POPULARITY
3 episodes with tony how
2 episodes with tony how
Mark interviews Tony Binns, an award-winning stand-up comedian and screenwriter whose feature #ROXY was nominated for 3 Canadian screen awards, 3 Canadian Comedy Awards, and took home Best Feature at the Ampia awards as well as Best Feature for Teens at the Kidscreen awards. Tony is also the man behind the parody profile on Facebook called Definitely The Real Alex Lifeson where he pretends to be a guy pretending to be the real guitarist from Rush. Prior to the interview, Mark reads comments from recent episodes, shares a personal update, which includes a few engagements he'll be speaking at in person and virtually: IN PERSON: (Brantford, ON) Brantford Public Library (April 2, 2025 from 6 PM to 7:30 PM) – Inside the Writer's Mind: Mark Leslie Lefebvre on Ghosts and Paranormal Storytelling VIRTUAL: (Online) The BookFest (April 6, 1:30 PM Eastern). Keynote: Writer, The World Needs You: Why Your Writing Is More Important Than Ever IN PERSON: (Los Angeles, CA) Writers of the Future. Week of mentoring winning writers and Gala Dinner/Evening celebrating this year's winners on April 10, 2025 Mark then shares a word about this episode's sponsor. This episode is sponsored by Toronto Indie Author Conference, taking place April 26 & 27, 2025 in Toronto, ON. The schedule appears below Learn more about Toronto Indie Author Conference 2025 here. In their chat, Mark and Tony talk about: How Tony is a multi-faceted nerd who used to tape episodes of SCTV so he could play them back and memorize them Being big into Monty Python and, of course, Rush Always thinking that he was going to be an actor and his love of Shakespeare, but always getting the comedic parts Being a good actor but not being so good at auditioning because he freezes when put in a pressure situation Founding a comedy sketch troop called Obscene But Not Heard which was partially inspired by his love for Kids In The Hall Evolving into doing stand-up despite being a shy person Deciding to leave stand-up comedy around the time that Covid hit The movie XROXY (a modern tale based on Cyrano de Bergerac) that Tony wrote after he pitched it to some producers he had done some other work for Having a strength for dialogue but a weakness when it comes to plot Being brought in to help punch up an episodic YouTube series that was a campy horror flick and make it funnier (TRUCKSTOP BLOODSUCKERS) Tony's most recent script entitled SAVING MR. CHRISTMAS and how it evolved into a completely different movie than the one that he originally pitched The "we love this, change everything" thing that happens with movies Tony's WAITING FOR WAITING FOR GODOT which is a show about two women waiting for a production of the play Waiting For Godot which never happens, and how that play was inspired by the way that days could blur together for people, particularly as we get older and "become that guy" Being a Rush fan since he first heard "Spirit of Radio" How Tony was inspired to create a fake Alex Lifeson account on Facebook after he's seen a fake Geddy Lee account The relation between ADHD and being "all in" on something -- like Rush, Monty Python and Rush for Tony How, during Covid Tony did a one-man reading of Monty Python and the Holy Grail Doing a Canadian overdub of Dragonball Z Adapting a pilot from a Canadian novel called The Smeltdog Man by Frank Macdonald and leveraging the "Deadpool" style of breaking the fourth wall Advice that Tony would give to the young nerdy Mark and Tony How Tony used to write sketches even though he didn't have an outlet for them The Dungeons & Dragons podcast that Tony is a part of called The +2 Rodcast And more . . . After the interview Mark reflects on a few things that came up in the discussion. Links of Interest: Tony's Definitely The Real Alex Lifeson Facebook Profile Tony on Twitter/X Tony Binns on IMDB #ROXY Truckstop Bloodsuckers Fugget About It Buy Mark a Coffee Patreon for Stark Reflections EP 353 - Tao Wong on The Toronto Indie Author Conference Alex Lifeson's Speech on Behalf of Rush at Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Mark's YouTube channel Mark's Stark Reflections on Writing & Publishing Newsletter (Signup) An Author's Guide to Working With Bookstores and Libraries The Relaxed Author Buy eBook Direct Buy Audiobook Direct Publishing Pitfalls for Authors An Author's Guide to Working with Libraries & Bookstores Wide for the Win Mark's Canadian Werewolf Books This Time Around (Short Story) A Canadian Werewolf in New York Stowe Away (Novella) Fear and Longing in Los Angeles Fright Nights, Big City Lover's Moon Hex and the City Only Monsters in the Building The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles Yippee Ki-Yay Motherf*cker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard Merry Christmas! Shitter Was Full!: A Trivia Guide to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
Patrick explains how Jesus' Kingdom is different from the Kingdoms of this world, delves into the differences between various rites of the Church and talks about the issue of the Church “selling” indulgences in medieval times. Patrick reads an email from a woman about finding a confirmation sponsor. Margaret - 'my kingdom is not of this world' - was Jesus bound when he said this? It makes it seem like Jesus couldn't summon an army. Elizabeth - I've heard you're not supposed to mix ecclesial rites. Why? Break 1 (19:43) Thomas - I am going pray the rosary at a wake. What should I do? How should I start? Lourdes - Is it okay to get hormone replacements? Tony - How can we explain why the Pope allowed for selling of indulgences when there is Papal infallibility? Break 2 (36:24) Patrick reads and email from Steve, a man trying to grow in his faith in a difficult situation with the girlfriend he is living with. Wayne - Can you add unblessed water to holy water to make it holy spirit? Nancy - James 2- if you commit one sin, you commit them all- what does that mean?
Happy Spring! It's 3/20/23 | New early game of Spring Cleaning! Guess the cleaner Ben is using to clean the studio | New Prank Call - Look Out for the Trunk with tough Tony (How you doin?) | The Game of Blurt where people had something to say about Danny's answer | And do you sing to your pet? | All that and more!
Patrick continues his conversation with Mary from the previous hour. Can she be the Godparents if they are not Catholic? Gary - What are your thoughts on Fr. Chad Ripperger? Michael - Can I offer a Lutheran family, who lost a member, a perpetual Mass Card? Joseph - I was raised Catholic but haven't been practicing for a while. How do I come back? The Church says that as a Husband and Wife you have the right to enjoy marital intimacy Kevin - Someone I know is considering an abortion. What can I send her to help her reconsider? Patrick recommends “The Bible and Birth Control” By Charles Provan Karen - How do we know that Mary was Assumed into heaven? Is there documentation on her assumption? Matt - A priest told me that Christ was not present in the Old Testament at all. Is that right? Tony - How does the bible reconcile with the Churches teaching that Jesus was born in December? Ben - My uncle married a woman who was already married. Am I sinning by calling her “Aunt?” Stacy - If the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, how did he come when Jesus was baptized? Maria - A priest said that Jesus only did signs, NOT miracles. Is that accurate?
How do you build a career that is fulfilling, both for you and for the world? You build it for yourself! Founder & CEO of Foundr, Nathan Chan, wasn't a driven person for most of his life. He started off in a 9-5 IT job that he didn't enjoy. After a life-changing trip to Europe, he decided that life was too short to work a job that he hated. He started Foundr as a side hustle with only $3,000 and used his day job to fuel its growth. In this episode, Nathan talks about how he pivoted into entrepreneurship and cultivated a mindset of growth, motivation, and humility in the process. Hala and Nathan discuss the realities of entrepreneurship and how to combine logic and intuition when making decisions. Topics Include: -Nathan's lack of motivation early in life -What helped Nathan develop his mindset? -His first life coach, Tony -How did Nathan come up with the idea for Foundr? -Foundr's main focus -Nathan's desire to become more masculine and step into his manhood -Nathan's life-changing trip to Europe -When did Nathan realize he wanted to leave his corporate job? -The steps Nathan took to leave his accounting job and get a job in marketing -How Nathan's deep dive into marketing led him to start Foundr -How Foundr has evolved over time -Nathan's experience getting sued for trademark infringement -How did Nathan stay motivated during Foundr's slow growth? -The reality of entrepreneurship -The importance of learning from experienced people -What does Jeff Bezos want from life? -What leadership challenges has Nathan faced? -Nathan's natural ability to stay humble -How to combine logic and intuition when making decisions -The first steps to starting a business -And other topics… Nathan Chan is the founder and CEO of Foundr, a global media and education company for entrepreneurs. Nathan is also the publisher of Foundr magazine. Aside from the magazine, Foundr offers podcasts, courses, articles, and free training to help aspiring business leaders navigate the world of entrepreneurship. Millions of people engage with Foundr's content every month. Through Foundr, Nathan has interviewed highly-influential people like Seth Godin, Mark Cuban, and Richard Branson. Sponsored By: Black Pearl Mail - Turn your sign offs into sign ups with blackpearlmail.com Sabio - Go to sabio.la/yap and save $125 on your total bootcamp cost! Bambee - Visit bambee.com/profiting to learn more Faherty - Head to fahertybrand.com/yap and use code YAP at checkout to get 20% OFF! The Jordan Harbinger Show - Check out jordanharbinger.com/start for some episode recommendations Resources Mentioned: Foundr's Website: https://foundr.com Founder Plus: https://foundr.com/membership Nathan's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathanchan/?hl=en Nathan's LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nathanhchan Connect with Young and Profiting: Hala's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Hala's Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Hala's Twitter: https://twitter.com/yapwithhala Clubhouse: https://www.clubhouse.com/@halataha Website: https://www.youngandprofiting.com/ Text Hala: https://youngandprofiting.co/TextHala or text “YAP” to 28046 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome everyone to the Inevitable Podcast. In this episode I talked with Anthony Eigier. For those who don't know, Tony is the founder and CEO of NeuralMed, a healthtech startup which uses proprietary AI algorithms integrated into the workflow of health professionals, delivering accuracy and productivity gains. Before launching NeuralMed, Tony cofounded TreeLabs, the second startup accelarator in Brazil. After that he founded Fanatee a casual gaming startup, which he left in order to take a leadership position into the family business but still remain as an investor. In 2018 Tony again took the entrepreneurial path and cofounded NeuralMed. I am a proud angel investor at the first round of financing for NeuralMed. He had amazing personal and professional experiences as an entrepreneur and business leader and is here today to share some of these learnings with us. Here are some of the questions that I asked Tony: How was your college experience in the US? You mentioned that you even received an offer from a bulge bracket bank in the USA, which you further declined. Why did you make that decision? What made you come back and start you career in Brazil after that? 10 years ago you co-founded Tree Labs, the second startup accelerator in Brazil. How was it? What was your feeling when you first started to help entrepreneurs grow? How did you fund Treelabs? After the learnings from TreeLabs, you founded Fanatee, a casual gaming startup which has today more than 150million games downloaded. How was the process of founding Fanatee? Gaming is usually a different type of investment for a VC, is there a way to combine how to properly invest in gaming as a VC? What is your take on metaverse? Did you like playing The Sims? What do you think will be the future for human interaction? After a few years into the day to day operation you left Fanatee. What made you take this decision? How did you feel giving up your role in the business and become an investor? You took a leadership position in a mature healthcare family business. That must have been very enlightening and helped on what you decided to do after. What were the most important lessons that you took from those years? Why do you think that things are so messed up in healthcare? In 2018 you decided to return to your own path as an entrepreneur and founded NeuralMed. How was the process of founding NeuralMed? What changed from all of your previous ventures?
In this episode:Andrew's Rant – SHAW… againMike's RewindJoe's Fact CheckListener Questions, Comments & ReviewsDick of the Week – Angry woman at a coffee store drive-thruSwoop refundAverage Idiot – Anti-masker accuses cosmetic store owner of not being AmericanYou're a Covidiot – Anti-masker in a wig storeWTF? – Elderly woman at a CostcoWhat's Madi Up To? – ATB Financial AppChecking in with the Politicians – Don Iveson, Jason Kenney & Justin TrudeauThe Doctor's Office with Doctor Tony – How can we improve our cognitive skills as we get older?What Does Kevin Think? – When should a person retire?How Smart Is Carole? – The Declaration of Independence The Big Blue Folder We get played out by James Corden and Ariana Grande with No Lockdowns Anymore This episode of Grose Misconduct was sponsored by Crystal Glass, Todd's Mechanical, Leading Edge Physiotherapy, South Central Dentistry, Ol' MacDonald's Resort, AlbertaMasks.com and The Edmonton Comedy Festival.@CrystalGlassLTD @Toddsmech @LeadingEdgePT @dr_caouette @Macker63 @AlbertaMasks @yegcomedy @mikedmonton @JoesFactCheck @docTonyM Support the show (https://www.paypal.me/GroseMisconduct)
Special guests Clay, Vicki, and Steve (not Tony’s dad) ask Matt, Brad, and Tony: * How do you stay warm in your tree stand? * How do you know how old a deer is? * Where do your wives stand on hunting? * Does your daughter want to hunt? * Do all three of you fish? * Do you catch flak for being a hunter? See videos from this podcast on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yXVcb8Ca-c Check us out on Instagram @SuburbanHuntersMA Check out our blog at SuburbanHunters.Wordpress.com
Patrick talks about the news of PETA defending David Daleiden against Planned Parenthood. Ronnie – A protestant friend asked where Purgatory is found in the Bible. Bernadette – Should we name our guardian angel? Tony – How do we know the difference between Purgatory and Hell? Joe – I lost my wife in June. I […] All show notes at The Patrick Madrid Show: March 17, 2021 – Hour 3 - This podcast produced by Relevant Radio
We often find that people are clinging to certain ideas or beliefs that end up giving them a sense of false hope about their retirement. It’s a dangerous position to be in. Let’s explore some of the faulty thinking that ultimately leaves people underprepared for retirement. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome into Plan with the Tax Man. Thanks for tuning into the podcast by Tony and myself, talking about investing, finance and retirement. What's going on, Tony? How you doing bud? Tony Mauro: I'm doing pretty good in the throes of summer and it's hot here as well as what you're telling me there and things are going good. Speaker 1: Well, so we are back doing the podcast here. We're just after the middle point of July, and obviously tax season was a little different this year. And as a lot of what you guys do, so July 15th ended up being delayed due to COVID thing. How'd you guys a fair those last couple of weeks? Tony Mauro: Last couple of weeks really weren't much different than the normal last couple of weeks of the tax season that generally happens in April, which surprised me that that many people decided to postpone filing until then. And we even have some extensions still going on that we just thought, well, we're just going to put it on extension and we'll deal with it here in the next two to three weeks. But definitely, this whole thing has had an impact on our tax clients as well, and many, many at work and we're reduced work. Speaker 1: Definitely. Tony Mauro: So they're concerned about their financial future. Speaker 1: It's an interesting catch 22. I had some friends in the same boat. They were like, "Oh, I'm going to wait till the last second." And I was like, "Yeah." But I mean, it's only do in April, why don't you just go ahead and deal with it, and then you don't have to worry about it and don't put yourself up to the wire. But like a lot of things, we tend to procrastinate humans. It is definitely one of our character traits that shows its head fairly often is procrastination. Speaker 1: Another one, Tony, is hope. Now, hope is a good thing. I think, in any walk of life and certainly 2020 has been challenging and it's good to have hope that things are going to be better and we're going to have a better year next year and all that kind of stuff. But when it comes to retirement planning, sometimes what happens is we tend to cling a little bit to maybe some false hope instead of putting our mind in the right spot, we tend to go to some of these things here that I have on our show for today, this leads us down possibly the wrong path, and just gives us that false sense of hope. So I got a couple here for you. We'll go through them. Maybe you can explain some potentially faulty thinking in some of these ideas, or just your viewpoint. Speaker 1: So mindset. I mentioned that. So let's talk about the mindset that we'll be ready to retire when we hit that certain number. We've talked about that before. I don't know how much that's changed in 2020, but typically, for the last several years, people have had that, well, if I don't have a million I'm not ready, or whatever your number is. Tony Mauro: And I think that in 2020, so far, whether it's been for us either, talking with tax clients or even out golfing, believe it or not, talking to some colleagues and our friends that are basically just golf buddies. Retirement and calling it quits is on a lot of people's minds, especially mid age and older, depending on their work situation and what they're going to go back to, they are definitely thinking about it. Tony Mauro: And I just had a conversation yesterday, as a matter of fact, with an accounting client, he's 55-years old and he is selling the business and he's got this magic number in his mind of the million dollars and he's about halfway there, but I tried to tell him to try to get off of that a little bit, depending, because his question, point blank was, "What do you think I need to retire?" He wanted a number. Is it a million, is two million? Tony Mauro: Of course, it's such a moving target, and of course, I took the accountant answer, "Well, it depends." And it does, but I think when people get fixated, and I try to dispel it very quickly on the million dollar mark, and I say, well, based on what you're earning now, let's take a look at that million, with longevity the way it is generally, even if you're using the principal there, you're going to be out of money by this time. And even if you're just parking it and living off the interest, well, maybe you could get 40 to 50,000 a year interest or earnings on that, but certainly, in a savings account, you're going to have to cross the magical line and get into a little bit of risk. So there's a lot of things at play there, and the million, all of a sudden, and I do it every time they walk out and say, "Boy, you're right, that may not be enough." So I think that people have to take the mindset of maybe it's not a certain number, but what kind of income do you want- Speaker 1: Exactly. Tony Mauro: ... and then see if we can get to that number. And it might be a combination of a lot of things, might be a combination of savings, social security, retirement plans, and even maybe a little work in there. Speaker 1: And I mean, it may be a million, maybe two, maybe four, maybe 500,000, maybe 400,000. Tony Mauro: It could be. Speaker 1: I mean, everybody's needs in retirement, and again, to your point, the income needs really is the more determining factor in that. So again, that's that idea there, you can get yourself hung up on some false hope, if you will, by having your mindset maybe in the wrong spot. And other places, talking about the income, the belief that the income needs will reduce once we retire. Speaker 1: Now, again, everything is changing in light of 2020 and Covid, and so on and so forth. But typically, this has been the thought that your income needs drop once you hit retirement. And I think that's always been a bit of a misnomer, because if you are set up for... No one wants to go backwards in retirement, they want to have a less of a lifestyle in retirement than they had when they were working. But you tend to actually do more, at least early on anyway, but then it seems like I would think that the health costs would ramp up in the later years, even though you're not doing as much. So I don't feel like it's going to drop that much. What do you see? Tony Mauro: We see that as well, is that in the early years, your income needs do go up because you're trying to make up for all the things you didn't do when you were working all the time- Speaker 1: Right, you're having fun. Tony Mauro: ... assuming the body can take it. And then, you get into your mid 70s, whatnot, you might slow down there a little bit, but then you've got, like you say, healthcare costs start going up and it does cut into that income. And then all of a sudden, what you thought, you didn't need as much, you need just as much because you're spending it on something else and it's not real sexy, and you have a lot of fun with it, but you got to have it to keep you going. Speaker 1: Exactly. Tony Mauro: So I think, again, it depends on what type of lifestyle you want to lead in retirement. And everybody always saves for this and always talks about it as the end goal, but nobody really sits down and it seems to think about, "Okay, what do I want out of this last part of my life?" And I think you've got to start there. Speaker 1: No, that's a great point. And so, those two are the initial kind of things. I mean, again, those are all around mindset, it's all around the dollars or the numbers, if you will, having that sense of, I have to have a certain number and or thinking that our income needs will drop into retirement is typically a bit of false hope there. Speaker 1: Another place is inheritance. Here recently in 2020, I've been encountering some folks who have come into a windfall in whatever shape or form and I know that sounds weird given everything that's happened in 2020, but I've met several this year that have been that... And they've looked at it as the makeup ground, Tony, for their own lack of planning for retirement. And there are people out there who do that. Maybe their parents have a little bit of something, and they know when their parents pass away, it's going to be left to them. And they bank on that versus getting their own stuff together and planning securely. And then if they get it, great, it's just extra icing on the cake kind of thing. Tony Mauro: Exactly. I mean, you hit it right on the head. We have a lot of people that do do this, and when we start asking them, "Well, how much do you think you'll stand to inherit?" They blurt out a figure and then we go right down the thing just like we did with the million dollar saying, "Well, let's take a look at this." If it's 500,000, let's say, it's a big number, but when you really start breaking it down over a number of years that you're going to need this money, how long will it really last you? And is that really what you want? And if so, that's great. But most of the time they're, again, scratching their heads saying, "You know what? I better save in addition to that." Again, somebody who's receiving 5 million or more, you're pretty much, I would think you're not going to have a whole lot of worries, but- Speaker 1: True. But what if their parents or grandparents or whoever they might be expecting this from got hit towards the end of their life with a longterm disability that really started to eat away at that? Tony Mauro: I would think that you've got to pay attention to that as well, because that's inevitably what tends to happen is people think they're going to inherit something and then the parents may need it for longterm care costs or something else. I've had one client that this happened to that he thought he was going to inherit a million bucks. And lo and behold, the parents were healthy, they lived into their 90s, but they actually ended up spending most of it because they went out and enjoyed themselves. So I don't think it's a good financial move to bank on that. I think, [crosstalk 00:09:14]. Speaker 1: No, definitely not. And luckily, I don't think too many people do it, but I definitely know that it happens. And it's almost the same analogy, Tony, as the lottery. I mean, it's staggering and terrifying that 27% of people feel that hitting the lottery, in some shape or form, will take care of their retirement needs, which is pretty terrifying. 27% of people polled say, "I play the lottery and that'll take care of it." It's like, wow, you got a better chance of getting hit by lightening like twice. Tony Mauro: Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. So anyway, moving along, got just a couple more here. And this is another one that happens too, for those folks, it's terrifying. And I get it, it's really... Before I started hosting these shows and talking about this stuff for the last several years, it was definitely one of those things like math and finance, not my strong suit. I don't know how my daughter's so smart in that arena, but she is, thankfully, but it's that "Well, I'll figure it out when I get there." I've always been one of those kinds of people. "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it." I'm working on my deck outside and probably some pre-planning would get me in better shape than what I'm in right now, but I didn't. So I'm crossing that bridge when I come to it. Tony Mauro: And this, I see a lot in our retail tax clients, because we only see many of these people once a year. And my client base is aging, obviously, as we all are, and we start to talk to them about that, and they'll say things like this, while you can do it, you can figure out how to make it work. But in the big picture, I ask them one question. I said, "Well, is that what you want after basically sacrificing 40 plus years of your life? Is that what you want to end with? And if so, then I guess you can just continue down the same path." And we'll get a little bit of resistance to that. They'll say, "Well, I'm too old," Or "I'm too close." While you can always do a little bit to improve- Speaker 1: Sure. Tony Mauro: ... I think, and at least make it a little bit better. Now, could you go from zero to a big number in five years? No, but you could make yourself a little bit better, or even if you're not wanting to do that, at least know, figure it out before it happens to make it as smooth and painless as possible, so you can get as much enjoyment as you can out of it. Speaker 1: Well, it seems like the trend for Americans, at least over the last probably 20 years, Tony, has been 50. I'll be 49 next month. It's it seems like 50 tends to be that, "Oh, shoot, I better do something." Tony Mauro: It does seem to be. And it was for me. I mean, I've been saving and planning since about 18, but 50 hit me and said, "All right, well I've only got this much time left. Am I on track?" And it's funny, my brother just turned 50 last year, and he's not much of a saver. And all of a sudden, he went from didn't really care to actually right now, today, he is maxing out his 401k at 19,000 a year, plus the catch-up. He's all of a sudden figured out, in 20 years or less- Speaker 1: Yeah, something [crosstalk 00:12:29] or less. Tony Mauro: I'm done, at least in the workforce. And so, 50 does seem to turn on a bowl, but you start thinking a little different. Speaker 1: 15 years, from 50 to 65, you can do a lot of damage. And by damage, I mean, positive. Tony Mauro: Positive damage. Speaker 1: You can do a lot improvement to your situation in 15 years. So to his point, your brother's point, there's the ketchup provision area when you get over 50, where you can put more in than you could prior to 50, you're probably making the most you've ever made in life- Tony Mauro: Exactly. Speaker 1: ... kids more than likely are off the payroll, unless something crazy has happened with COVID. Of course, that's certainly possible as well. But typically, those three rivers come together at the same time there when we get to that pretty retiree age, which is kind of conservative. I think it were pre-retirees probably considered 55, but I think we just started calling it 50 from their own status. Tony Mauro: I think so, and I know for me- Speaker 1: Maybe it's the pre-pre. Tony Mauro: ... In my own situation, 50, and I only have one son, but he was out of college and he's on his own, and we had things paid off and we wanted to take these next 15 years, not only to ramp up savings, but also to do things we wanted to do, which is a good balance. You can do a lot of damage. Now, if you didn't start early, you may have to make a little more sacrifice depending on how much money you're making. But it can be done over 15 years. Speaker 1: Absolutely. And so, definitely, don't put yourself in that false hope category, folks. I think that's a couple of good places for us to think about, work our way through when it comes to that. And what we're going to do is in an interest to keeping our time, Laurie [inaudible 00:14:06] we're going to go ahead and go into our next section, which is an email question. But if you've got questions about some false hope or some things, if you're one of those number of people, "I need a million dollars," Or "I'm not sure if my income needs are going to be met," Or whatever the case might be, if you've heard something on the podcast today that's got you intrigued, you need to learn more, always check with a qualified professional before you take action. Speaker 1: Call Tony at (844) 707-7381, at (844) 707-7381, or just go to yourplanningpros.com, that's yourplanningpros.com, and you can submit a question to the show if you'd like, while you're there, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google, or Spotify. It's Plan with the Tax Man. Tony's got more than 23 years of experience, so a great resource for you. And as I mentioned, you can send an email question in to the podcast. We take those from time to time. So let's do that to wrap up this week's show. We've got Rorke... That's a cool name. I haven't heard that in a long time. Rourke says, "Tony, my financial advisor seems to do a good job of managing my assets and my investments, at least as far as I can tell, but we never really talk about some other things like social security, life insurance or legacy planning, which I feel are things I should be getting some advice on. Is this typical?" Tony Mauro: I think it is more so than not. I think that some advisors get wrapped up a little bit, maybe too much on the growth and investment side. But all you've got to do is just let them know, depending on where you're at in your situation work, just start bringing some of these topics up to date. "I've been seeing some of this and I feel like I need to be here at this time. How can we plan for this?" And then hopefully, they will take some of that information, and if they have never done a plan for you, do a plan and at least provide you with where you're at now. Speaker 1: Tony, when I read something like that, if an advisor is not bringing these things up to you, this is just my opinion, I'll get yours on this, it may not be something that they're that comfortable with or that they do that often. And maybe you're really working with a different type of advisor, then you're going to be needing as you're transitioning, to our point earlier, 50 plus, right? Tony Mauro: Yeah. Well, it's possible. Yeah. Depending on what they're doing, not to bash them- Speaker 1: We don't know who they are. Tony Mauro: Because we don't know. It's just that that may not be their area of preference or expertise and maybe they have somebody else in the firm that has that. If not, maybe they're willing to help. If not, then you've got to maybe take a look around- Speaker 1: Get a second opinion. Tony Mauro: ... and see what else is out there. Speaker 1: And that tends to be the case that I seem to come across a lot of times when you see situations like that. They may be more of a broker, they may be more commission-based, where it's the investment side is where they're making their money. It could be a number of things. And to Tony's point, he's being nicer than I am. It could be one of those things where they do have those things available, they just, for whatever reason, it's not being brought up. But Rorke, it's good that you're thinking of it, for sure, because obviously it's your finances and it's your retirement. Speaker 1: So as Tony mentioned, ask the questions to your advisor, "Hey, what about these pieces?" And if you're not getting some satisfactory conversation started, definitely get a second opinion, reach out and look around, there's nothing wrong with that at all. Because Tony, I mean, you do that. I mean, if someone comes in and you're working with them, you start going through the multiple puzzle pieces that make up financial planning. Tony Mauro: That's what we do. And in fact, you can't work with us unless we do a plan for you. Because some people will come to us and say, "Well, here's what I've got, and I just want you to help manage it." And I back up and say, "Listen, here's the way we work." Because we may not be the right fit for you. Speaker 1: Sure. Tony Mauro: We've got to do a plan for you, because that's almost like going to your doctor and getting a prescription and he doesn't even know what's wrong with you. Speaker 1: Just take this. Tony Mauro: Just take this and you'll be okay. And so, I don't like to do that, but that's just personal preference, that's the way we work. But I feel like that way, we get the best picture of the client and where they want to go. So we obviously try to help them. Speaker 1: Well, and you think about it in the name, I mean, you guys are Plan with the Tax Doctor Inc. So people might think, "Well, okay, it's just taxes." So certainly an understandable conversation, but when you come in and you find out, this is a holistic, complete approach, maybe it's something similar like that in Rourke's case, maybe the name made him feel as though it was just investments, but he's definitely interested in these other things. And so, ask the questions, bring it up with your advisor. And for anybody, it never hurts to get a second opinion. It doesn't mean you're doing anything nefarious or mean behind somebody's back. It's your money, it's your retirement, get a second opinion, if you need one, get a third opinion, if you need one. I mean, you would on your health, to your point with the doctor, so why not on your wealth? Tony Mauro: People have asked me too, they'll come in and want a second opinion, and they're almost troubled when I say, "Well, based on what you've told me, I think, they're doing a good job for you." Because sometimes that's the way it is, and it's almost like they want you to find something. And sometimes, again, if they're really truly doing something, not in your best interest or it's just not going to help you meet your goals, then yes. But I don't think any adviser worth what they're doing would have any problem telling you, hey, I think, him or her doing well for you. Speaker 1: There you go. All right. Well, that's going to do it for our show this week folks. Thanks for listening to Plan with the Tax Man with Tony Mauro. Don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple, Google, Spotify, or whatever platform you choose. How you can just click on the, I think it's the heart button on Apple and it's different things for different sites. Go to yourplanningpros.com for more information and to find out more, and we will see you next time here on the show. Tony, thanks for your time, my friend, I appreciate you. Tony Mauro: All right, take care. Speaker 1: We'll talk to you soon. And right here on the podcast, this has been Plan with the Tax Man with Tony Mauro of Tax Doctor Inc.
Guten Morgen. Good morning Guten Tag. Good day Guten Abend. Good evening. Hallo. Hello. der Name name Deutschland Germany der, die Deutsche German Polen Poland sprechen to speak nicht not gut good Deutsch German Englisch English schon already lange long langsam slowly Was? What? Wo? Where? Woher? Where from? Wann? When? Wie? How? die Reise trip auf Besuch on a visit der Tag day der Monat month das Jahr year wohnen to live das Haus house zu Hause at home das Hotel hotel das Wohnheim hostel / residential home die Apotheke pharmacy / chemist's der Bahnhof train station arbeiten (bei) to work (at) der Student, die Studentin student kennen lernen to get to know kommen to come können to be able (to) helfen to help machen to make / to do suchen to search for / to look for wohnen to live (jmdm.) gefallen to be to sb.'s liking nicht verstehen to (not) understand Entschuldige... Excuse me! Entschuldigen Sie... Excuse me! ja yes nein no gut good das that sehr very schon already angenehm pleasant nett nice schön lovely hier here dort there Danke. Thank you Auf Wiedersehen. Goodbye Tschüs. Bye Sie wünschen? Can I help you? Hallo! Hier ist Hans Meier. Hello, Hanz Meier speaking. Wer spricht bitte? Who is speaking please? Was kann Ich für Sie tun? What can I do for you? Guten Tag mein Name ist Jonh Smith. Hello, my name is Jonh Smith. Ist dort die Firma Power Limited? Is that Power Limited?. Der Anschluss 123456? The number 123456? Ich rufe aus Hamburg an. I'm calling from Hamburg. Kann Ich bitte Herr Kuhn sprechen? Could I speak to Mr. Kuhn? Hallo Brigitte Hier spricht Tony. Hello Brigitte, this is Tony. Oh, Hallo Tony, wie geht's Ihnen? Oh, hello Tony How are you? Danke Gut. Und Ihnen? Fine thank you and you? Danke ebenfalls. I'm fine too thanks. Wie ist das Wetter in München? What's the weather like in Munich? Ah, sehr Schön. Oh, very nice. Und bei Ihnen? And what's it like there? So einigermassen. Not so bad. Ich rufe an wegen unseres Termins. I'm calling about our appointment. Ihres Angebots. Your quotation. Ihre Rechnung vom 28 März. Your invoice of the 28Th of March. Entschuldigung Ich habe mich verwählt. Sorry, I've dialed the wrong number. Da müssen Sie sich verwählt haben. You've must have dialed the wrong number. Das ist nicht das Sekretäriat von Direktor Schultz. This isn´t Mr. Schultz' office. Die Versand abteilung. The dispatch department. Die verwahältung The administration. Da bin ich nicht zuständig I'm not responsible. Konnën Sie bitte mich mit jemanden verbinden der dä für zuztändig ist Could you connect me with someone who is responsible? Mit jemanden der mir weiterhelfen kahn. With someone who can help me.
Most people like to think that they always make decisions based on logic and facts, but the truth is that emotions usually play a role for all of us in the decision-making process... Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1:Hey, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of Plan With the Tax Man with Tony Mauro. As always, we appreciate your time here on our podcast while we talk about investing, finance, and retirement. What's up, Tony? How are you, bud? Tony Mauro: I'm good. Cold here in the Midwest, and we're bracing for colder. Speaker 1: Well, yeah, big fun. As February is winding down, it's about that time of the year. But you're also heating up because you got more and more going on with the tax side of things, right? Tony Mauro:We do. Yeah. We're just getting into the throes of it, and everybody's starting to receive all of their info and are calling in for their appointments and asking a lot of questions. Yeah, so February, March, very busy for us on the tax prep/compliance side. Yeah. Speaker 1: There's a big Wells Fargo component out there, so I wanted to ask you about this. Obviously, this deal with the CEO, John Stumpf, I guess... if I'm saying that right... where he's been barred from the banking industry and has to pay back almost $18 million in fines, due to some issues that had been going on. I wanted to get your take on that. Tony Mauro: Yeah. And I get asked that a lot from our tax clients who are our clients who happen to be Wells Fargo employees. And, of course, they're hearing it on the front lines. It was hard to miss it over the last couple of years. Everybody knows kind of what happened there with... Speaker 1: Creating fake bank accounts. Tony Mauro: They created some fake accounts at the retail banking level to make things look better than they were... Speaker 1: Like sales quotas or something. Tony Mauro: ... because they were under a lot of pressure. Speaker 1: Yeah. Tony Mauro: And I've heard from employees there that, besides him basically being barred and getting out, a number of others as well. Of course, I feel for the employees because they take a lot of heat. But their clients, the public, are very upset about it... Speaker 1: Sure. [crosstalk 00:01:50]. Tony Mauro: ... obviously. It gives them a black eye, so to speak. Taking a lot of bad press because of it, just because of that whole trust issue. [crosstalk 00:01:59] Speaker 1: Right. Right. Tony Mauro: ... down to. And I don't know. We tend to laugh about it, but it's a serious matter. But it does go on at these big companies, more than some things. And, unfortunately, this one kind of reared its head. And I'm not justifying it by any means. Managers in the branches probably thought they were doing what they needed to do. It sounds to me like there just was a breakdown in supervision and some things like that. Some checks and balances. Speaker 1: Yeah, possibly. Yeah. Sometimes in these companies you just get directives from higher above, and you just kind of are doing what you're told or whatever the case is. And sometimes it's just not a matter of taking a minute to think it through and think, "Well, does this make any sense?" or whatever. And emotions can factor into those things because you want to keep your job, so you want to do the things that you're being asked to do, and... Tony Mauro: Exactly. Speaker 1: ... and so on, and so forth. So I thought we would spend a little time today talking about how to account for emotions in our financial plan. Not solely just this type of situation, but just kind of leading us into it. Because they do factor into everything we do, whether it's at our work, whether it's at home, whether it's in our financial decisions. Obviously, in this situation, for this gentleman, greed got in there, but what, typically, do you find are the most common emotions when you're sitting down to work with clients, or prospective clients, that drive their financial decisions? Is it usually the big two, which is fear and greed? Tony Mauro: I think it's both of those, and I think we have too much news coming at us 24/7, and people get fixated on the latest and greatest. And I think that drives a lot of it, too. 20 years ago, 25 years ago, all of those channels that run 24/7 weren't really around. Speaker 1: I know. Tony Mauro: We have a lot of information at our fingertips, but I think people make their decisions based on how the market does in one day, and then they listen to CNN or somebody else giving their opinion. Speaker 1: Right. Tony Mauro: And they want to change everything they're doing. And we try to advise them. That's not the best way to... obviously... to invest for the long term. But generally, I think, it's more fear. Lately, I think, it's more greed because everybody thinks that this market that we've had... for the last few years, especially... is going to always continue. And we're trying to temper it a little bit. It's just, "Let's stay the course here." Speaker 1: Right. Well, is that the most common mistake? I was going to ask you. What are the big ones that you typically see? I use my brother a lot as an example, on shows that I'm hosting, because he's 61, and he is forever very skittish about, "Oh, is this the thing that's going to cause the market to finally fall?" Right now, obviously, it's the coronavirus thing, and he's like, "Oh, yeah, production is going to come to a halt and yada yada yada." So he's forever hopping back and forth. What are some other things you see people do? Tony Mauro: I see a lot of people basically jumping into things that they don't know anything about, especially on some information they've gotten and... Not so much the retirees, but this would be the younger people. Speaker 1: Okay. Tony Mauro: Instead of just sticking with their goals and systematically investing, I see a lot of them, right now, wanting to... They're point-blank asking me, "Well, what do you think I should invest in because everything's going up?" And I tell them, "Well, if I knew that, I wouldn't be still working here. I would have already done it and I'd been gone." So I think they take a real chance by doing that. And I think that's a mistake unless that's truly part of their goals. Tony Mauro: Now, on the retirees, a little different. Retirees are constantly on that fence of, "Boy, I don't want to take any risk, but I'm not getting enough return. So maybe I'll dump a bunch of money into a high-yielding dividend-paying stock." And that may not be the best, either, so... Speaker 1: Right, right. Okay, so, if we're definitely looking at our listening audience, which is typically pre-retirees and retirees, are there some times when it's appropriate to factor in the emotions into the decision making, knowing that it's probably going to happen anyway? Is there some that maybe make more sense than others, I guess? Tony Mauro: I think so. I think fear... It would be the big one. I think you always have to understand that these markets go up and down, depending on what you're in. And it's got to be sensible for you, and you've got to be willing to accept the return based on the risk that you want to take, not what just the S&P 500 is doing. Because sometimes, I think, people think a little bit irrationally. And I try to tell them, "If you're basing our relationship on return, and return only, you're going to be sorely disappointed. But not only with me, I think. With any adviser." Because if you want the return of the S&P 500, for example, I can do that. We'll just go out and get you an index fund, but you're going to have to stomach what happens in that index fund over time. Speaker 1: Right. Tony Mauro: So we try to talk to them a little bit about some of that and the fact that maybe you don't need the best return. Maybe the risk you want to take, it's X. And I think that's the one that I would lean towards. Speaker 1: I was also thinking... And tell me what you think on this. Sometimes, if we're thinking emotions and financial decision, the first thing that pops in my mind for a lot of retirees is the homestead. Maybe it makes logical or financial sense to downsize the home, but obviously an emotional factor goes into it if it's the home where you raised the kids. Right? Tony Mauro: Right. Exactly. Speaker 1: So sometimes you have to work people through those. So what do you do in those situations? Do you present the data and say, "Okay, here's what the math says, and now let's figure out a happy ground"? Because let's say one part of the family, maybe the wife, wants to stay in the house, and the husband wants to move. You've got to help them through that, too, right? Tony Mauro: Yes, that's correct. Yeah. And a lot of times we'll work, especially with retirees, drawing up different plans and offering advice. And I do like to be visual, but I don't like to get real technical because most people aren't into the numbers like most finance people are. Speaker 1: Sure. Right. Tony Mauro: But- Speaker 1: That's why we come to you guys. Tony Mauro: I try to show them mathematically, and in simple terms, "Here's what, based on what you said you need and what you said you want... This can work, but you need to do it this way. And here's the pluses and minuses of doing it that way. And if you can live with that, then this is a great way to go. If not, then we have to change some things up a little bit so that you're comfortable on the emotional side." Because the last thing you want, especially in retirement, is to be worried about, "Oh, my gosh, I just saw the news today that something happened." The coronavirus. Speaker 1: Right, right, yeah. Tony Mauro: Whatever it might be. "And I'm all panicked about my future." That's not what we're about at all. So, it's definitely worth constructing a plan based on, I think, your emotional needs as well as... The math's got to work, at the end of the day, for- Speaker 1: Right, right. Tony Mauro: For everybody. Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's kind of how I was going to finish this podcast off. I was going to say, "At the end of the day, I guess, you really do have to balance both sides of this coin," right? Tony Mauro: You do. Speaker 1: Of this equation. You've got to say, "Okay, what are the concerns you have emotionally?" And then, "Here's what the math says, and where can we strike that balance?" So I imagine the outcome of every plan has to take both of those things into account. Tony Mauro: It does. Absolutely. Speaker 1: All right, well, there you go. So we got to account for emotions in our financial planning because we're emotional creatures, right? It's just something we do, in all aspects and walks of life, and we can try to let something like math be kind of cold, hard data, but it's still going to creep in there. So we want to make sure that we're balancing both of those, being smart about the decisions we're trying to make, obviously, from a mathematical and from an emotional standpoint. And working with an adviser can certainly help you do that because they're going to be able to take some of that emotional component out. Because they're not, obviously, emotionally invested like we are. Right? So that's a way... Tony Mauro: That's right. Speaker 1: ... to look at that. Yeah. All right, well, so, if you've got questions or concerns, you want to get on the calendar with Tony, give him a call. Come in, have a conversation with him. It's going to be getting busy, so definitely reach out and let him know if you've get some tax questions. If you want to spend some time with the team at Tax Doctor Inc, let them know at (844) 707-7381. You may have gotten this a podcast through their email blast or a newsletter. Reach out. Let them know you want to come in and have a chat, maybe get on the calendar. Speaker 1:You can also go to yourplanningpros.com. That is yourplanningpros.com. Tony's an EA and a CFP with 23 plus years in the experience... or experience in the industry. Excuse me. And, of course, you can always subscribe to our podcast to catch future episodes as well at that website, yourplanningpros.com or at various different outlets, like Apple, Google, Spotify, and so on. Speaker 1:This has been Plan With the Tax Man with Tony Mauro. Tony, my friend, thanks so much. I'll let you get back to your busy day, and we'll talk soon. Tony Mauro: All right, sounds good. Take care. Speaker 1: All right, folks. We'll see you next time, right here on Plan With the Tax Man.
NEWS [35:38] Jetstar flight forced to turn around after ground crew forgets clipboard in cowling [38:42] Russian Military Transport Plane Crashes in Syria, Killing 39 [42:11] American Airlines pilot arrested in Brazil for 'assaulting co-worker' [54:24] UPDATE - Crash of Iran Aseman ATR72 [55:31] Passenger stripped naked, watched porn and attacked airline crew during flight [1:00:42] United Express first-class passenger declares 'I am God,' tries opening plane door mid-flight FEEDBACK [1:06:00] Joe - Advice on cabin crew training and getting to the Flight Deck [1:10:41] Zach - Wing Dings [1:23:45] FO Mike - Experience or Aircraft? [1:37:47] Carl/Mark - Interesting PIREP into IAD [1:40:25] Paul - Explaining N1 [1:51:06] Jonathan- N1 vs. Thrust [1:57:07] Tommy - New Commercial Pilot! [1:58:55] Andy - Some thoughts on age in the cockpit, decisions and helping with accuracy!! [2:02:07] Tony - How to board an aircraft on the right side [2:03:26] Plane Tale - The Fears of Elizabeth [2:25:07] Mathew - Introduction, PT idea and invitation to Abbotsford Airshow [2:28:51] Lufty Luis - Follow up on Ryanair Incident from 313 [2:34:25] Vaughan - Thanks for Covering his Feedback, Nick's Boston Crewlog [2:38:44] James - Brit aviator in the US - Observations and an Invitation [2:46:56] Jim - Connected Weather Radar VIDEO Audible.com Trial Membership Offer - Get your free audio book today! Give me your review in iTunes! I'm "airlinepilotguy" on Facebook, and "airlinepilotguy" on Twitter. feedback@airlinepilotguy.com airlinepilotguy.com ATC audio from http://LiveATC.net Intro/Outro music by Tim Brown, BrownHouseMedia, iStockphoto.com Copyright © AirlinePilotGuy 2018, All Rights Reserved Airline Pilot Guy Show by Jeff Nielsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
3 simple steps to double your website conversions today I have Joe Burnich with us and you're going to love him. He is a contractor or was a contractor and grew his business. Became a web designer and now he does web designing and SEO and pay for click for contractors only. So, this is one of the cool things and this is the reason that I brought Joe on today is that he knows how you think, he knows what you're going through and he's been through pretty much everything that you've been through the different stages of growing your business. And I thought he would be fun to talk with. And today we're going to talk about three-key maybe four-key elements that will help you get more conversions right now today or tomorrow or the next day. But I just want it. Let's welcome Joe. Hey, Joe I just want thank you for being with us today and giving us great tips on web design and how to get better conversions. So, I'm going to let this go with you. I'm just I love to hear about the cool stuff that you're doing. And so, thanks for being with us today. Well, thank you, Dave. So that's my first time on your show. I just want to say thank you for contacting me and asking me to come on that I feel very honored. And yes, today I mean I don't know where we want to start. I've got three simple tips that people can implement today that can easily double the conversions on a Web site. So, if you're getting traffic to your Web site and you're getting let's say three calls a day implementing these simple tips that are going explain right now could get you double that. That's kind of what I want to talk to you about. You say and most time they can probably do a lot of that themselves. Some of you getting yourself some of it you'll probably have to have your web designer do it depends on what you know what your abilities are. Some people do their own Web site so they have full access it can do stuff like that. So yeah. And I'm going to say, guys, if you don't have a Web site, then we’re going to give you Joe’s contact information at the end. Nice. So, what's number one what's the number one first simple step? Real quick before we get into that could I share a quick story. Absolutely. OK. So, I just want to let everybody know where I come from and went into this whole Internet Marketing Google game because I know that guys like me get a bad rap kind of that used car salesman type vibe. Cause there's a lot of just scamming stuff out there. But my story is I moved from Kansas City to my original hometown of Missoula Montana where I live right now in 2009 and I didn't have a job but I had a 10-month-old baby and a new wife and I had to feed them out of desperation. I a family friend talked me into starting a cleaning business because easy startup you know don't need a lot of training don't need a lot of capital to start up. And so, I never thought I'd be in that. But I just ran with it. Took a couple thousand dollars that I had left and run with it. And basically, what I did was I taught myself how to get a website ranked up on Google not knowing if it would be you know profitable or whatever. But I mean I spent hours a day for months on end. I’ll bet. And yeah, I mean up at 4:00 in the morning if I wasn't working I was on the computer trying to figure this out because I had a friend that was doing it and he was selling like cell phones or something on the on the Internet and everything was done by Google rankings. By SEO. Oh wow. And so, he showed me some tips and then I studied. And it was tough because I was you know I had a Web site. And the calls were not coming in I didn't know really anything about marketing. I was out there handing out flyers and business cards and doing all that just struggling not knowing if I was going to ever make it. And so, but the cool part was that once it took about four months but once I did pop up into like the top three on google, my phone started ringing. And that's when I kind of decided OK this is something I can do. And this is something is really going to feed my family. It was all about taking care of my family and a lot of guys can probably relate to that especially the guys that are getting just getting started or if they're going through a slow season or whatever. There's just that fear of this business going to make it. And for me it was Google. And I know other people have other things that they use to get business and get calls coming in. Maybe it's Facebook maybe it's just having an awesome network that they've built up over the years whatever it is. And so, I'm not here to say that Google is the only way an Internet marketing is the only way to do this. I'm just saying to me it saved my family so I got a soft spot for Google. It makes sense to me. But it's just another tool. Really. It really is. And so, and that was in 2009. And so, I got into just helping a few other people doing it here and there. And now you know in 2018 in three days at least we know I've got four employees. We've got we've done over 850 Websites in the service contractor niche and industry. And so in over the years talking to people and just testing over and over I've figured out some simple things that most people are not doing with their websites. That really can blow the phone up that can really get the phone calls coming in which is what we really all want. It's nice to have a pretty web site that makes impresses people. But if it's not bringing in the phone calls then who cares right? Absolutely. So, I believe in having beautiful professional websites but to me, that has to go hand in hand with the conversion. So that's what I want to talk about is conversion. How to get people to pick up the phone and call you once they do hit your Web site. Tip number one that I like to give people is something that is very simple but I still see more than half of the people out there in the especially in the service industry construction industry. They're still not doing this. And what that is having a big bold phone number at the top of every single page of your website. I still go out there and look at websites that have the phone number like down in the text, down in the middle somewhere or it's down in the footer or even you have to click on the Contact Us page to even find the phone number. Right. And so, it's so huge so, so important and so easy such an easy tweak to just put it nice and big at the top of every page and then in addition to that put a simple called action something like Call now for a free estimate or you know 24-hour service if it's an emergency type service you can do 24-hour service call. Now something very simple. There have been multiple studies that say if you have the words Call now next to your phone number it'll actually double the double the people that actually pick up the phone call. Well, people like to be told Do they really. Yeah, I've talked to people they're like No I got my phone number on their people know what to do. And if they don't it's a subconscious thing it's not it's not like they're you know it's not like they're thinking this through. But having that and then another little another little tidbit to go along with this tip is if you can if you stand 10 feet back from your computer if that phone number isn't something that jumps out then it's not big enough it's not bold enough. So, you can do things like kind of change the color to contrast with the rest of the Websites if you've got a lot of blues and greens and your Web site. Make the phone number Orange. Stuff like that. It really, really works. I mean after working with 850 plus clients I can tell you that people that have those big phone numbers like that are the ones that are getting more calls. It's just it's amazing you got down to a science now. Yeah. Yes. Exactly, exactly. And a lot of web designers out there that are amazing award-winning web designers will make that mistake over and over and over because they're looking to impress people with the visuals and not the conversions. So that's two different aspects you're looking at it from the contractor point of view because you were one and they're looking at a designer’s. That this has got to be pretty. Yes. Yes. And if you can nail pretty and convert then yeah, I mean you're going to be way ahead of the competition because nine out of ten guys out there don't have both of those nailed. So that's tip number one. So, anybody who's listening to this if you can get a hold of your web designer or if you built your Web site on Wix or whatever you did, however, you got your Web site set up do everything you can to get a big bold phone number at the top of every page with a call to action that would be my number one tip that I can give today. And then number two. OK. And this is something you and I were talking about before the podcast started here Dave is so, we all know that smartphones are here to stay you know they're not going anywhere. Everybody uses them all the time especially in this type of business. So, it and what we're all accustomed to is you know hitting little buttons on our phone. So, my suggestion is that when you're somebody looking at your website on a smartphone, is you don't just have the phone number but you have the phone number on a button. So that and then you can even add a call to action to that as well like on all the websites that we do. We have a phone number in a button that says tap to call. OK. And they have that at the very top. Don't make people look for the phone number don't make them scroll down to find the phone number. Don't put the phone number in tiny little text somewhere make it into a button because they're already addicted to hitting buttons all day long or on their phone. That's all they do. And your two icons are really good. Exactly. They need to tap this and the video and how it goes straight to a phone call. OK. Because like we said the beginning, we want to get phone calls. We don't want to just impress people we want to get that phone ringing. So, we can close the deal. So, the number two now Dave you brought up an amazing point. That you know most of the clients out there most of it most of the decision maker, comes to server benefactor's whatever it may be in this type of industry. It's the woman that makes the decision. She is the decision maker in these types of transactions. She's going to give the go ahead. She's going to pick who they who they are going to work with. Who's going to do the work for them? And so that's going to go right into my next step. But you brought up a really interesting point is why not have in addition to a call now button, have a like a tap to text button. So, you got my wheels turn and now I'm going to go out there and grab my web developer here. Leah and I are going to get we're going to figure this out. We're going to we're going to make a text button and start implementing it and web designs and start doing some major testing. Because as you brought up Dave. Females tend to text more than more than call. They would rather text a potential vendor or potential company than pick up the phone and have a drawn-out conversation. Right. I mean wouldn't you agree. I would yeah, I would agree. And as we talked earlier and you know my daughter and your wife they've got kids. The phone rings. They're not coming they're not going to pick it up. If its text and they see it then they'll take the time or you know to text back. But it's just it's not part of the world. And you know there's a lot of times where women are at work and they're on their phone and they can't call because of what they may be in an area where they can't call but they can text. You know there are so many variables that you know you're getting too loud. Let's say you're looking at an ad on an on your phone in a waiting room or something like that. You're not going you're not going to wait forever to travel. You're just going Oh if I can text the phone let me do this. I can. Can I get an appointment or like what we were talking about somebody with this other night? Well like 7 o'clock at night you know nobody's going to answer the phone. But what if they got a text. You know that they would answer first thing in the morning. Yeah. And I always I always tell people it's good to have like a little forum that people can fill out for that exact reason because they don't want to call it you know 8:00 o'clock at night or whatever. But you got me thinking why not add a text button that could place the form pretty easily so we're going to be doing some major testing here in 2018. Based on your that little that little seed that you planted in my mind so I appreciate that. I want you to track in about six months after you run your test. Give us the stats on that. I'd love to do that. That’d be great. So that kind of that kind of goes right but it is a good segue right into the third tip that I want to talk about which it goes right along with we are marketing to females primarily. OK. And so, what I see a lot of people do on their Web sites is they'll have a lot of pictures of you know their equipment, their trucks a lot of a lot of the wording on the Websites is very technical. And that doesn't speak to the average the average female out there that's going to make the decision the one that's going to basically fork over the money. Right. She wants to know what her house is going to look like when it's finished. She wants to see smiling kids. She wants to see you know whatever the service is she wants to see the end result so that the even other women on your web page. Exactly. And testimonials other women that are in that are like them are ages and some more family situations whatever it may be. So, I would highly recommend that if you've got you or if your website is dominated by stuff that appeals to you or to other competitors or men that you know friends whatever then you really need to rethink that and start adding some more. Make it a little bit softer. It's kind of what you need to do to make it happier and the end result as opposed to technical logical. You know just the man the male mind and the female mind respond differently to different things. We all know that. Here is an interesting thing for you guys that are thinking well that's really not going to make a difference. I'm going to tell you that if you're in a cell situation and you're there with the woman and the guy and you sell to the guy, that guy likes you and a woman don't you've lost. You are not going to get the job no matter how it goes. Yes, yes, yes. She's going to say no, no, no. And you know me I've been married for 40, 41 years. My father has been a happy wife happy life. That goes for your marriage and it goes for the clients as well. So, it does. I'm just laughing because I just I'm thinking back to when I had my business. And there are several times when I just thought I nailed it. I nailed that job. The guy loved me this and that. And I guarantee I lost it because the wife was like no for whatever reason. You talk to them because you know the guy you didn't need to get the attention. I had this one year ago it was hilarious. I had a client. We were we did a lot of painting and he won. He called me, he called me over and look at the house to do stuff and the old school. I mean really old school. This was like this was a guy with his wife. It was one-word answers with me. That whole conversation. He was very Lithuanian very old school. OK, I go. So, Tony so his wife goes Tony I want to get next time we paint the house. Can we paint the outside just a little tinge of green? No. So I go, Tony. Don't you understand how long have you been married it, Tony? How long. Many, many, many years. That's OK. Do you not know this? Does he go know what Dave? OK. Happy wife a happy life. Her eyes got as big as saucers I mean it got huge. I mean and Tony goes wow ok. So, we go inside and we're just talking. You know and she goes Tony I would like this house has painted in 15 years. I want to paint this house the inside for your birthday his response. No. I said, Tony, I need to learn anything outside of that we talked about. And he goes, OK. She got the house painted the house with the exact tinge of green that she wanted to add one. Yeah. Everything you wanted. But you know it's so important to come to that realization. Who are we selling to? And you know it's kind of funny. It really is. Yeah. And what's crazy is I'm not noticed too. Like if you take that Web site and show your wife a lot of times she won't be thinking in terms of a client she'll be thinking in terms of you know I'm one of the business owners. So, it's kind of dangerous actually to ask the wife I've found in many cases of them in many cases. The wife having somebody close to you give you feedback on the website is not always the best way. You need to have a third party that doesn't really have much connection to you or you what they think of the website. That's another thing. Yeah because I mean just the other day we have a roofer who was like well I don't want to put the phone number at the top of the website when I only have it in like tiny little text down in the footer of the website because my wife thinks it looks tacky at the top. And she wasn't thinking from the point of view of like what if I was actually you know a female out here looking to hire a roofer. I want to get a hold of this guy. You know if they don't find the phone number on your Web site. The seconds are gone. Yeah exactly. So, it's a big deal. OK. And so that's it. That's my top three tips. I mean I've got other things too as far as like you know getting online reviews how important that is and how that can boost your conversions. And there are lots of lots of little things beyond that but that's at the top three. It's definitely three things that you or you a web designer can implement like now. Especially for the New Year wrap. Get going for 2018. That new Web site gets the Web site revamped, freshened up and to convert not just be pretty and rank but also to convert. And so, and so that's what I got. And I don't know if we going to talk about this right now but I wanted to make sure that you're just audience gets a special prize. If they ever wanted to do anything with us let's do that now do it again later on. You know I always like promote or guess what they have to offer and how they can help our community. You know this is all about helping other guys become more profitable. Be better or what they do so that they can spend more time with their families. Yeah. And so, I want to make sure. So, for the next couple of weeks, I would love to give all of your only listeners only the listeners, $300 off any web design packages that we have. And but they just need a dimension that they need to mention that this podcast and then we'll make sure that that $300 is taken off. So, this is not an issue for a couple of weeks I want to make this isn't forever. And so, we can either we can get a link set up or people just want to go to generalcontractorwebsites.net they can find us there or just give me a call at 4 0 6 4 9 3 1 8 8 1. Okay great, and we'll put on a show notice when we get on we get everything up and at that point and what we'll do is we'll put off end of show notes will put off cut-off date let's say two weeks or three weeks however you want to do it. It will just put on the cutoff date. And from that point, so everyone knows that. I'd like to talk about Google reviews a lot because I think that's important. I mean I know you do too. From a standpoint that's probably would be number for one or one of the numbers high numbers. Absolutely. And it may even bump in their effort in some cases anyway bump into the top three. Just because of the fact and the way that I look at Google reviews and other reviews you know Angie's List and everything but Google still the big one unless you're on the west coast and I know you can overtake Google a lot of times when it comes to the review game. But the way that I look at online reviews is they literally are the new world of the mouth of mouth advertising. Yeah I mean the whole the whole idea of you know tell all your friends and then haven't called me all that stuff that still exists. But there's a whole another online version of that and that's basically, it's just reviewed. I mean how many people bought into this have read an Amazon review before actually clicking the buy now button. Right. You know what I mean. Oh yeah and a lot of times you don't think that it applies to your business the same way but I'm going to tell you right now I've got a guy up in Portland. He's got a five-truck operation does a lot of like water damage restoration stuff like that. And he so he used to have like eight or nine reviews on his competitors all had they all were right around there like five to 10 reviews something like that. Well, he got busy. Did you know I'm going to make reviews big in 2017 and so now he's got like 89 reviews and you're still acting like 9 or 10? And he says he literally doesn't have to do any more staying over the phone. It's not about right. You know my prices deserve prices any more. It's about you had the most reviews online. And these are all genuine reviews. Doesn't do any. These guys above board he doesn't know. No fake reviews of again. It's really easy to get reviews. It's kind of funny. I just did a podcast not too long ago about a contractor in South Carolina and he grew his business basically by google reviews. It's kind of an interesting way for business. It was mostly referrals. He'd get like 75% referrals and 25% would be you know from reviews and stuff like that. He went out of his way to do the different ways and he started with the google reviews and now he's got. Last, I checked he had 55 reviews and he said that the numbers have turned. He said 75% of my business comes from the google reviews and 25% comes from referrals it's amazing. You got to do. You got to really do is ask. Now I have an I have another tip based on that because a lot of times people say well I don't feel like one out of 10 people will actually you know say they're going to actually follow through and do it. But you got to do more than ask. Yeah. And so, I like that call but you know to push the call. Yes yeah. Make it easy to make it Brain-Dead easy for them and so the best way that I've found to do that is to once again we go back to text thing is to basically give them a heads up say Hey you mind if I send you a text to get some feedback on how we did it and most times I say yes like 95% of you say oh yeah, no problem. So, what you can do is get on your phone. This won't work on your computer. You got to get on your phone and search your business and find your Google page. OK. once you're on the Google page you click on reviews and then it'll take and then and then they'll let you choose the number of stars. Right. OK. So, you click on Star number five and that's it. You don't. All you do on your own business. on your smartphone has to be on a smartphone. And so all five stars are gold at that point. All right. Now you do is you tap up into we're like the Web site addresses and you do and you click copy highlighted and then you click copy. All right. Now you go and send a text and you paste in that exact address. It's a big long obnoxious website address but that will take them directly when they click on that when they get the text and they click on that. It'll take them directly to the Google page with the five stars filled out. Now they can change it and put fewer stars if they want but it's one less step that they have to take. And so, then they're just at the point where they're just typing in you know the actual experience they had. But that little chip right there texting over the actual google link that takes them already just right to the place where they can start typing is going to increase the amount of you know reviews you get so if you get one out of ten by asking right now. Now you to get like nine out of 10 because you're doing it for them in a sense. Yes exactly And that's the that's the key thing is you know. We all want more business but we think that it's going to be easy. Sometimes it's easy but we have to work at it. Yes. Yes. I was reading some stats not too long ago. And the funny part was that 90% of the people who go to the internet to check reviews but only like 40-50% will actually write a review. Yeah. So, you know so you've got to work a lot harder to get what you want. That's all that's really what it boils down to. Which is nice. And yet the reviews are just awesome and I just you know it's kind of cool on how easy it is to just you know send it and they will do it. And if they don't do it right away then you do it one more time. Yeah. Yeah but maybe you just do. You know I know you've been busy and we've talked about this. I just wanted to send this to you again. If you have time please do it. If you don't that's ok. Yeah and the key time to do it is right when you have that conversation with them at the very end of the job. And they've got that those good warm feelings about you. Those are feeling quick like a week later. You know they're still happy with us that they dislike you but you don't have that. I want to help this person. Because people do want to help especially if you do an amazing job form they want. They want to but they don't want to have to go find your Web site or go find your Google pager your pager. They don't want to have to do all that. Most people anyway. So, the easier you can make it for them, then the better chance you're going to get. And it's all about just getting into a routine getting it in and out. Oh, the guy in Portland said what he does is it makes sure that all of his technicians are the ones that actually initiate that text. And then he gives them like a $25 bonus for every five-star review that comes in the day the day that they requested. So yeah that makes it a lot nicer for him. Yes, I mean yeah, I mean one review is 20 it was worth you know is gold. One five-star is gold so $25 dollars. He looks at it. I'm paying $25 to get a review and that review is easily going to make me ten times that over the next year. Oh, easy. So, this is the place to place some golds in the pot is what he's doing. Yeah. Yeah. That is so cool. Yeah, I know of a carpet cleaner that was doing Facebook reviews. He would actually give them if they would do while they were still there and he would give them a Starbucks coffee. Yeah, be careful with bribes like Yelp will shut down your account if they find out about that. But yeah Google and Facebook they, you know Google says not to do it but I've never heard of them cracking down on it yet. Well, how Facebook's pretty open now. Yeah, I mean people on Yelp people are suffering. I've heard of people getting shut down in Yelp. So, they Yelp figures it out somehow. I mean they get so many and stuff like that depending on the trade. Yeah. And they've even gotten to the point Yelp's even gotten to the point where they've said you're not even allowed to ask for a review. So, Yelp is a different animal. It's not cool. Yeah, there's a lot a lot of angry people out there on YELP right now. So yeah, I think yes, I was listening to somebody tell me that you know it's tied pretty much to being three views from me you know. Is that true? Oh, I've never heard that I heard though. Yeah, that's why they post your reviews and stuff like that. Now, something I did hear this morning that was kind of interesting. I don’t know if you knew this was home adviser bought Angie’s List. I did not know that. Wow. That just went through like two weeks ago. I wonder how that's going to play out. Interesting. It’s alright if they don’t change their name. An interesting change the name but nobody like Angie’s List and nobody likes Home Advisers so I don't think they've got some enemies that's for sure. You know. Yeah, they do because they just don't do things right. Neither here or there and we're not going to go there. All right. Hey you know this is really been awesome. Is there anything that you've been burning there in the back of your mind that you say you need to get this out. You want anything you want, additionally, you want to share before we close out this thing? You know the only other thing is I do have a book that has 150 pages of all of this kind of stuff. It's basically where I just did a mine dump and put everything I know into book format. So, if people want to get that they can get it on Amazon it's like 17 something. If you want to get it for free and just pay the shipping and handling giving it away right now. Just go to a servicebusinessmoneymachine.com that's the name of the book service business money machine. How to turn your Web site into a virtual money machine. Cool. Yeah, I've got, the matter of fact I've got my book on the way. So, guys, I ordered his books so we're in good shape. Nice. And so, we will put them on and show notes like he said. And then one more time let's run your special again since we're at the end. So, we'll have that at the very end again. Yeah so, we've been talking about Website stuff today. So, what I want to do is if you're looking to get a new Web site or revamp your current website, we're going to take $300 off for the next couple of weeks we'll set the exact date on the show. Now it's like you were saying yeah but this is only for people that are listening to this. You have to mention that you listened to the podcast and that's the only way you're going to get that $300 special. So, if you're looking to get a new Web site for the new year then we'd love to talk to you about it. And if we if we decide that we're not a good fit for each other then that's fine. I'll still give you a free consultation with you know lots of tips and little things you can do to improve your website anyway. So, that would be awesome. So, give us your contact information again. OK so you can go to a generalcontractorwebsites.net OK or you can just call 4 0 6 4 9 3 1 8 8 1. Awesome. Joe thanks so much. This has really been great having you on the show. Little tips and tricks on how to get everyone more business. And I thank you for making that offer to our listeners. And guys listen, I really, take advantage of it if you if you need to know or call Joe and see what you need to do. But you know one of the things that I was impressed with overall is that Joe was a contractor and he thinks like contractors, he knows you know how you guys think, he knows what you're going through and he's been in your shoes. And he only deals with contractors. He's not trying to make one everything fit. So, we're in good shape. Joe again thanks so much for being with us today. I love it Dave, and I hope to come back in six months and we'll talk about that text button. Yeah, that'll be a blast. Yeah. Yeah. OK. All right. Dave, you have a good one. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Thanks. You may go to this website to know more details about Joe Burnich: www.generalcontractorwebsites.net Contact: 406-493-1881 To get your $300.00 discount from Joe you can go to his website offer is good only until midnight February 7th 2018 Website Special: https://generalcontractorwebsites.net/secret-weapon/ www.generalcontractorwebsites.net let Joe know you herd about him at Contractor’s Secret Weapon podcast There are so many ways to do almost free marketing you just have to think about it or you could just go to the web site and pick up the free download. 4 Hot Marketing Strategies That Can Flood Your Business with Customers If you have a story to tell and would like to be a guest on this podcast email my assistant Shell at Shell@contractorssecretweapon.com and she will send you our guest sheet. Our sponsors Would you like your phone to ring more with qualified buyers people looking to buy now? Then let’s make that happen. Best Home Services Leads is dedicated to making your phone ring with qualified buyers wanting to buy now. Go to and fill out the form to get more information. http://contractorssecretweapon.com/money How about 100 free postcards sent out to your best prospective customers. Radius Bomb sends out hyper targeted, laser focused postcards using a map while sitting in your under ware at your kitchen table then go to http://contractorssecretweapon.com/radiusbomb Painting Contractors, get up to a 24% better response rate just for having the right memorable telephone number 1-800-PRO-PAINTER.Check out your area before someone beats you to it and it’s not available. https://www.1800propainter.com/
I recently caught up with Tony Langham to discuss entrepreneurship in PR. Tony set up Lansons with Claire Parsons 28 years ago and today Lansons has a fee income of circa £11 million pounds. I discussed with Tony: - How to keep a culture of entrepreneurship within a 28 year old business. - How Tony maintains his personal drive having lead Lansons for 28 years. - We talked about the British culture of successful independent entrepreneurial PR firms and discussed the challenges of the "early" years, the "middle" years and why it is that so few have successfully gone global Tony also identifies his three secrets of entrepreneurial success in public relations
A great season deserves a great finale, and that is exactly what we got! It remained unpredictable to the end. The majority of this cast was superb. We can not think of a season that had so many castaways that came to play to win. It never seemed predictable either. We were blindsided right along with most of the Survivors at each Tribal Council. The season ended with two great challenges that included one of the best come from behind victories in Survivor history. Many on the jury were bitter and opted to take revenge or grand stand at the final Tribal Council, but in the end all but one of them opted to reward dominant game play over adherence to personal principles. Were you happy with the result? Do you recall anyone on a jury giving as passionate a speech as Spencer offered in support of Tony? How would you score the jury? Who nailed it and who disappointed? Where does this reason rank for you against the other 27? Any thoughts or predictions on season 29, Blood vs. Water 2? JSFL Update: Congratulations to David from Brooklyn, winner of this season's JSFL! Note:Jeremiah, your side challenge debt will be decided by BrandonB. > We've got several ways you can reach us. You can call and leave a voicemail at 206-350-1547. You can record an audio comment and attach it or just type up a quick text message and send it to us via email at joannandstacyshow@gmail.com. Listener Feedback is due by Saturday noon PST. Please keep it to 3 minutes or less. 00:00 Date 00:04 Tribute to Russ Landau by Aaron from Granville 00:34 Introductions 71:38 NToS 73:55 JSFL 80:29 Tribute to Russ Landau by Aaron from Granville Links for Today's Show Paul's Visual Roster for Survivor Cagayan Survivor Fans Podcast Fans group on Facebook JSFL SFP on Twitter Contact Info: Voicemail: 206-350-1547 Email: joannandstacyshow@gmail.com Survivor Fans Podcast P.O. Box 2811 Orangevale, CA 95662 Enjoy, Jo Ann and Stacy
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
