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Hosted by trent dyrsmid
4 episodes with trent dyrsmid
2 episodes with trent dyrsmid
4 episodes with trent dyrsmid
3 episodes with trent dyrsmid
GO FUND ME: https://gofund.me/bf973f3f In this emotional and motivating episode, host Nik Fialka welcomes Trent Dyrsmid—known to many from "Fly With Trent"—to share his remarkable journey from entrepreneur to regional airline pilot. At 53, Trent boldly changed careers, completed an accelerated flight training program, and built a dedicated online following by documenting his aviation transformation. But just as he was on the brink of completing airline training, Trent was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that abruptly grounded his flying. In this candid conversation, Trent reflects on building his aviation career later in life, the mindset needed to tackle accelerated training, and the unexpected health battle that forced him to step away from the flight deck. Trent's optimism, resilience, and love for aviation shine throughout this powerful story. Whether you're chasing your pilot dreams or facing life's turbulence, this episode will both inspire and move you. What You'll Learn in This Episode: How to transition from entrepreneur to airline pilot in under two years Why age isn't a barrier to starting an aviation career The power of accelerated flight training and how to make it work for you The pros and cons of flight schools vs. independent CFIs How mindset and mental health play critical roles in navigating major life challenges The vital support of family and the aviation community during personal hardship How you can support Trent's road to recovery GO FUND ME: https://gofund.me/bf973f3f CONNECT WITH US Are you ready to take your preparation to the next level? Don't wait until it's too late. Use the promo code “R4P2025” and save 10% on all our services. Check us out at www.spitfireelite.com! If you want to recommend someone to guest on the show, email Nik at podcast@spitfireelite.com, and if you need a professional pilot resume, go to www.spitfireelite.com/podcast/ for FREE templates! SPONSOR Are you a pilot just coming out of the military and looking for the perfect second home for your family? Look no further! Reach out to Marty and his team by visiting www.tridenthomeloans.com to get the best VA loans available anywhere in the US. Be ready for takeoff anytime with 3D-stretch, stain-repellent, and wrinkle-free aviation uniforms by Flight Uniforms. Just go to www.flightuniform.com and type the code SPITFIREPOD20 to get a special 20% discount on your first order. #Aviation #AviationCareers #aviationcrew #AviationJobs #AviationLeadership #AviationEducation #AviationOpportunities #AviationPodcast #AirlinePilot #AirlineJobs #AirlineInterviewPrep #flying #flyingtips #PilotDevelopment #PilotFinance #pilotcareer #pilottips #pilotcareertips #PilotExperience #pilotcaptain #PilotTraining #PilotSuccess #pilotpodcast #PilotPreparation #Pilotrecruitment #cancer #cancerawareness #cancertreatment #cancersurvivor #cancersupport #flywithtrent
This week on Billion Dollar Creator, Nathan sits down with Eric Jorgensen, CEO of Scribe Media.Join us as we explore traditional and self-publishing, dissect book marketing dynamics, and discuss the strategic power of audience engagement and content creation.They also delve into Eric's journey from author to publishing company CEO, the concept of “creator capitalists,” and exactly how Warren Buffet leveraged his public image.If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe, share it with your friends, and leave us a review. We read every single one.Know more about Billion Dollar Creator: https://www.billiondollarcreator.com/Follow Nathan:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathanbarry/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanbarry/Twitter: https://twitter.com/nathanbarryWebsite: https://nathanbarry.com/Follow Eric:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erjorgenson/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erjorgenson/Twitter: https://twitter.com/EricJorgensonWebsite: https://www.ejorgenson.com/Featured in this episode:The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: https://www.navalmanack.com/Berkshire Hathaway: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/Epic Gardening: https://www.epicgardening.com/Missouri Star Quilt Company: https://www.missouriquiltco.com/Highlights:02:38 The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is one of Nathan's favourite books16:44 Nathan provides feedback on Scribe Media's business model27:14 Discussing Dan Martell's flywheel38:29 Uncertainty from Nathan on whether or not to publish his next book traditionally59:30 Nathan on Justin Rhodes who makes $3 million/year homesteading01:00:51 Nathan says Trent Dyrsmid has a plethora of transferrable skills01:03:05 Nick Huber and the power of an audience in professional niches01:04:22 How much of Warren Buffet's success is attributed to his public image?
Welcome back to another exciting episode of Fly the Transition! We're back for another new episode of Fly the Transition I'm so excited to welcome Trent Dyrsmid of the YouTube channel Fly with Trent. We talk about his success with his content creation, his work as a CFI, and his journey to a career in commercial aviation. Fly with Trent: https://flywithtrent.com/ Join our Community: If you enjoy Fly the Transition and want to continue the conversation, consider joining our discord community. To request an invite, simply reach out to Jim by email or social media. Social Media Handles: Website: www.flyingmidwest.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flythetranstion Jim on Instagram: @flymidwestjim Email: Flythetransition@gmail.com Sponsor Information: This episode is sponsored by Pilot Quarters. Visit www.pilotquarters.com to explore their wide variety of aviation chart inspired apparel. You can also check out our affiliate links for Lightspeed Headset and Flying Eyes Sunglasses. Your purchase through our links help support the podcast. Lightspeed Headsets: https://www.lightspeedaviation.com/?campaign=flyingmidwest23&ref=101 Flying Eyes Sunglasses: https://flyingeyesoptics.com/?ref=Flyingmidwest23 Use code Flyingmidwest10 for 10%off your purchase Fly the Transition Merch: flyingmidwest.com/merch Contact Information: Do you have questions of comments about the show? Do you have an idea for a future episode? Do you want to me a guest on the podcast? Reach out at flythetransition@gmail.com or connect with Jim through social medial or the website.
In today's episode, I chatted with Trent Dyrsmid from the Fly With Trent YouTube channel. We talk about his journey on YouTube as a Pilot and what he has done to quickly grow his channel. We talk about identifying your target audience, meeting them where they are, how to manage your time, different ways to make money as a creator, and SO much more. About Trent Over the last 25 years, I've been fortunate to have enjoyed a wonderful career as an entrepreneur doing startups. I learned a great deal, met a lot of wonderful people, and earned a couple of bucks. On my 53rd birthday, I wanted to try something different...and so with the support of my loving wife, I decided to embark on a career in aviation as a professional pilot. Starting in May of 2023, with just a private pilot's license and 100 hours of flight time (that happened mostly in my 20s), I put my life on hold an enrolled myself in flight school. “Unlock Your YouTube Success with TubeBuddy: Skyrocket Your Channel Growth Effortlessly!
This sounds ridiculous, but some marketers still don't do holiday sales. On today's episode, host Mark de Grasse sits down with Lauren Petrullo from Mongoose Media to discuss why every business should be doing holiday sales. They also break down some amazing stats where Lauren and her team achieved a 400% increase in forecasted goals year to year, and got a client $250,000 in free money from Facebook. The holiday season is a great time to test ads because everybody is expecting and even looking forward to seeing ads in their feed. And with everybody in a buying mood, Lauren's magic ad structure will help ensure your marketing becomes a charming and natural part of the festivities. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN: Why everybody needs to do holiday sales How Lauren got a 400% increase in forecasted goals year on year The dos and don'ts of holiday marketing Assessing Ad performance on Instagram reels Start testing your ads before the holidays How to become omnipresent at a lower cost Benefits of offering bulk discounts The Canva holiday template pack LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: https://mongoosemedia.us/ (Mongoosemedia.us) Lauren's https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenpetrullo/ (LinkedIn) Lauren's https://www.digitalmarketer.com/faculty/lauren-petrullo/ (Digital Marketer profile) OUR PARTNERS: http://getscalable.com/dm (7 Levels of Scale Workbook) Find out your Leadership Trust Score at https://readytolead.com (Ready to Lead). Listen to the #1 Digital Marketing Podcast, https://www.perpetualtraffic.com (Perpetual Traffic) Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to The DigitalMarketer Podcast? Have some feedback you'd like to share? https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-digitalmarketer-podcast/id1397898498?mt=2 (Connect with us on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review!) This Month's Sponsors:https://conversionfanatics.com/ (Conversion Fanatics - Conversion Rate Optimization Agency) https://www.bkacontent.com/perpetual/ (Get 50% Off Monthly Blog Writing Service - BKA Content) More Resources from Scalablehttps://scalable.co?utm_source=digitalmarketer-podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=lead-gen ([Free Guide & Assessment] 7 Levels of Scale) https://scalable.co/free-epic-challenge/?utm_source=digitalmarketer-podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=lead-gen (FREE EPIC Challenge) More Shows You'll Lovehttps://perpetualtraffic.com/ (Perpetual Traffic) - The #1 podcast for learning paid traffic and improving your conversions! https://businesslunchpodcast.com/ (Business Lunch) - Sit down every week some of the most successful people in the world. Hosted by Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss Mentioned in this episode: Become A Certified E-Commerce Marketing Master Take the Industry's Most Comprehensive E-Commerce Marketing Certification for the Modern Marketer! https://dm.captivate.fm/ecom-cert (Ecom Cert)
This sounds ridiculous, but some marketers still don't do holiday sales.On today's episode, host Mark de Grasse sits down with Lauren Petrullo from Mongoose Media to discuss why every business should be doing holiday sales. They also break down some amazing stats where Lauren and her team achieved a 400% increase in forecasted goals year to year, and got a client $250,000 in free money from Facebook.The holiday season is a great time to test ads because everybody is expecting and even looking forward to seeing ads in their feed. And with everybody in a buying mood, Lauren's magic ad structure will help ensure your marketing becomes a charming and natural part of the festivities.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN:Why everybody needs to do holiday salesHow Lauren got a 400% increase in forecasted goals year on yearThe dos and don'ts of holiday marketingAssessing Ad performance on Instagram reelsStart testing your ads before the holidaysHow to become omnipresent at a lower costBenefits of offering bulk discountsThe Canva holiday template packLINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:Mongoosemedia.usLauren's LinkedInLauren's Digital Marketer profileOUR PARTNERS:7 Levels of Scale WorkbookFind out your Leadership Trust Score at Ready to Lead.Listen to the #1 Digital Marketing Podcast, Perpetual Traffic Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to The DigitalMarketer Podcast? Have some feedback you'd like to share? Connect with us on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review!This Month's Sponsors:Conversion Fanatics - Conversion Rate Optimization AgencyGet 50% Off Monthly Blog Writing Service - BKA Content More Resources from Scalable[Free Guide & Assessment] 7 Levels of ScaleFREE EPIC Challenge More Shows You'll LovePerpetual Traffic - The #1 podcast for learning paid traffic and improving your conversions!Business Lunch - Sit down every week with some of the most successful people in the world. Hosted by Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss Mentioned in this episode:[Free Download] DigitalMarketer's Canva Holiday Promo PackGrab These 195 Ready-To-Use Canva Templates For 5 Upcoming Holiday Promotions!
Born in Vancouver, BC. Lives in Boise, Idaho. Trent is a serial entrepreneur, the founder of Flowster.app and a complete nerd when it comes to creating scalable business processes. Prior to starting Flowster, Trent was the host of the long-running Bright Ideas podcast where he spent over a decade interviewing successful founders. In addition to being CEO of Flowster, Trent is also the founder of a digital agency that ranked #254 and #622 on the Inc 5000 in 2019 and 2020. Profit Magazine named Trent's first company as one of Canada's PROFIT 100 fastest growing companies for two years in a row before he sold it in 2008. Business in Vancouver magazine named Trent a Top 40 Under 40 Entrepreneur. What You'll Learn The power of using a VA How to hire and onboard a virtual assistant Ask people to do tasks that they have done before You can work with people on ways to save money on the front end so you can pay them more Resources Here Find out more about Flowster Here!
Born in Vancouver, BC. Lives in Boise, Idaho. Trent is a serial entrepreneur, the founder of Flowster.app and a complete nerd when it comes to creating scalable business processes. Prior to starting Flowster, Trent was the host of the long-running Bright Ideas podcast where he spent over a decade interviewing successful founders. In addition to being CEO of Flowster, Trent is also the founder of a digital agency that ranked #254 and #622 on the Inc 5000 in 2019 and 2020. Profit Magazine named Trent's first company as one of Canada's PROFIT 100 fastest growing companies for two years in a row before he sold it in 2008. Business in Vancouver magazine named Trent a Top 40 Under 40 Entrepreneur. What You'll Learn The power of using a VA How to hire and onboard a virtual assistant Ask people to do tasks that they have done before You can work with people on ways to save money on the front end so you can pay them more Resources Here Find out more about Flowster Here!
Born in Vancouver, BC. Lives in Boise, Idaho. Trent is a serial entrepreneur, the founder of Flowster.app and a complete nerd when it comes to creating scalable business processes. Prior to starting Flowster, Trent was the host of the long-running Bright Ideas podcast where he spent over a decade interviewing successful founders. In addition to being CEO of Flowster, Trent is also the founder of a digital agency that ranked #254 and #622 on the Inc 5000 in 2019 and 2020. Profit Magazine named Trent's first company as one of Canada's PROFIT 100 fastest growing companies for two years in a row before he sold it in 2008. Business in Vancouver magazine named Trent a Top 40 Under 40 Entrepreneur. What You'll Learn Why you need an SOP When do you need an SOP Checklist for when you need an SOP What should You tackle first? How to create an SOP How to make an SOP for something you haven't done before, How to keep up to date How to share with team Easy way to run and grow your business Resources Here Find out more about Flowster Here!
Born in Vancouver, BC. Lives in Boise, Idaho. Trent is a serial entrepreneur, the founder of Flowster.app and a complete nerd when it comes to creating scalable business processes. Prior to starting Flowster, Trent was the host of the long-running Bright Ideas podcast where he spent over a decade interviewing successful founders. In addition to being CEO of Flowster, Trent is also the founder of a digital agency that ranked #254 and #622 on the Inc 5000 in 2019 and 2020. Profit Magazine named Trent's first company as one of Canada's PROFIT 100 fastest growing companies for two years in a row before he sold it in 2008. Business in Vancouver magazine named Trent a Top 40 Under 40 Entrepreneur. What You'll Learn Why you need an SOP When do you need an SOP Checklist for when you need an SOP What should You tackle first? How to create an SOP How to make an SOP for something you haven't done before, How to keep up to date How to share with team Easy way to run and grow your business Resources Here Find out more about Flowster Here!
In this Session, we bring back Trent Dyrsmid of Flowster. Trent will be hosting an upcoming virtual workshop, where he will be covering the six ways you should be leveraging your virtual assistant for maximum impact and ROI in your business. In this interview you'll learn:
In this Session, we bring back Trent Dyrsmid of Flowster. Trent will be hosting an upcoming virtual workshop, where he will be covering the six ways you should be leveraging your virtual assistant for maximum impact and ROI in your business. In this interview you'll learn:
In this episode of Return on Podcast, Trent and Tyler discuss thinking like a CEO, the importance of documenting your processes, and how a jar of paperclips can declutter your morning routine. Trent Dyrsmid is a serial entrepreneur, husband, and father. He is the founder of BrightIdeas.co, Flowster.app, and a 7 figure eCommerce business. He was named a top 40 under 40 entrepreneur by Business in Vancouver magazine. Trent's current company ranked 254 on the 2019 Inc 5000 list and 622 on the 2020 Inc 5000 list of America's Most Successful Private Companies. Trent's Social Media Links Podcast: https://brightideas.co/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TrentDyrsmid LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trentdyrsmid/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trent_dyrsmid/?hl=en Flowster: https://flowster.app/ Also mentioned in this episode: https://flowster.app/fast https://flowster.app/capture https://flowster.app/masterclass The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber The Four Disciplines of Execution - Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey Work the System - Sam Carpenter Principles - Ray Dalio Atomic Habits - James Clear Welcome to Return on Podcast, the show where we help e-commerce sellers improve their ROI in business and in life. Hosted by Tyler Jefcoat and in affiliation with Seller Accountant, Return on Podcast aims to leave listeners with new insights and actionable life and business hacks at the end of each episode.
Trent Dyrsmid went from agency owner to a software company co-owner and his unique story offers a perspective we can all learn from. We know the importance of delegating out work within our agencies and SOPs and templates are the best ways to do that. An SOP is a set of instructions, like a checklist, that lists out the step-by-step actions needed to complete a task. They are great for tasks that are routine with little deviation from that. This week, episode 119 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about setting up your processes for success! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Trent is sharing the importance of creating SOPs for his agency which allowed him to step out of the business after just 12 months. We also cover actionable steps you can take right now to figure out what can be templated for you and how to create those.Trent Dyrsmid is a serial entrepreneur, husband, and father. Originally from Vancouver, BC, he and his family now reside in Boise, ID. He is the founder of BrightIdeas.co, Flowster.app and a 7 figure eCommerce business.In this episode, Trent and I discuss the following:The start of Trent's entrepreneurial journey.Trent's desire to own a business that would allow him to have freedom and flexibility in his life. The mindset issue that most new entrepreneurs struggle with can keep them from having the success they desire.The key differences between a project management system and a process management system, and why Flowster is unique and necessary. If you can create and implement processes and systems within your business, you will be able to allow yourself to focus on things that are a better use of your skills and time.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH Trent Dyrsmid:TwitterLinkedInYoutubeWebsite: Bright IdeasWebsite: FlowsterCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales SchemaLINKS MENTIONED:Atomic Habits by James ClearThe E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
This episode features Trent Dyrsmid, a serial entrepreneur, husband, and father. He is the founder of BrightIdeas.co, Flowster, and a 7-figure eCommerce business. With almost ten years of experience with digital marketing and eCommerce, Trent eagerly shares his knowledge with others. Currently, he is helping founders, executives, and managers to create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), workflows, and automated processes so that hiring, onboarding, and delegation become dramatically easier and less expensive.
How to Stick with Good Habits Every Dayn 1993, a bank in Abbotsford, Canada, hired a twenty-three-year-old stockbroker named Trent Dyrsmid. Abbotsford was a relatively small suburb, tucked away in the shadow of nearby Vancouver, where most of the big business deals were being made. Given the location, and the fact that Dyrsmid was a rookie, nobody expected too much of him. But he made brisk progress thanks to a simple daily habit.The Paper Clip StrategyDyrsmid began each morning with two jars on his desk. One was filled with 120 paper clips. The other was empty. As soon as he settled in each day, he would make a sales call. Immediately after, he would move one paper clip from the full jar to the empty jar and the process would begin again. “Every morning I would start with 120 paper clips in one jar and I would keep dialing the phone until I had moved them all to the second jar,” he told me.Within eighteen months, Dyrsmid was bringing in $5 million to the firm. By age twenty-four, he was making $75,000 per year—the equivalent of $125,000 today. Not long after, he landed a six-figure job with another company.Good Habits That Stick vs. Habits That FailWhen I asked Dyrsmid about the details of his habit, he simply said, “I would start calling at 8 a.m. every day. I never looked at stock quotes or analyst research. I also never read the newspaper for the entire time. If the news was really important, it would find me from other ways.”Trent Dyrsmid's story is evidence of a simple truth: Success is often a result of committing to the fundamentals over and over again.Compare Trent's results to where you and I often find ourselves. We want to be consistent with our workouts, but struggle to make it into the gym. We know we should write more Thank You notes or eat healthier meals or read more books, but can't seem to find the motivation to get it done. We'd like to achieve our goals, but still procrastinate on them.What makes the difference? Why do some good habits stick while others fail? Why did Trent's paper clip strategy work so well and what can we learn from it?The Power of a Visual CueI believe the “Paper Clip Strategy” works particularly well because it creates a visual trigger that can help motivate you to perform a habit with more consistency. I've heard from readers who have employed it in a variety of ways. One woman shifted a hairpin from one container to another whenever she wrote a page of her book. Another man moved a marble from one bin to the next after each set of push-ups.Making progress is satisfying, and visual measures—like moving paperclips or hairpins or marbles—provide clear evidence of your progress. As a result, they reinforce your behavior and add little bit of immediate satisfaction to any activity.Here are a few reasons visual cues work well for building new good habits…Visual cues remind you to start a behavior. We often lie to ourselves about our ability to remember to perform a new habit. (“I'm going to start eating healthier. For real this time.”) A few days later, however, the motivation fades and the busyness of life begins to take over again. Hoping you will simply remember to do a new habit is usually a recipe for failure. This is why a visual stimulus, like a bin full of paper clips, can be so useful. It is much easier to stick with good habits when your environment nudges you in the right direction.Visual cues display your progress on a behavior. Everyone knows consistency is an essential component of success
On today's Lunch with Norm, we discuss how to delegate your eCommerce business. We find out what kind of work an entrepreneur should start delegating first. Learn if virtual assistants should be doing a variety of tasks or stick to specialty. Serial entrepreneur, father, and husband Trent Dyrsmid is the founder of BrightIdeas.co, Flowster.app and a 7 figure eCommerce business. Trent is passionate about sharing his knowledge from almost 10 years of digital markets to make businesses scale. Trent's current company ranked 254 on the 2019 Inc 5000 list and 622 on the 2020 Inc 5000 list of America's of the Most Successful Private Companies. This episode is brought to you by Global Wired Advisors Global Wired Advisors is a leading Digital Investment Bank focused on optimizing the business sale process. Our approach combines decades of merger and acquisition experience with online and e-commerce expertise to increase the transactional value of your greatest asset. Maximizing the value of your company in a business sale is achieved through the full expression of its future potential. Choosing the right representation to provide this vision to the right buyer, means putting your future in focus. For More information visit https://globalwiredadvisors.com/ This episode is also brought to you by Sellerise. Take a deep dive into your business processes to make data-driven decisions and outperform the competition in an innovative way. Sellerise is a comprehensive solution for your everyday business needs with innovative tools like the PPC Dashboard, Smart Alerts, Review Requester, and Keyword Tracker. Everything you need to grow and scale your business is just one click away. Stand out from the crowd and conduct business whenever, wherever. Innovate your effort and work smarter, not harder. The difference is amazing. Sellerise is for professionals at every level of the business journey. Simply select the capabilities that best fit your needs. Visit https://www.sellerise.com This episode is brought to you by Zee Are you a private label seller looking to expand into larger markets internationally or need an experienced import partner to keep growing? Zee makes selling your Amazon products abroad easy with excellent import knowledge, door-to-door solutions, customer service and scalability. Streamline your import process with Zee today to increase profit margins and continue to scale. Ready to expand your ecomm empire and take your Amazon FBA Business global? Visit https://zee.co to learn more! This episode is also brought to you by .CLUB Domains .CLUB is the most used new top-level domain name and the perfect web address for your membership or subscription-based startup or business. Why? Because your customers are your CLUB! Grow your business with a domain name that instantly means membership and subscriptions. There are a lot of great domain name choices today, but if your business is about building a community of members around a product or service, there's no better URL than YourName.club. With 1.3 million registrations worldwide, there are already thousands of e-commerce sites using .CLUB. - great subscription businesses like Soap.club, Firstleaf.club and Coffee.club. You too can join the .CLUB today. Visit https://www.get.club. This episode is brought to you by Global Wired Advisors, Sellerise, Zee & .CLUB Domains.
Running one or several businesses is possible only if you have established processes in place. In this episode, process automation expert and Founder of Flowster Trent Dyrsmid talks about how SOPs contributed significantly to the growth of his businesses and has helped so many others. He shares some tips on building effective workflow and processes that will enable you to delegate effectively.Listen and learn!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODEApply to top growing company lists to get attention, funding, and customers.Focus on laying the foundation and building a team during the first year of your business.For the linear processes that don't require judgment that comes from years of experience, hire someone who doesn't have a ton of experience but can execute the process successfully.Establish a culture of delegating tasks properly to your company.Project management software is designed for things that change from time to time.Flowster, on the other hand, works efficiently to manage workflows with minimal changes.Recommended Podcast: Bigger Pockets Podcasthttps://www.biggerpockets.com/podcastToday's Guest:Trent Dyrsmid is a Process Automation Expert who helps agencies to scale faster. He is the Founder of Flowster. He is also the host of the EPIC podcast.Flowster is a process management application that provides agencies with pre-made business playbooks that take all the pain out of onboarding new employees (or virtual assistants) and then delegating work to them on an ongoing basis.Connect and learn more about Trent and Flowster here:Website: https://www.flowster.apphttps://www.brightideas.coLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trentdyrsmid/This month's sponsor is Oribi. The conversion-driven analytics platform that gives you valuable insights on your funnels, events, drop-offs, and channel attribution metrics with no coding required. Try Oribi for Free!We love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand! To learn more and how we can help, click here:https://mindfulmarketing.co/growthplan-applyIf you've been paying attention and your brand is ready to GROW, apply now to be the one new brand we take on this month!https://mindfulmarketing.co/apply
In this episode of Startup Hustle, Andrew Morgans and Trent Dyrsmid, Founder of Bright Ideas talk about how to create scalable systems. Find Startup Hustle Everywhere: https://linktr.ee/startuphustle This episode is sponsored by Full Scale: https://fullscale.io/ Learn more about Bright Ideas: https://brightideas.co/ Learn more about Marknology: https://www.marknology.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Trent Dyrsmid is a serial entrepreneur, a husband and father, and the founder of Bright Ideas. Bright Ideas is a podcast he started in 2010, when people didn't even know how to spell podcasting (let alone use podcast marketing as a business strategy). He's had nearly 10 years experience with digital marketing and eCommerce, and interviews eCommerce entrepreneurs and other fascinating people in that niche on his podcast. Profit magazine named Trent's company as Canada's Profit 100 Fastest Growing Companies for two years in a row before he sold it in 2008. Business in Vancouver magazine also named Trent a Top 40 under 40 entrepreneur. Bright Ideas Podcast Trent first started with writing. He quickly realized that in order to make his blogs successful, he was going to have to write a lot, and while he could write, and even wrote a book on top of the hundreds of blog posts, it was not his favorite thing to do. When one of his mentors and greatest inspirations started a podcast, Trent decided to start one too. He knew it would be an easy way to create content, which would then attract an audience to sell his stuff to. But something very unexpected happened, which led Trent to encourage virtually everyone to start a podcast. Trent believes that being a podcast host is the single greatest networking tool he's ever discovered. Podcast marketing enables you to email a complete stranger, set up a conversation, and extend an invitation to them to be on your side. Of course, it doesn't work every single time. If you email someone who is fairly famous, they're probably going to say no. They already have plenty of visibility on their own platform. Still, there are lots of people who like being on shows, and being asked questions. It's a way to begin building a relationship in a very efficient way. You can go to conferences, which is time consuming and expensive, and maybe you'll meet somebody interesting, but it's more luck-based. With a podcast, you can be very specific about who you want to reach out to, and how you utilize your resources. Lessons in Podcast Marketing Recently, Trent posted a YouTube video about some of the biggest lessons podcast marketing has taught him. Below are a few of the highlights: 1) Having an Editorial Calendar Planning your content in advance allows you to align any product launches with relevant content. Trent admits that before podcasting, he didn't utilize this, but now he considers it a vital tool for maximizing your efforts and content. He recommends asking yourself these questions: What am I going to produce, and why am I going to produce it? Who am I going to interview? Are there any other connections or opportunities I am missing? 2) Amplification Using Ads Trent believes his single greatest mistake was not putting ad dollars towards promoting the show. Early on, when there wasn't a whole lot of competition, it was relatively easy to get traction, but these days there's an endless number of shows, and the production quality of the shows has gone up. First of all, it's really effective to get on other people's shows, because you're tapping into an existing audience that is hopefully looking for more creators and content somewhat similar to what they're already consuming. This is a key component to podcast marketing. To truly succeed, you need to become proficient with advertising.Trent would dabble in it, and he would lose money every single time because he didn't really know what he was doing. There are very clear and well-defined best practices when it comes to creating campaigns, and it's a huge waste to stay ignorant in this area. 3) Investing in Equipment To keep up, you've got to make sure that you have good audio, which means no cheap microphones. Most people still listen to podcasts, rather than watching them. Making sure that you have really good audio, and that you're recording in a dedicated space to avoid interference like dogs barking is incredibly important. 4) YouTube For many years, Trent's show was audio only, and he did a survey at some point asking: Do you listen to the show, or do you watch the show? The vast majority of people said they listened to the show, and because there was a lot of extra work in producing the video version, he simply chose not to do it. Now, Trent has a full team, including a video editor, and while it's not easy to do, you eventually must get to the point where you have the systems, the people, and the teams to get on YouTube. YouTube is an incredibly powerful place, so if you're not putting your show on YouTube, you're just missing out on views. If you're going to go through the effort to create the content in the first place, you might as well try and get as many views and downloads as you can. Adventures in “Aha Moments” Trent has had two “aha moments” that have radically changed how he approaches his business. The first? Repurposing Content. When you produce a show, you get a 40 minute long piece of video, but very few people who haven't listened to your show before are going to listen to all of a 40 minute show. Especially if you don't get to the good stuff within the first 5 to 10 minutes of the show, these new listeners are not going to stick around. For this reason, Trent and his team developed a system that they call the “Social Media Content Engine.” Basically, they take the raw content, watch it through, and search for 15-32 second clips, 1 minute clips, and 5 minute clips of the best pieces of the conversation. They then follow their standard operating procedures to turn 1 piece of content into somewhere between 50 to 100 social media posts. In the beginning he didn't do this because, as one might imagine, the process sounds daunting. It sounds like an incredible amount of work, but if you have the right systems in place, and you employ a virtual assistant or two, they can be the ones to follow the systems and do the majority of the work. Trent goes into detail about this system in his published playbook, available for anyone who wants to use their system for content repurposing, all through Flowster. In the first week of using this content engine, they had a 78% increase in the number of social media posts with no more labor on Trent's part. They also had a 380% increase in engagements, and their engagement rate per post was 167% higher than before. The second “aha moment” was using paid amplification, or advertising. Much to his detriment, Trent had largely ignored advertising because he always incorrectly thought that if he produced enough great content, people would just find it. 10 years ago, you could get away with that to a certain degree, and for many, many years, he didn't have a real way to monetize his show, including sponsors. In truth, it simply hadn't occurred to him. In any case, Trent wasn't really in the selling/training courses space: he was the content creator! Anytime that he did dabble with trying to create any type of ad campaign, he would lose money, and it just seemed massively overwhelming. There's so many variables to test, and then how are you going to monetize it? Instead, Trent focused on the things that he knew how to do. For the last few years, thanks to the support of some affiliates, Trent really didn't need to worry that much about traffic. They were making a lot of money, and looking back, Trent labels this as the “fat, dumb, and happy” stage. This lasted until Trent was introduced to the idea of Rapid Testing: What problem is the most pressing problem that my target audience of business owners might want to buy a solution to, and what are the words that they use to describe that problem? Too many users churn out the software too quickly, which is the kiss of death for software, so many startup entrepreneurs fail for this reason. Then, who should he sell his material to? Using Canva or some type of app, you're going to make a square (800x800 pixels) and put it on some unusual background - two colors, or something that is going to interrupt people's pattern as they're scrolling. You don't want to use a picture of a girl or a car, just something unusual that will capture their attention for just a split second. Then, you're going to put a statement, just one short sentence on the ad. This is the sentence that describes the problem, or a problem that you think your potential target audience might have. For example: “I'm not getting enough leads.” “I'm having a hard time delegating work to my team.” “My team's letting work fall through the cracks.” “I don't have enough appointments in my calendar.” These statements create a level of curiosity to generate clicks. You're not looking for conversions, leads, or sales, just clicks. Using these statements, you need to make 1 ad per target audience. Pick a target audience between 1 and 5 million (Facebook pages help with finding this information). If it's more than 5 million, the data's not good. Now, run the ad set and see what happens. Here's what you're looking for: 400 impressions At least five clicks Cost per result at less than 50 cents If something gets 13 clicks on only 400 impressions, that tells you that this statement is covering a very real problem. Using this method, in the space of a week, you can test 100 to 400 different messages, or problem statements. Flowster Trent and his team started writing the code for Flowster in the summer/fall of 2017, and they spent a year writing code before they had their MVP. Flowster is essentially a thorough resource for startups, including a team ready for troubleshooting. In fall of 2018 it was finally released, but Flowster was never really marketed as an independent software company until recently. Flash forward to 2021, and Trent realized that he was doing a disservice to himself and the company by not marketing the software company as a standalone software company. Really, WEBS - the original collection of standard operating procedures they had to offer - was just one playbook. Now, they have tons of them, and they're creating more through partnerships all the time. Trent compared Flowster to Netflix: why would you want Netflix if there was only one movie? It would only be interesting to people who were interested in that movie. The team decided to add more “movies” and “TV shows” to appeal to a larger audience. What was the big problem Trent was trying to solve? He actually started it for himself, as a solution to the work that was slowing him down during the early stages. Trent realized that, in addition to owning the content, the standard operating procedures, he should probably own the software layer as well. That was why they decided to create Flowster. Podcast Marketing Tips for Entrepreneurs Scaling can be difficult (in fact, we talk about it a lot on The Jeff Bullas Podcast, including this interview with Andrew Barlow). Trent's tips focus on the simplest and best ways to succeed in scaling podcast marketing. 1) Hire an Assistant Trent wisely notes that if you don't have an assistant, you are the assistant. The very first thing that you should do is hire an assistant, whether they are virtual assistants, overseas, personal assistants, regardless of what job you need them to do, you need to get help. 2) Create Procedures Put systems in place so that when you hire people, they don't have to have experience in your business to know what you expect. All they need to do is follow instructions, and execute those procedures. Basic market research, looking up contact information, managing your inbox: whatever it is, look at what sucks up your time, and identify which of those things can be translated into a simple process for someone else to handle. For more from Trent, you can follow his wisdom for free through Twitter, or learn more about his work through any of the links already provided. Interested in more content like this? Check out The Jeff Bullas Show!
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
In this episode of Money Talks, Hugh interviewed serial entrepreneur, podcast host, and CEO of Flowster, Trent Dyrsmid. Flowster, is a process management app where people can come to get "playbooks" to help them build systems, and then easily delegate the ongoing operation of their systems and processes to their team. We discussed: 1) Trent's background, where he learned to cold call as a stock broker! 2) The genesis of Flowster and how it can help you small business 3) Trent's current views of small business and how to hit on important growth levers Hugh Meyer - https://instagram.com/hughmeyerofficial https://www.linkedin.com/in/hughmeyer/ Trent Dyrsmid - https://www.linkedin.com/in/trentdyrsmid https://twitter.com/TrentDyrsmid
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
Quick Links:The Agency Profitability Toolkit - Get the templates, formulas, and frameworks we've used with our consulting clients to help them double their profitability in under 60 days, absolutely free.For more information on our Agency Profitability Systems and Consulting, check out https://parakeeto.comLove the podcast? Leave us a review on the platform of your choice at this link.Guest Links:PodcastSpecial Parakeeto Offer including $300 of FREE processesFlowsterBright IdeasTrent's LinkedInAbout Trent:As you may (or may not be) aware; I pride myself on delivering energetic introductions to each guest we have on APP, so it's my absolute pleasure to give Trent the enthused-Marcel-intro-treatment, which goes a little something like this…A serial entrepreneur, husband, and father, Trent hosts the Bright Ideas Podcast. Additionally, he's founder of Flowster; a business process improvement application used by thousands of businesses globally, and ranked 254 on the 2019 Inc 5000 of America's Fastest-Growing Companies.When he's not running his businesses, you can find them careering around with his family, on dirt bikes and mountain bikes.
Trent Dyrsmid Company Name: Flowster Company url/domain http://flowster.app Company Linkedin Profile URL: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14433126/admin/ What does your company do in 5 words or less?: Workflow management software for eCommerce Bio: Trent Dyrsmid is a serial entrepreneur, husband, and father. In addition to hosting the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, he is the Founder of Flowster.app; a business workflow management application used by thousands of eCommerce businesses around the globe. In 2019, his eCommerce business ranked 254th on the 2019 Inc 5000 of America's Fastest Growing Private Companies.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
"When you have a relationship with a supplier, if you've done it correctly, you are one of only a finite number of sellers of their product...It's a relationship-driven business instead of a product-driven business. You must treat those relationships like gold." - Trent Dyrsmid, founder of BrightIdeas.co, Flowster.app and a 7 figure e-commerce businessJoin Trent Dyrsmid and Ben Schneider as they talk about dropshipping on Amazon, setting up an Amazon reseller store, transacting with product suppliers, and finding the winning product. In this episode, we are fortunate to have Trent explain the step-by-step process in profiting off your own created Amazon seller account. Not only has Trent studied Amazon's seller service from the inside out, he has spent his entire career looking for prospective suppliers with the winning products, and was able to convert small-scale e-commerce stores to profitable high-profile manufacturers. Episode Notes:Accelerate the growth of your E-Commerce business! To find out more about Trent Dyrsmid, click the following links:YouTube | Instagram | Twitter | WebsiteTo get more resources on setting up your own E-Commerce store and wholesale reseller Amazon business, click here for Trent's Wholesale eCommerce Business Systems (WEBS). Want to be an affiliate of Trent's Bright Ideas Co? Click hereTo know more about WEBS, click hereConnect with Ben on Instagram and on his website.Follow the podcast on Instagram @bllpodcastcomFor more information and to explore other episodes, click here.Email: hello@bllpodcast.com
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
SaaS Bootstrapping Lessons From Flowster CEO Trent Dyrsmid Are you looking to transform your eCommerce growth? Want to increase the efficiency, profitability, and value of your company? Today’s episode is for you! We are super excited to bring Trent Dyrsmid to the podcast today. He is the Founder and CEO of Flowster, which is a software company for eCommerce entrepreneurs to improve workflow automation through the creation and use of standard operating procedures. Through the use of their software, you can optimize execution through standard operating procedures, which are the lifeblood of today’s most successful organizations. If implemented effectively, they ensure every business process is executed exactly the same way, every time. They also improve accountability through an audit trail providing you with transparency into every aspect of your employees’ work. Teamwork is dreamwork, and by using this software, companies are able to allow team members to easily assign each other tasks, give due dates, upload files, and add comments to the work they've done — keeping everyone in the loop and your business running at peak efficiency. During today’s episode we talk to Trent more about Flowster, his journey from the beginning to where he is now, he shares his favorite automation tool, and so much more, so stay tuned and enjoy! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:41] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast! [00:35] How things are going with Trent and what he is up to. [01:13] Trent shares more about his first business, what it was, and how that lead to where he is today. [04:18] More about the process of how he started to develop his standard operating procedure. [05:50] Trent talks numbers on his first company. [07:00] Trent elaborates about Flowster, creating processes in a digital, interactive checklist. [08:15] Why he decided to market to e-commerce customers. [09:15] What the Flowster software offers — facilitating the process of delegation and more. [10:15] Trent walks us through an example of how the software functions and what the “magic button” entails. [11:55] How many customers they have and we talk about the different pricing of their services. [15:00] Trent talks about his podcast and the value it’s given to him. [16:22] He shares his favorite tool: Automation Zapier and his favorite Zap. [16:54] His favorite book: The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. [17:27] Where to find more about Trent and his business. Resources From The Interview: Trent Dyrsmid on LinkedIn Flowster Zapier The Bright Ideas Brand Must read book: The E-Myth Leave Some Feedback: What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes Get the non-iTunes RSS Feed Connect with Eric Siu: Growth Everywhere Single Grain Eric Siu on Twitter
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
I’m an ideas guy, not a process guy. Which is why I’m so excited to share the wisdom of a fellow entrepreneur, Trent Dyrsmid, with a totally different approach to business than I have. I love the feeling of building something new, figuring out how to make it work and getting it out into the world. EXPLAINING how I did it or how to make it better? Not my bag. Which, to be honest, makes scaling a business harder than it should be. I know, rationally, that SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) are crucial for business success... but I’ll be damned if I have the time or patience to build them. Enter our hero, Trent. An unassuming Canadian transplant, Trent is a different kind of entrepreneur than I am. He's a process nerd who figured out how to make creating...and USING... SOP's easy. I know this because we are now making all sorts of SOP's with his baller app, Flowster. Resources & Links From This Episode: - Check Out Flowster - Connect With Trent on LinkedIn _________ About Our Guest: Trent Dyrsmid is a serial entrepreneur, husband, and father. He is the founder of BrightIdeas.co, Flowster.app and a 7 figure eCommerce business. With almost 10 years of experience with digital marketing and eCommerce, Trent eagerly shares his knowledge with others. Profit Magazine named Trent’s first company as one of Canada’s PROFIT 100 fastest growing companies for two years in a row before he sold it in 2008. Business in Vancouver magazine named Trent a Top 40 Under 40 Entrepreneur. Trent’s current company ranked 254 on the 2019 Inc 5000 list and 622 on the 2020 Inc 5000 list of America’s of the Most Successful Private Companies. _________ About The Host Ken 'Spanky' Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Ad Zombies, the go-to copywriters for businesses worldwide. With clients on every continent (except Antarctica) Ad Zombies writes words that sell anything. Spanky built his now-iconic brand from zero to seven figures by helping others with their challenges and bringing value to their businesses and lives. He's also the CEO of EntreGrow, a business built to help other business owners and leaders overcome their challenges to grow & scale. Ken personally coaches clients in his Inner Circle program. Spanky is a board/advisory member of Habitat for Humanity and a highly sought after public speaker, a bestselling author, a father of 5, and an accidental pilot. Grab a copy of his best-selling book: Jab Till It Hurts: How Following Gary Vaynerchuk's Advice Helped Me Build A 7-Figure Brand on Amazon. _ Connect with him @spankymoskowitz: - Facebook: https://facebook.com/spankymoskowitz - Instagram: https://instagram.com/spankymoskowitz - Twitter: https://twitter.com/spankymoskowitz - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spankymoskowitz/ Need great Ad Copy, Emails, or other words that sell anything for your business? Great! Ad Zombies can help https://www.adzombies.com Want to learn how to do what the Ad Zombies do? We can help with that, too! https://learn.adzombies.com/
Company growth is not just one thing. It takes the right product/service, the right timing, and the right people. It also takes the right systems. I can attest that systems grow your business. I would not have a podcast today without the right systems that my team executes weekly to keep the content following. Today's guest is Trent Dyrsmid, CEO and host at Bright Ideas. Trent has been so successful in developing systems that he has another company Maverick Media Ventures, that made the 2019 Inc 5000 List at #254. Trent and I look at the power of systems to grow your business. We look at SOPs and how he aligns his team with them. Get the show notes for Systems Grow Your Business with Trent Dyrsmid at Bright Ideas Click to Tweet: Listening to an amazing episode on Growth Think Tank featuring Trent Dyrsmid at Bright Ideas with me your @GeneHammett http://bit.ly/gttTrentDyrsmid #SystemsGrowYourBusiness #Leadership #Culture #GHepisode648 #GTTepisodes #Podcasts Give Growth Think Tank a review on iTunes!
The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life
Trent Dyrsmid is a serial entrepreneur, husband, and father. In addition to hosting the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, he is the Founder of Flowster.app; a business workflow management application used by thousands of eCommerce businesses around the globe. In 2019, his eCommerce business ranked 254th on the Inc 5000.
Trent Dyrsmid has been sourcing products and selling on Amazon for over 4 years, during that time he's also got very into traffic driving, hosted the brilliant Bright Ideas Podcast, AND (which is what we're chatting about today) mastered the process of systematising your business in order to take the stress and cost out of scaling. He's got so good at systematising that in 2019 his Amazon business ranked 254 on the Inc 5000 list. Get Trent's amazing Flowster offer at https://flowster.app/masterplan/ (Flowster.app/masterplan) Get all the links and resources we mention at https://ecommercemasterplan.com/podcast/?utm_source=captivate&utm_medium=episodenotes (eCommerceMasterPlan.com) This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Is something broken in your business? Not reaching your growth goals like you'd hoped? Then you likely have a systems or delegation problem. My guest today is Trent Dyrsmid. Trent is the host of the Bright Ideas podcast as well as the founder of an Amazon reseller business that just ranked #254 on the Inc. 5000 list. He is also the co-founder of Flowster.app a premier workflow management tool for eCommerce businesses. He knows a thing or two about systems, delegation, and growth. He's now fully delegated himself out of his Amazon reseller business as it continues to scale rapidly. How does he do it? Clear systemization and delegation. On the show, we talk about one of his favorite quotes from the Honorary Chairman of Toyota - “We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes – while our competitors get average or worse results from brilliant people managing broken processes” ~ Fujio Cho, Honorary Chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation In this episode we cover: What to systematize first - a 2-pronged test When you have a systems problem vs. a people problem What to delegate vs. what to do yourself Why and when you should delegate something you're really good at The difference between process management and project management How Flowster helps eCommerce companies with process management Plus more!
If you have been in business for any amount of time and have not begun to create systems and processes for you and your team, this is a must-listen episode. Trent Dyrsmid, the founder of Flowster, joins me to share how Flowster came about and why his processes have been instrumental in his business growth. Trent has been starting and building businesses for over a decade now. While they haven’t all been profitable, he’s learned one very important secret to success. Create systems and processes and delegate as quickly as possible. As a business owner, your time is one of your most valuable commodities. Why are you wasting time finding leads, finding prospects, and finding product? Do it once. Document the process. Show others how to do it and then work on the other more pressing parts of your business. This mindset is what he used to create Flowster. Listen as he shares the history of his businesses and why Flowster has really become a crowning achievement in his career. Again, if you’re not already creating systems and processes, download, bookmark, and relisten to this podcast, and then go get Flowster and take back your time. In This Episode: [00:28] Welcome Trent Dyrsmid to discuss creating processes from scratch. [01:50] Trent shares a bit about his background and how he got into entrepreneurship. [03:40] Hear the story behind the beginnings of Flowster and where Trent wants to see it go. [09:57] How did Trent identify what could and should become a process in his businesses? [11:41] What kinds of things can be templatized in wholesale? [14:04] Trent lists out the number of steps involved in generating leads in product sourcing. [17:49] Flowster has been built to make processes insanely easy to follow and develop so that your team can drop in and start working immediately. [19:42] After the first 29 steps, there are several additional steps to help create correspondence and add new leads into the CRM. [20:57] The process templates are built out for each stage of the lead generation flow. [23:16] How quickly did he have his processes up and running in the first five months? [25:35] What does he like to be involved in with the business? What does freedom look like for him now? [28:25] He uses this same mindset across all of his businesses. [30:10] Learn more about his process for hiring and managing purchasing and reorders in his Amazon business. [32:27] Flowster allows you to build your own workflows or download existing templates. [34:44] What are Trent’s thoughts on workflow creation and pricing? [37:26] Connect with Trent and learn about his favorite book and why. Links and Resources: Wizards of Amazon Wizards of Amazon Courses Wizards of Amazon Meetup Text “Amazon” to 69922 Wizards of Amazon on Facebook Wizards of Amazon on Instagram Wizards of Amazon on LinkedIn Wizards of Amazon on Twitter Flowster The Bright Ideas eCommerce Podcast trent@brightideas.co The E-Myth by Michael Gerber Podcast editing and show notes by Pro Podcast Solutions.
We often discuss is the importance of the person behind the business. When leaders learn the value of their business and set goals for success they are positioning themselves to profit, whether they plan to stay in or sell. Today we are discussing standard operating procedures for leaders that run different types of ecommerce businesses. Our guest realized from day zero of being in business that creating SOPs helps business owners stay in the game longer with a focus on working on the business rather than in it. Trent Dyrsmid is the founder of BrightIdeas.co and host of the BrightIdeas podcast, where he has interviewed numerous CEOs, marketers, and entrepreneurs and has gotten them to share the processes they use to achieve results. Trent is also the owner of an Amazon ecommerce business and creator of a SAAS tool called Flowster, an app that helps business owners track, manage, and delegate business processes. Episode Highlights: How Trent got his start and how Bright Ideas got an INC 5000 254th fastest growing business ranking. The Amazon reseller model and how Trent makes it work via SOP. Trent's mantra of "document and delegate" and when he realized this was the key to success. Feedback loops he employs to optimize the procedures. Hiring challenges and how he's affronted them. How Trent's app Flowster was born and how it works. Ways to introduce new elements in the existing SOP for any workflow. Flexibility in the SOP templates. Implementing SOP with a team not accustomed to this type of work culture. Advantages of SOPs for sellers and buyers Transcription: Joe: So Mark one of the things we always talk about is how important the person behind the business is when they do eventually sell. And the fact that when they learn to value their business it actually becomes much more fun to operate and run because they've got some goals set out in the future. And one of the things that helps them are SOPs and above that, we had Norm for our own podcast, it was quickly shot up to the top 10 podcasts that we've done. And I understand you've got back to that and had Trent, and I'm going to get his name wrong, Trent Dyrsmid, is that how you pronounce it? Mark: Dyrsmid; yeah. Joe: On the podcast and he's got some great SOP stuff both for people that run SaaS, content, Amazon businesses, all sorts of different aspects. What was the general call about? Mark: Yeah. I saw the Norm for our episode and that was one of the ones that we did early on that really took off because Norm was running an eight-figure business largely on the backs of SOPs and virtual assistants; VAs which is really cool to see somebody be able to do that. Well, Trent Dyrsmid is very similar in that regard. His company was ranked on Forbes 5000 as the 254th fastest-growing company in the US. Joe: Wow. Mark: Amazon based business, reselling other people's products and just exploded and I asked him and I said when did you start to realize that you need to put SOPs in place? Day 0; it's like I don't have any special talents other than being the big idea guy and picking the direction but as far as executing those things that's on my team to do and my job is to give them the processes to be able to do that and to give them the tools to be able to execute on these ideas and this general direction. A really, really disciplined entrepreneur in this regard. He's not just an Amazon seller either he's got his own podcast. I was actually a guest on his podcast BrightIdeas.co. He's got a SaaS company Flowster.app which is an SOP software. I've played around with Flowster, a pretty cool SaaS product here where you can develop and roll out to your team a complete operating procedure for pretty much anything. So you can create this nice collaboration but what really sets it apart is there's this entire marketplace what he found was happening among both when he started his company and also once he started coaching some other people is they're asking how do you do this part of your business? What's the process that you use here? And instead of writing it down in word and all that sort of thing and trying to transport over he said well there should actually be a marketplace where people can collaborate and sell their best processes to each other or give them away for free. Most of the stuff in this marketplace is free so it's kind of cool on that. But what we focused on Joe is not a pitch for a Flowster; I think there's a lot of ways, you and I talked about just put a video together as just kind of a minimum type of SOP. We talked a lot about how do you write an SOP that is specific enough to really tell people how to do things, will be adopted by your team. How do you make it adopted by your team, and how do you create it general enough so that it can absorb differences when people are seeing maybe exceptions to what the standard process would be. Why is this so important in the process of building a company and can you actually scale a business to eight figures like he did very quickly without them and the answer is no. Joe: Yeah, and that's why so many people sell because they take it as far as they can and then they have to bring on staff and get into areas they're not as comfortable with and I think these SOPs will help those folks hold on longer and get a higher value. I think SOPs will help buyers as well when they buy a business and take it over and if there's no SOPs in place they can do that and instill more confidence in the next buyer and grow that business to the next level. So let's get to it. Mark: Trent, thank you so much for coming on the Quiet Light Podcast. I'm super excited to have you on. I recently appeared on your podcast. Somebody actually reached out to me recently about that episode as well so that's always an encouraging sign when people contact you after appearing on some of these podcasts. But I'm excited to have you on today because you've got so much experience in the world of online business and you cover a lot of materials. We're going to be looking at just one area that you covered pretty heavily and that would be SOPs; procedures and operating procedures to implement things. But you cover a ton of territory and a lot of the bases of what you do is based on your success with your company. And congratulations on Inc 5000 ranking that you had recently. Why don't we start; just give us a little bit of background on yourself and also where your company was ranked recently in Inc 5000? Trent: Sure. So the company was ranked number 254 which was a very pleasant surprise. And as you might guess it's a wonderful bit of social proof to kind of reinforce what my whole brand message is about which is systematizing your business so that you can delegate a lot of the work that you really shouldn't be doing to other people on your team. And the net result of that, of course, is an accelerating growth rate. So how did all this start for me? I've been an entrepreneur for two years now. When I started my first company back in '01 I really had no idea what I was doing. I knew how to sell but that was it. And I figured everything else out over an eight-year period. And it was pretty painful but thankfully I was able to get a seven-figure exit out of that business. And that put me on a track to have a bit of time and bandwidth and so forth to figure out this online business thing and I've been making my living online now for about nine years and roughly just over three years ago I switched from being a service business; I'd been running a digital agency for a number of years because my podcast built an audience and people would reach out and can you help me with this and can you help me with that and we were making a decent living doing that. But the last couple of years have been just a stratospheric kind of change up the hockey stick and it started with this e-commerce business. So we started a business three years ago where we would partner with US manufacturers to sell their products on Amazon ideally as one of their exclusive sellers. So in doing so, we were able to avoid all of the risk of launching our own brands and the time that it takes to do that and I like low risk. I love Warren Buffet's number one rule Don't lose the money and rule number two is see rule number one. And so the reseller model is a very, very low-risk model because you're buying proven products. But the problem with the reseller model is there's lots of sellers on each product and so oftentimes the margin can go away. So instead of making money you just end up kind of getting your money back which is pointless, so by forming these relationships with the brands directly and getting them to kick off all the other sellers or having a very small list of approved sellers that actually can be a very profitable model. The challenge is finding these suppliers require a great deal of grunt work; massive, like you, can't automate it all. There's just a bunch of labor because you need to send hundreds of emails a week to hundreds of suppliers. And what made me a little bit for lack of a better word famous in this particular industry was just how quickly we were able to scale the business. We went from doing 0 to over $100,000 a month in five months. We did at one point one million in the first year and we grew at 20% per quarter for eight consecutive quarters which was a huge contributing factor obviously to being 5000 at Ford. And how did I do all that? Well, that's the secret sauce. And essentially what I did was I realized I can't be the one doing all this labor. So when I launched the business rather than sitting down to do I sit down to document. And as soon as I'd created documents for all these; like I would do it one time or maybe two times and I would make my operating procedure while I was doing the thing and we would delegate the thing and never ever do it again. And that was a huge, huge advantage over everyone else in the space who was really kind of trying to do it all themselves. Mark: Yeah and I know we've got an episode a while ago with Norm Farrar. I don't know if you know Norm but the entire episode was how he grew an e-commerce business to over 10 million dollars on the strength of doing exactly what you're talking about; hiring the VA's and putting in strong SOPs in place so that the procedures are what you're working on rather than trying to master every little aspect of your business yourself and run the day-to-day. And I think procedures; in my world, in my opinion, I think a lot of entrepreneurs see procedures as important but they don't necessarily put the time into the procedures with a business so I want to delve into that a little bit. When you're growing this business when was the moment where you switched over and thought I should really be putting my time into writing awesome procedures for people to follow? Trent: Day 0 because I'm not a first time CEO, I had started to drink the Kool-Aid back in my very first business that I started in '01, somewhere in maybe '03 or '04 or it could have been '05, somewhere in that period of time I read E-Myth by Michael Gerber and my life as an entrepreneur was transformed at that moment. And I said to my co-founder at the time; I said I want a written procedure for absolutely everything our engineering team does. And then I handled writing procedures for what I was doing on the sales and marketing side and that business was twice ranked as a Profit 100 fastest growing company in Canada. And so I got a decent exit out of it for a relatively small business. And so for me having documented procedures was just kind of normal. So when I started my business on Amazon I never thought well I'm just going to go and do this and get really proficient at it and then maybe I'll make a training video or maybe I'll have a training session for somebody else. I don't think that's an efficient way to eliminate and delegate it all for a whole bunch of different reasons and so procedures were written literally from Day 1. Mark: So tell me how you go about writing your procedures and starting this and my first question is if you're not proficient in it how do you write it? Trent: So thankfully I did have a bit of a mentor in really a bit of a mentor; not really a bit of a mentor, I had a mentor in that business. I'd interviewed a guy by the name of named Dan Matters on my show and that's how I discovered this whole wholesale model and he has a training course which is a really high-quality course for me. So I had access to his material and I also had access to Dan because he'd been a guest on the show. And so I foundationally understood what I needed to do. And so as I mentioned before I would just start doing what his training told me to do and then I would document it as I was doing it. Mark: So when you're developing a procedure for a new task I mean you obviously we're staying off somebody else's work to some extent; I mean you were taking some inspiration but if you come across something that you haven't dealt with before especially like in the Amazon world I'm sure there are elements there that you needed to come up with, what sort of feedback loops do you employ or do you employ feedback loops to be able to maximize and optimize some procedures? Trent: Yeah absolutely we do. So a perfect example of that is I recently for my software company, a content marketing SEO is a huge focus as a part of our growth. And I've never been an SEO expert and so I wasn't really a keyword research expert and I had never used this tool called Ahrefs before; Ahrefs is a wonderful tool. And they provide training videos. So I would watch these videos but rather than just kind of sit and consume it and take sort of random notes over the period of the video I kept hitting the pause button, pause button, pause button and I would take screenshots of what they were explaining in the video. And at the same time in my Flowster software which is where I create all my standard operating procedures, I'm literally typing out the instructions that they're giving me and then I'm taking screenshots from the videos. Because my goal is this I want to; I don't about you but I can't watch a ten-minute training video and remember all the details, it's just too much. Not only that I only want to do it once or maybe twice and then I want to delegate it. So what am I going to do; ask somebody else to watch the training video and they have the same problem as me and what if they interpret the video differently than me? Because the training videos they kind of give you guidelines and I have to choose of those guidelines well how exactly do we want to do it? So by the time; a 10-minute training video would probably take me an hour and a half to turn that, to repurpose that content into my standard operating procedure which is a checklist essentially, it's a step by step by step do this, here's how you do this and do this, here's how you do that, do this, here's how you do that. And by the time I was done now I had a way that I never had to watch the training video again. Anyone that I was going to delegate that task to never has to watch the training video because the procedure is broken out so clearly in the document. And so that's how you can create a standard operating procedure for something you've literally never done before. Mark: Right. So you would start with somebody else's training video. Break that up into basically an outline and a step by step process in order to do that. When you're delegating procedures how do you identify who you're delegating something to? For example, I've talked to entrepreneurs who want to delegate a task but it just doesn't seem to fit the current team member and hiring somebody new for that doesn't really make sense. What have you done in the past when you've run into these smaller jobs and tasks that should be delegated but maybe they don't have a great home? Trent: It's an interesting question and I don't know that I've really run into that scenario because I live my life every single day thinking about what can I eliminate from my workflow and in order to eliminate it I need to document it and delegate it so I don't really think; I don't see anything in my business aside from; so as a CEO I see my job as working on the business. I'm the one who's supposed to go get the Big Ideas. I'm supposed to come up with the big vision. I'm supposed to build the team and help them to define and execute on a strategy. So that's the high-value activity and the minute I get sucked down into working in the business that high-value activity suffers. So I'm a delegating theme. So you said well what happens if I can't find somebody? I'll find somebody. I'll hire another virtual assistant or I'll hire an employee or I'll give it to an existing employee; like for most of the day to day, repetitive processes that are part of working in the business somebody else can do it. Like I'm not the genius of the universe that oh I'm the only guy that can do this; I don't really see it that way. Now, are there occasionally tasks that are somewhat non-repetitive, like they only happen every once in a while and they require judgment that comes from experience in addition to following a process? Well, I'm less likely to delegate those to somebody else because the return on investment of doing so is going to be slim. But for those highly repetitive tasks that are every day or every week if you spend that; in my case, I spend an hour and a half making a video for how to use and do keyword research on Ahrefs, well guess what? How many times is that going to get done for every single blog post that my software company publishes which is three a week? Just think of how much time I saved myself. Mark: Yeah. Oh absolutely. I mean that makes a lot of sense. That makes complete sense. You mentioned earlier; I want to go back a little bit to what you mentioned with Flowster and also how you got started. You leveraged knowledge of your mentor and some of the procedures that he put together to be able to scale up pretty quickly. And this is kind of the idea behind Flowster and I know this is a full disclosure, this is your business, this is something that you're growing right now a really cool software that really focuses on workflow especially in the e-commerce realm. Can you tell us a little bit about Flowster and how you can use Flowster to be able to leverage other people's experience? Trent: Sure. So the thing about like when I very first started out to create my procedures they were in a Google Doc because I didn't know any better. I thought well that would be a great place for them. They're easy to update and I can share them and so forth. And then over time we realized that that wasn't terribly efficient and so we moved our content into a competitor software application. And then as a result of speaking at an event I ended up becoming someone that sells SOPs. I was speaking to one of Dan's events and there was hundreds of people in the audience and I'm talking about SOPs and they all say hey I love it, I don't want to make them though can I buy yours? So we started selling ours and that's why Flowster got created. And the functionality of the software is really; because really you have two pieces when it comes to workflow process management. You have your content which is the set of instructions. Think of it like the recipe book. You want to bake a chocolate cake it's on page 68, flip to page 68, bake the cake. But what happens when you have multiple cake bakers baking cakes and they all have different due dates and they all work in different places so you have some issues about workflow management. And so what the software does is it allows you to say; so we have in our vernacular we have what we call an SOP template and then we have a [inaudible 00:19:02.3]. So the SOP template is like the master copy of how to do the thing. So we'll call it in my world one of the things I produce a lot of these podcast episodes; like this SOP template for podcast episodes well in the week that I recorded episodes, I might record 4 or 6ix episodes. So now that's 4 or 6 workflows each workflow being for one episode. Well if I have; and I have various people on my team who are involved in the post-production process of taking those raw recordings like you and I are doing right now and then turning it into an episode and then getting it on social media and running ads for it and do all of the things that we've got to do. So that's all defined in the workflow and then various portions of that workflow get assigned out to various people on my team with differing due dates. So the software provides you the ability to do all of that delegation and give deadlines and so forth and everybody gets notifications in their inbox or they can just look at the calendar and see what to do. Because the more people that you have on your team and the more concurrent workflows that you have going like how do you manage all that? How do I know Mark if I've delegated something to you and I've told you I need it done by Thursday; if I just sent you an email saying hey reference the Google Doc, see the instructions, make sure it's done by Thursday if you don't finish it by Thursday I'm not going to remember that by any stretch of the imagination. So I need us closing the loop system. So that is one of the primary pieces of value that the software does. But aside from that I actually have one thing that I like even better and I call it the magic button but it's really the edit button. So remember I mentioned how my job's to go and get the big ideas etcetera, etcetera? So I'm not a mastermind weekend this past weekend in San Diego and I'm getting a lot of big ideas and some of those ideas I realized I need to implement those in my workflow because they're really great ideas. I don't want to forget them. Without the software and without the standard operating procedures I would be faced with the challenge of having to change the hardest thing in the world and that's people's habits. I'd have to sit down. I'd have to explain to them and have meetings and tell people that this is the way they need to do it now and then hope and pray that they actually make that happen which as you well know the human habit is really hard to change; that would be difficult. Thankfully in the software so I learned that I wanted to create; I'll give you a specific example, for my podcast I want to now create a little 1-minute ad and I want to retarget my audience on Facebook to say hey I just recorded this episode with Mark and it was really awesome because of this, this, this, this, and this. So I fire up my SOP template for producing a podcast, I hit the edit button, I go and I make those changes, I hit save, the software says would you like to update all the active workflows based upon this change? I say yes. Well, guess what? That new idea is now going to get implemented in every single workflow that is active at that point in time. So with essentially no effort on my part this new idea or the strategy of this process has literally been pushed out to everybody in my organization just like that. And for me, it's the best part of the software because you're able to have your team collectively get more efficient, smarter, and more effective over time. Those ideas that you pick up don't get lost. They don't just stay in the notebook they actually become reality. Mark: When implementing a new idea like that do you find it ever causes confusion among your team? Or let's say that they've been doing the blog production workflow for the past two years and they know the steps that they may not even need to consult the software because they've done it. They know that I do keyword research and then I do this and then I do step 3 and step 4 and so maybe they're doing this independent of the software. Have you ever run into a situation where your team trips up on something like that? Trent: They're going to have questions. So it's a part of our culture and it's a part of our DNA. People know that the workflows are always changing and they're always being updated and it's just like in our company no one would go and try and drink a glass of water without a cup of water. You'd just be weird. The same thing with our workflows; everybody understands that everything happens by logging into the software first. Looking at the workflow, following the workflow, you're not supposed to do anything by memory. Now does that mean that you're not going to get questions? No, you're absolutely going to get questions. And all questions means that you didn't provide clear enough instructions. So when I get questions I then think okay well how can I update my workflow or my SOP template and in turn the workflows so that that particular question doesn't get asked again. And if you've written great procedures and you've provided enough detail you really won't get very many questions. I like to think of it like the mom tests or all of our moms are not particularly tech-savvy when I'm writing workflow I think to myself is there sufficient detail not only in the what to do but how to do each of those what's that my mom go through this and probably get it all right without asking me any questions. Mark: You answered my next question a little bit here but maybe we can expand in that a little bit. In the world of programming there is this idea of coupling, right? You can be either loosely coupled or tightly coupled. And what it basically means is a program can either be loosely coupled; it's very broad and allows for a lot of different possibilities and tight coupling is very specific as to how you do things. And there's benefits and drawbacks to both. You want to be somewhere in the middle in the world of programming probably my old days when I used to write code here. But I love these kinds of; writing and SOP I would imagine that there's something similar there, right? If you're too specific and they run across an exception they're going to wonder what should happen here because the SOP is specific. If it's too broad then you end up getting people doing things all sorts of different ways. Do you have any tips to find that sweet spot in the middle of where you can be nicely of both sides there? Trent: So the SOPs themselves are pretty tightly coupled. However now we go back to the whole hiring aspect. Ideally, I'm looking to hire people especially in the more senior roles who have a higher level of expertise in a given topic than I do. And the loose coupling as I say to them look you now own these SOP templates in your department. It is your job to improve them over time so that the people who report to you when they are doing these workflows that they're able to follow them and you're able to improve them over time and that has worked very well for us. And it also, of course, frees me up from having to be the guy that writes every single SOP. Because there's lots of stuff like for example in my e-commerce business that my wife runs on a day to day basis, there's lots of stuff I've never done but we have SOPs for it all because somebody else wrote them. Mark: Yeah well on that one of the things; so I've played around with Flowster app and one of the things I love about it is the marketplace that you have. The ability for people to contribute in SOPs that have worked well and for somebody else to come in and say you know what I really need right now what I could really use well right now but let's go use an example, how to use Ahrefs for keyword research. This is one of the SOPs with new marketplace. So if you've never done this before and don't want to sit there and write your own procedure or you don't know where to start you can use this marketplace. In your past, growing the businesses that you've grown; I mean you've grown e-commerce businesses, Amazon businesses, SaaS businesses, a podcast, I mean you've got a really wide range of online experience here, how much have you been able to draw on other people's materials? What role has that played would you say in the growth of some of these properties? Trent: Oh massive. Honestly, my secret of being a podcaster is yes it is nice to have an audience and as I'm sure you're already well aware it's the world's best networking tool and it also allows me to get free advice from really smart people in other areas. So yesterday was a perfect example. Yesterday I interviewed a woman by the name of Erin Corn. Erin worked for Facebook. She worked for Instagram and she worked for Amazon. So do you think she's got some skills? Absolutely she does. And particularly in the area of online advertising which is one of my big focuses for 2020. So at the end of that interview, I'm saying to Erin, hey Erin I think we should collaborate. And I think you should develop a whole bunch of SOPs around advertising on Facebook and Instagram; something I am not an expert in. We'll figure out how we can monetize that knowledge to your benefit and to my benefit going forward. So the whole idea of the marketplace is when people come to Flowster nobody wants to build an SOP from scratch. It's just a lot of work. And I was willing to suffer through it but not too many other people are. So the marketplace allows to come in to buy; so there's free ones you can download and then you can edit them to your heart's content. If you're a creator like me you can put your own in the marketplace and you can sell them to other people. And I've generated millions of dollars in the last two years in sales of SOPs for Amazon sellers. So there is a huge market for pre-made standard operating procedures and that's the big reason why we created the marketplace. I thought to myself there's all these other experts, there's all these other companies who would benefit from having SOPs that they could either give away or sell to their audience like a software company. We've formed partnerships with software companies for example. We've got one happening with a major player in the Amazon space by the name of Viral Launch because I said to them; I said look if you're only providing training videos to your new users you're putting a pretty significant burden on them because much like me with Ahrefs I had to watch the videos over and over again and I got to take notes and it just sucks. It's not an efficient way to learn highly detailed processes. So we're now collaborating with them to create standard operating procedures for how to get the most out of their software. And they're going to tell their 200,000 email subscribers about those. So how does that benefit us? Well it benefits their users, it benefits them as a company, and it benefits me as a platform. And so if anyone is listening to this who runs or owns a software company or you're an expert in a particular niche I definitely invite you to reach out and talk to me about some type of collaboration because that's a huge part of our growth strategy going forward. And for everyone who comes to Flowster the more and more content that's there; think of it a few years down the road like the Amazon of SOPs. No matter what business that you're in you can come there and you could SOPs that they might not be perfect but they're 80% good enough and you can hit the edit button and tweak the areas that aren't exactly the way you want and you're off to the races and it's so much better than creating it from scratch. Mark: Yeah I mean especially if you've never written it before and don't know. We talked about the idea of this loose and tight coupling; how do you find that sweet spot, well, follow somebody else's lead like somebody who's written one that's really successful. And I think for the audience listening here I know a lot of you guys have SOPs in place, why not share some of these and also use it as a revenue-generating aspect to your business especially if it's something that's tried and true. Of course, unless you think the SOP is something where you want to keep it proprietary but there's a lot of common SOPs that would be really good to share. Trent: There really is and if someone's running an agency as an example let's say your minimum retainer is $5,000 a month and you're on a classic line or like well we can't really afford that. Well if you don't have a down-sell they're gone; you generated zero. But if you say well you can't really afford that I'll tell you what we have a collection of SOPs and you can buy those for 2,500 bucks or we'll pick a number out of the air. At least you're giving the opportunity for A. to capture some revenue that's going to be 100% gross margin because it's kind of like selling software, build it once sell it a thousand times and B. more than likely as that buyer or that customer starts using your stuff you're at least giving them the opportunity to come back to the trough later on and say well actually now we're ready to put you on retainer because these are great but I don't actually want to do all this work and I want to hire people to do this work and you're opening a door that wasn't necessarily previously open to you. Mark: Right. Just a couple more questions for you. And this one here I think would apply to a lot of the people that are listening. You said that you were SOP heavy from Day 0; I'm sorry not Day 1, Day 0. How do you implement in your experience and maybe you haven't had to do this; maybe this can be difficult to answer but how would you implement SOPs with a team that is not used to following SOPs especially when you have a step by step software and you want them to live in that SOP on a day to day basis? Trent: So yes that will be more of a challenge because there is a cultural shift and I think the way to do that; there's a couple of ways, first and most when the SOPs, so you got to get the SOPs created. So as the boss I mean maybe you could create them all yourself but that wouldn't necessarily be the most efficient. But you might start off with creating SOPs for your direct reports and you're just saying hey look this is how it's done. I'm going to start assigning you these things; this weekly recurring thing or whatever and you're ingraining your direct reports into using and becoming dependent upon the software. And then you tell them alright so now for your subordinates who have to do this, this, and this over the next 30 days you have to develop 8 SOPs or 10 SOPs and if you don't you're just not going to fit in the company and you're going to get fired. That would be the way I would do it because I'm a pretty direct leader. If I have my culture and you're not in my culture then you're not on my team. Other folks are probably going to take maybe a softer approach to it and I don't know that I'm the best; I know then I am not the best expert on leading cultural change because I didn't do this with 50 people on staff already and then saying okay guys we're going to start drinking this SOP Kool-Aid. Mark: Yeah I just like to wrap up here and then ask you one final question but you mentioned early on that a big influence for you was Michael Gerber's book E-myth and I read that book and I can; everything you're talking about stems from what he wrote in that book and so it makes complete sense. So if you want to delve deeper into why SOPs and really I think sort of a philosophical look at how you build and scale a business and the hiring models that you would follow there, that would be a good foundation for anyone that's really going into this world. I think the product itself is fantastic. We preach a lot at Quiet Light Brokerage when talking about building value in an online business. One of the key pillars that we talk about is transferability. What's really important with transferability? Well having procedures written out. And for a lot of people it's intimidating so we just say just do a video recording if nothing else; just kind of a minimum [inaudible 00:34:21.6] product but how much greater would it be if you actually had everything written down in steps with timelines, with due dates and you could apply it to a team and literally just plug and play. A fantastic product and something that would really increase the value of a business just based on the fact that that you have all these procedures written and a buyer doesn't have to come in and try and figure out processes on their own. They already exist. If somebody wants to check out Flowster what recommendations or do you have anything for them to check out first? Trent: I do. I put together a page just for your audience. They can get to it at BrightIdeas.co/quietlight and on that page, I will put a promotional code and along with a couple of links. So there's one of our products that we sell in the marketplace, we sell it for $299 and it's what I call it the blogger content production pack. So any company that is producing blog content or video content or podcast content would highly value this collection of SOPs because there's my SOP for podcast production, there's my SOP for video production, there's my SOP for text blog post-production, for webinars and for email and obviously, the email is specific to one particular application. So if you don't use that same application you would obviously have to make some edits and so forth. But if you go to BrightIdeas.co/quietlight all that good free stuff which we normally sell for 300 bucks we'll be there for you. Mark: Yeah and just disclosure I actually have that workflow because I was checking out Flowster. It is so detailed. Like the SOP that you have here is great. It really does; when you're talking about being a little bit more towards the tightly coupled sort of SOPs, it is. I mean there's just on the weekly broadcast email I'm seeing 29 steps here labeled out which is fantastic. I mean that that level of detail makes sure that nothing is getting dropped. Trent, thank you so much for coming on. It's definitely a pleasure to have you on the podcast here and thank you for the offer. That's really really generous for our clients. I appreciate you offering that over to them. So we'll link to that in the show notes everybody so that you can take a look at it. I'd highly recommend you check out the app, it's really cool. And if you haven't implemented SOPs now's the time to do it. If you don't know whether or not you want to, read E-myth by Michael Gerber first and then you can build up from there and start implementing some SOPs. Trent: Yeah and I think mentioning the E-myth you asked me how would I transform the culture? I would hand E-myth to everybody on my management team and I would say you got two weeks to read this thing and we're going to sit down on our future. I think that because that way you're using that third party reference. You're not saying hey I'm the expert. I'm saying this has been proven to work in every industry on planet Earth. This book has been a bestseller for years etcetera, etcetera. Mark: Absolutely. Okay Trent, thanks for coming on. Trent: Thanks very much for having me, Mark. Links and Resources: Bright Ideas Flowster QL Listener Offer The E Myth by Michael Gerber
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