Podcast appearances and mentions of steve i'm

Using VR in the classroom is a no-brainer. It’s immersive tech, and can teach kids in new, innovative ways. But if the people developing the technology don’t understand how kids’ brains learn, it’s not going to take, no matter how innovative. VirtualiTeach’s Steve Bambury drops by to explain how he’s trying to bridge that gap. Alan: Hey, everyone, my name's Alan Smithson. Coming up next on the XR for Business podcast, we have Steve Bambury, founder of VirtualiTeach. We're gonna be talking about digital literacy, the virtual/augmented reality platforms, and the question on everybody's mind: What are the key barriers to adopting VR and AR in schools and how to overcome them? All this and more, coming up next on the XR for Business Podcast. Welcome to the show, Steve. How are you? Steve: I'm good, man. It's good to speak to you. Alan: It's really great. The last time we saw each other, we were in Dubai -- where you live -- and you took me to the Dubai Mall, and we went in and we went to the VR Park, the giant VR Park. And I was just blown away by how big and ostentatious everything was. And it was a really great experience. I can't thank you enough for your warm hospitality in Dubai. But today it's all about you. So let's talk about what you're doing, and how did you get into this? And what are you doing now? Steve: I've been in Dubai for 11 years. And for those 11 years, I've always worked at the same school. I was working a school group here known as GESS -- which is the acronym for Jumeirah English Speaking School -- also broadly referred to as GESS Dubai now. GESS is one of the leading schools in the Middle East. It's a very old school, at least in terms of international schools in this region. It's only, I think four years or three years younger than the UAE as a country. So it is very well established. And yeah, so I worked there for 11 years. I worked as a class teacher in one of the primary schools, and curriculum leader. Eventually become head of computing at the primary school. So I was teaching digital literacy and computer science content to four year olds, 3 to 11 year olds. And I ended up in that role primarily because of all the work I've been doing to integrate the iPads in the classroom. From 2011, we were one of the first schools in the Middle East to to roll out iPads in the classroom. And then three years ago, I moved into a role that was created for me, which was the head of digital learning and innovation, working underneath the new director, Mark Steed, who'd just come in from the UK. Mark had the pedigree in terms of digital learning from what he'd done at this very, very prestigious school in the UK called Berkhamsted. He'd also chaired the Independent Digital Strategy Group for eight years there. And so Mark created this role and this role took me out of the classroom most of the time. A lot of it involved training with staff. It also involved going back into departments and helping them with enrichment projects. And it was kind of in parallel to that. I mean, part of the reason that my work with virtual reality really took off is because I moved into this new role, and had this freedom to innovate and to explore new technologies. My first VR headset was just a [garbled] headset I imported from the States in 2014. But it was not long after I started this new role as head of digital learning at GESS that I got my first Vive. I took that Vive into the school and started looking for ways to integrate it into different curriculum areas. In actual fact, I've just recently started writing a series of guest posts for Vive on the Vive blog. You can go into Google, like "HTC Vive blog Steve Bambury" or something, you'll probably find them. But I've been writing a series of blogs about my journey using and integrating the HTC Vive headsets at GES

Freedom of time, money, relationships, and purpose is what we all want. Property managers, realtors, and investors help clients build wealth through real estate.  Today, I am talking to Steve Welty, owner of Good Life Property Management business and podcast. He enjoys meeting amazing people and indoctrinating listeners with his philosophies.  You’ll Learn... [03:23] Stop whining about solvable issues, such as online reviews to get warm leads.  [04:41] Steve surfs to success with Good Life Property Management.  [06:43] Podcast Passion Project: Do content for content's sake; add value to people's lives for opportunities and connections to come your way. [10:19] Don’t lose focus on why and what fires you up; limit time and effort spent on your business to achieve outcomes. [15:00] Purpose of Business: Not to make money; build a business that makes money.  [16:25] How to be happy: Create momentum for other people to gain momentum. If you wish to become great, learn to become the servant of many. [18:12] Zig when they Zag: Success outside outsource sandbox to reduce costs.  [18:55] Results-based Biz: Hire young, smart, motivated people and leave them alone.  [19:31] Big Issues, Big Success: More people can lead to more problems; paint a compelling vision to keep good people and let them do what they want to do.  [20:10] Move Out and Outwork Others: Create freedom of time and money by hiring CFO or profit first coach/accountant to offer advice, not control over finances.  [26:10] Value-add Revenue Sources: If you don't charge for it, you're doing it poorly.  [28:25] Opportunities in Other States/Markets: Pop-up shops to buy cash flow property.  [29:05] To Die List and Time Study: Procrastination problem property managers and owners experience.  [35:00] Barriers/Protections: Teach team and customers how to treat and reach you.  [37:35] Opinions vs. Observations: Co-creation/coaching is transformational and transactional superpower that changes lives.  [46:45] Give up control and allow people to fail, or you create an unsafe business.  [52:30] What Matters: Million ways to get to end results and outcomes.  [54:05] Hire and Fire: Center on core values; be reliable, positive, and go-giver (RPG). [57:10] Epiphany: Everything worthwhile lives on the other side of fear.  [1:03:05] Money is one side of it. Easiest decision to make is to be a different person.  Tweetables Do content for content's sake. Limit time in your business; achieve outcomes with least amount of effort. Add limitations or constraints to create a necessity for innovation. First key to greater time, money, and purpose is to create space for yourself. Resources Steve Welty’s Email Good Life Property Management Good Life Property Management Podcast Steve Welty on Spotify Steve Welty on Apple PM Grow Orange Tree Property Management GatherKudos National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) Brad Larson Gary Vaynerchuk The 4-hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss Todd Breen Making Money is Killing Your Business by Chuck Blakeman How I Built This with Guy Raz Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard  Voxer Jason Goldberg (Strategic Coach) Extreme Ownership Book E-Myth Book The Go-Giver  KingJasonHull’s Whimple on SoundCloud DoorGrowClub Facebook Group DoorGrowLive DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrow Website Score Quiz Transcript Jason: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your business and life, and you're open to doing things a little bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it, you think they're crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners, we want to change the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull. The founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show. Today's guest, I’m really excited, we’re hanging out with Steve Welty. Steve, welcome to the DoorGrow show. Steve: What’s up Jason? Good to be here. Jason: Steve and I were reminiscing. I saw Steve at a broker owner conference, the very first one I went to several years ago and we were sitting at the same table and I guess I said hi to you and we were chatting it up. Steve: Yeah. It's funny, I remember that day very vividly and it's interesting because I have a very poor memory. You were the mysterious man behind me and you were dressed really nice. Jason: I don't dress nice anymore. I'm too lazy now. Steve: Yeah, you're just soaking it all, but we were talking before the show, was that really one of your first conferences? Jason: That was the first conference I'd gone to, yeah. My dad had just started property management business. He's got maybe about 200 doors now, but he had just started a property management business. He had been a hospital administrator for 30 years or something and he said, “I'm going to do what Bryan’s doing and start a property management business.” My brother has got maybe 1000 doors or something like that and he is out of Orange County. Not too far from you down San Diego. He thought, “Bryan’s doing it, maybe I could do this too.” He decided to become an entrepreneur. Caught the bug. It's been fun to watch that, but I was like, “Dad, let's go do this. I want to see what happens there. The only way I can go is if I'm with you, you're a broker owner.” I was his director of marketing and I was just the fly on the wall for Orange Tree Property Management, just checking out what goes on a broker owner. I just want to see what happened there. It was challenging for me though because the entire time I'm hearing people talk about problems, and challenges, and I'm just biting my tongue the whole time. I’m like, “I could solve that challenge. I can help with that.” I just had to sit there and be quiet. I've even got a text message from one of my clients that was sitting in the room and he said, “I'll bet this is just killing you right now,” I texted him back, “You have no idea.” It was just really funny to hear people whining about stuff that I think is solvable. Steve: What was something out of all those issues you're biting your tongue about that you can reflect on today. Jason: Now you’re interviewing me. Steve: I'm interested to hear that. Jason: I remember one of the things that really killed me was people were like, “How do you deal with your online reviews? How do you get more positive online reviews?” We have our system GatherKudos, and we have coaching material around that that we’d go through with clients to figure out how to identify peak happiness, leverage a lot of reciprocity, how to get more reviews, how to build a system in your business as part of your onboarding process with new tenants so you get more reviews. I think that's a better system to have than even most marketing systems, because that creates warm leads. I was just sitting there listening to them talk and some of the ideas were, “We're okay, we're good,” but I was like, “This is so solvable.” Steve: Reviews are still a big issue, six years later or whatever it is. Jason: Correct. Steve: People still can’t figure it out. It’s tough. I still try to figure it out on a daily basis. Jason. Yeah. Cool. Steve, you've got an awesome property management business. You've got your own podcast that you do. You've got a lot of stuff going on. Help my audience understand who you are and give us a little bit of background on Steve, your adventures in property management, and how you got into it. Steve: For sure. I graduated from San Diego State 2005 and stayed in construction for a little while. I was working with constructions in college, just bumming around, surfing, and doing whatever I was doing. Got my real estate license finally and did some deals 2006-2007. I hear a lot of stories like this, it’s like 2006-2007 sales, all of our sales, we should start a Facebook group for sales guys that flamed out, well I think it is, it’s probably called than NARPM of Facebook group. It seemed like everyone has that story. I made some nice checks in sales and I thought I was great, and then I became broke very fast. I was 26-27 and I was broke. I was applying for any job that I could get and I went to work for a French entrepreneur in Carlsbad as a personal assistant. He wanted someone to manage his property manager that had a real estate license because he didn't trust his property manager. Jason: Okay, so you were the spy that was going to monitor whether he was doing his job or not. Steve: Yeah, most managers hate it when the owner micromanages you. Imagine a realtor micromanaging you. I was like, “Yeah, I can do that,” I never managed anything in my life, but I figured it out and worked with him. He actually taught me some great business lessons looking back, but two years in, it was very stressful working for him. He was not the nicest guy, but he did teach me a lot and then I went out on my own with a business partner at the time. We decided, “Hey, let's start our own management company and just got it enough off the ground to allow me to quit my job, be on property management with my partner I think in 2008. We grew that until about 2012 and then we decided to part ways. I started Good Life in 2013 and then been doing Good Life ever since. I started the Good Life Property Management podcast which has nothing to do with clients, nothing to do with getting new customers. It was really a passion project and something I learned out of that was that I encourage people to do content for content's sake if their heart tells them to do that. A lot of times we try to figure out, “Well, how am I going to monetize that?” I remember when I asked Brad Larson, I think he was one of the first people to do a podcast that was a property manager. I was like, “What are you doing this for?” and he was like, “Oh, it's fun,” I was like, “It didn’t make any sense, you're wasting time.” When you add value, like Gary V—a lot of people have really put this in the forefront—when you add value to people's lives, opportunities come your way, connections come your way. I have so much fun doing the Good Life Property Management podcast and we serve the same community you serve which is property management entrepreneurs. I don't run ads. I have ran ads in the past, but I don't anymore. I don't necessarily get anything out of it other than just meeting cool people and getting to indoctrinate my listeners with my philosophies which are really along the same lines in a lot of ways as you, Jason. I really resonate with your manifesto in a lot of ways, so that's cool. That's it. I'm big into music. I do a lot of music. Steve Welty, I’m on Spotify and Apple, and that's my passion. I'm going more and more into that. Also, we have tried mastermind for property management entrepreneurs to max out their business and life. That's what's up for me. Jason: Cool stuff. I think we have a lot in common. Not only are we both California guys. A lot of people listening may not know this, but I had a band in college. I wrote all the music, I played guitar. I didn’t know I was an entrepreneur then. I didn't know that was in my blood, but I was the guy going door-to-door with a guitar and a clipboard pre selling CDs at girl’s dorms that I could fund to self-produce an album, and I was playing music. Steve: That’s [...]. Jason: I know, it was pretty crazy. The album is on SoundCloud if people are searching for it. Steve: Let’s check it out, what’s it called, how can we find it? Jason: My username on SoundCloud is my username everywhere, which is KingJasonHull, and the album is called Whimple, that was the name of my band. Steve: I love it. I think you told me that a while back, but I forgot, but I'm really fascinated with that because that was my story, too. I was a songwriter. That was hustle. I give you street credit like going dorm-to-dorm, playing for chicks, that's pretty cool. I thought I was going to be a rock star. That was my deal, but it's so funny looking back. I didn’t even practice. I just thought I have the natural talent and I used to drink a lot so I was probably delusional. I had this moment, this crossroads where I was like, “Okay, you're not going make it,” I'm not going to be okay being older and broke, so I'm going to go on a business route. I just gave up music completely, and then I was in a strategic coach workshop. I have given it up five or six years and I met this entrepreneur. I was telling him about my story. I was like, “I don't really play music anymore,” and he's like, “Oh, that sucks.” I’m like, “Yeah, it does suck.” Then he’s like, “Well, you have a guitar in your office don’t you?” and I was like, “No.” He’s like, “Well you’re the boss, aren’t you?” Jason: I can see it right behind you. Steve: Yeah, right now I do it. He’s like, “You’re the boss.” I’m like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “Well, why don’t you try this, try just putting a guitar in your office. Just make a commitment to picking it up once a day even if it's for one second.” It really resonated with me because I had given up a part of myself that was really important because I think a lot of time as business owners, we just get so focused on like, “We got to make this company work,” and we’d lose focus of why and what fires us up on an internal level. I did that and that about two years ago, fast forward to today, I'm putting many hours a day into music, into song writing, into recording, into building my audience and it's helped my business so much because when you limit the amount of time that you're in your business, you can only do the things that you're really good at and so that's what I'm really passionate about, is figuring out how can I achieve an outcome with the least amount of effort possible. Jason: Yeah, because when we add limitation or constraint, it creates the byproduct of limitation or creating a constraint is it creates a necessity for innovation. If you have unlimited amounts of time, unlimited amounts of money, unlimited whatever, there's no innovation because it's so easy to be lazy. It's so easy to just let things unfold in a different way, but when we have some time constraints or we have some financial constraints, we have to get creative and that's where the genius starts to come out, that's where new ideas start to come out. I've noticed that even with team members, if I say “I need this done by this time,” they get creative or if I need this done under this budget, they get creative, then they start to innovate. If I say, “Yeah, do it whenever, take as much time as you want, spend as much money as you want,” there's no innovation. They're just going to go towards whatever seems easiest, which is the status quo. Steve: Yeah, you nailed it. I've been really interested in constraints. I had a son, my first child, he’s six months old, Myles, and I was encouraged by a friend of mine. He said “Take 30 days off, Steve,” he's like “It'll be the best thing you ever did for your business. Don't check in, don't do anything. Take 30 days off. Be with your son.” It was in December, so it was like the perfect time and so I did that, and man he was right. It really levelled up my business, my team got way better. They were already good, but just putting these things into place that force you to grow. That 30 days off was huge. Next year I'm planning a 60-day trip to another country that I’m really passionate about using that. I even got my operations manager. He doesn't work out of the office anymore. I moved out of my office a long time ago because when you're in the office, you are often the bottleneck for your company and everyone comes to you for the answers and the solutions. I really grabbed on to that concept and constantly looking for new ways to use constraints to my advantage. Jason: I love it. It's been awhile since I've told the client to do this, but a lot of clients will ask questions like, “How do I become a business owner instead of my own best employee?” I would tell them, “You just start doing it. You take a vacation.” If you schedule a week-long vacation, if you're not taking vacations, for those listening, you schedule week long vacation and you can't take off a week, you're going to have to figure out how to make everything not fall apart for that week. To go 30 days, that's incredible, 60 days is ridiculous, that's pretty awesome. At that point, you've arrived as owner of the company instead of being your own best employee. I noticed when I would take off time or vacation, I would be surprised by how my team would step up. I'd be surprised by the things leading up to that vacation, more would get done than would get done sometimes in months. There are so many little things that you need to get dialed in. “Oh my gosh, they’re going to be gone for a week. How are we going to live without Jason? We got to get this.” My team would say, “Hey Jason, I need this,” or, “I need to access to this,” or, “I need to know how to do this.” Suddenly everybody's rallying around this idea of taking some stuff off your plate because they need to be able to make sure things don't break and it creates the possibility for you to do that more or forever. Steve: Yeah, and I think its baby steps. I remember when I first read the four-hour work week. I thought Tim Ferriss was a god. I was like, that makes no sense. Jason: Did you almost move to Thailand? Steve: Close, but no, it was just really interesting. I guess from a personal level, having time was even more appealing than being a billionaire I guess to me personally. When I see people like Todd Breen and other people talk at NARPM that would talk about running your business from the beach or not is just very appealing to me. I wanted to grow a self-managing company and it was baby steps. There's this book called Making Money is Killing Your Business and they say it really why. It says the purpose of the business is not to make money, it's to build a business that makes money, like time and money equals wealth. Your business should throw off time and money. Now, if you want to then use that extra time to just pour more time in your business, doesn't mean you got to go live on a beach. You could do other adventures. For me, what's really worked and what I'm super blessed to have now is that it's created space in my life to actually start cultivating the other things that light me up, like music, other things. It gives you those options, but that's what I think in our industry especially in a lot of industries, we want to help people, help them anyway we can to experience that. Jason: They say, “What the world needs is people that are alive” I think as entrepreneurs that's where we feel. We want momentum. That's what we crave. The rest of the world, they're just trying to figure out how to be happy. “If I could just be happy then everything would be great.” It's whether they're happy or sad, depressed or excited, but for entrepreneurs, I feel like our two speeds are momentum or stuck, that's it. It’s momentum or overwhelm. We either feel like we're in complete overwhelm, we’re stuck, we can't move forward or we’re frustrated, or were on fire and alive. That's my version of happy or sad. I want to feel like I'm in momentum and I feel like as entrepreneurs, we get momentum when we give it away. When we create momentum for other people, whether it's our clients or the people in our family, the people around us, when we're creating momentum for other people, we get that sense of momentum, too. Steve: Yeah, and that's something I resonate with and I’ve heard you talk about it Jason. I love that message. I really think that the blue ocean is caring about people more than anyone else, like proactively putting the people in your life in the forefront, figuring out, “Who do I want to be a hero to?” and being a hero is usually used in a reactive way. Jason: Right, like there's a crisis or a problem, now you're going to be a hero. Steve: Right, as opposed to being a proactive hero like spending time and saying, “Okay, who are the most essential people or buckets or groups of people in my life and how can I serve them more deeply and impactfully today,” because the best quote of success I've ever heard is something like become a servant of many. If you wish to become great, learn to become the servant of many. I sometimes get a little jaded in certain groups because you constantly hear the feedbacks, the reduce the cost, the get it all out sourced. I use VAs, I look to reduce cost, I look to get fair fees, so I'm not knocking that, but everyone's playing in that sandbox. I'm very interested in seeing what is everyone else doing and how can I do the opposite because that's one of the ways to become successful that I've learned is that you go zig when they zag. That’s cliché. You can't do that when you're buried in tenant complaints and one-star reviews and a team you have to micromanage. I'm a big believer in hiring young, smart, motivated people and leaving them alone. We're a results-based company at Good Life. You can work from home, you could bring your dog, although actually our manager of our building said we can't anymore. I don't really care, with the exception of a couple like the front desk needs to be there in case someone walks in and things like that, but do your thing. There's a great podcast I heard yesterday on how I built this with Guy Raz where the owner of Patagonia wrote this book called “Let Them Go Surfing” and it's all about that. I think our biggest issues once we get to a certain size is people problems, and then we don't know why we can't keep good people, it’s because we don't paint it in a compelling vision. We micromanage. We don't let them do what they want to do. We try to fit corporate bureaucracies into the more entrepreneurial company that people want to be a part of these days. Would you rather follow just checklists and not have a future or would you rather be able to create your own future? Like I tell my team, “You can become anything with me. The sky's the limit wherever you want to go.” So, I think those are big parts of success. Jason: That's really what we're talking about today. The topic is freedom of time, money, and relationships through better business practices. What are some of the practices that you've implemented at Good Life that you feel like you've created more freedom of time and money? Steve: It starts with the business owner and probably a series of game changers. The first was moving out of my office. I had this epiphany and I was taught this by someone and I told the team, we had a meeting, I said, “I apologize. I've stood in the way of you guy’s future and I apologize for it. When I'm here, I'm the bottle neck. I'm stunting your growth. You can come to me for all the answers,” and the fact is as entrepreneurs if you serve 100 people and say, “Where do you do your best work?” nobody says at their office, who does the best work at their office? Why are we working out of our offices? It's just because that's how it's always been done. I kicked myself out. I don't have a desk at my office on purpose. I used to have the stereotypical nicest office in the corner with the best view, and then it freed up so much space, it helped my team grow. Once I created that space, now I work out of my home, and the first key to greater time, money, and purpose is to create space I believe, for yourself. I came from a place where three or four years ago, my dad always taught me outwork everyone else. I remember one time he came to visit me at a college and he asked me how much I was working, I said about 60 hours a week. He’s like, “60 hours? I work 60 hours, I'm retired. What the hell is wrong with you?” Jason: Step it up Steve. Steve: Yeah, and it's great. I love my dad. His work ethic was the reason I'm here today, because it got me to that. There are seasons of life. I knew there had to be a better way, so when I'd made that decision to move out of my office, I said, “Hey, you guys are going to have a bigger opportunity to move up now.” Some of the other things we did was hiring an operations manager. That was huge. That created space and that was something I look forward, and it took me probably eight or nine months to pull the trigger on that, but the operations manager was huge. Slowly but surely, I went from just being stressed out all the time, not having any space in my life. An over-scheduled entrepreneur has no time to transform. I said, “Alright, I'm going to create some space,” and then all the ideas and all the answers start bubbling to the surface because spiritually we all have all the answers inside of us, just we’re so distracted and so just going that we don't allow it. Jason: We’re preloaded, we're in fight or flight, we're up in our monkey brain, and all the great things, our greatest geniuses as an entrepreneur can't bubble up or can't come through when we're in that state. Steve: Exactly, and so that's time that just forced me to get more time because as an entrepreneur, you can make that decision. Jason: We’re buying time. Every person that we pay on our team, we’re buying time. That's what we're buying. I think the mistake we make as entrepreneurs, a lot of entrepreneurs I see, they go hire based on an org chart. They don't hire based on what they personally need in order to off load or get themselves out of the things that they don't really energetically enjoy. You getting an operations manager if you're a visionary entrepreneur is brilliant, because that's like the yin to the yang. It's the exact opposite personality type of the driven entrepreneur is to have somebody that is systems-minded, process-minded, and that can make sure everything's running. Generally, us entrepreneurs, we’re terrible managers. We think we're great at everything, but we're really terrible managers and usually the operations manager is much better at making sure everything runs smoothly. Steve: It's hard to take off or get more time initially if you don't have the money. The money component is important. I went on a Mastermind trip to Mexico a few years back with a handful of people and we looked at everyone's P&L and that was one of the biggest game changers for me was not only understanding my numbers. I think everyone needs a CFO at least part time or at least some outside eyes on the business is so important. Jason: I have a profit first coach and accountant. I'm not really a big fan of having a CFO in a business. Usually, my take on it is every story I've heard of embezzlement or of challenges it's always like the CFOs, and so they're also the crusher of all hopes and dreams. I don't want somebody making too big of decisions there personally, but I want to be coached, and I want to have input and I want to have insight from a third-party perspective, but I don't want them to have control over my stuff. Steve: Totally. I get that. I don't have a CFO, we use a profit coach. Jason: Yeah, similar thing. Steve: Right, but I found that I wasn't going to build a business I thought I was going to build because I'm a feel guy. Like I learn by doing. Does this feel right and I’ll make a decision, but I make decisions very quickly. I'm a high quick start, so I'll make 10 decisions, eight will be bad, two will be great but in the same time that someone else makes one decision. I sometimes can stay a step ahead, but I had to add some revenues and I wanted them to be value-added revenue sources where everyone was a win-win-win, so things like doing inspections better in charging for them. When you don't charge for something, you usually do them poorly. Every manager that doesn't charge for inspections, I guarantee 90% of you are behind on your inspections. Jason: Let's say that again. I like that concept. If you don't charge for it, you're probably doing it poorly. Steve: Right. I'm a believer in this. Just take inspections for example. You go survey people around NARPM or any property management group and everyone's behind on their inspections so they don't do them right. We send a letter to our clients. We said, “Hey, inspections are actually really important. This is when we identify how well the tenant is taking care of the place is when we get out in front of preventive maintenance and it needs to be done well, so we need to hire someone to do this full time and we want to invest in this X amount we charge. It’s going to probably save you three times at least that amount by getting out in front of some of this stuff,” so that was a win-win and our clients loved it. Maybe they didn't want to get charged initially, but once they saw the improved inspection, once they saw the improved communication and results, that was a big win. Then just some other ones that we added in. I think you got to keep the investor fees-friendly. The worst thing we can do as managers is fee our owners to death and they’d get out of the business. Ultimately, the freedom of time, money, relationships, and purpose is what we want, but it's a human need. It's what your clients want, too. So, we have a unique position as property managers, realtors, and investors ourselves in a lot of cases to help people build wealth through real estate. You're a manager and you make it easy, because if you don't make it easy, they burn out and they sell, but if they hold that house specially in San Diego for 30 years, that’s all you have to do and you've set your family up for life. They burn out, so we have a big position, a big part to play here. Jason: I love it, and I love that it’s like a mantra, having others build through real estate, and ultimately what property managers could be allowed towards doing. It’s not just managing a property. If your interests are in line with theirs, which that's their goal. Their goal is to build some wealth, otherwise, why would they be holding on to that property. Steve: Exactly. There's different ways to do that. Right now, we're looking at some other states to buy cash flow property and figure out how to have our owners follow us into some of these other markets. I think with technology these days, that's what all the venture people are doing, how to just pop up shops anywhere. That's something that's exciting to me right now because in San Diego it doesn't make sense to buy an $800,000 house that rents for $2800. We're sitting on some stuff when the market turns for San Diego, but yeah, there's different opportunities out there. Jason: Alright, cool. What should we talk about next? Steve: You know what I'm interested in? I actually thought of this today, and there's some things I've been thinking about doing that I procrastinate on. You know the saying… Jason: I think every business owner can say that. Steve: I know right? Jason: I call it the to-die list. We all have to do list of stuff. Just last week, I have my weekly commitments and I realized I was carrying all of these things over from week-to-week. I'm the guy that says to my clients, “If there's anything on your to do list for more than two weeks, you're not the person that should be doing it.” That's the problem. Yes, we all tend to do that as entrepreneurs. We tend to hold on to things instead of finding the right person to do them or giving it up somebody else. Steve: That’s so true. Jason: Talk about the to die list. Steve: Yeah, the to die list. I was thinking about this today. Two examples of things I have been procrastinating on. One, I don't want to answer email, anymore. I literally want to have email leave my life. I have gotten email down to just like 10 minutes a day at the end of the day, have an assistant, but literally that is still bugging me. I once got this really inspiring auto responder from this really smart cool guy, let’s see if I can find it. Jason: I don't deal with email anymore? Steve: He said, “Thank you for your message. Perhaps you are overwhelmed by email. In fact, last year I sent 43,742 emails, read and review countless more so in order to serve our stakeholders much more efficiently, I have asked my highly capable assistant that’s in New York to review, assign and reply all my email request moving forward,” and then it says some other stuff. That's something I want to do, but it's big and scary, and yeah, I know I'll probably have to respond to some emails, but I'm talking about eliminating it more. I'm like, “Why don’t I just try that? Why do I have to make this decision I procrastinate on forever? Why don't I just try that?” I think it comes back to we don't want to fail like that, we're always raised with, “There is no try, it's to do or die,” or whatever. You don't try, you either do it or you don't, but it's like, “Why can't I just try that? I have an assistant. Why don’t I run that for two or three weeks and see how it goes?” The other thing and I'm sure you've probably thought of this, Jason, is like Gary V, having maybe a semi full-time person doing vlogs, recording not just every few days, like every day. I'm just sitting on that and I'm like, “Well, why don't I just try it for like a freaking month?” I think there's so much possibility with that and I wanted to see what you thought because I'm like, “I don't have to commit to it.” There's so much stuff. Even hiring someone. I was thinking about hiring a GM or an operations manager for eight or nine months. What if I just said, “Hey, let's try it.” I mean this isn’t Canada or some other places where I don't think you can fire people. Try it, hire the person, and if it doesn't work out, let them go. Jason: Yeah. Let's go back to the email and then we can go the other thing. Here's how I identify stuff. I mentioned this on the previous episode, but I personally will do a time study probably about once a quarter and if I bring on a new team member that takes something off my plate, because how I identify what I need to get off my plate is by doing a time study. I have to be accountable. Where's my time actually going and which things are low dollar an hour work, which things are things that I don't enjoy. I actually write a plus or minus sign next to each thing that I'm doing, whether it energizes me or it drains me, and then identify the things that are tactical or strategic, things that are self-care versus family time. I have a whole system, I take clients through for doing time studies. When I do this, that helps me get clarity for what I need to get rid of. I gave up email a long time ago because I hated email. It was always a minus sign, it was always tactical, it was never like my hopes and dreams were coming true when I was writing an email. I don't even look at my email. So, if you've emailed me, I'm sorry, I don't look at it. My assistant will take care of the email. She reads it. If she has any questions, she sends me a message through a walkie talkie app, because I don't want to type to her. She'll send me a voice message through Voxer. We use Voxer and I use it with coaching clients, she will send me a Voxer voice message and say “Jason, what do you think, how should we respond to this email. They're asking this.” I say, “Just tell them this, this and this, but say it nicer than I just said.” Then she’ll take care of it, and she's asking me questions throughout the day. We also do daily huddles as a team and that's usually where she gets most of her questions in. I say, “Is anybody stuck on anything?” She's like, “Yeah, did you get my message about this?” “No, I wasn't paying attention.” “Okay, what do you need?” I answer it and she can respond to the email for me. She's gotten really good at understanding over time, she gets better and better at knowing my voice, knowing what I would say and she takes care of more and more and more. Every day she'll give me a short list, “Here are the emails I don't know what to do with. You need to take care of these,” and I begrudgingly will deal with them within a day or two. That's how it works. [...] then I’ll talk with them and move them forward, but outside of that, usually she hands it off to my team or has somebody else in the team deal with it. If it's support-related, I think most of my clients have learned that they're not getting a fast response by coming to me directly. They get their best response by emailing our support email address or system and so I think every property manager needs to do the same. Initially, when you're small you're the guy. They probably have your cell phone number. Tenants owners, everybody, and eventually you change your phone number and you create some barriers and protections, you have to educate and teach people how you want them to treat you, and you’re going to teach your customers what are the right channels and you have to teach your team what are the right channels. My days are pretty quiet. Steve: I love that. That's super inspiring. You fired me up even more and I love how you said it's tactical. It's very transactional-tactical. I want to be playing in the sandbox of transformational. I feel like I'm retired now because I do what I want and I'm blessed to say that. There's been a lot of hard work behind that, but I'm to the point to where I'm not going to do stuff that doesn't light me up and there's a small subset of tasks like creating content—podcast is one of them—that I could do all day and I have endless energy for. That's where I add the most value. So, the bigger the impact on people that I can have is going to be when I'm fired up and passionate and not dragging off of email, but I think we don't give ourselves permission to do that. You saying that, I'm all in now. I was 80% in, Jason, now I'm all in. I hope some listeners are all in to move forward. That's what I love about podcasts and other things with so much being shared these days. A lot of times we think things, or we know things internally, or we feel things a certain way, but we don't give ourselves permission to actually say that or feel that in public because sometimes we just need someone else to say it to give us the courage. I've noticed that happening so much lately that I finally got pissed, and I'm like, “You know what? I'm making a list of everything that I believe in whole-heartedly, that I think is a little off mainstream maybe.” That way I can have it in writing and I'm just going to start saying these things because I'm tired of being, “Oh yeah, and I felt that way, too,” but I never said anything. Jason: I mention this on the previous episode, too, that I've been really opinionated in the past and I've realized that I think I'm a little more humble now that I realized my way isn't always the exact right way for everyone, so I'm learning. I was just in Columbus for a week and one of the things that really hit me hard is that I've been really opinionated and I think it's important to put out things more as observations rather than gospel truth. Somebody may love email or somebody may hate doing podcast stuff. Everybody is different and I think everybody's perception is different, everybody's experiences as to what works or doesn't work in marketing could be different, their market might be different. There are so many variables involved, so I think moving forward, my content is a lot more observational because I've realized I was attracting clients or creating monsters in the industry that are hyper-opinionated and the hyper-opinionated people become like, “Oh my God, [...],” but the problem is they create a lot of negativity in the industry. They become the rampant [...] guys that are heartless, that want to crush all the hopes and dreams of every tenant on the planet. We need to be careful in any business or any industry in being too opinionated because what ends up happening is we end up attracting most opinionated people. Those are the people that turn on you. Those are the owners you don't want eventually. Those are the people that give you the negative reviews when one little thing goes wrong. I want open minded people, and these are the clients that I’ve loved the most, but I was attracting less of them per capita because of the message that was so in your face. “This is the [...], do this,” and I was just so strong willed that way and I realize now that that creates its own monster. I think it's important to share though, honestly, these little things that we have, that are weird about is or that are woo-woo that we feel like the rest of the world will judge. To say. “This is me, this is how I am, this is my experience,” and yeah I think you when we let our freak flag fly, so to speak, there are people that run with it. As long as we're not, “Hey, this is the gospel truth. This is the only way to do it,” we're not going to turn off so much so many of the people that don't resonate. They might go, “You know, Jason, that’s cool that you're into that weird stuff, but I'm more of a practical guy and I don’t resonate with that, but I like a lot of the stuff you say.” If I say, “This is the only way to do it,” I'm forcing them to make a choice to go all in and do everything my way or the highway. Steve: Your coach helped you nail that idea. I had that opposite issue. I think the issue for me was that I didn't want to ever come off as opinionated. I'm scared almost having an opinion because I'm like, “Do your thing, man,” so I’m always quick to anything I believe in. I'm quick to say, “Do what works for you. This is just my journey. Do what works for you.” I think like attracts like and that's a really cool observation that you started attracting all these opinionated people. The coaching thing, I love that you have coaches and you’re a coach yourself because the power of coaching has changed my life. Strategic coach, I work with Jason Goldberg. Every time I have a call with him, I transform. It's really crazy. If there's one thing I'm super high on right now, it's co-creation. Co-creation is the super power that nobody's talking about and I've experienced it in many ways. First through music. Although I normally do music on my own and I'll just write songs. When I get in the room with the right people, they don't even have to be a great musician, it's just that the energy. If we’re vibrating on the same frequency, things just come out so great. I played with this rapper the other day. Two of our new songs are two of my favorite songs I've recorded in the past year. Back when I had a casual mastermind that we used to do, helping each other co-create, kick this process back to you, now you kick it back to me and blah, blah, blah, everything just accelerated. So, I think outside eyes on the business, coaches, casual masterminds, paid masterminds, whatever it is, I think the more we're interacting with others and having a sounding board, the faster we're going to get to where we're going and the more transformative the experience will be. Jason: I agree. To touch on that, every single person you'll notice, everybody listening will know this is true. You can talk about it in terms of inner energy or spirituality or whatever, but every single person that you’re around brings out a different side of you. There are people that when I'm around them, I feel I'm freaking hilarious, I’m the funniest guy on the planet. They’re laughing at everything I say. It's awesome. Then there's people that I'm around that I feel I'm super mental, analytical, and logical. That's how they perceive me and that's what they bring out in me. And there are people that feel I'm this emotional sensitive person. My kids would probably say, “No, he’s Mr. Analytical.” There are different people that bring out a different side to us. This is also why I have a strong introverted side. I need space away from people to reconnect with who I am and to make I'm me. I feel when we're around other people, part of it is how they perceive and see us, brings that out in us, it allows us to be [...] energy and yes absolutely there's this connection and a certain combination of different people, or different energies, or different whatever that will create a different music. You've got the Beatles, for example. These four guys came together and they created all kinds of interesting sounds and music that had a really strong impact and all them wrote songs [...], but on their own, none of them really created as strong of a situation without the others. Just the energy between Paul McCartney and John Lennon was pretty magical. Steve: Totally, and country artists or country songwriters write typically with at least two but usually three or four people in the same room. I think there's parallels because I can speak from experience. I was constantly, with the exception of going to maybe two conferences a year, I was at the desk in my office, head down, genius with 1000 helpers, although I wasn't a genius that is just a saying I’ve heard by any stretch of the imagination. Jason: The emperor with no clothes. Steve: Right, the fool with too much control, and that’s the thing now. I'm in charge, but I'm not in control and that’s self-freeing. It's the people, my people that are awesome are in control and the cool thing now to get to the impact or the purpose part that is super firing me up these days is that I've gotten to a point now to where my job with Good Life is to take care of my team. It's to figure out how can I make their lives better. How can I figure out, what are their dangers, their opportunities, their strengths? Where do they want to be in three years? How can I cultivate that? How can I make it so all of them would run through a wall for me and take a bullet for me because if they would do that, they will treat my money like their money, my company like their company. The reason I started really researching how, I was like how does the military sail hundreds of 18-year-olds across the sea and set up forward military bases. It's just mind boggling, and I read Extreme Ownership. It’s a great book, some other books, but you talk about decentralized command. The top gives them the mission and then that leader gives them the mission and then the lieutenant, I’m butchering correct words. Jason: The hierarchy? Steve: Yeah, the hierarchy, but they are allowed to come up with the game plan and the battle plan. One of my jobs at Good Life is to make it okay to fail. To be okay to test things and screw things up and get beat up over it. Jason: Because if they're afraid to fail, guess what happens? They start hiding crap from you. Then there's all the secret stuff going on then there’s interoffice politics, there’s backbiting. People have to be allowed to fail and not feel they're going to have their head chopped off. Otherwise, you have a business that’s unsafe for you. I love the idea of you giving up control, I've given up control over my email. I don't even know what's getting sent out half the time, but I've created trust and I trust her. She's very cautious in how she does it. I've given up my schedule. I was in Vegas last week, the week before that I think it was in Columbus, a week before that I was I think in Phoenix. I don't choose anymore. My assistant, she's like, “Here’s a speaking opportunity. You're going to go speak here.” She sets up these podcast episodes, everything I've given up autonomy on my time, but I still blackout Mondays and Fridays so I can do some of the things I want and then I have my weekends, but you give up control. The higher you move up in your business, the less control you have and the more you give to the people around you. I just do what they tell me to do. I show up. My job is to support them. I love what you were saying that you've transitioned because I think as we start out as entrepreneurs and we get our first few team members. We’re always asking the question and frustrated why can't my team just do what I say. Then eventually we transition and we transform and evolve and realizing they are some of our best assets, they're supporting us, they're better at us in things that they do, they love their areas of expertise and now it's, how can I support them? How can I help them get ahead? How can I make it easier? How can I help them avoid burnout? You also threw out the words transformational and transactional, and I think those are two very different leadership styles that I think are important to point out. I think what you’ve just been describing is you're trying to create a team that is transformational. Transformational leadership is where you give them an outcome and say, “That's where I want to go,” and they say, “Great,. We'll figure it out, we'll help you get there.” Transactional leadership is, “We're going to go here and here's exactly how we’re going to do it and we’ll do it my way,” and then there's no buy-in, there’s no ownership, they don't get to fail because if they do what you tell them to do and it doesn't work, whose fault is it? It’s mine, but that means they can't win too. If they can't fail, they can never win, and you're never going to keep A players on your team that never get to win. This is why people get so frustrated by millennials, because they're dinosaur business owners, they're running their business like assholes, they're tyrants, they're trying to micromanage their team, tell everybody to do it, and it’s transactional. They're saying, “I'm giving you money, just do what I tell you to do. I paid you, do it.” Millennials don't stand for that. They value themselves more. They want something beyond just being told what to do and getting a paycheck. Believe me, I have team members on my team that would just be there to show up and [...] and get their check. They don't believe in you, they don’t believe in the company, they're hypers, and they go home and complain about you, and the job, and they live for the weekends. But if team members enjoy the work and they feel they have freedom and they have autonomy, you have their discretionary time. They're thinking about you after work. “How can we make this better?” They’re thinking about you on the weekends. They do extra stuff because they're in love with what they're doing. Steve: Totally. Now, you said that really well and I think what comes up for me as the EMyth, which was a very transformational book to use that word for me. Checklist, at certain points at Good Life, we are a results based company, but a lot of times I get pulled to these meetings it’s like this person is not… they checked the box and they didn't do it or they didn't check the box and they should have, you know I mean? What's the results? Is the days on market good? Where is his KPIs? Although they’re good, we have this back and forth. So, here's something that I want to stick my flag in the sand as something that's not conventional and goes away from my instinct which is let them figure it out. I don't care about the checklist. We're not all going to be McDonald's. Honestly, I'm not trying to scale my business across the whole country, if I was, I probably would have to make sure everybody checks that box, but I'm really interested in the small giants approach, where it's going deep with the smaller amount of people, still having a big business that makes a big impact. I say, “Hey, look at the results. Make it a results-based company because they can own it. They have more ownership in that regard.” Something else that comes to mind was, I remember I used to walk into the office when I used to go to the office every day and people would be on YouTube and I would freaking be so mad. They're watching some videos, I would stew about, I wouldn’t say anything right away. I would go in my office and fume. Then I remember I talked to a friend about it, someone I respect, a mentor. He's like, “Man, you got to let that go. If they get the results, who cares how many cat videos they're watching. You want a fun environment. If you go lay the hammer down on that, you're going to not have the team that you need to have to make your dreams come true.” Someone I respected telling me that was me letting go of a helium balloon. All this weight was just lifted and I was free. I didn't have to micromanage. Jason: I think it's interesting because sometimes usually the person or the team that gets really caught up on the checklist and everything being done a certain way, that's usually the operations person. They love that stuff, and it needs to be done this way, but I think that's our job as the visionaries to remind them it's the outcome that matters. It's the end result that matters. The end result is making sure we have a profitable business. The end result is to make sure that we're honoring our customers and we're treating people well. These sort of things, if we want to get to the outcome. How we get to that outcome, there's probably a million ways we can do it, and whether a certain box wasn't checked or certain thing didn't end up happening. Well, maybe that process is too cumbersome. Maybe it needs to be supplied, as long as getting a result. There’s always this balance. You can have a 30-point checklist that somebody has to complete, but if you can get it down to 10 steps and they can actually do it every time and it doesn't feel it’s in the way, then you're better off than the people that are operating without looking at a process document because most people don’t. They'll do it once and then just skip it. You need something that they can live with on an ongoing basis. I think that's really important to point out what you said is that it's the results, that results don't lie, it's the outcome that really matters. So, I think if you take a step back and say, “Well, what outcome are we going to achieve? Somebody's talking about checklist not being done well. What was the outcome we were trying to achieve? What's the outcome? Okay, did we achieve it? Who was responsible for it and how do we know whether it got done or not? Okay great, well then we're good, maybe we should change the process.” Steve: Exactly. Those are some things, but the exciting part is having freedom of time, money, relationships, the people you work with, the people you get to do business with, I know you talk a lot about firing the bad clients. That was an amazing experience, our profit went way up when we fired the wrong types of clients and getting really centered on our core values because then it's easy to hire and fire people and hire clients based on your core values. Ours are really simple. It’s RPG: be reliable, be positive, and be a go giver. It's based off that book, The Go Giver, and it's just simple. We used to have seven or eight, but then I couldn't even remember what they were and they felt weird, so we made it really simple. Now, my business development manager just goes down the list, like, “Are they reliable? Were they at the appointment on time? Did they send you the thing they said they were going to send you?” It just makes this compass of how to do business with the type of people that are going to make you successful. Jason: That's one of the things that coach clients through is to get clear on their three, maybe four core values because you can have a list to 10, you can have 20, but really your team aren’t going to remember all of those and you can usually boil it down to three core things. For us, ours are a little bit different. One of my core values is just transparency. That's originally why I call my company Open Potion and in just creating transparency I think in the industry has created some various significant shifts. I think also for [...] just how I operate. That's a value that is central to me and I want my team to espouse and really our companies are just extensions of us. It's my Iron Man suit that I get the strap on every day, that's my team and everything around me. It increases my capacity. It makes me feel a super human. I'm getting more done. I've got India handling my email and Adam handing fulfillment. I feel like I’m a superhuman. Steve: He’s awesome, by the way. Jason: Thank you. I think of other things I'm really big on is just eliminating constraints and looking for the big constraints that are preventing momentum, so that I can create momentum. It’s all about creating momentum for my clients and for myself. I think it's going to be different for everybody. With all the different things that we are inspired or that resonates with us and I think every business owner needs to get clear on really what their values are because you can't have it. There are only two types of team members. There are hiders we talked about that are hiding and they are living for the weekend and they show up for paycheck or there's believers. The only way you can have believers is if you have something for them to believe in. If you want believers on your team and you want clients that believe in you, you have to have values that you make transparent or clear to the marketplace or to your team so that they can they can buy in to them. It's amazing to see companies get to a large size without even having that in place. Once you get it in place, I imagine the shift is traumatic for the culture. Steve: And if there's one last thing I would leave the listeners with that’s going to be probably the most impactful thing for me in the last 24 months was, I had this epiphany that everything worthwhile lives on the other side of fear. I knew that instinctually and I've been told that before. You know how you can read a book, that's why they say re-read the books that you love because you read it four times and then you'll start to actually really get it. I knew that, but I didn't really get it and it hit me, it became crystal clear. I was like, “Okay, if I want my dreams to happen and be fulfilled and live a life that I want, I have to figure out what scares me and do that.” I have a two-part test. Does it scare me, part one. Part two, does my heart tell me to do it? If the answer to both of those is yes, you do it. I even made a wristband that says, “What scares you, do that.” I don't have it on me right now, I took it off. Just to remind me and it goes back to the try thing. All my biggest leaps came after I did something I wasn't prepared for and I was scared to do, like going to that mastermind. I couldn’t afford it, it was really expensive. Hiring my operations manager, hiring a marketing manager. I gave a talk recently at PM Grow that I thought I was going to be broke after I hired my marketing person because I didn't think I have the margin and we ended up having our best year ever. It comes back to the try thing. Figure out what scares you, do that, try it, whatever it is. I think that's where we make our biggest leaps and that's what sets people apart from living a life that they intended to having regrets, which is the number one regrets of the dying is that they didn't live a life true to themselves, instead they lived a life other people expected them to live. That's the thing that scares me more than anything in the world and so I’m passionate about sharing that message. Jason: Steve, it’s been awesome having you on the show. I'll second that. It really is that voice deep down that is that voice of truth, and also you can ask yourself deep down, “Do I really want to be doing this?” Deep down, “Should I be doing this thing?” Deep down, “Does this really resonates with me,” and if the answer isn't a, “Hell yes,” then there's a lack of congruency and I think that's where you're saying your heart is yes. I think [...] of something that isn't working is the death of something inside you. It means change, something has to die. You want to know what's really interesting? I've noticed a lot of this on [...]. The scariest thing to kill or to allow to die is the fantasy of something great. I’ll explain this, I've noticed this a lot lately with business owners. They have this fantasy of having a really healthy business, or having a business that is growing, or a business that they contribute, or they get to do great things, and that fantasy is so exciting to them and juicy to them that they don't want to take action on it, because to take action on it means they have to kill it. They have the brutally pull out the knife and slaughter their fantasy the second they start taking action towards it, because now reality sets in. Reality is never going to be at that level that the fantasy was, but it's better because it's real. I usually use the example of my friend in high school that wanted to be a rock star, which sounds like you. You had to eventually give up the fantasy of being a rock star or you have to choose into it fully. He had this fantasy of being a rock star and he would buy expensive guitars and amplifiers, and he wouldn't take guitar lessons. He won’t love the fantasy of having this fantasy of being a rock star and as long as he can buy cool guitars and keep imagining this future that would never happen, he was happy, but he didn't want to go sleep in his car and do gigs, tour round, work his butt off, and practice nine hours a day. He didn’t want to do any of that. That's reality. Reality means some work. Initially, if you're listening to this and you’re like, “This is great. Jason and Steve have these companies and making all this money, they've got their assistants. It must be so nice for them.” They're probably listening and going, “I don't get it. I'm not there.” You may have to be the person listening that you right now, it's time for you to double down. It's time for you to hustle. It's time for you to do stuff that scares you. It's time for you to get off of the fantasy of whatever you're hoping of doing or hoping of starting to really get out there and do the work, the hard work to make it happen and you listen to that voice, you get to that place. You get to that place eventually where you're now are able to focus on your team. You're able to be a coach and a mentor to people around you instead of the person trying to figure out how to get everybody to do everything. I think that transition really involves taking those scary leaps. I think every coach that I've hired was a leap. None of them were cheap. Every coach I've hired, every program or training I bought into, some of them I couldn't even afford at the time. They were risks, but I knew deep down it was a yes. I just knew it was a yes and it terrified me. I think for those that are really analytical and logical, they're like, “I don't get it Jason,” but for anybody else listening. If you have that voice deep down inside that is saying, “Hey, this is what's next for you. You've known it. You've been avoiding it and you're trying to figure out how to make it all feel safe, take the leap, and jump and do it. Worst case scenario, you're going to learn some powerful lessons.” I had lessons where I spent a lot of money and it didn't work out. A lot of money. I've probably lots of money making some bad choices, but I wouldn't trade those lessons and I've learned from them. Steve: Yeah, and money is just one side of it. Making a decision to be a different person, or to take more time off, or to go into a completely different field, that's probably the easiest one to do is scratch a check for something. Sometimes our way of being is probably what gets in the way of most of our issues because you can't solve the problem with the same mind that created it. Creating some space and getting clear always helps, getting clear on what you're trying to do and the life you're trying to live. At the end of the day, we’re the writer, director, producer of our own store and I love how you said, you kill off the fantasy because that's true. It's scary. I think that's why a lot of people don't delegate it or it takes so long to delegate because it's scary. If you give that up, what are you going to do? Then you actually might have to sit with yourself and figure out what's next and nobody wants to be alone with themselves. That's a scary place. It's through the work, it's through conquering those demons slowly over time that I've seen good results, so it's a process. Take it easy on yourself and do what's doable. I beat myself up a lot over the years and it's I think we're all pretty ambitious. Don't kill yourself. Life's too short. Just have fun with. Do what’s doable. Jason: Well, Steve, it’s been awesome having on the

I have a very special guest for you today! Frankly, I'm very shocked that we are able to get someone with such incredible stature in this show. SHE’S AMAZING! She's an incredible individual and we're all very lucky to have her here. I'm not gonna say the name of her MLM. I wanna keep it very company neutral so this remains a PURE marketing knowledge place. She… Has helped open 40 countries for the network marketing company she's a part of. Has a downline of over FOUR AND A HALF MILLION people! Is an INCREDIBLE person and she has a podcast called MLM Game Changer. We're VERY privileged to have her on here today. Teresa, welcome to the show. THE QUEEN OF OFFLINE RECRUITING Teresa Harding: Thank you! I am REALLY excited to be here and I honestly feel really honored because you’ve been a mentor for a lot of the things that I've learned. Thank you for having me! Steve: That's awesome, thanks so much. People may not know you yet or have listened to your podcast yet… How did you get started in this game? Teresa: Oh, my goodness, I HATED network marketing. I thought it was almost EVIL. There were experiences where people tricked you into coming to a meeting at their house… They invite you to dinner, that whole thing, and I couldn't stand it! I was not interested AT ALL. https://youtu.be/aqn-PxmrYGE My sister invited me to a class, and I love my sister. We're very close. I knew I was going to go support her but I told my husband, "Look, would you please come with me? I have to go to this thing because I have to support her." So I went and I was SURPRISED by the product. As you guys all know… Network marketing companies often have pretty amazing products. Steve: Amazing products! Teresa: I didn't know that at the time… Ours is a health product. My niece at the time was two years old… She started having some pretty serious neurological problems that were pretty scary, and someone told my sister, "Oh, you should try this product"... And I thought, "Oh, brother, are you kidding me?" The support and what I saw was actually UNBELIEVABLE… So I started researching and looking into it and ended up WANTING the product but NOT gonna the business. I started using the product and helping people with the product and I started getting a little paycheck but I WASN’T trying to build. BUILDING AN OFFLINE RECRUITING BUSINESS So, I thought, "Fine. I'll do this for three months. I am not talking to my friend and I am not talking to my family." Steve: Right! Teresa: In that, I think we're kindred spirits. I have heard SO MANY of your trainings! That's how I got involved, fell in love with it and now, LOVE… Helping people Network marketing Steve: When did it start becoming a REAL thing for you? You're like, "Man, this is actually something that I wanna go full-time into and get four and a half million people"? Obviously, it didn't happen all at once… But what did that look like? Teresa: And of course, it doesn't happen by yourself. It really takes A LOT of people working hard together and I have a lot of amazing leaders on my team, as you can imagine. Once I decided I'm gonna do this for three months… I'm kind of a go-getter and I always reach my goals. My goals are always crazy high where I constantly have naysayers telling me it can't be done, and I just go ahead and do it anyway… I don't always reach them as soon as I want. I decided to try it for 3 months and then I went after it… It was working and it was UNBELIEVABLE! NETWORK MARKETING IS HELPING PEOPLE I quickly discovered that it really IS about helping people. I built mine offline at first and it's just been amazing. And I absolutely that you don't pressure people. It's not about chasing, hunting people down. We are not the hunter and they are not the target. Steve: Yeah, absolutely. One of the biggest questions I get, and I'm sure you get it all the time, is… “How long have you been at it?” And I feel like the thing that they're asking is, “Is it really worth it for me to go after that?” And they're trying to find some logical reason to release themselves from the pressure of moving forward. With that backdrop, and everyone now knowing how I feel about that… How long have you been at it? Teresa: I've been doing this for 11 years. At first, I was doing it part-time because I was a stay-at-home mom. I'd never really been involved in business before. Of course, I had skills and I had been to college… But I wanted to raise my own kids. So, I did that and this came about right as my kids were getting a little bit older. I would only do it part-time while they were at school or at their sports practices and things like that. NETWORK MARKETING PART TIME For the first several years, it was very part-time… But I'm an overachiever, which is fun for me. I would get A LOT done in the time that I had but then… As it got to a point where I could spend more time on it and I was able to do it full-time, I remember the day thinking, "Okay. Now, let's see what we can do." At that point, I was a pretty high rank (third from the highest rank that you could achieve in the company). I'd achieved A LOT… Steve: That's so awesome. Teresa is 100% the queen of offline building. You have this down to a SCIENCE. You're so good at it, you're known for it. You have your own programs on that as well! Did you learn those things? I'm sure some of it was discovered along the way… Better tactics and methods on recruiting... How do you start getting really good at that? Because MOST don't. Teresa: First of all, you have to know… I am EXTREMELY opinionated about how it should be done. The way that people pressure and try to approach all their friends and family… I did not agree with that AT ALL! We DO have people make their list… But the way they approach is absolutely about WHAT they know that person actually NEEDS. The thing I fell in love with when I found your online stuff was that we had been trying to figure out online for the last four years and we HAD figured it out… But not to the extent that you had. NETWORK MARKETING ONLINE When I found your stuff I freaked out because I was like, "Oh, my goodness." We HAD figured it out, but that was the icing on the cake! We've geeked out over you… Over ClickFunnels… All of that. The way that you teach online, that's exactly how you should be doing it offline. All the things that you do… Attract the people who are interested Don't go after the people who are not interested Not trying to get every single person on your team If you're worrying more about the other person than yourself… You're meeting their needs and solving their problems. If you can solve their problems, you'll continue that journey together. But if you CAN’T, you can still be friends. You don't need to bring up that stuff all the time. The best compliment I ever got was when a neighbor of mine came to me needing something for a health situation. She didn't use our product, but she knew of our product. She needed to find something for her daughter and asked if we had anything. I told her “Yes”, I was HELPING her. She said, "There are a lot of people in our neighborhood who do your business… My husband said, I don't want you talking to anyone else, I want you talking to Teresa because she won't hound us, and she won't bug us." Steve: WOW! Teresa: That's probably the most powerful compliment because that is EXACTLY how you build offline… NETWORK MARKETING ONLINE VS OFFLINE You do the same things that we do ONLINE… There are just some tricks to figuring out how to do it online, in the same way there are some tricks to figuring out how to do it offline… It's just it's faster online, which is so exciting as we've gotten into that! Steve: It's funny because the way I think about the Internet… There are a few very easy plays (like little football plays) that I think about. "I'm gonna run that play, I'm gonna run that play." And I just know it just works because it adds value before you go follow up with asking them to actually join. What's one of your favorite methods for offline growth? Teresa: We actually have some scripts that we give people for different types of situations… So many people say too much, or say it wrong… The nice thing about online is you write it in the funnel, then it's there and you don't mess up. The hard part about offline is you need to LEARN how to say things… Ultimately it’s about: Asking them questions Finding out what it is that they need In the online space, we try to touch those emotions that make them feel like we are talking to them… That's the exact same thing we're doing OFFLINE where we're finding out WHAT their needs are. That's ONE thing that we do… OFFLINE RECRUITING TECHNIQUES The second thing we do is, any time I meet someone… I am not trying to bring up my MLM. I am trying to get to know them, making new friends… It's fun for me! I make new friends! I travel a lot internationally and I make new friends. When we're talking, two things ALWAYS come up… Your business or what you do for work Health If I saw a movie that I wanted to tell you about… I'm not gonna make any money off that movie. But if it was so awesome, I'm going to want to tell you about it. "Steve, oh, my God, have you seen that movie? It's awesome, you have to go and see that movie." I would do it the same way whether or not I'm gonna make money off of that. If it's really something that I feel that way about and I could help people with, then that's how we approach it. Steve: That makes total sense, it is very natural with that approach. That's very cool. One of the reasons why I started doing MLM on the Internet is because I was so afraid to talk face-to-face with people. In that four and a half million you must have someone who's fearful of talking face-to-face? So I was like, "Well, I'm kind of a nerd. I'll go create a system, but that's really nerdy and most don't go do that." For all the people who are like, "Alright, Teresa, how do I go do it? I've got Steven's stuff but I still wanna talk face-to-face." What do you say to those people who are just super scared of talking face-to-face, how do you get over that fear? OFFLINE RECRUITING = FACE-TO-FACE Teresa: There's at least ONE person in four million… Probably every single one has been there… Even when I was super confident and had been presenting in front of tens of thousands of people… I would still get in front of someone on the airplane and all of a sudden something would happen and I would wanna be careful not to make it awkward. Steve: Yeah, just clam up in the air… Teresa: That's ALWAYS a thing… We: Teach people Do role Have a script that is super simple and not awkward, that anybody can use … You could totally use it for your company. It says HOW to offer the sample (or whatever you're gonna do) and it's so powerful. IT WORKS. Our numbers increase significantly when we use this script. It tells you what to say to them if they had a: BAD experience GOOD experience We have spent so many marketing dollars on figuring out HOW soon should you respond to someone. For example, with your email sequence, you know EXACTLY what days you're sending those out. Steve: Boom, BOOM, BOOM! Teresa: It's the EXACT same thing! You give them the sample, and three days is waaay too long. If you do it the next day, they feel like you're hounding them. They're like, "Why won't you leave me alone now?" FOLLOWING UP WITH PEOPLE IN NETWORK MARKETING TWO DAYS is perfect, and you warn them ahead of time. For example, I always tell them I’m going to contact them, tell them why, and tell them how. That sounds like it can be so dramatic, but listen to this, it's super simple… So if I said, "Hey, Steve, you've got this thing, okay? Try it like this and I'll give you a call in a couple of days to see how it's going." Steve: So it's seeded… I don't feel pressure. Teresa: Now when I do call you, you're not going. "Why is she calling me again?" You're going, "She is taking such awesome care of me. I can't believe she's taking the time to do this with me." Just little things like that. I've seen your trainings on sales pages and the wording that you do. It's exactly the same thing, it really is. Steve: That's so cool! Yeah, many people have asked how do they do offline. It's the same... I'm not going to build a funnel, I'm just gonna do it my way. That IS a funnel. It doesn't matter whether it's online or offline. Funnels existed when the first caveman traded a rock for a piece of whatever. Teresa: That's why I was so excited when I found your stuff. You took the real way to do network marketing that is truly helpful, not pressure… And you put it online. You didn't change it and mess up the system. THE BEAUTY OF ONLINE RECRUITING The beauty of online is you can do it faster and reach more people. If you can spend ad dollars, that's even better. I have made more stupid mistakes than anybody network marketing… I am quite sure. So I know my stuff inside and out. I was learning the online stuff and digging even deeper, and going, “How fun to connect the two, how fun to put it together and go, wow, this is honestly moving into the 21st century!” Steve: It's taken FOREVER! We’VE got a lot of up-lines that are AFRAID of it… When did you start reaching out for assistance and help and growth? Were you consuming books and CDs and courses? What kind of training did you consume at the beginning? Teresa: When we first started, I'd never done this before… I didn't have any connections in the industry and I had not had any success myself because I was BRAND NEW… So I went to the owners of our company (who are pretty renowned) they're amazing in the industry. But they're not used to doing what we do... But they were EXTREMELY helpful. I learned as much as I could and I basically went to them and said, "Okay, you tell me who's making the most in network marketing and you tell me what they're doing, and then I will try to mimic that." NETWORK MARKETING BOOKS Then started reading tons of business books, tons of network marketing books… I can't even share my gratitude enough for the people who come before who spent their lifetime learning all these things so that I can learn in a book what it took them years and years to learn. There's always great information… But I'm pretty opinionated about that whole pushy network marketing attitude. And there are some books out there that are very much that way. You will NEVER hear me advocating that. I absolutely don't think it's necessary. Obviously, it's not. I believe that that's ONE of the reasons our team is so massive… Because it doesn't feel that way. I devour books and I read like crazy. I was on Goodreads, and they had this reading challenge last year where they said, "How many books do you wanna read?" We were living in China and I thought, “This is a busy year, so I probably better just say one book a month, even though I know I read a lot.” By the end of the year, I had read 40 books. Steve: What happened to your team growth when you started consuming all that training? Teresa: Oh, my goodness! What happens is, your team grows exponentially! OFFLINE RECRUITING TO ONLINE RECRUITING Not just in relation to how much you're learning, because you know what it's like… The more you grow your business, the more you have to face things about yourself that you didn't necessarily wanna face. Steve: And it sucks. Teresa: It's weird… It's like you hit these lids that you don't realize you're hitting until you up-level your skill in that area… You become a better leader, you learn something more that allows you to lead better, grow bigger, and progress more. Steve: I think of it like those rock tumblers that we used to have growing up… Did you ever have those? You put all those rocks in and it’s super loud, really annoying… Then you pull it out and you're like, “Oh, that was awesome.” The nastier the rock, the more beautiful at the end. Teresa: Smooth and gorgeous and a color that you didn't even know. Steve: So you started building and building and building offline (obviously) and then… And then did you start taking that offline-to-online growth? Teresa: It's never perfect… You always have things to learn but we knew how to do that offline building, no problem. I started trying to do live seminars about six or seven years ago because I thought, “We know how to do this, we are good at this.” If we can get MORE people in the room, we go BIGGER, we can go FASTER. It worked and we were starting to figure it out… I actually partnered with some people who had run massive events for people like Zig Ziglar… But it takes A LOT of capital and you're flying the whole team out to the area, going to Colorado and all of a sudden, it hit me… FIGURING OUT ONLINE NETWORK MARKETING You think I'd have figured this out sooner, but I was like, “Duh, if we're gonna do this, why do it live? Why not do it online?" That's when I started going, "Dude, we figured this out online and then, of course, we can go do live events and people will come," It has been so fun and so expensive until I found you guys. We had gotten the cost per acquisition down pretty low… Lower than anyone I know aside from the people that you train. AND THEN, I found your stuff and it was so exciting. And in fact, we brought a little gift for you. Steve: Oh, yeah? Teresa: Can I share this little surprise? Steve: Absolutely. Teresa: We made this for you. Steve: Oh, yeah? Teresa: I just have to tell you that my office team, my employees have been really excited about this and they've been sharing this all over the office over and over again. We have a segment… I won't share the whole thing here because it's too long. The one that we're going to give you is four minutes long, but this one is just 15 seconds… Steve: I'm so excited! NETWORK MARKETING MAGNET Teresa: That's part of what draws people to you and to what makes you a magnet. We have a four-minute segment that is just super-fun and I'll just tell you… We didn't have time. We're gonna give you this and you can use it for however you see fit. It might just be fun to have as a sound on your phone. I'm gonna turn that into my ringtone for you. Steve: Oh, it sounds good. That's awesome! I was speaking at an event once and there's a Q&A section at the end… This lady stood up and she said, "I know you're thinking about apps. Will you ever make an app for all the sound effects you make?" And I was like, "I think I'm flattered." Teresa: That was awesome! Steve: It's so funny 'cause I never realized I was doing it! Teresa: It's what makes it engaging because you're so fun. You're so YOU and you just draw people in! Steve: That means a lot. I'm very excited about it. Teresa: It's really fun. I hope you like and I hope you take it as a compliment. Steve: It's a huge compliment, totally. I will take that and blast it EVERYWHERE! Thank you SO MUCH for being on the show and thanks for walking through this. OFFLINE RECRUITING ADVICE Could you just give ONE MORE piece of advice for somebody who is just starting out and they're seeing this road and they're like, "Oh, man, she's been doing this for 11 years." Teresa: I would absolutely look to the masters WHO knows what they're doing and do what they do. Steve's trainings are phenomenal, that MLM Hacks… Oh my goodness! The thing I love about your training is people can do this very low level. You DON’T have to be techy and you DON’T have to be a coder. You have trainings that allow you to go slow, but then, you take people up the ladder to go into something that is bigger. The people who wanna go deeper, like me… It allows us to geek out over that stuff and you guide us through the process to make sure that we do it right. NETWORK MARKETING FRONT LINE I've done this for 11 years, and I have people who wanna be on my front line… I say, "Okay. So, if you're serious about this, I gotta know," and we go through the requirements. The requirements are basically... You do it the way that I teach until you hit *THIS* rank Once you're that rank, you do whatever you want because I've seen it, I've done it, I know what works I love the Secret MLM Hacks because you take people through the process without them having to go figure it all out for 10 years by themselves. You've been doing this for a long time, you truly are the guru. You deserve kudos for that, because you are helping people all across the industry and I know that this is starting a wave that is changing the MLM industry. In answer to your question, I would say If you only wanna build online, build online. If you only wanna build offline, build offline. But if you wanna do both, I would recommend that you build the way you want, but make sure you incorporate the best pieces of BOTH of those sides so that you can reach ANYBODY. NETWORK MARKETING GAME CHANGER You're gonna come across people who simply say, "I wanna be on your team." Steve: Yeah, a lot. Teresa: You don't build offline because you build online… But you end up having to handle it offline and you're just good at it. This might sound weird but… One of my tricks is to belittle the goal so that it's not so massive in my mind that I'm like, "There's no way I can go pull that off." If I try to consume and understand and plan for all of it at the same time, there's no way! You get stressed out. At the beginning, when I first started this, there were no podcasts. No one was talking about this angle of it and it's cool to see how 180 degrees that is now. I have bought your packages, I know your stuff and I'll just tell you… It changes the game. Steve: That's awesome, thank you so much. Thanks for being on here! Where can people find you? Besides MLM Game Changers ←- Everyone go look at the podcast. Teresa: The podcast, MLM Game Changers and we also have teresahardingmasterclass.com. We have pre-registration there for a FREE Master Class that we do, teaching people how to combine the online with the offline. I give shout-outs to Steve all the time. There are certain people online that are THE BEST OF THE BEST. Steve is one of them. Steve: Thanks so much! Teresa: Thank you for having me on. Steve: Thanks for being on the show! Everyone go check out and follow Teresa Harding. She's amazing! She's the Queen of the offline bill. TO RECRUIT ONLINE OR TO RECRUIT OFFLINE… To recruit online or to recruit offline… That is the question. By now if you listen to the show at all, you know I focus heavily on methods to recruit online in largely automated ways. But what if you don't know what to do with speaking to somebody face-to-face who's actually interested? What do you do? What do you say? How do you keep the conversation moving? When should you follow-up and how often? Who should you pursue and who should you move on from? Frankly, and totally honest, I'm good at all that online stuff. But if you're like me, you might be a little bit of an introvert in the real world. Whilst sales and marketing online is still sales and marketing offline, the mechanics are a little bit different. I'll be an expert in what I am loudly, but I can't pretend to know all of these offline methods because I don't. Who better to introduce you to, than the Queen of offline recruiting herself, Teresa Harding. Teresa literally has MILLIONS of people in her downline as you listened to this. She's an offline recruiting EXPERT. However, several months ago, she ran into my programs online and said exactly what you heard in my interview with her. "Steve, you did what we've been trying to do for 10 years." If you wanna check out the same programs Teresa Harding has, go to listentoteresa.com and watch the free web class now. Kind of like salt and pepper, Teresa and I are excited to finally collaborate a little to show you your individual strengths. She'll teach you OFFLINE recruiting, I'll teach you ONLINE recruiting. If you're ready to learn more of what Teresa did from my programs just type in, listentoteresa.com.

It’s no secret that a lot of strategies in MLM are broken and outdated...   The MLM model has undoubtedly changed over time…     In fact, I just spoke about this in an interview I did with Lynn Thomas from Create Your Dream Life…   The Internet became publicly available in 1991…   Over 10 years ago!    A lot of the tactics in MLM were developed BEFORE the Internet…    And a lot of MLM companies are moving forward as if that's not a reality...    Which I frankly think is STUPID.    I chat with Lynn about my approach to MLM and WHY it's so different and so unique...    And why this has been such a BIG BUZZ…   It's been such a disruptive thing!   Jump in a discussion I had with Lynn Thomas about how MLM has changed and what to do about it to stay on top…   *how MLM has changed, how to stay on top, Secret MLM Hacks, MLM is broken*   Jump in a discussion I had with Lynn Thomas about how MLM has changed and what to do about it to stay on top…   HOW MLM HAS CHANGED     The MLM model has undoubtedly changed over time.    I talked about this in an interview I did with Lynn Thomas from Create Your Dream Life.   Lynn Thomas is awesome.    If you don't know, interviewsteve.com is how you can jump on my calendar. It's pretty full. I'll try and figure out a way to open it up a little bit.    Lynn asked me some cool questions that I haven't really been asked that frequently.   In the episode, we were able to dive a little more deeply into how MLM has changed and shifted in the last 10 years.    The Internet became publicly available in 1991.    A lot of what is being done now in the MLM space are tactics that were developed before the Internet was around or publicly available.    A lot of MLM companies tend to move forward as if that's not a reality... Which I frankly think is STUPID.    I chat with Lynn about my approach to MLM and why it's so different and so unique... And why this has been such a big buzz.    Whole MLMs have been reaching out, asking us to build funnels for them!   I've been able to take the MLM model and flip it on its head. Rather than me going out and talking to all these people to deliver a message, I can automate the message!    I can track it because it's the same message every time.    That means I can make tweaks and adjustments and target people who are likely to want to:    Be in my downline Buy whatever my team is selling    That's a big, big deal, and that's why it's been such a disruptive thing.   HOW TO STAY ON TOP IN MLM   We have a book that we're writing about this. There are three levers you can go turn in your MLM business.    You don't own anything in MLM.   You don't own anything. What is it that you can create that you do own? So you can out leverage the game?    This is super blue ocean stuff right now, which is exciting.    Lynn: Steve, how did you get started? Where did you start in this journey? And why did you start Secret MLM Hacks?   Steve: Why did I start Secret MLM Hacks? Well the first time I tried to get in MLM, I was bright eyed and bushy tailed, I was in college. We had hardly any money and had just found out that we were expecting our first kid, which is very exciting.   I wanted to make a little bit of extra cash in college to pay some of those expenses. One of my buddies called me and said, "Hey, I don't know what this guy's talking about but he's going to help us make a lot of money. Can I three way him in?"   I was totally new and I had no idea what that meant or that I was on a classic MLM pitch.    So I said, "Sure, dude. Sounds good." He calls and I literally said, “Is this one of those pyramid schemes?”   I was the worst buyer ever.   He goes, "No, no, no, it's not, No, no, no."    And I was like, "Why do I need to pay money to get started selling things for you? That doesn't make any sense."    I was the worst. When I got off the phone my buddy called me right back and he goes, "Come on, you would be great at this. Come on, man."    And I was like, "No."   REALIZING HOW MLM HAS CHANGED   After some resistance I said, “Sure. Well, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to go both feet in and I'm going to run as hard as I can.”    So I went and I met with a guy in my upline. I don't even know what it was called… I was so green to the MLM network marketing, direct sales space. I didn't know anything about that.   And I went and drove to go meet him. When I pulled up it was this like, super old, warehouse looking thing. It was kind of sketchy.    I walked in and there was this table in the center, and nothing else was in this big massive room. It's like the out of a scene from Hollywood.    It was dark with a single light hanging over the table. I sat down, and he goes, "Well, hey, you want to be successful? Right?"   I said, "Well, yeah."   And he goes, "Well, you gotta do what everyone else does when they're successful. Let's take out your phone. Are you willing to do that?"    I said, "Sure".   “Take your phone out. Let's walk through your contacts and see who would be good.”    And I was like, that makes sense. We made a huge list of people. Right there, we started calling people. I was not prepared for that.    If that's your thing, good on you. But for me that was weird.   I still have relationships that have been soured to this day because of that.    MLM IS BROKEN BUT I KEPT GOING   But I was not willing to give up. I went and started walking down Main Street, literally recruiting people right off the street. People in businesses, and I was just hustling.    I’d worked super hard for the first four or five weeks and I recruited 13 people.    And I was like, "This is awesome." I started doing the thing that they all do…    … “If those 13 get 13 and if they get 13 each, the next problem I have to solve as what island will I buy!”   Then none of them did anything.   I'd counting the chips before I have them and none of them did anything… So I stopped doing anything in MLM.    About a year later I realized that the problem wasn't, does MLM work?    The problem was that I was approaching it with very outdated tactics.   There are people out there who legitimately wanted to find a good opportunity.   I started learning how to attract the good people.    In the past I was looking across the street and being like, "Oh, it's Mr. Johnson. He really could use this opportunity right now, he needs this opportunity."   I realized anytime I have to say that about somebody, they are the wrong person to recruit. They're not learners or business builders.    I started getting better and better at that whole system and automating it on the internet, using ClickFunnels.    To this day, still, we get about two, three, sometimes four people a day asking to draw my down-line who I've never met.   We cut half of them out easily right off the get go and find those who are truly excited to build it.    That's what we've been doing and Secret of MLM Hacks is just the program that teaches that.   HOW MLM HAS CHANGED THE OFFER   Lynn: Yeah, it's an awesome thing that you've built. The thing that I'm struggling with and that the people that I've interviewed are struggling with is THE OFFER.   Can you explain a little bit about offer creation?   Steve: The way I realized this was kind of backwards and weird.    I was knocking doors as a door to door salesman. We were driving out to one of our areas, and I was in a bad mood. I was having the grumpies, sorry.   I remember looking up at these billboards, and I had this phrase come to my head.    And I was like, man, I'm getting up every day trying to sell things to people who are not planning on spending money.   But everybody calling these billboards are calling asking to be sold.    It was the first time in my life I've ever considered that.   There was already this momentum going around sales, and I needed to learn how to capture it.    I was selling pest control at the time and I put up these ads on classified sites for pest control.    I didn't realize that was totally illegal because you’re supposed to put all these credentials and stuff up.    My phone started blowing up! People are like, “I've got ants in my pants” or whatever. There's people begging for the service rather than me selling them on the service.   I couldn't knock any more doors because there's a better way. So I started approaching MLM differently.   HOW TO STAY ON TOP WITH YOUR OFFER   When it comes to offers, people want what you've got.   You have to realize that anytime we sell a product, it is solving a problem. It's easier to sell it if they really do have a problem. You don't have to create the problem then sell them the solution.    Let's say I'm selling Trident gum. Anytime we sell a product, we solve a problem but we also create problems that were not there before we bought.    This is where the offer, in any business not just MLM, comes around.   I call these follow up problems.    If the opportunity presents itself to be an Olympic skier... Someone offered it to me and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I could be in the Olympics!"    I’ve got to solve a lot of problems that were never there before.    What skis will I wear? Who's my coach going to be now? What's my eating like? Who am I going to hang out with? What's my sleep schedule? What mountains am I going to train on?   All the things that were never there until that opportunity presented itself.    That is the exact same thing and where the opportunity lies in MLM when you realize that.   As soon as I sell my gum to somebody, or whatever your product is, what are the follow up problems and issues that are there now that they bought from you?    These are called follow up problems.    Maybe I don't like the flavor. Maybe there's certain things that you eat or drink with or after it.   Lynn: Or maybe there's an aftertaste...   Steve: Yeah, maybe there's an aftertaste. Maybe your mouth might get a little dry.    MLM IS BROKEN BECAUSE IT DOESN’T DEAL WITH FOLLOW UP PROBLEMS   If you don't know what the follow up problems are, go to anybody who's ever bought your product ever and say, "Hey, what do you wish was a little bit different with this product?"   Shut up and take out a piece of paper.    This is when the market starts guiding the offer that they want from you.    This is very key and it's one of the major reasons why I love MLM so much.   You don't have to make this initial product to get those questions out, it's already made for you.    I go out and I share it with people and I say, "Hey, here's this thing. What are the issues you have?"    And I start writing and writing and writing and writing. Then I look for the top two or three most commonly said things.   The magic is here.    I create a product to solve that follow up problem that the majority seem to be having…   And I give it away for FREE with this product when they buy it through me.    Now I've out valued everybody my upline... Everyone in my downline and I am the most attractive person to come buy through.   My upline is my competition. My down-line is my competition.    WHAT IS SECRET MLM HACKS FOR?   Lynn: So is Secret MLM Hacks a thing that is attracting people to you? And then eventually, they ask to join you?   Steve: Sometimes...   Lynn: Not all the time?   Steve: Well, I don't ever tell anyone what I'm in. I kept it very third party.    Secret MLM Hacks  is meant to educate the MLM space because no one has really been approaching MLM this way.    If I can become the category king in this space with MLM funnels, it can't be a pitch fest.    Lynn: You're breaking the old paradigm.   Steve: Some MLM’s really don't like it.   Lynn: I imagine, because you were saying that MLM is broken.   Steve: Yeah, I believe that.   Lynn: And it's been broken for a long time. We have the internet and new ways of reaching out to people yet they're still saying, “Let's call 100 more contacts from your phone.”    Steve: Why don’t we talk to those who are actually wanting to buy. People who want the solution.   Let's just give a lot of value and then they'll come buy from us instead of everyone else.   Lynn: So there are a lot of people out there that are looking for and wanting an opportunity, and you're just opening the door so that they can find you?   Steve: Yeah.   If you compare brand new people who sell on the internet in general and brand new people who sell in the MLM space, there's far more education that is much better suited to the general internet marketer.   EDUCATION IN MLM IS BROKEN   I started looking at what education is available in the MLM space and the quality of it.    So I went in and I started buying all of the top books, courses and CD’s in the MLM industry.   I started consuming them, and almost all of them have the same ideas...   “Simple things to say to people to get them to jump into your down-line”.   Why don’t we just skip all of that and talk to those who actually want the product and automate the interaction with them.    Then let's elevate the quality of education so people can have a lot of stature in the MLM space.   Go buy all the top books, go see what they're talking about. It's kind of garbage.    It's really, really old when you compare it to what is actually already working in other industries.    All I've been doing is taking this education and telling it to a new industry that's never heard it before.   Lynn: Can you explain to me why you killed yourself?   Steve: So what Lynn's referring to is, I say Steve killed Stephen.   In high school, I…   Was 35% body fat (I was a big boy) Had a huge amount of shyness Had a very rough time speaking with anybody    I'd see an adult and literally walk the other way.    It was a near clinical fear of adults for a while there.    HOW MLM HAS CHANGED SINCE I WAS IN COLLEGE   I'm just going to say it... I was dumb.   I got kicked out of college my first semester because I got pretty much straight F's and they told me to leave.    I had to wait four years to go back and reapply. I'm the least likely success story.   Stephen is a great guy. His natural state is ‘nice guy’.   It was no longer, "Hey, I'm not making any money because the opportunity I'm in is bad."   What I realized is, "Hey, I'm not making any money because I'm a terrible delivery system of it.”   I don't qualify for what the market is requiring for me to go out and be the person that sells and is aggressive to the right degree.    So I created Steve.   I just did this at Funnel Hacking Live. Something freaked me out and I started getting nervous in the negative sense (not the positive nervous).   I went to the speaker room, shut off all the lights and put on some pretty aggressive motivational videos.    There was 30 minutes till I had to get on stage.   I just did planks, sit ups and push ups because I was trying to bring Steve out.    That sounds schizophrenic... I promise it isn't.   Steve's a killer. Steve gets on stage and he cracks mics and break stages. He is the attractive character that his market needs him to be.    SECRET MLM HACKS STEVE VS STEPHEN   Lynn: You’re not dead all the time?   Steve: I'm not, no. It is a learned trait.    I was so scared for launching my podcast for the first time. I think I recorded 17 episodes before ever releasing it, because I was nervous.    Every single step of the way has been a self doctoring move.   Everyone asks, "How do you keep so much energy?" I don't.   No one's that way all the time. Everyone gets nervous.   Steve killed Stephen and it doesn't feel fake… It's very genuine. It's just a new side of me that I started learning.   Lynn: You talk about getting uncomfortable every day.    Be uncomfortable every day, step out of your zone. Learn something new, do something you haven't done before.   Steve: Yeah. Not all stress is negative.    There's de-stress, which is destructive. That's not good stress.    Then there's eu-stress, as in euphoria. Eustress is really good for you. It's like going to the gym and it’s good for your brain.    Doing something hard as early in the day as you possibly can is so good for you.   Lynn: Are you doing triathlons? I seem to recall that you're doing something like that?   Steve: I'm about to get back into it. It's been a solid year since I've really done anything like that.    I started signing up for some stuff so that I could hold my feet to the fire and get into it again.   Lynn: Is it kind of a balance thing?   Steve: Yeah, a little bit.    I think life balance is kind a facade.    It's hard to define it so you don't really know if you've reached it.    I feel like it's a weird thing to compare ourselves to something that's kind of unattainable.   HOW MLM HAS CHANGED WITH THE INTERNET   Lynn: Do you any parting words of wisdom for my listeners?   Steve: The MLM space is most easily sold when you couple it with the info product industry.    What I do is I create these products that teach ANY MLMer. I'm not pitching them at all. But they're not free.   And that's for a reason. It filters and brings people to me who have a different mentality.    If somebody can't even spend a little bit of money for some MLM education, they're not a good fit for my down-line.    I'm not trying to recruit everyone and their mom.    That's totally the opposite of what most MLMs teach. I'm actually very picky on who I let in my down lines.    If you are having a hard time recruiting, one of the easiest things you can do is create something in the front and stop recruiting everybody.    I don't get on the phone, I don't go to hotels or malls, I don't do any of this traditional MLM stuff.   Lynn: You don't do meetings?   Steve: I don't do any of that. None of it.   The only thing that I do is keep selling this front end program. It's not really meant to make money.    Any money we make, we just dump it back in ads. The people who are buying it are basically funding the ads.    Most MLM don't know how to drive ads. That program is louder than most MLM companies, which is crazy.    If they can spend $15 on ads, and I can spend $50, I'm going to crush them.   That front end thing is just meant to liquidate my ad cost and bring good people to me, who would be a great fit for my team.   RECRUITING IN MLM IS BROKEN   I NEVER approach someone. I make people apply. They go through an application process and we filter out another half of them easily.   Lynn: All the people that you're recruiting are people that are ready to run, and they're all using the internet to grow.   Steve: Yes. That's what's crazy.    I just hand off the same systems when they join my team. That's what's so mind blowing, because a funnel builder is what my profession is. I make good ones. When they come in, they get these professional funnels.    Lynn: BOOM!   Steve: Yeah, BOOM!   When you flip the whole model on its head and stop doing, frankly, really old tactics, MLM becomes fun again.    The people on my down-line are my closers. They're the ones who call the people who apply. I don't even do that.    Then we automated our onboarding process, which is actually about launch in a week or two.   We automated all the onboarding which walks them through how to:   Set up their back office Get ads Set up the funnels Take advantage of our teams bonuses   It takes them through their first 30 days in my downline. It's super turnkey.   ONBOARDING IN MLM IS BROKEN   Lynn: Wow, that's awesome. Steve also has an affiliate program for ClickFunnels.   Steve: If you're watching or listening to this and you want to learn how to do this stuff on the internet, one of the easiest places to learn these principles is in affiliate marketing.    The model for affiliate marketing is the exact same model for MLM on the internet. If you go to affiliateoutrage.com, that's the program.   Affiliateoutrage.com walks you through how to market.   Lynn: He's got unbelievable training in there… UNBELIEVABLE.    Part of today's challenge in MLM is knowing how to teach your downline all of the ‘stuff’, right?    Would you like me to help you teach your own downline five simple recruiting tips for free?    If so, go download the FREE MLM Masters Package by subscribing to my podcast at SecretMLMHacksRadio.com   The course is FREE and it'll help explain to your team what I'm doing on, what you're learning. It also gets sent straight to your inbox.    Just go download it at SecretMLMHacksRadio.com

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: Most entrepreneurs and business owners say their biggest human resources challenge is finding skilled talent. On today’s Awesomers Authority episode, Steve introduces us to Nathan Hirsch, Co-Founder and CEO of Freeeup.com. Nathan provides valuable insights about hiring pre-vetted freelancers specialized in E-commerce, digital marketing, virtual assistance and so much more. Here are more awesome takeaways on today’s episode: Nathan’s origin story and what led him to create Freeeup. The three different levels of hiring freelancers. The advantages of strength-based leadership. And the future of corporations and the freelance industry. So put on your headphones, listen to today’s episode and find out how you can scale your business by finding skilled and reliable talent online. Welcome to the Awesomers.com podcast. If you love to learn and if you're motivated to expand your mind and heck if you desire to break through those traditional paradigms and find your own version of success, you are in the right place. Awesomers around the world are on a journey to improve their lives and the lives of those around them. We believe in paying it forward and we fundamentally try to live up to the great Zig Ziglar quote where he said, "You can have everything in your life you want if you help enough other people get what they want." It doesn't matter where you came from. It only matters where you're going. My name is Steve Simonson and I hope that you will join me on this Awesomer journey. SPONSOR ADVERTISEMENT: If you're launching a new product manufactured in China, you will need professional high-resolution Amazon ready photographs. Because Symo Global has a team of professionals in China, you will oftentimes receive your listing photographs before your product even leaves the country. This streamlined process will save you the time money and energy needed to concentrate on marketing and other creative content strategies before your item is in stock and ready for sale. Visit SymoGlobal.com to learn more. Because a picture should be worth one thousand keywords. 1:13 (Steve introduces today’s guest, Nathan Hirsch, Founder of Freeeup.com.) Steve: You're listening to the Awesomers podcast. This is the Awesomers.com podcast Episode No. 29. That's episode number 29 and to find all of the show notes just go to Awesomers.com/29. That’s Awesomers.com/29. Now, today my special guest is Nathan Hirsch and he's a great entrepreneur who's really helping solve one of the biggest problems that we find today when we're building any kind of company but E-commerce companies in particular and that is finding people, right? The old saying is “It's hard to find good people.” Well now, it's easy to find good people. Nate is in charge of a company called Freeeup.com with “three e's” by the way and we have special links in the show notes page and he's the co-founder and CEO of that particular company which is a marketplace that connects businesses with pre-vetted freelancers in E-commerce, digital marketing and so much more. Nate has sold over 30 million dollars online and regularly appears on leading business podcasts around the world. He's certainly an expert in this category and offers a wonderful and highly necessary service for E-commerce guys like me and we have personally used Nate for a couple of our different businesses and it's an experience that is unique and interesting and affordable and you get access to really high degrees of talent really fast so I'm super excited to kind of dive in here in this Awesomers authority episode. That's on Awesomers.com episode number 29. Okay, Awesomers, welcome back here we are in the Awesomers.com podcast yet again, and today we have a special guest Nathan Hirsch. Nathan, how are you? Nathan: I'm doing great. How are you? Steve: I'm very well, thank you. Do you prefer Nate or Nathan?

Hello Shirley and Steve I'm 29. I'm a 29 year old Hispanic woman just recently married. I love my husband with all of my heart and soul. We've been together for going on two years married two months and we get along great. The problem is his son's mother... Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Steve Snyder is a college football tailgating expert. Specifically, Penn State football. He's been a fan for a long time but it wasn't until his kids started going there that he was able to justify getting season tickets. He quickly realized that having food and drinks before and after games was a great way to develop friendships with people both in and out of the office. So if you're at a Penn State game and see a German flag flying, tell Steve I'm the one that sent you over. In this episode, Steve and I talk about how changing the environment to outside the office helps people relax and be themselves. This leads to deeper relationships back in the office as you now have a shared experience to talk about. We also learn Steve's secrets to a happy life are: a good mattress, a good spouse, and a good job that you like going to. And since he's been in firm leadership roles, he makes sure to show a genuine interest in those around him. He says, "Do right by your people and all things will come together."

Steve "I'm not buying any more bikes this year" Hoffert shows up with his new bike: So, I've been testing this Harley Davidson FLTRU - Gotta say, for what it's built to do, it does it very well. But DAMN, it's heavy. Built to eat LOADS of freeway miles. Not the most fun around town, or anywhere you need to see what's like 6' in front of you. TESTING - TESTING - HERE ARE THE LINKS TO THE TESTS WE WERE TALKING ABOUT: http://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,4643,7-123--16274--,00.html That's the Michigan State Patrol Vehicle testing information... . Great stuff. http://www.msf-usa.org/research.aspx#/home That's ALL THE LINKS - For the VTTI / MSF testing we talked about.

Steve "I'm not buying any more bikes this year" Hoffert shows up with his new bike: So, I've been testing this Harley Davidson FLTRU - Gotta say, for what it's built to do, it does it very well. But DAMN, it's heavy. Built to eat LOADS of freeway miles. Not the most fun around town, or anywhere you need to see what's like 6' in front of you. TESTING - TESTING - HERE ARE THE LINKS TO THE TESTS WE WERE TALKING ABOUT: http://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,4643,7-123--16274--,00.html That's the Michigan State Patrol Vehicle testing information... . Great stuff. http://www.msf-usa.org/research.aspx#/home That's ALL THE LINKS - For the VTTI / MSF testing we talked about.

No one is safe from this man's tongue - Steve Allen takes to the airwaves on weekday mornings from 4 - 7am on LBC. Hear all of Steve's show with the news, travel and breaks taken out.

In this episode we sit down with Centricity Music General Manager, Steve Ford. 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a:hover{color:#8f8f8f !important;} www.fullcirclemusic.orgFCM007_-_Relationships_with_Steve_FordDuration: 00:50:21You're listening to The Full Circle Music Show. The why of the music biz.Chris: Welcome back to the Full Circle Music Show, it’s Chris Murphy and I'm sitting right beside Seth Mosley. How are you buddy?Seth: I'm good man. It's a busy week, lots of good stuff going on over here at the studio. And I’m excited to take just a few minutes out of our schedule to talk to one of our favorite people in the industry, Mister Steve Ford.Steve has been a guy that I've known for a long time, was one of the people that I met moving to Nashville in the music business. And we've talked to a lot of people on the creative side so far but we haven't yet talked to anybody on the label side. So, you think of the guy that sits in a dark room with a suit in a corner office, that's this guy! Except for not, he actually sits in a what is a pretty awesome office, he's the general manager of a label company called Centricity Music; has been pretty massively successful in the past couple of years and really since they opened. But, he's a really great leader and speaks to what they look for in a good producer, in a good artist, in a good team member at their label.So, if you're wanting to get involved in the music industry, this is a great episode to listened to. I learned a ton and I think you will too.Chris: You know, being a podcast junky, it's nice to meet a fellow podcast enthusiast as well. We had some great conversations in the episode but also talked a lot about our favorite podcasts on and off the mic. He's just a great guy, great to get to know him and I really appreciate Seth you setting this up. Another great interview and I can't wait to listen to it.Seth: And you can check out his company at centricitymusic.com. They have a lot of great artists that I think you'll dig.Audio clip commencesHey podcast listeners, something is coming February 1st 2016. Have you ever thought about a career in song writing or music production? We have created a couple courses with you guys in mind. We've been getting a lot of feedback on people wanting to know more about how to become a song worker; how to become a professional music producer or engineer. These courses were designed to answer some of those questions. Go to fullcirclemusic.org and sign up there for more information.Audio clip endsChris: You were saying earlier before we started rolling that you were a podcast guy.Steve: Oh yeah, big podcast guy.Chris: And, you've heard this podcast before?Steve: Yeah. I've listened to the first three.Chris: Okay. So, can I ask you to go out on a limb and give us a grade so far?Steve: You know what? I'd give them a solid B+. I want them longer. That's my thing; I want to go into the background. I want to hear when you did Brown Banishers which is funny because I've worked a lot with Brown but you didn't get past Amy Grant.Seth: Sure.Steve: I mean, this is the guy who worked with from everybody from Third Day to Mercy Me to Why Heart, he's done everybody like come one there are stories there. I tell people I'm on the corporate side because of Brown Banisher because of how he worked. I was an engineer in LA for ten years and he would come out and mix records with us, it was at a little place called Mama Joes and I would see him on the phone going, “Happy birthday sweetie.” Later knowing that it was Ellie; missed her first walk and all of these other things. And when my daughter was born, I was like, I can't do this. I needed a life and so I started praying and Peter York calls. So it’s because of him so it's fun to hear some his stories. I did a lot of records win Jack Joseph Puig and–Seth: And you were engineering at the time?Steve: Yeah. I was an engineer at LA.Seth: And at the time that was really engineering?Steve: Oh my gosh.Seth: You were cutting tape and…Steve: Yeah! I've cut a lot of two inch tape, quarter inch tape, half inch–Seth: Stuff that I hope to never do.Steve: You don't have to, Jericho does it for you.[Laughter] Seth: I don't know if Jericho has ever cut tape? In school he did.Steve: Now, I feel really old.Chris: Is that kind of like when you're in a biology class and not in any other time of your life will you need to dissect a frog but you just have to do it for the experience of it. Is that what it's become cutting tape?Steve: I don't know if you have to do it even that. It's sort of like this legend of starting a fire with flint, you know? It's sort of like, “Yeah. I used to cut tape.”[Laughter] Seth: I mean there's probably a resurgence. I would imagine knowing the process of what coffee has become and how artists.Steve: Yeah.Seth: I think there's a big thing in maybe it's the millennial generation or whatever it is but I think people are drawn back to slower, older more hands on processes it seems like than just pushing the button or going through the drive through–Steve: And somethings, don't you think, in some things its like just give me the button. Give me the filter on Instagram.Seth: That is true! That's true but then you've got the whole wave of people roasting their own coffee beans now and then they're grinding the with a hand grinder, and then they're putting in a… And, I'm saying this because we have like three artists that we work with; that come in and they bring their whole coffee apparatus.Steve: And they measure how much coffee goes in, weigh it?Chris: Yeah.Steve: My son has one of those has a scale that weighs, how much coffee goes in. Oh yeah just …Chris: Yeah, I thought you were going to say some of the artists that you work with, they actually bring their own barista in the studio because–Steve: I'm sure that will happen.Seth: That’s kind of a prerequisite to be in a band. There has to be at least one barista.Steve: True.Seth: In the band.Steve: There has to be one business guy in every band and one guy who can make great coffee.Seth: And then the guy who can actually play the instruments.Steve: Yeah. Then the artist.[Laughter]Chris: And then the fourth guy on base who just knows how to shape everybody's beards. He's more of a grooming guy.Seth: And sometime there's a drummer.[Laughter] Steve: You don't need a drummer; there are machines for that now.[Laughter] Seth: Yeah. I mean, just take us through a little bit of your journey, you started in L.A.?Steve: I was born and raised in L.A.; read an article when I was 14 years old about this guy named Sir George Martin. And I was like, “What? You can do that for a living?”Seth: Who is George Martin?Steve: He produced this little band called the Beatles, probably never heard of…most 20 year olds haven't heard of them so…Chris: And then isn't true that he went on from there to write The Game of Thrones?Steve: Did he? I'm not a Game of Throne person–Chris: Okay that's R.R. Martin, sorry.Steve: Wrong one. But I mean, you read about these guys and you sort of open a door into a new world that you didn't know existed. And so, I was 18 years old, junior out of high school walked into the recording studios and started from there.Seth: So, you didn't wait to have some sort of a college thing to get internships?Steve: My mom was like Reeds parents which was like, “That’s a nice hobby but let's make sure you have a backup plan, a plan B.” And so, I still went to school, I still went to college did all of that. Don't ask me my grade point average because I was going home at 4 o'clock in the morning, waking up at 8 to crawl into my first class, it was terrible. But yeah, my first job in the recording studio, I was making $500 a month from 6 o'clock to 3 o'clock in the morning.Seth: Living in L.A?Steve: Living in L.A.Seth: And that probably paid for a tenth of the rent?Steve: Maybe.Chris: Or, just the gas to get around?Steve: But I loved every second of it. And then from there you sort of work your way up. So, I did that… Like I said earlier my daughter was born and I was like an engineer’s life is a hard life in LA especially. Those were the days when you'd pay $1,500 a day block booking a studio; you booked a studio and you're paying $1,500 if your there six hours or eight there 24 hours. And a lot of them stayed 24 hours, and you just have next, next, next, next.Chris: And you've got to be the first guy there.Steve: First guy there, last guy out, yeah. You're sitting there winding tables at 6 o'clock in the morning going, “I just want to go home.”Chris: When the bug caught you, from that point until the time that you walked into that first studio and got a job, what skills were you harnessing?Steve: None.Chris: Just reading liner notes?Steve: Yeah. Lying in the floor, reading and going, there's one in North Hall and I'd write it down on a piece of paper because I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and start looking for them. Hey man that where Bill [inaudible 8:50] studio is or whatever the studio was and start. There wasn't really a whole lot you can do to prepare for it. It's no like in high school you go, “I wonder what class…”  I was in all the choirs and all the music stuff and that didn't prepare you for it. Probably the greatest skills for a studio engineer especially a starting one is being attentive, being hungry, being prepared and that depends on who you're working with.When you working together with somebody so well, I'm sure you and your team, they know what you want in advance and plugin something in before you even have to ask, that’s just working together. I've told a lot of wannabe engineers who want to go to some of these very expensive schools, don’t do it. Take that money, live on it for two years and go give yourself away for free for two years. You learn more two years in a studio than you will however long you go to one of the expensive ones.Chris: Yeah.Steve: It's just doing it. Just aligning the tape machine which is once again, it's like starting fire with flint again, knowing the lines taped but you learn by doing that.Chris: Absolutely.Steve: You learn by making a lot of mistakes. I recorded a lot of bad drum sounds.[Laughter] It just happened and then you go, “Oh if I do this, its better.” And 10,000 hours man, it takes 10,000 hours.Chris: Again, I think that it's not that schooling is necessarily a bad thing but the way that you learn in life versus the way that you learn in a classroom is different because for the most part, a classroom will deduct points for the stakes and if you’re in the–Steve: That's true. Good point.Chris: Yeah. I heard that -actually going back to our love of podcasts here- I heard Tim Farris on his podcast talking about the fact that he was going to go to, was considering something like Princeton or Harvard or something to go get his MBA. And he thought instead of doing that -or maybe this was advice given to him and he took it- instead of taking that couple hundred thousand dollars worth of whatever I needed to go get my MBA. I'm going to invest that in myself, very similar to what you're saying. And I'm going to use that to live on so that way I can go and I can intern for that company that I would never be able to if the money mattered that much. Because once you get out of school its like, “Oo I've got to go do something with this.” But if you've got the money set aside to go get the MBA anyway, it goes a long way to really feeling free to not have to pay that rent or pay that car payment that you could really dive in.Steve: And most people never use their college education for what they use. I had a meteorologist specialist. She had a degree in meteorology for TV and she was my marketing assistant. And you go, “I want to see what you spent four years doing versus what's your grade point average or what's you major.” I don't care about that stuff.Seth: So to fast forward to today, you are general manager of a very successful record label. When you got to hire somebody to your team, do you even say, “Hey, send in your resume. Where did you go to college?” Or does that not even cross your mind?Steve: I do want to see that. Four years in college gives me the impression that they follow through, they finish. You’ve said it before, finishing is such a hard art in today's world. To have somebody who finished is very valuable. Do I care about your grade point average? No. Do I even care about your major? No. Because if you have the right work ethic and the right heart, I can train you to do other things but I want to see how hard you're willing to work.Seth: So, a college degree still carries some weight but maybe it doesn't carry the weight that people think it does in terms of having the training because you kind of have to relearn it all when you get out into the real world.Steve: Exactly. Most college students that I see haven't learned anything that’s a really good use at a record label. My last five hires at Centricity have all come from internships. Now, I've had a lot of bad interns. I've wanted to fire a couple of interns, that's pretty bad when you want to fire somebody who works for free.Seth: What defines a good intern and what defines a bad intern?Steve: A bad intern sits on Facebook until you give them something to do and then they do exactly just to the letter of the law of what you asked them to do, hand it in to you and then get back on Facebook. A great intern does what you do and says, “Hey and I thought about this. And what about this more?” You give them to go to D and they go to G; then you give them to G and they go to S. I have a girl in my office, I asked her to do one thing and she says “Oh by the way while I was thinking about it I did these other three things that will help you out.” That type of proactivity and thinking ahead is so incredibly valuable. Like having somebody patching in your compressor before you ask for it. They know where you're going so fast that they're working ahead of you. And for all of those out there, that's old school once again patch bays.[Laughter]Seth: We have a small patch bay, we have two patch bays actually so we're probably on the old school end of things.Chris: It looks very cool though. It's looks kind of old science fiction movie.Steve: Spaghetti.[Laughter] Seth: It's like a telephone operator kind of thing. I heard a thing on…man, we keep talking about podcast, we're all just podcasts nerds, dude. I think that’s what we do for a living is listen to podcasts. And I heard one last night, they did a study of millennials; if you had a dream job, pick out of these choices what would be your dream job. Number one was the president; number two was a senator; number three was a successful athlete; number four foreign diplomat; five was a CEO of Apple; and then the last choice was the personal assistant to a famous actor or athlete. And 45% I think picked that one, hands down.Steve: They have no idea what that job looks like.Seth: They don't but it also speaks to they don't want to take the responsibility. Like, when you're that person, when you're the boss, they want to have a boss and maybe you can speak to a little bit to that but I feel like when you were talking about the internships, the ones who go above and beyond are the ones who are willing to take some responsibility and say, “Here's an idea” and just put it out there. How many interns would you have to get, to get that one good one?Steve: Probably 10 to 15.Seth: 10 to 15 to 1?Steve: Yeah, to 1. I think that’s what it is.Chris: Wow.Steve: Yeah, that's what it is. And I heard you, I think we had the conversation, there's such a different work ethic in today's young adults. And part of it is my fault, I'm a parent of a young adult they've been given everything in their whole life, they haven't had to work for anything. You want that iPhone! Here's that iPhone. You want that? Here's that. The art and the craft of working, the labor of getting something is a lost art, I think.Seth: So, would you go back and do those things differently?Steve: For my kids? My kids had to work.[Laughter]Seth: So, you weren't saying from my experience, you weren't–Steve: I’m saying that personally and much more of…[Laughter]What we made our kids do is like when they wanted that $100 American girl doll is you buy half, we’ll buy half. And all of a sudden they're digging out rocks in the backyard at $1 a bucket out of the garden. Because you want to give your kids what the value of work is and that's that doll at the end.In our world, I sat with an intern once and he was irritating everybody in the office. He's that guy who only asks questions because he wanted to tell you how much he knew. An intern needs to be quite and listen because there's a lot of information that flows around… And then they find the person that they can go to and go, what did that mean when he said this? So, what did that mean or… Come to me! I've told everyone in my internship, feel free to come to me and say, what does it mean when you said that? Versus this guy would come to you and tell you everything he knew. So, I was sitting him down one day and going,  “Man, you're irritating everybody. The whole office wants to prove you wrong.”Seth: You literally said that?Steve: I said that to him and later on, “I know I do that. I'm just trying to figure out where I fit and trying to find a job make $100, $120,000 a year and start in the music industry.” And I said, “You're in the wrong industry, man.”Seth: Go into finance!Steve: Go into finance, or go be an architect somewhere I guess or something. It was just about wanting to make as much money as his dad did, now! This generation wants to start where their parents have gotten to right now. I've seen it with artists, I've seen it with interns–Chris: They don't want a drop in their lifestyle that they've become accustomed to.Seth: A luxury once had, becomes a necessity.Steve and Chris: Ooohh.Steve: Very nice.Seth: And I'm very guilty of that. You fly first class once and you feel like a swine by sitting in coach.[Laughter] Steve: I've flown private jets twice in my whole life, in my whole career both times sort of accidentally. And man, once you do a private jet and you don't have to go through security and you’re just like, “Oh, I want that.” I say this all the time about artists. The worst thing you can do for an artist is start them touring in a bus because that's the expectation and then you know what happens? Is they got on the bus and they’re, “This isn't a very nice bus.” There are people in vans like when you were out in a van, to be on a bus, to be able to sleep horizontally would be the greatest thing ever and just because you started at this place and then you get into private jets. Everybody needs to start their first tour in a Silverado truck and then the next one to a bigger–Seth: Graduate to a suburban!Steve: A suburban would be great, then a 15 passenger old church van that you bought for $5,000 that the left side of the speakers don't work. And then, you work your way into a [inaudible 19:58] van and then into a bus. Then you're grateful for everything that's better along the way.Seth: It's more about the process than anything.Steve: Yeah.Seth: And getting there.Steve: A wise manager once said, his job is to make his artists life better every year, just a little bit better. I'm like, that's a good goal. That's a good goal to have.Seth: It is. So, your transition, we shipped about 20 years–Steve: We skipped through it very fast.[Laughter] Your transition from doing that 6pm to 3 in the morning thing in LA, you had your baby…Steve: Yep. My wife and I were praying at that point going, “God, please give us some sane clients or open another door.” And I just worked probably two months before with Peter York–Seth: And for those out there listening, was this at a record label you got your first…Steve: I was working with Peter in the studio and he called me up and said, “Hey, are you interested in A&R?” And I started in A&R in Sparrow…what's that 87, 88? Right around there and we were still in Chatsworth, California, spent time out there with him. So, I’ve been at Sparrow, moved from Sparrow to Star Songs and then back to Sparrow when they came up. Started in A&R worked my way into the marketing side, artist development side… So, yes back to Sparrow went to  Mer and worked my way up to Vice President at marketing at Mer, was general manager at [inaudible 21:34], general manager at SRI and now general manager at Centricity.Chris: Wow.Steve: It's been a long journey. If you’d ask me to 25 or 30 years ago, were you going to be general manager at Record Label? I would have laughed in your face.[Laughter]Chris: Because you didn't think it was attainable or because you didn't want have this job?Steve: That was not the path I was on. I thought, I was going to be producing records and engineering records.  Jack Pueg is still mixing great great records out there and I thought I was going to follow that path. God had something very different in mind which makes me laugh going I was talking to [inaudible 22:09] this morning and I can't believe I’ve been doing this, this long. When you're now an industry veteran it means that you've been around a long time.Seth: But I don't think looking back and I don’t want to put words in your mouth but you don't strike me as one of those people that's looking back and feeling like you’re working in the corporate side of the industry because you never made it on the creative side.Steve: No, no.Seth: You don't strike me as that at all.Steve: I made that decision for my family. What's funny is I've learned more about engineering and more about mixing and more about mastering being on the corporate side of what we're trying accomplish and why trying to do what we're doing. I learned so much about that. And for the first year or so, I was mad at God going, “Why did I just spend 9, 10 years in studios, in dark rooms working long hours if this is where you wanted me?” But realize, every day of my life in the last 27 years in the corporate side I've used information I learned in the studio. Sometimes we can't ask God why until you're 20 years down and you go, “oh I get it.”It's the path he puts us on, he brings people in and out of your life. I remember a girl over at Sparrow she was an accountant, that was her thing she loved accounting and God put me with her to learn that whole budgeting, it was only like for four months and then we were separated again but once again she changed my perspective and my life for the next 20 years. So, you don't know if these people that are coming in and out of your life are for a short period of how they're going to impact you.But yeah, I've sort of worked my way, I was one of the strange guys everybody wants to be in A&R. I started in A&R and left to got to marketing and then got back into it as I moved back up into the but everybody wants to be an A&R guy, hang out in the studios and have dinner with the artists which is not what an A&R guy does.Chris: Well it's the perception out there–Steve: Yeah, exactly, that's what they think.Chris: Just like you saying the artist is going to be in private jets.Seth: And for honestly if somebody's out there, can you break down what exactly what it is A&R. What is that? What is that job?Steve: A&R, we [inaudible 24:27] airports and restaurants which is [inaudible 24:28].[Laughter]It’s artist and repertoire. It’s basically looking for artist, finding people that have a seedling of something. Sometimes you don’t know what it is. We’ve all got our standards of what we feel like will lead to success. But finding that, nurturing it, grooming it, it’s sort of the mustard seed put into the ground, pat around and hopefully something really great grows out of it. Sometimes the plants don’t live, sometimes they give up. But it basically the music made by the A&R guy, we have one of the best in the industry in Centricity. When he’s done, when the music is done, he hands the baton over to me, and I go everywhere from there. But it’s his job to make sure we have hits, we have songs that work for live or work on the radio, an artist that’s got uniqueness to him that fits differently than everything else in the market place and sometimes it’s just plain old dumb luck. We’ve got all those where we’re like, “We though this person had everything they needed, was need for success and it didn’t work, and this one over here it’s that seedling and it’s just growing like crazy.Seth: Yeah, sometimes you don’t know or probably more often than not, I would think.Steve: How many songs have you worked on and said, “Man, that’s the hit.” I have a memory of I will eat my shoe if this is not [inaudible 26:04][Laughter] I believe you owe me a shoe eaten.Seth: I’m wearing Nikes right now. I have a feeling that this material is not organic.Chris: I was going to say, whatever you choose make sure its biodegradable.Steve: I was going to send you a shoe after one particular sock.[Laughter]We’ve all got them dude.Seth: Oh yeah, totally. I think more often than not and it’s honestly becoming a theme on this show is, we’re all just kind of winging it we’re all just guessing. So, my question to that is, I mean, it sounds like there’s a lot of responsibility placed on the shoulders of an A&R person. They’re the one that’s finding and nurturing talent and ultimately seeing what songs make it on records.I think a lot of people listening in our podcast audience, we have a lot of producers and writers and people outside of the music industry but then there are also probably some people who are just wanting to get in on the music business side and people who maybe want to be in music marketing or be in music management or maybe do what you’re doing someday, run a record label. You said what you look for interns, what qualifies a person to be an A&R person?Steve: Wow. Interesting. There are a few A&R guys you should interview. A great A&R person is able to inspire an artist beyond what they’ve every thought they could do. A great A&R person knows how to get a good song to a great song. We’re no longer in a society that good is not good enough, it has to be great. A great A&R guy can go, “You know what? There are seedlings, there are moments in here that are really great.” But you’re missing the mark I these two or three places. And then, coming in and sitting side by side with a producer like you and making sure that… I think that I’m a big movie buff and A&R guy is sort of like an executive producer on a movie where you put the team together and then sort of let the team go make the music. So, it’s the right producer for the right, for the right song and for the right artists and then let them shine where they go. It’s very much putting the pieces together. They’re not usually playing the music, they’re not [inaudible 28:34] musicians, they have to have a really good song sense and I think one of the skills an A&R guy has to know is, it’s not about them. They’ve got to know their audience, know what they’re making for because all of us have a tendency to gravitate towards music that’s on the fringe because we listen to so much stuff that all of the stuff in the middle starts mucking up. There’s a big muck in the middle. So, “you know what I like? I like this thing way over here or way over there.” Where a normal consumer listens to 10 records a year, the middle is the sweet spot for them. So, an A&R guy that understands who he’s trying to record for is very important.Seth: That’s very good. And, you said that they have to have a great song sense, that is even a sticky situation because why is one person’s song sense better than the other? Is that determined by track record? And, if you’ve never done A&R before, how do you prove that, hey I know a hit when I hear one?Steve: You know what? Our history of…John Mays is a 25 years somebody took a chance on him 27 years ago and said “You’re a great musician on the road, let me bring you in here.” Part is the relationship, you know, can they sit and hang with an artist? You know, you’ve been in these mediums. Where it’s like can you move an artist from A to Z while making the artist think it’s their move? As a producer it’s the same skill set of can you get an artist to bend without knowing that they’re bending? Or being able to move–Seth: All the artists out there, they just had a–Steve: I know they had a convulsion.[Laughter]And all the producer are like, yeah![Laughter]But that’s part of it, of like how do you get a song… because you don’t want to tell an artist, “You know what? This song sucks.” You just want to say, “Let’s work on the chorus. The chorus isn’t paying off hard enough, let’s make it lift better. Let’s make it shine.” Whatever it may be, moving them away from, “I love this, this is my baby. It’s beautiful.” To let’s keep working on this song.Seth: So, it sounds like it maybe starts with who they are as a person. Are they a good hang? Are they a servant? And then, the music kind of just follows and that taste follows.Steve: Our young A&R guy over there, he went through our radio department so he was listening to radio hits, radio hits, radio hits. And part of it is… There’s marketing guy named Roy Williams, I went to a seminar with him and he said he has a friend that works at General Market Record Label to pick all the singles and I’m like, “How did you learn this?” And the guy basically said, “Since I was five years old, every week I’d get my allowance and I would go buy the number one song in America.” And so for his whole life, he poured into himself hits. This is what a hit sounds like, this is what a hit sounds like, this is what a hit sounds like.Seth: That’s pretty good wisdom, right there.Steve: And so, at a certain point you go, you got to know our music, you got to listen to our music, you got to know what a hit sounds like. I’ve heard a lot of kids come though “I hate listening to Christian radio.” Then why do you listen to Christian music? How many people in country music go, “[inaudible 32:11] but I hate country music.” Get out! You’re not going to succeed.[Laughter]But they almost wear it as a banner that I hate Christian music in our market place. We have an open concept office and I’ll try to listen to two hours of Christian radio every day in my office. And if I’m listening to it, everybody in my office is listening to it too; more for this is what a hit sounds like, this is what radio sounds lie. If you’re trying to meet a need at radio and you don’t know what they’re playing, how can you meet the need? So…I digress, sorry.Seth: No, that’s gold. That’s all gold.Steve: I think you nailed it in your earlier podcast when you said, this is a servant industry. It really is. And in my life, it took me a lot of time to figure out what my calling was. I knew I wasn’t an artist but God, what does that mean? And I was walking through Exodus with my kids when they were very young and hit Exodus 17 where God say to Moses, they’re out of Egypt heading towards the Promised Land and they hit the Analcites, God calls Moses up to the hill top; arms up in the air he wins, arms down they lose. But what never caught to me until I was reading it, Moses took two people along with him Aaron and Hur and I love to say I am the Hur in the Moses’ life. It’s my job, what Hur was up there to do is to hold Moses’ arms up, that’s all he did. When Moses was weak, when Moses needed help, Hur held his hands up. That’s my calling be a servant, be there to hold your hands up. Some people know Aaron “Aaron, you know, Moses’ little brother.” No one knows who Hur is. If you’re okay standing, holding someone’s arms up and no one recognizes, you are created to be in the music industry. Because you’re not in to be the rock stars; we’re in the back of the room with our arms folded, looking at the person on stage going, “Yeah. I was there to hold their arms up.”Chris: That’s wise. One of my favorite movies is That Thing You Do, I don’t know if any of you have seen that.Steve: Yeah. I’m the guy that goes, “You look great in black.”[Laughter]Chris: Has anyone told you that?Steve: Yeah.Chris: But, one of my favorite characters in the movie, and they’re filled with them. Anybody out there that hasn’t seen it, it’s a great movie.Steve: Please, go see it.Chris: But there’s Horus who’s basically the A&R guy that sees them in–Steve: In the camper-[Laughter]Chris: Yeah, he lives in a camper and he’s essentially the A&R guy. But he sees them in a performance at an Italian restaurant or something and comes and buys their album and get’s them to sign a little deal. And then at the end, when they get signed to a major label and they’re going out to play these state fairs, Horus leaves and the main character drummer of the band says, “We don’t want you to leave.” And he goes, “My [inaudible 35:27] is done. I’ve done what I’m supposed to do.” And then move on to the next thing and so he wasn’t meant to ride that out the whole movie; he’s there for a specific piece to move it from A to C. He’s the B part of it, the Hur of that story so to speak.Steve: Nowadays, you’d call them just production deals. You start working with an unknown artist who has a little bit of talent, you start developing them and then you start shopping them to record labels. And then you go, my job here is done. They then take the baton and now try to make to a national artist. If you make 2 out of 20, 3 out of 20, you’re in great shape. You’re a hall of fame baseball player if you hit 3 out of 10. And you’re a hall of fame A&R guy if 3 out of your 10 are hit artists.It’s a cycle, you have the young artist going up; you have the artist at their peak; and then you have some that are on their way down. And you’ve got to keep that circle going because any artist that’s been at the top is going to be past its peak and slowly work its way down, and you got to have the new artist coming up behind to grow into. So it’s a continual cycle of in the music industry. The circle of life in music would be that.Chris: I had a mentor –Scott [inaudible 36:48] if you’re listening I’m about to talk about you- but he always talked about how life in the ministry or in a career is kind of like looking at life or the people that you interact is like a watching a parade go by. There are things that are right in front of you, there are things that you just saw, and there are things that are coming down. And to really appreciate what is happening in the parade you have to absorb it all. And so there’s a little bit of grabbing from each of those in order to get the full experience of it all.Steve: And the bigger what’s right in front of you, the bigger those artists are in front of you, sometimes you don’t have time to look behind and develop what’s behind and what happens is with a lot of these record labels and I’ve been at these where, man they’ve got the big, and they slowly slipping. The [inaudible 37:32] slowly start getting past their prime and they haven’t developed anything behind them and then you’re in trouble because you’ve got this machine you’ve got to feed and you haven’t created for the future, it’s only for the present.And so, every A&R guy wants to sing but some of the big labels, the big artists, the A’s are so big that’s all they’re paying attention to. We’ve all seen it, we’ve all seen artists where we say, “Man, they’re amazing” but they got lost in the shuffle and that’s the sadness. We forget that we’re playing with people’s lives, especially on the record label side their dreams.I signed this band at a label and they were 18 years old when I signed them and 21 years old when I had to drop them. So, their dreams had come true and shattered by the time they were 21. And it’s just hard when you start thinking about that stuff.Chris: That’s true. And if you think about it there are some people that are fortunate enough to have a full career in the music industry and there are some people that have a three year window kind of like a profession sports guy or those things. There’s a window and the once you pass it, yeah but the guy is only 24 and the band is only 21. What’s coming up for them?Steve: You know what, I think it’s a catalyst of those people leaving or burning out, is balance. You guys have said it; I can walk through a record label at 8 o’clock at night and I can tell you which employees will be gone in a year because they have nothing to put back into themselves. The music industry is a take industry, it just continues squeezing and it just wants more and more and more. If you have one they want five; if you have five we want ten; if we have ten we want twenty, and it’s never enough. My poor radio team goes, “Hey we got number one.” And I’m like, “Great. How do we keep it on number one for another week?” It’s never enough and so you continue squeezing out what this industry does, if you don’t have a ministry, if you don’t have a relationship, if you don’t have friends that give back to you that don’t care what you do  for a living and basically go, “Yeah, yeah. You do music, how are you?” You know, if there aren’t nursing students at the college that you got to that are your friends, you’re going to burn out.  Because there’s nothing giving back, there’s no one pouring into you. Sooner or later the candle ends, there’s no more fuel and it juts burns out.So, I try to keep my staff saying, I want you to go to concerts and date people and go home at 6 o’clock and have a life. Because if you don’t have a life you have nothing to come back when you come back tomo