they go to Seattle, I was just at Blue Ribbon, those people that were in Blue Ribbon; I'm sorry at the Seattle event not all of them were at the Miami event just 6 months prior and so it's definitely a choice to go to the event or not. Some people never go. There are lots of people that are in eCommerceFuel that we've never met because they never go to any of the events. So the choice to go to an event, it's an expense that doesn't carry forward. It's one that I see as an add back. Our team has talked about it quite a bit; that's an add back. But there are other types of Masterminds and events; we'll call them events in this situation that are not add backs that you and I have talked about. So if you are an advertising agency or any kind of company that's going to these events to build your company brand and reputation even amongst the people that are part of the Mastermind it's integral to your business. Like us, we go and we sponsor. That's integral to our business; our business models. We are sponsoring, we're getting our own brand and our own name out there; that's not an add back. An ad agency does the same but might just be a member of the Mastermind or events and is doing training courses in free valuations or free testing things of that nature we would have to really dig down into that one and determine if it's an add back or not. And it's probably not an add back. But for the rest of the folks most likely an add back; the only adjustment you and I have talked about that is we'd have to look at and say logically does it make sense to add this back? Do we have 2 lines of add backs? Is it a business that's valued at 250,000 or 2.5 million? Sometimes you say you know what at this level it's not worth adding it back; let's just leave it alone it's only going to add you another $300 per month back to it and you can play with a multiple in that situation. Would you agree? Mark: Yeah I absolutely agree. You have to pick your battles on this and if you have to really fight to be able to justify an add back you should look at it and say is it really worth it? Like is it is a big enough expense where I'm going to gain enough potential value out of adding it back and making that argument. I want to throw a little wrinkle at you, Joe. We have not discussed this before and it's a question that I'd like to get your opinion on. The difference I see between these Mastermind fees, events, travel-related expenses would fall under this idea of is it a personal development or business development, right? I don't add back the business books I buy. The business books I buy are personal development and I consider that to be just for myself. Obviously, there's a business application for that. I want to become better at what I'm doing but I think that's more personal related. So the line I see is again this idea between is it development for business or is it personal development? So if I go to Pubcon without really putting Quiet Light name on it I'm just an attendee I would consider that to be a valid add back. Let's go into a scenario where you have an employee; let's say that you have somebody who works specifically as a content writer for you and is possibly doing SEO and you send them to MASCON because you want them to become better at SEO for the purpose of your business. How would you handle something like that? Joe: It's off the top my head not an add back. But then you've got to look at the history of the business because that's business development, right? You got to look at the history of it; is that something that they're going to do every year, are they're going to get new information every year and develop their skills, are they going to send different employees, have they done it for the last 2 or 3 years? You got to look at all those nuances again and determine whether or not it's an add back. But because it falls in that business development versus personal development I think you and I know everybody on the team would lean towards no that's not an add back. Mark: I would agree. So again this is where you have to kind of take a fine scalpel here and kind of slice this up and really understand what's going on behind this add back. And again as you went out with this Joe math and logic and I think reason as well. You have to be sort of reasonable with some of these so that it's not just you're going through; sometimes I see sellers come back with their own add back schedules and they're super aggressive and every last dime is trying to be added back. And it's a question at some point where you have to ask them what can we really say is a reasonable add back versus just being as aggressive as possible? Joe: Right. So let's take that scalpel and dig down into a P & L for instance; of course we're not doing it live here, but one of the things that that when you peel back the different layers that we always ask the question okay you're spending a lot of money on advertising here; what type of credit card are you using for that advertising? And then are you getting points back on that, what are you doing with those points? 9 times out of 10 people are doing cashback credit cards or converting them over to travel but they're pushing all that over on the personal side of that's an owner benefit. It's income, right? You're getting cash back, you spend $10,000 you get $400 back. If you spend $10,000 a month on advertising and you get that $400 back and you slide it over to your personal side and it never shows up on your profit and loss statement we need to look at it closely. It's an add back. You can multiply that times whatever number you want and then make the decision, right Mark whether it's worth it to add that back or not. Jason and I had a listing that we worked on last fall where there were about $24,000 in cashback points added up over the course of 12 months and it was very, very measurable; clear and distinct because that person spent a lot of money on advertising plus he bought used inventory that was going to be refurbished. And he bought them from different places on the web. And all of that was done with a credit card. All of that was converted to cashback points that moved over to his personal side; amounted to about $25,000 on an annual basis. It's a significant number. The business was listed at a 4 time multiple. It was cash in his pocket so we did add that back and it bumped the valuation by $100,000. If we're talking about a business that's $4M but that amounts to $3,000 then maybe you don't add it back. You just got to play around with those numbers a little bit and again use more math and logic there. Mark: Yeah and I think here that the key that I would look at would be the consistency of it. If you're advertising budget is over $100,000 a month for example and you're putting that on your Amex gold card and part of your strategy is look I'm getting some margin from the points I'm getting back; that's pretty obvious in that category of its part of your existing business model. But like you said if you have just kind of a small amount of points, it's probably not worth the effort to put that in there and try and justify that. So I think that's pretty reasonable. Joe one question that we hear a decent amount would be website redesigns and we can also throw in here product development or even in the SaaS world development on a SaaS product. Why don't we start to unpack some of these and we'll start with the website redesigns. Obviously, most people who have a web-based business unless you're purely Amazon have a website and part of that is you're going to have to redesign the website every now and then. I mean there are some sites out there that have look exactly the same since 2000 but most businesses do update that and those can be expensive. You can easily drop 10, 20, 30, $40,000 on that if not more. So how would you approach website redesigns or website redevelopments? Joe: I would look at the history in the P & L to get a clue of the way the business has been run because that's the way it's going to be operated in the future. And if there's never been a website redesign and it's on a good current up to date platform like Shopify and the business is trending in all the right directions then; obviously there's been a website redesign because that's the point of this add back so let's say that it's been done in the last 12 months but had never been done before and the business is 7 or 8 years old and it's just been put on a new platform and they spent $20,000 on it I would say that; and I have in the past done 100% add-back on that website redesign. But again it varies from business to business. If I'm looking at a business that's operated like Quiet Light Brokerage just by example you have a tendency to redesign the website often. I think there's been 3 or 4 versions of it in the last 7 years that I've been with Quiet Light. So, in that case, it's either simply not an add back or you do some math and let's say you're going to redesign a website every 3 years you might take that cost; $10,000 website redesign and add back 50% of it or a third of it and things of that nature. Because if it happened in the last 12 months it's not an expense that's going to happen in the next 12 months so there has to be some mathematical adjustment there. And again math and logic; look how often it's been redesigned, do the math on when in the future would you redesign again, and just do partial adjustment more often than not. Mark: Yeah, I would agree 100%. And the thing to look for here obviously if it's on the last 12 months it probably isn't going to get looked at too closely. But I think you have to look at why. Like the Quiet Light website gets redesigned a decent amount and that's simply because I get anxious about stuff like that. That's just kind of what I do. I'm always tweaking; always thinking that I should dust scraps and start it over again. And so I actually do think with Quiet Light it's mostly discretionary in nature but again this reasonableness needs to come in. Joe: Not always discretionary but it takes 12 months every time that you start. Mark: It's absolutely ridiculous. Joe: Why don't you touch on product development? It's interesting you bring that up. I've got a physical products e-commerce business and I'm developing new products; do I get to add that cost back? Mark: Yeah I think again we need to use math and logic here, a little bit of reasonableness, take a look at what type of business you are in. Here's the thing about e-commerce; Chad Reuben when he was on the podcast about a year ago mentioned this, product development is the lifeblood of most e-commerce businesses; you rarely, rarely run across a business that is truly evergreen with its product or you never have to iterate. Apple comes out with an iPhone every year. Android products are constantly coming out with a new phone every year. Car companies constantly come out with a new car every single year. Product development is the lifeblood of businesses. So on that note no I don't think that you can add back product development costs. I do think maybe if you're coming out with like a large truly one time sort of burst maybe I would look at it. Joe: Maybe if there's a mold, right? If you paid $5,000 for a mold of that product that mold is going to last 10, 20 years perhaps. That mold maybe partial add back but yeah I'm 100% on the same page; product development is the lifeblood of a business. The molds thing is so rare; 105 businesses I think I've sold in the last 7 years and I think maybe only Sean van der Wilt's business has actual molds that are part of it and that he owned. In other cases, it's generally the manufacturer that has the mold anyway. So yeah adding back product development expenses can't really do it. What about the SaaS development? We're not all e-commerce here; we're selling content and SaaS and things of that nature as well. You've got a developer that's been doing some certain projects within the last 12 months; are you adding that back? Is that black and white? Mark: It is not black and white but I do think that if you are looking at for example your initial build of the software that's going to be very intense, very cost-intensive. That I think could be added back. Regular maintenance, regular feature updates; absolutely not because a SaaS business needs to have updates, needs to have new features added. If you're going to redevelop the entire SaaS product from the ground up; maybe you're switching technology stacks, that's something where I would take a look at that and again reason and logic need to really…math and logic really need to reign with this. But generally speaking no; just as product development is the lifeblood of an e-commerce business, software development is the lifeblood of a SaaS business. Joe: We are 100% on the same page. There is no question about it. Mark: No fights here, thank goodness. Joe: Yeah. We've got 3 points left and really the last 2 points I think are ones that get missed most often and can add a tremendous amount of value to the business. But the first one of the 3 here is pretty obvious and maybe we could have we actually talked about moving this up into Level 1 but it's a repaid relative. I sold a business a couple of years ago where the owner of the business paid his brother to do customer service. They paid him $20 an hour for 20 hours a week worth of work. I talked to the brother. I talked about his job and what he did. He said yeah I really only put in about 5 hours a week. Most of what I do is automated; it's canned responses with customer service. And so we talked about the work and the level of detail there and just added some logic there and some math and said look you are grossly overpaid. Your brother loves you. I'm going to suggest that he fires you; and again this is just before Christmas, of course, he didn't. Mark: Oh my you told him to fire his brother. We've talked about this before. Joe: I know. It was a $10,000 add back or whatever the number was. So we just did some math, right? We said alright how much does it cost to get a really good high-quality virtual assistant; $4 or $5 an hour. Okay, let's double that. We know you're only working 5 hours a week but we're going to go with you 20 hours a week times whatever the number is and we're going to add it back. So instead of the $20 an hour times 20 hours we took $10 an hour on those 20 hours a week and we added back the adjustment there. It's in black in white in the add back section with an explanation of why. So math and logic applied to a situation like that; that overpaid relative and it absolutely works and is am add back. And it has to be a big enough number to be an add back. In this case, the total add back was a pretty sizable number. So pretty clear there in my view would you agree with that on Mark? Mark: Yeah I had a guy who had a really cool business. His mom was doing his bookkeeping and he was paying her $250,000 a year for her bookkeeping services. Joe: What? Mark: That's a pretty expensive bookkeeper. That's a pretty obvious case of look it's a relative; he's paying his mom good for him, what a great son; better son than I am to my mom, and pretty obvious add back. And look I'm going to tie in something that we had from Level 1 here and that is where you have 2 owners and you brought up the example one owner is business development and marketing, sales and marketing and the other one is a developer. And I said well we should take a look at that developer side probably and probably not add back his salary but you've got to take a look at how much is he getting paid. I'm dealing with a client who has that sort of set up and the developer side; they're both getting paid the same amount of money and it's basically the profits of the business. We're going to add back in a reasonable and a pretty generous salary for a replacement development. And that's kind of the way that we would look at that is what is a replacement cost? You don't want to be super aggressive on that. It's got to be reasonable. It might be a little bit generous to say here's what the replacement of this person would cost. So you can do that with relatives. It can get a little bit tricky. I had one company that I dealt with where literally the company was basically run by this guy's family which brought up some issues with the transferability of the business. Because there were so many people involved that were family related but they were all getting these big fat paychecks. And so if we had gone to market; we didn't go to market with that one but we would have had to go in and try to find reasonable replacement costs for most of these people which will be then a little tricky. Joe: Yeah. Look, I can assure all sellers out there; all business owners that are smart enough to do some thinking and planning in advance of a sale, your buyers are going to be intelligent people that are going to be thorough and diligent. And doing that logical adjustment that Mark just talked about for that developer who's your business partner that is a non-transferable skill you've got to hire that out. You're just going to have to do that and it's going to help build trust and help you achieve your goals in getting your business sold. If we have to push the multiple if it makes sense because there's other amazing trends in the business then we can push the multiple a little higher as long as it's still within a reasonable area. The next add back is one that I just did this year as an example with Mike Jackness when we sold Color It. And I'm going to go ahead and mention the podcast series that Mike and I did because I think it's invaluable for both buyers and sellers to listen to and Mark I'm going to just tell you right now I think that you and I did a decent job in doing the intro for the podcast and then me doing an interview with Mike on our podcast. Mike did a much better job on his podcast. So I'm going to point people… Mark: They're actually pros at this. They're very good at it. We're just kind of fly by the seat of their pants. Joe: Yeah. He did an amazing job. And he actually did a series of 4 in total; 2 of them were with me and the one at the beginning one at the end was with his staff, his staff down in the Philippines before and after the sale. So he went through the whole arc. But it's episode 247 of the EcomCrew Podcast and the first one was Preparing Your Business For Sale and the second one was What It Was Like Going Through Due Diligence And Actually Getting It Sold. Now one of the things that we focused on in Mike's add back schedule was cost of goods sold. Let me give some just general numbers here; broad examples, these aren't actually from his business but let's say that what he did do was he renegotiated the cost of goods sold on one particular ASIN. He could have done it on more if he had planned in advance of selling his business instead of deciding to sell his business because he was emotionally ready to move on. We could have waited another year and he would have had a much more valuable business. But we didn't do that because he was ready. So in this situation again it's magic and loss; math and logic; oh my goodness, see this is why Mike's podcast is better…math and logic. Mark: Well I'm sure a lot of buyers out there look at sleaze and say this doesn't look like magic; it doesn't make sense. Joe: I said magic and loss; oh man, oh man. We're not editing that out. Chris, don't touch that. Alright, so Mike renegotiated the cost of goods sold on 1 ASIN. The reduction in cost was it came down $1.60. It was already on the books. He already had product in Amazon FBA and it was shipping and it's been in FBA already for 2 months. What we did; it was a $1.60, so what we did was we looked at the sales per month of that ASIN for the other 10 months going back in the P & L took that dollar amount and multiplied it times $1.60. Let's just say for simple math it was 1,000 units a month, right? I say simple math but here I am looking to the other calculator. If you got 1,000 units a month times $1.60 we're looking at 1,600 dollars a month times 10 months it's a $16,000 mathematical and absolutely legitimate add back; math and logic there. That times the multiple applied to the business; let's just say if it's 3 times that's a sizable add back, it's $54,000, no, $48,000. How's my math? Mark: We'll 48,000. On this I want to go back to where we started this conversation; why do we do these add backs at all? Again it's the idea that we want to show a buyer they're expected return on investment and we want to show a set number standardized approach so that you can interject your own assumptions. And the reason that this is completely valid to do even though you can take a look and say well the actual expenses were not this is because this is the forward-looking numbers that we know are going; the way that the business is going to be run in the future. Joe: That 10 months of expenses there will not carry forward so we needed to make an adjustment for that. Mark: Exactly the only thing we would need to verify would be in due diligence the supplier is going to give the same or similar terms to the new buyer. That would be the only thing that we really need to confirm there. So I think this makes complete sense. Joe: 100%. Mark: Did you get any pushback from buyers on that? Joe: Not an ounce and the buyer that bought the business is; I mean he went to Harvard, he's a very smart guy, he's bought 4 other businesses from Quiet Light Brokerage, and he understands all of this. And he's got investors that review everything so no pushback at all. Mark: Yeah. Alright, next one on your list you have here reduced fees times units sold. Joe: Look, everyone listening that's considering a sale of their business this last one is why you cannot have one conversation with a business broker for 30 minutes and decide that that's the one you've got to go with because if they're incredibly good at sales they're going to talk you into something in 30 minutes. Now I shouldn't say that because; well, look you've done research on Quiet Light, you've listened to the podcast, you've listened to different examples so maybe you can but you got to dig deep. This happened to me recently in like the third conversation on having in a review of the profit and loss statement. This is why we review profit and loss statements. We learned that the owner of this particular business that I'm talking about repackaged; worked on repackaging all of his product SKUs and in doing so it changed the level of pick pack and ship at Amazon. So he was at let's say Level 5 and he came down at Level 4; now these are costs. They're not called that but his fees at Amazon went down. Let's call it a dollar. So instead of $5 pick pack and ship fee, it was $4 because it was a smaller package, lighter package, things of that nature. So he did that. Again let's go to the same thing we did here with Jackness's business. He did it in the last 2 months, it's on the books for the last 2 months, so we're going to the prior 12 months and went okay how many units did you sell during those prior 12 months or 10 months times a dollar per unit and we're doing an add back for that because that adjusted expense in the past went away and it does not carry forward; same thing, different scenario. Mark: Yup, absolutely. So I think there's 2 ways when we're looking at some of these kind of I don't want to creative add backs but the ones that require a little bit more explanation. The one thing that I would just encourage people to keep in mind is that when we see some of these add backs which go back and recast numbers there are some situations where it makes sense to rather than going back and doing that add back bake in some of the value into the multiple as opposed to the trailing 12 months. If we keep in mind that the basic approach to estimate in value in a basic valuation approach would be your trailing 12 months discretionary earnings times some multiple, it doesn't matter if you increase your discretionary earnings by 10% or increase your multiple by 10%; the result on your valuation is going to be the same. And so I think there is a little bit of discretion and strategy that needs be taken into account by both the broker and the seller when it comes to determining where do we want to get this value in. The thing you need to always keep in mind is are you actually offering real value to a potential buyer? Is this really going to be valuable for the forward-looking future for that; I don't know if there's a backward-looking future, for the future of the new owner of the business and where are they going to get that value? So you might be hearing this and thinking this is pretty complex I don't know if these things would be really a legitimate add back or not. Look if you find this difficult that's because some of it is and some of it does require discussion. And as I said at the beginning we have these discussions at Quiet Light all the time. We will share something with the entire team and say what do you guys think this? Here's what I'm thinking, I should have it added back. And sometimes we disagree but we always are able to figure out where that line should be. So I'm going to just throw this invite out; if you have a question on whether or not something would be an add back ask us. Hound us and say what do you think of this; do you think this would be a legitimate add back or not? And that would be on the buy-side or on the sell-side. If you're look at an opportunity and maybe with another broker or directly with the seller and they're adding something back and want to know what our thoughts are let us know. We'd love to weigh in on it. Joe: Let's route another invite there and let's find a way to do an actual valuation; we'll do video as well as audio. We'll remove the client's names. We'll just use first name and we won't use the business name. And we'll do it sort of Mike Jackness, Ecom Crew Under The Hood Valuation and record it so everybody can hear the process we go through. Man that being in a 2 or 3 part series because it's such a long in-depth, detailed process. The only thing I want to throw is that we are developing webinars here at Quiet Light that will be up on the new 48-month long redesign that Mark's been working on. Yes that's a little wise-ass comment there but the webinars will be up, they will be available in detail for you folks to dig deeper and see us go through some of this add back schedule in the process of doing one that is titled “What's a Legitimate Add Back?” and all of this will be in webinar format where you can see actual profit and loss statements and whatnot. Mark: Sounds great. I look forward to doing those. I don't have anything else on add backs. I think we've just covered the entire topic as deeply as you possibly could actually no we could probably talk for another couple of episodes in some of these things but I don't have anything else to add for this one. Do you have anything Joe? Joe: No, we're good. It was great having 2 very special guests on the podcast; one much more special. According to Andrew Youderian, you're special. Mark: I like that guy. He's such a good guy, isn't he? Joe: Andy Youderian. Has anybody reached out to him with my little Easter egg stuff that I did on the video? But we're not showing the video yet, right? Mark: I had and actually we are showing the video and that's something for you guys to know. Subscribe to us on YouTube at Quiet Light Academy. These podcasts are now up in video form so you can look at our pretty faces while you listen to us argue about add backs. I don't think anyone has reached out to him about the little Easter egg we had in that podcast episode. Because I talked to him recently and he didn't bring it up. Joe: So for those that have no idea what we're talking about and have stuck with us at the end of this podcast here's the deal. I was driving down the road listening to the Quiet Light Podcast where Mark had Andrew on with state of the e-commerce. Mark: One of the best episodes I think we ever did. Joe: Whatever you say Mark. I think this is the best episode we've ever done. Alright, so Andrew says yeah you guys have been doing a really good job. I got to tell you Mark I think you have a bit of an edge over Joe. Because Mark and I always competing with who's got the best episodes and the most downloads. And I swear I almost; I had to pull over I was laughing so out. It was so, so funny. He's a bit of a prankster. So I figured I'd get him back. And so I had an Incredible Exit Series on, we had somebody; actually it was an Incredible Acquisition, right? Karl Selle bought Smart And Fresh and so we had Karl on a podcast about that and during the podcast I pretended that our producer Chris interrupted us and handed me a sheet that it was kind of an emergency, he was looking to get in touch with somebody named Andy Youderian. I could not pronounce Andrew's name properly. But for those that go to the YouTube channel you'll see that I have an EcommerceFuel t- shirt on and that the EcommerceFuel podcast is in the background; a mouse pad is in the background. So clearly I know Andrew Youderian. I want to call him Youderainan from now on. Clearly I know Andrew. My kind would call those Easter eggs. I think that's what they're officially called in Marvel movies. So I just threw in a few Easter eggs there. It was kind of fun. We did get one person that sent an e-mail to me and he goes I think the person that your producer is looking for is Andrew Youderian for EcommerceFuel. And I said well that was kind of a joke. I had to send a note back. But it was kind of fun. Mark: Well he was right though. It is the person we're looking for. We have an Easter egg coming up in one of the movie quotes so you guys have to dig deep on these movie quotes. And I don't know which episode it's going to be live on. Listen to the different intros. There's going to be one that you're going to have a really hard time finding but I'll tell you what I want you to find this one whenever it airs. That's really, really difficult and I will get with our producer next week's podcast and make sure that we give you a little hint as to which podcast to listen to for this movie quote because it's just an absolute gem. Joe: Awesome. Let's wrap it up with that. Links and Resources: ECom Crew Episode Quiet Light Academy YouTube

Joe Motz is the President and CEO at The Motz Corporation and was awarded the Small Giants award by Forbes. Joe’s journey has been an interesting one: he found amazing success but learned it would cost him his life. So Joe learned the importance of ‘unpacking.’ Today, he and Mike discuss how strong leaders can also be strong and healthy people.

So Joe is absolutely miserable during the recording of this episode, and personally, Luca and I love it!     Follow us on Twitter @UpfrontThree     Listen to us on Podbean, Acast and Spotify!!!

Joe Fairless began his real estate investing journey while he was still an advertising executive in New York City. He grew his portfolio of single family rentals to four units before realizing it wasn't going to get him where he wanted to go. Shifting to large multifamily, he raised $1 million from private investors to purchase his first 168 unit apartment community, after that he was off to the races. He now controls over $572,000 worth of apartment communities in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth regions. Read Full Transcript (#) Brittany Henderson 0:00 I'm Neil and I'm Brittany. Neil Henderson 0:01 We're a family on a journey towards financial and location independence. Each week, we interview successful real estate entrepreneurs about their chosen investment strategy, and rated based on how much money it took to get started, how long it took to educate themselves, how passive it is, and whether or not they could do it from anywhere in the world. Brittany Henderson 0:19 Welcome to the road to family freedom. If you like our show, the easiest way for you to give back is to leave us a rating and review on iTunes, head on over to road to family freedom comm slash review for links and instructions on how to do that we would be so grateful. All right, and that that of us Let's hit the road to family freedom. Neil Henderson 0:47 Greetings, friends and families on Neil and I'm Brittany, you're listening to the road to family freedom podcast. Joining us today is Mr. Joe fairness, the only man who wears red besides Santa Claus, I will talk to Joe really great having you here today. How are you? Joe Fairless 1:00 Hey, I'm, I'm looking forward to that. And thank you for the introduction that I've never heard before about it, it's already already off to a great start. Neil Henderson 1:10 Yeah, just want to just special Just for you. So a little bit about Joe. In 2012, Joe left his job in New York City as an advertising executive he owned for single family homes that produce monthly income. Six months later, he raised $1 million from private investors to purchase 168 unit apartment community. As of today, he controls more than 570 $2 million with a real estate. He's written three books on real estate investing, he is the host of the world's longest running daily real estate investing podcast, the best real estate investing advice ever show where they don't talk about any of that fluffy stuff. And that's just a little slice of Joe. So Joe, you want to give our friends and families a little bit more about you and what you're up to now. Joe Fairless 1:50 Yeah, sure. So a little bit about me, I mean, I'm focused on contribution. I'm a huge Tony Robbins, student and follower and he talks about what, what, what drives you and and it wasn't always contribution, it was significance and contribution, and then I realize it's a lot more fulfilling to be contributing in a meaningful way, then, you know, having significance at the forefront or and higher up. So, you know, my my old thing is when when I die, I want people to say you know what i would i was better off having that come across Joe, my life's better. And so that's my focus. You know what I do from a business standpoint, I buy apartment communities, or work with high net worth investors who invest passively in our deals, and got a podcast, as you said, don't like that fluffy stuff, our time is valuable. So we get into the meat of the conversation and and learn about what works and what doesn't work in real estate investing. I've interviewed more real estate investors than anyone else entire world. I've interviewed over 1500 real estate investors. And I've, you know, I've picked up on some things and you know, we now have over $600 million worth of apartment communities. Ashcroft capital is the company I co founded with my partner, Frank. Neil Henderson [3:18] So do you recall a moment when you had the realization that buying and holding single family...

Part 3 of 3 from my presentation from Funnel Hacking Live 2018 where I talked about this new concept called “Conversation Domination”. On this exciting conclusion of the Conversation Domination Presentation Russell talks about some of the platforms you can use to get people excited about your business. Here are some of the awesome things in this episode: How Facebook is a talk show, YouTube a sitcom, and podcasts are radio shows. How Russell utilizes each of these channels for his business, and how you could use them for yours. And why it’s important to master these channels one at a time, before moving on to the next one.  So listen here to final portion of Russell’s awesome Conversation Domination Presentation from Funnel Hacking Live 2018. ---Transcript--- Alright everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. This is episode 3 of 3 of the conversation domination presentation. I hope you’ve been enjoying this. I hope that it’s getting the wheels in your head spinning and turning and thinking about what’s possible. If you have enjoyed this at all please take a screen shot of this episode and post it on social, on all your different channels and platforms, tag me on it and use #marketingsecrets, I’d love to see it and love to hear your thoughts about this episode. It means the world to me when you guys share this, and if you haven’t rated or reviewed, please log into iTunes and go rate and review these. That way, I always read those and it makes me feel good about myself, which makes me want to do more podcast episodes for you guys for free. Literally this is the kind of stuff we normally sell and I’m giving it to you for free because I love you. So in exchange for all this cool stuff I’m giving you for free, if you could go rate and review, that’d be sweet. So like I said, in the very near future we’re going to be coming out with a deeper dive training program into this whole concept of conversation domination, but for today, I just wanted to give you guys this three part series from one of our Funnel Hacking Live events. I hope you enjoyed it. With that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song and we will come back with part 3 of 3, the exciting conclusion of the conversation domination presentation. Next is Dream 100. Dana Derricks is going to be talking about dream 100 I think tomorrow or the next day. Dream 100 is the key to all sorts of traffic, and I cannot wait to unlock this for you guys. But dream 100, these are the people that already have your audience. So how do you get those people’s audiences to follow you? There’s a lot of different ways. Partnerships, paying people, we pay people to post stuff and say, “Hey Russell Brunson is awesome, follow him here.” And we pay and all the sudden we get a whole bunch of their followers. We doubled our followers in the last month and a half by just doing these paid ads like that. It’s really, really cool and not that expensive. So the last one I’m going to go through really quickly is how you post. So there’s the whole science to this as well, that I’m not going to go too deep into. But instagram is based on hashtags. Hashtags work like this, Instagram is like a filing cabinet of everything that’s happening in the world, hashtags are like the folders, here’s all the stuff that’s interesting, and then your posts are the papers. So the way it works here is, like if you’re posting something, there’s going to be people on Instagram like, “What’s happening in Disney World today?” and if you tag Disney world, it’s going to pop up like, “Oh Russell’s here. What’s happening?” and people can watch your thing, people can find you that way. So you can do it based on location, on events, on the brands, on the community, and on trending stuff. So if I was to do a video here, if you guys did a video on Instagram you could be like, “Hey I’m here at Funnel Hacking Live, it’s amazing.” Then be like, #disneyworld #cornoadosprings #funnelhacker # clickfunnels and if you do that, when someone searches clickfunnels because they’re here at the event, or when someone searches cornado resort, like, “What’s happening here in cornado resort? Oh here’s five cool people posting stuff.” People can find you really, really quick. So it’s all about figuring out where these conversations are happening and kind of plugging in. And I got one other trick I want to show you guys on Instagram, then we’re going to move on to the next platform. This is a trick I started using that literally 3x’d how many people watched my reality show every single day. Every once in a while, and I did this yesterday and this morning as well, I go and do a video. I was on the plane like, “Hey everyone,” this is in my Instagram feed, “Hey everyone, we’re going to Funnel Hacking Live, it’s going to be amazing. If you want to see behind the scenes of what we’re doing, click on the link, you’ll see the whole reality show. I’m going to show you guys behind the scenes of everything. I’ll show you meeting all the cool people, it’s going to be really, really fun.” And all the sudden the amount of views I got, or I will get over the next week, I will more than 3x. So I’m publishing in my Instagram channel telling people to go up and do it. Same thing on Facebook. I go to Facebook like, “Hey guys, come see behind the scenes.” And I push people back, let them know something amazing is happening this week, make sure you watch my reality show, and if they do it for 2 or 3 days they’ll be connected and hooked and they’ll keep watching it for forever. So that’s Instagram. So the next channel that we want to move into. The next channel we want to move into in this process, again, if you look at the framework, we’ve got our ads that build distribution, distribution builds the channels, a special focus on Instagram, Instagram promotes the episodes, and now I want to start focusing on these other channels as well. Now one thing I want to stress, I don’t want you guys trying to go build all channels at once. I want you guys to find one channel to focus on and become really, really good at it. Remember zero to a million, a million to ten, ten to a hundred. Zero to a million is all about one channel. Most of the guys and gals in inner circle got to two comma club just doing facebook. That’s it. Now they’re starting to scale and grow and that’s when they start adding in more platforms. So don’t think you have to do all of them tonight. Just pick the one. I’m going to kind of walk you through all of them, just so you understand them. So this one, I look at Facebook more like a talk show. The way it works, my goals in this is if you look at how Facebook’s algorithm works, they want interaction, they want stuff happening, they want engagements, they want comments. That’s what they’re rewarding people for right now, that’s why Facebook lives are doing so well. So I look at these the same way. If I was like Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon or Jay Leno, this is how they do their shows for the last however many years right. Same process. The first thing they do in their show is always an opening monologue, then they talk about the industry, they do interviews etc. So if I’m doing  a FAcebook live it’s the same thing. Here’s my opening monologue, let me tell my story. Let me do Q and A’s, let me get engagement, get people talking, that becomes how we do a Facebook live talk show. The other goal is to build rapport. A couple of things about Instagram, the pros and the cons. The pros are really, really fast. You do a Facebook live and instantly there’s 20, 30, 50, 100, 500, 1000 people that fast. So it’s very fast, very targeted. The negatives are Facebook is the newsfeed platform. So it happens, it’s there and then it goes down, down, down and eventually just disappears. It’s kind of like email. If you send an email to someone, they don’t go back 5 years later to find the email, it kind of disappears. The same thing happens with Facebook, it’s there, it’s exciting, and then it’s kind of in the newsfeed and it ends up disappearing. Think about this, it’s the same thing with talk shows. How many of you guys ever go back and watch reruns of Jay Leno? You don’t watch reruns of talk shows. And when a talk show is showing a rerun because they’re not live, you just turn the TV off. People who watch reruns are not going to watch reruns typically of Facebook Live, so it’s short lived. But it’s powerful because you’re talking in the moment, right then, what’s happening, so that’s kind of the pros and cons of it. You have the show, distribution to go and build your facebook channel, then you use instagram to post all the episodes, to push up to, “Hey, I’m about to go live on Facebook, it’s going to be amazing. I’m talking about this, and talking this. Swipe up to watch to watch it. I’m going live in 5 minutes.” “Going live in 2 minutes.” “I’m about to go live, come watch it.” “I just went live, you guys, if you missed it here’s the link, go check it out.” Pushing people to that thing, then I do the episode. So that’s how Facebook kind of works in this format. The next channel I want to talk about is my sitcom, which is YouTube. Now YouTube is obviously a little bit different. Our YouTube channel is YouTube.com/funnelhacker and we spent a lot of time over the last year trying to figure out YouTube. I think, my belief is Facebook is shifting a lot and we’re going to see a lot of changes over the next twelve months. I think that a lot of you guys start putting more energy and more effort into YouTube, it’s gonna be a really good longer term play, just because I think Facebook is doing some weird stuff and it just makes me more nervous. So we’ve been trying to diversify very heavily into YouTube, which is why we invested so much time and energy and it’s a really good platform for a couple of reasons, and I’ll walk through those. So one thing nice about sitcoms is people will rewatch them. Awesome. How many of you guys have watched Seinfeld at least 100 times every episode? How many of you guys could quote any episode that I gave you, pretty much verbatim? Soup Nazi, yes. So people will watch reruns, watch refunds too. Number two, the cool thing about this video is you post it on YouTube and you post it there, and then the video, unlike Facebook that disappears, you post it on YouTube and it grows. It just keeps growing and growing and growing and growing. It’s the craziest thing in the world. I don’t see that on Facebook. When I post a video on Facebook it disappears, I post it on YouTube and it grows and it grows and it grows. So you can spend more time and effort creating a YouTube video because the longevity is huge. I would not spend a ton of time and energy on a Facebook Live because it’s going to die in a couple of days. So jump on Facebook live, do your talk show, Jimmy Fallon, do the whole fun thing, but YouTube spend some time and create something amazing because after its posted there it will continue to grow and to grow and to grow. And that’s the magic of YouTube. People watch things over and over and over again. Now there’s two types of videos we create in YouTube, and I’m going to kind of go through both of those so you understand. Number one is what we call discoverable videos and number two are engagement videos. So my goal is each week I’m trying to put out at least one discoverable video, and then one engagement style video, does that make sense. Okay so this is kind of how they work. A discoverable video, the goal of that, is to get people to discover who I am. This is the other power of YouTube, because even if I have no following, for example, I don’t know if Joe Marvolo is here, but Joe, yeah, I love Joe. Give him a round of applause, he’s awesome.  So Joe’s the dude who is helping me with my YouTube stuff, so you should all give him all your money. So when I first met Joe 6 or 7 years ago, when we had a product we were selling called How to Overcome Pornography, and he saw it and he was like, “Hey man, if you want I can make you a video on YouTube to promote this thing.”I’m like, “Okay, go for it. I have no idea if that will even work. Do you have a following of people who should overcome pornography?” he’s like, “No, but the cool thing is I can create this video and people who are struggling with pornography, those people will find it.” So we made two little videos talking about pornography addiction, added a link going back to our funnel, and he posted them on YouTube, and between these two videos, what’s the view count up to between the two now, do you know? Almost two million views, two million people have searched for how to overcome pornography addiction, saw Joe’s videos, clicked on the link and came into our funnels. Two million people, that’s without any kind of distribution. All because it’s discoverable. Okay, so what Joe’s been teaching me, what we’re trying to do more and more of, is on these videos that are discoverable, as you’re trying to get people to subscribe to your channel, and you’re focusing each video on an actual keyword phrase. I’m not going to get super deep into the weeds on this, but that’s the thing. You make a video and it’s like, “Hey, my name is Russell Brunson, this channel we’re talking about how to build funnels and it’s really cool, how to grow your online business. If you want to subscribe, click the button and subscribe down below.” And then it’s like, ‘Now today I’m going to talk about, (what’s my keyword phrase) sales funnels for real estate agents.” Let’s say that’s my keyword phrase, and I talk about it and get them all excited and that’s the thing, and in the end I give a call to action like, “Go to Clickfunnels.com to get a free sales funnel.” Or whatever it is. That becomes the video. Now I can get that video ranked for the actual keyword phrase, people who don’t even know who I am are going to discover that and they’re going to join my channel and that’s kind of the magic behind it, focusing on the keywords. Alright, number two then, there’s discoverable videos where you’re getting people to discover and find you, and the second one is where you create videos that are going to build a rapport with people. People will get to know who you are. Oh excuse me, I’m jumping ahead. Okay, sorry, I’m going to come back. So this is back to discoverable. This is a really cool tool that Joe showed me called vid IQ, which is awesome. Vid IQ is like a free plugin you plug into Chrome and then when you go to YouTube your YouTube starts looking way different. If you look at this, it shows you all sorts of stats. So if you want to funnel hack people, you go to, let’s say I want to be ranked for sales funnels, I could use this plug in, go to YouTube, type in sales funnels and it says, “The number one dude, this is what he did. This is all the key words he focused on, what his video looks like, how many subscribers he gets, how much money he makes.” It gives you all the detail. So as funnel hackers, what do we do if we know everything our competitors are doing? We win. We reverse engineer that with your videos. You say, “Okay, I need a video that’s this long, I need to make sure I focus on these keyword, this targeting.” and you go back reverse engineer, go back and create it. Vid IQ is an amazing tool that gives the ability to go and reverse engineer videos so you can go and do the same process. Alright,  so that’s number one that’s the discoverable videos. And the second one  are the engagement videos. People who are on my channel, people who are following me, how do I build more of rapport with them? And it’s by creating these other videos. How many of you guys watch our Funnel Hacker TV episodes? How many of you guys have ever seen our behind the scenes show? These are all videos. Funnel Hacker TV, our behind the scenes show. These are videos we’re creating to cause connection with our actual audience, so they like us and actually care about us. And what’s cool about these, this is like Seinfeld, people will find their favorite episodes and share them and watch them over and over again, and a bunch of things like that. Here’s an example of one of the videos we created a little while ago, that’s done really, really well for us. It’s just, I was on vacation and I was like, “I’m going to spend a little bit of time and we’re going to make a really cool video that’s going to speak to my people. I want to connect with them at a different level.” So after you guys see this video I’m going to ask you guys, I’m curious how many of you guys actually connect with this video, because that was the goal of people on my channel to actually connect with it. “Why are vacations so hard for entrepreneurs like us? Do you ever have any of your friends or family members or people you care about, maybe a wife or a spouse, tell you something like this, ‘you need a break. You need to stop or else you’re going to get burned out.’ How many times do we have people who we love and we care about tell us things like that? They think that a break is what we need to be happy, to have a balanced life. What they don’t understand is that us entrepreneurs actually get stressed out by vacations. Why? “Right now I’m in Kawai, Hawaii with my wife celebrating our 15 year anniversary and this beach house right here, we’re spending over $2500 a night to stay here. We’ve flown in helicopters, we’ve gone on boat tours, we’ve floated down irrigation canals, we’ve had an amazing vacation. But I’m actually more stressed out now than I was at home running my entire company. Why? Because entrepreneurs don’t need vacations, but the people around us that we love, they do. “What our loved ones don’t understand is that us entrepreneurs, we don’t get happy and sad like normal people, we only feel momentum. We’re either moving forward or we’re moving backward. When we’re moving forward we’re happy, when we’re not, we feel sad, we feel upset and we feel stressed. It’s kind of like when the coach pulls you out of the big game and sets you on the bench to catch your breath. As you’re watching the game from the sidelines, you’re seeing your teammates, seeing other players all move towards the goal line, you want to do everything in your power to get back into the game. Being in the game is why you do what you do. “What they don’t understand is that what we do, it is our hobby, it is our vacation, and when we’re moving forward that’s all the fuel that we need. When we have to stop for vacation or for sleep, so does our momentum. So if you’re watching this and you care about an entrepreneur, don’t worry about us. We’re not going to burn out. We don’t need a break, we just need to keep moving forward. “So if our mind is wondering while we’re on vacation or it seems like we’re struggling, it’s not because we don’t love you. We do, in fact, that’s the reason why we’re on this vacation, it’s because we do love you. We’re just trying to figure out how to keep moving forward without ruining the vacation for others around us. And for my entrepreneurs who are watching this, first is tag and share this video with those around you who love you, so they’ll understand you better and they’ll stop trying to get you to relax. “And second, the secret to a happy vacation for you and for the people you love is to figure out ways to keep momentum happening even while you’re on vacation. For me it’s reading a book or listening to an audio course, or something I can learn that doesn’t interrupt the vacation for others. For them, it seems like I’m relaxing, so the people I love don’t stress out and think I’m going to burn out. But inside my mind I can continue to plot and scheme and figure out how to keep things moving forward. You’re an entrepreneur and this game we play, it isn’t a job, it’s your life and that’s okay.” That’s how you all feel too, right? I just want to make sure I’m not…cool. That’s the fun thing, you create stuff like that and people watch it over and over and over again. I have people all the time like, “Hey, I sent that to my wife. I sent that to my parents. Sent it to my kids, now they understand why I’m this way.” You create cool stuff like that, it’s like, it’s like Seinfeld, they watch it over and over. They watch it and they share it and it’s amazing. So that’s kind of the fun stuff. So again, the goal of the distribution that we’re building is to build the channels. So you build your instagram channel, your facebook channel and your YouTube channel. Then you go use Instagram now, swipe up to watch your episode. So I was in Hawaii, excuse me, we back from Hawaii I’m like, “I’m back from Hawaii, making this video and it’s going to be amazing, you guys.” And I talk about it, talk about it, talk about it and when it’s finally ready, “Swipe up to watch it.” And everyone’s excited because they are part of the process. Alright the next channel I want to focus on, and this is, I say they’re all my favorite, I love all of them I’m not going to lie. But this is one of my favorite, the radio show. The radio show is your podcast. How many of you guys have a podcast right now, that are in this room? That is amazing, I love it. I am a big believer in podcasts. So this is your radio show. The reason why I like podcasts, one of my favorite channels, is because it’s the most intimate. The reality show is intimate, it’s nice, but this is the most intimate. When people listen to your podcast, it’s usually when they’re unplugging from everything else. They’re putting it in and they’re working out, or they’re driving, or they’re separated and it’s you in their head talking to them. You hear Natalie up here, she’s like, “Everyday I work out I listen to Russell and Alex.” We have this distribution channel into the minds of our dream customers to tell them what we think, what we believe, what we’re doing, why they should care. And it’s powerful. There’s just something magical. I think people are insane if you don’t, I think everybody on earth should have their own podcast. When Alex Charfen and I were hanging out this summer we were talking, I’m like, “Why don’t you make a podcast about your entrepreneur personality type?’ He’s like, “People told me it was a bad idea.” I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me? I would love to plug in and just have you bring up ideas into my head all day long.” And he did it. Is Alex, where you at? Are you in here? Yeah. How’s it been for you, I don’t have a microphone, but how’s it been for you so far? Has it been amazing for your business? He did over 200,000 downloads without any paid advertising, is that amazing? It’s amazing. 200,000 people or times people have downloaded a message that he created and put it into their minds. Do you know the power of that? How many of you guys think differently because you’ve heard me talking in your ear for the last year, two years, five years? I think about the podcasts I listen to and it’s transformed me. It’s one of the most powerful media’s we have. It’s intimate. Podcast listeners will also become your best buyers. This is proven. People who listen to podcasts are worth more money to you. If you look at, in fact, if you look at people that listen to the radio in their car versus people who listen to podcasts, it’s, I don’t remember the exact number, like the average person who listens to the radio all day makes like 30-50 thousand dollars a year, podcasts it starts at like 150 thousand dollars a year. It’s crazy the separation. If you get people actually listening to you during their drive time, they’re worth more to you. Plus you’ll be found on a platform by people who are actually looking for your stuff as well. My big suggestion, don’t just do a question and answer show. It’s okay to do question and answer stuff, but the biggest problem I have with Q and A shows is that people won’t get to know you as well. I  like listening to a podcast because I want to hear the host and what their thoughts and their ideas are. So you could do Q and A but I recommend do a lot of them where it’s just you talking and telling your stories. The next thing is try to record them how people are actually listening to them. The first five years of my podcast was me driving in my car on my way to work while I was talking. And most people started listening while they were driving in their car to where they worked at. If I was in the fitness market I would be working out on my treadmill doing my podcast, knowing that my audience is probably working out on the treadmill while they’re listening to me. I like creating it the way that they’re going to be consuming it. If I had a marriage thing I’d be doing it, laying in bed with my wife, telling my podcast there because that’s where they might be listening to it right. I’d be looking at creating it the same way they’re going to be consuming it. This is a really good place that’s, because of the format you can have longer shows that people will actually listen to you. You can share your beliefs, share your observations, talk about what you’re learning. And the cool thing about this is I feel like, with my podcasts, everyone who’s been following me, it’s like you’re always on the edge of discovery with me. I launched the podcast right after my company collapsed, before we launched Clickfunnels. And I’ve been publishing it 3 or 4 times a week since then, and those who have binge listened to the whole thing, you’ve been a part of this journey with me while I’m discovering new things. I’m not trying to be all postured all the time, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, today we learned this.” I’m sharing everything we’re discovering, as we’re discovering it and it’s just really powerful because people are following you on this journey and it gives you the ability to talk about your why in a way that you can’t do typically. The other cool thing about podcasts is that people will actually binge listen to you. What I found is people come and listen to one or two episodes and if they like you they’ll go back, and I’m curious, how many of you guys have found out about my podcast, listened to a couple of episodes and then started at the very beginning and binge listened to every single episode from the beginning of time until now? That’s powerful. Do you guys see that? Iv’e been trying to consciously do this more often with my podcast. If kyou like this, go to the beginning and binge listen from the beginning. If you listen to all of them, we actually put them on mp3 players, it’s like 2 or 3 days of constant audio. It’s like 40 to 70 hours, it means people have listened to me, all of you guys who raised your hands, that’s almost a week of uninterrupted time listening to me. How does that change our relationship? How does that change everything that I’m able to do for and with you? It’s huge and that’s why I love podcasts. People will get them and binge listen.  I like publishing at least three times a week, and that’s some of the things. Once again, we come back to the beginning, we use email, messenger to build our channels. You build your Instagram channel, Facebook, YouTube, and you build your podcast with that, and then you can use your instagram reality shows to promote each of the individual episodes on there. And then the last question now, what other channels? And again, for all of you guys it’s going to be different depending on what kind of business you’re in. Some of you guys Twitter is a good channel, some it’s Linked In, some it’s Pinterest, some Twitch, some is your blog. There’s different channels, pick the channels that make the most sense for your business and master that channel before you move on to the other one. So again, this is the framework for conversation domination. Is that helpful you guys? Is that cool?

Is it art? Is it crime? A little bit of both? Whatever it is, it's part of your morning commute. "Every morning when I commute to work, no matter which way I go, I started to see more and more graffiti on the back of the signs," Joe Sullivan reported. "I saw it and I thought, I hope they take that down, because if they don't take it away, it's just going to embolden people to do more. And it seems to have." Joe says he sees the artistic talent on display in some graffiti. But he also thinks it's distracting to drivers, and a bad look for the city. "It sort of gives the impression that we're not taking care of things." So Joe asked Curious Louisville, who's cleaning that up? WFPL's Ryan Van Velzer took up the mantle. And the answer takes us on a commute of our own, through both sides of the art/vandalism debate.

Is it art? Is it crime? A little bit of both? Whatever it is, it's part of your morning commute. "Every morning when I commute to work, no matter which way I go, I started to see more and more graffiti on the back of the signs," Joe Sullivan reported. "I saw it and I thought, I hope they take that down, because if they don't take it away, it's just going to embolden people to do more. And it seems to have." Joe says he sees the artistic talent on display in some graffiti. But he also thinks it's distracting to drivers, and a bad look for the city. "It sort of gives the impression that we're not taking care of things." So Joe asked Curious Louisville, who's cleaning that up? WFPL's Ryan Van Velzer took up the mantle. And the answer takes us on a commute of our own, through both sides of the art/vandalism debate.

EP002 - Senior Editor of Auto Remarketing & Auto Remarketing Canada, Joe Overby http://www.vehicle2.getspiffy.com Episode 2 is an interview with Joe, Senior Editor of Auto Remarketing & Auto Remarketing Canada; recorded on Wednesday, March 6th, 2019. He and Scot discuss a variety of topics, including: Joe’s position at Auto Remarketing Vehicle lifecycle - how people are buying and selling cars How changing ownership models (car-sharing, subscriptions) are influencing rental car agencies and dealerships The evolution of automotive auction, both physical and digital The progression of technologies for more connected cars Affordability of electric vehicles, as well as the availability of used EVs Slow down in autonomous vehicle hype It looks like dealers, auto auction companies (KAR/Cox) and rental car companies are on a collision course around the fleet maintenance/reconditioning/remarketing space Be sure to follow Joe on LinkedIn! Check out the multiple events hosted by Auto Remarketing and Auto Remarketing Canada, such as the Auto Intel Summit and Used Car Week. If you enjoyed this episode, please write us a review on iTunes! The four pillars of Vehicle 2.0 are electrification, connectivity, autonomy, and changing ownership models. In the Vehicle 2.0 Podcast, we will look at the future of the auto industry through guest expert interviews, deep dives into specific topics, news coverage, and hot takes with instant analysis on what the latest breaking news means for today and in time to come. This episode was produced and sound engineered by Jackson Balling, and hosted by Scot Wingo.   Transcript:   Scot: [01:01] Welcome to the vehicle 2.0 Podcast. This is our second episode and it's being recorded Wednesday, March 6th, 2019. In this episode we have our first guest and I'll give you a little background. So here at Spiffy we are doing a lot of work at automobile auctions. It's a whole industry I've always heard about but never had experienced. So I was, I was reading online at a great site called Auto Remarketing and I kept seeing some content there by a guy named Joe Overby. And I said, "Wow, I've got to meet this guy some time" and went to his bio and discovered he is here local. So Joe is going to be our first guest here on the show.   Joe: [01:37] Scot, thanks for having me.   Scot: [01:38] Yeah. When we have 500 shows out, you'll, this'll be, you'll put it on your resume.   Joe: [01:42] That's right, first ever guest on Vehicle 2.0.   Scot: [01:43] Yes. We really appreciate it. And you're the senior editor of Auto Remarketing and Auto Remarketing Canada. So that's interesting. So you speak Canadian apparently as well as English.   Joe: [01:56] I try to. My southern accent, a little bit, gets in the way.   Scot: [01:59] Is that on your title? So you can go get some of the delicious Canadian beer or?   Joe: [02:04] You have delicious, delicious Canadian beer and they have the gravy fries, which are out of this world.   Scot: [02:11] Yeah. Yummy.   Joe: [02:12] Going up there in two weeks for that.   Scot: [02:15] Cool. Let's start off and kind of orient every, all the listeners about your background. How did you get into the industry and where you are today?   Joe: [02:23] So I went to went to NC state and I majored in political science, did a minor in journalism and had worked in for technician for a few years. And the student newspaper and then had a job in sports writing at a newspaper in Georgia right after college and worked there for two years and decided I want to try something different and get into magazines and applied for the job back here in Raleigh at our S&A Cherokee, which is the parent company of Auto Remarketing. And I've been covering the auto industry for about 12 years now.   Scot: [02:54] Awesome. Cool. Yeah. And NC state. Awesome. Go pack.   Joe: [02:59] Yes sir.   Scot: [02:59] Tell us more about Auto Remarketing. So is it print and online? Just online? And what kind of audience do you guys have? We'd love to know more about the publication.   Joe: [03:14] So we're print online and we have a digital edition are online. You know, we have our website obviously, and then we have a wide range of e newsletters that we send out, kind of that's how we get our stories out. Our largest e-newsletters, a daily morning one that goes out to about 22,500 subscribers. And then we have, you know, various other daily and weekly newsletters. They're about the same size or smaller. And then we have a print publication that goes out to 36,000 subscribers and then a digital edition of our same, of the same magazine. It goes out to 50,000. And then we have the same another publication Auto Remarketing Canada for our Canadian audience. And that also has a weekly and daily newsletters, and also a digital edition as well along with print. And then a colleague of mine, a guy by the name of Nick Zulovich, he heads up a couple of automotive finance publications. So we have one kind of specializes in the fin-tech space and then one that specializes in kind of the subprime lower tier financing in automotive as well.   Scot: [04:28] Yeah. And then the broader Cherokee, are all their publications automobile-oriented or do they go into a lot of different kinds of B2B verticals?   Joe: [04:35] Most of it actually is automotive B2B. I think we have four prints, automotive publications, but then we've also got two local lifestyle magazines. Folks here in the Triangle area, probably know Cary Magazine and we just launched a magazine for Holly Springs and Fuquay called Main & Broad. And then our company also has done several custom publications where, you know, maybe it's a, an association or a, you know, company that will publish a custom custom job for them. But mostly, yes, our bread and butter is the automotive space.   Scot: [05:11] Very cool. Yeah, it's interesting. The, you know, you read the headlines, print is dying out, but I think that's the daily newspaper. But it seems like where there's a lot of vibrancy is in kind of hyper local. So people want to know a lot more about what's going on with their community. And then also in, in kind of a lot of the B2B verticals, seems like you have those bases covered.   Joe: [05:30] We've got a, we've got a captive audience, so to speak for the, for the B2B as well. Yeah.   Scot: [05:35] Well, cool. We've got a ton of stuff we want to talk about. Let's start with what I call the vehicle life cycle. It seems like you guys got financing and then then kind of like, you know, the, the used car side, the remarketing refurbishing side. What are you seeing there, you know, around behavior around how people buy and sell cars. Is that changing or it's kind of the same it's been over the time you've tracked it?   Joe: [05:59] Certainly. Probably since about 2013, well, 2014. It's become a lot more digital in terms of the actual transaction. I mean, you had, you know, back then you had a lot of companies like Carvana, you know the BPs of the world, the rooms that have launched in the last five years. And more consumers, even if they're not maybe signing on the dotted line and buying completely online, they're doing, if there's five steps to car buying, they might be completing four of 'em online and then going and picking it up at the dealership or, or, you know, setting up the deal online. So I think you're seeing a lot more movement to completing some or all pieces of the process online. And, and, and it's not just these, the startups that are doing it, dealers are getting into the game as well. And you know, using software providers to get in the game themselves in terms of online buying and selling.   Scot: [06:56] Yeah, I think one of the Superbowl commercials that was my favorite was, I can't remember if it was Kia or Hyundai. Bt they had the commercial where the guy was in the elevator and it was Jason Bateman, and there was like root canal. And you know, like all these things and then like the bottom kind of the bottom level was buying a car and they were that company that, oh, that OEM was rolling out a model that was very Carvana [inaudible] will come to you, you have a return period. That kind of a thing. So I think it's been interesting to watch that.   Joe: [07:25] Yeah, for sure. I mean the automakers are doing it and they're, they're doing it through their dealers. I mean partly obviously cause a franchise dealer laws that they have to go through their dealers. But you know, they, they've got the infrastructure of, of these large dealer networks that they can set that up. Yeah.   Scot: [07:40] How about, I'm kind of staying on the topic of the vehicle life cycle. You mentioned your sister publication around finance. What's, what's new there? I know I've seen some data that leases are, are quite kind of, you know, continue to be the most, one of the increasingly popular ways to, to, to finance a car. What else are you seeing in that?   Joe: [07:59] Well, I'm one of the, one of the alternatives now is some of the cult subscriptions and they, you know, instead of in one of the, one of the models that has launched recently is one called Fair, which was launched by a guy named Scott Painter who was the CEO and founder of True Car. And he brought in a guy named George Bauer who's a former executive with the German automotive. And I believe, you know, it's had a lot of, a lot of experience in, in that, in that space as well. But you know, they models like that kind of had, I've taken on the approach of, you know, why jump into a 60, 66, 72 month loan when you can subscribe to a vehicle for, you know, a year if you want it at three months, if you want it. And then kind of get out and move on to the next one. And it's, you know, not to get in the weeds too much, but it is a different little bit different model than say, you know, a rental or a lease. But it just gives another flexibility for, for someone who doesn't want to set up financing for the next six years of their life.   Scot: [09:04] Yeah. Yeah. That, that's a good segway. So part of the reason we started this podcast is we at Spiffy. We've put out this framework, we call the vehicle 2.0 framework and it's got four components, changing ownership, connected car electrification and autonomous vehicles. And you know, Fair is a good example of kind of the changing ownership going from kind of long leases to kind of micro leases. Then you've got Getaround, and Toro. That's more Airbnb kind of like, you know, sharing almost car sharing. And then it's really topical because I'm sure you saw Lyft filed their IPO and it's kinda caused this whole raft of in there, you know, Lyft talks about long-term, they don't think everyone's going to own a car. And then now I've seen like six top level articles about, you know, what's happening with car ownership. Any other interesting car ownership trends you're seeing?   Joe: [09:53] Well, I just, I think that the, in terms of car ownership, there's just such a variety of alternatives. Now, I mean the, you mentioned Lyft, I mean one of the stories we had this week was Lyft has partnered with Cox Automotive, which owns kind of a variety of different vendors in this space. And they're on the service side. You know, when, when you, there's a dealership service department platform where, you know, when you take your vehicle to get serviced, they've got an automatic partnership with Lyft. So instead of having a, a loaner fleet, that dealership can just get set you up with the Lyft vehicle for that, you know, for the time period that you're, your vehicles in the shop. And, you know, you've seen those Enterprise commercials with, I think it's Joel McHale where he says, you know, you can rent a car from enterprise, you can, you know, car share with enterprise or you can buy it from enterprise. So I think companies are realizing the, the amount of variety of, of different ownership models and the way people want to interact with their cars these days.   Scot: [11:00] Yeah. So sometimes you know, the articles kind of doom and gloom for kind of the traditional dealer. Do you think the dealer is kind of a dinosaur in this model or did they, they have to kind of just pivot and become more of like the service center? So if we kind of go to the extreme, right, and we, we kind of, I think, you know, we believe car ownership's going to be more of kind of fleets owning cars and people kind of, you know, using them on a smaller kind of timescale. It's not, all these things are never going to be 100% either. I come from the world of eCommerce and we're like 15% of the city of retail is on the commerce. We've been at it for 25 years. So, but you know, imagine there's a day where more like 20% of cars are, are kind of a fleet kind of a model. Where do you think the dealer falls in that spectrum?   Joe: [11:45] Well, I think at this point there's still, there's still very much in the game. I mean, a lot of these models that we talk about Fair and, and some of these subscription models, they, they worked through the dealership. So, you know, you may, the end consumer may go to their app and, and you know, subscription program or some sort of alternative ownership program that they access through an app. That company, a lot of times we'll still buy the car, you know, the delivery of the vehicle still through that dealership and a lot of the dealerships are offering these services themselves. So I think that they, I think it's more of a pivot that a dealer, you know, may shift part of its business from, you know, 100% retail sales to portions of it being, well part of our inventory is going to be first subscriptions or car sharing, you know, for a ride hailing drivers and that sort of thing. I do think there's an opportunity as well for dealers to be in the service business. I mean, for these vehicles, the service business of, of a dealership has long been the most profitable anyway. So, you know, they're, I think they're very excited about, you know, the ability to change their model. I mean, I was talking to a dealer recently who said that it's in dealer's nature to sell what the consumer wants. I mean, it's a simple statement, but, you know, dealer, a dealer wants to sell, however, you know, whether it's an electric vehicle and autonomous vehicle or, or an alternative method of ownership, a dealer wants to be the person selling that car and they're going to do it.   Scot: [13:25] Yeah, absolutely. How about, and this may be out of your purview, but we were doing a lot of work now with rental car companies and I had kind of assumed that they would be on the decline because I've gone through a phase where if I go to a city now, I kind of do some math and figure out am I just gonna kind of Uber around or am I going to rent a car? And you know, that that bar is kind of increasingly leaning towards more ride sharing. But I was surprised to find rental car companies that are actually growing pretty nicely. What do you think, you know, are they kind of going to start competing? The other argument could be maybe rental car companies are better equipped to manage these kind of future fleets than dealers are. Do you have any point of view on that?   Joe: [14:06] That's, that's interesting. I mean, I think they certainly have the, if you think about what they already do, you know, a lot of them already sell cars. Just like dealers, you know, they have, they operate in many ways like dealerships.   Scot: [14:21] Yeah, and they have more flexibility because like, you know, dealers get kind of locked in, if you bought it here, I want you to service it here and you know, and they're locked into one type of vehicle. Like I'm not going to take my, my Honda to a Lexus dealer for now. They may actually, sometimes you talk to dealers and they would actually do that, which always surprised me. I never knew that was a thing. Yeah. But most consumers don't think that way. Whereas whereas Hertz, Avis, etc. Are, you know, manufacturer agnostic.   Joe: [14:44] And they do have, I mean, you know, a dealer, a dealer wants to get that, that new car sales there. They are going to take a trade in and then, you know, either use it on their own lot or, or take it to auction or, or you know, dispose of it via wholesale. But, as far as rental companies, I mean, I think, you know, they certainly have the type of infrastructure, national footprint that automaker or franchise dealership system has. They also recently, I mean, if you'll notice that a lot of these companies, either their, you know, the, the large rental car companies are either outright buying some of these smaller alternative, physical ownership platforms or they're working very closely with them to partner, you know, cause they know that they know that, you know, when, when you go, when, when somebody goes to travel there, they're doing the math that you just described. You know, it actually be cheaper for me to take a Lyft to and from a hotel rather than, you know, renting a car. And I think, I think those companies are doing the math and partnering with some of those companies. And, you know, they, I know that they're even getting into the connected vehicle space as well, these rental companies. You know, I think they're just as progressive, you know, in terms of this technology as the dealership and automakers are.   Scot: [16:22] Yeah. And I mentioned at the top of the show that, you know, you guys put a lot of great content out there about auto auctions. That's when, as an eCommerce guy, it's kind of interesting to think about, you know, I haven't visited one, but a lot of people at Spiffy have, and then they seem to be these giant fields full of cars. And you know, there's, there's a point in time like a Wednesday morning and three days before Wednesday, you know, tractor trailers are showing up with cars and unloading them and then they're getting washed and they're putting them through an auction process and they're loading them back up. It just seems like a hugely physical analog kind of a thing in today's world. Is digital hitting auto auctions and, and what's that look like and give, give listeners that maybe they don't even know the industry, like maybe a high-level overview of and what's going on.   Joe: [16:57] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the, I mean, first of all, the physical auction space definitely is still happening. I mean that, physical sales, you know, are still going on every single week, every single day. But you do have where the two, the two largest corporate physical auction companies in the US, Manheim and Adesa, Manheim is owned by Cox Automotive, which is part of this global huge company, Cox Enterprises, Cox Automotive. And then you have Adesa which is owned by Clorox and services, which is a publicly traded large company. Both those companies are pushing more and more on their auction side to digital. I mean, I don't have exact stats in front of me, but it's about 50/50 of their auction sales involve some digital element, whether it's somebody buying via simulcast or you know, somebody sitting on a computer and buying through an online auction. They're pushing, those two large companies are pushing more of their business to the digital side.   Scot: [18:08] But digital, is like an overlay on the physical or, or is it actually a separate digital thing so I could buy one and it's not actually in a physical auction?   Joe: [18:15] Right. So a little bit of both. Actually. The, for example, car and services, which owns Adesa also owns a online auction company called Trade Rev. And that is completely digital and you think, oh, it's kind of cannibalizing. But no, it's, it's really a compliment to their existing auction business. Cox Automotive has, you know, dealer to dealer sales platforms. They have online auctions. So you know, these companies, the approach that I've seen them take is they want to sell however the buyer wants to buy. I mean, and dealers are just like consumers and that a lot of them are moving more towards making purchases digitally. That said, I mean, there's still a huge role for these, for these auto auctions. I mean, there's, some of them, for example, at Manheim, there's a former Manheim location that now has been turned into a mobility fleet servicing center. So what they do is they, you know, they do all of the things that need to happen with a fleet of, of mobility vehicles. So gassing them, washing, reconditioning. All of this sort of services you might think have to happen on the backend, this former auto auction does. And I think you're going to see a model where you know, an auto auction might do a little bit of both. They might still have those physical sales in the lane every Wednesday morning, but also sell vehicles digitally and act as a service center for all kinds of, you know, they already do a lot of ancillary services anyways. Now they have a new client and these large fleets of, you know, ride sharing, car sharing, you know, subscription services that it's a new clientele that they can serve as those vehicles as well.   Scot: [20:15] Yeah. So it kind of sounds like we've got three factions fighting for this future of, of you know, fleet management. So you've got the dealers and the OEMs kind of aligned on one side. And in the eCommerce world, it's interesting. So, you know, you have kind of brands and retailers and, and those guys have fractured themselves because there's been a lot of channel conflict where the brands are starting to go around kind of their traditional channels. So it'll be interesting to see if that happens. But that's one faction do, we had the rental car kind of faction and the now it seems like the auto auction guys kind of also want to put their hat in the ring for managing this.   Joe: [20:48] Yeah, absolutely. And, and even then, you also have a, aside from the, the large kind of corporately owned auctions, you have a lot of independent independently owned auctions. I mean there's, I don't know the exact count, but there's hundreds of independently owned auctions and they're, you know, they're just as innovative and then getting into the same type of a, the same type of play that, that these, you know, large corporate auctions are as well.   Scot: [21:16] Yeah. And I saw a company called ACV Auction, am I saying that right? And they just announced, I forget the amount, but it was like a big raise. Was it 70 million, a hundred. It was like a, it was kind of eye popping. Let's see if I can find that. But that's more of just kind of a new new entrant. Right. So just pure digital if I understand?   Joe: [21:35] Yeah, absolutely. They are a digital dealer to dealer online auction and they have been, I mean it seems like for a while there, almost every other store we had was about them than raising capital. I mean they, they have been, they hired a relatively new CEO I think has somewhat of a Wall Street background and funding background. A guy named George Simone and they have just been raising money and raising money and then, you know, Trade Rev, which I mentioned earlier is I guess it would be a competitor to theirs. And they're, they're owned by, you know, one of the publicly traded large company in the auction space. And then you have, there was a new, a company from Canada called Eblock, which they just launched in the US in Burlington, Vermont. And then you have just tons of other companies into this, in this digital, wholesale space where if you think about Carvana and Vroom and some of those companies and just think about, you know, those they're in customers or retail customers like you and me, ACV, Trade Rev, their customers are, they're doing essentially the same thing, but their customers are dealers. Yeah. And there's just, they're well capitalized. There's lots of them. And you know, I think it's a growing space. And then you, and then to add to that, there's, you know, a company like a Smart Auction, which is a piece of Ally Financial. They'd been around for 20 plus years doing this. And there's, it's, it's a growing space.   Scot: [23:09] They're coming at it from the financial side?   Joe: [23:11] Well, they're an online auction, but they, you know, it's, it's a similar concept to me as it were. Dealers can go in and buy car wholesale cars online for their inventories. Yeah. Got It. Does Cox so, so noticeably absent for that was kind of Cox, do they have a digital auction platforms? They do. They have OVE. They have Manheim Express, which is a dealer to dealer platform. And you know, they're, they're very much involved in digital wholesale. Yeah. Cox Automotive.   Scot: [23:42] Cool. And while you were talking, looked it up. So they raised a ACV auction, raised 93 million in December and they've raised 150 million total. So that's a pretty considerable. It's interesting because watching, so I come from the marketplace world and they've, they've kind of gone through this kind of touchless to high touch. So, so kind of the famous example is a lot of people use Open Door. I don't know if you've ever shopped for a house now, but they'll go in and buy the starter homes and a whole area of, so here in the triangle they've bought like any house, but between kind of 102k, they'll go buy it and then they'll run a marketplace. So, so imagine like, you know, Zillow went out and bought all the houses and was selling them. So it'll be interesting to see if we kind of go full circle and see someone like an ACV actually taking some inventory risk or something. You would imagine with raising that much capital there, there's gotta be something going on there that's all that it's a lot of engineers behind the scenes deal for $200 million. Okay, cool. So changing ownership, some interesting trends there. How about connected car? What, what did, what do you think happens in a world where our car is kind of connected to the cloud and, you know, it lights up a lot of nice new features for, for the consumer, but what else does it mean for the future of cars?   Joe: [24:56] Well, I think that this number one, it's sort of been progressively happening already. I mean with, with Onstar, with General Motors, you know, having the, having that kind of feature. And then, you know, on the way over here I had my, how to podcast and music and directions going through my phone. So there's already a level of connectivity in cars and, and I think that is a bigger, not worry, it's going to be here faster, I guess, than autonomous vehicles. Yeah. I've, I've heard that, I've heard that in the industry that, you know, that's, people aren't talking about that as much as they are autonomous cars, but I think there's a greater chance that we have connected vehicles much quicker than we have self driving vehicles. It'll be interesting it, you know, what's the, you know, what are some of the purposes to that, you know, is it safety? I mean, that, that would be a, to me, you know, cars communicating with each other, you know, could be a big help for safety is that, you know, when cars are too close together or, you know, does it help avoid accidental oil, you know, or accident avoidance. I think that's a potential play there. I mean, obviously the infotainment is, we're already there. Yeah. But I think there's a lot of, a lot of room for growth there and I think you're going to see that quicker than, than you are autonomous cars.   Scot: [26:26] Yeah, it's been interesting. So a lot of, a lot of companies kind of went with their own kind of, you know, app, App store thing and now it seems to be kind of standardizing on a, you know, the Apple system or the Android and kind of Amazon. It seems to be having some legs with Alexa, kind of, in the car. Yup. It's interesting to see what happens there.   Joe: [26:46] And another point to that. There's a, there's been a couple companies that have come out with basically devices that you plug into the onboard, got an onboard diagnostic port. And so as long as the vehicle is something, it's either sometime in the 80s or sometime in the 90s that if your vehicle was made after a certain point, you can turn it, you know, 1995 Toyota Camry into a connected car by plugging in their device to a, to the onboard, the OBD two sensor. So it's, it's really interesting. Even used cars are becoming connected cars.   Scot: [27:21] Yeah. And some companies like a Verizon has Hum where now that not only do you plug that in, so sometimes you can plug the sensor ended, it'll talk to your phone and get to the cloud, but sometimes it will have its own cell phone connection in there so it can, you know, to your point it can, it can add retroactively add connect to capabilities. Yeah. Electrification. So there, there's a, you know, avi is a autonomy is like the shiny bulp, but in the industry, but electrification seems to be kind of grinding out a lot faster. What do you think about that?   Joe: [27:51] Well, I think the biggest issue I see is affordability. I mean, new car affordability in general is already an issue. And it's driving a lot of people to the used car market right now. And that is partly as a function of consumers more interested in trucks and SUVs and crossovers than they are sedans. It's a, naturally the price goes up on those vehicles. But you know, I, I think you look at it like the Tesla's of the world and some of these, you know, electric vehicles or are too far past a price point where they don't make up for the gas savings. But I think there, there are people working on that. I mean the, actually the next, next couple stories I'm working on, one of them is about a, a company called Current Automotive and they are a used electric vehicle dealership that sells primarily online. They're actually one of the co-founders is part of the, or has families that the built Jacobs Automotive Group up in Chicago. And then the other co-founder I believe is a former Tesla executive, but they are, you know, having, having the point now we're where there's enough used electric vehicles that are hitting the market. Having that infrastructure of a, of a dealership type of organization that can sell them, you know, I think should help some of the affordability around electric vehicles.   Scot: [29:23] You don't think a $35,000 Model 3 is, we think we have to go lower than that?   Joe: [29:29] Well no, I mean I don't think so cause I, I think that the way new car prices are now, that's probably about what average for a new car now.   Scot: [29:38] Yeah I think average is between 30 and 40k. Right?   Joe: [29:39] So, you know, I don't know there has to go lower than that, but I do think it is a positive sign that there are going to be used vehicle options for people that, you know, don't necessarily want to shell out 35 grand at the low end for an electric vehicle. And then, you know, you had another, another kind of story we're looking into is the the former House majority leader Richard Gephardt,is signed on as an advisor with Fisker Automotive. And they're in that same kind of electric vehicle space in there. They're looking to basically solve the pain point of, you know, creating a, a workforce for people to build electric vehicles. And so I think with more options I think the price will come down on, on electric vehicles. And again, going back to the kind of the different types of ownership models, there's several different iterations of electric vehicles. You know, you have your hybrids, you have your-   Scot: [30:44] Different plug in hybrids.   Joe: [30:45] Exactly. Yeah. I know a lot of people that are doing the plug in hybrid thing kind of helps with the range anxiety to have an internal combustion engine there. So I think there's, there's more options come to the table. I think you'll see the price come down and more people get into them. I don't think we're going to get it go away from internal combustion engines. I mean, not only because of the infrastructure challenges, I mean there's, there's political challenges do it as well. I mean, there's entire industries that would lobby against that. So you know, I think, you know, I know certain countries are probably will go 100% evs, but I don't think that's going to happen in the US.   Scot: [31:26] Yeah. China seems to be very aggressive. So they're, you know, they've got massive pollution problems and they're pushing for that big subsidies. And they're building out of the, all of the infrastructure will be interesting to see what happens there. Do you guys cover electrical infrastructure at all? Like, do you know how many chargers and companies like Chargepoint? There's a lot of startups trying to dissolve the charging challenge.   Joe: [31:46] Not yet. I'll say, we, you know, our focus has mainly been in the the used car retail and you wholesale space and sort of the, that side of the industry. But in the past, you know, three or four years, we've really ramped up our, for lack of better word, automotive technology coverage, whether it's mobility, whether it's, you know, EVs online buying eCommerce as become a huge part of the industry. And so it's kind of been a huge part of our, of our coverage. So I think as, as more of those models gain traction, that that'll be something we'd probably open, open ourselves up to a little bit.   Scot: [32:24] Yeah. I think the industry is not really ready for electric cars because when we visited an auto auction and they had almost a whole, there were helping Tesla do a kind of a bunch of refurb kind of stuff. And their biggest, one of their biggest challenges was having so many Teslas there, they couldn't charge them all.   Joe: [32:41] Yeah.   Scot: [32:42] So they would like, you know, they had a line of a hundred Teslas and over, you know, over a period of time the batteries, you know, they're, they're using some electricity and they would kind of brick the, the vehicle and have to go figure out like once it's bricked, it's hard to get it to two power. So, so, you know, it's interesting to like, you know, the, the infrastructure we always think about on the consumer of the retail side of charging, but it kind of flows through, you know. Imagine a rental car company trying to do this and you know, having to add, you know, they're going to have to charge hundreds of vehicles overnight and the infrastructure, on that side, I don't think a lot people think about that. But that's big too.   Joe: [33:15] And there's probably companies out there that eventually if they're not already, would go and work with the rental car companies and the auto auctions that they can set up charging stations. You know, if they say we've got too many Tesla's here at the auction, the charge, all of them, you know, at this company as I'm sure it could come in and do that.   Scot: [33:34] Yeah, they're expensive though. Each one of those is like, you know, a hundred to 200 k and like with, when you put it all in with the, the backend electrical plus the wiring and the head unit. Yeah. It's expensive. Yeah. Cool. And then the, the shiny bulb in the industry is autonomous vehicles. What do you think about that?   Joe: [33:52] I think it's going to be awhile before they gain a whole lot of traction. I think there's, you know, what I've seen mainly is that it will be like as a staged rollout where it's, each level is kind of staggered I guess. But you know, I think last year the, the much publicized, you know, unfortunate, you know, the accidents that resulted in fatalities involving self driving cars. I mean I think that kind of slowed it down a little bit. I think the, there's too many, too much safety concern right now. Whether that's overblown, it's still there. I mean I think, there's a lot more testing that needs to be worked out before those gain any kind of real, you know, measurable market share.   Scot: [34:40] Yes. Yeah. It's been interesting to watch it CES. I haven't been to CES in a while, but I watched the coverage. And this is the beautiful thing about social media, you don't have to go to these things anymore. Save a trip. And it seemed like the last three CESs is prior to 2019 we're all a lot of autonomous vehicle hype and then this year it was kind of like the reality of more of the things they were showing were, you know, really constrained public transit kind of thing. Just so you know, these vehicles are going to go in a very predetermined route with its own lanes and a very safe kind of approach and they're only going to go 20 to 30 miles an hour and they'll have a human in there. And so really kind of pulling back from that, you know, I'm just going to hop in a car and it's gonna drive me coast to coast and I won't, I can sleep or something like that.   Joe: [35:22] I think it's more of a pragmatic approach. It's cities looking at how do we solve these mass transit issues, you know, whether it's a or, you know, even even companies, I mean who were, you know, if it's a, if it's a self driving a shuttle at a company or something that it goes around the campus or, or you know, helping cities out, solving those, solving those issues, more of a pragmatic approach rather than a retail consumer just wants a self driving car, like, you know, on the Jetsons or something.   Scot: [35:51] Yeah. So any other trends in Auto Remarketing that, that are kind of top of mind with you?   Joe: [35:58] Well, I think going back to the, just the increasingly digitize digitalized presence of, of the auto auction industry. I mean I, I think there is, it's an interesting time because so much of it is, is going digital, you know, and despite there being still the need for the physical auto auction because you're moving these large assets and it's, you know, there's a lot of physical movement. It's still needed in the industry. It's interesting to see how you'd mentioned the ACV investment. It's, it's been really fascinating to watch how much money and how much attention is, is getting paid to, to that side of the business. And I think it's a, it's only going to grow from here. You know, that the digital wholesale environment.   Scot: [36:45] Cool. Awesome. And you guys have, you mentioned earlier that you spend more time on kind of, you know, some of the future vehicle technology stuff. And I noticed that you'd put a lot of events on this seem to be kind of anchored around this. Tell listeners about some of the events you guys host and how they can learn more about this.   Joe: [37:02] Sure. So we do, we have four automotive conferences each year. Two of them were actually coming up in Canada. I'm heading to Toronto in a week and a half. That'll be for the Toronto used car industry. But this summer in Raleigh we have the Automotive Intelligence Summit. This is our second one. It really, it focuses on just the, you know, a lot of what we've talked about today, you know, autonomous vehicles, the connected vehicles, digital retail, the use of big data and data analytics and artificial intelligence and the, you know, things, you know, what role does blockchain management have in, in automotive. So a lot of these tech driven changes in automotive. This conference, you know, we'll address, and again, it's our second year of doing it. It's going to be July 23rd through 25th in Raleigh at the Marriott Crabtree right across from the Crabtree Mall. But if, if people are interested in learning more, they can go to autointelsummit.com. That's autointelsummit.com. Or they can holler at me on Twitter @AR_JoeOverby and I can share more information there as well.   Scot: [38:25] Cool. So I think you said four, so two in Canada, Auto Intel, is there a fourth one?   Joe: [38:30] Yeah, absolutely. Our signature event. I'm glad you reminded me. Our signature kind of flagship conference is Used Car Week and each year we host that in the fall and it's typically in the southwest. This year we're going to be in Las Vegas at the Red Rock. Last year we were in Phoenix or Scottsdale, Arizona. And what it is is it's four separate conferences that are all kind of part of the used vehicle life-cycle. So we have a retail focus conference on pre-owned. We have a finance auto finance conference, we have the repossession and recovery space. And then we have our National Remarketing Conference, which is the kind of wholesale, the auto auctions, that sort of thing. And we're actually going to be celebrating our 20th anniversary of that National Remarketing Conference. But that's going to be November 11th through 15th in at Red Rock in Las Vegas. And folks who are interested in that can visit usedcarweek.biz. And that and that again, you know, it is kind of an overall auto industry conference, but given the nature of, of automotive these days, it is going to be tech. You know, there's going to be some tech focus, some innovation, some, you know, talk about digital and that sort of thing as well.   Scot: [39:55] Yeah. So just kind of reading the between the lines sounds like the Raleigh one is maybe like hundreds, low, hundreds, a couple hundred folks. Anything in Vegasis going to be at least single digit thousands if not tens of thousands. T   Joe: [40:08] Yeah, the Auto Intel summit, we had about two or 300 last year, very kind of boutique conference, but you know, everybody there was very engaged and there to, you know, be in the sessions. And again Used Car Week is a broader, larger, you know, we've been doing it for a couple of decades, it is in the, you know, I think last year we had about, attendance was about 1600, I believe. Yeah.   Scot: [40:36] Yeah. Cool. Yeah, it's fun to go to kind of both cause you kind of, you know, the smaller shows are more in a minute and literally deep on something but maybe not as actionable sometimes. And then the networking is good and then the bigger ones you can kind of go and have a list of here's five vendors I want to meet. And it a lot more to kind of tactical get, get business done. So it's good to kind of go to both, I think.   Joe: [40:57] It's like going to a basketball game at Cameron indoor stadium versus going to a football game at Carter Finley. It's just, one's a big crowd and loud and once you know, it's small intimate atmosphere, so, yeah.   Scot: [41:09] Absolutely. Cool. Well Joe, we don't want to take more of your time. Appreciate you coming over to Spiffy to record the podcast. Excited to have you as one of our first guests. You mentioned your Twitter handle. If folks want to, that's one way to kind of get in touch with you. Are you active on Linkedin or other social media and maybe let's definitely kind of bring them to the website too.   Joe: [41:28] Yeah, absolutely. Certainly active on Linkedin, just Joe there. And my email, if anybody has any questions about our conferences or about our publications. It's at joverby@cherokeemediagroup.com. The website for all of our publication is Autoremarketing.com.   Scot: [41:53] Great. Thanks for coming and thanks Jackson on the audio engineering side.   Joe: [41:59] Well thank you Scot. This has been fun!  

GUEST BIO: Joe is a Front End Engineer for Digital Air Strike in Scottsdale, Arizona.  Before his current role, Joe had worked as a Digital Marketing Manager while he continued to learn how to code in the evenings and at weekends.  Joe also creates video tutorials for egghead.io and helps to run a local meetup called Desert GraphQL. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Joe Previte. He is currently working for Digital Air Strike as a Front End Engineer. Previously, he was a Digital Marketing Manager and Web Developer. He is becoming well known for his video tutorials, which can be found on egghead.io. Joe also writes articles about coding, mainly on the subject of JavaScript. In particular, React, Node, Express, Redux and Gatsby. Recently, he has started to run a local meetup called DesertGraphQL. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.03) – So Joe, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Joe explains that when he is not busy working or creating video tutorials he writes articles about coding. For example, he has written articles for Twilio. He is a big fan of this cloud communication platform, which has a great API that enables you to build SMS, voice and messaging solutions. (1.47) – Can you please share a unique tip with the I.T. career audience? Joe’s unique piece of career advice is not to forget the power of patterns. When he was in college he studied languages and was able to use patterns to help him to quickly learn several of them. For example, 80% of Portuguese grammar is very similar to Spanish. His advice is to look for patterns when you are trying to learn something new. This particular learning method works really well for programming. Phil agrees taking this approach helps you to tap into the fact that understanding the foundations or the basics of a programming language is pretty much consistent across all the different ones. When learning Redux, Joe took a piece of code and studying it. He started by changing a few things at a time. In particular, things he was familiar with and thought were likely to be similar to other programs he had already worked with. This enabled him to see how it worked and try out more things that were likely to be the same. Doing this made it easier for him to abstract away the pattern. (4.16) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. Joe has only been working in the industry for a couple of years. However, he has already been stung by taking someone’s word for something instead of getting it in writing. Someone offered him a front end internship that was supposed to transition into a full-time role. It meant moving from California back to Phoenix. The guy who ran the company said he could only pay him as a contractor. They agreed he would do 20 hours of paid work and 20 hours as a freelancer. He did this for two months. But, wanted to get an idea of the salary he could expect in the longer term, so asked. His boss said about 50k, which was OK with Joe. The plan was for his boss to put it in writing when he returned from New York. But, when he got back he changed his mind and actually only offered him 30k. For Joe, that was a real low point. (7.50) – Phil asks Joe to share his career highlight with the audience. Joe is a big fan of Twilio and is active in the community. So, he was delighted when Twilio inducted him into their “Doers Hall of Fame” in 2018. It was great to be recognized by the Twilio team as someone who had made a significant contribution. His Twilio superclass which he ran at a local meetup and online boot camp was very well received by those who took it. (10.32) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? Even though he is relatively new to the industry Joe is excited by all of the new technologies and languages that are coming through. There is just so much available to learn that it can be hard to know what to study next. Joe is particularly interested in the potential of GraphQL. He has gone as far as organizing a local meetup group with his co-workers to take full advantage of this data query and manipulation language for APIs. Phil shares Joe’s enthusiasm for all of these new technologies. He notes that they are providing developers and engineers with the chance to broaden their horizons. (12.41) – What drew you to a career in IT? For Joe there were two things. He has always had a passion for building things. He would regularly come up with business ideas only to realize that he needed a developer to bring his idea to life. At the time, Joe did not have the necessary skills to do so. In the end he realized that if he wanted to build any of these businesses learning to code himself was the best way to do it. But, training was expensive. So, when he came across a free code camp he jumped at the chance and began his training. (13.30) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? Joe was once told not to tell yourself you are not ready. You should let others do that. Another way of putting it is ‘don’t self-select’. If you see a job you would love to do, just apply for it. If you do not have all of the qualifications or experience being asked for, do not worry, apply anyway. The worst that can happen is that you do not get the call. On the other hand, you could get called in for an interview and land your dream job. Joe has got a couple of callbacks and interviews by applying regardless of what is asked for in the job advert. (14.40) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Joe explains that he would take a different approach to learning how to program. He would focus more on building projects instead of switching between resources or tutorials. The real learning happens when you apply what you have learned when you build a project that you care about. When you hit roadblocks you are motivated to push through them. This ensures that you learn more and take yourself to the next level. (15.22) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Right now, Joe’s main focus is trying to do more developer relations. He wants to create more of a name for himself within the community. Joe wants to get as many people as possible excited about learning new technologies and helping more of them to find the right resources. He would like to be a general tech developer evangelist. His aim is to be like Wes Bos or someone similar. Joe wants to become a content creator/teacher/educator over the course of the next 5 to 10 years. (16.27) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? In all the jobs Joe has done so far, good communication skills have proved invaluable. He also says it is important to learn to speak up sooner rather than later. For example, if you get stuck on a project the sooner you say so and explain the situation the faster you get unstuck and get things finished. (17.31) – Phil asks Joe to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Joe’s career advice is to help others. Tell others on social media that your door is always open and be there to answer people’s questions. Doing this benefits you as well as those who you are giving guidance to. You will be surprised by how much you learn along the way when trying to help others. BEST MOMENTS: (2.40) JOE– "When you are learning something new, look for the patterns." (9.58) PHIL– “Being recognized by another group or individual is always a great thing."  (13.49) JOE– "Don’t close doors before they have been opened." (15.09) JOE– "The real learning happens when you're building a project that you care about." (14.42) JOE– “When you are learning to code, focus more on building projects rather than switching between resources or tutorials" (16.17) PHIL – “The ability to then teach other people actually helps you yourself in terms of the way you learn.” CONTACT JOE: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jsjoeio LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjprevite/ Website: https://joeprevite.com

This week, the gang is all sicked up... So Joe drops solo, or Joelo, as it were.... and forgive me for that pun... where he hits you with some recommendations. He talks Futureman, The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot, The Vanishing and the Ted Bundy Tapes on Netflix. Let us know if you have any recommendations for us at moviedummies@gmail.com!! See you guys next week for Collision Course. Find out more on the MovieDummies website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/moviedummies/message

At Quiet Light, we recently sent out a survey to our buyers to get insight into what they really want to learn about the buying and selling process. Today the hosts of Quiet Light are sharing the number one thing that first-time buyers want to know about getting the inside track to a deal. How do they break into the industry if they lack the experience in acquiring? This episode is just Joe and Mark, guest free, talking about breaking into the business for the first, second, or even the tenth time. They are sharing five things to keep in mind when shopping. There are a whole host of things you should do as well as things you should not do. Joe and Mark have built, bought, and sold businesses and have helped countless deals come to light, so you can trust that they learned all of this from hands-on experience! Episode Highlights: Give really good feedback. Review as many listing as possible in detail. Put time into the process. Make it a job. Prepare your financials. Get out on the conference circuit. Make a checklist of wants. Act quickly. Be likable to the buyer and the broker. Tell us what else are you doing. Be willing to overpay for a great business. Transcription: Mark: As you know we recently put out a survey for our buyers. And by the time this airs we're already going to have closed on that survey … that poll and we should have some really good conclusions. Nobody at Quiet Light other than myself knows the results of the polls yet. And I've been maniacally hitting refresh seeing what people are saying both the good and the bad and sometimes the ugly of what's being said. But I'll share one thing with you, Joe, right now that has come through that we've heard from a number of buyers and that is wanting to know how to get the inside track on deals. Basically feeling like there is this completely competitive disadvantage if they're a first time buyer. And there's some truth to this right? I mean if I've got three buyers looking at one of my deals and I have one that we've done four deals with already I'm probably going to prefer that buyer just because I already know them. They're a known quantity. We're going to be able to go through due diligence with them. We know what to expect. We know that they're going to not get cold feet at the 11th hour and so it's a problem for new buyers. How do you break into this industry? How do you break into your first acquisition? How do you get the best deals when you're competing against some guys that maybe have done three or four deals with us already? So this episode is containing no guests. We don't have any guests. It's just Joe and me talking about how to get the inside track to deals. And Joe I gave you an exercise at what … like 7 o'clock this morning I texted you and I told you to write some things down. Joe: You did. But first I want to say that to those listening that are first time buyers I've been at this for seven years, Mark's been at it for more than a decade, and I can only think of one buyer that has bought three listings from us. Maybe two actually if I think Shakil and 101. So there's only a handful of people like that that have bought more than three and then maybe a few more that have bought more than two. So I think the competitive advantage is in preparation and instilling confidence. We've had new buyers that beat repeat buyers. So I don't want anyone listening to feel like they're second in line, there's no way to break in. And that's the purpose of this podcast correct? So yes you gave me a task this morning. Thank you. I did not sleep last night and I know I'm doing the podcast and then you send me a text that says “Come up with a list of five things buyers can do to get the inside track on our listings.” Thank you for that. Mark: You're welcome and I came up with a list a little late like 10 minutes ago of five things as well. And I had to think about it because five was just kind of an arbitrary number right? If we want to get really minute we could probably come up with 12. If we want to talk about the big points it's probably three or four. But I think that what you said is true. I hope people that are listening to this, especially first time buyers that maybe have been looking a while and feel like they don't have inside access to deals will end this episode knowing that there is more myth to that than reality. And you can be an established buyer by following some basic principles. We'll go over some of those today. So I think the reason I sent you that text Joe I thought it'd be kind of fun to compare lists to see if you and I would agree on what these five things are. And honestly, I made my list a little bit with the knowledge of what I thought you would be putting on your list. So I purposely tried to avoid things and also get a little bit more creative. Joe: I did the same. Oh my God, we're a match made in heaven. Mark: Well no doubt. Now we're not going to be hitting any of the key points because we're going to be avoiding the obvious. So if we missed the key points we'll include them at the end here. But I don't know how you want to go about this, do you want me to just go with my first and then you talk about your first? Joe: Yeah. Mark: All right the first is really simple. It's super simple. Give really good feedback. Like just give us some feedback on what you like and didn't like about a listing. It's really easy … if I'm talking to a buyer and you look at one of my listings and you don't like it, it doesn't fit, that's totally fine. Let me know. But in addition to letting me know maybe give me a call and say “Hey I really appreciate you showing this” now you don't have to say that but you can say “I took a look at it it's not a good fit. I was kind of looking for something more along these lines”. The more conversations you have like that with someone like myself or Joe our anybody at Quiet Light Brokerage, the more that sticks out in our minds. Not only does it A. give us really good feedback on our listing which we can use to help get that listing sold but it also helps establish a relationship between us. And when we're bringing a business to market oftentimes we think about well who's a good fit? Who are some people that I know? And obviously, we can go into our database and start to do some matching. But if there's somebody that we know and we know they're a good fit yeah they're going to get … we're going to think of them, they're going to become like top of mind. We actually had this recently with a discussion we had internally at Quiet Light. Often when somebody is taking on a new client and they want some feedback on maybe the valuation or their approach or any strategy we'll have an internal discussion about it. We have just a generic email address and we all talk about it. And one of the brokers, Bryan was talking about a client that he was kind of worried about whether or not he'd able to find a good match for it and he wanted some feedback. And what immediately came to mind was one of our buyers Matt and we said maybe you should talk to Matt and see what he thinks about it and you know this will give him a chance to have an advance look at the listing. And sure enough, Bryan came back and said I already talked to him. And you know why two of us thought of him? Because we talk to him on a regular basis and he reaches out to us and we consider him a friend of the company. So that's my first item, give good feedback. Don't just say not interested. You can say thank you, you don't have to say thank you. I had somebody say that recently and said “thanks not for us”. All right that's nice but that doesn't really help me that much. Tell me why. Explain to me why so that I can at least have that in my mind. Joe: And that's the building of the relationship. Whenever I get feedback … I ask for it every time, all of us do saying if it's not for you, let us know your thoughts on the listing. And the professional buyers … meaning they're just professional people, thoughtful people they send us that kind of email. And my response to them is “Understood. Thank you. We will find the right one for you eventually”. If I've written that 500 times, I've written it a million times. I'm not sure if that math makes sense but I write it all the time. And I mean it because I know that it is an arduous search trying to find the right listing and these people are trying really hard to find it, they're reviewing the listings and it's a long, long process. So that goes to my first list of things to do here and these are in no particular sequence. But the first thing I wrote down and I've said this at least a thousand times over the last few years, review as many listings as possible in detail. And I wrote in detail in capital letters; IN DETAIL that's the most important thing. The more listings that you look at … not just the teaser that's on our website or a competitor's website; you can't really learn anything from that other than well that seems interesting but you don't really know what it is. You dive in, you look at it, and you learn what it is that you like about these listings and what you don't like about these listings. You learn what excites you about it and what scares you about it. And you begin to develop a sense for the right fit when it comes along. And that's really important because when that right fit does come along you're going to want to be able to act quickly and you've already looked at 300 listings. So you need to look at them in detail, digest the financials, look at the history of the business, look at all the products and the SKUs that are offered, and everything that we've prepared in our packages and really digest it and make your decision. And you're going to look at a lot of them. It's not an easy process. It's not a quick process. It takes a long time. One of the things that I love when I'm talking to … I'll say a new buyer, someone that I haven't spoken to before and they tell me they've been looking for a year. To me, that's great because they've gone through a lot of this and they've worked really hard to find that right listing. When someone says they've been looking for a couple of weeks or a month to me I know that they've got a longer road ahead of them and this is one of the things that I advise more often than anything else. Mark: It actually fits in really well with the next point that I had in my list and a point on there will just kind of piggyback on what you said are two just kind of general philosophies when you're talking about this process. Obviously, what you're talking about Joe it takes a lot of time and everything else I think to complement the first point I had and your point here would be two things. One, when you're looking for a business and you want to get that inside track be intentional about what you're doing. Intentionality right? So it's taking that time like you said to actually digest what you're looking at and reviewing it. I can't tell you how many times I deal with buyers or I talk to buyers who summarily dismiss a listing based on something which is frankly not an accurate assessment. But because they've already made that conclusion and despite the best efforts to be able to explain otherwise that conclusion becomes gospel truth to them and this is … they're missing out on some really good opportunities because of that. Or maybe they're not missing out, maybe they would say no otherwise but they will say no for more appropriate reasons than what they're saying no to. So that would be the first thing, intentionality. The second thing is … to piggyback on what I was in before is this is a relationship based business right? At the end of the day finding that really good business for sale is going to require some level of relationship and you need to find that blend. I think as internet entrepreneurs we love our processes. We love automation. We love efficiency. I mean that's the hallmark of what makes internet businesses so great. But you have to find that blend between slowing down and taking the time being intentional and having a process because there are a lot of listings out there that you can get a lot of deal flow coming your way. I know RJ over at 101 talks about how many deals they have looked and the numbers stay green. I mean it's well in the hundreds so you do have to have a process. But processes should not take away that intentional spending of time. And that leads into the point- Joe: Let me jump in I just want to say something in terms of the relationship Mark and being intentional. We're talking about the five things to do in between each of those five there are a number of things that you should not do. And one of them is in that relationship building don't send an email that says “I think you've overpriced this business it's only worth a 2x multiple, it's not for me”. Because the 10 year old in me wants to send an email back to them saying “thanks for your feedback it's actually currently under LOI at this time at full price”. And I've been in that situation a dozen times where I get a semi rude email on a listing that … it's been out for a week or two and some folks have looked at it we've had some conference calls and somebody sends me an email that says essentially “Joe you're a fool, you've overpriced this business. It's not worth merely what you and your client is saying it's worth.” and then that very same day where just prior to that email it's under contract at full price. That little boy in me wants to reply to that person and say “thanks for your feedback it's actually under offer at full price”. I say “thanks for your feedback we'll find the right one for you eventually” because I'm not 10 anymore but I want to. And so it is the relationship thing … again in between each of these five things to do, there's probably a half a dozen things not to do and that's really one of them. Mark: I admire your restraint. You know an appropriate response there … because look when it comes to valuations I tend to get very philosophical on this sort of stuff mainly because I've been around for 11 years and I've seen multiples that have went up way higher and I've seen a market where people weren't willing to pay more than 2.5, 2.6x on anything at all. Rather than saying you overpriced this business you can just simply say the price is too rich for me it's not a good fit at the price that it's at. That's fair. Well, you've got a price that makes sense for you. We get it. Don't tell us though that it's overpriced for the market. We listen to what every individual buyer is saying and if every … if all the individual buyers say not for me then yeah you're right. So I think that's a good point to have. All right so my second point, you're talking about going in detail. We're talking about making sure that you're talking to the broker and giving us some information about who you are, what you're looking for, why you like that, why you didn't like this. You might be hearing all of this and thinking that sounds like a ton of work. Yes, it is so that's my second point; make it a job. If your goal … when we did the survey by the way this … I'll give you another insight when we did the survey I'll tell everyone listening who took the survey a little secret. We actually had two surveys. One was just open ended questions the other one was very quantifiable information. Those that filled out the ones … the survey with very quantifiable information we asked how many businesses have you bought and the vast majority of our buyers have not bought their first business and are seeking their first acquisition within the first year. Okay, if your goal is to find a business within the next 12 months make that your job. This is what you get up in the morning, this is what you think about when you go to bed at night; how are you going to go about finding that business? Deal flow is difficult. When we put out a listing … I put out a listing recently that was 8 figures and we had almost a hundred inquiries within a couple of days. Okay, that's a substantial amount of inquiries on a single listing and that's not even close to what we get on something that's going to be in a more accessible price range. It's a competitive field so you have to make this your job. You have to dedicate the time to it. Read up on it. Subscribe to the podcast if this is the first one you're listening to it subscribe to the podcast because we're going to tell you how to do these things better and hopefully give you some insights. But read up on these materials, learn just like you do with any other thing and apply yourself to this in a full time way. Set up those processes to be able to filter through all of the noise and to be able to really take a look at the information in depth. So that's my second point; make it a job. Joe: And along those lines, my second point is prepare your financial approach. You can't get to the end point if you don't know what it is. If you're a cash buyer it's a little bit easier to understand what you're capable of stroking a check for but you also have to figure out okay if I'm buying an ecommerce business I have to buy that inventory too right? Okay is there a seller no possibility maybe on much, much larger listings but I'm over listening certainly not for the most part but that goes back to well … to whatever other points coming up. You need to prepare your financial approach if you're … if you have a limited amount of cash and you're going to do an SBA loan I love to hear from folks that are doing that that they have been pre-qualified for an SBA loan up to X dollars. And then they tell me the name of the lender. If it's somebody I don't know I'll reach out to them so we can build a relationship. If it's somebody I do know it's great, fantastic. I feel good about that because it's people in the network that we know and that we trust and that we know work hard to get deals done for buyers and sellers. If you're going to do get something under LOI now where somebody is going to be rolling over their 401k … I think it's called the ROBS. Mark's written an article on it “Quiet Light Brokerage and ROBS” and you'll find that article in Google. But that's another way to source funds to buy a business but it also … you need to understand the timelines there and how long it takes to do that. Mark, can you do a ROB without having the asset chosen that you'll purchase yet? Do you recall; yes or no? Mark: I don't recall, no. It's been a few years since I wrote that article. Joe: If you can … well read the article everyone if you can, which I think you can and you know you going to buy a business; do it, roll it over. Are you going to incur some cost up front that you're … if you're committing to buying an online business and making it a job like Mark says then you'll be prepared to buy that business because going back to my point number one you got to look as many listings as possible in great detail so that you're going to know the right listing when it comes along. And then you're going to want to be able to act fast because other people are too. It's not like you're making a quick decision here because you've been doing this for six to 12 months and looked at a hundred listings and you're prepared to act fast and you've got your financial ducks in a row. Because I can assure you if it's a great listing other buyers are looking at it and they've done this; they've prepared. It doesn't matter if it's all cash. It doesn't matter if you're rolling something over into a ROB and it doesn't matter if you're doing an SBA loan as long as you're prepared and instilling confidence in the broker and the seller of the business that you're capable of going from letter of intent all the way through to closing that's the most important thing be prepared. Mark: And to answer a question no you do not need to have the asset chosen before you convert to a ROBS. But take a look at the article; consult an expert on it because it's definitely a trickier thing to do. It's not something to do on your own I should say. You definitely want to have a consultant. All right, cool. All right I'm going to diverge from some of the traditional advice with my third point that I'm bringing out there. And it's not too crazy and it's pretty simple and that's get out on the conference circuit. More importantly get out on the conference circuit where brokers are going to be and you can meet them in person. And this comes back to this basic principle that this is a relationship based business. If I see you in person, if I have dinner with you you're going to be far more memorable than somebody who sends me an email once every two weeks saying “Hey do you have anything in this sector with this sort of EBIDTA?” you know what? I get a lot of those emails and I don't have a face to go with that email. It's very impersonal. If I see you at a conference and we spend a little bit of time together I get to know what you're doing. I get to know what your background is. That's way more memorable and honestly, the conference circuit is a great place to just meet all sorts of different connections that can help you. I know Stephen Spear who we've talked about from an SBA lending standpoint he's gone to a lot of these conferences. And think about this you're now dealing with people that you've met in person. Maybe an attorney, Shawn Hussein who shows up at a lot of the conferences, Stephen Spear who might end up helping you get an SBA loan. And then any of us here at Quiet Light Brokerage, you've seen all of us, you've met all of us, we've all talked, we've all joked, we've all had drinks together and everything else. It just helps pop of the mind and get to know everybody a little bit more closely. So that's just a very simple way to get some of that inside track. Joe: Let me add to that. For those folks that are spending a full time job on top of a full time job and pinching pennies to be able to buy this business, if you cannot do what Mark is suggesting which is a very very wise suggestion because there's nothing like human contact; emails doesn't work as well. This podcast is a great example. Mark had written amazing content for 10 years and then we started the podcast and we've been at it for just over a year now and people call us and they say “I feel like I know you already, I just listened before to your podcast”. We never got that kind of call when someone said “I feel like I know you already, I just read four of your articles”; very different. So if you cannot go to the conferences and get that face to face contact, Scott Voelker from The Amazing Seller gave me a great great tip about a year ago. We were talking and he said he was trying to break through to an [inaudible 00:20:25.5]. He read the guy's book, he loved it and wanted to have him … I forgot if he wanted to have him on the podcast or just have a conversation with him and straight up email wasn't working and he didn't have a friend to introduce him. So Scott turned the camera on himself clicked record and said “Hey so and so this is Scott from the Amazing Seller I just want to tell you I've read your book. I loved it and it's fantastic. I'd love to chat with you for a few minutes because I've got some things that maybe we can help you with and I've got a very large audience yada, yada, yada” 30 second video inside of an email, hit send, he had a response within about 30 minutes. If you can't go to the conferences, that's a free option. If you're uncomfortable in front of a camera, that's okay. It puts a face to it. It's one of the things that we've started doing with our listings. As many of you know that are looking at our listings we now … for the most part on most of the listings we do a 15 to 20 minute recorded interview with video and audio of the client … our client, the person that's selling the business. We don't do that to convey a lot of detailed information. We do that so that you can get a feel for who they are. If you feel like they're a good person. If you feel like they're likable. If you feel like you could trust them, feel, feel, feel. If you can't get to the conferences that little video I think … shooting email to one of us or all of us with something like that. But I tell you what don't do a template email … a template video because that's the … again the thing not to do, I want to throw it in here between, don't send a template email to every broker in the industry because we'll know it's a template. And generally, those are unpersonal … impersonal and we don't pay much attention to them. Okay, why don't I go ahead and I want to jump to a different … it's my third one I guess right not my fourth one? Third one, create a checklist of your wants. Now, this isn't necessarily a thing that you could do to get the inside track to our listings because it's all of the other things that we're talking about. But for you, it will be conveyed to us that you are preparing, that you are really diligent about your approach. I was at eCommerce Fuel a few years ago and someone that we sold a business to got up on stage and talked about his processes and his experience. And he put a checklist up on the screen and it had a checklist of all of the things that he wanted to buy in a business; all of the features the business must have. Whether it's re-locatable, whether it's got virtual assistants, whether it stores its own inventory, whether it's a software as a service business, etcetera. And then on the right hand side, he had a checklist of the business that he bought from Quiet Light and all of the boxes down beside it. And not all of them were checked off and he still bought the business. So if you've got this list and Kevin Petersen was on the podcast Mark a while back and he's got a portfolio of SaaS businesses and this is what he does. It is a checklist of things that they know what they want and then they always, always, always, always use that checklist on a listing that they were viewing and see how many of the boxes and checking. They've developed a process to score it. They've made this a job like you talked about. But doing that gets you away from the emotional approach and more to sticking with the logical approach. Because this as a buyer you're going to put your life savings on the line it can get emotional. You can get frustrated, you can know that there is a deadline … a horizon to your job, to the bonus that you've taken and it's going to run out and you're going to feel pressure to buy a business. You want to avoid the emotional decision of buying a business and buy it with logic and reason and a checklist I think is a great way to go. Mark: Did you know Joe that I tried to start a podcast before we actually started this one? Joe: No, I didn't know that. Mark: Yeah I actually did like two episodes and I had four recorded and as anyone who's trying to start a podcast knows getting started is often the most difficult thing. Because you get the first few done and you're kind of excited about it and then you realize it's difficult to keep the momentum up. It's not easier when you have somebody else on the podcast, a co-host who records 70% of the episodes like you do Joe. I did and I think the second episode … I don't know but you can still find this this somewhere back in the industrial archives of QuietLightBrokerage.com. There was a blog post and a podcast on do you have an acquisition checklist. It was the exact same thing, right? How do you process these deals quickly and how do you keep it objective. And it was … I have a checklist that you're looking for and modify that checklist and understand that it needs to be this balance between being too broad and too narrow. And that you're not necessarily going to check off all the items in the box on the checklist but are you hitting the major points enough to warrant that deep dive, that deep investigation that somebody makes. So that's one of the good tips as well. I see a thing developing in these as well right? An overarching thing that you want to have this blend of having processes in place but also somewhat of an analog approach … a non-digital approach to this as well. So Joe is talking about … you're talking about recording a video of yourself, just a personalized introduction so that we can see your face; that's very personal in human relationship and somewhat analog in that sense or going to a conference and meeting there some person or calling and having a conversation but also making sure that you have a process and you know what you're looking for as well. And I'm going to pirate I think my last point … I'm going to flip them around and that is when you see something that you like act quickly. And I'm going to put a couple of sub points on this. One, speed … when you're in this space and you're trying to buy a business and you're talking to us and maybe you set up a call and all of a sudden that business is snapped up, it goes under LOI with somebody else, you might think that person must have had an advance notice or they have some sort of an inside track. Speed is really the product of solid preparation. It's executed by people who know what they want and are putting in the time to have the processes in place to be able to evaluate these deals quickly and get back to us in a timely manner. I've dealt with buyers who are looking at an opportunity or they inquire on an opportunity, I do my follow ups with everyone that inquires and then I hear back two weeks later “Oh I haven't had a chance to look at the listing yet”. Okay, well you know what … very good chance that you're not going to get this. It's just the nature of it is that there's a lot of people looking at it and those that look at it within the first 24 hours and get back to us are typically going to be ahead of “the inside track”. So the basic lesson here is pretty simple, learn to act quickly. That doesn't mean that you have to make rash decisions. It just means that when you receive the information if you like what you see send out an email and get on the calendar right away for that conference call. The buyers who are first in line often do get some level of preference when it comes to that offer time and there's nothing [inaudible 00:27:28.1] to doing that. So act quickly is my fifth point now I'll do my fourth point last. Joe: And there you go now on Mark's point he said review it and get in line to be on a conference call with a buyer. I don't allow conference calls and we'll do most of the brokers at Quiet Light allow conference calls between a buyer and seller unless or until I have spoken to the buyer. So this goes back to reaching out and connecting with us and getting that out of the way. If we've had a conversation we're not going to have to take an extra 15 minutes to schedule that before scheduling a call with the seller of the business. Okay, I actually have a few more points I'm going to blend two into one. One is be likeable and the other is be likable and squeaky, all right? We're repeating things a little bit here but that's very important. It's because we are trying to hone in on these because they're critical and they make a huge difference. So the be likable first one is actually be likable to the seller of the business. When you get to the point of being on a conference call with the seller of the business your objective is to ask the same questions we asked. See if they answered in the same way. Get to know them a little bit. Get a feel for them. Be on the video. Be on the client interview. Determine whether or not you can trust them and move on with an offer of the business. That's the upper level objective of the call. The hidden thing, the most important thing I think is to make sure that when the call is over that seller doesn't want that call to end or that they hang up that call and think god man I really like Mark I hope he's the buyer of my business. Because if it's a great business as Mark said you've got to act fast. There are going to be lots of people that are really prepared to buy a great business and it's going to move … what feels like fast? Fast maybe three or four days all right, you get 24 hours to review the package, you ask for a conference call, you have a conference call and 24 hours later you make an offer or shortly thereafter you make an offer. We don't let things go under contract one hour after they've been listed simply because there's no way for you the buyer to fully review the package. There's no way for you to get on a conference call with the seller all within one hour. It just doesn't happen. When someone presents an offer this is one of those don'ts in between the lines don't make an offer without having gone through the process of a call with the seller within an hour. Because we know you're just trying to tie the listing up under a lot of intent and then make a decision. We want you to make a decision about a business go under letter of intent and go all the way through the closing. Okay, so be likable. Make sure as a buyer that your seller likes you on that conference call. And then the be likable and squeaky is be likable to the brokers. We're human right? I didn't sleep very well last night. I had a bad day. When you call me and you're hard on me I'm going to remember that the next time you want to buy a business. I have a particular buyer that comes to mind right now where he did just that what I said a few minutes ago. He said “I love it I want to go ahead and put in an offer.” and I said great well let's have a … he and I have already spoken before. He'd given his LinkedIn profile. He was preparing. I said “Great. Well, let's schedule a call with the seller first. When are you available?” total silence 24 or 36 hours … total silence and then the listening goes under contract three or four days later because there were multiple buyers because it was a great listing. And he sends me an email on the next listing that launches and says “I really like this one Joe can we get on a call with the seller of the business?” I said “Yes we can. What happened last time? You're ready to make an offer and then you disappeared on me.” and he emailed me back and said “Well my wife had decided that it wasn't really the business for us. There were some things that she didn't like.” to me that that's fine, that's okay. You got to do your homework first before you say I want to go under contract but it also tells me his intention was to tie it up under a lot of intent and then make a decision to buy it. And that's a big no-no because this is a very emotional process for both the buyer and the seller. So be likable to broker and respect their trusts … our time, respect our time and build that positive relationship. Okay, so that's my fourth I think. Be likable and be likable and squeaky. Mark: So yeah … and I'll just say as far as being likable to the broker, we're not asking you to sit there and give us all sorts of praise and compliments. Unless you're talking to Jason in which case that'll probably get you somewhere but when it comes to the … it's just the basic manners, right? Joe: [inaudible 00:32:02.5] by the way Jason doesn't listen to the podcast. We need to stop making fun of Jason because he doesn't even listen to it. Mark: Well, who can we make fun of at Quiet Light? Joe: Oh, let's make fun of you. Mark: Well, I'm always game but I'd say we pick on the new guy and the best-selling author Walker. Joe: You know what … yes, Walker. Right and we're not making fun of him right now I want to pay him a compliment. Before Walker came on as a broker I had a listing and we had three conference calls with three separate buyers and one of them stood out. He didn't end up buying the business but he stood out to me and I'm going man oh man that guy is awesome. I hope I can find him a business. It turned out to be Walker. And so when you like two months later had a great listing and your seller said “Look I really don't want a million calls is there anybody that comes to mind that would be a great broker, a great fit for this business, a great buyer, a great fit for this business?” Walker came to mind and I introduced you and guess who bought the business? Walker did folks. And now he's, of course, an advisor broker at Quiet Light because he's fantastic. But it's that be likable [inaudible 00:33:06.7]. Mark: Here where I was about to pick on him and just kind of tease him but I'm going to pile on with the compliments because if you guys are listening to the podcast you've heard me say in the past the story where I had a buyer after his offer was accepted told my client at the end of the … you know hey we just got under offer let's plan due diligence, took the time just to say “thank you for agreeing to sell me your business”. Well, that was Walker and the impact that I had on that deal was so significant. I mean it was again such a simple little thing that you can do and just … it wasn't disingenuous it was a genuine hey look I get it it's your asset. It's what you built and you're agreeing to sell it to me. I really appreciate that. Take the time. Be intentional. We've said that before … be intentional and think about all sides of the transaction here. Everybody hopefully benefits from this transaction so we shouldn't be sitting there and thinking man I'm giving you a lot of money you should be grateful. You should also be thinking I'm also getting a great opportunity by buying this business and being respectful of that … of the person selling their business. For the person selling their businesses especially if it's their first time, this is probably the biggest revenue event they're going to have in their lives at least to date and so it's a very personal thing for a lot of people selling their business. Take that time be respectful. I think that helps when you're in a competitive situation and you have multiple buyers. Like you said Joe we have people get off the phone and say “I really hope I get to sell my business to this person” right? Now everything else needs to line up, the offer has to be there but you can definitely help your case with that. All right last point I have is … I'll just go over it quickly because I think we've covered it pretty well but tell us what you're doing. What other businesses are you part of? What are you really good at? Are you really good at CRO? Are you really good at SEO? Are you really good at SaaS businesses? Are you really interested in getting into something different? Are you really interested in certain niches? Don't just send us a blank email on can we get these all the time and if you're listening to this and thinking these guys just want us to cater everything that we're doing to their way. That's not the case. Look work whatever way you want to work but understand we get a lot of noise that comes in through our inboxes. The whole point of this podcast episode is how do you stand out from the noise? How do you distinguish yourself from other buyers? Well here's what other buyers are doing they send us a template email telling us what they want. That's what everybody else is doing. We do look at those. We do categorize those. We have a spreadsheet that we share internally with that data but it's a spreadsheet with a hundred other names on it and growing every single day. If you want to stand out do some things in different. And one of those things is when you do talk to us or have an opportunity to have a conversation with us tell us what you're doing and don't just talk to us about what you're doing in the monologue. Let's talk about your business a little bit. Let's get into it a little bit. Share some details with us. Not because we necessarily want to know but look we're entrepreneurs we like to talk about this stuff anyways. It's always fun. I was talking to a guy the other day who is not a client, probably won't be a client of ours but a fellow entrepreneur and we just spent probably 45 minutes talking about his business. It was a fascinating conversation. I gained some things from it hopefully he gained some insight from it. And you know what that's now in my mind and if he ever does come to the point of buying or if he ever does come to the point of selling one of his businesses that's something that's always going to stick out in my mind. So how do you cut yourself out? How do you stand above the rest of the noise? Again and have a conversation and let's get into some of the things that you're doing because it's a lot easier for you to be top of mind if I know that you're like a Shakil buying just a gazillion businesses or if you're looking for that first time acquisition. I can think of a buyer right now, I've met them for coffee in person here in the Twin Cities. A husband and wife team I know that they've been looking for a long long time and I have a general sense for what they want. And I'll tell you what because I had coffee with them, because they shared a couple of opportunities that they're looking at with me I know what they're looking for pretty well and hey I'd love to find something for them. So if you're listening to this know I'm still looking for something for you and it's still on my mind. So that's my fifth point, let us know what you're doing. Tell us a little bit. Let's get into the details not just the high level details. Joe: Yeah, back to the human part. When you have coffee with them you talk to them as entrepreneur … as a broker in this industry, you get excited. I want to find them that business. I want to see them succeed. I want them to be another Quiet Light success story and five years from now come back to us and sell the business worth five times the value. Or hear that they're traveling the world while running the business and just changing their lives completely because there's something that occurred over a cup of coffee. So I think that's fantastic. All right my last and final point may sound a bit crazy but if you listen to our podcasts and you've heard Ben Carpel on the podcast … Carpel we always pronounce your name wrong Ben I'm sorry. You're awesome though we love you. If you have listened to Ben and if you have listened to one that aired in early December of '18 RJ you would have heard two pretty, sophisticated, intelligent, likable, passionate buyers say the same thing and that is be willing to overpay for a great business period. There are lots of great businesses that come out and when they do they get sold quickly [inaudible 00:38:37.3]. Mark: Hold on Joe are you just saying this because you're a broker and you get paid on commission for the deals that you're doing? Joe: No. They said it not me. I'm quoting them. And it's true I mean … look it's true we had a listing that I put up in August right? We had 10 offers on it. It was squeaky clean. It had the four pillars. It had age, growth, transferability, documentation. Everything was perfect in it. It was just fantastic. I knew it when I looked at it. We priced it right to achieve the buyers and the sellers goals. We didn't over price it because it was perfectly priced at right still and we had 10 offers. And one … actually, several buyers were willing to overpay for it. One buyer got it because of all of the things we've talked about. He was really likable. He was going to be easy to work with in due diligence. He was going to be easy in transition and training and he paid a little bit of extra. And he was okay with that because this is a great asset. We've got an email from him since then about the crazy growth that they've had in the fourth quarter. And my thought is oh I should share this with seller and then my thought is no that might put him in a little bit of a bad mood. But he achieved his goals. He wanted to get out at a certain time in a certain price and we actually overachieved that. So if two people like RJ and Ben are saying it I think there's some validity to it. Because if it's a great asset, if it's a great business and others only were willing to pay a certain amount it's great for you. It's not going to be great for everyone; that's the thing. Be willing to overpay for a great asset that's great for you. If you're into hunting and fishing and it's a hunting and fishing ecommerce business that's doing amazing things it's something you're going to be a little bit more passionate about. And in my experience when you've got some passion for something it's going to help you overcome those hurdles and those tough times that will come to you as an entrepreneur. So if it's a little bit … if you pay a little bit more for it I think you're going to get that return investment quicker than if you buy a complete fixer upper that's going to take some time. Mark: Yeah so I'm going to … based on that go back to what you said earlier about people who email you and say “you're way overpriced like there's just no way that this is priced right. It's overpriced by a ton”. Valuations are relative. That is just the reality of it. In that survey that we put out we had people give us feedback that said I love you guys but I think that your listings recently are getting overpriced. And then I had other feedback come back that said we love you guys but the perception is that you kind of underprice your properties. So we have these two conflicting things where we have some people saying hey you're overpriced and other people saying no you're underpriced. Look when it comes down to it the price of these assets varies based on the economy at the time but also probably, more importantly, they're based on the individual ROI that you can get. And what you can get from a particular business is going to be different from what somebody else can get from a business based on your specific skill sets. And so if you find something that's a good match it comes down to return on investment. What can you do with this business? If you can make that thing work be willing to pay more than what the average person in the marketplace is willing to pay. You're still going to get a good deal. But with the competitive nature of thinking am I going to overpay for this you know crush your ability to get a deal done because somebody else will pay a little bit more. When we price a business one of the big mistakes I think happens in our industry is that people price a business for the marketplace average. That's a mistake as a broker. And for those that are on the buying side here, I'm sorry about this next point but it's just the case, we work for the seller. I'm not looking for the marketplace of buyers. I'm looking for a buyer within the marketplace which means I want to aim towards the top end of that average range or the marketplace range so that I can find that buyer. Be that buyer at the top of the range for the business that matches for you. Otherwise, you're going to be competing against the full marketplace of buyers. I don't know if that makes any sense or not but again the idea of finding that opportunity for you and standing out and making sure that when you find it move on it. Joe: Absolutely I'll just wrap up my side of it with the fact that we're all entrepreneurs as Mark said. And we love what we do. It's crazy but a lot of what we're doing is simply helping people. We're giving up our time and we're getting something in return for it. We are making a living but we love it and it's exciting to work with great buyers, great sellers who are achieving their financial and personal goals. It's a lot of fun and we want to help each and every one that comes through our email or over the phone or text or whatever it might be. Help you achieve your goals whether you're a buyer or a seller. And all of these things that we've talked about we've talked about it through direct experience. We built and bought and sold our own online businesses and now we get to see what thousands of people do both on the buy and sell side. And so it does come from experience. It comes from the school of hard knocks more than anything else. We've learned a lot of things that people shouldn't do and a lot more things that people do right that stand out in these five things that we've each talked about or all these things. Mark: Right. So, Joe, you know what I'm going to do right now? Joe: I have no idea. Mark: I'm going to end this podcast episode because I have an appointment with somebody who wants to buy a business and wants to spend some time talking on the phone with me. Good for this guy. He's doing the right thing. Guys if you're listening to this and you have ideas for an episode like this where you have a question … again that survey [inaudible 00:44:06.9] some great feedback from everybody. If you took it thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'm serious- [crosstalk 00:44:12.5]. Mark: Answer a question that we're trying to tackle in your quest for your first acquisition or your tenth acquisition. Yeah, send us an email … send me an email at mark@quietlightbrokerage or joe@quietlightbrokerage.com. We'll either find an expert to bring on the show to talk about it or Joe and I will jump on it on a show like this. And we'll cover the topic as best as we can. Joe: Perfect. Go and hunt that buyer. Mark: All right, sounds good.     Links and Resources: https://www.quietlightbrokerage.com/  

This week we have Joe Sweeney, good friend of myself and the show, he's going to join us to talk about care, all important but short word, caring about people, caring about each other. I guess another word. Love. So Joe, welcome to the show!

Merry and Happy Holidays to everyone listening! We thought we would take a chance on this mini-episode to say thanks to everyone who has supported Quiet Light over the past 11 years – especially over the past year with this podcast. We're also taking this opportunity to go through a year in review and look ahead to 2019. It is truly our pleasure to do what we do and provide you the expertise you need to buy or sell your business. We have plenty more in store in the upcoming year! Episode Highlights: Highlights from the past year. Looking ahead to 2019 with exciting guests queued up. 2018 was a record year for Quiet Light Thanks to all our brokers and veterans at Quiet Light. Quiet Light's referral program. Hear about surprise guest coming up. Success stories are also coming up on the podcast. Transcription: Mark: Merry Christmas Joe. Joe: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you Mark. Mark: Happy Holidays, thank you for being so politically sensitive. I really appreciate it. To everyone listening, Happy Holidays … Happy New Year. This is Christmas Day when this is being released so if you're listening to this turn it off, it's Christmas. Actually, listen for about 10 minutes and then you're going to turn it off. We're not going to do a regular podcast episode today because it is Christmas and we want you to be able to spend time with your families and friends. And if you don't celebrate Christmas be able to take a day off while everybody else does as well. We thought we would take advantage of this episode today just to give a quick thanks to everybody that has supported Quiet Light Brokerage over the past 11 years but especially over the past year that I've been supporting this podcast and do a mini year review. So Joe how has your year been? Joe: It's been fantastic. Yeah, I want to say thank you to everyone as well. Thank you to the folks listening to the podcast. This is our first full year right … 2018 we started late in '17. The feedback that you're giving us is fantastic and we feel like the guests that we've had on are really helping which is the most important thing. One of the things that I want to do for 2019 and beyond is do some of those sort of under the hood calls like Mike and Dave do and what the Ecom Crew would do for people that are looking for valuations so we can dissect your businesses in recorded calls. Keeping it confidential, not naming the business but having people see what it's like to go through a valuation because the most important thing I think is to understand what the process is like to someday sell your business. But it's been a great year. Look we've brought Walker Deibel on … Walker and his folks and we like to joke about this recently about Jason's chops about his Bathroom Millionaire book but Walker is truly a bestselling author. He wrote Buy then Build that launched in the fall; a fantastic guy, honest, hardworking, a great addition to the Quiet Light team and then Brad Wayland as well. Brad is unbelievable in terms of what he's accomplishing in terms of the volume of transactions and people that he's helping. These two are going to essentially replace me very quickly in terms of the volume of work that I've done over the years. But then the rest of the team is all coming together and we're just still that. You and I have swapped … talked about boutique brokerage firm. We are in a sense but it's been a great year where we've grown tremendously. Mark: Yeah we don't publish our numbers. I know this is something that some businesses choose to do to publish their numbers publicly. I've always opted not to. No particular reason other than I just haven't seen the specific advantage compared to some of the drawbacks. But I will say this 2018 was by far a record year for Quiet Light Brokerage. We more than doubled in growth this year in terms of the volume of deals that have been done both in total deal value and also in the revenue that Quiet Light Brokerage has brought on board. A lot of this is due to the new brokers that we brought on board over the past few years. It's also due to some of the vets that we have on the team now as well such as Amanda and Jason. Joe and I were just talking before this podcast about how nice it is to have those two on board who have been doing such a phenomenal job. For such a long time they seem to understand this industry just instinctively at this point where they know how just to find a good deal. And that's kind of what being boutique is in a way right? Being able to be selective and knowing what you're taking on board. And I'd be remiss not to also thank Bryan. Not only is he bringing good deal flow and he does a great job for his clients but he also has been helping Quiet Light here on the backend with some projects to help us get better organized, create better business summaries, in continuous to find ways that we can improve our fishing seas. You know when I started Quiet Light Brokerage … about six months after I started Quiet Light Brokerage I went out and I hired five sales people. And I was just looking for people with sales experience because I thought well we're selling businesses I need somebody who can sell. And they all flamed out pretty quickly. Some of them had moderate levels of success, some of them flamed out very quickly, and one by one they kind of dropped off. And it wasn't until Jason came on board and literally bugged me to come on board as a broker that I'd literally stumbled upon this model of having entrepreneurs who have all been there done that and have been successful on their own right. And the result has been pretty amazing because Quiet Light Brokerage is this group of entrepreneurs where I get feedback all the time. Sometimes I really want to tell everyone to shut up but at the end of the day, I get really awesome feedback about what we can do better at Quiet Light. Joe: That feedback is from the brokers, not the buyers and sellers just for clarification purposes. Mark: Yeah, thank you. Buyers and sellers you can tell me anything and please do tell me whatever you want. It's from the different brokers you know because as entrepreneurs what we do? We always find problems with other people's businesses or we think how we could run it better. But it's pretty phenomenal, it's like a built in board of advisors. Joe: Absolutely. Mark: So yeah and guys like Chuck, he gives us great feedback. And Chuck has been with us for a year and a half then. He's one of the best connected brokers that we've brought on in terms of the industry and the relationships that he has. So you're absolutely right it's an incredible team, a board of advisors. Maybe this podcast is turning into a thank you to our team more than anything else. Well, I was actually going to move on from the team because I do want to say thank you to the team. But I just want to say thank you to our past clients and also our buyers and those out there who have been referring business to us. Honestly the referrals, when somebody comes to me and says “Hey I was talking to so and so and they said I should talk to you” it doesn't even have to be about selling their business, it can just be I have a question about my business. Look that's completely something where it's flattering to hear that we're a referred source. So thank you for thinking of us as a resource. For those of you that are referring potential sellers over to us keep in mind, we actually do have a referral program where you can get paid on that referral. I know most of you … the vast majority of you, you don't do it because of that because most of you don't know it exists because we do a terrible job of actually advertising this. But we've received lots of referrals from people where we've done sent them a referral payment and like woah I didn't know this was coming. Joe: But you do that intentionally. You don't advertise it. We don't put it out there. We don't have it on the website because it's kind of fun to have someone refer a client to us, we close that transaction and then we send them a wire form saying “Can you give us your wire details we're going to send you $23,000?” that's kind of fun. Maybe it's selfish on our part and we should talk more about it on the podcast. Hey, we do referrals folks, we pay referral fees. Mark: We do referrals. Just let us know if you give it. Again we know that's not why you're doing it. We don't want you to refer us just for the referral fee we want you to refer us because you think that we're high quality. So thank you and then also to people that took the survey a few weeks ago, thank you for that as well. That's the thank you's unless you have anybody else, Joe. Joe: You know I just looked at Facebook last night and one of our clients posted something of a photo of about five years ago when he was in an airport and he was stuck in the airport with his four year old son and they couldn't afford the taxi fare to get to where they needed to go. Their flight was canceled and they couldn't afford to go back somewhere so they stayed in the airport for the night to catch the flight the next morning because they couldn't afford it. We sold his business for almost 9 million dollars last summer. And for those folks that are in situations like he was 5 years ago stick with it. I had a conversation with somebody this morning that's throwing their hands up in the air and is about to give up. Stick with it. Have faith. Listen to this podcast and the experts that we bring on, the people that are here to help, our entire team. Have a conversation. Pick up the phone and say I'm not ready to sell but I want to get better where should I go? Who should I talk to? What should I listen to? That's … strangely enough yes we get paid to do what we do but for me to read that story this summer and know that I had an impact on that person's life means more to me almost than the job itself. So thank you for allowing us to help you guys make differences in your life and grow and change and impact whether you're a buyer or a seller because that's what we're doing. I think more than anything else Mark is we are having an impact on people's lives and I get a lot from this. So thank you, everyone. Mark: Absolutely. All right let's look ahead real quick to 2019 first in terms of the podcast, the podcast we have some good episodes cued up. I know I have a few really exciting guests queued up ready to go including our number one ever listened episode … downloaded episode. I have that guest coming back on for a reappearance just like to try and take the top two episodes. We'll also be doing an updated SBA in 2019 episodes soon. But I need to get on the calendar still with whoever we're going to bring on for that episode. And then I have a surprise guest from a pretty big company, founder of a pretty big company and we're going to get him on board here for an episode which I think will be pretty exciting for everybody listening. Good stuff coming up Joe. I know you probably have a stable of episodes coming up as well. Joe: Yeah I've got a few coming on with their success stories either as buyers of businesses that they've bought through us and just to look back in the first six months on under ownership, what it's been like and people that have sold. I want some real actionable items and experiences that they could take away from the podcast. And a little bit more of what you're talking about, big guests that have big names but I really should inform or impact. You and I on a whim we didn't have a guest one week and we decided let's just talk and we ended up talking about the things that can improve or plummet the value of your business and now it's in the top 10 podcasts. We need to do more things like that that are actionable and that's one of the goals for 2019. Mark: All right so moving forward we're getting long on this and I want people to get back to their holidays or if you're listening to this the day after be able to get back to families affairs. Families are still in town. So I'm going to wrap it up and just say once again thank you for everything. We're looking forward to 2019 very very much. Our pipelines are very very full so I expect a good amount of deal flow coming out early 2019. Everything continues to seem to be pretty strong right now. Yeah definitely looking for 2019, thank you for 2018 and always feel free to reach out to Joe or myself or any of the members of the team with any sort of feedback; good; bad; otherwise. Direct all bad feedback to Joe all great feedback to me and I think we will be good to go. Joe: All good feedback about me to me that's fine. Mark: All right very good. Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. Happy New Year. We will see you guys in the next year.   Links and Resources: https://www.quietlightbrokerage.com/ Listen and suscribe on Itunes  

This week was interesting... So Joe and Brandi talk about the Migrant Caravan that arrived at the U.S. Boarder last week and how the U.S. responded. Then they talk about Rob Bell and others saying the Bible is anti-government and whether that's accurate or not. Then they get into Acts 19 and 20 where Joe and Brandi get into a very long discussion about LSD and whether it can open doors to the spiritual world. A real interesting and weird discussion. All this and very little else in this week's episode.    Intro 00:00 Fellowship 19:20 Social Media 31:39 Let's Get Falafeling 32:49 Prayer Requests 1:36:07 Outro Song: "The Parting Glass" by The Pogues   Social Media: Facebook.com/DrinkingAtBibleStudy Twitter.com/JoeDABSPod Twitter.com/BrandiDABSPod Instagram.com/DrinkingAtBibleStudy Patreon.com/DrinkingAtBibleStudy

GUEST BIO: Joe Birch is an Android Engineer, working as part of the Android team at Buffer.  He is passionate about coding and loves creating robust, polished and exciting projects for mobile, the web, TV, wearables and whatever the latest thing is.  Joe is also a keen writer and public speaker, enabling him to share his learnings and experiences with others. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Joe Birch. Currently, he is working as a Senior Android Engineer at Buffer. He also spends a lot of time at Caster.IO sharing his knowledge as an Android Instructor. Joe has also worked as a content manager for Eroski and as a freelance photographer. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.02) – So Joe, can you expand on that summary and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Joe explained that he is also a Google Developer expert for Android and that he loves playing with anything technology related. Phil noted that Joe’s current role provides him with a nice balance. In that role he is able to continue to develop his skills as an Android developer as well as explore new tech. (1.42) – Phil asks Joe for a unique IT career tip. Joe believes that sharing what he has learned is helping him to continue to learn new things. At first, he was reluctant to speak publicly and share what he knows in writing. Like many developers, he was afraid that people may not think he was good enough or what he was saying was right. He was worried about being trolled and having to deal with a lot of negative comments. In reality, the opposite is true. He believes that putting yourself out there is a great way to further your IT career. It is especially good for networking. (2.54) – At this point, Joe is asked to share his worst career moment. About 3 years ago Joe wanted to make a big change at the company he worked for. In an effort to achieve that change, he ended up spending virtually every waking moment online. He believed that he had to be constantly online to be able to advance in his career. In reality, that is not necessary. Joe did not burn out completely, but, it did have a negative effect on his well-being. (3.56) – Phil asks Joe if this experience has lead to him changing his approach. The answer is yes, he balances work out with running and keeping fit. He goes to the gym before going on his laptop and makes time to read and does not work right up until he goes to bed. (5.01) – Phil asks Joe what his best career moment was. He says that when he gave his first public speech, the fact that it was a success significantly boosted his confidence and opened several doors for him. It gave him the speech bug and really helped him to build a name for himself. If he wants to learn a new technology, he will apply to give a speech about it. That pushes him to really dive in and learn everything he can about that new technology. (7.03) – Phil wants to know what excites Joe about the future of the IT industry. For Joe, it is the pace of change. You know that there is always going to be something new to explore. Just look at Android, to start with it was just phones. Now there is Android TV, Android Things and Google Home, with more in the pipeline. (8.24) – What drew you to a career in IT? Joe studied computer science at university, but he was not sure exactly what he wanted to do. For his final project, he created an App. The thrill of seeing people download and use it is what hooked him and made him pursue a career in IT. (9.14) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? At Joe’s last job his boss had a chat with him about the fact that it is not necessary to “know everything”. He helped Joe to realize that he was getting caught up in the latest things instead of focusing. His boss wanted him to stop being so distracted and focus in on the things he enjoyed and was passionate about. (10.06) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right, now, what would you do? Joe says it is important to network right from the start. He used to attend conferences, but never spoke to many people. This was largely due to a lack of confidence. (10.51) – Phil asks Joe what he is currently focusing on his career. Joe explains that for about two years now, he has wanted to write a book. He is in the process of trying to make that a reality. Joe also has several side projects on the go, some of which he has been working on for a while. Right now, he is focusing on actually getting them finished. (11.38) – What’s the most important non-technical skill that has helped you in your career? The ability to say no has really helped Joe to focus on what he really wants to do. Joe has noticed that for a lot of developers saying no is really hard. Phil agrees, he says it is a combination of not wanting to miss out and feeling the need to please everyone. “The risk is that you just say yes to everything.” (12.51) – Phil asks Joe to share a few final words of career advice. Joe’s advice is to learn new things and share what you know. Put it out there, get feedback and take action. BEST MOMENTS: (2.15) JOE – “That held me back from sharing things. And in turn, I think that also held me back from learning new things.” (5.10) JOE – “Giving my first talk was a massive confidence boost for me and really opened up a lot more doors.” (7.41) JOE – “I know there's always gonna be something new for me to engage with and play with.” (13.11) JOE – “Just get stuck in and show what you're doing, even if someone's already written about it.” CONTACT JOE BIRCH: Twitter: https://twitter.com/hitherejoe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-birch-80392157/ Website: https://hitherejoe.com Medium: https://medium.com/hitherejoe

It’s time for Toby Mathis and Jeff Webb of Anderson Advisors to answer your questions about taxes, the IRS, and much more. Do you have a tax question for them? Submit it to Webinar@andersonadvisors.com. Highlights/Topics: What is Nexus? Why do I care? Nexus is a state’s right to tax your income; different types (tax and physical), state laws, and throwback rule - how they affect you Does IRS reimburse me for corporate expenses? Misconception about reimbursement from the client’s company or IRS; IRS doesn’t give you money, but let’s you write it off How do I qualify for a real estate professional status? Requires 750 hours as #1 use of personal professional time; know importance of passive activity loss and logging time What are self-dealing rules for non-profits, IRAs, QRPs? Particular entities can’t interact with a disqualified person - can’t sell them anything; but self-dealing exceptions exist Am I dealer or investor? What’s the difference? Investor is passively involved, dealer is actively buying/selling real estate; can depend on the intent and timeframe Why set up an LLC that does flipping as a C or S Corp instead of a partnership? Because it’s taxed as ordinary income and subject to self-employment tax What is UBIT? Unrelated business income tax is when a plan/non-profit isn’t doing what it’s set up to do; can have passive activity until it competes with active businesses I hold rental property in a self-directed IRA. What can I do? There’s things you can/can’t do, especially add value to a property, so find a property manager and IRA custodian My wife’s previous employer’s stock options were exercised and have peaked. If we cash in, what’ll be the tax consequences/burden? Long-term capital gain and opportunity zone I’m helping a friend with a crowdfunding project. What are tax consequences with no deductions? Does he pay tax on donated money? No tax for less than $15,000 per donor How to aggregate all properties? Disadvantages? Election form that your print with your tax return to identify properties; doesn’t free up large losses tied up If real estate investing part time, are you considered a part-time investor? You’d be a part-time investor, not real estate professional; determining factor is to document time How do I get the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt? Use the 1023 application How do you create an LLC in an IRA? IRA custodian enters into a contract with a company to create an LLC, or set up a 401(k) to roll the IRA into it without a custodian Investing in LLC for holding rental property. How do you avail to a 1031 exchange? Need a 1031 exchange facilitator and LLC must buy or sell the next property within 180 days If I receive social security benefits at 62 and not currently employed, but do receive interest income. Will it affect my SS benefits? Can be isolated into its own taxable entity My wife and I are the only shareholders and both take a ⅓ salary. Is that the right amount? You should take a ⅓ of the net profit as salary instead How do you put an LLC on hold? Do nothing with it or pay the state; file non-activity return Will real estate holding LLC taxes partnership qualify for 20% pass-through deduction? Yes, if not triple net property For all questions/answers discussed, sign up to be a Platinum member to view the replay! Resources Anderson Advisors Tax and Asset Prevention Event Toby Mathis Anderson Advisors U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Long Standing Law On Collection Of Sales Taxes Northwest Energetic Services LLC vs. California Franchise Tax Board Throwback Rule SALT Limit After 24 years, wealthy inventor gets his day in tax court – and wins 10 Tax Deductions That Will Disappear Next Year Passive Activity Losses - Real Estate Tax Tips Real Estate Professional Status - Becoming More Important - Very Hard To Prove Acts of self-dealing by private foundation Unrelated Business Income Tax Opportunity Zones Frequently Asked Questions About Form 1099-INT | Internal Revenue Service Exemption Requirements - 501(c)(3) Organizations Form 1023 Taxbot MileIQ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Provision 11 011 Section 199A - Qualified Business Income Deduction FAQs   Full Episode Transcript Toby: Alright, welcome to Tax Tuesday, this is Toby Mathis joined by our tax manager Jeff Webb. Jeff: How do you do? Toby: We're going to get jumping on here. We're just going to jump right in. no time like the present to just get business done. So first off, happy Tuesday. Second off, let's jump into a bunch of questions that are giving us a steady feed from folks even before we got started. I'm sure I'll be more happy than to answer your questions. I also got emails in from folks that I may be trying to make sure I answer all of those and we'll just make sure that we're getting through each and every question to the extent humanly possible within this hour. So the first one is, what is Nexus and why do I care. Second one is going to be, does the IRS reimburse me for my corporate expenses. Third one is, how do I qualify for real estate professionals, technically real estate professional status. What are self doing rules for nonprofits in QRPs. I'm going to throw in IRAs in there as well. Am I a dealer or an investor, what difference does it make. Those are the ones that we're going to hit one after the other in succession. I'm making sure that we're getting through these. So the first one is, what is nexus and why do I care. Jeff, do you want to hit tax nexus because there's different types of nexus. There's physical presence for lawsuits and there's tax nexus for taxation. I'm going to have Jeff hit the tax and then I'll touch base on the physical nexus. Jeff: So when we're talking about tax nexus what we're primarily talking about is a state's right to tax you on your income. For example, you may live in Nevada, have a rental property in California. California has a right to tax any income on that property because you're doing business within California. There are different roles, there have been numerous cases on nexus. Toby: Most recently, our Supreme Court reversed a physical presence test that the error that Amazon, everybody that was an online retailer use to avoid state sales tax and that was just changed. Jeff: Yeah, on that one in particular the Supreme Court as Toby said, gave the states the right to tax online sales in their states. The thing is, the states now have to write tax walls to accomplish this. Most of the states don't have anything that accomplishes this. Toby: A lot of times, ignorance is bliss. People would avoid sales tax like for example, I live in Washington, Florida, Oregon and avoid the sales tax and they ignored Washington's use tax. A lot of states have this. You don't pay sales tax and you go someplace where there is no sales tax, you still owe sales tax on it but they call it use tax because you brought the physical item into your state and you never paid sales tax on it. So then they would say, "Aha." And the really interesting thing – there were actually some interesting cases that were popping up from the nexus, ones that came out of Washington, was Northwest Energetic Services too and that was a case in California where they tried to tax an organization that was registered to do business there that didn't actually do any business in California but they wanted to tax its worldwide revenue. The franchise tax board of the board of equalization lost that one and they had a few others but what you'll find is that this is a continuously active in generating area of tax law and we tend to fall into the category of ask for forgiveness not for permission all the time because if you ask a state whether you should be paying tax, they will gladly say yes even if it's not a legitimate tax. They'll tell you that you have to pay it even though it's made to be unconstitutional, unlawful, you fill in the blank. Even if you don't owe it, they'll oftentimes just answer, "Yes, of course you should." They can't actually be giving you any tax advice anyway so it's the wrong party to be asking. I'm sure Jeff you get to deal with that more than I do. Jeff: Yeah, in a state like California, it used to be an old joke for the CPA's that you could be flying over the state of California, make enough business phone call and California would want to so you have nexus and we can now tax you. They're also a state that's very difficult to leave if you're a resident. We had a case where somebody, NBA player for the Sacramento Kings was traded to Seattle Sonics and moved there. Toby: Yeah, now the Oklahoma City Thunder, I was there when they move, horrible. Jeff: The state of California wanted to say, "No, you're still resident of California, we're still going to be taxing you because you got friends here and you have club ownership, some relationships. California in particular is very tenacious with Nexus. Toby: Yeah, so you're going to see things evolving over the next few years since the Supreme Court decision was literally this last, I think it was just months ago or end of the year last year. You're going to see the states trying to fill in the blanks. So you have some states for example in drop shipping, Pennsylvania would tax you if you drop ship out of their state where it used to not be, other states did before. We were talking earlier before the webinar, Jeff and I were talking about what is like a claw back. Jeff: Yeah, it's called a throwback rule that says if your sales into a state that doesn't have taxes then where it got shipped from can tax instead. Toby: Somebody's asked, what are the worst three states for nexus. It really depends on what you're doing, but I would say just off the top of my head probably New York, Connecticut and California. They're pretty heinous. Look at the states that just filed a lawsuit against the federal government under the SALT limitation which is the State and Local Tax Limitation. You'll see I think there was four states Maryland was one of them, where they try to hit you with so many different taxes. It's not just business, it's on your personal as well. It's just for nexus, for a person, it's really easy to figure out, "Hey, where do you live?" Because when I say it's easy, it can be difficult if you have two residences that you spend time with equally. They're going to add up things like how much utility you use, where your driver's license is. Where your kids go to school, where your vehicles are registered, you're going to look at those types of things. There's Hyatt v. Commissioner Case or what was it, Hyatt versus board of equalization I think is actually what it was. Where a gentleman moved to Nevada and the California franchise tax board sent agents to Nevada they climbed to his garage and break into his apartment to prove that he was actually residing more in California than he was in Nevada because his tax bill would've been so great and when they got caught, they said they're immune. Our Supreme Court and Scully I remember the opinion was scathing on them saying, "No, you're immune in your jurisdiction. When you cross the state lines, don't expect any immunity." They just harassed that poor guy. They were climbing around his house. So let's just narrow it down though. You asked a question what is nexus. There's two sides, there's tax nexus and then there's physical nexus. In the physical nexus again where you reside, it's pretty easy. If you live there, then you have a physical nexus in that state, it's where you have a house. In the business it's no different. In a business, you have to decide where it's going to have its main presence and the courts have held having a bare office and nothing more isn't going to be sufficient. You actually have to do something there. That's when you actually have to have a physical office space. We use virtual office where it's doing more than just maintaining a registered agent. There we're actually giving conference facilities, phone answering, we'll do document prep and things like that for the governance of the company so the company can actually have a physical presence. The reason that you do that is to make sure it has a home. So if somebody's coming after one of its shareholders or members, one of its owners that it does not draw that entity into the state where they're located. So, if I have owners in a company and I have my company set up in Wyoming and they sue me in Nevada and they sue somebody else in Texas and somebody else in Florida, you don't have a choice between the Nevada, Texas and Florida where the shareholder or where the members of the LLC are located, they would actually have to go to Wyoming where the actual entity is located. That's what you're trying to do. So if Anderson does my meeting notes, that's why that's important. We're not talking about Canadian, US the nexus pass. I could tell you a fun one. We had a client that just got nailed by California. It's actually under the FBAR which is Foreign Bank Account Regulations. They had some interest on a bank account that was there for a condo they had in Whistler and they sold the condo in Whistler and they didn't report, I think it was like $70 or $76 worth of interest. Jeff do you know these off the top of your head? How much the penalty is? Jeff: No. Toby: If the IRS catches you, it's 50% of the account balance per year. But if you go under amnesty which they have taken an amnesty was a $38,000 fine which they paid for that $76. Canada is still offshore. Anyway, so what is nexus and why do I care. It gets a little convoluted but the reason you care is you don't want to draw your company into your state, you want to make it very difficult for somebody to get a hold of your assets if they're coming after you. From a tax standpoint, it matters because we want to keep our business activities to the extent possible in the lowest taxing jurisdiction as humanly possible. So that's that one. Jeff this is one of your favorites, I know. Does the IRS reimburse me for my corporate expenses? Jeff: Of course they do. IRS is really giving out money. We get this question more often than you would think. I think it's a misconception that clients are being told that their companies can reimburse them for certain expenses which will reduce our taxes and sometimes the clients are hearing IRS is going to reimburse us. The only time you get back money from IRS is if you pay money into IRS for taxes and you don't owe them any tax or maybe overpaid them. Toby: Yeah. IRS is a policing agency. Your taxes when you pay it, they don't even go to the IRS, it goes to the US treasury. So the IRS is merely, pay my boss, is all they are. So they don't give any money out whatsoever so the IRS does not reimburse you for your corporate expenses. What the IRS does is it enforced the laws which is the United States code and issues regulations interpreting that code and is basically the enforcement arm for the US department of treasury. What ends up happening for corporation is they're allowed to reimburse shareholders many expenses that are not included on the shareholder's personal tax returns. So it sometimes seems like they're giving you money when in all reality, they're allowing you to not pay tax on your expenses which is always the battle because there's lots of rules out there that say things are not deductible. Nothing more telling them what we just had happened in this tax change where they eliminated all miscellaneous itemized deductions. All of them are gone in case you've been sleeping. In 2018, you do not get to write them off anymore. Jeff: Now that's your union dues, your tax preparation fees. Toby: Any unreimbursed business expense if you're a teacher and you're providing stuff for your classroom, you don't get to write it off. Jeff: If you're paying substantial amounts to your broker for advisory fees. Toby: That's a huge one. We're going to see that one come back and bite people in their touché. Jeff: That's no longer deductible. Toby: So it's horrible. So no, the IRS does not reimburse you for your corporate expenses. Your corporation reimburses you for your corporate expenses and the IRS lets you write it off. How do I qualify for real estate professional status. Jeff do you want to play with this one or do you want me to handle it? Jeff: I'll do a little and then you can correct me. So real estate professional has a hours commitment. I believe it's 750 hours a year. Toby: So it's a minimum of 750 hours. There's a second part to that too, you know that. Jeff: And the 750 hours can be earned by you or your spouse. What's your second one? Toby: The second one is it has to be the number one use of your personal professional time. Jeff: Oh, correct. Toby: The way I always explain this is if you did 1001 hours doing bicycle repair and you did 1000 hours of real estate, you do not qualify as a real estate professional. But if it's reversed and you did 1000 hours of bicycle repair you did 1001 hours of real estate activities, then you do. And the reason this is important is because ordinarily, your real estate expenses are offset your real estate income and you can only take losses from real estate. In other words, the excess depreciation, or repairs, or whatever, your losses are limited to $3000 a year against your other active income. So that's called the passive activity loss rule. Jeff: $25,000. Toby: If you materially participate and then you have $100,000 to $150,000 scale up. There's some little nuances which don't bring your head with. At the end of the day, there are restrictions on taking passive activity loss. Real estate professional status removes that restriction. The other thing that's really important about real estate professional status is it is per property. So if you have three properties, you'd have to meet it for each of the three unless you elect to aggregate all your properties on your tax return. We have seen this missed by accountants who don't do real estate. They don't aggregate and there are actually cases on the book where people had to fight and they literally had tons of properties they easily met the 750 if you aggregate it but their accountants miss the aggregation election. Jeff: And the sum of 750 hours is not just for your rental properties. Toby: Any real estate. Jeff: Any real estate activity. Toby: Yeah. Jeff was actually right when he said your spouse could qualify, either you or your spouse if you're filing jointly. Jeff: So if you have a full time job and you're getting a W2, I can guarantee you that you will not legally qualify. Under audit, you're going to lose. However, if you have a full time job and your wife does not or your husband does not, they can qualify to be that real estate professional. Toby: We had a fun one. A good friend of ours and a colleague in Georgia was making somewhere between $2 million and $3 million a year in his professional practice. His wife qualified as a real estate professional and he quite literally bought enough commercial property and did something called cost segregation where you're rapidly depreciating it where he generated enough loss off the real estate to offset his income. The IRS audited it, he is self represented because he knew the rule. It withheld, he stood up. His wife just did their real estate activities and he did their practice and at the end of the day, she met the requirement for the real estate professional status and the rule is pretty straightforward. IRS didn’t like the outcome but that's not their job. So they picked a fight and lost the audit which is not uncommon. All right, so how do I qualify for a real estate professional. Keep a log of your time and make sure that you're aggregating all of your real estate activities. Even if it's for a closely held company, it's still going to match, it's still going to work. Next one, what are the self dealing rules for nonprofits in QRPs. I'm going to add in there IRAs as well since when we talk about a qualified retirement plan, we're really talking about 401K and 401A. This is going to dovetail in with one of our other questions that came in off the internet as well. But here's how it works. If you are in a particular type of entity where it says you cannot interact and engage in business with a disqualified person, you could not sell them a $1 million building for $1. It is an absolute prohibition against self dealing. The most important first step is determining whether or not you're within one of those rules. Then if you are, then you look and say are there any exceptions to that rule. So for nonprofits, nonprofits are going to fall into broad categories foundations, private foundations are one. These are nonprofits that aggregate money and give money to other nonprofits, they don't do anything. And in that one, you have an absolute bar from self dealing. The next one is an operating nonprofit that is doing something and in that case, you just have to use arm's length transactions. So we look at that, that's our step number one. So let's go back to the first one, private foundations then you look and say, are there any exceptions. The only exception is reasonable compensation, it can always be reasonably compensated. But other than that, no more transactions. So for nonprofits 501(c)(3) you can enter into transactions as long as it's an operating nonprofit. It can give you benefits, it can pay you and it can engage in sales and other transactions between you and the agencies so long as they are arm's length. And the way you make sure it is arm's length is you have non-interested parties looking at it saying, "Hey, that looks okay to me." somebody who doesn't have a dog in the fight. Now we go to QRPs and IRAs. In either one of those, you have absolute prohibitions against self dealing with disqualified parties and disqualified parties are lineal descendants which would be grandparents, children and their spouses, great children and their spouses. It does not include your siblings. So what's interesting is you could actually engage in transactions with your IRA for example, loan money to your brother. You cannot loan money to your mother. You could not loan money to your kids or your grandkids, you could not do a second on their house, you could not do anything between the company. You could not buy a house from them. That is an absolute bar that's called, disqualified party. Jeff: The way I kind of look at it as to whether you may be violating self dealing rules is, are you benefitting from a transaction between you and the nonprofit or the QRP or the IRA. That's really what they're out to prevent. And unfortunately the rules are pretty severe for violations of the self dealing. Toby: If you self-deal, you're just going to disqualify your IRA. If you're using a QRP and you're using a 401K, then we have different rules, and in that particular case, it would just disqualify the money that you actually were utilizing. Their far more lenient. Jeff: I had a client who had a QRP, it was actually defined benefit plan, who had a required minimum distribution to make and the plan was not funded at the time. The client had to make a loan to the QRP, which is a self-dealing but unfortunately there's an exception for that that one was quickly repaid. There was no profit or interest earned on it. Toby: Was it within the 60 days? Jeff: I believe it was within 60 days. Toby: There's some more fun stuff. Then we go into the 401Ks and this is where you get into people acting on behalf of the company. I know that there were some questions, that were already posed in the chat feature here. You're not supposed to be getting any personal benefit or using those funds at all when you have an IRA or a 401K. In an IRA, it's much more severe because you have a custodian. So if a renter for example is paying you money and they pay it to you individually, technically you have a violation of the self dealing rules because you just received money. Even if you go ahead and put it right back in the IRA, you're going to have an issue because technically you weren't supposed to receive the money, the custodian was supposed to be receiving the money. So you should actually have rental money going to your custodian if you’re using an IRA. If you’re using a 401K or 401A, which the profit sharing plan or 401K, then you are the trustee and you're able to accept the money and endorse it right into the account and make sure that the money goes to the right place. IRA's are a little more difficult. To get around this, a lot of people with IRA's will set up an LLC which you can be the manager of. Actually, the IRA is technically the member— you're in non compensated role and we have to make sure that the LLC agreement says that if we drafted it, then we make sure that we're putting in the non-prohibitionals. You cannot personally benefit from these activities. It has to all go back to the retirement plan. People will do the LLC and they will be all right, now I can go ahead and accept the funds through the LLC, that's how they do with an IRA. If you're doing with the 401K, we're going to suggest that you still set up an LLC anytime you have real estate, just because we don't want the liability to flow through to you. But there, now, you don't need the custodian. You could technically do it inside the 401K directly though you should still have the LLC and it's the same scenario where you're able to accept the proceeds. That's not going to be a technical violation because you're acting on behalf of the plan. And that is not a violation of the self dealing rules. So the biggest takeaway from all this, is that you can act on behalf of the plan. The second a just qualified person starts to get personal benefit, you have violated the rules and if it's an IRA, the whole thing is violating—considered a taxable event, which should be that 10% penalty plus income tax on it for the entire amount if it's at 401K or 401A, it would just be the portion that you violated. We tend to be very bullish on using 401Ks and 401A's, profit sharing plans around here also known as QRP. And this is why, because they're far more forgiving and they have a less moving pieces. I hope that explains that. We're going to have—I know there's a couple more questions that are in here, that are going to be relevant to this section as well. Let me jump on to something. The questions, this is something you can ask detailed questions via our email. I will answer them, Jeff or Tony, whoever's from the tax department here. We will answer these on the tax Tuesday. We will also more likely be responding back out to you directly as well because we want to make sure you get your questions answered, but just jot down that address, webinar@andersonadvisors.com and feel free to shoot them in. Since our last one, Tax Tuesday, we had a couple of questions and I want to go through these. Number one was from Karen out of Alaska, "I have a revocable trust in Alaska that owns and sells real property, does the trust to pay income taxes on the profit or does the profit end up on my personal tax return? Is it taxed at the same rate as everything else? So the most important word she used in her question was revocable, because trust come in two flavors, revocable are irrevocable. If they're irrevocable, then we have two choices, we don't have to worry about the irrevocable.. Since it's revocable, it's a grand tour trust is ignored, it's you, for tax purposes until your dead. So you're good, sorry, sometimes I'm blunt. So if you're buying and selling real estate, real property it's taxed no differently than if you're on the real property. Now here's the rub, it also gives you know asset protection. So revocable trust is giving you know asset protection with that real property, so I would really strongly suggest that the revocable trust actually be the owner of an LLC that is buying and selling the real estate and depending on how quickly you are turning this, will depend on whether that say, S or a C-Corp., if it's a flip versus if it is a long-term holds, then we just put it as an LLC. It would either be disregarded or taxed as a partnership. We want it to flow under our return. Those are kind of our choices. There was a question, I don't know if I got to that. I'm going to skip back to our slides. There's something about—Am I a dealer or an investor? So I want to make sure that I'm getting this one right here. Because this is relevant to one of these questions. A dealer and an investor is something that we talk about in real estate, you want to hit on this? Jeff: No, you're doing fine. Toby: An investor is someone who's passively involved, a dealer is somebody who is actively buying and selling real estate. So if you buy real estate with the intent to hold it for its long term appreciation cash flow, then you are an investor. If you buy real estate with the intent to sell it, then you are a dealer. The easiest way to conceptualize this is if I am an investor, I am passive. If I am a dealer, then I am a supermarket with inventory. And I'm putting my real estate on a shelf and it's constantly for sale. Just like at your grocery store, it may take a couple years for something to sell. I'm just imagining the items that are on the shelf. Jeff: Your durable goods. Toby: Right, so you sell something, I used to do liquidation. We would grab all the expired items we would sell them but let's say, it doesn't matter how long you held them. A lot of people think, well if I held it over a year, I can't be a dealer. That's not the case, we actually have cases on the book where they held it over 10 years. What matters is what your intent was when you buy it. And the difference it makes is active income versus passive income. The difference is an investor can 1031 exchange and defer all other taxes. An investor can get long-term capital gains, an investor can do installment sales, an investor can spread out the tax liability over a long period of time. Whereas a dealer is active. It's subject to social security taxes, it's taxable immediately even if you don't receive the money. It is active ordinary income, it's no difference than I just sold that box of Cheerios on the shelf that I've been waiting to sell. It makes a huge difference. Dealer activity we're going to isolate inside of an S-Corp or a C-Corp. Investor activity, we're going to make sure it flows on your personal return either by using a disregarded LLC or a partnership LLC, one of the two. Jeff: Intent has really made a difference in a couple of cases. One, where somebody bought a property that they go allow their child to live in, something end up happening then they sold it after a short time. They were considered to be an investor not a dealer. Toby: It doesn't even matter. It does not matter whether you ever rented it, there's plenty of cases where somebody tried to rent it and they were going to use it as a long term hold and then things change and they sold it. Just know that if you buy or sell within a year, the presumption is going to be that you're a dealer. If you hold for over a year, the presumption is going to be that you're an investor but it's not a guarantee. We're going to get back to these questions. How does Flip LLC income flow into S-Corp and then what will be distributions of the seller? So, we talked a little bit about this last week but I'm going to go and we're going to hit this. When you set up an LLC, it doesn't exist to the IRS. So when you say how does the Flip LLC flow into S-Corp, it doesn't. A Flip LLC is an S-Corp if you elect to have it be treated that way with the IRS. The income is just going into an S-Corp. Then you have to decide what your salary will be because if you know anything about an escort S-Corp, you want to make sure you pay yourself a reasonable salary if it's making money. The rule of thumb to use is, one third of your net income should be paid out as salary. That's just a rule of thumb but it's all in all reality the IRS has this funky test where you're supposed to say, "Hey, what would it be? What could it be paid?" they never tell us exactly. So I'll just say this, pay a third, don't worry about it. If you get too much money, if you start making over $300,000, then we're going to have a chat but where you're going to be on our radar anyway, we're going to be making sure you're paying a reasonable salary anyway. The reason this is important is because the salary is subject to old age death and survivors in Medicare also known as FICA or social security and the distributions are not. So what you would do is you'd be cutting your social security tax by about two thirds if you did it that way. I hope that explains it. So it makes its money and it pays it out. We do need to make sure that if you're flipping, that the money goes into the LLC. Jeff: A quick comment on distributions on an S-Corporation. Distributions are typically the money that's already been taxed are in you're just pulling the cash out. What you don't want to do is go out and get a bank loan in S-Corporation and take distributions from that for several reasons. One, you don't have basis in those distributions. Two, it gets into the whole finance distribution issues and things of that nature. So you really only want to be pulling money out of the company that you’ve already been taxed on. Toby: Fair enough and then if you don't pull any money out of an LLC that's taxed as an S-Corp, you don't technically have to pay yourself a salary. You just let it sit in there and keep growing which your accountant is not going to tell you because they don't know that. The reason I know that is because I have spoken to probably 100 accountants that missed that one. It says, why do you want the LLC that does flipping set up as an S-Corp or C-Corp instead of a partnership? Mark, we were just talking about that because it's taxed as ordinary income as subject to self employment tax. So the reason we want that in an SRC is so that you do not get classified as a dealer because then all of your real estate is dealer real estate and you could lose all your long-term capital gains, you to lose your 1031, you could lose your installment sale. So we want it to be a separate taxpayer from you so the IRS notes clearly who the investor is and who the dealers is and then you can reduce the amount of tax hit by using the S-Corp that will reduce your self-employment tax significantly, if you add a 401K to it, you could eliminate your tax or defer it out into the future. If you use a C-Corp, then depending on what your expenses are, we can also eliminate all your tax or at least reduce it significantly. So that's why we use that. All right, we have a whole bunch of questions to go through so I'll go through this. What is UBIT and UBITA. UBIT is unrelated business income tax and the easiest way to understand this is when you have a tax deferred entity or tax, it's not actually a tax rates, it can be tax rate if it's a Roth but when you have a qualified plan or a nonprofit and it is not doing what it's set up to do, so let's say in an IRA or a 401K or a 401A, or a nonprofit, they're all set up to do certain things. They're allowed to have a passive activity which is rents, royalties, dividends, interest, even capital gains and it can have those and you don’t have to worry about it at all. But once it starts competing with other businesses, active businesses, now you have an issue and that's what's called—let's say that you have these ordinary businesses. Then they would be taxed, generally speaking it's going to be the highest rate at 37% I believe is what it's going to be as kind of a disincentive to engage in traditional businesses inside those exempt organizations. The easiest way to look at this, let's say you set up an IRA and it runs a mini mart, you're going to pay tax on those profits just like anybody else would. The exception is if that IRA owns a corporation that does not pay out the profits directly. It would have to own C-Corp and then it would only receive dividends and then those are considered passive. So it gets funny and a little bit difficult. The other one is let's say you set up a nonprofit, that's for—what's a good one? Helping Vet and then it sets up a pizza business on the side and starts competing, it buys a bunch a Domino's franchises. It's going to pay tax on the Domino's franchise. It doesn't get a big huge competitive advantage selling pizzas because it's a nonprofit. It would have to be for its charitable purpose and that's UBIT. Jeff: One place we see a lot is like hospitals, they're usually tax exempt but they may have a gift shop which they have to pay the business income tax on because it's not directly supporting them but it is a business. Toby: But you're allowed to do that for like what is it, Salvation Army and some these other thrift stores. They'll let you have one for a church and whatnot. If it's ancillary, if it's completely ancillary and it's just being used like thrift stores I think are one of the few exceptions, gift shop absolutely, you're head to head. Here's another one and I think that this may be what Diane was looking at, it's debt financed income. What that is, is if I'm using the leverage, then there's an exception for IRA's where it cannot use loans to generate income, it's considered an unrelated debt financed income. It will be taxable That is not the case for 401Ks and for 401As, which is what—if you've ever been to one of our events, you hear us railing on the idea that if you are going to finance real estate, real estate is considered passive and it's considered okay not UBIT. The only way you make it taxable is if you leverage it inside of an IRA, so don't do that. If you're going to leverage it, make sure your rolling that IRA into a 401K or profit sharing plan which is the 401A. So there, that's my two cents. I figure that maybe they had a funky—UBITA, I have no idea what that is, but it looks neat. I think they were probably referring to get financed income, since those things usually go side by side. All right, we have a ton of questions that have been posed and this is so much fun, we have like literally a jillion questions, if that's the number. All right, so here's the first one, if I cash out refinance or borrow an equity loan from my primary residence, use the money to do private lending by rental property, can I deduct the interest expense as an investment expense beyond $750,000 amount? They're throwing some things in here. This is actually a really long question, I'm giving you the thumbnail sketch of it. Hey guys email those types of questions in, because nobody's going to be out to follow this, but here's what here's what they're saying, we now have a restriction on your mortgage interest, it's $750,000. If you borrow on your house, and by the way it's $750,000 now, if you had a loan on it up to $1 million, you're grandfathered in, if those prior to what was it, 12/15/2017, you're good or if you got your long before April 15th and you already started the process before December 15, don't you make my head hurt. Long and short of it is, let's say $750,000, but your house is worth $1.5 million. You borrow money out of your house. You will not be writing that off personally, you are capped at $750,000 and that's on your schedule A. Whether or not you're getting any benefit out of that is to be seen because you have your standard deduction. I imagine it's going to be above the standard deduction if you're borrowing up to $750,000. Let's just say we have our $750,000 and we borrowed an extra $500,000, it can't go on your schedule A, but it can go someplace else. The someplace else would be, for example, if I put it into my schedule E, because I'm using it to buy rental property. Then I can use the income of the rental property and I can use the interest being paid as a separate expense, it's just going on a different tax form. The other route that you can go is, if I give that $500,000 and I loan it to a corporation and the corporation re-loans, in the words the corporation is going out loaning its money out and it's reimbursing my interest, then in all reality the loan is really to the corp, and I'm not getting any tax benefit but the corporation is reducing its income by reimbursing me the right to use basically my line of credit. This is no different than if you do this with your credit card. It's reimbursing you, so you make no money on it, but you don't pay tax on it, it such a fancy work around. That's number one. Next question, I hold rental property in a self directed IRA. I do tenant screening, manage the rental, hire vendors to do the repair work and I don't physically work on the house. Good, because you can't physically work on the house, you can do everything else, you can hire, do screening. I would actually have a property manager on it. All income expenses come and goes to the same self directed IRA account, hopefully that's with the custodian or you have an LLC, disregarded to the IRA. Somebody asked this, the IRA custodian sets up the LLC, you can't do it. You shouldn't be going out and doing it yourself, paying your money, you should actually have the IRA do it to keep it clean. Is it allowed? Yes, some people say, "If only I don't work on the house myself, that's okay," and they're correct. Some people say, even screening, collecting rent is not allowed, can you please clarify? You should not receive the money, the IRA should receive the money, you can direct you to the custodian though. You can even get the check and hand it to the custodian, forward it to the custodian, whatever, as long as what you're doing is not adding value to the property. That's the big no, no. Don't go get a paint brush and start painting the house because you're increasing the value to your personal efforts. Next question, my wife's previous employer stock options were exercised and we feel have peaked, cost basis 132, market value 280, if we cash in, what will be the tax consequences and how can we reduce the tax burden? We need to pull the trigger shortly. Aziz, this is you, there's two ways you can do this. First off, you're going to end up with long term capital gains, so it's not horrible. Secondly, there's something called an opportunity zone which just enacted at the end of the year and the just published out all these zones. If you reinvest the money in a opportunity zone, you defer to the tax. In the opportunity zones, there's tons of them. It's any neighborhood that is considered—that needs public support and there's a laundry list. I would actually encourage you to go Google, opportunity zone, tax and you'll find a big old list. But the communities in your area that are typically low to moderate income house. If you took your entire amount of increase, so let's say that we have $150,000 of taxable capital gains, you could buy $150,000 of opportunity zone properties and pay zero tax. Now, the question is, what happens when I sell? So there's holding periods and the minimum holding period, I believe, is you're going to be looking at five years, where then you're going to not have to pay tax on 15%, I'm going off of memory. So you'll have to excuse me if I'm not spot on, but it's 15% then it jumps up. At 10 years, the entire $150,000 is no longer taxable. And I believe that you're not going to be paying tax on the gain in the opportunity zone, it's kind of a two pronged, are you familiar with that one, Jeff? Jeff: Somewhat, I know that you replaced the old enterprise some number of years back. Toby: Something to look at, but would be it. The last way to avoid tax is give them, before you exercise it, is give that to your non-profit, if you have one and you would get a $280,000 deduction. And then the nonprofit can sell it zero tax. You'd get a monster tax and you could have these too, you could say, "Hey, I really need to offset a bunch of the tax, so I'm going to make a contribution," it doesn't matter what your basis is, it only matters, the fair market value of those assets and if you transferred let's say $140,000, half of it, let's see transferred $140,000 worth of stock, you would get $140,000 tax deduction and it can offset your income up to 60%. In either case, if you're pretty confident that we can mitigate or eliminate that tax bill if you wanted to. If you keep it out of state, somebody says, if you keep it as state for 36 months, can it be avoided? I am helping a friend with crowdfunding project and due to medical needs, we'll need a large sum, maybe $100 million what would his tax consequences be if he has no deductions? Does he have to pay tax on donated money? Fred, generally speaking, if you're getting these little gifts, as long as they're less than $15,000 there's no tax and when I say $15,000 that's per donor. So if I do a crowdfunding and everybody gives $100, there's no tax to the recipient. So go ahead and raise them a bunch of money. Jeff: Keep in mind when you're doing this crowdfunding, if you're contributing to a crowd funding, it is a gift, it's not a donation. Toby: And it's not a tax deductible donation. In 2017, I sold a rental house and took a $40,000 note. In 2017, I received $944 in interest but have not issued a 1099-INT. I did report the amount on my personal 2017. What should my next step be? Wait until 2019 or file now. So he's the one who holds the note, he was paid interest. What do you have to say? Jeff: This is kind of a darn if you do and darn if you don't. There is a penalty for not issuing the 1099. You did the right thing by reporting the amount of interest. However, there's a penalty for not following the 1099. There's a penalty for filing them late. Toby: What's the penalty like? Jeff: I think it's $50 or $75. I think it's $50 up to $99. Toby: So what you're saying is do it next year? Jeff: I didn’t hear anything. Toby: Hey do it next year unless they start digging in. I've had that, we actually went through a super audit here once and they went through every—they let you fix it. So I just wouldn't do it. I would just do it next year and say, "Hey, oops." How to aggregate all properties. What are the disadvantages to doing. You file an aggregation election, is it a form or you just check in the box? Jeff: It's an election. It prints out a form with your tax return. It says exactly what properties or investments you're aggregating together. The only real disadvantage is. Once you aggregated these properties, let's say you have two houses and one has significant passive losses. When you become a real estate professional, those passive losses gets stuck in there. Normally they get freed up when you sell that property but once you aggregator properties, it's all considered one property. So it doesn't free up those if you have a large losses tied up, it doesn't free them up until you get rid of all your aggregated properties. Toby: Cool. Nicely put. Are the purchase and sale of mortgage notes considered real estate for real estate professional status I'm assuming. Jeff: This is my gut feeling, I would say no. it's more of a lending, more of an investment in the notes. Toby: Depends on whether you're ending up with the properties. It depends on what your intent is and if your intent is just to buy and sell mortgage notes, then you're dealing with lending. In order to be real estate, it's really got to be focused in on the purchase and sale of real estate. Jeff: So we kind of run into the same thing with construction companies and such that they meet the test for certain things but not for other test. There are some input to it so real estate broker is kind of the same thing. Toby: Here's the thing, so this is Dean. Dean, if I am in your shoes, I am documenting the time I'm spending in real estate. so even though I may be going after a note, if the reason that you're going after the note is with the intent that possibly end up with that property and you do the research and you can back it up, then you add it into the real estate column as far as your time and you aggregate all your time. The only time this is going to come up is if somebody audits you in goes through all of your records that thoroughly which is rare that that happens. But let's say that it does, then you're the one who's tracking all of your expenses and your time. Then it would be up to the IRS to sit there and say, "Hey, that was actually for the mortgage." and so the old adage is pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. You don't take all of it but you aggregate that a little bit. Jeff: Can I bring up a pet peeve? I hear on the radio frequently about all these auditors that IRS has hired and they haven't had a real hiring since 2010. Toby: They're so toast right now. Jeff: The last big hiring they did most recently was to deal with Obamacare for that audit purposes. But really, they're dealing with almost a skeleton crew anymore. Toby: We just got proposed tax forms for 2018. We don't even know, we just had proposed regulations issued on the tax changes two weeks ago, three weeks ago. They're way behind the eight ball and sometimes we put ourselves in a disadvantage. Don't be crazy about it, but you can be pretty aggressive and especially if it's the truth. If what you're spending your time on is real estate, count it towards real estate. So if you're doing real estate investing part time, can you be considered a part time investor? Yeah, you'd be a part time investor but you wouldn't be a real estate professional. So the biggest important thing and this is for Darlene and Ken, is to document your time and if you go over 750 hours and it's more than you spend than anything else, then you're going to be a real estate professional. Otherwise, you're just an investor, unless you are buying properties to sell. So when you say investing, that means you're going to hold on to them, you're letting them depreciate a little bit but you get the cash flow. Does time spent lending money on real estate for real estate qualifiers and real estate professional. No investing, didn’t we just answer that one? It depends on your real intent of investing in the note. A lot of people are buying notes to end up with a real estate in which case then I'd say probably. Jeff: No, what if she's gap funding? Toby: If you're gap funding then I would say no, then you're lending. So you really have to take a look at the totality of the circumstances. I wish I could say yes or no. what we want is a yes and there's a way to get there. So it's making sure that you're documenting things to support your position. We could dig into that a little bit more, if you want to shoot us the email then let us dig into it. Then the next tax Tuesday, I can answer that one and Jeff can answer that one with a little bit of research behind it. Nexus question, "I'm a resident in California, I'm moving to Arizona. I plan to keep a single family rental in California. The California houses and the land trust is owned by Wyoming LLC, does California have the right to tax my pension income after I move in addition to my income in California rental." Shelly the answer is, it depends on where the rental was earned and whether you're taking out over a 10 year period then the answer is, no. and my guess is that you're going to be a big no. They will be able to tax technically the rental income that is being derived from California but for the most part, that's going to be zero. Jeff: A really important number to remember when you have a property in more than one state is 183. That's typically the number of days you need to spend in a state to be a resident in that state. Toby: "How do I get the 501(c)(3) tax exempt?" Marie, that’s the 1023 application. Yes, it's the 1023 application. So with a nonprofit, I always look at these things in threes, we file with the state which is a corporation. We document it to make sure there's no shareholders which is for private parties, and then we file with the feds and we're telling them we want to be an exempted organization and that exemption is done via 1023. So we go through that process. When we set them up, we set up about 3,000 of them successfully. "How do you create an LLC and an IRA?" Darlene and Ken, what you do is you have the IRA custodian internal contract with a company like us and we create the LLC, or we set up a 401K, roll the IRA into it and then we'd let you do it so you don't need a custodian. "Is this recorded and will a replay be sent out?" Robin, it's made available to anybody who's platinum and then I'm cutting out a bunch of the Q&As and will throw them all over the internet. The recording, yes we record them. Join platinum, it's fun. "If I sell a partial note to a family member from my QRP, is that disqualified?" it depends on the type of family members. When they're your kids, yes. If it's to a brother or sister, no. then you can do it. When you make a contribution and that's just the whole disqualified person argument we had earlier. So you can always ask again, ask the question specific to your situation, we'll give you a very specific answer. But just know that if you sell a partial note out of your QRP, it depends on the relationship of the family member. If it's lineal, you have a problem. Which means kids, parents, grandparents you have a problem. If it's horizontal, siblings, not a problem. If it's the spouses of the disqualified person, you're going to have a problem. "Investing in LLC for holding rental property, how does one avail to a 1031 exchange?" Here's how it works, so I'm not going to worry about this. The 1031 exchange, you have to have a 1031 exchange facilitator. The LLC has to buy the next property. So you sell one and buy one within 180 days and there's some other roles in there about when you identify it or you do a reverse exchange where you buy the replacement property then sell the other property within 180 days. But neither cases, in the name of the LLC, you don't have to do anything else. "I should be able to still qualify as an investor and still be active in real estate by investing more than 750 hours." yes, but in actually is a full time job. So if you have a full time job as a real estate professional, then you're good. But remember, your activity as a real estate investor has to exceed your activities of any other profit making activity. So if you work and you work 1,500 hours, even if you did 1400 hours as real estate, you are not a real estate professional, still below that 1,500. Investment in LLC for holding rental property, how does or somebody asked that. If you in invest funds to have an equity in a project, oh my god, this one's going to kill me, built by someone else, I'm trying to think what this is. So you're investing funds for a piece of an LLC in which you are passive and they are a builder, are you a dealer? So Judith, no, you are a passive investor in an active business, is what you are. I see what you're saying, what she's asking is, "Hey, I have Bob the builder come up to me and says, 'Hey, we're going to build this big apartment complex, we're going to develop and everything. You put in $100,000 everybody else puts on $100,000.'" You are passive. You are not considered the dealer. Here's a fun one, did you already read this one? Jeff: No, I haven’t read this one. Toby: Okay, I am planning to receive social security benefits at 62, and currently not employed. I do private lending to real estate investors through promissory notes. So I do receive interest income in the amount of $40,000 to $50,000. Will this affect my social security benefits? At what point to social security benefits are taxable? So Joe, the answer is that there are certain types of income that are exempt from calculations, social security, Jeff you know off the top of your head? Jeff: If you're receiving earned income and that's all social securities could ever know about, so we're talking about self employment income, W-2 wages, that's going to affect your social security benefits. Toby: But if you're just receiving interest income, is it going to affect it? Jeff: Well, here's the thing, if you're in the business of lending money, we would typically set you up as a business, either on schedule C or through an S-Corp or something. That interest you receive wouldn't be, interest income, it would be business income. You'd be able to deduct certain expenses from that income… Toby: We got to look at it, because usually you're going to want to be treated as active, in this particular case you're not going to outdo yourself. Jeff: The downside of this is, any money, any net income you have from this business of lending money is going to affect security until you're 65, or 67, full retirement age. Toby: Joe, the answer is, we may one isolated into its own taxable entity, so that it doesn't affect you. We may. Jeff: I kind of feel like this would be in a great place for an S-Corporation. It's not earning income flowing through to them. Toby: Would he have to take a salary? Jeff: Yeah there we go. Toby: I'm going to take a look. Joe, that's a great question, could you submit it to the webinars at Anderson Advisors, so we can research it. In that way we can hit it in two weeks, to get you a much more thoroughly research, because you're asking a very complicated question. That’s just not going to be at the top of our head. We're going to make sure that we don't step on a landmine. Jeff: So the answer's, maybe. Toby: My wife and I are the only shareholders and we both take a one third salary. No, you should take about one third of the net profit as salary, total between the owners. So greater than 2% shareholders or you and your spouse, so you could each take, I'll throw numbers out, let's say you made $100,000, you could each take up to $18,500. If you're under 50 and immediately dump it into a 401K and not pay any tax. So, "Hey we like that." We have a medical coding business, perfect, yeah, so that's when we want to take a look at. "This is so much fun, really appreciate it," I hope that's not sarcastic, Al. "I opened a couple of LLC, I'm going to use to purchase flipping, can I put them on hold until I do? Do I have to do tax returns?" It all depends on what you're doing with those, the answer is, yes you could put them on ice. "Thanks for the answer on UBIT." Diane, no problem. See we actually do answer questions here. "What are the legal benefits of incorporating in Puerto Rico, if any compared to Nevada?" If you live there, I think they give you 4% tax rate, but you actually have to reside there. There's legal benefits, not really any, other than the tax benefits and the fact of the matter is Puerto Rico has Spanish law, which means they could probably take your company from you. But you can still go down there and Jeff… Jeff: Well, I mean, there are certain industries that have great tax benefits pharmaceutical companies was always a big one. Some of those old laws have sunsetted but might be a good opportunity. Toby: Cool, look at all these questions. All right, some people are saying nice things, great. I like nice things better than, "You guys are jerks." In 2017, I was self employed under my LLC, I have not filed my taxes yet and not considering retirement. Would I still be able to do that? What is best options?" Casey, are you under—self employment under my LLC. So it depends on whether—it was an S-Corp. Did you file an extension because you would be able to do a retirement plan either a sub-IRA or if you already had the 401K then you can make a contribution from the company for it. It would either be a 401A or a 401K. or sub-IRA, I think those are going to be your... Jeff: And if you do extension, you have 11 days to get it done. Toby: Yeah, you have 11 days. Casey, get off your butt. All right, Brian wants advice with the start up pre revenue, he is offering 10% stock, "Not sure I want ownership that subject to capital calls, expectation, potential—is it better to take an offshore [inaudible 01:06:53] until there's more value in the company?" It really depends, so Clark, nice to see you. Awesome. I know Clark's brother very well, studs, nice family. All right, friends, if I was going to have a piece, the whole thing is, if I'm putting money into an endeavor, it's going to be, "What am I going to get out?" It would really depend on the agreement, I don't want to be subject to having to put more money in, nor do I want my interest necessarily being diluted by somebody who is. So one of the one of the ways you can do it, is sometimes do it is a convertible note where you loan the money, so you know you can at least get it back, but it's convertible into equity at the fair market value at that time. You guys can actually agreed to this ahead of time. So that if you decide you want to contribute it, you see they're doing what you want but then you convert it into equity. Otherwise it just remains a note that they pay you on. Clark, that's probably the route I would go. Jeff: But the assumption here is, this is a C-Corporation he's talking about. Toby: I don't even care… Jeff: Well if it's an S-Corporation that we wouldn’t be able to have all these secondary notes and stuff. Toby: If it's an S, I could so convert it. Jeff: Could you? Toby: Yep. Jeff: As long as it converts into the same… Toby: Yep. The risk is I don't want to have a convertible debt to anything other than an individual that would qualify for S.. Jeff: Okay. Toby: But I don't see S-Corps raising money this way. It's almost always C-Corps with partnerships. So the ones that I've been personally involved in, we did three levels of financing this exact way with Vegas Tax fund. That's the little Tony Hseih group and they dumped a bunch of money to a company called Role Tech. You can look them up online, because we exited that wanted with the sale to Brunswick. In a way they did all their money was purely—that was a C-Corp, but it was purely through convertible notes. All right, "What are the best tools you can recommend for tracking time mileage and expenses for real estate investors? My desire to be paperless and get everything out…" People use Taxbot for mileage, it's mileage IQ, MileIQ, I think it's the one that I use, but if you're tracking time, it's just using—sometimes is just using your calendar or spreadsheet. Let's see, "Is full time realtor, a real estate professional?" Chances are, you're going to aggregate and all that. "I understand and agree." I'm not sure I understand that. "I executed a 1031 exchange where trust all the owned property, sold it, and took title of the up leg property in the trust using 1031 exchange. But now I want to transfer up leg property into an LLC." Diane, there is no time restriction that you have to hold it as long as you are the one and still the end beneficiary. If you extend loan through an LLC owned by Roth IRA, they want to transfer, sell the remainder, but then season it out to a lower interest rate. Can Roth continue to receive the full payment from the borrower and the relay the portion?" Yes, as lines is non-convertible, same as you do in an S-Corp. "Is the answer the same best self administer S 401K? So what they're asking is," If you extend a loan through—we're just going to call it the Roth IRA, because the LLC looks right into it from a tax standpoint. And then you sell the remainder of that then season notes. So you start collecting and then you sell the note because it's doing really well and you say, "Hey does anybody want to pay me for this?" I know a guy that that's what he does. He puts the notes together and he sells his notes out and so he can get the money to go to another one and he aggregates them altogether, they call it flying in flocks. The lenders flock together and together they do a loan and he sells his portion. Yeah, you could sell it and then you can continue to receive it and keep a portion of it. the only issue you have is if it's a convertible note then you wouldn’t want to do a convertible note because boom, that Roth IRA depending on the type of entity if it's an S-Corp you'd kill the S-Corp's status of it. How do you put an LLC on hold? You get quite literally do nothing with it or you just pay the state and then you file a non activity return. You say it's not doing anything. So you're allowed to do that or you just do nothing. Which is what I tend to do. It just depends on your state. If there's not much penalty then I just kind of sit it and then two years later I might reactivate it. Will real estate holding LLC taxes partnership qualify for the 20% passed through deduction? Yes, it will. Here's the deal, as long as it's not triple net property. What she's asking is, "Hey, I have a whole bunch of LLCs and they all receive rental income and there's a net income amount." let's say it comes through with $50,000 there's something called a 199A deduction that was enacted by the 2017 tax cut and jobs act. And it gives you a 20% deduction off that amount or 20% of your taxable income whichever one is less/ but if you earn over a certain amount so for individuals it's over, $100,575 if it's a married couple it's $315,000 which is going to make your head hurt I'm going to suffer memory here. Then you scale up and then you have a new test it's 50% of the W2 income that's being paid on that particular busine

This week's episode is a review of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Joe Rogan is a stand up comic, UFC commentator, podcast host, former host of Fear Factor and was on a sitcom in the 90's called "News Radio." Joe is not a believer, I don't think he would necessarily call himself an atheist, but he's certainly a skeptic. He regularly speaks about religion, and when he speaks about Christianity specifically he often misrepresents what it is that Christians believe, but not because he's being malicious but rather because he is not educated on what it is Christians actually believe. For example, Joe will say that religious people believe without evidence, and that Christianity and science are at odds. We do our best to correct some of his errors. Ultimately, we would really like to have Joe Rogan as a guest on the Bible Thumping Wingnut show to have a discussion about Christian beliefs and specifically about the Bible and the transmission of the New Testament. So Joe, if you are reading this and/or listening to this please tweet @Biblethumpingwingnut or @presuppreacher and we would love to have you on (or come on your podcast). Please tweet this episode @joerogan with the hashtag #JRE so that this episode comes to his attention. Email questions to grapplingwiththeology@gmail.com Rate and review GWT on iTunes Like GWT on Facebook Follow GWT on Twitter We are part of the Bible Thumping Wingnut Podcast Network. Go to www.biblethumpingwingnut.com for more info go to www.biblethumpingwingnut.com Thanks to our sponsor Deus Fight Co. Go to www.deusfight.com for the best Christian Gi's, rash guards and athletic apparel. Use coupon code GWT at check out for a 20% discount.   Please rate and review us on iTunes. Grace and peace!!

Today's episode is brought to you by ITProTV. Visit itpro.tv/7ms and use code 7MS to get a FREE 7-day trial and 30% off a monthly membership for the lifetime of your active subscription. Today's episode is a follow-up interview with Joe Klein, who is my good pal, a former coworker, and a SOC analyst extraordinaire. You might remember Joe from things such as...this podcast - episode #290 to be exact. When we last left Joe, he had just started an exciting new journey as a SOC analyst, and also picked up a new sweet gig teaching college-level security courses. So Joe and I sat down last week in the 7 Minute Security studios to talk with Joe about: How to be an absolute beast at networking Seizing new opportunities (even if it seems scary) Good certs for security newbs (and not-so-newbs) to pursue Life as a SOC analyst How to learn security by teaching it! This interview was an absolute blast to work on with Joe, and after it was over, neither of us could believe that the run time was nearly 2 hours! So in order to help you navigate the episode and have the best listening experience possible, we created the following "Choose Your Own Adventure" timeline with the high (and low?) discussion points of the interview. Enjoy! (Interview timeline available on 7MS under episode #321)

As your relationship changes, are things getting better and better? Or have you gotten stuck along the way? If you get stuck - how do you get unstuck? And no matter what happens, how do you foster a sense of collaboration, of being on the “same team” with your partner? Today’s guests, Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson, have charted the course of how relationships develop - in fact, they created the “Developmental Model” for working with couples. Along with practical experience from having helped many couples, Ellyn and Peter are among the leaders in the field of training couples therapists to become more effective. Their book for therapists, In Quest of the Mythical Mate: A Developmental Approach to Diagnosis and Treatment in Couples Therapy is a classic that has stood the test of time - unlike many other books and theories that have come and gone. Today you’ll learn how to figure out where you’re stuck in your relationship, and how to be on the same team as you steer things back in a healthier direction. Also, please check out our first episode with Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson - Relationship Alive Episode 24: Why We Lie (and How to Get Back to the Truth) As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Sponsors: Along with our amazing listener supporters (you know who you are - thank you!), this week's episode has a cool new sponsor with a special offer for you - Songfinch.com. Songfinch.com helps you create an original song as a unique gift for any special occasion. You tell them what the occasion is, what emotions you want your song to evoke, what type of song you want, and give them a little bit of your story - and they bring your story to life with a radio-quality song that captures it all. Songfinch is offering you $20 off a personalized “Song from Scratch” if you use the coupon code ALIVE20 at checkout. Resources: Check out Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson's website Get Ellyn and Peter’s Guide to Super Negotiation for Couples and find out about their other resources FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict… Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE) www.neilsattin.com/development Visit to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson. Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out Transcript: Neil Sattin: Thank you so much for being with us here today on Relationship Alive. Pete Pearson: It's good to be here, Neil. Ellyn Bader: Yeah, really happy to be with you again, Neil. Neil Sattin: Awesome. Yes. It's been a while since episode 24, which was when we last spoke, when we're now in the 150s here. So ... Pete Pearson: Oh my goodness. Neil Sattin: I know, I know. So Pete, we were just talking, and we were talking about the ... Before we started officially, we were talking about this question about what people do when they get triggered, and you said, "That's not the most important question for people to be asking." And so I'm curious, from your perspective, what is the most important question that people should be asking? Pete Pearson: See, here's what's interesting, Neil. In just about every couple that we see, a couple will get an insight into where they're stuck, how they're stuck, and why they're stuck. And the next question almost inevitably is, "Well, what do we do about it?" And that's an understandable question. And I used to think, "Oh, they're asking me for advice. I'll give them advice about what to do right now." And then they will leave, they will practice what I just expressed, they will come back, and they will be on bending knee thanking me for my wisdom, intelligence, smarts, etc. Pete Pearson: What I discovered is, and they say, "God you're so wonderful, what other advice do you have? And we're gonna tell all our friends about you, because you're so smart. " Well what I discovered was, it didn't happen that often. But yet they asked, "What do we do about it?" And then I discovered, the what do we do about it is a good question, but it's a premature question. Really the question that comes before is, "How motivated are you to do something about it?" See, it takes a strong motivation, a bigger picture that pulls us forward, and that bigger picture, that stronger motivation is what allows us to unhook from those triggers. And if the motivation is puny, then no matter what I say that could be effective, will not be applied. Neil Sattin: Yeah, we had David Burns on the show, and he was talking about how surprised he often is that when it gets right down to it, a lot of couples that he's worked with, actually aren't willing to change. Even though they are coming to couples' therapy, they would prefer being stuck where they are, versus whatever's required to change the direction. Pete Pearson: Well I think that's true for one part of them. Here's what I mean. And I think the dilemma of change was summed up brilliantly by James Baldwin, the playwright and writer, when he said, "Nothing is more desirable than to be relieved of our affliction." And that's the motivation that brings couples into therapy. "Nothing is more desirable than to be relieved of our affliction, and nothing is more terrifying than to be divested of our crutch." And that I interpreted as, "nothing is more terrifying than to be divested of our coping mechanisms. Our self-protections." Pete Pearson: So couples are in a terrible bind. They want to be relieved of their affliction, yes, and it's terrifying to be divested of their coping mechanisms. Neil Sattin: Yeah, and you speak also in your work about the importance of both people recognizing that there's something in it for them, whatever it is they're experiencing. I'm thinking right now of the example you give of people, and we'll explain this a little bit more as we go, but people who are in a symbiotic and practicing relationship. Where one of them is working to be more independent from the other, and the other one is like, "No, come back here. Be with me." And it creates all of this tension and conflict and it's easy for the practicing partner to overlook the fact that they actually benefit a lot from that symbiotic welcome home, that they get from their partner, even though it's confounding them in their quest for independence. Pete Pearson: Ellen, you want to speak to that? Ellyn Bader: Yeah, but I'm not sure what the question is. I can speak about that type of couple, but Neil, did you have a question there? Neil Sattin: Yeah, good point. So the question in there, I think it was more of an observation that this is a situation where people are invested in the problem, or invested in the crutch as Pete was talking about. Maybe the question is, what are some strategies you have for helping people become aware of their role or of the crutch that they have in the moment, even if they think, for instance, that something is all about their partner's problem? Ellyn Bader: So I think what you're asking is, first of all, at least to me it's like, how does a person take a look at what they're doing that's getting in their own way, and can you get some acknowledgement that a particular thing somebody is doing, is actually getting in their own way of being able to realize the dreams that brought them together or being able to accomplish something they want to accomplish. So there's the question of, "Okay, what are some things you do to help somebody realize it?" So that's one piece. Then the second piece is what Pete was talking about, is "Can you lay out what it's going to take to change it, and then increase motivation? Or is there motivation to actually do the work or put in the effort." And then certainly you want the couple to be able to collaborate and work together on that process of change, so that they are reinforcing each other as they go through what is challenging and difficult for them to do. Ellyn Bader: So when you can get all three of those things really solidly in place, you're gonna have a couple that's motivated and working with you in the therapy process. When any one of those things, is missing, you're gonna have a much harder time, and therapists often report having sessions that are repetitive and seem to go nowhere and the couple comes in week after week with the same fight or the same dynamic. So I think you have to look at all three of those, and make sure that you've got them all in place. Neil Sattin: Yeah, where do you feel would be a great place to start? I mean, what's popping into my mind immediately, is your concept of developing a strong future focus for a couple, based on where they are developmentally? Pete Pearson: See, that's an important place when we start to figure out the steps for change. But to get people to own their part, I find now is, what I do in the first 10 or 15 minutes of the first session, is to have people own their part. But I do it in a rather indirect way. It's like it's traditional for most therapists, when a couple comes in for the first session to ask, "Why are you here," or "How can I help?" And at that point most couples launch of barrage of cross complaints about, "Well, I'm here because my partner is insensitive. They're a slob. They're not affectionate. They're not responsible. They don't follow through." Etc., etc. And so they trade blames. Pete Pearson: And then after a few minutes, everybody in the room is feeling miserable, I know that because I've been there so many times. And then I found there's a much better way to get to the bottom of what they struggle with without any blame at all. And I will say to them, "It's typical for most therapists to ask when we start the first meeting, is to say, 'why are you here?'" I say, "I don't want to do that, because it just ends up everybody blaming everybody. So what I'd like to do is ask you guys a diagnostic question, and it lets me know how well you've been listening to each other. Which also lets me know how hard you're gonna have to work in here. So Joe, tell me what do you think are Sue's major complaints about you are? And Sue, what do you think Joe's major complaints about you are? And it doesn't matter who goes first, because you both get a chance to express that." Pete Pearson: And at that point, Joe will say, "Well Sue will say that I'm too preoccupied with my devices. I don't spend enough time with the family. I don't call if I'm gonna be home for work. I just, and I want affection without being nice during the day or the evening, and ..." And then I'll say, "Oh, man, those sound really good, Joe. What else?" And he says, "Well, I think she thinks I'm not very careful with money." Well I'll say "Dynamite. Those are good. Joe, how confident are you on a scale of one to ten that Sue's gonna say you nailed it?" Joe'll say, "Well about a seven or eight." And then I'll say, "What those complaints you just mentioned, is there some legitimacy to her complaints?" And he'll say, "Well, yeah." But I don't go into detail. Pete Pearson: See at that point, and then I'll say, "So Sue, how good has been doing?" "Well he's been listening, and frankly, I think he's listened better than I thought. I'd give him about a seven or eight on that or maybe even a nine." "Sue, do you have any appreciation for Joe, listening so well to you? Now why hasn't he done anything is why you guys are here. But is there a part of you that appreciates that at least he's been listening?" And she'll say, "Well yeah." "Well tell him." "Joe I didn't know you listened so well. Thank you for listening." Pete Pearson: So instead of being defensive, now they're collaborating and giving each other compliments, and each of them, when they do that, have just laid out what the problems are by owning their stuff instead of having their partner do it for them. Almost nobody Neil, nobody wants to meet somebody and within 10 minutes start being ripped by their spouse about all their flaws and faults. All that does is create shame, embarrassment and guilt. But doing it this way, people claim their stuff for themselves, I don't have to work as hard, I get to understand the problems, and the atmosphere in the room is a whole lot better. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I can see how that would get things started off on the right foot. Both with giving you a sense of what's going on for them, and how well they listen, and also, the degree to which they're able to see their part or take responsibility for at least what they think their partner is complaining about with them. Pete Pearson: Exactly. And that can only be done in the first 20 minutes. Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah. That's perfect. I'm curious. Do you still ... You talk about the paper exercise in your book, The Inquest of the Mythical Mate. Do you still do that exercise with couples? Ellyn Bader: Actually, you're right where I was gonna go. Because that exercise is an absolutely fabulous exercise. In five minutes a therapist can see and then can help feedback to the couple where they break down. It's an exercise that's designed to help you and couples ... And a concept the we talk a lot about is the concept of differentiation. And basically, the way the exercise goes is the therapist hands the couple a piece of paper and asks them to hold it between them, and gives them up to five minutes to decide who gets to hold the paper without ripping or tearing it. They can do it verbally, they can do it non-verbally, they can do it anyway they like, but at the end of five minutes, decide who has the paper. Ellyn Bader: And then you get to sit back as the therapist, you get to sit back and watch for five minutes, and then in watching, you're going to be giving the couple feedback about how they do. And the exercise, I can give you a few highlights right now. It's a very wonderfully sophisticated exercise for getting to leverage stuck places in couples' relationships. But I mean, you're looking for whether people self-define. Whether they avoid conflict. Whether they're able to go into the conflict. Whether they have skills to negotiate and move a conflict forward. Ellyn Bader: And so when you can talk to a couple about, "Hey, here's what I saw. Does this make sense? Here's what I think each of you did that was positive and great and effective, and here's where I think you're stuck, or here's where I see you getting stalled. And usually what you see in terms of how couples are getting stalled in that exercise, are similar to what they do at home, that prevents them from solving problems or sets them up to be angry at each other. And it's a very not-threatening, very sort of collaborative process that you can get into with couples when you do that exercise with them. Neil Sattin: Yeah, and what I loved about reading your book, was not only the recognition that I had about, "Oh, okay. Yeah. I recognize having been in a relationship that was stuck in this place or that place," and let's, before we go too much further, we'll define them so that people know what we're talking about. But I also love PART 1 OF 3 ENDS [00:17:04] Neil Sattin: how, I think it's easy to, let's say, someone here says, "Well, I'm going to try that with my partner. Let's grab this paper and see if we can figure it out." And then for some reason they can't or they have a huge eruption or at an impasse to feel like, "Wow, we must be really horrible as a couple because we couldn't even do this paper exercise right." Neil Sattin: But what I love is that it just is simply a way of getting insight into where you are, but that each place where you might be stuck simply represents a place where you need to grow and growing past that place gives you a pathway to a new level of intimacy and being able to handle conflict better and being able to stand really strongly in who you are while still enjoying intimacy with your partner. Ellyn Bader: Oh, absolutely and one of the things that I think is so valuable about it is that it's easy when you're in the midst of it with your partner and you're like going home after work and you're having fights or you're not getting along well on weekends or you're fighting over disciplining the kids. It's easy to think you have a whole lot of problems, but when you can find the leveraged place, the place that repeats, and you learn how to do that differently, then you start doing it differently in all the different areas that you have conflict. So you don't actually always have to go back and solve every single problem that you think that you have if you change the process of how you talk and the process of how you approach things that are stressful. Neil Sattin: Yeah. That makes perfect sense. How much do you feel like awareness, before we dive into it, briefly, of the developmental model, how much do you think that awareness is helpful for a couple to be able to see, like, "Okay, this is the span of how couples develop looks like and this is where we're at." Is that enlightening or confining? From a couple's perspective versus the therapist's perspective. Ellyn Bader: I can tell you what the therapists in my online training program report. And so, I have therapists who work with me, basically, who are in countries all over the world and many of them report that their clients feel relieved when they see the process. We have little brochures that we use and that a lot of therapists give to their clients which layout the stages and sometimes they'll send a couple home to look at it and figure out where they are. Sometimes they'll just talk about it. But when couples can see, hey, there is kind of a normal progression that a lot of relationships go through and either we're right on track, which is sometimes the case, or hey, we got stuck here and this is what our challenge is so that we can move forward. And what we always say is, when couples get unstuck, then they can get back into their own developmental process. They don't need a therapist all the way through their whole development. Neil Sattin: Right. So, would you be willing, or I could do this too, but because I don't want to put you on the spot completely, but to give sort of the two to three minute overview of, what are we talking about, the developmental stages that a couple goes through? Ellyn Bader: Pete, do you want to do it or do you want me to do it? Pete Pearson: Go ahead, Ellyn. Ellyn Bader: Okay. So, the quick version is, two people meet, they fall in love. In the ideal world, everything is beautiful, wonderful. They have that incredible falling in love period, which I sometimes call a period of temporary psychosis. But it's a period in which there's bonding and attachment and not everybody starts that way, but a lot of couples do. And then it's normal by about two years into the relationship, sometimes a little sooner, sometimes a little longer, but it's very, very normal to hit a period of disillusionment when the partner is taken off that pedestal and instead of being seen as wonderful, all of a sudden the flaws start to show up and that disillusionment period is normal. Ellyn Bader: And then what people have to contend with is, how do we work out who are you and who am I given that we not only have parts of ourselves in each other that we love, but parts of each other that we find sometimes disgusting or we don't really want to be around or we don't like and that's all normal. But what's hard for couples is to learn how to manage those differences effectively instead of ineffectively. When they handle it ineffectively, they start to blame, accuse, or withdraw and then they get into some negative patterns. Ellyn Bader: So the second stage of relationship is the stage of differentiation. It's a stage in which partners do learn how to come to terms with their differences. When that goes well, actually people are able to have a lot more independence than they had in the first two stages because there's a base of connection and a base of, hey, we know to solve things. We solve them well. And then they can be out in the world more. They can be doing more independent things, enjoying other things that they're bringing back to help nourish the relationship, and so there's often a period in which that can go on for many, many years in which each partner is developing their own self-esteem apart from how the relationship is fairing. Ellyn Bader: And then at some point often there's a period of reconnection or of returning to the relationship as a source of greater nurturance and often couples at this time tend to focus more on their sexual relationship or on different aspects of intimacy when they're reconnecting. And many couples who get through all of this end up wanting to create something together and so we even talk about a last stage being a synergistic stage. A stage in which one plus one is really greater than two and they support each other in ways or goals or projects that are meaningful to both of them. So that's a very quick version of sometimes what I teach in a whole morning. Neil Sattin: That was great. And I'm thinking back to how you mentioned that you're working a lot with entrepreneurial couples these days and I'm curious to know how you draw distinction between couples who are working together from a synergistic place that one plus one is more than two, versus couples who are coming at that from a more enmeshed place where they're not ... It's about just not being able to be without each other. Pete Pearson: I guess, that gave me, what a great question. If couples want to start working together and they haven't been able to work out yet how to manage their differences or their disillusionments, boy, are they in for a wild ride. If you think about all the different areas of interdependence that couples have when they're not even working together, where they have areas of interdependency, our family and friends and finances and fitness and food and fidelity and faith and man, there are a lot of F words in an interdependent relationship. Pete Pearson: And each one of those areas require a set of negotiation problem solving skills and working together. And then you add all those areas of interdependency with all the areas of interdependency at work, when they're working together. What could possibly go wrong? So, the problems just are geometric when you work with your partner, your spouse, and yet, more and more couples are working together. There's a lot of entrepreneurs out there on the internet or doing franchise operations and their spouse is involved and that just really doubles the opportunity to collide. It also doubles the opportunity to synergize your strengths and abilities. Pete Pearson: So, it really, the push and pull is enormous to deal with the differences and it's ... Sometimes I will say, I will ask couples, "Would you want to be married to a personality clone of yourself?" Most couples say no. And I'll say, "Well, why is that?" And the category it's generally falling to, "Well, if I'm married to a clone of myself ... If I married a clone, it would be like World War 3." Or, "If I married a clone of myself, it'd be really interesting, but nothing would get accomplished." And as one woman said, "I would have all my problems times two." Pete Pearson: And so the good news is, they're smart enough to know that differences can enhance a relationship, but the same differences can also corrode a relationship, but we want to marry somebody who is different. And that's the good news and the bad news. Neil Sattin: Yeah. I'm just thinking too about how time, being such a limiting resource in many respects with everything that people are trying to accomplish in today's world and so I could see that providing incentive for people to want to work together as a way to actually maybe be able to spend more time together. Pete Pearson: Right. Neil Sattin: And yet, from what you're saying, I also gather, like, wow, it is so important in that case to be able to identify, oh, here we are not handling conflict very productively and here are all the signs of that. Whether it's increased resentment or increased ... Just increased conflict that gets explosive versus actually resolving. And that comes from what you were talking about, right Ellyn? That sense of, have you differentiated effectively enough so that you can stand in who you are, but actually meet the other person as a whole person unto themselves and have a collaborative way of being on the same team as you navigate those places where you're not in alignment. Ellyn Bader: Yeah. One of the things, Neil, that I find really interesting, as I said, I've started doing some more work with entrepreneurs and their spouses and particularly, I love working with the couples who are fairly new to going into business together because one of the things that they know they have a ton at stake because if they don't make it, their business is going to have problems or have to be split up as well as their marriages or their committed partnerships. And so they actually have, in some cases, a much higher motivation to get it right at the beginning, and also sometimes it's easier for people to get the concept that in business, our roles and responsibilities need to be really clearly defined. Ellyn Bader: And that's also true on the home front with a lot of couples, but couples don't tend to think about it that way, they tend to think about it as, well, if our relationship is good, everything will just go smoothly and we can move back and forth smoothly. Neil Sattin: Right. It all just works itself out. Ellyn Bader: Exactly. And so they know- Pete Pearson: That's the hope. Ellyn Bader: Right. That's the hope and the belief that it should be easy. But yet, when you have clearly defined roles, it mitigates a lot of conflict. Ellyn Bader: Here comes our gardener making some noise I'm sorry to say. Neil Sattin: I can hear it, but it's so faint in the background and you're coming through so loud and clear that as long as you're able to concentrate, then I think we're good. Ellyn Bader: Okay. Neil Sattin: Yeah. So, I love that. So, one potential option if you're having trouble motivating to actually change is to start a business together. Ellyn Bader: Well, except if your relationship is a mess, it's not a great time to start a business together. Pete Pearson: You'll have all your problems times two. Neil Sattin: Just kidding. But it does bring us back to that question of how you get people to buy-in. To like ... Okay, this is actually going to require something of me to create change in our relationship. Ellyn Bader: Yeah, and most people who have worked in the workplace understand that there are different roles and responsibilities that come with a job and they've been in jobs where they've had people on a team who are doing different aspects of the work. And so they've had that experience and it makes logical sense. But then when they go home and they think, there's just two of us, they don't think about saying, okay, who's responsible for organizing childcare? Who's responsible for our finances or is somebody paying the bills and somebody else doing the investments? Who's responsible for cooking dinner on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday or does somebody always cook and somebody always clean up? And they get into patterns, but often it's not really clearly delineated. Neil Sattin: Right. So, is there a process that, if I'm listening to this and thinking, "Oh, you know, some of those things we haven't actually figured out," or "I wonder if we've differentiated effectively?" How could I diagnose myself or our relationship to know if that's happened or not? Pete Pearson: Well, the easy way to know that it's happened, Neil, is, what does my partner do that annoys me? And when you start from a place of, what does my partner do that annoys me in what area of stuff around the house, I would bet that it's because you haven't clearly delineated and agreed upon the roles and responsibilities of that area. Couples kind of normally fall into those patterns in kind of like happenstance, but there's a lot of slippage and a lot of boundary confusion or unclarity about who is really responsible for what and who gets the deciding vote in that area. And that's when our annoyances almost always come from expectations, "My partner's not meeting my expectations." So, the annoyances have to do with expectations of partners that haven't been clarified very well or agreed upon. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Or assumptions that you're making. Pete Pearson: Assumptions, yes. Neil Sattin: So, I'm curious for couples who say, think, "Well, generally it works out okay, but when we try to have that conversation, it doesn't go so well, like either ... That could be an explosive argument, or it could be I just always have to give in, because we can't have that conversation. What are some ways that you offer couples to help them have that conversation in a way that's more generative, and you talk about ... I think you talk about fighting fairly or conflict ... I can't remember the exact phrase that you use, but agreements around how you have conflict. Ellyn Bader: Well, before we even go there, let's say that when couples are trying to negotiate, they make some mistakes. One of the big mistakes that people make is caving in too quickly and they don't realize that when they hit that place of tension, that's actually the place where it's important to stay with it a while longer and figure something out and not see that tension as something bad, but see that tension as where their growth edge actually is. Ellyn Bader: And so, it's a long story, and we won't go into all the details, but Pete and I talk about many years ago, when we ran workshops together, how we reached a point of conflict, and where we each wanted something very different and it took a full year to sort it out and a full year of actually having to work with the tension, until we came to something that worked for both of us and enabled us to keep working together, because otherwise we would've had too much conflict and not been able to continue working together, running workshops together. People think they should get through stuff faster sometimes than is actually possible. Ellyn Bader: The process of getting through it is a process where both you get to know yourself better, and you get to know your partner better, if you can stay curious about why something matters to your partner, stay curious about why is it so important to you, learning how to ask really good questions, learning how not to cave too fast. There's many different capacities that are involved in successfully differentiating and successfully managing conflict that get strengthened. The emotional muscle gets built as couples go through that together. Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah, so I could almost see, like for instance, if you sense that your partner is just caving in, because you've hit that point of tension, to have the willingness to say, “No, I don't want to just get my way here. Let's figure out a way to have this conversation, as long as is required.” Ellyn Bader: Right, right, and you know, people who tend to be very active and assertive often end up with partners who are a bit more passive than they, themselves, are and for a while it may work to let the more passive person just cave in, but then, over time, instead of having clear roles and responsibilities, what you actually have is the active person doing way, way, way, way more, and the other person doing less, and resentment building. You need to be able to stop that caving in process early. Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah, what's ... Maybe we could talk briefly about a structure that could be helpful for people, when they realize they're at this place, a point of tension that's where they tend to get stuck. What might- Pete Pearson: Hey, I have an ... Ellyn, I have an idea. Neil, if we could post somewhere, where your listeners could go to and get a four-page document called, “Super Negotiation for Couples.” Neil Sattin: Love it. Pete Pearson: It's a really step-by-step process for how to negotiate and how to avoid the two big problems of negotiation, which is either caving in too quickly or pushing yourself too hard to get what you want, at the expense of the other. I can give you a link where your listeners could go and get that document. Neil Sattin: Yeah, that would be great, if it's easy. We can always post it in the transcript of the show, as well. Pete Pearson: That would be great, but very quickly, and then we'll send you the link, and it could be posted in the transcript. It's couplesinstitute.com/blog, and then in the blog, it's Super Negotiation for Couples, couplesinstitute.com/blog, and the blog is “Super Negotiation for Couples.” It's four pages, which is really good, a step-by-step process to lead you through what can be negotiated, and, interestingly enough, what cannot be negotiated, and even more importantly, how to prepare ahead of time to make an effective negotiation. Neil Sattin: Great. I can already envision enlisting Chloe and doing it experimentally and recording ourselves for the podcast- Pete Pearson: Oh, cool! Yeah. Neil Sattin: So that you can hear us live going into negotiating or not, something really sensitive for us. Pete Pearson: Oh, that would be interesting. Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah, totally. I appreciate your sharing that link, and we will definitely have a direct link to that in the transcript and show notes, as well. Pete Pearson: Terrific. Neil Sattin: I guess that saves us from having to go through the whole thing here. Pete Pearson: Right. Neil Sattin: One thing that I want to touch on is when people get into relationship and, Ellyn, you mentioned, very often, not always, but very often there's that initial falling in love or that feeling of merging, or we're the same, or we're meant for each other. This is perfect. Then the disillusionment happens, where you start realizing the person isn't perfect. Yet, towards the end of the developmental process, when you're actually in that place of synergy, I don't think you're going to feel like you're the same again, but you will feel an intense level of intimacy and closeness that, in some ways, is at least a variation on the theme of that kind of intimacy that you experience at the very start of your relationship. Neil Sattin: I want to bring this up, because I feel like, so often, the struggle for people is wanting to hang onto what they experienced at the very beginning out of fear of moving like that, in the differentiation process, they're going to lose each other. How do you keep people connected, while they're differentiating? Ellyn Bader: First of all, one of the ways that I explain this, and I think it's a visual that people really get, is you know the disco balls that have mirrors all around them? Neil Sattin: Yes. Ellyn Bader: I keep a disco ball in my office. What I say is a disco ball represents each person, and all the mirrors on the ball are different facets of yourself. When you two met and fell in love, the disco ball mirrors that were facing each other or were setting each other off, and you were falling in love, and all the brain chemicals got going, are those places where you really felt like you were the same, like you were meant for each other, like everything was just perfect. Ellyn Bader: Well, because everybody has so many different facets of themselves, it's inevitable that those balls are going to spin. There's going to be a period in which the ones that are facing each other are actually the ones where you don't get along so well, or you're not the same, and where you have growth that needs to take place, in order to keep the connection. Over time, the balls are going to continue to spin, and you will learn things that will deepen your connection and, actually, the kind of intimacy that most couples experience when they get to the other side of that is a kind of intimacy that feels more real and more grounded than that super-exciting, temporary psychosis that went on at the beginning. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I mean the disco ball isn't terribly effective when it stays in one place. It needs to spin for- Ellyn Bader: Exactly. Neil Sattin: Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. Ellyn Bader: Now, and a relationship needs juice. It needs energy, and some of that energy comes from the differences, as well as from the similarities. Neil Sattin: I suggest that you, at home, you pick your favorite disco tune, and you can hum it to yourself when you're in a moment of uncertainty about the direction that you're headed. I'm already getting it might be the night fever, we know how to go it. Pete Pearson: Cool. Neil Sattin: There's that reassurance that you're headed towards that place, and yet it can feel really scary to give, to grant, freedom, or to take freedom, let's say, to take that independence. Is there a specific way that you encourage people to do that, to enter into that required process, but to maintain an awareness of the other person's heart and how they're affecting them, but not in a way that leads to codependence? Pete Pearson: That question, Neil, brings us full circle back to where we started. Instead of saying, “Here's how you do it,” or, “Here's the way to do it,” it's like, “What is your motivation for doing it? What are the advantages for put ... Why would you put forth the effort? Why would you take the emotional risk? Why would you take the sustained effort to bring that about?” Then we can talk about how to do it, but let's first talk about the "why" you would be willing to do it. It's the why that gives us the motivation to do the work. Ellyn Bader: Pete, I think of some of the stuff that you've been doing lately around couples as a team also is part of an answer to Neil's question. Pete Pearson: Totally, because we first have to identify where we get stuck, where the pain is. That's easy for couples to do. Pete Pearson: “Here's where I get triggered. When my partner does X, this is what happens, and I get triggered.” Pete Pearson: I say, “Great, let's look at what you feel/think when you get triggered.” Pete Pearson: They go, “Oh, that's easy to do.” Pete Pearson: Now I will say, “Let's shift, because we have to shift from where you are in that emotional brain, that lizard brain reflex, that self-protection, and let's talk about how you aspire to be instead. If you come from your higher self, your transformative self, you're better self, what would that look like? Instead of responding from a defensive, blaming, accusatory, withdrawing place, what would be a better way of responding?” Pete Pearson: Most of the time, people can say, “Well, I'd be better if I was calmer, if I was curious, if I was a little more compassionate, if I was a better listener.” Pete Pearson: Then here's, I say, the key question, which is, “Why would you be willing to make the effort to go to that future focus, that forward focus? Why would you be willing to do that?”  Then, that gets us to all the benefits for change. People only change for three reasons: to avoid a greater pain, for the benefits involved or the rewards involved, and to live more within our integrity about how we aspire to be. We talk about why they would be willing to make the effort. Pete Pearson: Then, I'll say, "When you get stuck, when you get triggered, I want you to clasp your hands together and squeeze. That will, first of all, distract you from being looping in that emotional, lizard brain response. Then, think about how you would aspire to be, and why you would change and be that way. When your partner sees you clasping your hands, that's a signal to your partner that you are struggling to change your response and come from your better self. Then your partner will say to you, 'Oh, thank you. I appreciate your willingness to try to avoid going into that old place and do something different. I really appreciate that. What can I do to help that? What can I say or what can I do right now that would be helpful?'"  I say, "When you guys do that, now you're working together as a team." Neil Sattin: Perfect, and that being the whole goal is recognizing that, even as you progress through these stages of togetherness leading into greater independence, leading back to greater interdependence, that you're on the same team with each other. Pete Pearson: Yes. Neil Sattin: You're not out to get each other. You've got each other's back, and you can help each other through that process. Pete Pearson: Exactly. Neil Sattin: Well, Pete Pearson and Ellyn Bader, it's been a treat to have you on the show again, just like the first time around. I wish I had read your book, In Quest of the Mythical Mate, years ago, but I'm so thrilled that I read it now. I would say it's required reading for any couples therapist out there. You're doing a lot of work, training couples therapists, as well as work helping lay people just do better in relationships, through your work at The Couples Institute. Neil Sattin: Thank you, again, for being with us here today. I'll make sure we have links to your website, so people can find your work. I just want to say how grateful I am for the work you're doing in the world, and for your willingness to come and share it with us here on Relationship Alive. We could talk more, and hopefully, we'll get that chance again sometimes soon. Pete Pearson: Thank you, Neil, so much, for what you're doing to bring the message to the people out there. Neil Sattin: My pleasure. Ellyn Bader: Yes, thank you, Neil. It's always a pleasure talking with you, and I also will mention that I'm going to be doing a free online workshop between August 13th and 25th, so if any of your listeners want to participate in that, I can send you a link for that, as well. Neil Sattin: That would be great, and I can actually send that out to my mailing list, as well, so that people can find out about it that way. Ellyn Bader: That would be fantastic. Pete Pearson: Thank you, Neil. Ellyn Bader: Yeah, that would be great. Neil Sattin: Absolutely. Well, we'll be in touch about that, and always great to talk to you guys. Take care. Ellyn Bader: You, too. Pete Pearson: Bye-bye, Neil. Ellyn Bader: Bye.  

Our phones are our lives. We can't leave home without them and anxiety builds as our battery drains. So Joe and Laura swap phones and do a deep dive to find what is on them! In the episode, Joe has Laura examine his lumps, they talk a lot about republicans, Joe is afraid of finding nudes, and Laura reads Joe's sensitive and embarassing Tinder messages. It's horrifying.  Become a patron of Heavy Friending! https://www.patreon.com/heavyfriending Follow Heavy Friending on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!  https://www.facebook.com/HeavyFriending/ https://www.instagram.com/heavyfriending/ https://twitter.com/heavyfriending

Dr Carolyn Lam: Welcome to Circulation on the Run, your weekly podcast summary and backstage pass to the journal and its editors. I'm Dr Carolyn Lam, Associate Editor from the National Heart Center and Duke National University of Singapore. This week features Circulation Global Rounds, a brand-new series of papers from all across the world that you are going to want to hear about, coming right up after these summaries. The first original paper this week tells us that community trends and acute decompensated heart failure may differ by race and sex. Dr Patricia Chang from University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and colleagues examine the 10-year rates and trends of hospitalized acute decompensated heart failure in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities or ARIC study, which sampled heart failure–related hospitalizations in four US communities from 2005 to 2014, using ICD-9 codes. They found that acute heart failure with reduced ejection fraction was more common in black men and white men, whereas acute heart failure with preserved ejection fraction was most common in white women. Rates of hospitalized acute decompensated heart failure increased over time, with higher rates in blacks, and rising cases of preserved ejection fraction heart failure. Mortality rates were 30% at one year with a more pronounced decrease over time in blacks but generally did not differ by heart failure types. Whether racial differences may be related to age of onset comorbidities, or other community level and social economic factors, deserve further study. The next paper is a population-based study identifying long-term outcomes and risk factors and children with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Dr Alexander from Boston Children's Hospital and colleagues examine the National Australian Childhood Cardiomyopathy Study, a long-term national cohort study with a median follow-up duration of 15 years. They found that the greatest risk of death or transplantation for children with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was in the first year after diagnosis, with 14% of patients achieving this combined end point compared to 0.4% per year thereafter. Risk factors for death or transplantation included symmetric left ventricular hypertrophy at diagnosis, Noonan syndrome, increasing left ventricular free wall thickness, and lower fractional shortening during follow up. The majority of surviving patients had no symptoms. Thus, children with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy who are alive one year after diagnosis have a low long-term rate of death or transplantation. Deaths from heart failure usually occur soon after diagnosis, whereas the risk of sudden cardiac death is ongoing. The next paper is the first demonstration of a peripheral clock in the perivascular adipose tissue that could contribute to the homeostatic regulation of circadian blood pressure variation. Co-corresponding authors Dr Chang and Chen from University of Michigan and their colleagues used a novel brown adipose specific aryl hydrocarbon receptor, nuclear translocator-like protein 1 or Bmal1 and angiotensinogen knockout mouse model to demonstrate that local Bmal1 in perivascular adipose tissue regulated angiotensinogen expression and the ensuing increase in angiotensin II, which acted on smooth muscle cells in the vessel walls to regulate basal activity and blood pressure in a circadian fashion during the resting phase. In fact, deletion of Bmal1 or angiotensinogen in the perivascular adipose tissue resulted in a superdipper phenotype with exacerbated hypotension during the resting phase. These findings imply that it is possible that obesity could alter the perivascular adipose tissue peripheral clock, thus promoting abnormal dipper phenotypes and increasing cardiovascular risk. The results therefore inform the design of novel therapeutic approaches for hypertension by targeting the perivascular adipose tissue peripheral clock. What is the net clinical benefit of oral anticoagulation for very elderly patients with atrial fibrillation? Well, the next paper by first author Dr Chao, cocorresponding authors, Dr Chen from Taipei Veterans General Hospital and Dr Lip from University of Birmingham, addresses this question. These authors use a nationwide cohorts study in Taiwan to compare the risks of ischemic stroke and intercerebral hemorrhage between patients with and without atrial fibrillation, all aged 90 years and above, from 1996 to 2011, and they also compared patients treated with warfarin and non-vitamin K antagonists oral anticoagulants, or NOX from 2012 to 2015 when NOX were available in Taiwan. They found that even among these very elderly patients aged 90 years and above, atrial fibrillation was associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke compared to patients without atrial fibrillation. Warfarin use was associated with a lower risk of ischemic stroke, with no difference in intercerebral hemorrhage risk compared to nonwarfarin treatment. The use of warfarin was associated with a positive net clinical benefit compared to being untreated or to antiplatelet therapy. Compared to warfarin, NOX were associated with a lower risk of intracerebral hemorrhage, with no difference in the risk of ischemic stroke. Thus, oral anticoagulation may still be considered for thromboprophylaxis in very elderly patients with atrial fibrillation, with NOX being a favorable choice The final paper provides insights into the mechanisms linking obesity and cardiovascular diseases. Co-corresponding authors, Dr Kong and Wang from Peking University Health Science Center and colleagues use a combination of animal models and human adipose biopsies to characterize a new adipokine named family with sequence similarity 19, member A5 or FAM19A5. This novel adipokine was capable of inhibiting post injury neointoma information via sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 2 and downstream G12/13-RhoA signaling. Thus, down regulation of FAM19A5 during obesity and loss of its vascular protective function may trigger cardiometabolic diseases. Well, that wraps it up for our summaries. Now for our feature discussion. I'm just so excited about today's feature discussion, because we're talking about Circulation going global. And I am just absolutely delighted to have with us, our Editor-in-Chief himself, Dr Joe Hill from UT Southwestern, as well as our Senior Advisory Editor, Dr Paul Armstrong from University of Alberta. So Joe, could you start by telling us a little bit more about your vision for the global outreach of Circulation? Dr Joe Hill: Thank you, Carolyn. As I hope our readers are aware, Circulation is a global journal with a global footprint. We have editors distributed around the world in 16 countries and 10 time zones. And importantly, those editors all have an equivalent role at the leadership table. Part of the reason for this is because cardiovascular disease is now, as we are all aware, a global scourge. There are no more final frontiers for cardiovascular disease. That said, the manifestations of cardiovascular disease differ in different parts of the world. In the developed world, and the developing world, for example, the way cardiovascular disease manifests itself can be very different. And at the same time, the way in which the disorders are tackled are different. The way we tackle heart disease in the West can be different than it is in the East, for example. And there are important initiatives that have emerged in different pockets of the world, best practices that we need to understand better. What can we all learn from the way in which cardiovascular disease manifests itself around the world and it's being addressed around the world? Dr Carolyn Lam: Joe, you had me at hello. I remember that when you first took over as Editor-in - Chief and I heard you say this, I was just floored, because coming from Singapore and all our listeners out there in Japan and China, we just really appreciate that global outlook. So thank you, on behalf of us all. Tell us a bit more about this new initiative then for the journal. Dr Joe Hill: I will tell you in broad strokes, that Paul Armstrong, a noted clinical trial is from Canada, who is a household name in the cardiovascular world, he and I cooked up a scheme that Paul will describe, where we will reach out on a regular basis for insights from various different countries, ultimately, circling the globe progressively over time. And I will defer to Paul to tell us more about the specifics. Dr Paul Armstrong: Carolyn, it's an exciting initiative and as someone a little long in the tooth, but still believing that you can teach an old dog new tricks, I would point out that Circulation is almost 70 years old, and it has staying power. And one of the reasons that it has staying power is because it is capable of reinventing itself, and so I was attracted to help out again, from the editorial process, given Joe's vision and leadership and the excitement around the reinvention that you've described, to get involved with this initiative. And I was inspired, of course, by the fact that those of us who do clinical trials appreciate that a lot of different ideas, a lot of different cultures and perspectives are brought to a collaborative table. And I'm thinking back now, Carolyn to three years ago, when you and I first met enjoying courses as part of a trial in heart failure, which involves 43 countries, 800 sites, it will be 5000 patients centers, we've traveled separately and together around the world, convincing people that there are unmet needs in heart failure and other parts of cardiovascular disease, we learned that the approach to standard of care, the rigor which is applied, the exquisite sensitivities around differences that are meaningful, and the tricks that some investigators and countries use that we can all I think, learn from has been very revealing. So I think in this initiative, we want to have thought leaders. And we've already I think, commenced and have two outstanding leaders from Japan and India to come forward in the first two quarters of this initiative. Tell us about the regional epidemiologic features, cardiovascular disease in their regions, what the most important challenges are, what their best practices are, that you're alluded to, who provides cardiovascular care and what the impediments are to progressing because we think if we listen and learn as essentially knowledge brokers, because welcome to Circulation, we can facilitate raising the level of all of the boats in the water and potentially make new partnerships and do a better job. So I'm excited about this. I'm delighted that Joe was receptive and really look forward to working with him and some of these terrific people around the world, you included who brings such a unique and important perspective from which we can all learn. Dr Carolyn Lam: Oh, I love that so much Paul. Thanks for putting it that way. International knowledge brokers, that's what we hope to be. Isn't that fabulous, just an opportunity to learn from each other, everybody having stuff to bring to the table? Tell us a bit more though, what are you looking for in these papers? Dr Paul Armstrong: We have some guidelines. But as Joe insists we're not going to be formulaic. We're going to allow diversity of approaches. We're going to invite a thought leader and hope that that thought leader might invite one or two others, we want to limit it to three co-authors. We want obviously some insights into how cardiovascular health professionals are being trained, what research infrastructure exists, and how they access the literature, how do they read Circulation, how do they read other journals, and are there collaborative ideas that they've developed to their neighbors to the East and West that may be could be broadened? Are there unmet needs that they've indicated similar or different from those in Western Europe, South America? We've got about seven or eight points of light that we hope to illuminate in the course of this exercise. And the prospectus that's laid out in an editorial that Joe and I collaborated on that I believe, Joe, is going to come out in early July. Dr Joe Hill: That's exactly right, Paul. And I would just echo exactly what you said that just the opposite of a formulaic, cookie cutter approach. We want to leverage the beautiful diversity of our world. The different approaches that people take to attack this scourge that is keeping a humble approach to tackle instead of the visas that is humbling bar none. There is nothing that is more globally important than the continued growth and expansion of cardiovascular disease. And importantly, we can all learn from each other. There are exciting initiatives that I've learned about in South America and in pockets of Europe and in Asia, and in the Middle East that we can all benefit from, and we want to shine a bright light on that. These pieces will be relatively short. They will be in our Frame of Reference section, so 1200 words or so, so that they are accessible so that people, you know, feel that they can carve out, you know, four minutes in their busy day to read what cardiovascular disease looks like, as Paul said, our first ones will be from Japan and India, and we plan to reach out to South America and to the Middle East, and just continue on around until over the course of the next number of years, we've touched virtually every country in the world. Dr Carolyn Lam: And that's huge. And are there any specific types of cardiovascular disease that you might be looking to focus on? Dr Joe Hill: You know, I don't think so. One of the points that I have made and learned is that in the West, in the developed world, cardiovascular disease increasingly has become a chronic disorder where more and more people, over the course of the last six years are surviving their acute coronary syndrome, their tachyarrhythmia events, and they are developing chronic disorders like heart failure, whereas in the East, it is the atherothrombotic manifestations that have both MI and stroke that are expanding rapidly. So given that the face of cardiovascular disease is different in different parts of the world, different strategies have to be leveraged to address that, and we want to learn about that. Dr Carolyn Lam: I would love to have you both come talk again, when we receive some of these papers and just reflect on the things that we're learning. Paul, did you have anything else that you wanted to add? Dr Paul Armstrong: I think, Carolyn that hits the high spots. I suppose we should mention diabetes and obesity and the expanding epidemic that seems to effect some regions such as India, in the Middle East, even more than other areas, but I think this is going to be great. We're gonna have some fun and learn and exciting and hopefully it will catalyze better care and better thinking around this enemy that we all face. Dr Carolyn Lam: Listeners. You heard it right here, Circulation on the Run. I'm sure you're excited as I am about this. You have to read the editorial. It's a fantastic read. Thanks for joining us today. And don't forget to tune in again next week.

Today we’ve got another Report from the Field, and our special guest, our returning champion, is Joe Schriefer from Agora Financial. Joe, thanks for coming back! So here’s what we’re going to talk about today: Few people will ever get the chance to grow an eight-figure company into a nine-figure company. And far fewer still will ever do this with a company that’s 100% driven by direct response copy, as Agora Financial is. I’ve had the privilege of watching up-close, and maybe adding a little fuel to the bonfire. But mainly, I am in so much awe of the growth of this company. And our special guest today, Joe, is the guy in charge of the company. He doesn’t like titles so we’ll just call him Joe. That’s his name, anyway  Frankly, I didn’t know if Joe would agree to talk about his philosophy of growth. He was reasonably concerned that it would not be of that much interest to that many listeners on the Copywriters Podcast. But I suggested that it would be of great interest, and tremendous value, because at the heart of it, Agora Financial is just a grown-up version of what so many copywriters and small info-marketers are doing with their own businesses. That is, coming up with valuable products, keeping the target customer in mind, and promoting those products using direct response copy. So here we are! Before we dive in, here are some words of wisdom for you: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. By the way, and this is the first time I’ve said this on the show, Agora Financial is one of the clients who gets a legal review before they publish their copy. So if you’ve been wondering if I just made that part up – no I didn’t. But let’s talk about something more exciting than getting an opinion on what’s safe to include in your copy and what’s not. Joe, first, thanks for coming back and welcome back to the podcast! 1. So Joe, I’d like to mention that when we met in the fall of 2014 for the first time, you and Ryan McGrath and I had dinner, and you told me you’d be pretty happy if the company doubled in revenues. But it has grown to five times the size in three-and-one-half years. What’s that been like? 2. What’s the right mindset for growth, from your own experience? 3. I remember when I first met you, you were basically doing three leadership jobs, and you were in the process of training others so you could delegate to them. How important do you think it is for the person who’s ultimately responsible for the business to know every aspect of it inside-out, which I think it is fair to say you do? 4. As I understand it, Agora Financial started out in one niche, financial publishing, and now has expanded into other niches, including health, spy and survival stuff, and even Internet marketing. Could you talk about how you’ve approached this kind of diversification and what lessons you’ve learned? 5. When it comes to growing a company, what should the priorities be? What are mistakes to avoid? 6. Direct response businesses are different in some ways than other, more conventional businesses. I’m not even sure what a conventional business is anymore, but, could you talk about how someone should look at growing a direct-response-based business and what might be different from growing a different kind of business? 7. Finally, since this a podcast about copywriting, I would be derelict in my duties if I didn’t talk about copywriters, specifically. You have helped a lot of copywriters grow in their careers, and with their incomes. Could you tell me, what are the qualities that you’ve found make for success with a copywriter? 8. And once again, in case there are any job openings in the future at Agora Financial, how would you like people to apply for a job there?Download.

Today we’ve got another Report from the Field, and our special guest, our returning champion, is Joe Schriefer from Agora Financial. Joe, thanks for coming back! So here’s what we’re going to talk about today: Few people will ever get the chance to grow an eight-figure company into a nine-figure company. And far fewer still will ever do this with a company that’s 100% driven by direct response copy, as Agora Financial is. I’ve had the privilege of watching up-close, and maybe adding a little fuel to the bonfire. But mainly, I am in so much awe of the growth of this company. And our special guest today, Joe, is the guy in charge of the company. He doesn’t like titles so we’ll just call him Joe. That’s his name, anyway  Frankly, I didn’t know if Joe would agree to talk about his philosophy of growth. He was reasonably concerned that it would not be of that much interest to that many listeners on the Copywriters Podcast. But I suggested that it would be of great interest, and tremendous value, because at the heart of it, Agora Financial is just a grown-up version of what so many copywriters and small info-marketers are doing with their own businesses. That is, coming up with valuable products, keeping the target customer in mind, and promoting those products using direct response copy. So here we are! Before we dive in, here are some words of wisdom for you: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. By the way, and this is the first time I’ve said this on the show, Agora Financial is one of the clients who gets a legal review before they publish their copy. So if you’ve been wondering if I just made that part up – no I didn’t. But let’s talk about something more exciting than getting an opinion on what’s safe to include in your copy and what’s not. Joe, first, thanks for coming back and welcome back to the podcast! 1. So Joe, I’d like to mention that when we met in the fall of 2014 for the first time, you and Ryan McGrath and I had dinner, and you told me you’d be pretty happy if the company doubled in revenues. But it has grown to five times the size in three-and-one-half years. What’s that been like? 2. What’s the right mindset for growth, from your own experience? 3. I remember when I first met you, you were basically doing three leadership jobs, and you were in the process of training others so you could delegate to them. How important do you think it is for the person who’s ultimately responsible for the business to know every aspect of it inside-out, which I think it is fair to say you do? 4. As I understand it, Agora Financial started out in one niche, financial publishing, and now has expanded into other niches, including health, spy and survival stuff, and even Internet marketing. Could you talk about how you’ve approached this kind of diversification and what lessons you’ve learned? 5. When it comes to growing a company, what should the priorities be? What are mistakes to avoid? 6. Direct response businesses are different in some ways than other, more conventional businesses. I’m not even sure what a conventional business is anymore, but, could you talk about how someone should look at growing a direct-response-based business and what might be different from growing a different kind of business? 7. Finally, since this a podcast about copywriting, I would be derelict in my duties if I didn’t talk about copywriters, specifically. You have helped a lot of copywriters grow in their careers, and with their incomes. Could you tell me, what are the qualities that you’ve found make for success with a copywriter? 8. And once again, in case there are any job openings in the future at Agora Financial, how would you like people to apply for a job there?Download.

Hear this new episode where John interviews entrepreneur Joe Kudla, the founder of Vuori Clothing. Listen as Joe uses fear as an opportunity to grow professionally and personally. Learn how Joe raised capital for his startup, who has influenced him the most as a business owner, and what has brought him the most joy -- and frustration -- since starting his company. Leave a Rating & Review in iTunes for the Product Launch Rebel Podcast (http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1136273740) Top Takeaways from this Episode: (1)  Experiencing fear could be a way to identify where you need to grow, either personally or professionally.  Let fear be a guide, not a burden. (2)  Lacking experience, in your startup, can often be a curse -- but it also has its benefits. (3)  It's amazing what you can accomplish when you rid yourself of ego, and trust people with their expertise. Transcript: John Benzick:  In today's interview, I talk with Joe Kudla the founder of Vuori, a hot new clothing brand out of southern California. You'll hear Joe talk about his joys and frustrations of being an apparel entrepreneur along with key advice on all aspects of launching a startup. One of the key lessons revealed in the interview was how Joe uses fear to his advantage, which is in contrast to how most of us experience fear, which is unfortunately a barrier to our own personal and professional advancement. Joe Kudla:  I've always enjoyed that kind of risk versus reward relationship, and I've never been afraid of taking a risk and falling on my face. And I guess if I was to say anything, it's to let fear sometimes guide you and for me, if I'm afraid of something, I'm typically drawn to it. So the idea of going out and getting in over my head or you know, taking a public speaking engagement or talking on a podcast. Sometimes it can be a little scary, but I try to use that as a beacon to know that I need to walk through that door if I want to grow as a human being, and I think that that has served me well in entrepreneurship. John Benzick:  Greetings Product Launch Rebels and welcome to the Product Launch Rebel podcast brought to you by VentureSuperfly.com where we help double your entrepreneurial courage, even if you don't know what you're doing, please visit the Venture Superfly website and check out the contact page to join our mailing list. Bear with me today as I'm trying to recover from a cold. As you might hear my voice by won't let that hold me back with my excitement because today I'm interviewing Joe Kudla. He's the founder and CEO of a clothing brand called Vuori clothing based in Encinitas, California. The brand has sort of a west coast vibe, but with definite and smart technical elements. Joe Distributes his brand through leading retailers, including REI and Core Power Yoga. Additionally, Joe has an interesting background. He grew up in avid multisport athlete. He attended the University of San Diego and a model traveling the world for major fashion brands. Then was a CPA for Ernst and Young and even started and grew a successful professional staffing company. This'll be an inspiring interview to learn more about Joe's startup journey and to learn more about Joe's company, visit the Vuoriclothing.com; that's V, U, O, R, I clothing.com. In fact, Joe has kindly offered a 25% discount on any item at the company's website when you enter the Promo Code "Rebel 25" so be sure to do that as soon as possible. Hello, Joe, thanks for being here, and welcome to the Product Launch Rebel podcast. Joe Kudla:  Thanks so much for having me, John. I'm excited to be on the phone. John Benzick:  Oh man, I'm excited. That's for sure. So Joe, within this podcast there are three segments. The first is called, give me the basics, which helps set the context about your company for our listeners. The second part is let's get personal where we get into some of the more personal topics about what it's like to start a business.

As a freelancer or consultant, it's hard to set aside time to try new social platforms. So Joe reached out and asked me "How do I determine what social platforms to spend time on?" He followed up with "How do you know you'll get something from it?" The short answer to that followup is that you don’t. The long answer is that you need to be aware of why you are on the social platform in the first place and if your audience is there as well. A few different criteria to pick which platform to try 1. Does my current audience exist there? Will my current audience exist there? 2. Why am I expanding here? What’s the purpose of me being here? 3. Know how I’m going to measure success 4. Give it 3-6 months, but abandon quickly, because as you mentioned, it can spread yourself thin and can be a huge time.

To schedule your FREE breakthrough call follow this link: https://maiakristin.com/apply/ FREE masterclass: 5 Secrets our SuperMom Clients Use to Free Up Hours of Free Time Each Week goo.gl/idrLdH Please join our FREE group- ENERGIZED MAMA TRIBE by following the link: goo.gl/QiVGvm Joe is a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach and addictions counselor. After spending years pursuing things he thought would make him happy, Joe found himself tired, stressed, overweight, sick, and lonely. It was clear to him that he was neither happy nor healthy. So Joe knew there had to be a better way of living and he wanted to find it. That's when he began to experience a personal health transformation by making a series of diet and lifestyle changes. Joe now passionately shares the healing power of these two factors with the rest of the world. He coaches busy, stressed-out professionals, helping them lose weight, increase energy, reduce stress, and live a balanced life by making step-by-step changes to their diet and lifestyle at a pace that is comfortable to them. Joe offers individual and group coaching programs, corporate wellness programs, workshops and lectures, grocery store tours, and home pantry makeovers. Training and Education The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, New York City Professional Health Coach Training and Certification Program (HCTP) Certification and Accreditation International Association for Health Coaches (IAHC) Certified International Health Coach (CIHC) American Association of Drugless Practitioners (AADP) Board Certified and Accredited Member Happiness is : Knowing I have control over how I feel. And being aware of that in the moment. Morning Routine: Drink a lot of water. (essential infused water: lemon and peppermint) Listen to inspirational audio (Abraham Hicks- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXlPiGZVqE0) Meditate (2-15 minutes) Night Routine: Thinking of the things I’m grateful for (Thank you god, you are so good to me) 4 Self Care Practices you just can’t live without: Meditation (guided meditation to stay focus or focus on the sound of the kids playing on the playground if I’m at the park) Spending time in nature (as little as sitting in a park, just being outside) Drinking essential oil infused water Cold showers in the morning for 3 minutes (benefits for skin, and mentally wakes you up) Best decision in life so far: Joining Match.com 6 years ago. Led to career changes and good decisions. Most challenging time: Not happy with a career he thought he loved. Empty in feeling and drained. Found a sense of hope, it was a power that builds. Getting back in touch with the things you love. Perfectionism is the enemy. Book recommendations: The book I am currently writing is called “The Connection Cure.” Coming out spring 2018 I believe the way we often approach health is all wrong - we are addressing symptoms, rather than the root cause. Medical doctors, prescription medications, diets, and exercise - all have their place in the picture of health. However, I believe that the root cause of health and happiness deficiency is actually a state of disconnection. In The Connection Cure, citing scientific research, and sharing examples from my personal story, I define connection, discuss its impact on our health - from Addictions to Zinc deficiency, and share ways that we can foster connection in our lives. Refrigerator Rights- Will Miller and Glenn Sparks Radical acceptance- Tara Brach Favorite success story with a client: 20 pounds later a Client said: “You know quinoa changed my life”. He had the answers within himself and I just had to help guide they way. 3 things you’re most recently grateful for: Friends that remind me I don't have to be perfect French bulldogs Down comforter

[Pictuered above Joe Rakowski, Joe Tranchitella and Dave Wagner] ASA-PA Super Saturday Training Event, Saturday, October 14th, 2017. Held at the Automotive Training Center in Warminster, PA Two distinct training tracks for business owners and technicians with a compliment of industry vendors. Vendors – 31 Classes – 19 Attendees – 248 Covering 13 different states and Canada Super Saturday Leadership Team: Joseph Rakowski Event Chairman Savage Automotive and The Hybrid Shop Philadelphia, PA Joe has a computer and electrical background.  From 1990 – 2003 he fixed flight simulators for the Navy and Marines.  During that time period, there was a lot of base closure’s and squadron’s deactivated. Joe needed to change careers, so when the phone call came from his pop it was perfect timing.  Joe’s dad had a business opportunity. The guy he worked for thirty years, wanted out. So Joe and his dad bought the business and his on-the-job training began.  Joe never went to an automotive school, every bit of his learning was OJT. It worked out great for Joe and the shop because cars became so computerized that it was right up Joe’s area of expertise.  The shop started programming and doing a lot of work that no other shops wanted to do.  Joe works to keep his shop ahead of the curve, by staying up with equipment, training and technology.  In the last couple of years Joe has migrated into the office and he really only gets to play with Hybrid batteries. Joe Tranhitella Event Co-Chairman Joe & Sons Auto Repair Perkasie, PA Joe’s dad, known as Joe Senior, opened J&F Texaco in 1969. There Joe’s love for cars exploded.  As a very young kid Joe loved cars, so because of his dad’s shop, his automotive life was about to begin. Joe started by pumping gas, washing windows & pushing a broom. He also had a small car detailing business during the summers at the shop and he also had a lawn service business for 20 years. In 1985 Joe started working for his Dad full time. He got his safety & Emission License and attended many Allen Test Product Classes.  As any son knows working with your Dad can be tough. In late 1989 Joe and his dad parted ways but still communicated…especially for Mom. In 1992, Joe and his dad got back together as business partners. I renamed the shop:  Joe & Sons’ Auto Repair. In the mid 90’s Joe started to take ASE tests. He became an ASE master technician & a certified Emissions Repair Tech. In 2006 Joe signed-up with coaching company ATI. He was active with that organization for over 3 years because he knew that he needed to learn more about running the business. Joe attended his first Super Saturday event in 2013.  He partnered with Joe Rakowski and Dave Wagner because they always spoke highly of the importance of education at events like Vision and the TST Big Event. So in late 2015 he became involved with ASA and in 2016 Joe went to his first Vision with the ‘Savage Crew’. He was hooked. In July 2017 Joe bought & started a second location, “Joe & Sons at Seven Corner Auto Repair”. Dave Wagner Event Co-Chairman Automotive and Hybrid/EV Technician Savage Automotive Philadelphia, PA Dave Wagner is a technician working at Savage Automotive Technologies in Northeast Philadelphia. There he has continued his education. Dave is an ASE CMAT, L1, L2, L3, the Assistant Coordinator for Delaware Training Group and an EV/Hybrid tech. Dave started as so many techs did changing oil at his uncle’s shop on weekends when he was 12 years old. He started the professional side of his career as a tech in dealerships in 1996. Dave is currently working with a mentor to become an instructor to help teach and motivate others to want to learn what this industry has to offer. Trainers at Super Saturday that have been on the Remarkable Results...

So…. we tried a couple times to get an episode recorded, and Harvey won both times. So Joe and Shannon busted out a quick minisode with a few fun recommendations and a sincere apology. Join us next week for The Emperors New Groove!! Oh, and we did get to save some audio from Shannon’s Impression Corner, so enjoy that at the end of the episode! Thanks for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/moviedummies/message

Jeff's been at a NASCAR race all night so hasn't followed the D23 news this past Saturday. So Joe, drunk from the normal show, joins Jeff late at night to go over all the news with our thoughts and opinions.

We had Amit Arora with us for episode 11 of Built in a Day to discuss his idea of bringing a hotel management course to the market. Amit is an expert in moving up the ladder in the hotel industry and believes he can help others make the jump to general manager as well. But before he spends $500 on advertising the course and weeks completing the content, he wanted to dip his toe into the waters. So Joe and Jevin devise an experiment to get him a little further down the road with his project. Have a listen to see how it turned out and hopefully it will help you with your own testing.    

In today's episode, we have Joseph Sanok on the line. Joseph decided to specialize in showing other counselors how to market their businesses so they can enjoy more time actual counseling and less time marketing, which is something they typically don't like doing. In this episode we discuss how he's getting great results and how to apply them in YOUR business even if you're not in the service industry!   Resources Mentioned Huffington Post www.practiceofthepractice.com/start bluehost aweber grasshopper ontraport http://www.practiceofthepractice.com/perfection Amazon http://www.practiceofthepractice.com/consulting-with/joe joe@practiceofthepractice.com   Transcript Jeremy Reeves: Hey everyone. Jeremy Reeves here with another episode of the sales funnel mastery podcast. Today, I have on the line Joseph Sanok, and Joe is a small business consultant and he focuses -- I think this is kind of a cool interview. He focuses on the health sector with counselors in private practice, coaches, and consultants. He has been featured on Huffington Post and yahoo news and which is kind of cool. He has the number 1 podcast for counselors in private practice. So we are going to dig in and you guys know that I have been kind of bringing people on the podcast lately that are not in our typical space if you will, you know, the internet marketing kind of space because that is becoming just crazy anymore with a bunch of nonsense. So I want to bring Joe on and kind of get his unique insights into a totally different market and then bring it back and show you guys how to implement everything he is doing in your business. So Joe, welcome. Joseph Sanok: Thanks so much for having me Jeremy. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, I appreciate you coming on. So before we get into all the good stuff, tell everybody a little bit more about what you do. Joseph Sanok: Yeah. So I am mental health counselor. So when you think about coming in and sitting on somebody’s couch and talking about divorce and you know, parenting issues that is what I have done for most of my career, but in 2009, my private practice, I started to grow it kind of on the side, and in 2015, it had grown so much that I was able to leave my full-time job. And really that was because I figured out a number of key ways to level up my career, sales funnels being one of those to really be able to charge more not just in counseling, but as a consultant to counselors. To really talk about the tools it takes to grow an effective business. And so as I have done that, I have launched podcast. I have done a number of other things to just teach counselors and people that have small businesses about how to continue to grow and how to level up. Jeremy Reeves: Sounds good. I love it you know. I see you have done interviews with a bunch of kind of cool that I know. Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, Chris Tucker, Rob Bell, Glennon Doyle Melton, and J.V. Crum III. I never heard him. Joseph Sanok: Yeah. He is the Conscious Millionaire. He is the Conscious Millionaire podcast. You know, it is funny, I have not heard of him until he reached out to be on my show and then as I search to learn more from him. We are putting together a conference called Blueprint to 100K that is going to be coming out in October 2016 in Denver. He is a cool guy. Jeremy Reeves: Nice, nice. I like it. So let us get into, let us see. Let us start because I know we can talk about all kinds of different things. You went into a pretty competitive field you know, basically everything is competitive anymore, but you know, what did you do to make yourself kind of stand out, and first of all, why did you choose that specialty. Joseph Sanok: Well, you know, for me, business was really something that I had a terrible feeling about. Early in college, I sell vacuum cleaners door to door. Learn some really bad business practices and so I thought business was this like slimy feel it seemed like all the guys I met in college they were majoring in business were just like the kind of guys that did not want to hang out with it. No offense to any business majors out there. But you know, then when I started to read some books and learn about some of the basics of marketing and business, I realized I had not learned any of that in graduate school, in counseling, and psychology, but I was supposed to be running a private practice. I was supposed to be creating programs and getting people to make buying decisions, but I had zero classes in marketing, businesses, sales, and copy. And so as I learned this, I actually had my why behind it of being really you know, excited about helping angry kids and frustrated parents and distant couples. Then, business actually started to matter to me. That has been the common story for especially counselors that have gone through kind of traditional counseling programs where for them it is just business is not taught and so as I learned I thought, well I am just going to start a blog, talking about what I am learning to be a co-learner. And so it really, it was more of an experiment at first to see is there a market here. I did very little market research which actually you know, usually I suggest people do some market research to see if there is -- any market research or anything out there that are already kind of selling, but for me it was actually really good because I did not have any kind of copying of other people’s material. I was not influenced by other private practitioners. It really, I think, helped me create what I thought would be the best kind of version of learning about business as a private practice owner. And then really, I just kept following my curiosity and so I was a big fan of -- still, I am a fan of Pat Flynn. I feel like as I thought about how do I build passive income. How do I grow my own kind of leveling up so that I can charge more beyond just the counseling session. How do I meet influencers in the field. It was natural to say, well how do I best connect with my audience and so a podcast was really one of the first things that I was looking at. And I think the one big piece of advice to your audience is to look at where there are less people. At the time that I launched my private practice, there was only 1 other podcast that was aimed at counselors and private practice and that was the American Counseling Associations podcast and they had been dormant for about 6 months. So when I launched that podcast specifically for counselors and private practice, right away, it was the number 1 podcast. Now, there is a lot that are in the field now, but there is a ton of examples of people doing this you know, back in the day, there was just one kind of tire, and so people would say, we are the oldest tire company. But then, you know, tire companies came out and added an extra you know, millimeter and they said, we are the thickest tire company you know, the longest lasting. So they created new markets and I think that is where you can really quickly level up and differentiate yourself by figuring out where is the nobody or where is the you know, just a handful of people that are not doing it well and how can I positioned myself to be number 1 in that area right away. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, absolutely you know, and I think that is a pretty common thing that people do not do you know what I mean. You have to you know, you have to go into a niche that has competitors because if you do not, I mean the most -- I mean unless you are coming out something that is totally brand new like you know, the Ipod when it was first released or something like that. You have to go into something that has competitors but not -- you have to be able to then specialize yourself so that it is -- like you said, only a handful you know what I mean. Joseph Sanok: But even the Ipod for example, I mean that was -- there are already so many MP3 players that were terrible at that time. When that came out they all -- a lot of those had (inaudible 7:07.4) or they would not load enough songs or it takes so much time. And so even looking at what is happening and where people are doing a really shoddy job and how do you just take that shoddy job and make it a little bit better. I mean there are so many of those strategies that you can just look at the current market and say, how can I improve on this. What is the part of this that is super annoying to people. I do not have to reinvent it. I can just take the annoying part out. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, yeah, I love that. Take the annoying part out. That is actually a really good one. I like that. That is awesome. Let us see. So, what do you do you know, for actually -- so you have the podcast, what else are you doing in your marketing you know, if you have the sales funnel you know, what else are you doing to help you kind of stand out in that market or is it just podcast? Joseph Sanok: No, no. I think the podcast was a great way to connect with other influencers not just in the field of counseling, but people that are outside of it. Like people like yourself are talking about things that applied to counselors in private practice, but is a totally different field. So I referenced that connection with J.V. Crum III. He is not helping counselors in private practice. He is helping people that want to go from usually about 200 thousand a year to a million dollars a year. That is like his main focus. So the podcast has been the great place where I can find those partnerships that can help me level up my own career. So conferences and mini conferences has been a great way for me to do that and so we do a lot of sales funnel that we can talk about for that, but for example, for the last 2 years, in (inaudible 8:38.6) I have hosted with a couple of my other consulting friends, the most awesome kind of friends and so that is 3 grand per person. We have between 30 and 40 people come to that and we have probably about 30 grand in sponsors that come on board as well. We have a food truck pulling every day. We have massage therapist, pool side. We have you know, baristas cooking up espresso for people. Everyone gets their own headshots and 1 minute video. Individual coaching with each of the coaches as well as kind of some teachings. So that has been another thing that has helped me continue to level up my career where when you are creating events, when you are creating the teachings and bringing in together people that maybe even farther ahead in their career than you are, that can then build that assumption that well there are these 3 other consultants that are at this level. Joe must be at that same level as these people. When in reality, it is like, well let us bring together some great minds that maybe are doing things that are beyond what I am doing, but now I am lumped into that same cohort that I was not in 3 years ago. So the more that you can do that where you are genuinely helping other people in their career and especially people that maybe a step or two ahead of you, I mean they are not you know, the Pat Flynns that are already well known, you want the people that are just a couple of steps ahead of you. And finding where you have those natural emotional connections. I was interviewing this guy recently and we just got along so well and you know, we scheduled a 15-minute call for kind of later in a month, that we are going to brainstorm like should we put on a conference together. Is there some synergy here, and he has done some amazing key notes. So from a speaking perspective, he is way ahead of me, but when it comes to selling e-courses and doing conferences, he has not done that and so we may have synergy, we may not. So I think that finding those natural relationships and then informing your sales funnel through that is where the authenticity comes out and that is what people want to buy is the authenticity and the genuine helpfulness to them. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, yeah. You know, I totally agree and it really -- let me ask you this. Do you think that type of stuff would not happen if you did not specialized? Joseph Sanok: I mean it could have happened, but I think the best part of the specialty is that you can get hyper focused and make tools in the area that nobody else can keep up with. You can say I am helping counselors in private practice. You can make infographics. You can have you know, a member’s newsletter. You can have all these different levels of products that are in hyper niche market, and by specializing, it has allowed me then to charge a higher premium as well because nobody else is doing that you know. If you just say I help people with online marketing. Okay, great. There is a lot of people that do that. How do you stand out when you are looking at online marketing. What is it that you bring to the people that is different and so I even have consulting clients that are you know, in their 20s that I would say, okay, Snapchat is taking off right now. Why don’t you become a Snapchat consultant rather than a social media consultant. Businesses want to jump in to Snapchat, but they do not even know what it is. You know that inside and out like you could charge $100 to $200 and you are like a freshman in college. And so really finding where are those hyper niche areas I think is where you can really level up the amount that you can charge as well. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, yeah, definitely you know. It is kind of like -- I always like to bring it back to the doctor analogy you know, that you can be a like a general doctor and make like, whatever they make like $100 to $120 grand a year something like that. Obviously, depending on where you are living or you could be you know, my brother-in-law is a cardiologist you know, he is probably making I do not know around $350 grand or so. So it is like 3.5 times income and then the next level from that is something like a brain surgeon and they are probably making I do not know upwards you know, at least a high 6 figures maybe even 7 you know what I mean. It really just -- the more niche you get and also not even the more niche, but the more responsibility I think that you have on your hands, the more you get paid you know what I mean. Joseph Sanok: Absolutely. And I think that it is also like what are the tools that people are using. And so, you know, the average counselors are going to charge $70 to maybe you know, I know a couple of counselors that -- they are like $300s in L.A. maybe $500 if you are super specialized and really focusing on a specific niche, but what are those people using to be able to do it because if I can teach someone how to go from $100 an hour to $200 an hour like I am now worth way more than $200 an hour because I am just bringing them up to there. So now I am worth $500 an hour or $600 an hour. So if you can look at how do I help people get to where I am at, to me that is where you can really start to charge more. People are going to pay for that too because you are teaching them how do they level up their careers as well. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, definitely. So you know, going back to you know, kind of the you know, the market that you help and the results that you are getting them you know, what are they like, when you are selling yourself, how are you -- I am trying to think about what a good way to say this you know. What is the pay-off that you are giving to people. I want to look into your like, kind of like your selling strategy a little bit. What is the end result you know that you are getting your clients, and then also, how do you set that up in your sales funnel, is it page, is it you know, do you talk to people on the phone like what is your actual you know look like to get the new clients. Joseph Sanok: So I have 3 major buckets of people that I served and it took me a while to really figure out who my audience was, but 1 bucket are people that are just starting a counseling private practice. So they are fresh out of school or they have a full-time gig and they want to do a side gig that maybe they want to grown into a full practice, maybe they just want to pay off student loan debt. So people that are just starting out, then there is people that want to grow their practice and so people that want to grow their practice maybe they are a sole proprietor, it is just them they want to add counselors to their practice or they want to level up the amount that they are charging or in some way, they want to expand what their working on within an established practice and then that 3rd bucket is people that want to move in to become a consultant. So that is people that maybe they are really good at social media and a private practice or maybe they are you know, like mompreneur and they want to be a consultant to other mompreneurs or like I have a number of different people that are becoming consultants that I am teaching. So each of those 3 buckets, they have different needs. They have different problems. They also have different price points, and so I have very different things for each of those. So let us take kind of -- start a private practice folks. So these are people that often times have student loan debt. They maybe in one of their first jobs making a $30 to $40,000 a year and they want to do this as a side gig. So financially, they are not going to have you know, the $500 to $1,000 minimum for 4 months you know, for individual consulting with me. They are going to be like I can barely you know, pay my bills, but I do want to do this. I want to make $100 an hour. I want to make $200 an hour in a private practice. So I have a free opt in that is at www.practiceofthepractice.com/start. So that is a 28-step checklist for starting your private practice. So that then gives me leads of people that are just starting out, but also, I have some affiliate links on that. So what kind of things to someone that is starting a practice need. Well, they need a website. So, you know, I have a link to bluehost. They usually want to start an email list. So I have an affiliate link to aweber. So I have different tools that I used you know, grasshopper phone systems. So I have a tool link to that. So I monetized it through some of those affiliate links primarily, but once they are on to start a private practice list, then I can specialize in giving them more content. So they get automated emails over the next 26 weeks on what they need to do so start a practice. So within that, about week 5, they get a link that is about how I have my member’s newsletter that used to be a $149 a year, but it dropped down to a one-time price of $17. So now, they can get lifetime access to that. They get a weekly email over a year walking them through exactly what they need to do launch their practice. And so, they convert there. But then I also offer you know, a few different things. So for example, I just did something called blog sprint, which was where -- it was a group of people that over 2 weeks, we each wrote 10 blog posts and they learn all of the SEO and we have a daily webinar for 4 days in a row where I was live. They went and took half an hour of action then came back. We did Q&A for half an hour. So then with that, I you know, save the videos. It is going to be coming at e-course, but I had 30 people go through and each paying $97 each. So, yeah, I get paid $3,000 for doing a handful of webinars and then I also have the content for my e-course eventually that I am going to then add into that sales funnel for people that are new in private practice. Yeah, so then if we move to the people that want to grow, that is where my sales funnel is going to aim more, getting them to do individual consulting or join one of my mastermind groups. So similar flow but it is going to be where I want them to eventually do individual consulting with me at the $500 to $1000 a month depending on the size package that they get. Jeremy Reeves: Cool, cool. Yeah, and I want everybody to kind of you know, pay attention to the different levels based on where the audience is at you know, and if you have noticed you know, some of the -- so for people just starting out, it was kind of lower price it was more of a beginner stuff obviously and it takes them essentially up the ladder you know, if you will. And there is different -- there is different options for different people because you know, your various audience segments have different needs you know what I mean. What is your you know, the top, top thing, like is what the highest that someone can pay you? Joseph Sanok: Yeah, so -- it depends on how you would say, I mean, the most awesome conference is $3000 for a couple of days with me and some friends. It says more of an in person and it is a collaborative thing where you know, they get the photos and the video. So that is kind of its own beast I would say, but right now, I would say most people that you know, would spend the most would be for the individual consulting. The most I have had is $1,500 a month. We meet twice a month and then they get some e-products to go with it as well as some phone support and email support. And I post all my monthly income every single month in my website. I have done that since 2011 when I was making $1,000 a month and last month was $41,000 month. Yeah, I mean -- I definitely you know, the average counselor makes I think it is like $55,000 a year. So I almost hit that in 1 month. Jeremy Reeves: Nice, nice. It’s awesome. Congrats. Joseph Sanok: Thanks. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, and you can see like -- and I am actually, I am on the page now. Let us see. I am going to tell everybody how much you earned. Joseph Sanok: Yeah. The one for last month I think it goes live in a couple of days, but yeah, I think the May 1 is probably up. Jeremy Reeves: Okay, got you. Joseph Sanok: But I earned almost 250 million dollars last year. I think I missed it by like $14,000 or something like that. Jeremy Reeves: That sucks. I hate that. Yeah, like, I am looking at it now. It is September 2012 is $1,300 and then let us go the next year. September 2013, is $3,000. September 2014 is $7,000. September 2015 is $22,000. Joseph Sanok: Yeah. Early 2015, I did some new branding. I updated my website and that is when I really started partnering with a lot more people and got the most awesome conference going and so you really saw the results. I had my first 5 figure a month I think in early 2015 and then I think I have my first $20,000 a month later that year. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah and I can see like it goes up to May and then it is all you know, in the teens essentially and then June is 28 and then it goes back down to teens and then it is all 20s from there. And then this year it is mostly like the higher 20s or 30s. I think you just had 40. That is awesome. Joseph Sanok: That was my first -- I had not hit the 40, so 41 for the whole June 2016. Jeremy Reeves: I love hitting the new you know, the new whatever 10 or you know, whatever the new big goal is. It is always exciting. Joseph Sanok: What is crazy about it is so June, I was on vacation for the first week of the month. This summer I have taken every Monday and Friday off and so I really tried to focus in. I am just working Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. And so it is not like I am working 90 hours a week now you know, it is a -- you know, 20 to 30 hours a week of really, really focused time. Jeremy Reeves: Yes, you know what, let us go into that. Because we hear your sales funnel is pretty good and I know you have some kind of cool you know, productivity and goal setting techniques and I am always -- I think you know, productivity is one of those, it is one of those topics that is so insanely important, but it is kind of like boring for people. So for all the listeners, listen up because even though it is “kind of boring subject,” I am going to force you to listen to it, because it is good for you and you need to learn it, and that is why you know, I always talked about it like you know, I am always, I am all about lifestyle and all that kind of thing. I am actually going a little bit early today. We are taking our kids to the park. I took last Friday off. I forgot what I even took it off for. I forgot what was even for. We took our kids, I did a half day. We took them to the pool, they go swimming. This Friday, I am taking off because it is my son’s birthday, so I am taking off. I am going to work I do not know 3 hours in the morning maybe. And then we are taking them for lunch in the park and go and see a movie and coming home and then eating going for pizza on the way home you know, things like that. So like, I am huge you know, with the whole lifestyle thing and it is not that I do not work you know. I work you know, typically like 6 to 3 everyday, but they are so focused and I get so, I am so productive in those hours that I am able to take Friday afternoon off you know what I mean. So let us kind of dig into that a little bit you know. Tell us about -- Joseph Sanok: I think a lot of people feel like productivity is this boring thing, but let us flip in and ask why do we want to be productive. Well, on most Mondays, I go stand up paddle boarding with my wife and daughters and with some friends you know. Most Fridays, you know, I either drop my daughter off at whatever summer camp she is doing or we do something fun as a family or maybe I just like straighten the house, so the weekend can be like just total fun. So productivity is just in the same way that a budget tells your money where to go. Productivity and figuring that out is auditing where you are spending your time. And so for me, it really came out of 2012. So in 2012, it was one of those just hell years for my family. My daughter, who is just under a year old had open heart surgery right after that and this while I am working a full-time job and had just launched the podcast and had just launched this like blog. Two weeks after we get the all clear from my daughter’s heart, I get diagnosed with thyroid cancer and so I have to my thyroid out, go down to MD Anderson to have that removed, they have some radioactive iodine treatment. My wife then has a miscarriage and it is just one of those years where it is like seriously, how much more can the Sanok family take. And when you are in the midst of 2012, so that might be your year this year, maybe it was 1984 or like whatever year that has been for you. For one, you examined what matters, but for two, you pull back in all the unnecessary crap and so you do not sit and do email for an hour because your daughter is going to have heart surgery next week. You know you just got diagnosed with cancer and so sitting and playing on Facebook and wasting a bunch of time there compared to hanging out with your family or going out to dinner with them just becomes more important. And so during that time I was working my full-time job, I knew I needed to have the benefits for it, obviously, with all that medical stuff happening. But I also knew that that was not the long term plan. And so I had to get hyper focused on what are the things that are going to make me money if I am going to spend time away from my daughter who is going to have a heart surgery or my family when I am going through cancer treatment. And so -- in the midst of it you would never wish that on somebody else, but it gave me some amazing habits out of that and I was already a pretty productive person, but it just like took me to a whole new level. And so a couple of things I discovered from there is having a notes section on your phone, just use the note section. Start with a today list and then within that same section, have a someday list. We all, especially entrepreneurs have all these ideas of, oh my gosh, I could do this or I could do this or I could do this just put it on the someday list, examined it later. So you do not lose it, but then you also are not spending your mental energy for the day on those things that do not matter. The second thing that I started doing was really looking at, what is my big goal okay, so maybe this year I want to have more individual consulting clients. How am I going to make that happen. Well, I need to really focus on getting to the people that are growing their small business. So I need to set up landing pages. So I started kind of brainstorming what are all the components that are going to help me with that, (inaudible 26:11.4) building my sales funnel. So in this week, what can I do. Okay, I do not have say, any email response system setup. So I am going to look into aweber. I am going to look into ontraport. I am going to look into all these other things. I am going to watch some videos. So really not just breaking down into a goal but micro goals, so that if you find yourself with 10 extra minutes you know, as we all do, you will just sit around and say, oh what should I do, you spend that 10 minutes being productive because that is 10 minutes you could be spending with your family, that you could be stand up paddle boarding, that you could be doing whatever it is that fills you up as a person that has nothing to do with your business. So when you start breaking down into super micro goals of things that you can do when you find yourself with 10 minutes to keep moving that needle forward, that helps you being not just productive, but hyper productive. So that you can start to slowly eliminate those aspects of your work that just do not help the bottom line. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, I love that, that idea of micro goals. It is actually funny because I am a really, really, really productive guy, but I have -- that is one of my big like kind of pet peeves. Is when you know, a meeting goes early or you know, basically you have a couple of minutes between that and the next thing and you kind of just like sit there you know, because it is not enough time to really dig in to something, but it is like you know, you need those little micro goals like that like something small that it just gets out of your head and you know, you get it done in whatever it is 5 minutes or whatever. I like that. I am going to start doing that. Joseph Sanok: Well, I mean, even something that is simple so like say someone shows up late to a meeting or an online call or whatever its going to be that you need to do and you find yourself with that time, saying, what is something that I can get interrupted by, so like say, I was running late and Jeremy you know, sitting on the other side and -- what can I do while I am waiting for Joe to show up to our interview. Well you know, something like I am going to go through and delete the emails I know I do not need to read or even further, I am going to go into the ones I do not read that keep coming into my inbox and I am going to unsubscribe from all of those. Okay, I can do 10 of those, that is going to save me time overall, but it is not going to take up any mental energy before I go into this podcast interview. So having a small list of those kind of things that are going to help you continue to be more productive is just going to help you overall just cut the fat out of your business and be super lean to be productive and then help your bottom line with your time, but also your money. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, yeah, I love it. So if you wake up -- you know, just say you work in 3 days per a week, so you have you know, big to do list, you have all these different things that you want to get done. How do you prioritize them not only in terms of the week, but also the day you know. So for example, with my -- the way that I am -- like most of my work is, most of my heavy work is writing, but then, there is also like the that is like the client side of things, but then there is also just right running the business, the administrative you know, type of stuff, doing podcast and writing articles and you know, all that other stuff that you have to do to you know, to be able to get the clients and to be able to keep your business going you know. So how do you like -- so how do you structure your day and your week in terms of like priorities like that? Joseph Sanok: Sure. So one of the things we know from brain research is that really in a day, you only have so much brain space that you can use on tasks and highly effective people like Steve Jobs or Barack Obama have figured it out ways to take the decision making out of their day. So for example, every night, the night before, I put my clothes out so I do not have to worry about what I am going to put on my body and have that be a decision. Barak Obama only has 2 colors of suits. When Steve Jobs decided that he liked his black turtle neck, he ordered a hundred of them and so the kinds of people that are highly effective takes those little decisions out so that they have more brain space for the things that matter. So one thing that I do is, in my schedule, I have certain things that repeat every single week. So my podcast goes live on Tuesday and I know that I want to take Monday and Friday off, so Thursday mornings, I am blackout to repeat work on podcast. So that way, if I have not got the podcast all set for the next week, I can you know, get it done that morning. So I may not have to do that, maybe I get it done on Tuesdays so that I can blog or do something else, but at least I know that that is when I am going to make sure that I get my podcast done. So there is not that extra stress or that extra worry. And so looking at what are the patterns and the things that you need to do to keep moving the needle forward is really important because then, if you put some automations into your schedule, so for example, I want to do most of my consulting with people between 1 and 3 because that seems like kind of the best time for me you know, I just had lunch. I feel fully present. I am going to do counseling private practice, people do not usually want it quite that early and so I will just automatically blackout time that that is going to be for my consulting, for my one-on-one consulting with people. It takes the decision making out so then I can use my brain for the things that are most important for my business. And then the other thing that I do is when I know say, I am driving into my office, it is a 10-minute commute. If I know that I am going to be a writing blog post or if I know I am going to be say on local radio, promoting something or talking about counseling topics. I think about those key kind of pillars of the blog post or of the talk and really try to get them down in my head and maybe even write them down in a notepad, in a stop light, or you know, doing an audio memo, whatever works for you so that when I am in the front of that blank screen or when I need to work on something like I already have the topic figured it out and I have the basic structure for figuring it out so that I can then quickly write that blog post or I can quickly write that copy because I have already brainstorming about it before I set down with that blank screen. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, you know, I love that and I actually do that for the podcast like for my own podcast and also for articles that I write. Anytime I get an idea, it goes in. I used SONA for my project management. So I have a thing it is called JR Content Ideas. So anytime I need a new podcast, I actually just record it on this morning before our (inaudible 32:11.0). I literally just you know, go into SONA, I click on the little thing and it is loading up right now and I have, I do not know exactly how many, roughly 25 ideas in there. So I literally just go down the list, -- okay, I am going to talk about that one you know. And then I just -- I mean for me, like you know, my podcast, I know the stuff you know, front and back, so I literally just okay you know, here is one about trip wires right, so I can just hit record and I just go you know, for like 20 minutes or half hour or something like that and then I am you know, and then I am done and then I hit export, it goes to my assistant and from there on out it is out of my hands you know. Yeah, you know, so I definitely agree with that. It is the same thing even for your client projects I do that you know, if I get an idea, if I get like a hook idea or an angle idea or something for bullets or you know, different way of saying something, I make a note in SONA and then like in their project because every client has a kind of project in a SONA and then you know, when I am working on that project, at that point, it is out of my head, it is cleared out of my you know, my head space and then the next time I am working on that project it could be you know, later that day or you know, a week from now, then I go into that and the idea is right there you know, and I do not have to try to sit there and remember it. I do not have to you know, whatever it is just there. So yeah, I love that. Joseph Sanok: I think finding the system that works for you that you can do every day. So you know, I pulled out my notes section, I look into my today list, I look into my schedule the night before, so I am mentally prepared for what I need to do. So looking at -- so I have my consulting client and then after that I knew I was doing this podcast with Jeremy so I am going to then look back at our emails, I am going to check out our website again so that it’s -- kind of a lean manufacturing like just in time kind of idea. So putting things back to back. So for example, right after this call, I have a counseling appointment that is going to be here in a couple of minutes and then right after that, I have consulting client that I am meeting with. And so when I get in that like I am doing counseling or I am doing consulting mode, I want to try as best I can to go back to back and to keep the people that I am working with on time too to show that there is that professionalism, but also the -- like I need to get a lot done because every minute that I am standing here that I am doing a podcast interviews I am not hanging out with my 5-year-old or my 2-year-old. And to me, that is super important that I am father at home that is fun, that is you know, filled up, that financially provides all of that. So I need to be as effective as possible when you know I am in business mode. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Well, hey, you know, I have a blast talking with you so far and we have actually been talking for like an hour and a half now because I was just on your podcast. Joseph Sanok: Yeah, yeah. I have a free e-course that I wanted to give to your listeners. Usually, it is about $100, but if they go over to http://www.practiceofthepractice.com/perfection it is a 19-minute video all about how to move from being paralyzed by perfection to getting things done. You can see some of my hacks that I used. I talked about you know, making sure that you are moving forward rather than just kind of thinking and thinking about making it perfect. There is also a 19-page download that goes with that. Jeremy Reeves: Nice. I am actually going to -- I am actually going to get that too because I always you know, as productive as I am, I always like to kind of refresh all of my things and what I do is I try to, I try to look at ways, look at new techniques and strategies to beat what I am already doing you know what I mean. Even if it is just a little stuff over time because if you, you know, if you have whatever a hundred little different things that you do and you beat one of them every you know, every couple of days, every 3 days that is -- your doubling it every year you know what I mean. Joseph Sanok: Yeah, absolutely. The book by Charles Duhigg, it just came out, Smarter, Faster, Better is amazing. It is so good. It has a ton of case studies. People finding not just productivity, but increasing their quality while reducing the amount of time it takes to do that. It is a great book I recommend to your listeners. Jeremy Reeves: Sounds good and I am going to buy it right now. Yeah, yeah, alright and I just bought that. You got to love Amazon. Yeah, it is literally bought. So anyway, yeah. So let us see, before we head off you know, I always like to ask you know, is there anything that I have not asked or kind of one parting you know, lesson that you want to leave people with before you head off? Joseph Sanok: Yeah, I would say, the parting lesson I would leave is think about your why, like why are you trying to make more money? Why are you trying to grow this business? Let that be kind of -- if you think about a car, that is like the gas pedal and then you have your where that you headed towards and that is like you know, the spot on the map and then your how is going to be kind of your steering wheel of the small little micro decisions that make. You can figure out your own why and start there. It then helps to find who you want to work with. It then helps to find the products that they care about and can afford and then that leads into the content that you are going to create. So it is almost like a personal funnel for yourself of figuring out like why I am doing this. How am I going to do this. Who am I going to serve and then how do I best do that for them. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, sounds good. I love it, I love it and I fully agree. So yeah, last thing, just let everybody know and you know, you already did that , but say it again I guess or if there is any other ways that you want people to you know, to get in touch with you and see you know, if they can work together or you know, whatever you know, whatever the best next step it is for people to take. Joseph Sanok: So for people who are interested in working together, I do a free 30-minute consultation where we talk all about -- like what are you trying to achieve. What are the big ambitious goals that you want to go after. So people can connect with me at http://www.practiceofthepractice.com/consulting-with/joe or you can just email me joe@practiceofthepractice.com we can connect there. I am on all the social media if you just search my name, you will find me there. Jeremy Reeves: Sounds good, yeah. You know, as always we will have all the links in the show notes so you do not have to remember the URL, just kind of click the link in the show notes, you will go right there. Hey, it was a pleasure my friend. I will look forward to kind of keeping in touch and becoming more productive together. Joseph Sanok: Absolutely. Thanks so much Jeremy. Jeremy Reeves: Thanks. Have a good one. Joseph Sanok: You too. Bye.      

This weeks episode of 3rd Party Controller was recorded on Black Friday! So Joe asks the question whats your black friday experience and the temptation to buy games. Jesse also talks about playing the game Clock Tower for the super Famicom and the group talks about King of Fighters XIV being released only for PS4 and what it means to Xbox One owners. so sit back relax and eat your thanksgiving leftovers while you enjoy this weeks episode.

BANKRUPTCY!  If you’ve done it, you don’t like to talk about it.  If you’ve never done it, you might with contempt on those who have.  But I’m about to tell you why BANKRUPTCY is more important to those of you who are financially strong than for anyone else… and for a reason you’d never, ever guess.  Get ready for a perspective on Bankruptcy you’ve never heard before.  I’m Bryan Ellis.  This is Episode 129.-------Hello, SDI Nation!  Welcome to the podcast of record for brilliant, discerning self-directed investors like you!Apologies once again for the raspy voice.  This respiratory challenge is really taking it out of me, folks, but I find it impossible to resist the urge to spend this time with you each day, and am so grateful for your time and attention, so let’s get started.I’d like to begin with an interesting formal announcement from the IRS.  Apparently, they will no longer accept checks for tax payments in excess of $99,999,999.00.  That’s right.  So for those of you who might have to write a check for your tax liability of $100,000,000 or more, you’ll need to submit multiple checks.Hehehehehe.  I’m not kidding.  Gee whiz.So… Today we talk about bankruptcy.  You may think this is wholly unrelated to being a self-directed investor, but nothing could be further from the truth.  As you’re about to see, the rules surrounding bankruptcy line up perfectly with Core Value #1 of Self Directed Investors:  That You Must RESPECT YOUR OWN CAPITAL.  Here’s how:Bankruptcy is kind of a dirty word to many, and viewed as something to be avoided at virtually any cost.  And you know what?  I basically agree with that.  I’ve never declared bankruptcy, and never expect to do so.  You probably won’t ever do so, either.But I want you to understand why bankruptcy is a GOLD STANDARD of preparation, where the safety of your assets are concerned, even though you, God willing, will never have to go bankrupt. So here’s how bankruptcy works:  A person – let’s call him Joe – experiences financial trouble.  Let’s just imagine that Joe is NOT a financial deadbeat whatsoever… he’s a reliable guy entirely.  But he was in a car accident and was sued for a huge amount of money, and he lost.  So Joe now has a problem – he has creditors, and those creditors want to take Joe’s stuff, because he owes them money in the form of this judgment.Joe can no longer stand the hounding he’s receiving, and he hires a lawyer to declare bankruptcy on his behalf.  The process works roughly like this:  Joe declares his assets and his liabilities for all the world to see.  Joe’s creditors make their claims about how much of Joe’s assets belong to them.  And here’s the thing:  Joe doesn’t have the right to refuse to cooperate.  In fact, the entire authority of the federal government comes to bear against Joe.  He has to disclose EVERYTHING.  Failure to do so means Joe has broken the law, and in that case, the issue isn’t just debt, its jail time.  So basically, every bit of financial information about Joe is rather easily available to the creditors, and to the court.  Everything is in the open.So Joe’s creditors dig in, ask every question they can, and at some point the judge determine which creditors get which assets, and Joe is basically left without any financial assets at the end.  He might get to keep his home, or maybe he won’t (depending on the state).  But basically all of Joe’s assets MUST be liquidated in order for Joe to gain the one huge BENEFIT available through bankruptcy… and that benefit is massive:  Once the process is complete, Joe no longer has any liability to any creditors.  They’re all gone.  They can no longer hound Joe.  He’s out from under their weight.  No more bills, no more phone calls, no more lawsuits.  The financial nightmare for Joe is over.  Joe is now penniless, but Joe is free.  Joe can start over.But here’s a crazy question:What if it was possible for Joe to structure his assets in such a way that, even though he declared bankruptcy, that he never lost a single asset?  Before his BK, Joe lived in a great house.  After the BK, Joe lives in the same house.  Before his BK, Joe had 2 or 3 great cars, some large bank accounts – including a sizable retirement account – and other valuable “toys” like boats and a vacation home.  And after the BK, Joe still has all of that stuff… and can use it all as much as he likes?!How could it happen, you ask?  Because Joe was forced, under the force of law, to disclose every single asset he owned, and to liquidate all of those things in order to be protected from his creditors through bankruptcy.  So why did Joe seem not to lose ANYTHING?It’s because Joe didn’t actually own any of that stuff.  Joe was smart ahead of time.  More specifically, Joe’s attorney was smart.  His attorney designed a plan, in advance, such that in the event that Joe ever had to face an intense financial inquisition – like bankruptcy, which along with tax audit is probably the most invasive financial inquisition imaginable – Joe could honestly and legally disclose his ownership of assets as being NOTHING.  Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.  Even though he clearly has a wonderful lifestyle, both before and after the BK proceeding.And if Joe owns nothing, nothing can be taken from him.How did Joe accomplish that feat of financial and legal brilliance?  There are a number of different ways it could happen, but one of the most common and legally proven approaches is the use of a well-structured trust of some sort, which holds those assets for the benefit of Joe and his family.I’m not going to go into the legal minutia of trusts, because I’m not a lawyer and that is a PROFOUNDLY complicated area of law.  If you’re looking for a referral to a lawyer who is EXTRAORDINARY at this stuff, and in whom I have profound confidence, feel free to email me at feedback@sdiradio.com and I’ll happily make an introduction for you.  But I’m not going to get deep into those weeds right now.The point I do want to make – and which is OVERWHELMINGLY relevant for you – is that you, as an affluent individual, are a financial target.  Think of it like this:  if a beer-swilling, hourly laborer whose entire portfolio consists of the $258 in his checking account… if that guy is in a car wreck, he’s not going to face a lot of legal ramifications.  Why?  There’s no value in it.  Even if he’s sued, there’s nothing for anybody to win from him.But YOU… you’re different.  You probably don’t see yourself as wealthy… and maybe you’re not absolutely rolling in excess cash.  But the truth is that the average listener to this show is certainly affluent, with well above-average financial assets.  And even though you may not feel wealthy, you do have assets… assets that are at risk unless you protect them.And again, I submit to you that the gold standard of protection of your assets is this:  If you could go through Bankruptcy, and come out on the other side without having lost access to any of the assets you’ve accumulated, then in THAT CASE, you’re well protected, and you’re truly showing respect for the assets with which you’ve been blessed.A great approach for being prepared for anything is to work backwards.  So get with your attorney, and ask them to tell you exactly what would happen to your assets in the event that you were faced with the need to declare bankruptcy, or if you faced a surprising and substantial tax audit.  If the answer is that all of your assets are at risk, you should write to me at feedback@sdiradio.com and I’ll tell you who you need to speak to in order to rectify that situation.Remember, my friends:  Rule #1 for wise self-directed investors is to Always respect your own capital.  Most of the time, we talk about that in the context of choosing investments that are wise and low-risk.  But today’s perspective – that of showing respect for your capital by structuring it in ways to protect it from financial predators – that perspective is just as relevant, just as valuable, and more important now than it’s ever been. My friends, invest wisely today… and live well forever! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week the HomeBhoys are down a man while Paul tours The Asterisk Years around Australia. So Joe, Jason and Harper tackle St Mirren, the Kano dance, Liam Henderson and they're also joined by a special guest in the form of Al from @thebhoyszone a new Celtic fan media channel. Enjoy. Hail Hail! (This is a reupload)

This week the HomeBhoys are down a man while Paul tours The Asterisk Years around Australia. So Joe, Jason and Harper tackle St Mirren, the Kano dance, Liam Henderson and they're also joined by a special guest in the form of Al from @thebhoyszone a new Celtic fan media channel. Enjoy. Hail Hail!

Robots. What are they? Just a new sort of tool, qualitatively different kinds of tools that do things we neither expect nor intend, new kinds of beings? With the incipient explosion of complex robots, we may need to re-examine the way law uses and understands intention, responsibility, causation, and other basic concepts. We’re joined by Ryan Calo, who has achieved the outrageously awesome feat of earning a living thinking about robots. (It’s pronounced Kay-low. So Joe got this one right.) We discuss flying drones, chess computers, driverless cars, antilock brakes, and computer-conceived barbecue sauce. This show’s links: Ryan Calo’s faculty profile and writing Follow-up from listener David on Episode 40: The Split Has Occurred, Shelley v. Kraemer, and Buchanan v. Warley Lego Mindstorms Ryan Calo, Robots and Privacy FIRST Lego League robotics competition for ages nine to fourteen DJI Phantom Vision 2+ flying drone camera thing capable of making like this one and this one Mark Berman, National Park Service Bans Drone Use in All National Parks and Chris Vanderveen, Man Banned from Yellowstone after Drone Crash FAA’s Key Initiatives page on drones Joan Lowy, Drone Sightings Up Dramatically Ryan Calo, Robotics and the Lessons of Cyberlaw (including a discussion of the concepts of embodiment, emergence, and social meaning as the core of the legal challenge posed by robotics) Stephen Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software Radiolab, Emergence Frank Easterbrook, Cyberspace and the Law of the Horse Cory Doctorow, Why It Is Not Possible to Regulate Robots Neil Richards and William Smart, How Should the Law Think About Robotics? Ryan Calo, A Horse of a Different Color: What Robotics Law Can Learn from Cyberlaw About IBM’s Watson and Deep Blue (the chess machine) Daniel Suarez, Daemon Richard Fisher, Is It OK to Torture or Murder a Robot? Radiolab, Furbidden Knowledge Nicholas Bakalar, Robotic Surgery Report Card Studdert, Mello, and Brennan, Medical Malpractice Ryan Calo, The Case for a Federal Robotics Commission Excerpt from In re Polemis, the case we forgot the name of About Amazon’s Kiva Systems, the subsidiary that supplies Amazon with robotic warehouse workers Rochelle Bilow, We Put a Computer in Charge of Our Test Kitchen for a Day, and Here’s What Happened, and Mark Wilson, I Tasted BBQ Sauce Made By IBM’s Watson, And Loved It E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops About the Future Tense event, Can We Imagine Our Way to a Better Future?, including descriptions and video, in which Ryan participated About cognitive radio Daria Roithmayr, Complexity Law and Economics We Robot 2015, meeting April 10-11, 2015 in Seattle Special Guest: Ryan Calo.

So Joe was busy this time around so I decided to do this one alone. Today I will be talking about the new Star Wars live action TV show. I will tell you the history of Stretch Armstrong the movie. Well will go over how because of Iron Man we might see a new Robocop, we will talk about Vin Diesels career, then if there is enough time I will teach you how to do the twist.