Change Creator Team, Author at Change Creator

David Mead: Leadership That Wins in Today’s Market

Listen to our exclusive interview with David Mead:

Change Creator · David Mead: Leadership That Wins in Today’s Market

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What is giving business leaders the edge today? What has held some back while others rise to the top? We spoke with Simon Sinek’s co-author, David Mead to learn more about what they are seeing on the front lines with companies and dig into exactly what you need to know to win today.

Learn more about David and his work at > www.davidjmead.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam Force co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big, visit us at Change Creator.com forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. What’s up, and welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam force. So today we have a really interesting conversation. Now you might have heard of Simon Sinek. Simon Sinek is famous for breaking down the idea of having a why. And he did his TED Talk. And he had a couple of books. And one of those books was called finding your why. And he had a co author actually had two co authors with that book, and one of them is David Meade. Hopefully I’m pronouncing his last name, right. But David is a super sharp guy. And you know, he worked obviously with Simon. And as co author of that book, he’s now moved on, he does a lot of keynote talks at different companies and supports different businesses with the strategies that they unpack. And he has a new book coming out that we’re going to kind of tap into because there’s some really great insights that he brings to the table, and we’re going to work through them, he’s going to share some of those details that will help kind of like, guide you into taking the right steps for the future of your business and and what that might look like. So this is a great conversation on leadership. That is important in today’s marketing world. Now, if you missed the last episode of the podcast, we spoke with David Wood. So yeah, another David, David would was a really great conversation about mastering your mind and business for progress. He is a coach, he’s worked a lot of coaches, a lot of companies. He’s been highlighted in Forbes and all these crazy places, tons of experience. So if you missed that call, there’s a lot of good nuggets, he takes us through His nine steps that will help you get more clarity in your business and stay on the right direction. So we break all that down in that conversation. Alright guys, make sure you stop by Change Creator comm forward slash go big, get some goodies there and check out the latest content. And leave us a review on iTunes. That’s always really appreciated. If there’s any way you could ever kind of like return the favor. We share all this content, all the stuff we would love to hear have your support with an iTunes review. Obviously, this helps us with the rankings and all that kind of fun stuff. Just all part of the game here. So your review, and feedback is always really appreciated. Alright guys, we’re not going to hold this up anymore. Let’s dive into this conversation and talk with David on this topic. Okay, show me the heat. Hey, David, what’s up, man? Welcome to the Change Creator podcast show how you doing today?

David Mead 03:11

Hey, Adam, I’m good. Thanks for having me on.

Adam G. Force 03:13

You got it. excited to have you here, you got quite an interesting background full of cool experience, ranging from writing books and working with Simon Sinek. So you know, I want to tap into all this stuff and some of the things that you’ve been working on. But before we do, I always like to just get a little bit about, what are you working on? Like right now in your current, you know, day like what’s hot for you? What’s top of mind? And then I like to get a little background on like, What got you there?

David Mead 03:42

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, what I’m working on, sort of first and foremost is as a book that’s coming out toward the end of this year, if all goes well.

Adam G. Force 03:51

Nice.

David Mead 03:52

And, you know, also putting some of those thoughts that I’m writing into the book into talks and workshops, and, you know, consulting with clients that I’m doing along the way to keep learning and hopefully making the book better as I write it.

Adam G. Force 04:03

Yeah, awesome. And so tell us a little just a bit about your background, so people know, like, where you’re coming from and what you do, but also why you’re good at what you do.

David Mead 04:15

Sure. So I started my career in corporate training. I was in sales training, I was doing sales forever, and just couldn’t seem to ever get out of it, which I really wanted to do, because I’m not into sales much in the traditional sense, you know, some people just are so good at it. And I was not so I got into training instead because those who can’t do teach as we’ve heard, and so I joined a Yellow Page company back when Yellow Pages was a thing. And I was doing sales training and I really enjoyed it. I loved seeing the light come on. I love giving people you know, the tips and the tools and the resources to be able to be great at what they did and what they wanted to do. The thing that was a bit unfulfilling for me is you know, as most people know, sales in sales turnover is pretty high. And so I would spend And all this time and energy and effort training these folks. And then you know, three to six months later, most of them were gone. And they were on to something else. And I thought, it’s like it doesn’t, I don’t know if anything that I did for them actually stuck. And so I left I actually started my own. In a completely different vein, I started my own kitchen and bath restoration company, right around 2007 2008, you can imagine how that went. And then, through a confluence of events, I ended up as a as a trainer, again, leading the sort of the training and development for this little startup in Salt Lake City where I live, and it was a door to door sales company. And through that, I met a guy by the name of Simon Sinek. Back in 2009, nobody really knew who he was at the time, many of your listeners may now know who he is. But yeah, he’s an author and a thought leader and ended up working with him for about 10 years and sharing his ideas, through speaking and workshops and a little bit of consulting and then left his team in December of 2019. Right before COVID, and 2020 was a journey, just like it has been for everybody else, just you know, sorting things out and pivoting and getting into more, you know, online digital stuff. Because, you know, all the in person stuff just vanished overnight.

Adam G. Force 06:22

No doubt about that. And so I guess, tell me a little bit about what are some things that you learned when working with Simon Sinek. And I always say Sinek, and you told you told me already? It’s

David Mead 06:37

I think I mean, I think the thing that struck me the most, and it’s again, it’s something that I already knew kind of going into it, but how important the the human element is to the work we do until leadership. And I think it’s, it’s something that we sort of naturally already know, as human beings, but when we get into a work environment, and we have, you know, all the pressures and the stresses that come along with that, whether it be you know, just figuring out what we’re doing, as we’re starting out our business, or hiring new people, or, you know, managing projects, all these things, especially if we’re new at what we’re doing. Yeah, let all these things get in the way of taking care of the people. And, you know, we focus more on, excuse me, we focus more on managing the business. And we sort of neglect the people. Whereas if we take care of the people, they’ll actually take care of the business for us. And I think that’s one of the biggest things that I learned.

Adam G. Force 07:29

Yeah, so you, so you have taken a departure from the customer’s always right formula?

David Mead 07:38

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, sometimes they are, and sometimes they’re not. But I think, what whatever the situation is, I think, and this is part of what what I talked about in the book, and maybe we’ll dive into it a little bit more, is whenever we make a decision, how do we keep the human being that’s involved, or the human beings that are involved? Top of Mind in that decision? Customer, maybe right customer may be wrong, we may do something that’s good for the company, or good for the customer, and depending on the situation, but how do we do our best to take care of the human and help them to know, and to feel that we’re actually taking care of them so that we can, you know, continue that relationship?

Adam G. Force 08:15

Yeah, I love that. And I see more of this mentality, surfacing as time goes on, you know, we’re seeing more of this social entrepreneurship trend, which means the way we think about business and the way we approach it is changing, right? We’re putting more intention behind it. And I think that we’re kind of getting back to this idea of re humanizing our marketing and the way we manage teams, right. I know on our team, it has helped like, everyone talks about sales funnels. And the way we talk about that is by saying digital conversations, because really, it’s like, you talked about door to door sales, you sit down for an hour, you have this conversation, and you’re doing the same conversation you do online, so we call it the digital conversation. So we can remember, we’re talking to people, not clicks, you know, not targets. It makes a difference in your perception.

David Mead 09:06

It really doesn’t I think that the word you just said the perception is such a big thing. And I my my dear friend, Peter Docker has a distinction that we use all the time, which is the difference between doing and being. When you’re doing something, you can be really good at what you’re doing. But depending on who you’re being, when you’re doing that thing, it comes with what you’re doing comes across completely differently. So you can talk to a click where you can talk to a human, you can say the exact same words, but what’s your perception? What’s the perspective that you have in your mind of who you’re talking to? Are you talking to a revenue dollar? Or are you talking to a human who has a need, right? You’re gonna say the exact same words, but the way you show up in the environment that you create and how you occurred to that person, they can feel it. Yeah, even if you’re saying the exact same thing.

Adam G. Force 09:51

Very, very, very good point. I’m glad you said that. I mean, you think about when you’re young and you’re just do that you’re in high school and you’re trying to you know, Data girl, right? You can go there and reek of desperation. Or you can be very confident and it comes off. You could say the same things, but one way is gonna work well on the other ways not. Right.

David Mead 10:12

Right. And we’ve never done that, by the way, I’m happy.

Adam G. Force 10:15

Yeah. Hey, I’m Adam gotta go. Man. Yeah, it you know, and I love seeing it go in this direction, this is something that I feel with the internet boom has been kind of it’s, it’s been derailed, right. But since that has happened, it’s all about quick bait, who can get the most clicks and all these things, and it just had this quick shift. But that is, I think, caused a lot of red flags in people’s minds as buyers and consumers and things like that. So now we have to navigate those things, you know, pop up blockers, right?

David Mead 10:58

Yeah, um, you know, I think of, uh, you know, I mean, like, like you said, the, the online thing has sort of derailed everything, I think, one company that just popped into my mind that has been doing this so well, for so long is Zappos. And they were doing, you know, this long before a lot of us were. And I think in granted, like, you know, they’re, they’re, they, the traditional way they used to do is their customer service was over the phone. And now we’re doing a lot of stuff, you know, online and through chat and that kind of thing. But I think, you know, even with the the online commerce platform that they were using, they were so good at making sure that they were taking care of the person and I think you can, it’s more difficult through chat, because you missed the nuance and you missed the tone and you missed the you know, those things that voice and those nonverbals give you but we can still do it, we can still show that there’s a human on the other side, we can still show that we’re not just, you know, using, uh, you know, we’re not using just macros, or we’re not using just the things that we send out to everybody. And I think we can really personalize that and it takes more time, it takes more effort, it’s harder. But those are the companies I think that really stand out, those are the people that that will attract that loyalty that that is so hard to get.

Adam G. Force 12:05

I agree 100%. And if you come of that mind, you’re not going to send somebody to this maze of automated phone crap that nobody wants to go through. Like, as soon as you hear that, you just want to roll your eyes and be like, EFF this.

David Mead 12:22

I don’t want to ask the community, I just want to talk to a person, you know what I mean?

Adam G. Force 12:26

Press one for this, press two for that circle as you go and Circle Circle Circle. Same thing with the chat bots, like you know, when you have some stupid chat bot or somebody that really just knows nothing about the company, or they’re just kind of facilitating a script. You’re already saying that you don’t care enough about the customer to do it the right way, because you’re more worried about automation and cost. Right. So right. It makes a major difference.

David Mead 12:53

I’m not saying that that automation is not a good thing. I’m not saying that, you know, watching your cost is not a good thing. I’m not saying that you got to sacrifice the financial part of your business for the culture part of your business. So what I’m saying, I think what so many people think is that we have to sacrifice one for the other? Well, if I if I really work on my culture, and my people, then I’m going to sacrifice the money. Or if I, you know, sacrifice the money, if I’m going after the money, then I’m going to sacrifice my people. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can have both. And there’s so many examples of companies that are doing it right.

Adam G. Force 13:20

Yeah, yeah. No, and I’m glad you made that point. Because you’re right, it can be misunderstood. There’s always an end, if you are thinking in this way, but this perspective, you know, and you are taking care of the people, like you’re saying is so important. You just make different decisions, it doesn’t mean you’re less profitable, right? So it could end up that you’re more profitable because of those decisions. Right?

David Mead 13:45

Yeah. And I think the the, the trap that we fall into is, I don’t want to call it a trap, necessarily. But I think, again, going back to that idea of the perception that we have is, if I make a decision that doesn’t benefit me right now, it’s not the right decision. And I know especially for you know, new companies, companies that are that are that have a lot of a lot of desire for growth, and they want to, you know, grow and sell or whatever. It’s about, what can I do right now to maximize profits? What can I do in the short term to make things better, especially if we’re strapped for cash, especially if we need that revenue coming in? Of course, we’re gonna make those decisions. And that’s okay. But keeping that in balance with what’s the long term? What am I really here for? What am I trying to do over the long term? And how is it How is this decision going to maybe benefit me down the road rather than right now being able to have the wisdom to make those sacrifices when it makes sense?

Adam G. Force 14:35

Yeah, I think that’s a great way to to, to phrase that up. So I’m curious, you know, obviously, the whole why conversation with Simon Sinek is very popular. Just getting to that root of why we’re doing what we’re doing, remembering this intention. Anything and I want to talk about your book. I think he said the, you know, placeholder title behind the curtain, I’m wondering if there’s anything you took away from the process of Simon synnex book that is gonna help you with this book, anything you learn there?

David Mead 15:14

Yeah, of course, I mean, you know, the obviously the reason that I joined his team was because I feel very strong, I still do have the importance of having that sense of purpose in the work that we do. And you know, look at it transcends beyond work. Also, this is not a work concept. You know, that the interesting thing was that the reason that we as a as a team, when I was working with Simon, the reason we went after businesses, was because that’s where we were going to reach the most people. This is not a business concept. This is a human concept, right? And so I think what what I’ve taken from that is, what is it about, just in general, what it is, what is it about humans, that makes us work well together? What is it that that builds that trust, whether it’s at work, or whether it’s at home between our spouses and our kids, or our, you know, roommates or friends, or whatever it is, it’s really what I took from it is what’s the humanity that that we’re missing? And so, you know, as I as I dive into this new book that I’m writing, it’s sort of at a 40,000 foot view, as I as I sort of take stock of my career, my working life, even, you know, from one of my first jobs when I was 17, in the bagel shop, right all the way to what I’m doing now, I look back, and I see one thing in leadership that I think is more damaging, more potentially damaging than anything else. And I have seen and experienced and observed because I’ve worked with hundreds of companies over the last decade or so. But one of the things that I’ve seen and experienced myself over that, you know, these 2030 years is that 30 years note, not quite that long, let’s still stick with 20 I’m gonna stick with 2020 years or so is that the thing that’s one of the things that’s most damaging is when a leader says something, they say they stamp or something, say they believe something or enforce something that they don’t do themselves. Right, they say one thing, and then they turn around and do something else. Whether that be you know, enforcing a policy, making sure that all the employees do this thing, but then they don’t do it themselves, or talking about how important the company values are. But then you see them doing something that’s not that. And that what that does, is it it, it breaks trust, it increases cynicism. You know, it does all these damaging things, self preservation, right, we watch out for ourselves, we can’t trust each other, we don’t collaborate. So if you’re trying to build a business, if you’re trying to grow, innovate, collaborate all these things and build trust, and you’re doing those kinds of things. It doesn’t work, the two do not mix. And we noticed this, you know, we see in big companies, right, there was a VW scandal, there was a Wells Fargo scandal, you see it in CEOs, you see it in, you know, entertainers, you see all these people that were putting on this act. And then all of a sudden, they get exposed for doing something that they were kind of hiding, right? And all of a sudden trust is lost. And we in you know, we don’t trust them anymore. So it’s easy to point the finger at those examples and say, Oh, well, man, that was stupid, I would never do that. But we are all susceptible to it. We all do it. Right. And think about how prevalent it is, we think of the the terms that we use are the things that we use to describe when people do these things. Right. We talked about keeping up appearances. We talk about, oh, they’re pulling the wool over people’s eyes, right? They’re putting on a show they’re being two faced, all of these things are exactly what I’m talking about is that we’re doing things that are not in line with what we actually stand for what we actually say that we believe. And so the this idea that, you know, we’re above it, we’re not. And we somehow think that we can put up this curtain, and that we can hide who we truly are, and then put on this performance that is going to keep everybody at bay, right? The issue is, the problem is that curtain is an illusion. It’s not actually there, right? So if we’re doing things that are not really in line with who we truly are, or what we truly believe, it’s gonna get found out at some point or other. And the scary part is we’re not the ones that pull back, pull back that curtain. It’s somebody else that does it for us, right? So if you’re out there saying something and not being real, and not being in integrity with who you are, and what you stand for, people are gonna find out. It’s just a matter of time, right? So the book gets into this idea of, you know, what’s behind the curtain is our character. And we can either choose to intentionally build a strong character, or we can just act as a character and hope that that day that the curtain gets pulled back never comes. And that the whole idea is because that that curtain is an illusion is something we create not actually there. The thing I lost my train of thought, do you ever do that?

Adam G. Force 19:58

I do it all the time. I’ve been on interviews where somebody asked me a question, I start answering it. I’m like, wait, what was the question again?

David Mead 20:04

Yeah, I never did that. But this idea that, you know, we if we build a strong character, yeah, it removes the need for the curtain. We don’t need to lie fake and hide it.

Adam G. Force 20:15

We’re not hiding anything, right? You kind of get you kind of, like hit what you said before, which is, you know whether it is blatantly said and you’re found out, like you mentioned VW and Wells Fargo, right? It may be that blatant. But it also may be just the feeling and the red flag that someone gets, and they don’t buy from you, right? Because they feel off. It’s like going to, if I say that we are, we can help you master your brand, we have a thing called brand mastery, right? And we help with your design, we help with the user experience, convert more sales, your brand story, but then you go to my website, and it’s like the ugliest thing ever. Like, you know, it’s like, wait, it’s not right here.

David Mead 20:56

Yeah, I mean, the extreme examples are the easiest ones to see. Right. And I think the reason that we think, oh, I don’t do that, I would never do that. Maybe not. But we’re doing it in the more subtle ways, right? We’re doing it by, you know, bending the truth a little bit, or we’re doing it by, you know, just looking over our shoulder before we do something to make sure nobody’s watching like that. And the thing is, even if nobody’s ever watching, when we build and maintain a strong character ourselves, it bothers us, like, we can’t let ourselves do it. Because we know that it’s not not right, we know that we’re acting out of integrity with who we are.

Adam G. Force 21:29

Well, and this could be a limiting factor for your growth and success in some levels, because you’re gonna have an internal conflict with things that hold you back. Right? So you’re like, Yeah, why am I not making more money? Why am I not, you know, growing the team as fast as I thought, and it’s, you can have internal conflicts around these things that hold you back, if you don’t know for sure. It’s unconscious, right?

David Mead 21:51

And look, I’m not I’m not advocating for perfection, right? We’re not the goal is not to never do anything wrong. And I think what really defines a person’s character is what do they do when they get caught doing something that they’re not supposed to do? Because we all do, you know, people who have, who have not built a strong character, they’re the ones that will deny it, justify it, you know, explain it away. The ones that do have a strong character, have the humility and are able to see that as a learning opportunity. Like, shoot, I messed up. Yeah, to learn on this stuff myself. I’ll try to do better next time. Sorry, you know, absolutely. That’s what defines character to me.

Adam G. Force 22:29

Yeah, and it makes a huge difference to the people you serve. Because, you know, you come out and be like, I thought I was doing the right thing. You know, like, and I got, I was intimidated by this. So I said, You know, I did it this way, even though I kind of knew I shouldn’t like you just kind of own up, right. But if you’re not accountable, and you’re like, you know, some political figures that, you know, just push off and blame every little thing. You’re just kind of like, yeah, okay, buddy.

David Mead 22:55

Yeah, I wasn’t gonna bring that up. But we see that all the time. Right? We see it and politicians a lot. We see it in people in the media all the time, you know, all the business leaders all the time, all the time. And the good ones. I mean, I have seen examples of the good ones that come out and say, you know, what, we made a mistake. But most of the time, because of fear, because of insecurity, because of you know, whatever, we just explained it away. It’s not my fault. It was something something else, something external.

Adam G. Force 23:25

And I listen, I agree with you, 100%. And one of my favorite books I have over on my bookshelf is by t harv. eker. The, it’s something like the millionaire mindset or something like that. And he says, there’s three things you never do you never complain, blame or justify, right? So if you can kind of lean in, those are been my three roles. And when I learned them, I had them on a sticky note on my mirror and remind myself every day Don’t blame, don’t complain, and don’t justify just me accountable. And like one of the things I’ve been really into now just kind of leaning into where you’re going with, like character integrity, and I love that you brought that up as part of not just business, but just being a good human right? is we have to first and foremost, be honest with ourselves, like, Can you look in the mirror and be honest with yourself? Right, right. And most people are not doing that.

David Mead 24:22

Yeah. And you know, on that note, the this idea of like, great, how do we then as leaders or people and I don’t care if you have a leadership position or not, right? The idea is if you have influence if you’re a parent, if you’re an aunt and uncle, whatever, it doesn’t matter if you have an official leadership position. Yeah. But you know, what are the things that that help us to build that strong character so that we don’t need that curtain anymore? And I’ve really again, as I thought about the great leaders that I’ve had, and the things that they all have in common, they have a lot of traits in common, but I boiled it down to three main traits which are honest, humble and human. So this first idea is the honest one Can I be honest If myself, can I look at myself in the mirror and say and admit my, you know, when I’m doing something wrong? Yeah. And the big thing with me for honesty is am I doing the things I say? Am I performing the the, the behaviors and the communication that I actually believe in? Right? That’s the crux of what honest is humble is is just that it’s the ability to drop the ego. Yeah. Which is so hard to do, right? Like, I’m not perfect at this stuff. I never will be right. This is a journey. This is a pursuit, daily pursuit that we have to go after. But can I admit my own fallibility? can I learn from my mistakes? My humble enough to in the moment, when I screw something up to apologize, I can go back and do it three days later, right? When the emotions are down, but can I do it in the moment, so people really know that I’m sincere about it and want to make a change. And then the third thing is human. And this is something that I alluded to before, which is when we make a decision, especially in an early business, when there’s so many decisions to be made, and we you know, we’re facing things we’ve never done before. How do we make sure that the human beings who are affected by that decision are at the forefront of our minds, it doesn’t mean we’re not gonna lay somebody off, it doesn’t mean we’re gonna make a tough decision, but we have at least thought about the implication to the human being, that that decision will affect. And then along with with that human element, also is how do we pour everything that we have into that person so that they feel valued and valuable? Yeah. When you build honest, humble and human, when you have that kind of character, as a leader, you will build trust, you will build collaboration, you will make progress. You bring people together that want to be there, they’ll feel like they’re doing something that matters.

Adam G. Force 26:43

Yeah. And I think like that kind of stuff. And if you have the patience, and you are willing to be consistent with those things, you’ll see that progress, right? Do you have just from writing your book? Are there any examples of companies that have, I’m curious if there’s companies that have had a big turnaround because of leadership came in and they had these types of practices? Like I just found, like, I have an example this guy art barter came in, and he’s like, there was a company that was like a $10 million a year company. And he did this thing, kind of like we’re saying, This is servant leadership is what he called it right? Or being more honest, like humble, and like all these, like beautiful things that you want to see in somebody. And within like, just a few years, I guess, four years or five years, he turned it into a $200 million a year company. Yeah, I know, as I got to talk to this guy. I interviewed him. And that was one example it jives with what you’re saying it’s like, take this approach, give it time, like shifting a culture is very, very difficult. But if you’re consistent, and you have you lead by, like what you do, right, like lead by actions, and not just like telling people things, like you said, you gotta be a leader by action, that makes a big difference.

David Mead 28:06

It does. And, you know, the, for the last, you know, 10 years or so, as I’ve been traveling around, most of my interactions with companies have been very sort of short term I was I came in for a keynote or a couple day workshop. And so I know that examples are out there. And you know, most of the examples that that I lean to, or those that people have heard of, but I mean, I there have got to be 1000s of organizations out there that we’ve never heard of before, that are doing this exact same thing. A lot of the younger companies that I worked with, and this is I think, what the great opportunity, especially for people that are in the beginning stages of an organization is this is when you can do it. Right. This is when you have a chance to do it. Right. And and then you know, do it from the ground up, rather than having to unlearn all the bad stuff, you know, 1015 years down the road and turn it around. What a great opportunity to just do it right from the start. Right. And a lot of the a lot of the companies that were drawn to the work that I was doing, were did have that their hearts were in the right place. They weren’t perfect. They were still making mistakes, but they didn’t have to turn things around because they were already sort of on that path.

Adam G. Force 29:12

Yeah, we do see that that’s a great point. We see that with social entrepreneurs who are starting their businesses, you know, I know, a couple who I’ve interviewed multiple times, and we met out at conferences, and, you know, he runs a seven figure e commerce company now. And they have that they have started those companies with such good intentions as a business to begin with. But that’s also then just the kind of person that they are that they start managing the team and building the culture that way. And it’s just like this mindset of the social entrepreneur says, I want to do something meaningful, right? I want to make people’s lives better. That’s why I’m starting this business. It brings about a certain type of person to which tends to be honest and humble and all these things we’re talking about.

David Mead 30:00

Yeah, you know, as you’re talking about that, I an example just came to mind, a good friend of mine who’s a real estate agent. I’ve known him for 20 years, we used to sell cell phones together, at&t, you know, way back in the day, that was where I met him, right. And then we went our separate ways. And he went into real estate. And he, we actually ended up living in the same neighborhood for a couple years. And I remember, you know, back that time, in those early days, he was like, just so driven to build his business, his like, friends can wait, family can wait, they won’t be there when I get done. And I was like, ooh. And he built his business. And he sold it. And you know, hadn’t had a good exit from it. And a couple years ago, specifically, last year, in COVID, I noticed, I met up for him, I met up with him for lunch. And I sensed this real change in him. And we’ve since been working on a project together for the last couple months. And you know, we’ve had a chance to talk about this, but his mindset has completely shifted. So we’re for the first several years of his business, it was about, you know, everything else can wait. It’s all about my career. It’s all about my business. It’s all about the money, which he got, he got it, but he sacrificed everything else, lost his marriage. I’m sure a lot of his friends left. I’m lucky enough to still be a friend. But he has done a complete turnaround, where now he realizes, you know what success means so much more than money to me, yes, money is a component of it. Absolutely. But it’s the relationship that I have with my kids. It’s the ability that I have now to spend time with them. And the freedom that this this job can create, so that I can do things with the people that matter to me. So to answer your question, that’s one simple example of one guy who’s now building a business that he’s got, you know, in a completely different way. And we’re actually working on a project together to be able to share these ideas with young entrepreneurs, that are just starting out so that they can, again, have this shift in perspective, as they’re starting out as to what success really means. Yes, absolutely. Money can be a component of it, but it can be so much more than that. And that other part is so fulfilling.

Adam G. Force 32:03

Yeah, I like that. I mean, and it’s, sometimes people have to go through that pain in order to learn the lesson that you learn, right? So yeah, let me know we go through struggle, all our lives. And I, that’s something I was reading this day, I don’t know if you heard of David Goggins, the guy that wrote, the book can’t hurt me. He was a navy seal. Oh, my gosh, talk about mental toughness and disciplines, guys, I’m an animal. But he really kind of got me really kind of opening my perspective around how struggle is part of the human process for growth, right, we always say don’t get better, you got to get out your comfort zone, blah, blah, blah, very cliche stuff. But when you talk about struggle, like that’s when you start learning who you are, it’s like when you’re really in the mix, and you’re thinking to yourself, like, he goes through crazy stuff. And I was just talking to my wife, yesterday, and I was like, we did a five day backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon. And I was like, it was our first time backpacking, the difficulty was four out of five with high solitude. I was like, I don’t know what we’re thinking, we’re doing our doing our thing. We trained hard. Before we went, we wanted the experience, right? And I was like, do you remember we went out there? And I’m like, did you ever have moments out there when you had massive blisters cuts off your feet? And you know, we had several more days walking eight miles a day in hot sun with a 45 pound bag on your back? I’m like, did you ever sit there and lay in the tent at night going, what the hell am I doing out here. And this is, this is when you start thinking I could be home, I could be doing this. And that whole game becomes a choice for you to say, I’m going to keep going, or I’m going to check out right. And that’s where this callus in the mind and mental toughness. And we go through this stuff in different forms as entrepreneurs, tough decisions, losing money, losing partners, like all these things, and it’s really up to us to make these decisions and choices that keep going forward.

David Mead 33:59

So I love what you said, because I think it again, it reminds me that we’re gonna get to the other side of this, but the only way you can get to the other side is the thrashing part, right, you got to thrash to get to the other side. And, you know, I’ve never done a hardcore backpacking trip and Grand Canyon. However, I will tell you one, like really, really, really, really baby version of that, that I do every day, that maybe some of your listeners will, will, will get out of it. So it gets something out of it. So I sound silly, but every morning for the first few seconds of my shower, it’s cold, as cold as the water will get. And it’s again for this, this thing of like this will pass. I’ll get through this. It’s gonna get warm, right? It’s hard right now it sucks right now, but it’s gonna get warm. Yeah, and that’s a daily reminder of when something comes up that I have no control over when something comes up that is a slog, or that sucks or that, you know, a surprise that, you know, an unexpected thing that I got to deal with. I’m going to get to the other side. It’s warm on either side. So it’s that’s just a daily simple daily reminder that helps me to deal with those kind of things

Adam G. Force 35:02

I like it. It’s a little extra mini like, exercise size that anybody can really implement. And now it’s good to shock the nervous system with some of that cold water. Does it if Tony, then it must be good. Okay. He just has this custom cold pool that goes down. Yeah, I’m not there. Yeah, guy, we all use the shower. That’s a good example, though. And we all have to do different things to remind ourselves. But you’re right. Like in the last example, I’ll give on this topic. It’s like, I was like, it’s so true. And you can look at whenever I question something about myself or business, I look at life in general and see if it’s consistent in all like areas of life. And so for an example of this would be the butterfly. Like if a butterfly is a caterpillar cocoon, and you see the cocoon moving and it can’t get out. If you open that cocoon for it and take it out, it will die and never become a butterfly. It’s only because of the struggle that it builds up the strength and the and what it needs to become the butterfly. Interesting. How cool is that? I mean, you just see these things in life replicated in very various forms, you know?

David Mead 36:16

Totally, yeah.

Adam G. Force 36:17

Pretty awesome.Alright, so listen, if people want to learn more, they want to see like, I don’t know your book. When’s that supposed to come out?

David Mead 36:25

End of the year, October or January, we’re still…up in the air.

Adam G. Force 36:27

Alright, so towards the end of year, we got a little time. And we’ll make a note of it in the show notes so people know and stuff like that. And right now, temporary working title is behind the curtain for anybody. Where do they learn more about what you’re working on and connect and stuff like that? Is there some place they can go?

David Mead 36:45

Yeah, my website is Davidjmead.com. You can find me on the socials at dmpropls. And then yeah, I guess those are probably the best best way to find me.

Adam G. Force 37:02

Awesome. Well, David, really appreciate you taking the time to chat today. Share all your experiences working with Simon and outside of all that and everything else you’re doing. The book sounds great. I think it’s such an important conversation that you’re bringing to the table so it was fun to dig into that today.

David Mead 37:16

Thanks Adam. Nice talking to you too.

Adam G. Force 37:23

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

David Wood: Mastering Your Mind & Business For Real Progress

Listen to our exclusive interview with David Wood:

Change Creator · David Wood: Mastering Your Mind & Business For Real Progress

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What if you feel like you’re lost in the startup wild? It’s hard to make real progress when that’s the case. This is why we spoke with David Wood, a coach who has helped endless entrepreneurs make real progress by helping them stay laser focused on the critical path. In this interview David shares his 9 steps for mastery.

More about David:

He has built the world’s largest coaching business with 150,000 followers. Was ranked #1 on google for “life coaching” out of 23 million result.

He is the author of “Get Paid for Who You Are”, with foreword by Jack Canfield of Chicken Soup fame

He haas taught laser focus to leaders at Facebook, Square, Warner Bros, Salesforce, as well as Colorado prison inmates

David appeared on CNN Headline News, Forbes and has done over 120+ podcast interviews!

Learn more about David Wood and his work at > myfocusgift.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

David Wood 02:46

I’m good man. I’m here in Mexico. I’m looking at a palm trees and, and the ocean. So right now, life’s pretty good. Awesome.

Adam G. Force 02:55

I’m in Miami and I got palm trees, but it’s pouring rain today. You know, Funny enough, I’ve been around to Central America and all kinds of other places. But I’ve never been to Mexico specifically.

David Wood 03:10

Right? And it’s not that far from you

Adam G. Force 03:13

No, what brought you to Mexico?

David Wood 03:16

I wanted a break from the winter I I’m Australian originally but I live in Boulder Colorado. And and you know, I don’t mind the winter at all, but I thought wouldn’t be great to just have a break for say three weeks where I get to feel sun and and see a beach again. And also I rescued a puppy in Boulder and she’s never seen a beach until yesterday. That was so exciting

Adam G. Force 03:45

My wife was telling me yesterday that the weather in Colorado was reaching what felt like with the wind minus 50.

David Wood 03:53

I’m happy to hear that.

Adam G. Force 03:54

Yeah. escaped. Yeah, awesome. So David, tell us a little bit. I like to just tee people up with the present moment, like what’s going on in your world these days? What are you working on? You know, and we’ll get into a little bit of background how you get there after?

David Wood 04:14

Well, you know, I I like to be as transparent as I can. That’s, that’s how I try and live in. It’s what I teach. So I’ll model it now. The biggest thing in my life right now is self care. Okay, you know, and I’ve got my business running. I love my clients. I’m working on some cool projects workwise but Mexico has really kicked my ass in in many different ways. And I’ve done so much work on myself, but I still have found that I’ve gotten really triggered. I’ve gotten angrier than I ever have before. I’ve gotten more stress than I can remember being, I had some trauma when I was a kid so I’m I’m very sensitive to noise. And so traveling in Mexico is an edge for me. Then on top of all of that, and living with friends for the first time in a long time, I got food poisoning, which is one of the most miserable experiences that I can think of. So there’s all of that going on. And I’m learning more and more about, okay, what is David need? What is this system need? And can I speak up? Because I grew up in a an Australian country town. And sensitive wasn’t a thing you kind of got to be. Yeah. And so even just speaking up and saying to the group, hey, I’m having a bit of trouble here. And I might need to step outside because I’m overstimulated with all the noise and laughter and everything in the music that’s happening. This is my journey. Right now. It’s been my journey for 20-30 years.

Adam G. Force 05:52

Sure.

David Wood 05:53

I’m finding more layers. So that’s one thing that’s that’s really alive as can I speak up and get my needs met, instead of trying to power through and overshadow what my nervous system might need?

Adam G. Force 06:08

Yeah. And I’m gonna get into just how you help entrepreneurs today in just a second and some of your background for people. But you did make me think of something when you mentioned self care. And I’m always reading my, you know, business and, you know, influence or like inspirational stuff. But I’m also always reading about things for my own health, right. And a book that I recently picked up was about breathing. And it talks about how we’ve been breathing all wrong, and the evolution of humanity and how short breaths and mouth breathing and how this has changed the dynamic of our whole physiology. And you know, I’ve always asked questions like, why do we see more allergies today, and asthma and all this stuff. And it all starts to tie back to how we breathe. And I’ve never, I mean, I’ve been into like meditation and stuff. But this book, after many years of me reading all kinds of this stuff, you know, I never came across a book with this information. And I’m finally like, Oh, my God, really interesting material. So as you mentioned, the self care that kind of popped in my mind, because I’ve been reading that as of recent, and it’s been a real eye opener for me personally.

David Wood 07:23

Well, I appreciate the reminder, because since you started mentioning breathing, I’ve taken three good breaths into my belly into my diaphragm, instead of breathing up here. So it is something that I am forgetting. And a friend reminded me last night, he said, I can tell you are about to do a nice exhale, and then you stopped and your mind went somewhere else. I’m like, thank you. Yeah, we need those reminders to come back. Because I can self soothe we all can. And sometimes I forget.

Adam G. Force 07:54

Yeah, absolutely. It’s easy. Absolutely. I become a mouth breather and and then when you start doing that, your nasal and your nose, everything starts to say it’s like, use it or lose it factor. And it starts to contract and get smaller, and it changes the whole dynamic. Anyway, I won’t get into it. But I was like, going on and on to my wife. And I was like, you gotta read this thing. It’s crazy, man. Like, it’s crazy.

David Wood 08:18

I’m glad we’re talking about this as well. Because, you know, sometimes I think when people hear see people on TV or hear people on a podcast, yeah, there’s kind of a base assumption of this person’s an expert. So they’ve got everything all together. They don’t have problems. Yeah. And I just want to make it really clear. I’m not some guru. I’ve been around a long time. I’ve been coaching for 20 years, I’m really good at what I do. And I’m also a student. At the same time, I learn so much from my clients. I’ll be saying something in a coaching session, and I’ll be like, Oh, you’re gonna do that today? Yeah, you gotta you gotta practice what you preach. So yeah, I’m glad we got an opportunity to talk about that.

Adam G. Force 09:02

Absolutely. Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about the coaching experience and kind of how you got into that. And you know, how you got 20 years under your belt, and I know that you help entrepreneurs in a few really important ways. So I just want to like, in you know, a nutshell here, just give me the some of that background that you think is most important for people to understand.

David Wood 09:24

Yeah, sure. Well, I started life very left brained. I grew up in a country town. I was good at math. I ended up coming top of my school and I was like, Well, what are you going to do? Since your math is your main thing and we figured accountancy. But then we discovered there was this remote profession called actuarial science, okay, and becoming an actuary, which is like they calculate insurance premiums and do statistics projections for 100 years into the future. And I was like, well, they made a lot more money and it’s harder to do, and it’s More prestige. And there are scholarships for it. So I actually got paid to go to university to train to be an actuary. And then I still got to choose if I would work for the company or not. It was an unbonded scholarship, which was like magic. So I did that. And qualified took me eight years to qualify as an actuary. And then a year later, I quit. Which is, it’s like becoming a doctor and then saying, I’m done.

Adam G. Force 10:29

I’m good.

David Wood 10:31

And what did it was I did a personal growth course. And I didn’t want to do it, because they all want name tags, and they smile way too much. And I’m like, this can’t be real. These are bunch of weak self help junkies. But, um, but I wasn’t happy in my marriage at the time. So I thought, I’m gonna get in and get out. Okay, well, famous last words out, I’m telling you. I think what happened is they cracked me up and they cracked my cynicism. And I found myself coaching, I couldn’t help myself. If someone had a problem in the course. And we’re talking about it. I’m like, Well, have you tried this? Or did you hear what the teacher said yesterday, and I changed somebody’s life overnight. And I got hooked. I’m like, Oh, my God, I’m watching this woman face her biggest fear. She goes into it transforms her life. I’m like, how do I learn how to how to do more of that? Yeah. So they, they trained me as a as a coach, if you kept going with the program, they would train you. And so I coached people going through the course. And then I met a guy, I didn’t even meet him, I met someone who met him who had a business card of a coach, and this is back in 1997. And I’m like, wait a minute, you can get paid to do this. Like, this is a profession. And it wasn’t really at that stage, but people were starting. And I’m like, Alright, I want in. So I quit my job. And and I went and trained as a coach. And I’ve been basically training ever since because it never stops. And what I discovered in that course, was that I had learned about business, and I had learned about systems and how to be successful in a certain area of life. But I knew nothing about emotional intimacy, about vulnerability, about leadership, about influence about transparent communication. So the last 20 years have been about diving into that. So I’m a unique coach, I think in that most coaches will focus on one or the other, I’ll help you with your business, or I’ll help you with your life and your relationships and who you are and your courage. I, I straddle the two because of my my unique background. So if you come to me, don’t expect that we’re just going to work on money. I always make that clear. Don’t expect that. We’ll start with money. And then we’ll move to you having more time off. But then I’m interested in how you showing up in the world. Yeah. And are you living life such that when you’re on your deathbed, you can say I gave it everything I had?

Adam G. Force 13:14

Yeah, I love that. And, I mean, I think that if you, if you want to make the more, the more money and all that kind of stuff, and get to those next stages of your life, you do need to work on yourself, right to become that that person and the next version of yourself. So if you’re not playing that part of the game, it’s going to be very hard to continue to grow. Right?

David Wood 13:38

Yeah. And the the the sad thing about it, is you’ll never know what would have been possible. Because you live we live in our own world. It’s like The Truman Show. I you know, if anyone’s ever seen The Truman Show, with Jim Carrey, he’s in his limited world with these boundaries. He doesn’t even know about the boundaries. You can you we will live our whole life like that. Unless we push back the horizons, right? We grow and often that takes some outside influence, like, like a coach or a course or something, something transformative. And then we’re like, oh, wow, I could never go back to the way I was living. This is my new world now. Yeah. And so my life has been about constantly trying to push back those boundaries and discover what I don’t know. I don’t know. And I can’t tell you about what the next level is gonna look like because I’ve got no idea until until my coach shows me something and I’m like, Oh, wow. All right. This is the new level now.

Adam G. Force 14:41

Yeah, yeah, it’s true. And what would you say I guess working with you know, all these entrepreneurs over the over the years. I always like when you mentioned you know, they need someone and outside influence, right. But first you kind of how do we get them to the point of saying I’m open to that outside influence because they don’t if they’re not aware that they need to break through to these other, you know, areas of their life to become that next person. You’re right, they can go through their whole life not knowing. So if they don’t know, how do they get in a position where they can accept support?

David Wood 15:18

Yeah, I think we, I think we each need to choose the mindset of a seeker. We need to also be humble enough to say, because I’m very, I’m very arrogant. I’ll be upfront about that. I usually think I’m the smartest person in the room. Now, maybe sometimes I am. But the problem with that viewpoint, is that leaves me not open to input. So I try and begin as a beginner, I try and take on that mindset, okay, I need to seek, I need to get outside influence. I think it was only like five months ago, I had five different coaches. I had a coach for dating, I had a coach for accountability. I had a coach to teach me about energy and moving energy through the body because I knew nothing about that. So it’s choosing, I don’t know everything. And I’m and I want input. There used to be a time I think, particularly in American culture, where it’s like, I need to do it myself. If I do it myself, I’m a hero. Yeah, if you do it with the help of 100 people, oh, you’re not a hero, you have to help 100 people. I think that’s changing with people like Bill Gates saying, everybody needs a coach. Right, with leaders like that saying, like, he wants to learn bridge to get a coach. Yeah, I want to be good at Starcraft. I went and got a coach, I started playing fortnight and I sucked at it. I’m like, Well, you know, I get a coach and get good. So I think the mindset is, is the main thing. And I, everybody’s different. So when I’m helping someone to double revenue and their time off, what I do is I’m like, Look, let’s look at the nine areas that I’ve identified that are important, okay, and find out where you’re strong, and where you’re weak. Yeah, and I run them through it. And some of them, they’ll be like, Alright, I’m green. I’m solid. That’s, that’s fine. This one I’m orange is like a traffic light system. This one, I’m like, I could use a little bit of work. And these areas, I’m weakened. That’s where I’m going to start. First, I’m going to get really strong in those, get all those lights up to green, your chances of doubling revenue in the next 12 months, I think a very high.

Adam G. Force 17:38

Okay. And can you give us an a couple examples of some we don’t need, I don’t know, if you want to go through all nine, but maybe a couple of really important triggers

David Wood 17:46

I can give you all nine of them in a minute. So we start with your direction? Do you have goals? In 12 months, three months? and seven days? And tomorrow? Yeah, I would have you do the happy dance. That’s number one. So listeners, you can get a piece of paper and just score yourself with a color, you’ll probably want to pause the recording. The second one is your productivity. Can you sit down for a two hour sprint, and I actually do the tasks that you set for yourself? That’s a game changer. Number three, mindset. And we’ve already talked a little bit about that. But when when a problem comes, Do you suffer? And do you get stressed? And do you view it as a problem? Or do you say, Bring it on, there’s something for me to learn here. The fourth one is now we started to really get to the revenue you want to a flood of leads. If you’ve got a trickle of leads, score yourself red, if you’ve got a flood of leads score yourself green. Next one is your conversion. When people come to your website, do they buy? Do you have a high conversion rate? Or is it a low conversion rate? Right? You don’t want to fly to traffic and nothing happens. And then number six is Are you loving up your existing customers? It’s so easy to keep looking for new customers new clients. But are you getting referrals? Are you are you gathering testimonials? Do you have a great upsell system? Do you have a nurturing sequence? So, that’s six. Should we? I can stop there. I can do the last three, whatever it

Adam G. Force 19:32

Let’s keep it rolling. Keep it rolling.

David Wood 19:33

All right. Number seven is you want to clarify your genius and get really clear. What do you love? And you’re great at and what are you going to outsource? critical because you’re the bottleneck in your own business. Yeah. Number eight, is actually harnessing talent. This is where you’ve identified I’m going to get stuff off but now you got to go and get the people and you want to get good at that. getting really good people. And then the last one, now that you’ve got a team, are they highly motivated and highly accountable? I’ve been coaching a lot for the last year, I’ve been coaching vice presidents and directors, and managers at some really big companies. I like to focus on entrepreneurs, but I’m like, I want to, I want to see what’s going on in the companies. And I found time and time again, there’s just a lack of motivation, a lack of leadership and a lack of accountability with the team. And these are easy fixes. They really are. So those are the nine areas, I recommend listeners, pause, go back, listen to this again, and give yourself a color, red, orange, or green in each of those areas. Because the plan for you to double revenue is going to be different to the next guy, or the next woman.

Adam G. Force 20:55

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And I’m curious on one of those you mentioned, and I think this is just something a lot of entrepreneurs, especially in the earlier stages can can get confused by so for example, I think it was number seven, which was know your strengths, delegate the weaknesses.

David Wood 21:15

That’s right, clarify your genius.

Adam G. Force 21:18

Yep. So if we’re doing that, one of the things I have found is that, sometimes what happens is people will say, Well, I’m a master of my craft, right? I know this expertise very well, in this category. I don’t know how to build sales funnels, and you know, lead generation funnels, or whatever it is, I’m making things out website development, and they start or even write my copy, right, you know, like, so we start outsourcing those things. And they can spend a lot of money and they’re not sure what is actually good, cohesive strategy behind those things. So at some base level, I always feel like as the owner, maybe these are your weaknesses, but you should be aware of how these things work at some level, so that you understand, you know, how to what you’re looking for to make it work for your business when you’re hiring out.

David Wood 22:14

Yeah, that makes sense. Like, let’s suppose you’re going to hire a social media person. I think it makes sense, like a valid strategy would be, I’m going to do a one hour primer on YouTube, right? You can do that for free. And just work out what the terminology is, and what’s good and whatever you could even, you could either get a coach, or you could do a little course on how to hire someone. You’re like, what to look for. Yes, yeah, media. I think that makes sense. I also think it’s totally valid to just find a person or a company. And I have a process in week in week eight, when you got to go and harness the talent and the process that I take people through so that they can test people and actually filter out all the riffraff but I think it’s fine to get an expert that you trust and have them guide you as well. I think both are valid.

Adam G. Force 23:09

Yeah, no, it makes sense. So if you have some checks and balances for the hiring process, right, like you’re kind of talking about getting rid of the riffraff stuff like that, because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of bad options.

David Wood 23:23

Oh, my God, look, I just hired a company. Yeah. Well, okay, you, you convincing me now you’re converting me. I hired a company to do social media for Facebook ads.

Adam G. Force 23:35

Yeah.

David Wood 23:36

Now I have done a couple of courses in Facebook ads, advertising is so critical. Yeah. And also my business is to be really good at marketing, so I can help my clients. So I’m like, this is gonna be a good investment. So I know, I know a bit about it. And then when this company showed me the results, after two weeks, they said, Yeah, the results aren’t optimal. But we’re gathering data. I said, Wait a minute. not optimal. We’ve spent $400 you’ve gotten four click throughs. Or click throughs. And zero signups for a free offer. This is terrible. Yeah. And and I, so I knew enough to say, there’s something wrong here in our relationship, and I don’t trust you, because you should be telling me this is terrible. That’s what you should be telling me not Oh, it’s not optimal. But we’ll, we’ll see what we can improve. This is what you should be telling me. So yeah, it helps. Same with right now I’m working with a programmer, because I’ve got this amazing idea out of them. We don’t have to go into it. But for podcasting, and for working out relationships in podcasting, and getting booked on podcast, I got this amazing program that’s going to conquer the world. I got this guy writing it. I know enough about programming that I can look at his code and say, This is terrible. What you’re doing is in it. So I got rid of that guy and I got a new guy who’s better. But again, I’m spotting. You know what? I’m paying too little, you get what you pay for I get what I need, I need to bump it up from 15 bucks an hour to probably 50 bucks an hour, even in India to get someone good. So it does help to know a little bit. But beware of the dark side of going too far into something. You just coached a client yesterday who’s got a product that’s gone viral? It’s a it’s an immunity product for COVID. Right, I get it kind of give him a shout out. Give him a plug.

Adam G. Force 25:46

Yeah, I don’t care.

David Wood 25:47

Yeah, good doseandremedy.com. Right. It’s an immunity product for COVID. And it’s gone viral, he’s having trouble supplying orders. And he was like, I think maybe we’re gonna do do our own shipping. Right? We got to set up a shipping operation. And I was like, really? You’ve got to work out what your core business is. Is your core business shipping? He said, No, it’s formulating really healthy products that the market needs. Unlike. Okay, so he said, but it’s expensive. I said, Well, maybe you maybe you it’s expensive for a while. And you do that I want to see you 10 x this business. And then I want to see you 10 exit again, and you shouldn’t be in the business of shipping. Now once you roll up and scale. Maybe you’ll hire someone who knows how to set up an in house shipping operation. Yeah. And you’ll do that and you’ll bump your profits. 20%. Right. But he needed that perspective, because he was going to go into the dark side of the Force, and try and do something that was not his genius.

Adam G. Force 26:57

Yeah, I mean, and that’s just, you gave him a nice way to think about it, it just becomes when the time is right factor to do it the right way. And you don’t have to do everything yourself. And I think that to your point, there is always going to be like, Yeah, you got to delegate things. Like I’m not a coder. And I’m not, you know certain things, but I like to know what’s going on in the business. And like to your point, you should be able to look at someone and be like, I know that I don’t know all the nitty gritty, but I know what you’re doing doesn’t make sense. And I I’ve run into that problem too, with people when I hired out to like, design big sales pages and do things because I’m a designer and a developer and I do those things. But I don’t do them all the time for our business because I don’t have the time, right. So I’ll pay someone else. And when they come back, and if they’re not doing it, right, I’m just like, I know when someone’s like making a mess. I mean, you know, so it’s just good to be aware. And it can save you because people will come in make a mess. And if you don’t know about it, you could sit on that mess for who knows how long?

David Wood 28:05

Yeah, that’s true. Which brings me to another hot tip for anyone who’s got a team they’re managing, or even you got one person you’re managing. I heard a military guy give a speech once he was a un weapons Inspector, okay. And he said to me, anything worth doing is worth inspecting.

Adam G. Force 28:25

Yes.

David Wood 28:26

And that was a revelation to me, because what I wanted to do is just hand it off to someone and trust that it’s been done. But it’s kind of demotivating theory for your staff. If you never look at their work, if you don’t check in on them. Either, that, you know, they’ll start to slide and whatever. And inspecting their work gives you a chance to celebrate them. So I have I have someone now who helps me get booked on podcast, he mitko might have reached out to you and set this up. And my commitment is every Friday, by one o’clock, I have to review his report, his weekly report of the bookings that he secured and what he did, and he’s hourly sheet, I have to do that. If I don’t do that by one o’clock Friday, I have to pay $5 to someone I don’t like that. That’s my commitment to inspect his work. Otherwise, you know how demotivating that no one ever looks at what he does.

Adam G. Force 29:32

Yeah. Appreciation comes from there too, right?

David Wood 29:35

Yep. And then I get to appreciate him. Well done. Good job. And as you said, if he is messing something up if there’s a mistake that’s happening, but we’re going to catch that we’re going to get to talk about it. So I highly encourage if you got a team or you’re going to have a team have this be a regular practice where anything that’s worth doing is worth inspecting

Adam G. Force 29:59

100% I love that. And I think too many people don’t take the time to do exactly that to look at metrics, what people are doing…. at Change Creator, we do daily, weekly, monthly. So certain things are daily practices, certain things are weekly practices, certain things are monthly, of course, there’s quarterly annual, all that stuff. But those are the three big ones, right. And so always looking at metrics once a week looking at, you know, financials like certain period like rotations and work that we’re doing. And if you’re not seeing because if you’re not looking at these things to your point, you don’t catch the mistake, right, you don’t catch the problem. And then it festers and time will only magnify the problem versus making it better. So now you can get the right trajectory, right. But if you’re not looking at these things, because we just take it for granted, we’re too busy. Maybe you’re a smaller business. So you think Yeah, I don’t need to get that, that like, you know, process oriented yet. And that’s always becomes a big, big mistake.

David Wood 31:05

Totally, totally agree. So we’ve just talked about a way that you can be super effective and super productive with your team, let’s bring it back to ourselves, shares the first rule, the first routine, the first metric, if you like, is going to have to be for yourself. And so what I recommend, and this, this is week two, right, we went through the nine, the nine areas, week two is your productivity. Do you know every week what your goals are for the next seven days? Right? Yeah, I asked every listener right now, do you know? Do you have it up on your wall as post it notes? Or in Trello? Or whatever system you use? I don’t care what system you use. But do you know? And let’s suppose you pause the recording? Yeah, right now and you write down your goals for the next seven days. Let’s suppose you do that. Sure. that serves you for the next week. But you’ll be lost the week after that. So I’ve decided the first rule, that number one thing for an entrepreneur is to put into your calendar, a regular CEO date with yourself? Sure, yeah, 20 minutes, can be four o’clock on a Friday, four o’clock on a Sunday 9am on a Monday you choose, put it in your calendar. And then here’s the second rule, you show up for that date. Now, that’s hard to do. Because you’re busy stuffs going on kids, kids knocking at the door, whatever, that’s hard to do. So what I do is, again, if I do not have that date with myself, which might even be five minutes to set my goals for the next seven days, if I do not do that, I have to pay $5 to someone I dislike. You follow those two rules, you’re gonna have direction for the rest of the year. If you do not do that, hey, look, nothing bad’s gonna happen. You just may not make as much money as you want. You may not have the time off that you want. You’ll be you’ll be on the ocean without a rudder. Yeah, that can be a good time. So I’m not saying you have to do it. I’m just saying if you want direction, and you’ve got goals that you want to achieve, these two rules can actually change your life.

Adam G. Force 33:39

I agree. And it’s those simple habits that it’s helping you create a habit right, first, create the habit second show up. It’s like, so you know, you’re building this into your lifestyle. And I think two things that came up to me when you got talking about the self and the goals is, I just did a video talk that I recorded yesterday about this, oddly enough, is two things that you have to do as an entrepreneur one, be honest with yourself, right? And to hold yourself accountable. And you talked about post it notes. And Funny enough, I used to do this years ago, I had posted this over the house, right? And as I’ve just recently, I’ve been I was reading this book can’t hurt me about this navy seal and his just insane life that he went through and how he had to go through Navy SEAL training multiple times. He went through hell week with a fractured kneecap, like just this guy’s nuts. And he started from absolutely the worst childhood nothing and he like turned everything around. And he gets into this idea of an accountability mirror. And I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. I used to do that for my mindset stuff years ago. And so I got posted notes on my mirror. So every day, I wake up and I look at those things. Those are the most immediate most important things I need to do right now. I tell myself, you got to get this done, dude. And I motivate and I get it going. And I’ve been crushing it because that stuff keeps it top of mind. So whatever, whatever it takes for you to make it work, we all are different. But looking yourself in the mirror and being honest with yourself and holding yourself accountable, it just works magic.

David Wood 35:18

I love that man. I’m very inspired hearing that. And, and we can take it one one layer further, because I love the seven day goals. It’s important. But we’ve got to because I lay a goal. So we started 12 months, yeah, to say eight weeks or 12 weeks. And then every seven days we’ll go to even if even if it looks sometimes I say like the last week I went no goals. I’m on vacation in Mexico. Right? Okay, fine. But I consciously wrote it down as holy. Yeah. The next layer is tomorrow. Yeah, that’s the next layer. So I think a wonderful practice. And you guys have told please steal this, if you like it, is ask yourself at the end of every workday. And you might want to set an alarm. If I don’t set an alarm, nothing happens. set an alarm, say five o’clock every day. The trick is you start to ignore the alarm. But you know, you need some discipline, and the alarm goes off. And as a says, if you were only allowed two things tomorrow, you are only allowed to do two things on your business. What would they be? Yeah, that really focuses the mind and the business and then put those post it notes up on your accountability mirror. I’ve got a board at home. Yeah. Put those up at the top. And then what I recommend you try it just try it for a week. is you do those two things first, before you do anything else, and I mean, checking email. Yeah, checking text messages, checking, like, you know, keep your phone on airplane mode. Yeah. Until you’ve done those two things, then you then allow your agenda to be hijacked by the rest of the world.

Adam G. Force 37:11

Yeah,

David Wood 37:11

Right? But that I just say try it out for seven days. There’s a feeling of peace, and a feeling I call it integrity that you have, when you are actually working first on the things that you have said are most important. It feels Yeah. When you don’t do that, what happens is stress, and you need alcohol and sugar and TV to return the Medicaid. And and again, hey, I’m okay with that. If that’s your choice, just know that that’s what’s going on. Yeah, try this out for seven days and see what true integrity feels like and what true productivity feels like. Because even more than you being successful in your business, I want you to feel good in your own body. That’s actually what drives me.

Adam G. Force 38:02

Yeah, that makes a huge difference and just feeling a little less decision overwhelm a little bit more clarity on the critical path of what you’re doing. And, you know, we get questions like that from our students and captivate our members. And they’re, like, got trying to figure these things out. And I’m like, Listen, the reality is nine times out of 10, there’s only you can only do two or three things in a day, right as your to do list, if you’re going to do it well. And you know, things always take longer than you expect. So don’t plan more than one, two or three things in the day. And I’d say don’t sit down at your computer, until you’re clear about what those things are for the day Don’t sit down without knowing makes a huge difference, makes a huge difference.

David Wood 38:45

That’s nice. That’s that’s discipline. Well, you know, and

Adam G. Force 38:49

it’s funny because you keep you use this word discipline multiple times now, and I want people entrepreneurs listening to realize that yes, there’s all these tactical things, things that we talked about here and you know, really understanding the self but two things that will make the biggest difference in your life. What’s your this is what you’re helping people with discipline and habits. Those two things.

David Wood 39:11

You know what? I’m going to say something, I don’t know exactly what it’s going to be but it it I want to say it and then see if it feels true. Okay, I I can’t help people with discipline. I can’t help you with discipline, what I can do is show you the path. Yes. And I can help you see your lack of discipline. But you are the only one that can bring that last piece to the table. You are the only one who can actually when the alarm goes off four o’clock on a Friday and says you have to do your weekly plan. You are the only one that can show up. I cannot help you. When you fall off the horse. I might be able to help you get back on but there is no one but you Who can bring that last piece to your own success?

Adam G. Force 40:04

100% Yeah, that discipline part is just, you know, for people listening, it’s really the emotional mind overcoming the logical mind. So if you can kind of reel it back in, so when it is four o’clock, you don’t feel like doing something, you got to say, Well, I know, this is what I decided is important for the success of my future in the long run. So I’m going to take the emotional side out of this. And I’m going to think logically and stick to the plan, right? So that kind of thinking has helped me in tough times. Because, hey, when I start, before I started Change Creator, I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I had to wake up at 330 and four o’clock in the morning to do work before I got on a train from Philly to New York to actually go to the office, right. I mean, that is, that was one of the most difficult like two years of my life. Because waking up early, and I think we can all relate, you’re waking up five, or whatever it is early for you. And you’re just like, ah, another half hour, and you just blow it off. Because emotionally, you, you you just feel like it’s too much. And you don’t want to do it. And so you rationalize. Right. So that’s where that discipline comes in. And we all have to learn how to harness the power of discipline.

David Wood 41:16

I’m with you, 100%.

Adam G. Force 41:19

Alright, David, I think we’re pretty much at the end here. And I want I want to be respectful of your time. So I love all the stuff, you’re helping entrepreneurs with doubling the revenue, getting more time off, you know, just kind of building a life that they dream of, and making it possible. So if people are interested in this type of work with you, how do they connect with you? How do they learn more? What what’s the next step for them? Yeah, thank you. Well, I took I you know, as I mentioned, I have an eight week program. So send me a program that’s designed to help you double your business in your time off over 12 months. Yes, grow, grow yourself as a human. And I took some of the best pieces of that. And I put it into a free training so that people can get a sense of what’s what’s what’s available. So I’m happy to give your listeners that there’s a little gift basket of goodies that includes that free training, there’s a cheat sheet with a checklist of what you need to handle. And if you want you can see if you might be a fit for the program. I’m quite I want to be upfront that I’m quite selective about who I choose, because I only want to work with people that I know I can create winsport It’s no fun for anybody to join a program they’re not a fit for. So you can you can get the free training the checklist and see if you’re fit for the seminar program at myfocusgift.com I tried to create the most memorable web we come up with to give you a gift about focus on my focus gift.com will take you there and you can access me and get in touch with me there too, if you like. You have it all right, myfocusgift.com everybody can check that out if you’re interested in what David is supporting entrepreneurs with. David, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. It was a fun chat.

David Wood 43:10

Hey, you’re welcome. I’ve enjoyed meeting you and I had a blast here and I’ve said some things on this. I’ve done 150 interviews. I said some things here I haven’t said on any other interview. So I blame you for that. And thank you.

Adam G. Force 43:23

That’s my job. Alright David, I’ll catch you next time. Thanks for tuning in to the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com/gobig to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Jennifer Spivak: Creating Facebook Ads That Actually Resonate

Listen to our exclusive interview with Jennifer Spivak:

Change Creator · Jennifer Spivak: Creating Facebook Ads That Actually Resonate

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

When should I try Facebook ads? What makes them resonate with the right people so they work? Like most entrepreneurs, you might want to jump into Facebook ads but feel a little lost. We reached out to expert, Jennifer Spivak to get some answers that will help you on your journey.

Jennifer and her team have managed over $3m in ad spend and generated over $10m in return now.

Learn more about Jennifer and her work at > jenniferspivak.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Jennifer Spivak 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host Adam Force co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big, visit us at Change Creator com forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam force, hope everybody is doing well and have an amazing week. so far. We’re gonna be talking with somebody who is a Facebook ads expert. You know, we get a lot of people on our captivate program. And then as they start really harnessing and understanding what storytime really is about for their business, and they are starting to ramp up, they they get hungry to run some ads as a next part of their process. So you know, talking with people like Jennifer is important just to start really understanding some of these next steps and getting her insights on the Facebook, you know, process, something that our team has been pretty deep into, we’ve hired agencies like Hersh, marketing and stuff like that to run Facebook ads. And you learn a lot. I mean, there’s so much to making it successful, which is why we want to dive into this conversation because you really want to use in my mind Facebook ads to scale what’s working, not figure out what’s working, you can really burn through a lot of cash. So you really want to be ready to convert people and know that your your sales process is working. So we’re gonna get into that. Now, Jennifer’s team, just to give you a little sense, they’ve managed well over $3 million in ad spend so far, but they’ve earned and generated 10 million in revenue in return. So they definitely know how to get a good ROI. So I’m excited. Well, this is actually an older conversation that we already had, just to be transparent with you guys. We’ve been like digging through some of our files and reorganizing and every so often, we find an interview that has slipped through the cracks and didn’t get live. So this is a good conversation. It’s relevant. You know, there I think that all things as general marketing concepts will be good. There could be technical things around Facebook that might evolve but not much has really changed besides the the iOS update and kind of that big battle going on between Facebook and apple. Okay, so anyway, without further ado, we’ll jump into this conversation. If you missed the last interview it was with Who was that? Oh, yeah, Jennifer kalo Ruskin, we talked about what it takes to win in the retail space. Really important stuff. She’s a super smart girl, somebody that we met in our mastermind back in 2020. January out in California. So yeah, she’s really crushing it in retail. So that’s a good one for you guys, if you’re in the retail space. Alright guys, follow us on Facebook. Check us out there. That’s our main area always stopped by change, credit, calm, lots of good content and fresh things going up there. And without further ado, we’re gonna dive into this conversation with Jennifer and talk about Facebook ads. Okay, show me the heat.

Adam G. Force 03:33

Hey, Jennifer, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show. How’s everything going?

Jennifer Spivak 03:37

It’s going great. Thanks

Adam G. Force 03:38

so much for having me. Excellent. I appreciate you being here. You have quite a story. And you know, for anybody listening, we’ve been kind of hammering away at some some marketing stuff. And this will be our second guests here. It’s a really dive into some of the Facebook ads. But she has a really great story. So Jennifer via just tell us a little bit about like what’s going on in your world now. Like, what’s the latest? What’s the greatest and then we’ll kind of get the background of how you got there.

Jennifer Spivak 04:04

Yeah, latest and greatest. So actually, as of yesterday, we are celebrating our first six figure month, which is super cool and super exciting. Considering I started this business by myself five years ago in my 20s with having literally no idea what I was doing. So I still have these moments of like, oh, how did I get here? I blinked and here we are. But yeah, you know, as as you know, I own a all female Facebook and Instagram advertising agency. Yeah. And we’ve been working primarily with with female clients for the last five, five and a half years. And it’s just really awesome. We get to help women businesses make money while we grow and life’s pretty good over here.

Adam G. Force 04:53

Awesome. No, I love the sound of that. And I’m just curious kind of how you got in to Facebook as a specialty skill to begin with

Jennifer Spivak 05:04

Yeah. So I went to school for marketing and public relations, this area was sort of always in the cards for me. And my story starts with, so I met this guy on Craigslist. And people are always like, oh, that doesn’t sound good. But it’s a really good ending, which is that when I was in college, I connected with this guy on Craigslist, we ended up deciding to build an agency together. And we spent, you know, a couple of years from 2010 to 2014. Figuring out what the hell we specialized in how we were going to grow this company. And, you know, this was sort of like the come up days of Facebook ads, and really even digital marketing in general. So we were just trying on random things like one week, we specialized in SEO, the next week, we specialized in AdWords, it was like, let’s just see and try to figure it out. And at some point, we were like, Oh, I don’t know, let’s try Facebook ads, and the business like practically exploded overnight. So I realized we were onto something. And you know, it’s funny, people are like, well, how did you get training, I’m like, of there wasn’t any like it didn’t exist. We were all just figuring this out as we went into. And so I kind of learned, as people in general, were learning how to use Facebook ads to generate sales and revenue. And when I left that agency at the end of 2014, and to me, it was immediately obvious that this was something I knew a lot about, it was something that was really easy to sell, because it is so quantifiable, and it was also the best way to get results for the types of clients I wanted to work with.

Adam G. Force 06:37

Very interesting, nice little evolution of things there. And yeah, it was kind of leaning into. I mean, it is such a powerful marketing platform. And I think it’s almost like no matter what business category you’re in, you’ll probably have an audience on there of some size.

Jennifer Spivak 06:55

Absolutely. And it’s so funny, because I think one of the most common things I hear is that like, if it’s really truly like b2b, it can’t like Facebook won’t work. And in fact, there’s almost like a joke in the industry that a lot of ad agencies don’t use Facebook ads for their own agency lead gen, which sounds really weird, and counterintuitive. And I’ve actually been crushing it with a funnel, I like accidentally came up with her own agency lead gen. So yeah, I really think that the applications are just incredibly vast, and it’s so freakin powerful.

Adam G. Force 07:30

Yeah, 100%, you know, and it’s kind of like a little bit of a puzzle, you just got to find the right, you know, setup and everything comes together. So it sounds like you got a nice funnel. And, you know, you’re not the first person who’s running an agency. And using Facebook to get clients like I spoke to Travis chambers of chamber media, they do all video ads. And he was like, yeah, we can spend he’s spending like $6,000 for every $6,000 on a Facebook ad. He’s getting like a, you know, $50,000 client for, yeah, for like, but it just shows like a maybe a bigger investment, but the quality he is pulling clients in through that channel.

Jennifer Spivak 08:10

Absolutely. And I mean, just my stats over the last two months, if seriously uncovered this meticulously simple funnel kind of by accident. We’ve spent only about four grand on just this specific agency lead gen funnel in the last two months, and it’s brought in $46,000 in revenue.

Adam G. Force 08:26

That’s awesome.

Jennifer Spivak 08:27

You know, like, Yeah, right. And that’s just on the first three months, by the way, if any of these clients were new, and they’re good clients, I mean, we’re like, well into potentially six figures, just from four grand in ad spend. And I have four sales calls booked tomorrow from that funnel.

Adam G. Force 08:44

Oh, my God

Jennifer Spivak 08:45

We may need to do an update.

Adam G. Force 08:47

That’s awesome. Congrats. I’m glad that you got something that’s hot. Hang on to it as long as you can.

Jennifer Spivak 08:53

I intend to.

Adam G. Force 08:55

Well, tell me a little bit about like, you know, what we’re seeing with, you know, traditional, maybe product based or service based funnels versus and you don’t have to spill your secrets, but maybe a little taste of what your what’s working for you. Yeah.

Jennifer Spivak 09:10

So I Well, what’s what I talk about my funnel and the general sort of like our big picture, so Well, actually, what’s working in my funnel actually relates to the big picture, which is, I kind of believe that this concept of like, what’s the secret? And like, what are your secrets like? Well, there aren’t any, it’s really just about a lot of structured testing, like not to burst anybody’s bubble. But that’s, that’s really at the foundation of everything that we do. And in fact, I’ve found it to be a huge disservice to try too hard to fit into a best practice or the type of funnel that the quote on quote experts say we’re supposed to be using. Yeah, yeah. And now let’s talk about I mean, this translates directly to what I’m doing with my own funnel. It’s like stupidly simple. You know everything about how we’re supposed to use Facebook ads says you kind of warm people up first and nurture them and give free value and do a webinar or a lead magnet or a free audit or all of these things, and then you can get them to a sale. Okay? All right. That’s like what you know, the best practices say and by the way, we have clients where we use that with them that works for them. Sure. But what I was noticing personally, for my own funnel is that I would, you know, we had this like amazing opt in that my team and I put together, it’s almost like a mini course, incredibly valuable. We were getting like $2 opt ins, which is fantastic. But they were primarily freebie seekers or diyers. And so yeah, this goes back to one of the things I’m talking about all the time, which is, especially if you’re high ticket focusing solely or focusing too much on the cost per lead or cost per opt in. It’s just really short sighted and having you missed the big picture. Because, again, if we’re talking about on paper to dollar opt ins, that’s awesome. But the conversion rate to getting people to book a call with me, and then actually closing was really, really low. So I said, All right, technically I want to I’m going to try something that technically shouldn’t work. But let’s see. So put together this like really beautiful landing page. It’s an it’s an apply page, it’s you know, where I send all my traffic to if they want to apply for a call with me. But really like this full, robust, beautiful landing page with you know, this professional video, I had done an information on myself and my team and case study videos, all this great stuff. And I said, Oh, I wonder what would happen if I just sent cold traffic there. I’m willing to spend 10 to $15 a day on like a short little test just to see what happens. Put together a couple of quick ads literally pulled like the most basic look alike audience of people who had been to my website in the last 180 days and just did a 2% look alike. Turned it on. And to be really honest with you forgot about it, because I am the worst at managing my own ads. Yeah. Like just terrible. So I just let it run. And I went back like two weeks, three weeks later.

Adam G. Force 12:08

Two or three weeks. Wow. Okay.

Jennifer Spivak 12:10

Yeah, literally, I’m like, I can’t express enough how bad I am at managing my own ads, because of running a business and you know, handling all my clients stuff. Yeah. And, you know, I knew it was a really broad audience. So when you’re testing really broadly, you do actually want to give Facebook a lot of time to do its thing, let the algorithm work. And in fact, leaving it alone could actually be part of what had it work, because the algorithm did get to do its thing and cast a really wide net and inside of that, find the right people. And what has been able to happen is, I’ve been getting qualified as they filled out my full application qualified book calls for about $60 each, I will say, I have about a 50% no show rate from this particular funnel, which is sure significantly higher than anything else I normally have, I’d normally have a next to nothing. But paying $120 per call is also fine. When I’m selling, you know, a five, a five figure plus service like I don’t care, that’s fine. So it leaves room for not every single person is the exact right person. But at the end of the day, it’s resulted in, you know, getting a lot of the right people in closing three clients $46 in revenue that’s already in, you know, in my bank account, not including their leads that may close the leads I have tomorrow. And the one thing I will say that I think makes this work. And this is the piece people like don’t like to talk about when I talk about Facebook ads, because it’s like not sexy. But all of the back end stuff is a huge part of what makes this work. So I actually have a really robust retargeting sequence that runs after somebody books a call with me, and a really robust email sequence that runs after somebody books a call. So even though they didn’t get warmed up before they applied for a call with me, they’re getting incredibly warmed up and nurtured in the couple of days between when they book Yeah, and when they get on the phone with me. And this always I’ve done this in my business always, by the way, has people get on a sales call with me and say things like, I feel like I already know you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, come on. That’s like not a sales call anymore. That’s like we’re chit chatting.

Adam G. Force 14:26

Yeah, we’re just getting…. Yeah, I love that. Oh, yeah.

Jennifer Spivak 14:30

And that’s how I like to do business, by the way, like a hard sell. It’s just awkward. I like to just connect with people and like, we see if it’s a fit. And I really am very authentic and vulnerable. And it’s, you know, my brand is very much me and my personal brand. And so all of that stuff comes through and all of these touch points after they book. And I think that’s part of what makes this stupidly simple funnel work.

Adam G. Force 14:53

That’s great. Yeah, and you know, there’s I’ve learned this the hard way over the years too, is like there are no That rules like, you know, everyone gets so hung up on what is been preached by a couple, you know, thought leaders and you know this stuff. Yeah, like you said, it works for some people, it doesn’t work for others, but it’s a great idea to try. But you can try other things.

Jennifer Spivak 15:16

Yes. And it’s this idea of really approaching Facebook ads. And I guess Honestly, this would apply to I was gonna say marketing, but also business and life is not just like what the best practices but what’s actually going to serve me best. Yeah, exactly. And being willing to try and test and iterate and put in a little bit of upfront work and you know, get through it, when it’s getting tough and challenging. And you’re worried to find that sweet spot of what actually works for you.

Adam G. Force 15:43

Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. I’ve seen so many variations of different funnel steps and things like that. And, you know, it’s just, it’s incredible what you you don’t even expect like putting the entire webinar on the Facebook ad directory, like, you know, it works for some people. And you’ve never really been told to do that.

Jennifer Spivak 16:02

Yeah, I’ve been talking about that we’ve been doing that with so many clients, because the cost of getting a webinar registration is just like getting, you know, more and more expensive these days, depending on the industry. And with a video view ad, I might be able to get somebody watching a completed 90 minute webinar for like $4 compared to a $13 registration. And that’s not even factoring in if they watched it.

Adam G. Force 16:24

Yeah. And I mean, that would be interesting. I mean, have you seen it that low? like four or five hours for a full watch?

Jennifer Spivak 16:31

Yes. Wow. Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, it always depends on the industry, how good the video is, and all that stuff. There’s so many factors. But we do have a particular clients, we were we were really struggling honestly, to get the webinar redge costs below $16. And, you know, I’m willing to like deal with like, 10 to 12, if it’s the right audience, but 16 just felt like a little much for me, and it made, you know, it made getting volume really challenging. Yeah, and this is this is particularly if I’m not mistaken, it’s about a 35 Minute Webinar. So it’s not like a full length, you know, 60 to 90 minutes. But we’ve been getting people like 100% completed view for four bucks compared to that 16 I mean, it’s like night and day.

Adam G. Force 17:17

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess the only thing I see there is you know, you don’t have them on it, I guess. How are you sharing? Because usually have a follow up series. So like, are you doing something to do follow ups then?

Jennifer Spivak 17:29

Retargeting baby all day. And here’s the thing, right at the end of the day, nobody in the world has a 100% open rate on their email system. Right? Like nobody has that. So absolutely doing the follow up sequence through retargeting, I’m not going to say it’s better, you definitely should do email and cross channel and all of that, sure, because it all connects and supports but Facebook and Facebook retargeting ads is actually a better way to have some level of certainty that that message is getting in front of people. So what we’ll normally do, even if we are collecting an email address, and we know that there’s a follow up sequence is we’ll take the already created follow up sequence, and just turn them into a really cool engaging Facebook ads and kind of run the sequence in the same way just to create that everywhere.

Adam G. Force 18:17

Right, right. Right. Nice. That’s awesome. Interesting. And you mentioned earlier, too, that you’re donating to a group.

Jennifer Spivak 18:27

Yes, yes. So, you know, I feel like it’s my personal duty to, you know, as we, you know, grow and make more money. And as I make more money to like, actually make sure I’m being a better person, that’s it make more money, which is often like the opposite of I think, like the stereotype of what we think happens. So that’s just a huge part of everything that I do. And we actually have a partnership with this phenomenal organization, they’re called free from, and they specifically deal with the financial abuse aspect of domestic violence. This is something that is almost never talked about, and I don’t want to get the stat wrong, but it’s something like, you know, 97% of domestic violence victims go back to their abuser, which means being put at the risk of actual death, right? due to due to finances, and all of the resources out there to support survivors and there are plenty are really about having them be physically safe. And thank God for those no doubt. But what about after that? Like, why are we just being like, Okay, well, you’re alive now. And that’s like, kind of surviving as the best you’re gonna be able to do. So. That’s it, like, yeah, nice life, and then they’re back in the cycle of abuse. often they’re in the cycle of homelessness. And so, this organization very specifically works with Helping Survivors get compensated, for example, lost wages of when they were unable to go to work when they were being abused. And it also helps them, start their own businesses learn financial tools, and really go beyond just being a survivor to actually someone that can like live a thriving and abundant life. So we are just so connected and aligned with the work that they do. And we donate, you know, percentage again, of everything that we make for years now to support the work that they do.

Adam G. Force 20:24

That’s amazing. I love that. And it’s just part of, you know, something that’s important to you, and using your skills here with this marketing agency. And it allows you to contribute. So that’s pretty cool. Little setup. Nice system.

Jennifer Spivak 20:38

It really yeah, it’s, you know, for me, everything that I do, in some way, shape or form is connected to how do I put more money in the hands of more women? I think that that’s one of the most important things. No offense to men, I love y’all. That is, to me, one of the most important things that could happen on this planet in 2020. So it’s a huge focus of mine. It’s the reason why I only hire women. It’s the reason why we not exclusively, but very heavily do work mostly with female clients. And then we also have this, you know, philanthropic aspect.

Adam G. Force 21:14

Awesome. Yeah, I love it. And I kind of want to get a little bit into the ideas you have for the future. So where do you see this going at this point? So remind us how long you’ve been active now with the current business, and then we’ll come back the future from there.

Jennifer Spivak 21:33

So it’s been about almost five and a half years now.

Adam G. Force 21:39

Okay, so And now, where do you see this going for the next five years?

Jennifer Spivak 21:44

That is such a good question. You know, I, the one thing I’ll say is that I didn’t see this vision five years ago. So I’m just like, really open to whatever the universe puts in front of me as the next step. But what I really see is just a little bit more growth, I’m actually I actually don’t want to grow to this huge agency, this is a just a big part of like, the vision I have for what it looks like to be able to serve clients at the highest level. And, you know, sometimes as these agencies grow, they have, understandably growing pains, like, totally get it, we all get it. But what ends up happening is client delivery is affected. And the you know, the, the head of the agency, the face of the agency, whoever it is, is not the person that’s actually delivering on the work guiding the strategy, having the face to face time with clients. And, you know, I do have a small team, I’m all for delegating. I’m not like trying to do everything myself anymore. But I do know that having that touch point that face to face time and really being connected to my clients, and like what they’re doing in the world, and what we’re ultimately like, helping them fund, in a way is really, really important to me. So right now we’re a team of six. Again, I don’t know what the universe is gonna put me but the way I it’s hard for me to see us as much more than like a team of eight or 10 at any point in time. Just because I do I love my clients. They’re like, my best friends. I know, that feels like, corny, maybe. And I don’t know if they would hear this and be like, yeah, that’s really weird. But I adore them. I think they’re doing such amazing stuff. And I always want to be connected to them in that way. So I think the vision is to just grow a little bit more continue to provide an amazing service, donate as much money as we can to free from and other domestic violence related organizations that we really care about, and just financially empower as many women as possible.

Adam G. Force 23:54

Hmm, yeah. Well, you got a passion around that, for sure. So yeah, I’d love to see it moving forward. And yeah, you know, sometimes there’s just a value to like, keeping things at a certain level that allow you to have a certain service, right? Because that’s Yes. That’s like defines, like, your values for your business. And what’s important to you?

Jennifer Spivak 24:15

Yes, yeah. You know, I mean, we’ve, we’ve even had, like, just small periods of really fast growth where I could see that, like, if we weren’t careful, we would be in that territory of clients suffering. Yeah, yeah. And so I know for me as I’ve grown from just being like a freelancer who happened to do ads, to stepping it, stepping into it, I call it like, stepping into the visionary CEO role, which like, I think I’m still trying to figure out but I know that like having the big picture vision beyond just revenue and I love money, and I have no shame about it. But the big picture vision separate from that has been really, really crucial for us.

Adam G. Force 24:58

Yeah, I can see that and I think that a lot of people don’t realize just how important it is to, to have that in mind like to have some clarity around those things that are important to you. So the more clarity you have there, just, the quicker you’re gonna move forward to becoming that company that you want to be. Right. It just, it’s just makes it easier.

Jennifer Spivak 25:18

I mean, look, if you if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re going to be a yes to everything. And then yeah, like, like actually knowing what to say no to because you have that clear vision, I think it’s so crucial to growing in a way that doesn’t feel crazy and nuts and just like growth at you know, whatever expense necessary.

Adam G. Force 25:36

Yeah, I was at a summit in California just couple weeks ago. And they says one of the speakers said something that kind of just something you always know, but then a jolted the perspective you ever have that happen where you they like you hear it again, you’re like, Oh, now I really get it. You know, oh, they’re doing this talk. And they’re like, Listen, if I’m a multi seven figure business, and I want it to be $100 million business right now, I wouldn’t know what that looks like. Right? Like, you don’t know what that is. So like you it’s very difficult to get there until you someone can help you or you start chipping away and figuring it out. But isn’t that such a powerful thing? It’s like, you’re right, like, you don’t know what these things look like?

Jennifer Spivak 26:17

No, God, not at all. And it’s just, I just, you know, I, my, my word right now is surrender.

Adam G. Force 26:26

Hmm, that’s interesting.

Jennifer Spivak 26:28

Yeah, just like, just consistently kind of leaning back into surrendering. This is in my personal life and professional life of just like, what, what does the universe have in store for me? And like, isn’t it silly that I would think that like, I’m some like, big figure on the planet that I would have all the answers like, No, no, no, we’re like these small little dots. Yeah, like big, colossal universe. And I’m just like, here for the ride. And I’m open to you know, what, whatever is gonna serve me greatest?

Adam G. Force 27:01

Yeah, no, the big perspective is so helpful. It’s, it’s humbling, but also kind of keeps your anxiety down, because you’re kind of like, hey, yeah, I just have that big picture. And then you just do your best because at the end of the day, it’s it’s really about asking the right questions, and just kind of knowing where you want to go, and then just do it.

Jennifer Spivak 27:21

100%, and just like something I’ve been talking about a lot is being like really being in the process. You know what I mean? Like, I think, as so many entrepreneurs were so results oriented, and so results focused. And that’s great about us, by the way, like, it’s usually like what makes us successful to a point. But I’ve been playing more with just like being in the middle and having that almost be like a result in itself. Yeah. And there is absolutely no coincidence that like, this is something that I’ve been very present to for the last month. And suddenly, we had like our by far, best month ever, nothing’s coincidence. And I continue to see as I grow, that it’s not, yes, I’ve got this funnel working, right. But it’s, it’s not just that it’s never just the marketing tactic, or the funnel, that suddenly has me get to the next level. It’s like, who I’m being and the world and how much I’m investing in my own personal growth. And you know, how I’m just dancing for the universe is giving me that all of a sudden, like, has us, you know, break through to a new revenue level, for example.

Adam G. Force 28:25

That’s it, man. And it’s funny, because everybody gets so hung up on like, the tactical stuff. And I think we’re starting to hear more people talk about this. And you know, it’s common, because you don’t really know what the important marketing is yet, and you start realizing it is about yourself. It’s about your thinking, and how you communicate with people and make connections like you talked about, like, you want to, like, have that connection. That’s good business, you know?

Jennifer Spivak 28:49

Absolutely. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 28:50

How did you get your first client?

Jennifer Spivak 28:54

Oh, that’s such a good question. I’m trying to remember, I think it was honestly completely random. So I’ve been like, a huge part of just my like, my life and my practice is I do a lot of money mindset work and manifesting work. And I, you know, a little bit before I had left field agency, I was like, all right, like, I’m going out there, I have no idea what I’m doing and I get clients better start manifesting. So, you know, I just like had these, you know, these things that I would do every single day to get myself in that energy to be the person that like, you know, ran this six, seven figure business, even though it wasn’t there yet. And really, honestly, like, it does feel like clients fell out of the sky and yet I was being visible. I was always you know, very vocal about what I did. But I do think all of this sort of behind the scenes energetic and mindset work is what made this feel so easy. I mean, my first month on my own, I made $10,000 and as a freelancer planning to potentially make nothing, I was like, Oh, well, okay, then

Adam G. Force 30:07

I can do this.

Jennifer Spivak 30:09

Look at that.

Adam G. Force 30:11

Wow, that’s pretty exciting. Yeah.

Jennifer Spivak 30:13

Yeah. So it’s been, you know, the first and I think this is common, I hear this for people all the time, especially in any sort of service based business. But the first, like, three years or so was very much in person stuff going to networking events, speaking at events, word of mouth, and referrals. And it wasn’t really, it wasn’t really till I had that sort of solid foundation, and I think had reached my max with relying solely on word of mouth and referrals that I then sort of expand to, you know, online stuff online funnels, you know, actually using social media for my own business. Yeah. And now, I mean, clients just come from from all over the place. I’ve been really lucky that get, you know, have a decent amount of brand awareness. Yeah. Cool.

Adam G. Force 30:58

Yeah. Very exciting. I love it. It sounds like you have a lot of good stuff going on. And I love the fact that, that cause that’s really great. So I want to be respectful of your time. So we’ll wrap up here and how do people connect with you if they want to work with you or see what you’re up to? Where do they go?

Jennifer Spivak 31:16

So obviously, you know, I’m called the Facebook ads girl, because I live on Facebook. So that’s definitely a great place to connect with me. I’m just Jennifer Spivak on Facebook. And then if anyone’s interested in booking a call to see if we are a good fit to work together, you would want to go to www.jenniferspivak.com

Adam G. Force 31:36

Awesome. Jennifer, thank you so much for your time today really enjoyed the talk.

Jennifer Spivak 31:40

Likewise, thank you so much.

Adam G. Force 31:47

Thanks for tuning in to the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Jennifer Kaylo Ruscin: What You Need to Win in the Retail Space

Listen to our exclusive interview with Jennifer Kayla Ruscin:

Change Creator · Jennifer Kaylo Ruscin: What You Need to Win in the Retail Space

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What does it take to get your product in a store like Walmart? We spoke to expert, Jennifer Kaylo Ruscin to find out the secrets to winning in retail today.

More About Jennifer:

She has dedicated the last 17 years to serving shoppers in the retail space, both brick and mortar and online, bringing to market innovative products and brands.

In serving her clients, she has sat at the table with hundred-million dollar CEO’s, helping them to create multi-million dollar brands in retailers.

And in creating her own million dollar company she has learned how to attract a perfectly aligned client, and create both the business and personal life you dream about.

Learn more about Jennifer and her work at > Jenniferkayloruscin.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Jennifer Kaylo 02:27

I’m awesome. Thank you for having me.

Adam G. Force 02:29

Yeah, well, thanks for being here. And I appreciate you taking the time. You know, um, you know, ecommerce is not our space here at Change Creator. So I love to tap into other people’s expertise and just learn a little bit more about you know, like, you have incredible program helping people get into Walmart and stores like that, which could be game changers for people, right? So tell me a little bit about your background, and just kind of how you got to this position of like, why you’re doing what you’re doing. And you know, a little bit what’s going on in your world today.

Jennifer Kaylo 02:58

Awesome. Thank you. Okay, so my background is really it’s brick and mortar, and it’s mass retail. So I started at Walmart, home office, I don’t know how many people actually start at Walmart home office, working for the largest company in the entire world. But it was me, that’s what I did. It was back in 2005. And I was in my mid 20s. And I fell in love with retail. Like, it was so amazing to watch, the buyer that I worked for have the power to choose what ended up on the actual retail shelves that other humans went and purchased, it was the coolest thing. And at one point, I got to even develop a totally organic all natural hair dryer that failed miserably once it hit stores. But it was so cool to get to be a part of that process. And I think, you know, I think that your audience is really full of small business owners and entrepreneurial spirits. And hey, maybe they’ve tried to make a hairdryer and maybe they’ve tried to make barbecue sauce or something and you finally get it out into the world. And sometimes you have to tweak it a little bit, right once it finally gets out. So after spending seven years at Walmart, I realized, I think that there might be more than just these little cubicle walls that surround me I’d had my first child, my second child, I finished my MBA, and I looked up like bright and shiny eyed and I thought I’m gonna go get on LinkedIn. Okay, it’s time to like get a LinkedIn profile and see what else is on the other side of my cubicle walls. And within Walmart, this is like a really dirty bad thing to do. Like you don’t go work for the dark side is what they call it, which is like the supplier world. But that’s what I did. So I left and I started working for nature’s path organic food, and fell in love with the food business. I grocery is so much fun. And it’s always innovative and to see what food trends are cool this year, but like not cool the next year and what’s coming next is so much fun. And I think as we’re all preparing for Expo West, in just a couple weeks, we’re all like anticipating what’s going to be the next food trend. So I did that for about a year and a half and then I got really bored like Adam, I was like okay, I’ve had my MBA, I’m super smart, I’m used to working the job of five different people at Walmart. And all I do is yoga all day, like I have nothing to do working for natures path, I’m so bored. And so I thought, I’m just going to open up my own brokerage firm, then I can sell like bicycles and tents and food if I want to. And so that’s what I’ve done for the last five years, almost six. I’m in my sixth year now. And so I help companies sell into Walmart, in stores and into Amazon.

Adam G. Force 05:27

Interesting. That’s pretty cool. Yeah. And, and so I guess what are some of the commonalities of like getting into a place like Amazon versus Walmart, I guess some of the differences and commonalities?

Jennifer Kaylo 05:41

Well, you know, I kind of looking, I kind of look at it as a stepping stone or like as a launchpad. So for me, Amazon can be multiple things for you, it can be the one destination that you sell your product based business in. And you can literally grow a million dollar plus account just being on Amazon. The amazing thing about Amazon, there’s no buyers, there’s nobody to tell you. No, there’s no slotting fees, there’s like there’s so many amazing positives to Amazon, one negative, well, there’s a lot of negatives, but the first one that pops out to me is you don’t own your customer, you don’t own the customer, you don’t own the customer experience. There’s third parties everywhere, right? So it’s kind of like the Wild West, and you never know how your product is going to end up in the hands of shoppers and consumers and people that can write you a bad review. So there are definitely some ways that you can control that shopping experience for your shopper and for your brand. And that’s where I think people like me come into place to help educate you and teach you or even manage your account. I manage 20 different Amazon client accounts at this point. And I only keep 20 on my roster, but we help them get those third party wild west guys off. So I love Amazon so much. There’s so much waste so many ways to make money on Amazon. But then there’s other people in another boat where they’re like, Hmm, I really want to be in brick and mortar, or I want to expand my brick and mortar distribution. So they might be in smaller stores like a bylo or a shop ride or something like that. Yeah. And they want to be in target. They want to be in Walmart, they want to be in larger grocery stores and chains in mass retail. Costco, you get the idea. Oh, yeah. And so in those instances, I like to use Amazon as a launch pad to get into brick and mortar.

Adam G. Force 07:27

Gotcha. Gotcha.

Jennifer Kaylo 07:29

Yeah. Do you want to know how to do that?

Adam G. Force 07:31

Yeah, I’m gonna let you keep on going until us yeah.

Jennifer Kaylo 07:34

So the ways to do that are you have to get your products on page one for your category. Again, there’s definitely a way in the system to do that. But you want to get your products on page one. So for example, like I’m looking at my desk right now, and I have Lacroix sitting on my desk. I if I am Lacroix I want to be on page one, so that the other retailer start to see me they know who I am, they might decide that they want Lacroix in their own stores. Because I’ve done all the heavy lifting. And shoppers are now looking for me. They’re looking for me in Walmart, they’re looking for me and target. And so you kind of have you have a much more weight as a brand. When you can say, look, there are millions of customers that are buying from me off of Amazon every single year. Why would you not put this on your shelf? I at least deserve a buyer meeting.

Adam G. Force 08:21

Yeah. And so is it difficult? Like I mean, obviously, it’s difficult, but like, what are some of the criteria like is it super saturated? Like I just give a quick example, like I was reading about this guy, Mike pero for because you mentioned Costco, it made me think of him and he’s like head of merchandising over there. And he said that, you know, they get saturated, let’s say you have a laundry detergent that’s good for the environment or something and you want to get on the shelf at Costco, well, they have 100, laundry detergents pitching for that shelf space, right. And he’s like, you know, everyone, you can compete on price, you compete on different features, whatever it might be. And in the end, he’s like, I have to make decisions about who gets on the shelf in Costco, and it comes down to who I liked the most and who I trust the most.

Jennifer Kaylo 09:08

Uuuh. Know, like and trust. Those are three really important terms, three important factors to be as a brand. A I think club business is very different than even brick and mortar business, and especially in mass and that club only has four slots for detergent. That’s it, and it’s gonna be the four top brands, they may have one position where they’re willing to try something like new and upcoming and hot and whatever, right. For Sam’s Club, they’ve almost done like the opposite. And I know that kirklands is super strong and Costco and they do have a really great house brand. But Sam’s Club is now like we only want to be private label. So they swung in like the totally opposite pendulum, which is really frustrating as a brand. Because you may have had distribution and now you don’t. And now you’re scratching your head like what where the hell do I sell if I can’t sell online, or I can’t sell in a big brick and mortar and there’s a bunch of different ways, I think to protect yourself as a brand, where you can’t put all your eggs in one basket anymore. You can’t just be on Amazon because Amazon might shut you off. Right?

Adam G. Force 10:10

And so what is it? What is a company like? So we talked about like Costco, which is like these, you know, club brands, and then we have like a Walmart. So, what’s different? Like, what is Walmart looking for? I mean, you talk about getting that presence on page one and all that kind of stuff, because you’re stirring the demand. Okay, the demands there. So give people what they want. What What is like the criteria from Walmart, and how competitive is it really to get on the shelf in comparison to the Costco’s of the world and stuff?

Jennifer Kaylo 10:39

That’s a great question, I would say a little less competitive, but only because Walmart has way more shelf space and way more options. And they may have one facing as opposed to an entire pallet in a cost. Or you only have four options. I think what we’re seeing in terms of private label in Costco in Sam’s Club in all these other guys, it’s the same thing is happening within Walmart, it is becoming so difficult to get items into Walmart. So you really, really do have to be best to the best. So even if you are on page one, and you may be our position one, position two, or even position five on Amazon, even that is a challenge. Now I will say you can use Amazon to get a buyer meeting, you can use Amazon to continue to get some space in brick and mortar. But even just a few years ago, where I’d almost guaranteed you a spot on a retail shelf, just because you were positioned one or two and Amazon, I would say even even now in what 2020 it’s becoming increasingly difficult now I don’t know if we’re gonna see a trend in retail away from private label, like the pendulum has swung so far into private label right now, that unless you’re a mass CPG brand, you’re really not going to be on shelf, right? Unless you are so incredibly trendy. Like I’m thinking bulletproof, like bulletproof coffee, right? If you walked in Walmart today, and you’re over in that OTC area, you’re gonna see a big feature like an endcap, full of bullet bulletproof coffee. And it’s all fixtured. And it’s beautiful, and it’s branded. But they’re not necessarily sitting in the middle of an aisle. Right, right. Because even them even they haven’t earned a spot permanently in the fixture there. They’re testing it, they’re trying it. So there are some additional options to within brick and mortar. And I would assume Walmart is very similar to the other ones that you can at least get a feature in or get a test in, because you have shown up and done your work on Amazon.

Adam G. Force 12:38

Okay. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. It’s kind of like, cuz you mentioned earlier, it’s like a stepping stone in some of these strategies, just to, I guess, kind of keep increasing your distribution. And it makes me think to like, I guess, targets gonna be similar, right? It’s a big store, they expanded quite a bit with the number of stores, more shelf space, all that good stuff. And like I was in there with my wife, you know, we stopped in there every so often. And I would look at some of the men’s clothing and I saw, like, you know, the socks, t shirts, underwear, all that stuff, they have everything. And I saw this brand Goodfellas. And it was just like one small section. And the next thing you know, I see another section, another section. And then they redesigned the store just last week, and they have all this other product lines like men’s like you know, stuff for your beard and your hair and everything else. And I’m like, all of a sudden, over the past like three to four months, this brand has started as like a spotlight like test and it’s just started taking over Target like how Yeah, how does that happen? Did I lose you?

Jennifer Kaylo 13:42

Nope, sorry. I’m right here. How does that happen? I think Target for one is very, very open to trying new things, right? So they’re willing to like go all in on the Goodfellow line and bring it in like the beard oil and bringing in the cap and bringing in the belt and all of that stuff and putting it all in one space, which is so cool. But as you as you just mentioned, though, they started small, right, like and that’s their own private label brand. So they test it.

Adam G. Force 14:10

Was it is it I didn’t even know it was there own private label. I told Luanne, my wife, I was like, I bet you this is their own brand. That that’s why it’s getting so much attention here too. Yes, it is. And target is another good example of private label ownership. And I actually did another podcast just on this exact topic. As women we want to go and buy Archer farms because it’s so trendy because target knows what we want as women. Like if you go into target and you go into the coffee section, you’re going to find like delightful caramel macchiato with a splash of mint like something that’s really decadent and really interesting. That’s not on shelf in any other retailer. But target knows what women want. Right? So the cool thing is they’re figuring out what men want now to do right with this Goodfellow brand and it’s like Men want these really trendy sunglasses that are so cool and different that they can’t find anywhere else. Or this like super amazing moisturizing, good smelling shave gel. Right? That you don’t find at Walmart. Yeah, no, it’s true. It’s true. And, you know, it’s interesting, because if you’re doing your homework, you look around at these things, and you look at what’s being featured and grows, you could start seeing what’s starting to expand in the store. And then obviously, you know, that’s what’s selling. So you can look at that and say, okay, there’s the trend, like, that’s, that’s what’s working today. That’s what people want, right?

Jennifer Kaylo 15:33

Yeah. And the cool thing about private label for a retailer is they can move so much faster, because they have direct relationships with that manufacturer, versus having to go through a third party, which are what most brands do today, right? We go and we source it from China. And we’re the middleman between the retailer and the manufacturer. But when it’s private label, they have the direct line to the manufacturer to go, Hey, this blouse in this particular color blue with these particular buttons are selling like crazy. Can you quadruple our order and get it to us in like two weeks, right? Yeah. And then they can even airfreight it over it’s just it’s totally changed the game.

Adam G. Force 16:11

Now, have you seen Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Jennifer Kaylo 16:13

No, I was just thinking I’m like, but has the customer or have we decided that brands aren’t important anymore? And that’s what I think we’ve yet to figure out.

Adam G. Force 16:22

Yeah, that’s an interesting concept. I mean, in my mind, I think that it depends, like I see it depends on products. But like, just for example, I just did a video the other day about this, because it’s fresh in my mind. But I there, the Edelman report came out in 2019. And they do a trust barometer. And so what they found is that less than 50% of the general population trust brands, and then when they’re buying products, one of the top ranking factors they consider when buying a product is brand trust. So when you start thinking about does the brand matter? I don’t know. Like if it’s something like buying toothpaste, maybe maybe not. But I think that brand trust does play a role. And if you’re Apple or Google, you’ve already taken the time and the effort and spent the money to build brand trust. But when you have your brand in the first couple years, you’re gonna have to earn that trust, because people are putting red flags up, right? They want to know like, are you doing something that is going to pollute our oceans? And are you? Are you fair trade? Or are you paying people poorly? Like, what is your circumstance? And I think you’re seeing more of that from people today.

Jennifer Kaylo 17:28

Mm hmm. And then does it matter even by age range? Is it the boomers care so much about the give back? Or is that a millennial or Gen Z thing? Right, exactly. I don’t know if you’ve known noticed this or not that PBS is doing. They’ve just produced something about Amazon. It’s all about Jeff Bezos, my husband and I were watching it the other night. And you hear Jeff Bezos say, we are creating a brand that people love. And he said this like 20-30 years ago, and everybody looked at him like what are you talking about? And you think about the brands that you love, like you and I are about the same age. And I would say like I love Tesla. I can’t wait to own a Tesla. I love Amazon. I want to deliver what I want.

Adam G. Force 18:10

Why do you love Tesla?

Jennifer Kaylo 18:10

Why do I love Tesla, I love the way that it looks. I love the way that it feels sexy. I love the way that it’s good for the environment. I love the idea of never having to put gas in my car ever again. I love Elon Musk because he’s a little quirky, but he is so futuristic and brilliant. And I want a piece of that.

Adam G. Force 18:28

And that’s that, I feel the same way. And like he said we’re around the same age and like what Elon musk stands for. And I like what he’s doing because it’s it’s sustainable. It’s big thinking and I feel like he’s doing he’s always pushing to do what’s in our best interest not only for us now but for future generations, you know.

Jennifer Kaylo 18:49

Yep, absolutely. And through this PBS special Bezos is actually saying the same thing. Like there’s this video with him as a kid giving a speech about the future and about you know, traveling to space and colonizing…

Adam G. Force 19:04

Colonizing

Jennifer Kaylo 19:06

Colonizing. And it’s so cool like is then they do a slash forward and it’s like his spaceship taking off like him and Matt and Ilan I think are so similar in terms of being like so much farther beyond any of us and so much smarter than they you know, ever get. Like none of us are anywhere near as smart and intelligent as they are and it’s so cool to watch them create these companies that explode but also have the love trust factor, right?

Adam G. Force 19:32

Yeah, they did a really good job with that. And you’re right see, they’re out there telling these stories. They’re out there sharing their like, what they stand for what they believe in and all of a sudden the brand is driven by that stuff and it does connect with people. And and I think you made a great point about age bracket because it the younger the kids get, the more they’re looking for the organic, sustainable fair trade like you know, the plastic pollution things obviously become huge. So You know, we want to see brands, like seventh generation on the shelf at Target and Walmart, right? Because they have good ethos. So yeah, it’s really great. And I’m hoping that as people are listening here today, you know, they have these e commerce products that they can get excited about. And I want them to work with people like you to get them on the shelf, if they’re making a difference, you know?

Jennifer Kaylo 20:20

Yes, yeah, for sure. And cool. The coolest thing is, and back to like back to take us back from Jeff Bezos in space to Walmart. Yeah, I’m gonna ground us back in Walmart again. And I don’t know how many of your listeners actually shop at Walmart. I know, like, just depending on what state you’re in, and even what city some of them are dirty and gross. And some of them are amazing and spectacular, like the ones in Bentonville, Arkansas, where I live. But almost every single category now has an organic option. And last week, I bought like $200 worth of groceries and cleaning supplies, everything was organic. And I thought if I was at Whole Foods, I guarantee my basket would be 400 $500. Yeah, yeah. And I’m so grateful that Walmart has like taken the positioning of, we’re gonna find out how to help you save more and live better, even with organics, and even in specialty foods. And, and these really amazing brands are starting to show up on shelves.

Adam G. Force 21:15

Yeah, no that’s good to hear. Because, you know, they produce so much and there’s if they have a stronger stance on those things, it would help pull in brands and make them successful, they can really be a big factor in solving some big issues like that. Right. So it’s always easy to promote the cheapest thing, but that’s not there’s actually other costs aside from money than then when you have like dirty products, you know what I mean?

Jennifer Kaylo 21:41

Sure

Adam G. Force 21:42

Yeah. And that’s one thing I loved about Costco, too, is, you know, they, he has quite a story. It’s all about trying to do what aligns to certain values and stuff. And there’s a lot of good options in there. So anybody listening, I don’t know. But like, we find a lot of stuff. We’re vegetarian, my wife and I, and we find all kinds of good, organic, healthy, like they really do push the envelope and try to bring in products like that also. So yeah, it’s interesting to see how things are evolving. And I’m curious if you’ve noticed with, you know, startups and stuff, I’m one thing I’ve always shied away from e commerce, why I always shied away from e commerce and products and stuff is it feels kind of like, wow, I have to like figure out one a product, like the development, the testing, and then I got to have inventory and I gotta have fulfillment. And it’s, it’s a pretty like expensive cycle. It feels like a lot of overhead expense wise. And I’m curious how you have noticed, maybe some of the entrepreneurs like is it? Like you can’t do drop shipping, right? If you want to get in a store? Like how does that? Do you have any insight around that how that works

Jennifer Kaylo 22:44

It is. I just wrote an article just last week, or even earlier this week, I can’t even remember, a few days ago that was about that. Like, if you don’t have capital, and you can’t do it well, don’t do it at all, please don’t, it will only cost you money and energy and frustration. And so of course, there’s amazing groups that do help you get investors and help you with preliminary funding and all of that kind of stuff. And so if you’re listening, and you don’t have that, go seek that out, either ask me or ask Adam or find somebody because it is so expensive to do business with brick and mortar. It’s even very expensive to do business with Amazon. I mean, I would say it’s the cheapest, fastest, quickest way to make money. But to really do it right and to really grow the brand. And for me, I only work with clients that have the potential to make a million plus dollars in revenue per year. So I wouldn’t take a barbecue sauce. You know what I mean? I know what it takes. There are certain categories that just currently today, if it’s a really easy, cheap commodity in a brick and mortar store, people are probably going to stop off at the dollar store and grab it on. Yeah, but there’s so many categories, especially in food that are growing, triple, quadruple digit, it’s incredible how fast they’re growing. So your question, I guess is particularly just around brick and mortar, and yeah,

Adam G. Force 24:06

I think you’ve answered it . It’s expensive.

Jennifer Kaylo 24:09

It’s expensive. Yeah, if you’re selling directly to Walmart stores, you have to get set up with EDI, you have to have million dollars plus just in liability insurance, you have to have a system in a warehouse. And I mean, like it’s very expensive. If you were to ship with Amazon, you could sell, you could you could just set it up in Seller Central and have Amazon be responsible for the shipping and the distributing and the logistics and the customer service and all of that which is amazing. And you bet you basically consign your inventory to Amazon and every two weeks they cut you a check. It’s beautiful.

Adam G. Force 24:39

So you could drop ship through Amazon but you obviously can’t do that with like Walmart and stuff. So the brick and mortar is more Walmart and if you didn’t want to have inventory and fulfillment, responsibility responsibilities, Amazon can handle that for you.

Jennifer Kaylo 24:52

Totally, yes.

Adam G. Force 24:54

Okay. Yeah, that’s pretty cool. And have you noticed certain types of products you mentioned food space is growing rapidly. Like, is there like men’s nutrition? Women’s, you know, health care products? Like, have you noticed anything else that’s been pretty popular?

Jennifer Kaylo 25:11

I’ve noticed that everything is growing at least 20, 30, 40% year over year, just in general, food is exploding. There’s some categories that are tougher. So you mentioned men’s nutrition, I have a kid’s vegan, organic gummy vitamin that is so expensive these days to advertise it, again, unless you have major capital, it is almost it’s almost impossible to grow. Because keyword bidding on keywords are three to $5 per click, right? So unless you have 5000 to $10,000 a month marketing budget that you’re willing to not make any ROI office for at least six months. Yeah, don’t play in those overly saturated categories. Again, foods doing great, ready to eat great, dry grocery, anything in the direct grocery space. Think also outside of food, anything that’s expensive. And light is where you find the most profit. That’s a great tip.

Adam G. Force 26:09

Expensive and light. I like that. Yeah, I’ve heard people talk about that. With e commerce they keep you want simple products that are not really expensive to produce, but they have like a lot of value behind them and stuff. And yes, that’s smart.

Jennifer Kaylo 26:24

And conveyable like don’t think kayak. If it’s not conveyable it’s really difficult and really expensive for Amazon to move that around the country for you.

Adam G. Force 26:33

Yeah, I mean, a three or $4 just to get a click. That’s, that’s, that’s expensive. You definitely need an investor on that. Yep. Damn, all right, interesting. Well, cuz I’m like, I’m like, I shaved my head, I went… As soon as I saw I started losing hair. I was like, I’m just doing the the shave. And that’s it, taking the hair off. And I got into like some of the men’s products, like, you know, stuff to take care of your skin or your beard and stuff like that. And I was always like, man, it would be really cool. There’s some things missing in the market that I look for that I don’t really find. And I would be like, man, I would love to get into that space. And I know it can do well, but it would take a ton of marketing power, a ton of like, you know, money just to get the brand set up. And I always shy away from it. We’re not there.

Jennifer Kaylo 27:20

Yeah, it’s really expensive. So one thing that I’ve noticed, and I’ve been managing clients now for almost six years, as I mentioned, in theirs, there was a point last year where I was like, This is exhausting, it would be so much easier if I just created my own products. But when you start to look at what that costs, and the time and the energy, it’s really a full time job, at least in my opinion, to figure out really what’s the best item and then find the manufacturer and then have them create a prototype and then have them send it from overseas, and then you look at it and then you approve it, or you send your changes and then and then you have to order it and then you have to pay for it. And you have to not get scammed while you pay for it. So like a quick side note, use Alibaba because there’s insurance and I had a friend lose like $40,000, because he got scammed through some other thing. It was not Alibaba, and he was like, I’ll never not go through there again. So if you are interested in that, I love Jungle Scout, and they just rolled out a brand new tool that you can subscribe to that will tell you by item on Amazon, exactly who their manufacturer is over in China or whatever country it is. And they’ll tell you, you know, hey, here’s how to get ahold of them. And here’s how, you know if you want to go create your own thing. And one thing I would caution you to is, you don’t want to be first to market unless you have a million dollars sitting in a bank to go spend to launch the product, right, you want to find whitespace in the market. So use tools like Jungle Scout use tools like merchant words. And I’ve got an online course as well as when I managed my one on one clients where I teach you and I use these tools, and I show you how to use them. And that’s what you want to do. So you want to find something where there’s high search ability, so people are looking for it. But then there’s a low amount of actual sales and a low amount of actual products that show up for the search results. That gives you the whitespace. And that’s where you know shoppers are looking for it. They can’t find it on Amazon, or they can’t you know, are they and this is these are particularly you know, Amazon programs because that’s what I deal with all day. But they’re great tools to use and then go Okay, we need to go develop something like a great example. I have a real example for you. And it’s with trash cans. So I had a potential client, I didn’t end up working with them. So I feel comfortable sharing this story. But they came to me and they were like, Hey, we sell these boxes that are for recyclable things that your normal recycler doesn’t take. So it’s like batteries or whatever, those kind of things, one off things. And so you go on Amazon or you go to them directly and you get this box sent to your home, you put the weird thing in it and then you send it back to them and then they recycle it. So these are people that like really love the planet and really, really, really want to pay extra to go send their stuff back And apparently there’s a huge market for it because they’re making millions of dollars a year doing this. So I started to research on Amazon and I used the tools, I got to Jungle Scout, I use merchant words, I’m looking at shopper search, I’m looking at what’s coming up. And there’s nothing like that in the market. But there’s a huge whitespace for recyclable trash cans, and recyclable bags that go in trash cans, and three and four sorting trash cans. So if anyone’s listening, and you want to go find an item, that there’s white space for everyone, I gave you like a whole category. And what’s interesting in that space is no one’s really winning in this space. There’s no one or two brands that are the top brands in that space. So you could easily go dominate, and then come back in with your kind of like one off brown boxes that you mail out for the weird things that you need to recycle, right? And then then you have like validity, and customers are like, Oh, yeah, I know that brand. Because it’s sitting in my kitchen. It’s the trash can in the kitchen. Oh, yeah. Those are the bags that we use for the bathroom. Yeah, bathrooms, right? Yeah. So you get the idea.

Adam G. Force 31:02

Yeah, no, I love it. Okay, so listen, we’re I mean, that’s all super, very helpful. A lot of good tips, guys. So hope you’re taking notes and listening closely. If you’re looking to get in the e commerce space and get heavy on products get out there, Jennifer will be a great person to work with. And we’ll give a shout out in just a minute to where you can connect with her and see what she has going on and how she can help you. I also don’t want to scare you from creating your own product. It is it’s been done over and over again. Look at the Jake or x of the world that we’ve interviewed. He has his own products that are doing incredible things for the world. Look at Crystal Earle. She came out of Dominica, and she’s helping people over there. And it’s amazing, Jennifer, she basically was taking these tires that were filling up landfills causing all kinds of disease and infestations and all these problems with the community. And she decided she would make shoes that would use the tires, rubber for the soles of the shoes. And she had them like put together she started selling them on her own and the brand started catching and she did a lot of like roadshows going a little like tradeshow conferences and stuff. And now they have clothing and all kinds of other stuff. So they expanded. So there are grassroots efforts for small ecommerce companies like that, that do a build up. And then as those brands catch fire, you’d be ready to get out maybe in bigger stores and stuff like that. So it depends on your process and your strategy. Right. So you just gotta like, figure out the game plan. I guess.

Jennifer Kaylo 32:24

I love that you said that. Because that’s a huge caveat. Here I am. My background is mass retail. And I think in mass and how fast you can scale. Adam, you’re totally right. There’s two different ways to grow. One is organically, it’s profitably, it’s slow and steady wins the race, which is exactly what you’re talking about. The other is how fast can we scale. And a lot of times scale to sell, which may be a very small portion of who your listeners are. But I just wanted to give you my perspective from a mass retail specialist.

Adam G. Force 32:54

I mean, it’s important because even if you are small and you start organically, you could start selling locally at little like, you know, farmers markets for all I care. But I have another friend who started making her own food like cookies, and they were gluten free and a certain type of thing going on there. She went to farmers markets for like a year. Next thing you know, she’s in Whole Foods, right? So it’s like, oh, cool. This is what happens. And like, yeah, you know, so I think it’s a multi stage strategy, you just have to think, how do I start proving this? How do I do that little, you know, very cheap, like product test and get it out there. See if people like it. And if it starts catching you just slowly build on it, slowly grow it and then you’re ready to get into the marketplace, like Target potentially, or whole foods or whatever. So it’s just a matter of strategy. And I think you’re a mass you get into the mass markets. But there is a very important place for that. So Timing is everything, right? Absolutely. So let’s give a shout out. Because we’re running out of time here. I want to give an actually on behind here. So let’s give a shout out. How can people find you? You know, so if they’re ready to really scale up on Amazon and Walmart, where do they find you so they can learn more about how to connect?

Jennifer Kaylo 34:01

Yeah, and I’m sure that Adam will put this link in the show notes. My website is Jenniferkayloruscin.com And you just click on work with me. And there’s multiple different ways one leads to courses. So if you’re interested in Amazon, I have something called the a game A stands for Amazon. And then if you have interest in Walmart, I have one called the path to Walmart. So either one of those will teach you from step one all the way till the end. It’s a DIY method of how to sell and both of those retailers super valuable guys. So

Adam G. Force 34:33

Super valuable guys. So check that out. If you’re in the ecommerce space, it might be perfect timing for you. Jennifer, thank you so much for your time today. Appreciate it.

Jennifer Kaylo 34:41

You’re welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Adam G. Force 34:42

You got it. I’ll talk to you later. Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Parker Stevenson: Understanding Your Financials to Get the Most From Your Biz

Listen to our exclusive interview with Parker Stevenson:

Change Creator · Parker Stevenson: Understanding Your Financials to Get the Most From Your Biz

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

When should you get serious about know your financials and what do you need to know? Are you leaving money on the table? Parker Stevenson is co-owner of Evolved Finance and is a financial strategist who works with online business. We talk to Parker to dig into everything you need to know.

Learn more about Parker and his work at > evolvedfinance.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Parker Stevenson 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host Adam forest co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big visit us at Change Creator.com/gobig to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. Hey, what’s up everybody? Welcome back to the change credit podcast show Sorry for the delay getting this episode out. We’re usually out on Wednesday mornings we had a serious studio crash with our computers as we tried to update to a new operating system. And we ended up having to erase our hard drives and start all over from scratch again. So we are back in action here and ready to rock and roll with a great interview today with our buddy Parker Stevenson. He is one of the Co-owners of a company called Evolved Finance. Evolved Finance is a great, great company that is designed strategically to help you with your bookkeeping as an entrepreneur, coaches, course creators, whatever it might be service companies, and they help you really understand your numbers, make better decisions and see where you might be overspending. underspending, where money is left on the table, and how to really start forecasting for the future. So you can increase your revenues in a very smart way. And it’s such an important part of running our businesses. So we’re excited to have Parker on today. And we’re gonna dive into all kinds of good stuff regarding your financial management. If you missed the last episode, I highly recommend you go back and check it out. It is an episode with Amy and myself here at Change Creator talking about why so many entrepreneurs start on a high, but crash later on down the road. Lots of good insights from our experience in there. It’s a good one to dive into guys. So check that out. When you get a chance. Don’t forget to stop by Change creator.com lots of good stuff going on there with updates and content and goodies. And at the same time, follow us on Facebook. That is our primary spot guys. We share all kinds of stuff there and on in our Facebook group. If you want to get inside the Facebook group, be a Change Creator. That is the Facebook group. All right. I’m not gonna hold this up anymore. Let’s dive into this conversation with Parker. Okay, show me the heat.

Adam G. Force 02:35

Hey, Parker. Welcome to the Change Creator podcast. How you doing today, buddy?

Parker Stevenson 02:39

I’m doing great, Adam. Thanks for having me, man.

Adam G. Force 02:41

Yeah, absolutely. I’m excited to have you here. So for people that don’t know, and I don’t think any of you do. Parker and I met, actually right before the Coronavirus in California at a, I guess I call it a mastermind summit of some kind, right, this was for a program that I was actually invested in. And he was doing a presentation out there to support entrepreneurs like us in the finance category. And basically, they’re masters of your books, and they help you optimize, grow your business, do all this great stuff. So I want to bring Parker on here because he’s just a really valuable expert in this space. So he’s going to help you understand what you need to know about your finances, especially in the early days of your startup. So Parker, if you could just kind of give people a little bit of insight on your background so they know where you’re coming from. And that kind of in a nutshell, really.

Parker Stevenson 03:42

Yeah. So again, my name is Parker Stevenson. I am the CO owner and Chief Business Officer for a bookkeeping firm called Evolved Finance. We really specialize in doing bookkeeping for online businesses. So a lot of you know, all of our clients are selling coaching programs and courses and membership sites and online services and influencer business models. just pretty much anyone not selling physical inventory. That’s been our primary target audience. And I will admit, for me, I never thought I would be co owner of a bookkeeping business. It just was not the path I thought I’d be on but I was I kind of grew up feeling like I was a, you know, a creative identified as a creative and when I went to college, I started a band. I was a musician for a number of years and Los Angeles had a great time. And when the band broke up, decided, hey, what else do I like to do as I really like golf, and then move back down to San Diego from Los Angeles and go work for one of the big Gulf manufacturers. So I ended up getting a job at Adidas golf and I worked there for another five years. While I was in the band. I worked for an automotive consultant, which was kind of like a small online business really, at the time. It was a website database that all the big manufacturers subscribed to. So I kind of had a little taste to entrepreneurship, being in a band and working for a small business, make the move to Adidas, which was a tremendous experience. I kind of look at It is my NBA, because I just learned so much had some great mentors there. But also kind of realize, I don’t think I want to be a little cog in a big machine. And so I was talking with my business partner, now business partner, Cory, who’s really friend, him and his wife were best friends with my wife. And I was like, I think I can help you guys grow this business. And so took the leap of faith taught me how to do bookkeeping taught me about the financial side of online businesses. And I share all this because now I feel like, I’m kind of an expert on finance for small business. And I thought I was a creative, I thought I was gonna be a rock star. And so I like to use that as a story just to show people that, you know, we have so many clients that don’t start businesses, because they’re like, Oh, I can’t wait to dive into spreadsheets and talk about taxes, you know, where we get into our businesses, because we want to make an impact, we want to make a good living, right, like all the reasons, but we get afraid that all this finance stuff, I don’t get it, it seems to complicate I don’t have to deal with it. And I’m a perfect example of someone who very easily could have been that person that would just avoid avoided numbers. But once I got exposure to it, with my time at Adidas, and, and obviously growing this business, and of all finance, I think we just all make it so much more complicated that we need to and that’s a big part of what we’re trying to do at Evolved Finance is just demystify this stuff and make it less intimidating, and really turn your numbers into an asset that helps your business grow.

Adam G. Force 06:23

Yeah, so important. So a lot of good background there. Thanks, Parker. And you know, what I, one of the things we love, and just so you guys know, we do work with Evolved Finance here at Change Creator. And, you know, we love just the insights we get, because we were, I don’t know, nonchalantly, like keeping an eye on our numbers, and you know, all that kind of stuff. And we never really saw the overhead. So clearly, right? Just how much money you’re really spending on all the reoccurring subscriptions, and tech and software and all those things. And then where I like, you know, really how we can start seeing where a certain percentage of our money is being spent. So it’s like, oh, well, you got 80% of your expenses are on, you know, ads or on, you know, VHS, right. And so, it really starts giving you direction. And what they do is they give you insight to these things to read between the lines, so you can make better decisions. So Parker, just, you know, coming from your perspective of a service company, and supporting so many different entrepreneurs, who coaches, you know, online course creators and stuff. What are some of the things that, based on your experience now work with so many that you feel that some of the newer entrepreneurs are… let’s say… first five years of business, even first three? Like when do you really need to get serious about looking at your numbers? Like, what, when is that time?

Parker Stevenson 07:59

I mean, honestly, with where I’m at now, I wouldn’t even start a business business before I do the math, and I do the numbers and figure out what is this business going to look like financially? I know, that’s not necessarily everyone’s instinct, they go, okay, what’s my offer? How am I gonna market it? Where are my customers? For sure, and you need to figure all that out. But I think as business owners, and especially, I’d say people who are very visionary based and very marketing and sales based, just because you can sell somebody something, doesn’t mean that it’s a business model, a business model that functions has profit, and the only way to know that is to figure out like, what’s the math behind this business? And so I think for most online businesses, it’s not a matter of if the business model is going to work. I you know, it’s a proven model. And I think for most of us, we understand that, you know, we’ll be able to make a living from this business. But I think the sooner you can start thinking about your business, from a financial standpoint, even if it’s like, Okay, I’m getting my business started, I have $4,000 a month and expenses. And I know what those things are, I need to hold myself accountable, make sure I’m at least breaking even and making four grand a month on average, or maybe I need to figure out, Okay, I want to make eight to 10 grand, cover my 4000 expenses and start to make a profit, so I can use that to invest back into the business or to pay myself. And so I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, we just go, I’ll just see how much money I can make. And I’ll just spend whatever money I need. And it’s very much based in feelings. It’s based on emotions. It’s based on instinct, and we need all those things as good business owners, but we also need to have some sort of data, we have to have some sort of feedback, we need something that’s going to make the business tangible. So it’s not just this like nebulous things that you just look in your bank account and go we have money, I guess we’re doing okay. Like for me, I want to know from every step of the way, even if I’m just tracking my income and expenses in a spreadsheet for my first couple years, but I want to know what is actually happening with the money coming in and coming out of this business. So I can start to get feedback on, do I need to change my pricing? Do I need to be ready to make a big investment? Do I need to figure out how to replace my income so I can quit my job or whatever it may be. So I think the sooner we can start thinking about the financial side of our businesses, just I think the more we’re going to set ourselves up not to just be successful salespeople and marketers, but to be successful CEOs and business owners.

Adam G. Force 10:26

Yeah. Yeah, you know, I love that you talk about emotion. Because that’s, that is what it is, it’s like, you don’t take it as seriously in the earlier years, because you’re like, I’m trying this thing. Let’s see if it works. I’m not going to invest too much in, you know, book management, and all that kind of stuff. And I have now learned that if I was starting a business, you’re right, know the numbers, but also know, what are the benchmarks and triggers to look for? Because how do you know if you’re okay, or not? And I would say that, you guys probably could have saved me about $80,000. In the first two years of Change Creator, because you know, we were running the digital magazine, which I love, and it’s our app, right? But imagine you’re coming out of the gates, you have no proven revenue stream, yet. You’re taking on the overhead of writer’s design magazine, like, you know, creation and all this stuff. It was just I kept going and investing saying, oh, when I get Arianna Huffington, this is gonna blow up. Okay, wait, when I get Tony Robbins, we’re gonna blow up. And the marketing margin was so small, because the magazine sale is only you know, it’s like 15 to $50 subscription. Right? Yeah. And so you guys would have been like, Adam, hello, red flag over here and kind of put a stop to that. And that, guys, that’s what is so important. So you can jump on calls here, when you have the right mentors and support and who are experts in these spaces. And they’ll help identify these red flags, right? Because they can I literally when I say you could have saved me $80,000. I’m dead serious when I say that, because we spent that kind of money. And at some point, we had to look at the magazine, even if we were getting 1000 new subscribers a week that took so much marketing power, that we weren’t profitable. So it was just kind of like, Okay, what do we do with this? Right, and that was a that was a tough road. And that’s part of like doing the right things at the right time. I think that if I did it over again, I would reorder our priorities and products that we put out the door.

Parker Stevenson 12:38

And that’s where I think the power of numbers come comes in. And I feel like this has just been coming up the last couple days for me doing podcasts and workshops and stuff like that is priorities, like the word you just use. There is like if there is a word that defines entrepreneurship, it’s, do you know how to prioritize, and it’s a skill, I think you learn over time, you have to have experience in order to start to understand how to prioritize, or you need to have a mentor or someone who can help you see what the priority should be in your business. But our numbers tend to show us what we need to prioritize. Because if you look at your numbers, and you’re like, wow, we’re killing it with this offer. But we have seven other offers we’re trying to sell. Why are we even trying to sell the other offers, the numbers are showing us this is our winner, let’s double down here. Or you’re like, Oh, it’s showing us that because we have all these offers, our labor expenses are through the roof, if we don’t change the way we deliver on our offer, because our team expenses are so high, this business isn’t going to work, we need to reprioritize how we deliver our offer and how we serve our customers. Right? So the numbers are the feedback we need, right? It’s it’s the scorecard or the report card that shows Hey, good job here, or, hey, pay attention to this because this might not this might mean the business isn’t going to work unless we make some adjustments here. And I don’t think it’s reasonable to have the expectation that a business owner should just buy feel no, and things are working or not working. Like we need feedback, whether it’s from our customers giving us feedback, or team members or numbers are marketing metrics, right? Like smart business owners get the information they need so that when they’re making business decisions, they’re doing it with empowered with information, and not just instinct and feelings.

Adam G. Force 14:25

Yeah, I think that’s so important. And you know what I you know, the other thing that happens, like when you look at numbers, like you can sit there and estimate and you also can be just way off in your expectations. For example, you could be like, hey, so my audience for this market is 10 million people. I got a huge market if all I have to do is get 1%. This is what I hear all the time. I’m like, dude, you’re like you’re not getting 1%

Parker Stevenson 15:03

I’ve heard that so many times myself. But I relate to that so much.

Adam G. Force 15:06

Yes, yes, we hear it. This is one of the most common things I hear from a new entrepreneur, I know the marketplace size, and I’m gonna get it, all you got to do is get one, even if I get half a percent, it just doesn’t really play out that way. Not that you can’t get 1% Yeah, but when you’re starting a revenue stream, there’s so many other factors to actually making that possible. So you can deceive yourself and you need someone to be like, hey, let’s, let’s think about this a little differently. And I think you’re right, like, looking at the numbers first, does help you to prioritize your efforts. Because if I ever did anything, again, which I probably will do I have already had talking about another business, somebody, it’s like, we need to be profitable, like, right out of the gate with a revenue stream. Like I’m not even playing around with Well, we’ll create a year of content. And hopefully, yeah, no, no, no.

Parker Stevenson 16:00

To be fair. There are certain business models, if you’re going to start a restaurant, you got to put money up front, there’s no like, you can’t really like bootstrap a restaurant or a business model like that. Or a retail store or something like that. Because you need to buy the inventory, you need to rent out the space, you need to hire the team before you ever have a customer walk through the door. Yes, which is just really risky. But that’s how most businesses have been for the last, I don’t know, 1000 years, or however long businesses have been around for years. Usually, you’re putting money up front to get your storefront to get your team. But in the online space, the internet’s changed the way we we run businesses so much that you don’t have to put so much money upfront, you have to put a little bit, right, because you need that software, you might need you know, someone to design the website, you know, it’s a one time project or something like that. But really, the upfront costs are so low that you’re right, you can be profitable really quickly if we balanced some strategy with hustle.

Adam G. Force 17:07

Yeah, right. You come up with Yeah, exactly. And it’s a it’s a game changer, obviously, the online stuff. And I think, you know, let me know if you agree, but I think that there is such thing as healthy debt as well. Right? So in the sense of how we use debt in order to grow a business, so if you’re taking on a loan or taking on some kind of funding, that the risk is really in yourself in the sense of, are you making an educated decision? And do you know what you’re doing? Right? So do you agree that there’s healthy debt?

Parker Stevenson 17:42

There can be and I know, and I think it depends on your outlook on entrepreneurship. Like, for me, I am. I’ve taken many calculated risks throughout my life, even partnering up with Cory out of my finances, I left a cushy job at Adidas and took a massive pay cut. So I was willing to sacrifice income. But if you had said, hey, let’s start a haircut shop, and let’s take out a loan of $75,000. For me, I’d be like, Okay, I know that’s what you have to do to start this. But I don’t know if that’s the kind of risk I want to take on. But we have we’ve you know, what, we have one client in particular, I’m thinking about where they’re very much comfortable operating with debts, but it just can be a double edged, double edged sword. So it’s not for the faint of heart, but if you really are experienced, yeah. I mean, especially as you get into higher levels of entrepreneurship, that becomes a big part of the deal. Even in corporate America, I mean, corporations managed debt, big time, even if they’re sitting on boatloads of cash. So it can be it can be a big factor. But for small businesses, the less you have to deal with just the less risk you have and if you’re in a business model where you can turn a profit sooner than if you can limit the amount of debt you have to take on why wouldn’t you do that if you don’t have to, but like but you but it can definitely be I mean, debt can definitely be a tool to get you places that either would take forever to get to without it or it literally just wouldn’t happen without somebody funding

Adam G. Force 19:09

Right, and your business should become more of what people will define as a passive income model should start generating income like as a machine so if you take that debt to make that happen, and then you have the income coming in that’s that’s valuable. And isn’t there some kind of tax benefit like earned income is taxed but debt when you’re using debt is that isn’t that like not taxable or something?

Parker Stevenson 19:34

Yeah, I mean debt so because I’m not an accountant. I don’t want to quote anything. Yeah, but the debt shows up on the balance sheet and can affect how your taxes overall your debt to revenue, which can affect your your tax situation. But I mean with our clients, so few of our clients are taking out loans they might have like about you know, some balances on their credit cards from like investing last year and now their businesses are blowing up this year, and they’re starting to pay down credit card debt, but in the online space Very few of our clients have enough like low, like really classic loans or lines of credit? Where it’s a super common thing from our perspective.

Adam G. Force 20:08

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think you would see it more in like real estate businesses and stuff like that where they’re, you know, this is why guys, like, you know, Donald Trump and all those guys have like, millions and millions of dollars of debt. They’re doing that on purpose. You know, it’s like they’re playing a game with taxes and all that kind of stuff.

Parker Stevenson 20:27

Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes it can be.

Adam G. Force 20:32

Yeah, God anyway, I don’t know why I brought him up. He just came to my brain. I hate that guy.

Parker Stevenson 20:38

But there is, but there is this like, high or low? And I think again, it all comes down to what’s your, what’s your experience level? What kind of business model Do you want to have? Because again, if I if I want to start a software company, I either have to get investors or I have to get along. Yeah. Because I have to pay someone to develop this. And if you believe in it enough, and you have some experience, but that’s where love them or hate them. I think Gary Vee, what he really nails is self awareness. And like, are you self aware enough to understand what it really takes to start a business where you need to get a ton of funding, because a lot of those businesses fail, versus our clients are self funded, or have very little expenses. And it’s just a matter of getting those clients coming in, because their overhead is so low right off the bat, that managing that risk and your opportunity, just the chances of success increased so dramatically from that standpoint, because the window, you have to try to pay back that loan is going to put tremendous pressure, and give you a lot less room for error when you’re starting a software company and a super competitive market. And it’s like, Alright, see if you can do in an app a better than the 35 other apps trying to do the same thing as yours. And obviously, there’s there’s success stories that come from that. But that’s where again, I think these online course businesses and coaching businesses and influencer businesses and stuff like that, and online service based businesses, it’s just if you don’t feel like you’re the next, Elon Musk. I think I think the vast majority of people can have success with an online business, and really thrive and replace their incomes from their job and make even more money than they would ever make from whatever job they had before that.

Adam G. Force 22:19

Yeah, yeah. And I think since you brought up Gary Vee, something else that always stuck in my brain, he was on stage once and he’s like, Listen, if you work hard, you have the willpower, you know, like you said, be self aware, be realistic, he’s like, in 10 years, you might have a nice little business, you know, he’s a cuz so many. He’s like, if one more, you know, 20, something comes up to me and says, I’m gonna be a millionaire in the next 12 months or before, I’m 30. He’s like, I just want to punch him in the face. Just thinking about it all wrong, you know, like, any, you know, I mean, everyone has their own perspective, right? I don’t know that there’s any real right or wrong, but he does give that reality check. Like these things, take time Be patient, do something you care about, you know, stuff like that. And the wrong motivations can lead to an unsustainable business. Right?

Parker Stevenson 23:10

Totally.

Adam G. Force 23:11

So, so Okay, so we’re talking about, you know, managing the books and stuff. I’m just curious, too. Are there any, anything that you’ve seen with your clients that make them have better profit margins? Like, I’m curious about types of business, because, you know, we’ve done things like if I’m running a service business, and I only have like, two people on the team, or you’re doing it yourself, so you just started and you’re, you’re coaching or doing something, your overhead could be super low. So you can get two clients a month and make $5,000 a month, right. But then there’s courses, we’re growing staff like of coaches and all these things. And so I’m just curious if you notice any trends in the size of a company and like, you know, types of companies that really have good profit margins?

Parker Stevenson 24:04

Yeah, that’s a great question. So what we typically like to see for our clients who are doing like less than half a million is the margins are usually pretty high for online businesses, because like you said, if you’re selling a course, there’s no, there’s no inventory. There’s no cost to build a course. I mean, they’re kind of indirectly but it’s not like a shoe like when I was at Adidas, I was slinging golf shoes. There’s a very tangible cost to building the shoe, that then we have to price the shoe to cover the cost and make our profit. So like with courses and coaching and online services, when you don’t have these direct, like materials, costs and manufacturing costs. You’re absolutely right. If we can just get in front of the right people in the right audience is and we can make sales, you can make money and generate revenue without having to spend a lot of money on marketing. And what we saw in the past was that I’d say When I got into this industry six years ago, it was a lot of joint webinars, it was a lot of blogging, to build your email list to, you know, to build an audience to sell your offer to. And there’s still some of that, you know, around today. But building up your audience, whether you’re doing it through Instagram, or you’re doing it through SEO, or you’re doing it through podcasting, or whatever you do, the more it can be kind of, quote, unquote, free. I mean, there’s obviously a cost of time and stuff like that, in the early stages of your business, as much as you can build an organic audience without having to jump into ads right off the bat, that tends to be an advantage. And our clients that build on that is definitely a cost advantage. But then it’s getting more competitive in the online space. So we’re seeing more of our clients investing in ADS early on, and it could grow their revenue a lot faster. But really locking in your return on investment from your ads is where whether or not you’re profitable, can be tough. And so that’s where our clients were able to blend some of the advertising expenses mixed in with some of their organic traffic or mixed in with making sure they’re still consistently really promoting and communicating and cultivating relationship with their email list that they’re paying for through ads to maximize that return. That’s when we start to see profitability really get a lot better. But obviously, advertising can scale your business to a level that maybe is going to take a lot longer to do organically. So it’s always going to be this kind of like, give and take unless you got really lucky with building an audience organically really fast, which sometimes it’s like something going viral a YouTube video going viral or something along those lines, which is not something we want to bank on, then I think ultimately, what can we do in the initial stages of our business, through hustle through networking, through organic marketing means and when we have that cash flow available, and we’re generating revenue more consistently, then I think that’s when experimenting with ads and giving up a little bit of profit, there starts to make sense, because your total profit dollars will increase pretty dramatically if we can nail the advertising game.

Adam G. Force 27:05

I think that makes a lot of sense. And you know, for people that get overwhelmed, like, Oh, I gotta spend years building an organic audience, I would almost say that, yes, like, you got to start connecting with people, they got to know you exist, right. But if you could validate your product, you know that you can sell it to this audience, you could probably start testing out some of that ad spend as long as because what I what I think is really tough for people is you start running ads, but you really have no idea if anyone really is buying your product, you just think that’s how I get in front of people. And then you’re doing all your trial and error through paid advertising versus the organic that organic is a great stomping ground for testing and validating.

Parker Stevenson 27:54

Well, and there Yeah, there’s that experience you get from from the organic traffic and people kind of finding you and just getting into your right network, your right target audience that if you are killing it with launches and promotions to an organic audience, that and they really liked your offer, then that’s big. That becomes like a situation where it’s like, you know, how do we mitigate risk with with our investments? Yeah, what’s safer? investing in an unproven product and putting ads into something you’re not even sure if people want yet right? We’re doing it organically, people loving it and raving about it. And then putting the ad spend into it. Of course, you want something that’s tested? And what’s interesting, Adam is we we’ve had clients who have had multi, six figure email lists like 200-300,000 people who struggled to make as much money as someone with a 10,000 person email list.

Adam G. Force 28:54

Yeah, what a great point because people get really hung up on, you know, the size of the email list, the size of the social media following. And I think there’s value in both of those things, but the value diminishes if you don’t have relationships, like you haven’t earned their trust and you don’t have the offer that really resonates with them. So you haven’t built an audience that’s actually around this idea of that need, right? That they have. And we’ve done that to like, we had to purge our lists in the past where we would take them from 20,000 to 10,000, we’d cut the list in half, put half of them in a parking lot, and say, well, we’ll get some creative ideas to try to re engage those people. Right? And then you take the people that you do have, and you know, you still have you continue to work them. But it’s like, that happens. And you know, what I think I see a lot is people are putting a lot of time and effort into all these lead magnets, these freebies, and they don’t do things that are cohesive with their offer enough. And so they’re bringing in people just to try to get the email number up. So they’ll do anything that’s like, oh, let’s run a contest. And you get all these contests, people, which they never become buyers of your offer. We did that we done that stuff ago, we just added 5000 people in one day. Okay, great. No one ever buys anything. Yeah

Parker Stevenson 28:54

And that’s where it’s not about the size of your audience. It’s about connecting your offer with the right people and being clear with your messaging to the right people that you can build momentum off of 234 or 5000, person email lists. And as long as we’re clear about what we do, who our target audience is, and the problem we’re solving for them, the numbers just, we see it all the time, the more focused our clients are on being really targeted with their niche, their revenue grows more quickly, and their profit tends to stay healthier along the way. Yeah, it’s quality leads over the quantity of leads. And that’s where I think working back into the numbers. If you’re not thinking about your business, from a numbers standpoint, if you’re like, Okay, I just want to try to cross the six figure mark. The offers 1000 bucks, it’s 100 people divide 100 people by 12, that’s less than 10 people per month, that’s roughly 8.3 people per month, you have to sell all of a sudden, you’re chunking this down into very digestible, bite sized pieces, and you’re like, oh, okay, that’s the first step. That’s fine. You don’t have to get 1% of the market share. In that first year, let’s start with how do we get half of half of that? How do we get for, for customers our first month? And how do we work towards that eight, because then it’s just like, that becomes a very doable number. And what I learned when I was in the in the corporate world with Adidas, I worked very closely with just world class sales professionals, you know, everyone from our sales reps who are working with our really big key accounts like Dick’s Sporting Goods, all the way to the client, or the the sales reps who were managing Greengrass accounts like Pebble Beach, you know, really, really white glove clients that we treat really well. And what I learned from that was that each year, their target went up a little more whatever territory, you have sales rep, you don’t get to just sell the same amount you did last year. But what the sales managers were so good at was they would sit down with each rep in their territory and go, alright, we need to see 10% growth over last year, what’s our game plan there? Well, that means maybe we need to sell in an extra $300 per account of apparel or footwear, or we have this one big client that we think we can get more space in the shop, and they start to work backwards from what that number is. And that’s where again, when we can start to make things more digestible. And we’re not just going, Oh, I want to be a million dollar business, let’s just sell as much crap as we can. And start to be more strategic around how we’re chunking off the growth of this business and prioritizing what we need to work on, then it just starts to become this natural progression that, you know, it doesn’t feel like you’re constantly disappointed, you’re not a million dollar business yet you go, oh, wow, we hit our target this month, that fires you up to make, excuse me to hit the target again, next month, and then the month after that. So then as like I think about my six year journey, and my business partners, 10 year journey with a bowl finance, you know, I think about where we’re at now. And I’m just like, wow, we’ve come such a long way. But it wasn’t like every year I was there, I was disappointed or performance, we were always growing a little bit, learning a little more, making more progress, hitting the numbers and the targets, we’re setting ourselves from a financial standpoint, and mapping out the business model to make sure we could pay our team well, while also making sure that the business was staying profitable. And doing all that work and seeing it all come together. Now it’s like, it’s just so crazy. But it’s this gradual thing, nothing just happened like overnight. We’ve had years for a lot. We’ve had years where we grow incrementally, but that’s where that journey is so important, and set setting these goals for ourselves, these financial goals for ourselves steadily. So we’re not setting ourselves up for maybe expectations that just aren’t going to be realistic to achieve. Exactly. I think that’s good advice. So you know, anybody listening? Parker, you know, I think what you’re saying is, you can have big aspirations, but you have to actually map out what it will take to get there. And if you want to be a million dollar company, the first year might be $50,000. Right? And so it’s how do I get to that point? And what does that look like from the number of sales I need per month. And I think it’s critical that you make it digestible, like steps. And that makes all the difference in the world. So you’re not you don’t feel forced to do things that I guess get kind of out of sync with what you’re doing. You’re just you get into a flustered mindset where it’s like, you’re going to try to create 10 different products, you’re going to be all over the place and it gets really stressful. So having a plan to back I like the reverse engineering concept of like backing into, alright, you’re this quarter, the second quarter, the third quarter, the fourth quarter, what are they doing Look like to get where I want to go. Right? So really breaking that down and understanding the numbers, if you don’t know what it takes, and what the that looks like, I think, you know, it’s like the guy you mentioned, you know, here’s your sales manager, he sits down and he’s like, well, what would this look like? How do we do that? Well, maybe it’s $300 more per account, or it could look like something else. It could be a new client that we add on, right? So you kind of figure out what the options are, what it looks like, Yeah, what are their opportunities, what opportunities are in front of us that we haven’t jumped on yet? Exactly. And, and so when the one thing that a little story here, just as a lesson, I learned, I was very fortunate with my time at Adidas to get to work on some projects with the executive team. And I had no business really, I had no business working with the executive team on anything. But I was a go getter and had lots of ideas. And I came up with this idea that the company like, the company was really pumped about the Adidas golf tailor made section that golf section was really excited about, and they kind of we kind of did this contest in the company to try to pull up new ideas and innovate. And so the idea was a little bit of a bigger idea, but it was there’s a lot of potential there. And so it was an idea that was gonna be like a $10 million investment for the company, it was going to be massive. And I remember one of my mentors was like, Well, what if we like broke this down to where like, we did a test of concept, and it was only 100,000 or 500,000. Now we might be able to get the executive one of the executives to jump on this and start to test it out, we’ll find the money. And it was but it’s being young and a little inexperienced, I was like this is Adidas was $10 million. But it’s just again, if I if I was a little more mature and could have like, walked through the steps to get to the bigger idea, and would have maybe had more opportunity to be successful, I think we can kind of do the same thing within our own businesses is just really like, again, setting financial targets for ourself, these financial forecasts that are achievable, but a little bit out of our uncom or like our comfort zones. And that’s usually the sweet spot. If you feel like, that sounds doable, but it also sounds uncomfortable getting there, then you’re usually studying pretty good targets for yourself.

Adam G. Force 37:10

Yeah, that makes sense. And, you know, I heard recently like Elon Musk is like, Oh, you should have your 10 year goal. Try to do that in six months. And if you don’t hit it, see how far you get? You’ll get a lot from like a I guess that’s that’s the Elan musk perspective. He’s a very unique person.

Parker Stevenson 37:31

And you’re talking about risk factors, right? You’re talking about risk aversion. Again, there’s some entrepreneurs who are going to like they mortgage their homes, they are refinance their homes, they get money from family, just do everything max out credit cards

Adam G. Force 37:48

Anything

Parker Stevenson 37:48

and more power to you, if you’re comfortable doing that great. But most people aren’t comfortable with doing that. So it doesn’t have you don’t, it doesn’t have to be one extreme or nothing, right?

Adam G. Force 37:59

It’s not necessarily smart, either. Like I think, because think about it this way, too. You have the big goal, we set the steps right to get there. We know our numbers. Now we’re working with Evolved Finance. So we got we got our they got our backs, right. And so let’s say you’re like, I gotta get two clients a month for the first two quarters. All right, that gets me my jumpstart, just like you said, the 500,000 was a jumpstart to the 10 million. So but maybe in month two, you get four clients, and you’re like, Oh, I was able to actually get four. I can maybe accelerate my plan, I could sit down. And you should be looking at your numbers every two weeks or four weeks, right anyway and know what’s going on. And maybe you can adjust and you can get there faster. So you can always pivot along the way. So make I like what you said you kind of like, set a goal that pushes you in the right direction. And it’s a little uncomfortable, but achievable. It’s not like some crazy idea that you know, you already in the back of your mind or unconsciously sabotaging yourself like yeah, that’s never gonna happen, right? Yeah, you gotta believe in the back of your mind that Yeah, I can do this. Like I can do this. You can’t just like, like, fool yourself, you know what I mean? It makes a big difference.

Parker Stevenson 39:12

Totally makes a big difference. And I think when you have these big jumps in success, or something really clicks, yeah, great. Let’s now Let’s uplevel the way we’re running the business and start making investments, right? Like, especially if you have a business that’s already generating revenue, it’s already established, you have something that that’s functioning. It’s all about pivoting as business owners being ready to adjust. I mean, and that’s the benefit of being a small business is you can, you know, you can move on a dime if you need to, versus big corporations. It’s like moving a giant, you know, a cruise ship, where it takes, it takes it could take you an hour to turn this thing around in the other direction. So that that’s the benefit we have, but it’s always How can we balance like our flexibility In our ability to adjust to the moment with intention and strategy, and again, that’s, that’s why again, at all the inexperienced, I think entrepreneur tries to do that all from feel, and all from just a sales and marketing perspective. And we need to have the full picture of the business to be strategic. And that means not ignoring the financial side of the business as well.

Adam G. Force 40:19

It’s just so important. I know a lot of people like I literally people in the social entrepreneurship space, and we’ll wrap up here in a minute. They’ll say, Well, I don’t care about money, I’m just here to help people and all that stuff. I’m like, you know, like, I hear that I’m like, I get like this, I get where you’re coming from with that mentality. Like, they think money is like, the root of all evil kind of concept. We’ve all heard that before. And you’re gonna have a really hard time being successful as a business owner, if you if you think that way, right, that’s like

Parker Stevenson 40:52

Start a charity do if you if you’re really about helping people, start a charity, and then get a job doing something else to make your money. But most people who say that that’s not really what they want. And when, when I hear people say that my answer to that is, there’s nothing inherently wrong with making money from what you do and what you’re good at. And the reality is, if you’re not charging enough for what you do, then you’re only going to be able to help a small amount of people. Yeah, and the beautiful, the beautiful part about a business is if you are a smart business owner, you can start to hire the team, you can start to market more to where you can make an impact on even more people’s lives by focusing on making or not focusing by at least giving the attention that your business needs on the financial side. Because if the finances aren’t working, you’re not going to be able to do this for very long, because you’re not going to make enough money. And you’re not going to be able to help that many people help anybody. Because you’re you’re gonna have to go get a job. And so that’s where I think it’s just these mindset things where we find ways to try to get in to make excuses and get in front, you know, get in the way of our own success, and needing to look at maybe the parts of ourselves that we feel like, I’m not as good at this, or this is something I’m scared to have to dive into and learn. Instead of, you know, instead of going like, Okay, how can I help more people and make money along the way, it’s like, I’m just gonna sabotage myself and come up with an excuse that says money is bad, and I don’t make money, right? So that you could have your cake and eat it too, I think in that regard

Adam G. Force 42:27

Well, and they learn that as time goes by, and they’re struggling, and they’re not making money, and they realize, you know, they have these blocks. But I remember a friend of mine, I was talking to on the phone with Rachel Miller, I don’t know if you know her.

Parker Stevenson 42:40

Yeah.

Adam G. Force 42:41

So I connected with her a few times, we were talking and she is just such a ball of energy. I love that woman, she’s great.

Parker Stevenson 42:50

She’s so positive and full of life.

Adam G. Force 42:54

Well, she said something to me that really stood out. And she was like, Well, if you love your customers, if you love your audience, then you have to sell to them. Because that’s how we transform their lives. That is so true. And I so when people say things like money is the root of all evil, and and selling is dirty, and all that kind of stuff. That’s what I remind them of, I’m like, if you love your customers, then you’re going to sell to them. I had someone today who was like, Oh, I don’t want to go on Facebook. And I don’t want to I don’t like doing social media and all that stuff. And I was like, Well, do you want to sell your product? Do you love your business? Do you believe in your product? I’m like, then you should be so pumped that in this day and age, we have all these social media platforms where you can go and tell everybody about it, because it’s so amazing. Don’t you want to go tell everybody? She’s like, Oh, you know, you don’t think about it. And like you got to change the way you’re thinking about this, right?

Parker Stevenson 43:51

And I’ve said the same thing. And I feel the same way about our business. I never thought I mean I do all the sales calls for Evolved Finance and I do all the promotion. I could talk about this stuff all day because I see the difference we make in our clients lives and their businesses. Why wouldn’t I want to do more of that for more people

Adam G. Force 44:10

That’s it man and I you know, I love what Russell Brunson said is like guys, you can have the best offer the best product, all that stuff he goes, but if you don’t love the marketing, if that’s not something you just love doing, you’re gonna struggle. He’s like, you gotta love selling your product because you believe in the product, as I say, yeah, people just got to get their minds right. And that’s a big part of entrepreneurship. Because if you go from employee world to entrepreneur world, totally different frame of mind and how you are creating assets and cash and all that kind of stuff. It’s, it’s, um, it was a real whirlwind for me out of the gate. And, you know, we’re not a billion dollar company, as you know, so, you know, yeah, we got a long ways to go still.

Parker Stevenson 44:52

But it’s just learning a new game right like, there. There’s just rules to this game of being a small business owner. And the faster you can learn those rules, whether through experience through mentorship through coaching, the the more you’re understand you’re going to understand what you’re trying to accomplish. And the faster you’re going to get there.

Adam G. Force 45:10

That’s it, man. Well, listen, let’s tell people how they can find you, connect with you. And I know you talked about the $500,000 and the million dollar clients, but I think you guys are open to people who are smaller clients as well. So tell us a little bit about who you typically work with, and how they can connect with you guys.

Parker Stevenson 45:30

Yeah, so evolvedfinance.com is where you can if you’re interested in learning more about what we do, I have a podcast there as well, where I just do 15-20 minute kind of lessons. It’s like one giant course where I just talk for 15 to 20 minutes about a lot of the stuff we’re talking about here. We also have a workshop on there, where it’s called Know your Numbers Now. We give away a free budget for your business and a free budget for your personal life as an entrepreneur. But otherwise, yeah, if you go to our website, you’ll see we work with only online businesses. So if you’re selling again, courses, coaching, membership sites, influencers, online service based businesses, and if you’re making $100,000 or more a year and you’re operating in US dollars, that will likely be a good fit to work together.

Adam G. Force 46:20

Okay, and we’ll have this information in the show notes and stuff like that. For you guys as you check it out. So, Parker, thank you for your time. We definitely went a little over so I appreciate you hanging in there.

Parker Stevenson 46:32

No, it’s because we have too much fun talking to each other man.

Adam G. Force 46:34

I love talking man. There’s so much to talk about. I can go on and on.

Parker Stevenson 46:39

You and me both

Adam G. Force 46:41

Alright, well listen, I will catch up with you soon. Thank you for being here and we’ll talk later.

Parker Stevenson 46:47

All right, thank you take care.

Adam G. Force 46:51

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast. Visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Adam And Amy – Why So Many Entrepreneurs Start on a High and Later Crash And Burn

Change Creator · Adam And Amy – Why So Many Crash And Burn – 2:3:21, 8.16 AM

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Why do so many entrepreneurs start off on a high and later crash and burn? Are you losing yourself in your business? It’s not as obvious as you think… let us explain.

This was originally a Facebook Live by Change Creator cofounders, Adam and Amy!

For more be sure to follow us on Facebook.

Want to learn how to differentiate and create a meaningful brand that converts sales? Join this free masterclass at changecreator.com/gobig

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam Force co founder at Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week, we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big, visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast, hope you all are doing well. And your week is off to a good start. We have a really great conversation that I wanted to share today. And that is a conversation about, you know why so many entrepreneurs start off on a high, but crash and burn leader. It’s a topic that’s come up quite a bit in with people that we’ve been talking to, and things that we’re seeing through some of the, you know, people in our program captivate and stuff like that. So it’s a really important topic, and we want to see people succeed, we want to help just kind of analyze this. So this is just a conversation that Amy and I had. So Amy being a co founder here at Change Creator that we talked about on Facebook, actually, we did a Facebook Live. So I’m sharing another Facebook Live clip, because I think it is an important conversation. And we’ve kind of just scratched the surface here and really kind of start digging into it. So I think it’s very valuable just to wrap your head around some of the ideas that we share. So we want to make sure you’re kind of getting what you need in order to stick with what you’re doing, make sure you don’t crash and burn, and that you’re making progress with your business. So hopefully, this conversation will give you a little bit of that inspiration and insight. If you missed the last episode, it was with Rene Garcia. We love talking to people who are really into the mindset game, right? Not just about being mentally tough, and you know, discipline, but how to think about becoming the best version of yourself. And not necessarily just the best version of yourself, right? We don’t, you know, we’re not trying to get to like Foo Foo here. But the idea is, as we grow as entrepreneurs, we need to become the next version of ourselves in order to be that entrepreneur, with our business, you know, we cannot remain the same person because that person is not the entrepreneur with that level of success, you have to very much lean in and become that person. So how do we break through some of our limiting beliefs and things that hold us back? So we’re going to talk about that. And that’s that was the conversation with Rene Garcia. And we like bringing people like her onto the show to help kind of dig into the mindset game, because it’s so important. So if you missed it, go back and check that one out. I think you’re gonna enjoy it. If you guys aren’t following us on Facebook, make sure you catch us there. Lots of just, you know, inspirational insights, things to like, keep you motivated, good group of people there social entrepreneurs trying to make a difference in the world. And if you want to take it a step further, where we kind of get into some more insights around the online presence, you know, how do we build trust? How do we connect our story and design and really make our brand stand out online and drive more conversions, right, those leads and sales. That’s a deeper conversation we get into in the Facebook group. So if you want to join be a Change Creator, that is our Facebook group, and you can find that right from our page. Alright, guys, I’m gonna dive right into this conversation so you can get started. Hope you guys are having an amazing day today. Stick with it. And let’s kick this thing off. Okay, show me the heat. What’s going on everybody? Adam force here co founder at Change Creator, co creator of the captivate method with my partner, Amy here.

Amy Aitman 04:12

Hey

Adam G. Force 04:15

You know, we’ve been talking and we want to talk about one important reason so many entrepreneurs start off on a high right like, it’s like sugar and getting a high but then later, you quickly crash and you burn. We see this happening a lot. So we wanted to just talk through a couple important things that kind of play into it. But before we dive into all that stuff, just to let us know you’re there. If you guys are catching this on a replay, hit replay in the comments. If you have questions during this or after. Go ahead fire those questions off, we will get back to you. No problem there. So let’s dive into this because it’s such an important topic. I mean, more than ever. People have this massive Access to become an entrepreneur, which is exciting. We typically will feel discontent in our life at some point, right? There’s this, this yearning for this raw life more meaning more in line with who we actually are, right? And when we get more in line, we feel good. When we wake up every day, we’re doing something that we actually give a crap about. Yeah. Right. And so that’s a great first step, because we’ve worked with so many people, you know, in our program, and they are like, Hey, I made this decision. And I made this bold move. And they’re, they’re doing something right. So they take that first step, which is the hardest, most people can’t get past the first step, which is yes, action, and say, screw it, I’m starting my own business, I’m doing it. I want that money. I want that, like, you know, access to my life that I live my own way. But what happens quickly after that high as you get this ambition, and you get into what’s what is important to you. But then, you know, we’re like an artisan, we are an intellectual with certain on intellectual property that we want to share and teach people whatever it might be. But over time, we realize, wow, how do I actually start getting traction? How do I, you know, you might get a sale here, no sale there. Because we’re passionate, you know, we have good intentions, we, we get some word of mouth, some referrals from friends and family, which is always a great start, right? You validate people are interested, they’ll put money down. But there’s certain things that happen that sooner or later you you realize, okay, now I’m stuck, though. It’s inconsistent. I’m not getting enough sales. How do I, how do people actually get to six figures a month? Like, where does that come from? Right. Mm hmm. And so over time, we start doing things that take us away from our original intentions and who we are because we get panicked, right, Amy? Yeah, thinking about what and when that leads to this, these bad decisions? So I’ll let Amy tell. I know, she has a little bit of a story just to kind of demonstrate like what we’re talking about here.

Amy Aitman 07:08

I mean, yeah. So when I first started my own business, I had a lot of reasons to start a business one was, nobody would hire me. So I literally wanted that freedom of money. I’m still not very hireable. Right, Adam? I’m not a very good employee. But like many of you, I started my business for reasons like I wanted freedom, I wanted to have more time and money. And being able to be with my family, I had a little a little baby at home. And I wanted for him to look at me and say my mom is doing something with her life. And I had these really core values. And I worked really, really hard. And I got to a place in business where Yes, my company was making six figures, I was like, rocking and rolling, but I was taking on so much. And so yes, I was making more money. But that freedom that I had originally wanted, that time with my son that I really originally wanted was missing. And a lot of us entrepreneurs are really sold this lie of this, like hustle lie that really takes us away from who we are and our authentic reasons to be in business like autumn started Change Creator for a specific reason to to the Alliance’s values, and most of us are most of the people that we work with, and the captivate method they have, they have this big vision, this, these gifts that they’re given that nobody else in this world can do. And that’s why they’re there. But when we’re talking about this point, when we’re getting to this disconnect point, it’s like Adam said, we started off so excited, we started off like so good, we’re starting to get sales, and we hit this point where it’s like, our business isn’t failing. In fact, it could be doing good in some areas, but our whole our life, and what we looked at, and what we want from our business is failing on a bigger level. So we lose ourselves in our business. And we’re told the lies of like hustle. And if you work hard, work harder on your business, you will grow. But these are really myths that I want to dispel. So there’s three ways that we can lose ourselves in our business. And I can tell you personally, I lost myself and my business all three. So time, energy and money. And a lot of us think, you know, it’s like, it’s good to lose time, it’s good to lose to, you know, if we’re going to make more money, or it’s good to lose money if it’s going to give us back time. But that’s really not the core of what we started this business and we start to lose ourselves and start to make, you know, decisions in our business and our marketing and our life that we wouldn’t normally make, to sacrifice to get to that next level. And we think that’s what we have to do.

Adam G. Force 09:45

But you adapt, you adapt yourself to what you think needs to happen, you know, maybe you’re not a marketer or a salesperson and you’re struggling to get that stuff you don’t know online system. So all of a sudden you’re listening to all these people, doing your research and you got it figured out. And you start saying, Well, if that’s what I got to do, it’s not really what I would probably do. But if that’s what’s working, I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to do that too. Yeah, copy what they do. Now copying people is, is is not good. Because you’re getting a surface level. Look, you don’t know really what’s going on under the hood, you don’t really know how successful it is how much something costs, you know, we interviewed a company one time and we talked to the founder. And he’s like, yeah, we made $30 million this past year. And I was like, holy crap. And he’s like, yeah, we also spent $30 million. I was like, You don’t know that. Right? You don’t know that. So we we start trying this is the key thing is we adapt ourselves to what we think people want. And that is a huge mistake. We adapt our stories, our narratives, and our actions that we take to do things that we think people want, you know, and this could this leads to that discontent coming back into your life. Because now when things aren’t working, you’re doing things that you probably normally wouldn’t have done. And you’re trying a million different things, which you know, trying new things is great, but it’s it’s easy to spend a lot of time doing the wrong thing. So sure, go, hustle, you want to work 100 hours a week, you want to grind as they say, Hey, I can appreciate that hard work is can pay off. But it also can go on for years and years years without pay off if you’re doing the wrong stuff. Because all you’re doing is adapting you’re you start to lose your soulYeah. And and it’s a hard thing to try to like express in a conversation like this until you start feeling that pain.

Amy Aitman 11:38

Yeah. That’s a good question. Like, how do you know that you’re at this point in your life? So something that causes us to start thinking about this as we asked a group question in our Facebook group? What don’t you like about marketing? You know, very simple question. Right. And we saw a lot of these answers about like storytelling seems inauthentic, marketing seems inauthentic. I keep getting I keep seeing all of these really like salesy things. And we said, why is that, because we all know that the universe shows you the things that are internal, the stories that we’re telling ourselves, that’s how we are expressing ourselves, in our business, and in our world. And that’s what actually starts to show up in our Facebook streams. It’s not by chance, what we’ve seen in the world around us is not by chance. So if you are always feeling like to get to the next stage of your business, this is how you know that you’re in this spot. This painful spot is like you’re seeing things that just don’t feel right to you. You’re seeing ads that don’t feel right, you’re seeing story, you’ve seen an authentic feeling, selling seems inauthentic. If that’s you, I want you to leave a comment on this live and say yes, I’m starting to feel like there’s no good marketing, there’s no good way to sell, there’s no good way to serve. And it’s like it’s like a disconnect and a discontent with your business.

Adam G. Force 13:00

That’s how you know that you’re there. And there’s more to that actually, I want to add, which is when you think like that. Marketing sucks marketing benteke these guys are all scammers. We get comments on our Facebook ads. This guy’s a scammer, and I’m like, ever from that, right? But this is the mentality. And when you have that mentality, guess what, you’re never going to be good at marketing and sales ever. Because you’re you are you are holding yourself back with that little thief. And you’re screwed, man. Because that’s like saying, you know, I hate black jelly beans. Well, guess what, I’m never effing eating black jelly beans, dude, I’m never gonna have them. Marketing, you’re not going to get in to become a great marketer. And you know, what we teach and what people uncover in the captivate method is, you know, we, we go through this really elaborate process around storytelling for a very specific reason, because we rely on people to their marketing, because marketing doesn’t take us away from what we do best. It actually brings us closer when it’s done. And it feels good. Because you have to it. It’s a major perspective shift. And it’s hard to like Express. But when you become when it becomes part of who you are. And now it’s like the artists and you are the Craftsman or whatever it is, this person goes after now, you are sharing what you love in a way that aligns to who you are, and people understand you and you get them on board. But these misconceptions, and these feelings of like disdain towards marketing. We know why we know why you feel that way. Right? We even teach it in inside of our own program of the history and the evolution of marketing and what happened. Why do people feel that way? Was I surprised that the comments we saw Nope, no, I wasn’t surprised at all. Actually, it was what I expected to see. But I also will tell you that most people who who say those things will not Never be good marketers, I can almost guarantee it.

Amy Aitman 15:02

And they will never grow their business. And they will do less of what they love, and what makes them so special and go back to those values in their business because of this belief, they’re just going to keep, you know, bringing that into their life. And imagine how your clients feel how your customers feel when you’re not settled. And like, we there’s a reason why storytelling is what we teach, because there’s stories that you tell yourself and their stories that you tell others. And we dig so deep, we have we dig so deep with our authenticity, interviews, to really dig into your core values. Why start this business? So many entrepreneurs kind of missed a step. Or they did this in the beginning, when they first started, I find like some of them really did this in the beginning, especially social entrepreneurs. But then you go back, you go back, and you get to this point where you’re like, I really need to grow. And again, you’re gonna, like get lose yourself with time, energy money. And you’ve skipped this step again, and this is such an important powerful thing for your business. And marketing should be something that brings you joy brings you pleasure, brings you closer to who you can help.

Adam G. Force 16:08

Yeah, no, it’s true. It’s easy to lose yourself. Because, you know, you come in with like a fireball, like we said, you’re high as a kite ready to go get a couple sales you’re cooking. But then it gets to a point where you got to level up. And it’s easy to start going in the wrong directions. There’s so many different decisions, so many different variables, things that work that don’t work all this stuff. Yeah, and you start listening to all these people, and you start trying to adapt who you are, in order to make sure you’re getting these sales, it gets messy. And we’re not saying this, you know, just off the cuff here. This is what we’ve seen for many, many years working with so many different people like this is we’ve experienced it ourselves. See the repeat pattern. And this was a hard lesson for us to learn over the years. You know, I did it. In the first year of Change Creator, no, we spent well over $30,000 in the first year, which is not a lot now.

Amy Aitman 17:02

It was a lot then.

Adam G. Force 17:02

I mean, it’s like that meant everything at the time, that was most of the savings account that I had personally put it all in. And it was me running around like a chicken with my head cut off. So and I was director of strategic marketing at webmd. I know marketing, but I also didn’t have a eight figure brand name behind me. And I didn’t have a million dollar budget to go and do all this stuff that I knew we had to do, right. And all the data and technology. So here you get on grassroots. And it’s like, Okay, this is a very different dynamic. And you got to think of marketing strategies for yourself, not for someone else. And you start going all over the place, like I just want to focus on my my craft, my passion, all those things. But sooner or later, you’ve got to become a marketer. Marketing is storytelling, and marketing. Marketing is business and storytelling is marketing. Right. So like, we always say that because it’s so true. And it’s so important to grasp.

Amy Aitman 17:59

Definitely, and it becomes fun and joyful.

Adam G. Force 18:03

It should be it should be fun, and it should be joy. So we want it to just hang

Amy Aitman 18:08

We talk about that all the time, don’t we Adam, like if we are starting to feel the drudgery of our to do list and all the things that we think we have to do, and all the outside influences that we think we have to listen to, we catch ourselves and we’re like, are we having fun? Is this fun? Is it are we bringing God into it is that the energy that we have, because that’s what our if we know that it feels good, if it aligns our values, we’re having fun, we’re having a good time, we’re not dreading getting up the next day. We’re not dreading our Change Creator to do lists.

Adam G. Force 18:38

I mean, the major takeaway, honestly, is really to understand that we burn out over time because we lose ourselves in our businesses, trying to adapt who we are and what we think we should be doing, based on what others are doing and finding success, we scramble and that panic, because you know, we’re not making enough money or whatever it is, it leads to a lot of bad decision making. So we want to reconnect with our inside world and stop being so focused on what’s going on around us and the outside world because it’s just that reflection, what what’s happening around you is based on I don’t want to get to like Fufu here, right, but like, fortunately, this is just the truth of the matter. And you’re going to hear if you go into any major mastermind, you know, we’re in a $20,000 mastermind. It’s all about this stuff. Okay. These are the conversations that we have. You know, as entrepreneurs, we all face the same challenges, but how we manage ourselves how we address problems. This is what’s going to make the difference. You know, I was listening to Dan Henry the other day and he’s like, he got invited to talk on funnel hacking live for Russell Brunson, which is a frickin sick event that Russell puts on, you know, we interviewed Russell twice. And he’s a super cool guy. Dan’s like, dude, I reached out to so and so he teaches how to be a great speaker on stage. He’s like I was already a good speaker, but I wanted to really level Boom, you know, he drops 10 grand to get in there we were at our mastermind guy comes in and talk about the money mindset 40 people in the room and guess what he had a $5,000 offer for his program. And 50% of the people in the room right there on their iPhones dropped that cash to become part of program. What I’m what the point I’m making is that people will invest in themselves. And they they keep following their own truth. And they believe in these things so much that they don’t even think about that stuff anymore. And they get on board with people that the right people that can help them right.

Amy Aitman 20:33

Yeah, so I have an assignment for you guys. Do this, it’s really, it’s gonna be fun. I want you to spend the next few days and I want you to like go through your Facebook feed, I want you to jot down how the ads are making you feel how the things around you are making you feel and how your business is making you feel. And I want you to look at it and say, am I does this feel salesy to me? Does this feel wrong to me, does this does my like Facebook ad or my facebook group or my offer or my does it feel like doesn’t really align to what I’m doing, I want you guys to go through that. I want you to see what you’re attracting in your Facebook feed what you’re attracting on so on your searches, and literally how it makes you feel. And if it is not aligned to your to who you are, then you know that you’ve lost yourself and your business on some level on some way. You know, for example, one of our students came to us and he really wanted to get to that next level in his business. And he hired a marketing team. And he lost himself in that because he didn’t even know what they were doing. It was any $1500 a month. And he told us firsthand, I think they were using bots. And that didn’t align to what I want. And this is what we’re talking to worse. So the first step is I want you to take this time I want you to like look at what you’re attracting, look at your feed, look at how marketing around you and sales around you is making you feel. And then the next step is like how is that changing your decisions that you’re making? In your business today? Yes, and then come to us and we’ll help you out. To get back to yourself, to really get back to who you are

Adam G. Force 22:07

The mroe we get alligned with ourselves, and and that becomes the business. I’m telling you, the happier you will be. Alright guys, we’re gonna wrap it up. Hopefully, it was just a fun conversation, some food for thought. I hope you got something out of that drop questions in the comments. If you have questions. We’re happy to answer the questions. That’s what we are here for. And listen, let’s put the let’s put in the business impact business blueprint. Yeah, it’s a couple things we can share. So let’s put the impact business blueprint. This will help I know what it’s like to be kind of stressed. And we don’t want to get super stressed and start making bad decisions. So this will help kind of

Amy Aitman 22:46

Allign you

Adam G. Force 22:46

Where you’re putting some time. So that’s free, you can download it, check it out.

Amy Aitman 22:50

We just think even if you’ve been in business for a while that you can realign yourself. And that’s what we’re talking about. It’s that you know, finding yourself realigning yourself to your business. And now we’re here to help.

Adam G. Force 23:01

It’s true. I mean, listen, my last comment here is this is not just about business. This is about your life. This is about everything going on around you is a stimulus, right. And we are constantly told how to do things, how to live our lives, how to create the future, you want family, getting married, buying a house, everything. We focus on those things, the more we focus only on that outside stuff and make decisions based on it, the less we focus on the inside stuff. We’re going to find that discontent again, we’re starting ourselves and we’re going to be unhappy. So again, I always say to people, like listen to what your inner self is saying and get some insights there. We have to have that baked into our lives anyway. All right, guys, let’s wrap this up. We will catch you on the next class. Bye guys. Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Adam And Danielle: 3 BIG Things That Exponentially Drive Sales Online Today

Change Creator · Adam And Danielle: 3 BIG Things That Exponentially Drive Sales Online Today

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Everyone wants quick wins and big success. But what steps can we take to exponentially drive more sales? Adam and Danielle, co-creators of Captivate, discuss 3 critical steps you can take that all work together to compound your results and create happier customers.

About Adam and Danielle:

Adam Force is a burnout survivor and an activist at heart. After working at WebMD for 10 years as the Director of Strategic Marketing, he started a second business – Change Creator.

Change Creator is an educational media platform for social entrepreneurs that helps change the status quo through its courses and services. They offer courses like – Captivate, a podcast with over 200 expert interviews, and a premier digital magazine (with 30 editions reaching 135 countries).

Danielle Sutton is the Founder of The Sedge. She’s passionate about supporting those who are enterprising to make the world a better place.

With an undergrad in business, specialization in social entrepreneurship, participation in a world-class accelerator, and consulting with Acumen, she’s excited to work with you and share her expertise to help you reach your impactful destination — all without missing the opportunity to revel in the journey along the way.

Join our new masterclass to learn how to create your most authentic brand story and powerful online presence – changecreator.com/gobig

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam forest co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week, we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big, visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam force. excited about today’s conversation, hope everybody’s having a great week, by the way. This conversation today was actually recorded on Facebook Live just this past this past last week. And it’s a really important conversation between myself and Danielle, and I wanted to share it here on the podcast, so that you guys didn’t miss it. And we’re gonna be talking about three really important factors that will help exponentially increase your sales in the end, right. And there’s a lot of interesting statistics around this as well. So not stuff we’re just making up. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk through it. And it ties into how we’re building trust with our marketing strategies, and being genuine with our company. So we’re gonna walk through three really important things that you need to consider when it comes to growing the business and earning trust with customers. Okay, if you missed our last episode, it was with Rene Garcia, and we talked about becoming the best version of yourself as an entrepreneur. So she is a transformational coach, she is somebody that helps with the money mindsets, and kind of breaking down those unconscious, limiting beliefs and things like that. So we can really step into the role we need to step into, because we can’t become a six figure entrepreneur or seven figure entrepreneur, or somebody that’s changing the lives of, you know, a lot of people if we don’t become that person, right, and so we have to kind of get out of our own way. And she’s really good at helping people with that. And so it’s a really powerful conversation. So if you missed it, definitely go back and check it out. It’s with Rene Garcia. Alright guys, not too many other updates at this point, we did. We always have fresh content going out on Change Creator calm, it’s also that content from Change Creator calm is flowing into the Change Creator app at this point. So any articles that are on the site will be flowing into the app, the app has a library of over 30 Premium magazines that are there with tons of insights, strategies, and inspiration from the top entrepreneur entrepreneurs around the social entrepreneurship space. Okay, lots of good insights there. So it’s only $1 a month to get access to the app. It’s just something that’s a really great handy tool on your phone for quick access to a lot of great content. Alright, guys, we’re gonna dive into this conversation between myself and Danielle and let’s kick it off. Okay, show me the heat. What’s up everybody, excited to be here with my partner, Danielle, we’re going to be talking about three big things that exponentially drive sales online today, and what you need to know about them, this is something near and dear to our hearts here at Change Creator because there’s so much changing right around the marketplace and online business since we reached the year 2000. And you know, the late 90s. Till now, as we got into the online digital space, there’s been a real hindrance on trust everything from before that too. But once we get into clickbait, and everything, there’s just been a lot of things that create red flags for people, interruption, ads, and all those types of things. So trust is becoming more and more important than ever today. And there is really no black and white solution to to solve for IT and business online. But there are steps that we can take that will help. So that’s what Danielle and I want to talk about today is three proven steps that you can take these are backed by all kinds of evidence. And there’s different areas of your business that we’re going to cover that have to all work together, right. So if you’re catching this as a replay, just put a replay in the comments, we’d appreciate that. And we’ll dive into this conversation on these three things. So I’m just gonna highlight Danielle real quick the three things The first thing actually I don’t know if we want to expose all three are gonna just go in order. But the first thing is brand storytelling, right? This is how we create an emotional connection. And this is what we call, Danielle right, is the core story for people and it’s grounded usually in the founder right of the business. This, why the business started, what it’s all about what their beliefs are, and things like that. And Daniel, I think you said it really good before, when you said that the core story creates the synergy. And it actually drives your business in all areas so that they become cohesive.

Danielle Sutton 05:19

Yeah, absolutely. Because we’re talking about how your brand story can help create trust, especially online, but in any brick and mortar business as well. But the idea of this consistency or synergy, think of when you meet somebody, for the first time, maybe at a party or something, and maybe they give you a good first impression, maybe they’re kind of cute, and you’re like, oh, it’ll be interesting to talk to them more. And you maybe you have a few touch points with them over the course of the night and you hear them, you know, talk about their job or talk about their family, or, you know, what they their hobbies. And, and everybody has had this moment where you’re talking to someone and thinking like, something doesn’t quite add up here, or like your spidey sense goes up, and you’re not quite sure what the red flag is, but you’re a little bit, maybe have your guard up a little bit. And that’s one example of when things are not consistent, or like something just doesn’t quite feel right. And that feeling translates into your experience or a customer’s experience with a brand or with a company, or even with a founder. So the power of kind of what Adam mentioned, your core story, when you know, authentically, you know, your purpose and your why and you’re translating that across all touchpoints in your business, it’s automatically going to be more consistent, because it’s true. And it’s very close to the values that drive your decisions and drive, how you produce your product and how you choose to market it with ethics in mind, rather than, you know, poor marketing practices. And all of these things add up into a feeling of trust. Right. So that’s why brand storytelling is something that we focus on as a whole in captivate as well.

Adam G. Force 07:13

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs today as the idea of social entrepreneurship is kind of growing over the years, you know, it’s in all these universities now. And this is, you know, this is who we love to work with, as well, because we want to change the world by changing the way we do business, right. And when we think about business, we all are, as human beings, we come from a good place. Nobody wants to see the rain forests get wiped out. Nobody wants to see all these, you know, oil spills, bad things, whatever’s going on that bothers you for bad business around the world. We want to do good things. And we’re not just money hungry people. So when we can start digging into those parts of who we are, and be very genuine about it, all the decision making from our business comes from that really genuine place, like you’re saying, and that threads throughout the business. So now when we get into the next two things we want to talk about the next one being design, all of a sudden, the that story is not just something on your bow page. It’s the North Star, if you will, for the decision making on the design and everything else that goes on in your business with the marketing. So the whole ecosystem is is actually affected by that story. Right? So it’s not, I think there’s some misconceptions out there about what a brand story is really all about, or what sales stories are for. They’re not just a simple thing you say. So storytelling is visual, and verbal, right. So I wanted to make a point about that. And then I think we can dive into the next area of the business that’s really important for trust, which is design. Anything else on your end, Danielle from brand storytelling?

Danielle Sutton 08:52

No, I think you covered it. And it segues nicely into design, because one thing you mentioned about when we’re talking about making first impressions and how this is connected to your core story as a brand, and is that you want the feeling of your visual design to speak to, you know, the personality of the business or you as a founder if you’re very tired or wanting the same. And, and it needs to make sense, like does the visual story tell, like match the spoken story? Like you said, Adam, and does it give that sense? Does it match the emotions? Again, we’re talking about consistency. Does the design match what you say you believe in and the type of you know, values that you live and embody in your business?

Adam G. Force 09:43

Yeah, yeah. And that kind of goes into the point about synergy that you made too, because it’s like, if something’s not making sense, you’re hearing all this great stuff you do and then it’s like something feels off. Right. You know, Neil Patel had a great stat that he outlined from usability.gov and it’s Having a credible I’m going to read this here, having a credible looking website that is well designed, was given a rating of four out of five, in the relative importance scale in a study by usability.gov. And that translated into how people rated that people rated the design of a website as the most important trust factor, because it enhanced the credibility of the company, and therefore made them more likely to become a customer. And I think it’s fair to say that you probably have heard this idea, Danielle, micro script. This idea that first impressions matter. Have you ever heard your parents or somebody say that first impressions matter? You going out for that job interview today, right first job out of college or something, if you haven’t been an entrepreneur your whole life, and they’re gonna say, first impressions matter, go in and meet somebody important at that conference, first impressions matter. And it starts with people subconsciously, kind of analyzing you as a design. So how are you dressed? How do you look how to carry yourself? Not much different than when they go to your website? As soon as someone learns about your business? And they’re interested? What are they gonna do? Google you? Let’s see what they’re all about. Are they professional? Do they have something of interest? And the first impression, whether they consciously will say it or not? subconsciously? They’re thinking, is this someone I want to do business with? Or not? within like, three seconds? Am I in the right place? Right? And that design, I’m a designer, I love design, I love branding, I love all that stuff. And I think it’s really important in business. And I would never design a magazine or website or anything without understanding the brand story or core story that we’ve been talking about. Because that is where the inspiration comes from, and tells you what that thing should look like. Right, Dan?

Danielle Sutton 11:56

Yeah, absolutely. And I like your point that somebody who lands on your website, they’re asking themselves in the split second, when they land, am I in the right place? is this from? Is this person or company or brand aligned with? Where I see myself? And how I wish to go forward? Where am I trying to go? Will this website help me do that, and if they see any flags that kind of point in a different direction, immediately, they’re going to bounce and being a nerd on analytics and all things. website. Amy are they’re the CO creator of a co founder of Change Creator and working on captivate with us, she has, you know, definitely has her brain in the analytics a lot. And as you know, bounce rates are a real thing. And it can dramatically change how well you are magnetizing the right people and not just having them come to your website the first time, but what is the next step for them? does everything connects so that they feel comfortable to take that next step with you? Because you’re not at a coffee shop? You can say like, Hey, can I buy you a coffee and learn more about what you mean? No, you have to make that impression, without you on the website, physically, through the design through the story, and give people confidence that they are in the right place. It’s worthwhile to take the next step with you like we talked about that too. And an exchange of value someone on your website, do they want to join your email list? Not if it’s not worth it? No way they’re there. It’s super important.

Adam G. Force 13:39

Exactly. It is. And, you know, as far as design goes, there’s an interesting definition of something that was captured by I think it was Nielsen Norman groups, and they do lots of data and all those surveys and stuff. And so it’s called the aesthetic usability effect. And the definition of that is, it refers to a user’s tendency to perceive attractive products as more usable. So people tend to believe that what that things that look better will work better, even if they actually don’t. Now this goes right now, we’ve been doing this little comparison of human beings, right, talking to somebody or sitting at the coffee shop, to the website, how they look, first impressions, all that kind of stuff. And this is no different. So if you know, I think it’s Robert Cialdini, he wrote that book, the psychology of influence, right, pretty famous book, if you haven’t read it probably should. You know, and he talks about this one area where whether people like it or not, subconsciously they have found that when someone is good looking, right, how shallow does this get, I’m telling you, but when someone’s good looking, they trust that person more, and they believe that they are more successful just because of that immediate impression of how they look. This is not far off. From what happens in the digital world now, and it goes with products, websites and your business, you know, all that stuff, they’re gonna assess you. And the first barrier is really connecting with them on that brand story, then the design making sense, right? Here I am, does this make sense? This is quality. And I love the saying that how you do anything, is how you do everything. So think about that for a second, because they’re gonna say, if your website looks like crap, and everything else is poorly designed, what does that mean for your product? Then? Why would especially when you’re getting into high ticket offers, how Why would you spend that money, you’re going to have to work a lot harder. Now, that leads us into a segue into the next thing, which is the user experience, which is also known as ux, right? So all of a sudden, let’s say you connect with them, they land on your site, they Google you, right, they learn and they go to you, they see part of your brand story is that it’s going to be that headline expression, what do you about what makes you different? And are they in the right place, then they’re going to notice your design? Do they feel like you have quality design that makes sense for them? If you get past those barriers of trust, now, they may be buy your product, right? But the trust development process doesn’t stop there. Just because you got the business, right. We have revenue channels that are about renewals, and we have customer loyalty that we want to keep on that’s why we have loyalty programs and all that kind of stuff. But what people really want there is something that is cohesive in the sense of does this company know me? Are they taking steps to take care of me and put care into what they do? And make my experience the best it can be? So that continues the trust process there. What do you think about that?

Danielle Sutton 16:46

Yeah, definitely. And it’s almost it makes me think of, the longer the relationship is, and as us relationship in the way we do with captivate, which is that encompasses, you know, somebody being on your website and choosing to join your email list and the stories that you exchange digitally. But it’s less likely to be a fluke, when it’s longer, and it’s still consistent, and they still get you and they’re still kind of serving, you know, the next piece of information or piece of value that’s, that’s useful for you as a potential customer or as a customer. And just every touchpoint reinforces you closer to a trusting relationship, like I can trust this brand even more, or it takes me further away. So it’s almost like two steps forward, one step back, depending how each touch point goes. And of course, you would like to build a stronger, more trusting experience over time. But it can go either direction. So that’s why it’s not a one and done thing like oh, my and I bet you have experienced this where you go to a website, and it is flashy, and it does sound great. And the quality looks pretty good. But then there’s you know, a broken landing page, or they send you an email with the wrong name in the header or, you know, something later on in your experience makes you feel like Oh, actually, maybe that was just a fluke, the first time like, it’s not as good as I thought. So first impressions count. But what continues in the long run is, you know, that consistency and stand with them on the path of supporting whatever, again, I’m here as a customer, here’s where I want to go, I’m choosing to go with you. The quote, the better you do at helping me get there, the better we’re going to enjoy.

Adam G. Force 18:38

Right. Deliver on your promise. Deliver on your promise. Exactly. Deliver on your promises. Because that’s that’s the other thing is like if you make a promise, which is what your offer is all about, and you don’t deliver, you lose trust immediately. Right. So, you know, you might have some hiccups, like Daniel mentioned, and I have seen research that will say, people will forgive you to an extent, if the design is really good. And you’re like, all right, yeah, whenever these things, you know, people move quick today online. But if your product to start, you know, it’s falling apart, it’s not delivering on its quality, not getting the result. Your going to lose that trust in the long run.

Danielle Sutton 19:16

And it erodes a lot faster than it builds, which you know…

Adam G. Force 19:21

Exactly, exactly. Now, there was some other thing too, that I want to share, because it’s really important for you guys. When you start adding these pieces together, there was a book by James query this atomic habits, and he gave this example about this cycling coach who made one 1% incremental changes to many, many parts of their process as a team. And within like five years, they were like the top of the world. And so, you know, it’s all these little tweaks that add up right and empower your business to make exponentially larger number of sales right? And so you have to consider How these all work together. And a nice quote, for statistics that from a company called hedge stream is that this is about the brand story though I forgot to mention this in the earlier part of the conversation, that if people love a brand story, they found that 55% are more likely to buy the product in the future. 44% will share the story that’s earned marketing, free marketing, and 15% will buy the product immediately. Right. So if you’re earning more trust with the design, connecting emotionally with the brand’s story that is threaded throughout the ecosystem of your digital footprint, and you have a good user experience, I mean, all of a sudden, these things are working together and you’re going to be increasing your trust, you’re going to be increasing your sales, you’re going to be increasing your loyalty and renewals, which put it all together and you have a substantial change in your business bottom line for sure.

Danielle Sutton 20:57

Yeah, definitely. It’s, and I think this comes up in our coaching call. Sometimes too, it can feel like every little decision or every little step can feel like a make or break moment. And in reality, it’s not that definitive, but every little step in every moment adds up and it does kind of combine into real big results and big momentum and big movement. So we kind of hold that tension in coaching, sometimes between this decision does have gravity, but also you just need to make it and see what happens, right? And it all adds up, you know, but it’s a cohesive ecosystem, it’s not one thing will make or break. Like if you just fix your homepage that will solve everything. No, unfortunately, that’s not it, it’s very important to fix your homepage, but it’s not going to make or break everything. No, you need to kind of consider all of these points along that customer journey.

Adam G. Force 22:01

Which it’s a good point, but don’t feel like I guess defeated in any way. Like, oh, you all know just one thing at a time, right? Just like the cycling coach that made small changes, we’re gonna we’re gonna change the, the the helmets that we use, we’re gonna change the tires that we use, we’re gonna and just little by little, everything starts work like what he called compounding over time, right?

Danielle Sutton 22:25

And it’s not hard if you’re basing it off your personal values, your authentic voice and your story. That’s why we repeat that part, because that makes all of these small things. Automatic, actually, when you…

Adam G. Force 22:38

And accurate and genuine I mean, so this trust conversation starts with they really having the right core story, which is why we focus on that so much. So, you know, that is that driver, that is the foundation of the house. Everything else is stems from that. So if you don’t have that, and it’s not done, right. It makes everything much more if we see it all the time, everything is kind of like makes no sense together. That’s not cohesive, you know, when you’re all over. It’s ambiguous. That’s, that’s the word I wanted. You know. And Danielle, there’s one stat guys from this Edelman report. Edelman does a report every year about trusts, and there’s so many good pieces of insight in there, we’ll get some maybe articles out there that kind of capture some of it. But at a top level. The Edelman Report, I’m pulling this up here, let me see if I have it. Yes. So they had this evolution of the trust in a brand, right. So 81% said they won’t do business with the brand. If they can’t trust that the brand will do the right thing for society. This is huge. It became It was first more most important about the product experience, then the customer experience. Now the impact on society is creeping up. And as we become social entrepreneurs trying to make a difference trying to do the right thing with our business. And if our core story, and then our everything we do is threaded through that and we’re trying to do something that’s right, you’re going in the right direction. With where customers heads are at today. It’s important to understand these things, and they call it you have to be aware like we’ve heard of greenwashing and stuff like that, there is this thing they call now trust washing. They will all the consumers out there say that too many brands use societal issues as a marketing ploy to sell more of their products. That’s 56% of people say that. That’s something to be aware of, because we don’t want to do it just because we saw the data. We want to do these things from our from who we truly are our authentic selves and come from a genuine place because otherwise people will know, people will will find out and you will lose that trust. Absolutely.

Danielle Sutton 24:46

And another term that you may have heard this referred to as impact washing right and it’s kind of comes down to walking the talk you know, being true to your values. Live your values. Be consistent in your values in the decisions that you make walk the talk. And that’s why it translates across these three specific things that we mentioned today that all create that trusting experience, because it’s not necessarily a black and white fill in the blank, you know, boom, check, Mark. You, you know, live the decisions that build your business. Exactly.

Adam G. Force 25:28

Well, listen, I think that’s a good note to wrap up. I think we’ve been on for over 20 minutes. And we’ll jump off here. I hope that was helpful for everybody. We’ll put a there’s a download we’re going to put about storytelling because if we can get you guys acclimated and start understanding more about storytelling for your business, it’s a great first step for you. So we’re gonna put our storytelling roadmap in the first comment or the description here, you’ll get a link and you guys can check that out. It’s totally free. Tons of good insights in there just to kind of get you started. Danielle, you good?

Danielle Sutton 25:59

Yeah. That was a nice chat.

Adam G. Force 26:02

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast, visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward

#interview

Renée Garcia: Becoming the Best Version of Yourself as an Entrepreneur

Listen to our exclusive interview with Renee Garcia:

Change Creator · Renee Garcia: Becoming the Best Version of Yourself as an Entrepreneur

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What does it really take to create the reality you want for yourself?

Each stage of entrepreneurial growth requires us to become another version of ourselves. So, we spoke with expert, Renee Garcia, who is a certified reality transurfing instructor to go deep into self-development.

More about Renee:

Renée is a lifelong entrepreneur, a Certified Reality Transurfing instructor, and an Alternatives Space adventurer – endorsed by Vadim Zeland the author and creator of Reality Transurfing. Having ventured deeply into the metaphysical world of Reality Creation she has transformed personal failure into success, poverty into abundance, sickness into healing, and a bleak worldview into one brimming with joy and magic. Renée has employed Reality Transurfing to discover fulfillment, true purpose in life and connect with the highest version of herself. With a self built practical methodology and magical wand in hand, she is now empowering others around the world to do so the same. Her motto is “knowledge without application is merely entertainment”. With a rapidly growing following of supporting “Transurfers” at her side, Renée brings to light the works of Vadim Zeland at home and worldwide. She has developed the only English language Reality Transurfing instructional program which serves as the backbone for The International Transurfing Institute, which she founded in 2015.

Learn more about Renée García and her work at > www.transurfing.us

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Renee Garcia 02:35

Everything’s going Awesome. Thank you for having me. Adam.

Adam G. Force 02:37

I appreciate you taking the time to talk with everybody. Yeah, but unique, you know, background and experience, I think it’s really important what you do, and the name Transurfing, the way you kind of identify it really kind of caught my attention. So why don’t you just give people a little bit of just in a nutshell, like a little bit of background, about what Transurfing is in your description. And then we’ll kind of I’ll want to just kind of see kind of how you got there in that experience in your past.

Renee Garcia 03:16

Got it. Okay, so Transurfing, Reality tranSurfing is a new psychological technology that helps the individual understand their external reality a little more vividly or with clarity rather. And then the internal reality, the mindset, the thought processes, the programming, you know, the adherence to us, from a young age, and our relationship between the two, the internal and the external. And it really helps to navigate the different variations of reality that are accessible to everyone. It is a system that really breaks down the ideas of the idea of like a static reality, like a reality that just sort of is the way that it is and everyone must conform and adhere to certain standards or structure. And when you blow apart a belief structure that I believe most people in this world are adhering to reality really does open up in a way and this is what has happened for me and this is exactly why I’m doing what I’m doing now. Because in reality completely my experience of reality completely transformed in a way where I could access much higher and much better opportunities and events and, and, and thoughts and all sorts of stuff that has allowed me has aided me in connecting with higher success much more easily.

Adam G. Force 05:20

Hmm. Interesting. And so how did you start learning about all this?

Renee Garcia 05:26

Well, your podcast is a short one. So I will give you a quick rundown, I was born and raised in a very lower middle class environment, poverty level really. And I, you know, went into adulthood, believing that I was a certain type of person. And there were certain things that I did not have access to that others had access to that were doing it quote, unquote, right. So all the typical, you know, the typical blueprint that the average young adult follows that wasn’t part of my blueprint, I didn’t have a lot of skills and resources that I saw other people benefiting from. But I knew I wanted something different for myself, I knew I wanted to, you know, transcend the mobile home park and transcend the poverty mentality and all that stuff. I just didn’t know how to do it. So I went about it from a very will, you know, a place of will and ego and really striving and really, you know, becoming a really good sales person, and really learning how to hammer my reality to get the stuff that I wanted. And I meant, I managed to create a pretty decent amount of success for myself doing this, but the problem was mid 30s, I had, you know, the classic like nervous breakdown, right, where there was so much stress on me and my life had become all about maintaining the things that I you know, that I had created for myself and Money, money, money and Image, Image image. And one morning, I woke up and realized that I was tremendously unhappy. And my life had become all about, you know, success, or lack thereof, and maintaining everything and, and I went on a journey to find some answers, find myself find a new way to live. And in this time, I found reality Transurfing, and it was very, very unheard of in the US. And in the English speaking world. It was virtually nobody had heard of it. And I read at the time, it was five separate books. Now they’re combined into one big kind of like master book, but at the time, I read the five books, and it provided me beyond the answers that I was looking for. It was reality, Transurfing, showed me everything that I had done, you know, wrong to lead me up to the moment where I, you know, my life sort of broke, broke me. And then it highlighted all the stuff that I had been doing right, and helped me really develop a more firm connection, well, not more firm, because there really was no connection with my heart during this time, where I was creating this life that I thought that I wanted to have. But what Transurfing taught me is really how to start working from an entirely new place, a place of authenticity, and what was specifically intended for me as an individual. And all sorts of, you know, exploring all sorts of dimensions of who I really was as a person, because that previous pre Tran surfing version of myself was something that my environment had created. That was really just a lot of different programs that were running. And that’s why I was really, really unhappy. So it helps me really form a connection with myself, unlike anything I’d ever experienced. And when I did this, all of a sudden, my success and success, just the definition of success changed for me, but personal success and feeling as though every morning you know, when I woke up that I was really, really fired up and and excited about my life. And it was this it was this fuel. It was this energy that this started to really feed a reality that was specific for me specifically intended for me and that I feel amazing about it. Every day, so, and it goes much deeper than that. But just on a personal success level, it’s been transformative beyond anything that I could have ever asked for really.

Adam G. Force 10:12

So what was it? You were looking for? Man, you’re going through these books and trying to figure things out and that you found overwhelmingly, what was that?

Renee Garcia 10:23

Well, I think it was, I? Gosh, that’s such a deep question. That’s an amazing question actually. I think it was really about. And I know, this is gonna sound a little bit corny, but it was, it was really about love, I, I felt for the first time that, you know, all that love that I had in me, that I had suppressed for a lot of years, because I believed love to be an attribute that was not was not part of the formula for success, right? I I thought being a shrewd businesswoman, or, you know, being my level of commitment being super steadfast, and, you know, doing all these things each day in, in what we call an inner intention, way. So inner intention, again, is that will and that ego and striving and forcing and all that kind of stuff, and I thought that’s what created success. Well, when I started to strip away the layers of that persona that I had adopted, I found underneath was actually a very loving, very giving person that cared a lot about other people. And I had become very, very lost to that, you know, that wasn’t even a thought in my, you know, that would that definitely wasn’t part of my daily role, right? I wasn’t thinking about how can I give to other people, how can I be of service? How can I make a difference, you know, my, my success was all me, me, me, me, me, me me. But in tapping into this, this place that had been neglected for my entire life 35 years, there, there was just such a well there of energy. And it was in this place that I not only realized a new path for myself, but I realized a new version of myself. That was that was a lot that was that was so there was so many more facets there and it was just there was so much more there and in merging because the the the name Reality Transurfing, what what that means is Transurfing, is moving through the different variations of reality that are available to us, right, Transurfing reality. But it also applies itself because just as there are an infinite number of versions of reality that are available to us, there’s also an infinite number of versions of ourselves, there’s a lower versions of ourselves, there’s the higher versions of ourselves. So in really getting into this knowledge, there’s 11 core concepts that are extremely transformative, I very rapidly started to ascend to that higher version of myself, and in this ascension to the higher version of myself, I had all sorts of insights and revelations about what I want to do and how I want to leave my mark on the world and what what is of real value to me, right, not perceived value, and not value that my environment is going to convince me as they’re right, the the chasing after the dangling carrot, the need to get the house and the cars and the, you know, you know, 10 or $20,000 vacation once a year, all that stuff. And it was it was really just about me merging from the version of myself that believed all that to a version of myself that had much higher, much more evolved and much more beautiful beliefs, really.

Adam G. Force 14:33

So I mean, for example, you have a program, a course about money and a course about being magnetic and things like that. Sounds like you know, from this frame of mind that you have, that we’re just describing and kind of shifting, those things were not as important so So tell me a little bit about these programs and the position you’re coming from with those that help people like entrepreneurs and such.

Renee Garcia 15:04

So, yeah, the the the two most popular programs I have right now are my Mo Money course and Becoming Magnetic. Really what it’s about is it’s about, again, tapping into tapping into your individual charisma, you’re the individual, the characteristics that you hold as an individual that make you unique. And we live in a culture, especially now with Instagram, and, you know, all these social media platforms, sending us a barrage of images to convince us that we are not perfect that we don’t have what it takes, that, again, things are reserved for other people, not you or other people get things easily but not you, you’re going to have to work really hard. And both my both my courses becoming magnetic and the money course, are really about it’s, it’s almost like this idea that less is more, once you start to strip away all the noise, once you start to really limit your intake of stuff that is not serving you, well, you become more you you become more magnetic you, you you start to radiate things about who you are as an individual out into your world that attracts stuff that specifically intended for you again, not what your environment or what society or what your culture is, is convincing you that’s intended for you. So it really comes back to you know, in a lot of people, you know, have said that Transurfing can be a little bit egocentric and in a can, because it’s about tapping in to your own power, your own charisma, the the pool of the pool of wealth that is inside all of us to be a star at something specifically intended for you. So it’s really about aligning you with that higher version of reality, becoming more of yourself. So one of the big things to Transurfing, that we all really love. And it’s what captivated me in the very, very beginning is transforming, it has nothing to do with changing who you are, even the author says it in the beginning of the book, you will not be asked to change anything about who you are, you are going to become more of yourself. So So in my money course and my becoming magnetic course, it’s really about you discovering and reconnecting with parts of you that you have become lost to and in this. The second is that success is way more way more achievable way more obvious, way more abundant, really, because it’s just easy, it’s easy, it’s accessed a lot easier than doing it the way that I described I was doing it initially and how a lot of entrepreneurs are doing it these days. I mean, let’s face it, the hustle culture and that grind culture. right this is this is Yeah, this is like this is glorified. And this is this is projected to us. And this is the exact thing that broke me so so being given an alternative, right? Oh God, I don’t have to wake up every morning and grind. You know, I can actually do what I love and feel you know and everlasting energy to do this thing every day and my work is not my work anymore. I don’t work I don’t feel like I have a job I’m doing what I love every single day. And it shows to the world right? There’s a certain there’s a certain energy that is coming from me that people are responding to and in this what we call heart and mind coordination. This is when your heart says yeah, that’s great. This This will feel fulfilling this will this will feel awesome to do this. And then the mind being involved in the logic in this heart and mind coordination of finding what is truly intended for you in line with your skill set in line with your purpose in line with, you know all all the characteristics of who you are. This radiates a certain thing people are attracted to this. And then this is what creates success. So that’s really what my what my courses are about.

Adam G. Force 20:07

Yeah, I’ve always been, you know, fascinated and part of here at Change Creator, you know, we work with social entrepreneurs and you know, running a business that’s meaningful that’s contributing to the world, it really comes down to similar lines of thought that you’re having, which is to live life as tact by tapping into your truth, right, that’s what becomes meaningful doing what you love doing what’s interesting to you, what matters to you, you know, things like that. And I do think there’s a lot to be said, and we’ve had conversations on this show many times around money, and the subconscious lines of thought that are just indoctrinated into us that kind of control our behaviors, right of all, actually a lot. And, you know, you talk about reconstructing your belief system around money. And that that is a topic that has always fascinated me, because I think a lot of people have money blocks, whether they know it or not. And, you know, how do you think about reconstructing your belief system around money? Can you just share maybe a little bit a taste of what that is to you?

Renee Garcia 21:24

Yeah, so, you know, one thing about Transurfing that I absolutely love is that, it’s based in like, in scientific, you know, ways of thinking that are actually a lot easier for the mind to accept, like, certain facts, right? Rather, rather than, like, you know, godly beliefs, like God will take care of it, or, or, you know, if I throw my wish into the world, it’ll, you know, I’ll manifest what I want. All that kind of thinking is way too ambiguous. And it’s, it’s not, it’s not concrete enough. So one of my beliefs that will, cause there’s so many, but one of one of my beliefs that’s really changed about money, is this idea that, and I spoke on this earlier that things are intended for others, but not for me, right, or that or, or that things come easier to others, but not for me. And what this really is, what this really is, it’s just a wall that inhibits action. Thinking that they’re going to be, there’s going to be a lot that I’m going to come up against, so I might as well not even try. Whereas Tran surfing, really has showed me that energy in his energy out, you put the time in, you do the stuff that you that you you take the steps you take action. And if you do this consistently, and I know this sounds like so obvious, but the amount of people that I have encountered, that are frozen, in their action, fearful of taking action, don’t know where to start, or the biggest is starting and then coming up on an obstacle, and allowing that obstacle to convince you that you’ve made the wrong choice, or it’s not working, or that you aren’t good enough or that you aren’t doing it right or something like that, and stopping this is why most people do not find success in their lives. Whereas with using these concepts, and this is why I’ve gained such a following at this point, because I’m actually using the concepts in real time to show everyone how they’re working. And people can see that when I come up on an issue or a challenge. The analogy that I like to use is this it’s kind of a silly one. So you know when when you’re driving in your car and you’re coming up on a speed bump, and you slow down. You can actually press the gas down even more and go faster and just kind of glide right over the speed bump. You don’t even have to slow down and most people don’t know this. I know this isn’t like a thing to be advocating for blasting over speed bumps, but this is really how reality works. If you’re coming up against a challenge or an obstacle or a problem to throw more action into it, right? To do it even more, do whatever you’re doing even more. And you’ll see that that problem that might have even stopped you, if you were in a more negative mindset just passes you by Transurfing is helped me to understand how to let my world create solutions for me. So I can use my energy, my fuel to actually do the creating, and all the solutions sort of just come in and handle the challenges. And there’s a much easier, more simplistic way to navigate whatever you’re doing professionally, I mean, then this can be applied to any part of life. It’s our overthinking and our you know, we really create our own problems and blow them up in our minds with, you know, elevated levels of importance or distorted perception of how big the problem actually is, and Tran surfing, we, we say you are the problem, and you’re the solution. So it really helps to like, it really helps to put everything in its place, bring it all back down to size. And again, you don’t either one give up on your dream because of these perceived problems, or to lose an excessive amount of energy trying to find the solutions, you work with your world to find the solutions, you use your fuel your energy to put into the endeavor, and things just grow exponentially really, really, really fast. And it’s amazing. I mean, just what I’ve done with Transurfing alone in the last, you know, few years, this is an example of this. So it really does work, it makes things a lot easier for the entrepreneur, I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire life. And there’s the right way to be an entrepreneur and the wrong way.

Adam G. Force 27:08

Yeah, and everything in between, right? Yes, it’s quite a process and a journey. And I, you know, I think there’s I like to talk about the, the money mindset stuff, because I know, just in our conversations with entrepreneurs, and even, you know, myself, like I have my own money blocks to become aware of, you know, I, I do affirmations and things like that as well, because I become aware of these limitations. And we have to kind of figure out how to, like you say, reconstruct those thought processes. So, it makes a big difference. But first is figuring out what those things are, I guess, right, and being aware of it.

Renee Garcia 27:50

Absolutely. And this is the first this is the first step in creating your own reality, or really bringing to you know, really materialize materializing something that you want. The first and most crucial step is to acknowledge that that version of reality does in fact exist. Without this, you’re not going to go anywhere. So a lot of people with their doubts and their limiting beliefs, they, they, they disallow themselves to take the right movement forward to work towards that thing, because of those doubts and beliefs and all that stuff. So with reality, Transurfing, it’s really allowed me to let the walls of my belief systems sort of dissolve and and, and accept and know. And knowing this deep within is beyond powerful. I mean, the people that are using this stuff right now, to create the reality that they want. This is this is where all the power comes from. Knowing that that version of reality does in fact exist. It now becomes a matter of putting your action, your thoughts and your frequency in line with that version of reality. And when you can, when you can do those things after the initial first step, which is acknowledging that that version of reality does in fact exist. You become magnetic to exactly your choice. And you are priming your world to assist you in presenting to you all the different components of what you need that is going to help you materialize that version of reality you have you you’re essentially living that version of reality prematurely, and that reality is naturally attracted to you that it’s like the doors open, and you just walk to that version of reality. Now it’s not instant, you know, and a lot of people come to this modality and they’re like, okay, I want to manifest a million dollars tomorrow. And, you know, my response to that is, why short yourself, you know, the experience of creating the million dollars, where all the fun is not actually having the million dollars, a lot of people find that hard to accept. But that, you know, really, once you get the million dollars, and you do all the fun stuff with the money, then what, right, then then you’re back with that empty feeling. So it’s about becoming the person that has the million dollars, or the billion dollars, or whatever it is you want, it’s about becoming that person, and working with your world to actually achieve that result. And then the million dollars of the billion dollars is kind of icing on the cake, because you’re the real experience was creating that version of reality. And that’s exactly what I’m doing right now.

Adam G. Force 31:11

Yeah, it’s, it’s a lot to take in, you know, and I, these are lessons that I’ve learned is really, you know, becoming, understanding what that version of yourself that you desire is and then taking, creating, I always looked at it, as you know, and you might think differently, but creating small habits that that person that will create that person, right, so every day, you’re, you’re doing things that create these behaviors and living your life in that way. And is that sound? I guess, in line?

Renee Garcia 31:46

Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s exactly it, we have a technique in the modality called slides. And really what a slide is, is it’s you running a mental visualization of you getting exactly what it is that you want. And in, in this ideal version of reality, that you’re pretending to live in, instead of daydreaming, you’re actually convincing yourself that you are that person and you’re becoming that person. And then that’s where the action comes in. So as you’re, as you are becoming what I call a state of being, as you’re assuming the state of being, let’s say, a state of being of a person that has a million dollars, as you’re assuming that state of being you’re again, becoming magnetic to the different attributes and things that you need, in order to materialize that version of reality. So without you doing that, first without you living in that state of being, it’s not possible, as soon as you can, as soon as you can assume that state of being, and the power that a person feels, when, you know, I, I’ve been doing this, I’ve done this, I’m doing this right now, the power that is associated with that, you realize that, you know, you can, you can go even more, you can get even bigger, you know, and, and again, it’s it’s not about it’s not about doing something in the direction of what your environment is convincing you as the right direction, right, the typical standards that society presents to us, but but realizing that as an individual, you can have whatever it is you want to have for yourself, you can somebody else has done it, right? somebody that has had less resources than you less skills than you has done it, you are able to access that version of reality if you decide it to be so if you choose it to be so. So it’s in this the reality, your world, your your your options really become limitless and nature and reality and life become fun. And that’s exactly what I was missing in my pre trans surfing reality. Life had become a grind. You know, I was hustling all day, every day. And it was painful. And I didn’t want to do it anymore, but I didn’t know how to stop and all of my little brief moments of joy were from, you know, making a big sale and then I got some money and I’m like, Oh, this feels great. But those became shorter and shorter and shorter amounts of time that I felt joy. And now it’s like being in creation mode non stop. My objective is not the money even though I have plenty of it. My objective is not the money. My objective is, you know, something much, much greater than any financial gain that I could create for myself. This is where this is where it’s all at. And it’s easy for me to assume that state of being in live in that state of being because it feels so damn good. You know, because it feels so damn good. So that’s where it’s at. Find What’s good, find what feels really, really good for you. find what feels really, really good for you. And then life’s a feast. And it’s fun. You’re enjoying yourself, you’re pumping energy into something that’s gonna that’s going to that’s going to pay you back beyond what you what your original intention is even more.

Adam G. Force 35:50

I love it. I love it. Thank you for sharing and we’re gonna close out and I want to make sure you have a chance just to let people know if they want to learn more about what you’re doing, get involved, where do they go?

Renee Garcia 36:01

Yeah, we got lots of stuff if you would like to jump into the teachable course has been wildly popular this year. It’s on Teachable International Transurfing Institute. It’s called reality 2.0. But if you don’t want to spend any money and you just want to learn all this stuff for free, we have over 600 videos on Transurfing TV on YouTube right now. So you could go on there and just binge and learn all the concepts and the different ways to practically apply them to your life and your mind. We have a very, very thriving Facebook group, international Transurfing Institute, Facebook group, lots of people from brand new to the scene to advanced transurfers that are even instructors so as translators we really really love to help out the newcomer. So if you to come in there and ask a million questions, we will give you a million answers. I’m on Instagram, reality_Transurfing and if you want to learn more my website www.transurfing.us

Adam G. Force 37:11

Thanks for tuning in to the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth: Key Areas Social Entrepreneurs Focus on For Faster Growth

Listen to our exclusive interview with Lauri-Ann Ainsworth:

Change Creator · Lauri-Ann Ainsworth: Key Areas Social Entrepreneurs Focus on For Faster Growth

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What are social entrepreneurs doing today to accelerate their success? We spoke with Lauri-Ann Ainsworth, CEO of the Branson Centre for Entrepreneurship in the Caribbean. She mentors many startups and entrepreneurs and is on the front lines addressing the biggest challenges and seeing what is driving their progress forward.

More About Lauri:

Lauri-Ann carries with her years of experience in developing the Caribbean’s entrepreneurial landscape. Having coached and mentored startups, she’s developed a strong passion for supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem supported by her visionary thinking and leadership capabilities around development, partnerships, fundraising and communications. She is a certified project manager and a graduate of the University of Toronto.

Learn more about Lauri and her work at > bransoncentre.co

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

SPEAKERS

Adam G. Force, Lauri-Ann Ainsworth

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam forest co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and like to go big, visit us at Change creator.com forward slash growbig to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to the change order podcast. Hope you guys are doing amazing on this fine Wednesday, Adam force here host of the show. So some exciting stuff going on. Let’s just see, besides all the world chaos that is taking place, it’s like a live reality TV show that’s happening, pretty much. Let’s get on a positive note of 2021 ramping up our businesses. If you missed the last episode with Trevor Anderson, we talked about what it takes to build a winning agency. But you can look at that as what it takes to build, you know, a service based business right at the he’s built a couple of agencies. So we get into this conversation. It’s really great conversation. Trevor’s a cool guy. He’s actually right here in Miami near me. And he has all kinds of awards with his agency and stuff. So lots of insights young dude. And, you know, he’s crushing it. So there’s a lot to be learned from the processes that he’s put in place and how he’s actually developed his quiet roster and all that kind of stuff. Alright, so the interview that I’m going to have today is with Laurie and Ainsworth. Now, in all transparency, this was recorded earlier, in 20, and slipped through the cracks, it never got published. So we wanted to take a moment to share this interview, because it’s a valuable interview. So now, Laurie, and Ainsworth is the CEO of the Branson center of entrepreneurship in the Caribbean. If you recall, I was just, I was just a speaker at the Branson center of Entrepreneurship Summit that they just did a lot of fun, exciting event, there’ll be more coming out around that soon, I think with them. So, you know, laurieann, she has a lot of experience in developing the entrepreneurial landscape in the Caribbean, right. She’s coached and mentored startups, she has a, you know, a very big passion for helping drive the entrepreneurial ecosystem forward. And she just has this leadership quality, that’s really important to the Branson team. She’s really good at developing partnerships, fundraising, communication, so all these things that are very valuable to that environment over in the Caribbean, as they work with entrepreneurs in different startups. So she has a lot of experience to share when it comes to social entrepreneurship. And that’s what we want to dig into is, you know, what, what are some of the challenges these social entrepreneurs are facing? How are they overcoming them, these are things that you want to become aware of, and there are pitfalls that you can avoid, but also insights to help you make progress with your business, the same kind of progress that all the people going through the Branson center of entrepreneurship are making, right? So a lot to be learned here. And it’s a valuable conversation. So we’re going to share this with this interview here today. And I hope you guys enjoy it. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook. That’s the bread and butter channel for us. And we have our private Facebook group called be a Change Creator, it’s right there on the on the Facebook page, the big button you can get to it. And guys, if you haven’t been to our website in a while, we’ve been putting out a lot of content, lots of different interviews, you can get show notes and things like that. We also have a ton of very extensive guides, right? We call them pillar content resource hubs, whatever you want to call it. They’re deep dive pieces of content. All right, and they’re right there on the homepage, we put them now, and there’s more and more coming. But this is to help organize what we have to help you find what you’re looking for. Right. So dive into those. Get the insights you’re looking for. It might be about brand storytelling, you might be looking for the best SEO tools you might be looking for, you know, different things around e commerce, we have all of that there, depending on what your business is and what you need right now on your journey. So don’t forget to stop by at Change creator.com and that’s it guys. We’re gonna dive into this conversation. I hope everybody’s New Year is off to a good start. And that this conversation is going to help feed your inspiration and give you fresh ideas and insights that drive your business forward. Okay, show me the heat. Hey, Laurie, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show. How are you doing today?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 05:09

I am great. Adam, thank you so much for having me on.

Adam G. Force 05:12

You are welcome. I’m excited. You know, we did an interview with Jean and Richard. And now we got you here. So we’re keeping it in the Branson family and keep supporting you guys. And we love all the work you’re doing. So I’m excited about this.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 05:24

Yeah, no, that’s awesome. I love that you have me on. I’m so glad to be a part of the Brandon center family and just talking to you today.

Adam G. Force 05:31

Yeah, how did you get involved with them anyway?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 05:34

Okay, so, great story. So I’ve always been interested in entrepreneurship, and actually started my career in marketing. And I left my marketing job, I started my own business as a marketing agency. Then I got myself back into the entrepreneurship world and I started working leading a tech accelerator in Jamaica to be in that tech accelerator. We had a relationship with the Branson center, we were always partnering together and working closely. So I was quite familiar with their program and their current CEO. Well, I decided to leave that tech accelerator, I saw this CEO of the Johnson said data farmers market. And she picked me up there. And pretty much told me that I needed to call my work with her, she actually had just become the CEO, she was moving the center from Montego Bay, where Richard Branson had launched it to Kingston where I live, and I agreed to come and help her with her program. So two and a half years later, I’m the CEO of the Branson center.

Adam G. Force 06:40

Wow. That’s pretty exciting, huh.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 06:43

Yeah, it’s quite exciting.

Adam G. Force 06:44

Interesting. Um, so what have you been doing with them since you started?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 06:50

Yeah, thanks for asking that. So you know, I think when whenever there’s a change in leadership, you always want to kind of make your own mark, and the previous two CEOs of the Branson center had done a stellar job with what they were able to bring individually to the program. And for me, I personally am very much into productivity and wellness. And I wanted to create a program that was supporting the whole see the whole entrepreneur, not just helping them to grow their business from a financial or investment standpoint. So I, when I took over, I was very clear about ensuring that we injected a wellness aspect to the program. And then COVID happened. And I think it’s become even more important. But while COVID happened to me that we also had to shift our program. So whereas we were supporting entrepreneurs to accelerate their businesses, and we’re supporting the entrepreneurs in the group stage, not startups. Yeah, we had to shift No, because of what’s happening to our current entrepreneurs, they’re losing revenue, they’re laying off some of their team members. So we’ve shifted, and we are now focusing on recovery planning. So we are focusing on three pillars, three main areas, which is marketing, which has been a huge, huge demand, particularly how to be visible how to start telling your story to the right audience so that you create the demand for your products or services, financial coaching, how can you keep more cash in your business? You know, how do you plan for the future? And of course, strategic planning, what do you need to do now what you need to do in six months, you know, 12 months? And how can you make decisions that are practical? And so what we’re doing with that is trying to give them scenario based approach so that they’re not doing these knee jerk reactions and decision making. So that’s how we’re kind of switching up our program now.

Adam G. Force 08:51

Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. And, you know, people we’ve noticed the panic, right? Like we had this pandemic take place. And then there’s a panic and especially in the impact entrepreneurship space, people who are coming from this mindset, they feel like they’re taking advantage of a situation when it comes to selling during this time. And this has been a big setback. So you know, we did a whole week of live videos where we were addressing some things in our Facebook group and you know, what we’re telling people is the, as an entrepreneur, we solve problems, right? So right now, whether let’s take the pandemic way you’re solving someone’s problem, but the pandemic on top of it, and they just have different problems to solve. So you could, you’re still just being an entrepreneur and if you’re afraid to sell then you don’t love your audience because if you love your audience, you’re going to help them by changing their life and selling what you offer. Right?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 09:46

I couldn’t agree more with you Adam and that is, you know, you you said a word that’s really important, the mindset, you know, we have to change the mindset. It’s not about selling and to just earn money, especially in the impact space, yourself. problem for people. And you’re being rewarded for your efforts. You know, you have to continue to live and thrive so that you can share your gift, whatever your gift is. And I totally agree with that.

Adam G. Force 10:12

Love it. Love it. Yeah. So and how has been, I guess, how has the response been on your side with people coming through the program and stuff? Like, have you started implementing these discussions and changes? And like, what’s it been like for you?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 10:27

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for us, we have been outside of our office for more than eight weeks now. And we had a very much interactive kind of experience for entrepreneurs, we had to take it 100% online. So we’ve shifted everything. And we thought that we would see a decrease in engagement, because our entrepreneurs really like to network with each other. But surprisingly, they love engaging with each other, they actually love coming to our workshop, they love coming to the sessions that we’re still having for them, because they get into a renewed sense of energy and drive, but to continue doing what they’re doing, and just getting new ideas and, you know, be more innovative and collaborative. So it’s been great for them to have our program continue. And I think it’s actually been really important for them to continue thriving during this period.

Adam G. Force 11:18

Absolutely. You know, what, that networking peoples, they kind of thrive off each other’s energy in some ways. And, like an interesting example is, you know, we’ve had a student in one of our programs, and he, he went through this program, and now he spent over $150,000. Over the years, he helped, he works with like, Olympians, pro athletes, all these people, and he wanted to move his business online, right. And so he struggled. And he spent all this money on marketing teams, website designers, and it never came together cohesively because some really fundamental marketing strategy steps were missed, right? So he goes through this program, and within two months, he’s selling a 15 $100 offer, he’s getting applications or pros to work with him. And all this stuff just started shifting and changing. And when that happened in the group, environment, everyone else started getting excited, and everyone has started paying more attention and working harder to see the uptick.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 12:12

Yeah, no, absolutely. You know what that reminds me of a session that I just recently did with my team, I learned how to do masterminds. And I think that’s exactly what we need more of know, people actually having these groups of masterminds, where you’re being encouraged to move to the next level by your peers. And it’s not just, you know, everyone sitting down holding hands, kind of sobbing and crying over spilt milk, but really like, what can you do, you know, to move to the next level and empower each other? I think that’s awesome.

Adam G. Force 12:44

Absolutely. You know, one of the best pieces of perspective or advice I’ve gotten was from one of our current mentors, and we pay a pretty penny to be part of these masterminds. And so we’re at a summit in Redondo Beach in California, and not long ago, before this whole pandemic. And she was like, Listen, all entrepreneurs face the same challenges. It’s just the difference between the ones that succeed and don’t is how they respond to those challenges. And that is such a simple statement. And you might put people like when you just think about that, it is a game changer. Because if you, if you let’s say you put all this work in, in your business, the pandemic hits, and now you’re not selling, but you just spent 20 grand on marketing and it’s not working, you can start to doubt your product, you can start to be fearful and start making decisions out of fear and panic. And all of a sudden, now you’re going from point A to point B gets much, much longer from bad decision making, because you’re making it out of emotion. Right? And if you respond differently, it’s a game changer, right?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 13:48

Yeah, no, I couldn’t agree with you more, there’s so much nuggets of wisdom right there. Because, you know, bad decision making comes from Yes, that whole process of us going down, you know, that spiral of depression and just self doubt. And that’s why I think, you know, first is ensuring that you’re taking care of yourself, but because once you’re getting enough sleep, and exercise, and all those good things we all know, that we should be doing, it increases your capacity to actually make a good decision and to think through, you know, first and foremost. And then I think the next component is, you know, getting up to be a part of those groups, those communities so that you can recognize what you’re offering is actually needed. And you don’t, you know, talk yourself out of it, like what you’re describing.

Adam G. Force 14:33

Yeah, I mean, and that is the key because if you’re smart, you just diagnose the problem and start making smart decisions without being emotionally driven. I remember when I was younger, and I was working in corporate world, thank god that’s over. You know, my father used to be a little bit of a mentor to me, and he’s like, if you get some email that like really ticks you off and you get emotionally charged. He’s like, do not respond for 24 hours. He’s like, you cannot respond from an emotion. State. I mean, it’s just a similar concept, right? similar idea of how we’re thinking about our businesses and responding. And it just changes the entire trajectory. So when you bring in the health aspect to open up the capacity for focus and smart decision making, I love that, like, I’ve been a big fan of like meditation, health, and there’s obviously a ton ton ton of science that supports what this actually does to improve your own capacities for better, you know, decision making and business.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 15:33

Yeah, no, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more I, I’m a big fan of meditation. As I was saying to, you know, before our call, I wear both hats. I’m the CEO of the Branson center. And I’m also very much in the wellness space, I’m a life coach, my health coach, a yoga teacher. And so I totally subscribe to taking care of yourself first, so that you can take care of business. And meditation is something that I practice all the time. My own mentor, you know, tells me that the first thing I have to do every day is take care of my fundamentals, which is did you get enough sleep to function? Did you exercise you have your body whatever that looks like? And are you putting nourishing food in your body? Those are my fundamentals on top of meditation, you know, I need meditation to focus my mind get clear. And I think there’s a lot of misconception about meditation, but maybe that’s a different podcast.

Adam G. Force 16:23

No, I mean, it is because, well, it’s also one of these things that like, I’ve and I’ve been guilty as charged, whereas like, I did a year straight, 20 minutes of meditation in the morning, 20 minutes in the evening, and I had incredible effect on me. But over time, for whatever life circumstances came up, I just kind of lost, I fell off the wagon, as they say, as they say, and even though you know how important it is to do these things. You have this like, unconscious routine of just doing like, I like to wake up, have my coffee, and at 6am I’m sitting at my desk doing work. And I’m like, this is not the best thing for me. But I still can’t stop myself sometimes, you know,

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 17:03

I know that habits, you know, the habits that we have, there are so easy to fall back on. I’m not gonna say that I don’t either, especially during this period, you know that the first two weeks, I was like, Oh, my God, what’s happening watching us not doing meditation. But I think it’s important to kind of recognize it when you recognize it first. And there’s an awareness of Okay, I’m doing something that I know I’m not supposed to be doing. How can you shift the habit? and really try and not do what people tell you? You should do? Like, you have to do the 20 minutes. It could be the minute you know, it could be the five minutes?

Adam G. Force 17:37

Yeah.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 17:37

And I think that’s important for people to know, you know, you don’t have to it’s not all or nothing.

Adam G. Force 17:42

Exactly. It’s just do what works for you start somewhere, right? Makes a big difference. And so are you applying this now to the Branson center?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 17:52

Yeah. So I mean, while as I said to you before, you know, when I started in this capacity, I wanted to bring wellness to our entrepreneurs. And we started doing it through, you know, some talks with myself and entrepreneurs, as well as with my team, we were, you know, doing our meditation and brought essential oils to the office. And we continue to provide our entrepreneurs with resources and materials to support them along their journey of wellness, both mentally, physically, and even psychologically, you know, I think all of this helps. So just the awareness and sending that message out there to them is what we’re doing, right? No, obviously, we’re not in the business of wellness. But I think personally, that it’s a big part of what we need to communicate in order to help them and Funny enough, when we’re talking to our entrepreneurs, some of them said, you know, we do want more of that we do want to hear, you know, that some of us are stressed out to somebody about being stressed out. And oh, we didn’t know that we could talk to you about being stressed out. I’m like, of course you can, you know, you don’t have to come to us and just talk to us about business and your numbers and where you’re going. We’re totally here for you in a holistic way. So yeah, so we’ve been opening up the floor and just making space for that. And I think it’s it’s working right now.

Adam G. Force 19:17

I love that. And I think it is an important part because it’s because it’s not just one thing or another, like if somebody wants to be successful as an entrepreneur, there are multiple parts of the lifestyle that you need to be addressing, like you said, right, you don’t you don’t just have a car and an engine, you need fuel to so making it at least maybe it’s not the primary part of what you’re teaching, but it is part of the conversation, right?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 19:43

Absolutely. Exactly. Adam that’s it.

Adam G. Force 19:45

Yeah, that’s interesting. And I can imagine they’re probably hungry for it. And you know, it’s interesting because I, I follow this guy, James Wedmore is a pretty amazing entrepreneur as well. I kind of look up to some of his mentorship over the years and he Has this program to help young entrepreneurs, it’s called nail your niche. And we wanted to explore it. So we’re like, let’s see what he’s doing to help people with this niche. So we look in there. And out of these 10 modules, one of the things he has in there is on meditation. So it’s like, meditate on your niche. I mean, since like, Man, it’s, these things are starting to be more commonly integrated as part of a process for success.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 20:26

You know, and I think that that is the way that we need to go, there are so many different things like, you know, meditation, taking care of yourself productivity. And when I say productivity, I use that very loosely, but just what works for you, you know, decluttering, your desktop, you know, decluttering, your shoulder, the things that are adding to your stress and anxiety that you pick up your phone and you see, you know, 2000 messages that’s adding to your, you know, your stress level, and not supporting you in having a calm and clear mind. So there are so many nuggets, I think that need to be added into this whole trajectory of, you know, success and achievement. And I think that it’s not been in the conversation for a long time. What some people have been talking about, as you say, James Wedmore, but I think it needs there needs to be a bigger space for it.

Adam G. Force 21:14

Yeah, yeah. No, totally makes sense. And I guess it’s one of those things that is, it’s growing, right. So it’s, it’s going through it’s it’s, it’s taking its course, I guess, and we are the kind of players that are helping push it, right. Yeah, absolutely.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 21:28

And I think that it’s so important that we do give it a voice. So we give it a big voice. And I think more persons even like Arianna Huffington, who has, you know, completely moved into this, you know, wellness space? And, you know, show that’s necessary?

Adam G. Force 21:44

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, like what I have found over the years as an entrepreneur is sure you need some business savvy, and you know, you have to understand some of the technical stuff. But when you start making six figures, and you want to go to seven figures and things like that, because you’re you’re helping more people, and you’re having a bigger impact. There’s a part where no matter who you are, and how successful you are, it becomes mostly a mental game, like, what are the subconscious, like blocks, you have bad habits, like we talked about that are holding you back? And how do you start getting around those things? So it’s the bigger part of the puzzle, in my perspective, has been the mental part of it.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 22:25

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more with you. And I think that as you’ve been stepped more into leadership positions, whether or not it’s in a corporate space, or it’s in your own, know, your own business, it becomes more of a mental behavior.

Adam G. Force 22:42

You know, because we all have these histories and stuff. And we have certain things that like, it actually led me I read, geez, what’s his name, but it’s a book called Biology of Belief, by this doctor, and I started reading a bunch of books about subconscious mind, like biology bleeds, well, understanding the science. And it’s just incredible how, like, basically 90% of our actions throughout the day are determined by the subconscious. So if you don’t understand how you’re programmed subconsciously, or how to change it, to become the person you want to become, you’re gonna have a very long road.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 23:18

Yeah, and yes, and yes, so I’m doing that, right. My mentor, is carrying me through this whole program to unlock what’s in my own subconscious, so that I can continue to lead in a way that I want and show up in the way that I want to, because I think this is, you know, this is something that’s not unique to anyone we all have traumas we all have, the beliefs that we have, that we don’t recognize, are actually leading our lives and leading our actions. And I think it’s very important to tap into that and just figure out what’s going on so that you can show up as your best self.

Adam G. Force 23:53

Absolutely. Now, here’s a good one for you, Laurie, that we’d probably hear both like, but from the entrepreneurs who work with is, you know, they have kind of a hate relationship with money because they think it’s the root of all evil, or they see the Jeff Bezos of the world and they hate that he’s hoarding billions of dollars. I have found that okay, if that’s how you’re is that if that’s what you’re saying about other people, you’re just continuously programming yourself to not like money. And guess what happens to people that don’t like it? You don’t have any

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 24:27

It doesn’t come to you

Adam G. Force 24:28

come to you.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 24:29

Yeah, totally. I mean, all of that, you know, law of attraction, belief system around money. Yes, absolutely. I agree with you. And I have been in the entrepreneurship space for many years now. And that is the very same thing I hear all the time. Entrepreneurs feeling bad about charging for their services, you know, feeling like they have this gift, whether it’s service based or product based, and they should give and particularly if you’re talking about you know, social impact. People are very apprehensive about charging, but then my question is How do you survive to continue to offer the service, if you don’t get paid for it?

Adam G. Force 25:04

100% You can’t help anybody then. And I thought, that’s why you’re here, you’re here. You know, I get it, because I used to be that guy. I was the guy who hated money. It’s the root of all evil, it causes poor human behavior. And so I took, I mean, and I still work on it, I do meditation affirmations, like I had to, like really change my perspective and my thinking about that. Otherwise, I just got capped off at like, it’s funny how your bank account and your business earnings will just cap off at whatever your setting is at. And you’re like, why am I stuck here? Like, and you just got to start figuring that out?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 25:45

Yeah, you have to call it and I totally believe in manifesting, and that your thoughts and your words have power. And I did you know, I love that. And I’m not sure if I can say her name on a podcast, but I did this course, about money manifesting. One of the interesting things that I’m very conscious and aware of, is how we speak about money and I have children. And what I say to my children about money, I’m very aware now. So you know, to say, you know, don’t touch that money. It’s dirty. Yeah. No, money doesn’t grow on trees.

Adam G. Force 26:18

Exactly. Was this a girl or boy? T Harv Ecker

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 26:23

No, it’s, um, she has this program called Get Rich Bitch.

Adam G. Force 26:29

Oh, okay. I probably don’t know. But I’ve seen a few people out there hitting this market like that. And it’s they all are teaching a very common, you know, concepts, which is to help you get over the and understand these barriers. Right.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 26:43

Her name is Denise Duffield Thomas.

Adam G. Force 26:45

Yeah, no I don’t know her. Yeah no, yeah, you can talk about, we could look at other people. Sure.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 26:50

Yeah. And I didn’t know if I could say that word. But yeah…

Adam G. Force 26:52

It’s all good.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 26:53

That’s the name of her thing. Okay.

Adam G. Force 26:55

Interesting. You know, it’s funny, because you talked about like, freeing up space before, you know what I recently did. I catch myself like just unconsciously grabbing my phone to look at updates, you know, like, what’s going on with our marketing on Facebook? Well, any new emails or just whatever, and I was getting so like, Oh, my God, I gotta stop doing this. So I set an alarm for 9am 12pm 3pm and 7pm. And those are the only four times a day that I will check email and stats are anything and it’s made a huge difference. I’ve my weekly phone time has gone down four hours.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 27:30

Yeah, I think that’s great, Adam, and that is exactly what more people need to do. I totally do the same thing, too. I go, and I look at my phone constantly. Even if I’m in the middle of writing something and check, another message came in, because I have to, you know, and I think we all are guilty of it. And it’s changing the habit by saying you know what, I’m going to set a certain amount of time to do different tasks. And I do that myself. So yeah, I have sheduled my time into different blocks, I have admin time where I’m checking that email. And that’s usually in the morning or the evening, that I have focused time, which is my one or two hours of actual dedicated work. And that for me is in the morning, sometime where my brain is clear, I have the most energy and willpower. And then I have sacred time where it’s for my kids. And I had to have this when I was in the office because I pick up my kids from school, brought them home. And so I knew that I couldn’t have time for meetings or for work or for you know, anything. So I would block these times in my calendar. And I tried to do it still having that sacred time where I’m spending that, you know, hour or a few minutes doing whatever with the kids or with whoever or for myself, you know, so that’s how I block my time as well.

Adam G. Force 28:48

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Yeah. So what are some major, I guess, things to look out for right now with the Branson center that people should be aware of now you guys are focused in the Caribbean, right? So do you have to live in the Caribbean then to be part of what you’re doing? Or how does that all work for people?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 29:07

Yeah, thanks for asking. So we are Caribbean based, we are Branson center Caribbean. So we support entrepreneurs in the Caribbean that we have had entrepreneurs in other countries but who are somehow related to the Caribbean, right? Yeah, we do, however, have a global network of mentors, coaches facilitators who all support us to help what we’re doing. And our mission is to create dynamic Caribbean economies. Because, you know, as many people know, the Caribbean suffers from low unemployment and GDP growth. And so when Richard Branson started the Branson center of entrepreneurship, it was to inject more innovation and, you know, sparked more entrepreneurs starting up and crazy businesses and creating jobs that would lead to economic growth. So since we started in 2011, we’ve made a lot of shifts. And right now, we are supporting our entrepreneurs here in our cohort to recover and become resilient. We’re also we also have a blue economy program because you know, climate change is an ocean health is something that’s very important to us. It’s very important to our founder as well, Richard Branson. And so we have been supporting the blue economy with a special stream. And in our response to this whole crisis, we are now putting together a whole hubbub that we will make available to public so that people can access some of our trainings that they can grow their businesses or recover from this crisis. So there, you know, there’s lots that we’re going to be putting out, we’re actually going to be doing a summit soon to support everyone globally as well, not just the Caribbean.

Adam G. Force 30:53

That is awesome. Yeah, I love it. So where can people just learn a little bit more and find out, you know, what you guys are up to? where’s the best place for them to go?

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 31:04

Yeah, so you can find us at Bransoncentre.co. That’s our website. And you can find us on Instagram, Branson Centre Caribbean, and those are the best places to find us. We’re also on Facebook or on Twitter, but I think, you know, go to our website to check us out, go to Instagram and see what we’re doing. It’d be great to get more people interested in what we’re doing support in any way we’re looking for. We’re always looking for mentors and persons who would like to help with their expertise, you know?

Adam G. Force 31:34

Yeah, absolutely. And just so anybody listening knows, it’s spelled Branson, and then the word center is ce n t r e. Okay. Just Laurie, thanks so much for your time today is a lot of fun. And I feel like there’s just a lot we’re on the same page about so it’s exciting to see what you’re bringing to the table for the Branson team and you’re obviously a great fit for them.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 31:59

Oh thank you so much. This was such fun. I love talking to you. Thank you so much.

Adam G. Force 32:03

All right, take care.

Lauri-Ann Ainsworth 32:05

Take care.

Adam G. Force 32:07

Thanks for tuning in to the Change Creator podcast. Visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Trevor Anderson: What it Takes to Build a Winning Agency

Listen to our exclusive interview with Trevor Anderson:

Change Creator · Trevor Anderson: What it Takes to Build a Winning Agency

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What does it take to start an award-winning agency and what are the latest trends for 2021? He’s built two successful agencies and has now been recognized as one of the best in Miami. His name is Trevor Anderson and in this conversation, we discuss how he did it and some powerful marketing trends for 2021.

More About Trevor:

Experienced beyond his years, Trevor is known for his broad set of skills that he has acquired from his accomplishments in marketing, real estate, tech, and management roles. A natural problem solver, his unique approach to setbacks allows him to quickly overcome obstacles in his way. Dedicated, relentless, and a forward-thinker, Trevor’s determination to deliver above and beyond results sets him apart from the competition.

Trevor graduated from the University of Mississippi with a BA in Marketing, as well as minors in both Spanish and International Studies, his academic career speaks for itself. After his education at Highland Park High School, Trevor entered college as a Provost Scholar with multiple accolades and scholarships for academic excellence, athletic achievement, and philanthropic endeavors. Trevor acquired significant leadership experience within his board of director roles with multiple on-campus student marketing organizations and as a Facility Manager of the Campus Recreation Department receiving awards from his supervisors for his quick positive impact on the team.

From a young age Trevor worked closely with his family on a diverse assortment of successful entrepreneurial pursuits in Photography, Film, and Web Development. Trevor developed powerful communication skills in both English and Spanish and an astute understanding for business through his work with D Magazine and various projects in Residential Real Estate. His success in digital marketing, implementing innovative strategies with brands both large and small, has allowed him to acquire unrivaled expertise and proficiency in technology.

Learn more about Trevor and his work at > andersoncollaborative.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam forest co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and like to go big, visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. I hope you had a relaxing and rejuvenating holiday break. Happy New Year to everybody. So much exciting stuff to do for 2021. Hope you’re thinking about the success milestones and goals you have for the year, and you know where you want to go and who you need to become right. So if you guys missed the last episode, don’t forget to circle back and check it out. It is a good one, it’s with Richard Lau. And it’s about choosing the right logo for your business. There’s so much and how that the way we design logos is evolving, you know, with digital design and stuff like that, and what is the intentions behind it? What do we need to know about them, He is also a guy that sold built and sold resume.com. He’s building and selling logo.com. So we talked about his model for buying a building and selling businesses as well. Okay, so the conversation we’re gonna have today, which I’m excited about, is with Trevor Anderson. So Trevor is actually the founder and CEO of Anderson collaborative, not this is his second agency that he has built. And they’re doing really well, they were recognized with honors, as one of the top marketing companies in 2020. In Miami, that’s where I am. So I’ve connected with Trevor here out in Miami. And I’m always, you know, I love talking about, you know, just business as around like branding and marketing and different things like that. So we’re gonna dive into some key topics and how he’s built up his agencies, and some of the trends that are taking place in the market today. And we’re going to talk about branding and things like that. So hang in, and we’re going to connect on that stuff. Our team has been working really hard and planning for a big 2021. And some of the things we’ve been focusing on are really just how we’re serving our students in some of our educational areas, which is like our captive a program, and how that’s evolving. And it’s exciting, because it’s a newer offer. But we’re now getting renewals with students and having people start year two. And it’s been really exciting to see the progress. You know, we, we help people supercharge their marketing with storytelling. And it’s interesting, because it’s so much more that comes out of it, because we’re building a full business system right through that program. But what has been really, I guess, powerful for people, what we’re learning through the program is that we do three live coaching calls a month, right? I mean, and so the exciting part of it is that it’s just kind of like the fraction of a cost. And this is how we set the model up to make it a low barrier for entry. And seeing the results and being able to help people at that kind of intimate level has been very excited for, for me and the team. And we love helping and seeing people actually start getting their final financial earnings where they want it to go, getting clarity on their brand, telling their brand stories, being authentic understanding the marketing world because they’re all masters of their craft, but they haven’t mastered their business skills, right. If you don’t have the business skills, you’re going to struggle. And that’s where our team comes in to talk about all the different areas around branding, brand storytelling, marketing, setting up your website, all that kind of good stuff, email systems, you name it. So this year, we’re going to be really leaning in and we hope maybe we can connect with more of you guys through that program and help more people out. So keep an eye out for those things and if you guys go to change credit comm forward slash go big. There is a a masterclass that I put on just to kind of talk about brand storytelling. And I also introduced the program and kind of explain what it’s all about. So if you want to check that out, you’ll have an opportunity just go to that URL change twitter.com forward slash go big. Alright guys, I’m going to stop blabbing. We’re going to get into this conversation with Trevor. Okay, show me the heat. Hey, Trevor, welcome to the change credit podcast show how you doing today, man?

Trevor Anderson 04:58

Hey, I’m doing well. Thanks for having me on.

Adam G. Force 05:00

Absolutely appreciate you being here. You know, it sounds like you’ve done some pretty cool work and with the agency that you have and you are in the Miami area right?

Trevor Anderson 05:13

I am. Yeah, I’m in sunny Miami. It’s it’s pretty nice here right now.

Adam G. Force 05:17

I live in Miami Shores

Trevor Anderson 05:19

That’s awesome. There you go.

Adam G. Force 05:21

Yeah, so I’m not too far. And I was just in Brickell, I lived in Brickell key just less than a year ago I just moved into Miami Shores once we had we had a baby boy just back in April so we’re like Alright,

Trevor Anderson 05:34

Congrats. That’s cool

Adam G. Force 05:34

Thanks. Yeah, doing the house thing.

Trevor Anderson 05:37

Yeah. Yeah, probably not good for a baby.

Adam G. Force 05:41

Yeah, you know, Brickell Key is amazing. I never knew even knew it existed until I moved there. I was like, I was living right in Pembroke Pines, and then Davey and we started looking, and my wife and I were like, holy shit. And I was like, this island. There’s an island in Miami.

Trevor Anderson 05:54

Yeah, it’s cool. It is fun.

Adam G. Force 05:57

So anyway. So just just so people who are listening, just give a little background, because I know you’ve started a couple companies, correct me if I’m wrong. And just give us give the rundown of like that, and just where you are like what you’re doing today?

Trevor Anderson 06:12

Sure. So yeah, exactly. Right. I’ve started two different marketing agencies, this is the current one that I’m working on. Really just have a background in marketing and marketing, consulting, doing that for you know, other agencies doing that for publications, and then kind of dove into the entrepreneurship side of things. here back in 2017, I believe. Yeah. So I started a start a marketing agency with a really good friend of mine in Dallas, we ran it for a few years, and ended up just making the decision to part ways mutually, and go out on my own. And start this agency I here in Miami, which is a little over a year and a half old. And, you know, we’ve we’ve been really fortunate to kind of have a lot more growth than I expected, especially with the COVID situation, everything like that. And I think it’s, I think it’s because we we’ve kind of really simplified what we do, and really tried to focus on providing value. And, you know, thankfully, we’ve been able to build a lot of really great case studies on that. So, right now, we’re just we’re focusing on building that up and sort of, you know, treading the waters as the COVID situation continues. And, yeah, it’s been, you know, I’ve done a lot of different stuff. But this is, it’s been very enjoyable. And just, this is my focus right now.

Adam G. Force 07:27

Yeah, yeah. So I’m curious, you know, from the first agency to your current agency, what did you do different in the approach meaning now you have some experience after the first agency, so like, what did you learn from it? And what are some of the things you did differently the second time around?

Trevor Anderson 07:47

Yeah, man, there’s so many that would there be a whole episode on that one. Well, I mean, that’s important thing. Well, first of all, it was, I started that with, again, a really good friend of mine in college. And, you know, we’re, I think we’re both pretty well versed in what we were talking about. So it’s not like we were faking it, but we did have sort of this mantra of like, fake it till you make it when we were younger, just were really young. And I think that, that sort of the, we trended towards trying to do a lot of things that we shouldn’t have been done. So somebody would say, you know, hey, we need we need some designers, right? Like, we need somebody design some graphic design stuff, or like, Oh, yeah, let’s do that. So we just say yes to a bunch of different stuff. And, you know, that put us into situations where we really weren’t providing as much value just by kind of sticking to the core principles of why we started the business. And so I think that’s a danger for a lot of people. You know, there’s a, there’s a mantra, if you try to be everything, to everyone, you’re gonna be nothing to no one. Yeah. And so with this agency, I’ve really tried to just focus in on kind of three core areas, that kind of all, you know, cohesively fall together. And that’s really promotion that’s building digital experiences. And the data, that’s the glue between that. So when it comes to anything that kind of falls outside of that realm, we stay away from it, we’ll refer to other people, and we’ll be very transparent and just say, hey, that’s, that’s not our thing. And because of that, we’ve been able to really deliver a lot more value make people happy, because we’re not trying to do stuff that we’re not good at. Right?

Adam G. Force 09:20

Yeah, of course, of course. And I guess so. Just, I think a big struggle that people have, and let me know, I guess if you face the same thing, probably more so with the first business with your college buddy. is getting those initial clients before you have all the case studies and all this stuff. And like is the service you’re providing, like you said, you were kind of taking on whatever you could, you know, like, you know, sometimes you have to wonder, am I providing a service that people actually want, you know, or am I a dime a dozen, do I have to be more unique? You know, so The positioning factor and just getting clients on board any any tips for people?

Trevor Anderson 10:06

Yeah, well, so when I when I started that business that was in Dallas. And so I came from an area called Highland Park, which is this has a massive amount of luxury real estate and luxury realty got the chance to work with a lot of different agents and brokerages out there. And that’s really how I got my start. And so the thing was, like, where the value really was, was sort of taking these old school types of people that really operated in like print mail, and just very traditionally, newspaper advertising for the publication of you know, the different properties or marketing and things like that, it’s I had a really close relationship with a few of those people. And so when we had the idea of sort of starting that, and I had some background, and Facebook ads and things like that, and so that was like a big change for them, right, like they’d never done any kind of digital marketing or anything like that. And so we were actually able to, you know, help. One of the teams we worked with really early on, get a ton of success, really build them up in the brokerage. And that got us some attention, build it up. So I think the important thing, there is one, like, where we got hot water with them, it’s like, we tried to do a lot of stuff again, like I said, that we shouldn’t, yeah, wasn’t really like our core area of where we were helping them, right. But the important thing to do, when you’re sort of looking for that right person to work with it’s one, make sure there’s really a need there, make sure he really can help them. And to, you know, sellings not really the hardest part, you can go in there. And if you can speak pretty well, you can speak and get a lot of people excited about what you’re saying is that delivery, right? It’s like a dog chasing a car, we do any get that car. So I my biggest thing I’d say to people is like, you know, don’t be afraid to price yourself, right? Don’t do things for cheap. But also don’t pigeonhole yourself away from that, you know, do some opportunities for cheaper, so you can build on that. But, you know, just make sure that, you know, whenever you’re approaching that sort of thing, that it’s focused on value, it’s about providing value to the person you’re working with.

Adam G. Force 12:11

Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I know, historically, we’ve had times where, you know, I just actually made a video about this, talking about some of the our historical mistakes. And, you know, we have like a $50,000 deal on the table. And at that time, you know, we were under the gun to get some cash in the company. And, you know, we got what we like to call money breath. And, you know, we push too hard, too fast, and so on and so forth, then it kind of like it just kind of put the deal put them it’s kind of like a girl who consents a guy that’s desperate, you know. It’s like, and then later, we have like a much bigger deal. But like they actually like, this is just an example, they offered a retainer. And their retainer was we actually rejected it was bigger than what the first deal was, we rejected, this is $120,000 deal. And we were rejected retainers. And listen, we’re just gonna do a three month partnership, and here’s what it would cost. And let’s just test the waters. See if our partnership is good. Let’s see if we can actually get the results and help you the way that we hope we did the three month thing it crushed it, and then boom, we got the next deal. We got their smaller commitment, and it all kind of like fell into place.

Trevor Anderson 13:28

Yeah, it’s it’s really that snowball effect you’re talking about. I mean, that’s the thing. It’s not that like people the money breath. Before you put it’s funny, definitely you can come off super desperate visa. I mean, that check looks pretty good, right? Yeah. But you got it ends up being such a better relationship. One, your goal should be to build a case study, because then you can go on and get that next plan, right. But by building a case study, you’re actually providing value, right? And so if you focus just on that piece, like, hey, let’s figure out how we can provide them value, then you got somebody who’s your advocate to write and then that client is going to refer you to other people. So yeah, I mean, with that first business, we tried to scale really fast and hop, like, cool. Let’s skip the next big deal. And next big deal. Next Big deal. And then we forget about the people behind us that sort of got us to that point. Yeah. So that’s a good point.

Adam G. Force 14:20

Nice. It’s tough. And you know, I’ve been down a few of those roads, and I work with a bunch of people who are running agencies and businesses like like yours. And, you know, it takes a little I think a major part of it is to be patient to right. It’s like when we’re impatient. We have this culture of impatience. And we may or may not realize it, but that really can hurt the business. If you’re not willing to play the long game. It’s like stocks, like be willing to play the long game. It makes a difference. Man, so So how long now has your current company been up and running?

Trevor Anderson 14:59

So it’s been About a year and a half or so, but I’ve been kind of leading into finally before it was really Incorporated. I was kind of doing the consulting side on my own. So it feels like it’s been a little bit over two years, kind of with the same players being around. Yeah. I guess like the Anderson collaborative brand, really a year and a half old.

Adam G. Force 15:19

Okay, cool. And now, let’s get clear for people who your typical client may be maybe multiple at this point, I don’t know, if you have a very, like niche focus on who you work with, and what type what your bread and butter service is for them.

Trevor Anderson 15:34

Yeah. So I mean, we work with a lot of different people, I wish we were more niche. My favorite kind of verticals are e commerce and b2b. And that’s really where I’m trying to focus us on. And when it comes to sort of the bread and butter approach, I mean, I really think it’s the promotion side. And that’s, you know, the biggest need I see right now, is there’s so many people that, you know, anybody can go and make, like Facebook ads, you know, you can boost a post. And so people have this perception that it’s not that hard. And you know, it, I wouldn’t say like, there are aspects of it, like going in and creating a campaign that are kind of easy, but it’s, it’s the cohesion between like, all these different channels we have now, there are many, there’s so many, the the user base of where people are today is so fragmented, with so many different communication channels. It’s like how do you integrate all of those together? Right? Yeah. And so our whole kind of like bread and butter services? How do we make promotions that are not just, you know, effective? And they’re driving results? But how are they multichannel? How are they integrated? And how are they personalized to people based on how they’ve interacted with your business thus far. And also doing that in a way that you know, what you’re getting out of it? Right? So I would definitely say like the digital advertising side, driving relevant traffic, and, you know, creating some sort of conversion out of that, whether that’s a sale or a lead. That’s really what that’s like the area we really try to focus in on. Big time.

Adam G. Force 17:06

Got it. So you are? So are you doing, like, the creative development of assets? Are you just managing the distribution strategy?

Trevor Anderson 17:19

Yeah, at this point, we’re really not doing much on the creative side, like if we’re with somebody, and they said, Hey, we really need this, like, I’ve got, I’ve got a great network of people that can do that. They’re like I said, like, we don’t do creative in house, we’re trying to stick to what we do best. So it’s really more like the implementation of that like structure. Right, that strategy on a high level?

Adam G. Force 17:40

Got it. Got it. And so have you done in the past year any work with startups? Or is it then? You know, maybe it’s companies who are more than five years old? Or, you know, whatever it might be?

Trevor Anderson 17:52

Yeah, I mean, I would say our sweet spot is kind of like, it’s sort of companies that are evaluate at the 50 employee range. A little bit on the on the medium side, we’ve worked with a few startups, the problem is a lot of the on the startup side, a lot of those folks don’t really have the budget yet to really do what they can. So with those kind of people, you know, we’ll come in sort of like in a consultation level one sort of say, you know, let’s, let’s help you try to build a team that can do these things internally, or, you know, what are some some helpful ways that you can sort of get off the ground. But when it comes to more like, day to day management, and really doing those things, like done for you services, we stick in that kind of middle area?

Adam G. Force 18:35

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So I guess at this point, I’m curious, where you see the business going, in the next, you know, 12 months or so?

Trevor Anderson 18:48

Yeah, well, I think my biggest problem when I was younger, and, and just trying to build the businesses, I have, I have a almost kind of like a perfectionist syndrome, I guess, where I really want i the urge to want to put my hands in all the different cookie jars and, and, you know, keep my hands on things. And my last business really saw that kind of hurt it right, because I was spreading myself super thin. Yeah. And so this time around, I’ve really tried to focus more on finding experts that can do the things that we want to do. And so I have, I have some really great team members that, you know, I’ve just really tried to empower and let them do what they can do, and let them do it best. And, you know, I think it’s important to remember that you know, the best people for your business, you don’t have to motivate them, they the best kind of people that are going to work for your company shouldn’t have to be motivated. They should be motivated to do a good job. And if you’re trying to motivate somebody, I just think that’s the wrong way to manage them. So I’ve really tried as we’ve grown, to just sort of let go of the reins and let those people do what they do best. And so I’m just Trying to keep doing that putting the right people in the right places as we scale up, and just continue to deliver on our promise. Right. So, again, I’m trying to do it slowly. And we have some, some really great case studies that have come out of that, getting a lot of press and media coverage in Miami because of that, because we got some good work going out. And I think if we keep doing that, and we just keep it kind of steadily, steadily, steadily growing, that could really take us to a great spot. But like you said, I’m in it for the long haul, right? I’m not trying to find some secret shortcut or whatever. Those don’t exist.

Adam G. Force 20:36

Yeah, exactly. They don’t exist. Everything is a build up of lots of small steps, not just one big step. Right. So, yeah, and you know, and when did you know you were ready to hire your first employee?

Trevor Anderson 20:55

Yeah, I think I think it was really ready. I tried to kind of pull them in on something where I knew I could test them enough to sort of see if it would work. And, and also sort of create a job for them. So there have been, there have been times where like, financially, I was, like, Man, this person is awesome. I really want to pull them in, I’m not sure if I can, and I kind of throw it out there and be like, Look, there’s, there’s this opportunity here, I can’t pay you right now. But if we can, we can find a way to pull you in on it, right, and you can kind of almost build that job out of what we’re doing together. That’s actually worked for me a few times where like, we’ve been able to sort of build that ideal position out of just an opportunity, or even just, you know, working on one account and just kind of pulling them in, ya know, I think I think it’s really, you know, the moment you know, somebody’s ready to kind of take that step with us. they’ve proven themselves not just by like, you know, coming in an interview and having the right credentials or whatever, but actually doing the work they say they can do.

Adam G. Force 22:00

I think that’s smart. I think that’s smart. And you hear that too, a lot. And I’ve always, you know, felt the same way. I’m like, What do you really know about somebody? Just from an interview, besides your maybe you can connect with them? Maybe not? Maybe they’re just a good interviewer? I don’t know. You know, I’ve now worked with a lot of people do our own business, whether you know, it’s not even for hiring but partnerships, different things. And, you know, you really get to know someone by working on a project. So hearing you say that, I think anybody listening, anytime you can get someone to test the waters for a month or work on a project, I think is absolutely critical, especially when it comes into understanding. Are they reliable? That’s like a biggest thing for me. Are they really? Do they do what they say they’re gonna do? Are they on time? Like, those things drive me nuts?

Trevor Anderson 22:54

Yeah, well, I think the other big part of that too, is there’s, there’s this certain kind of, like, breed, I don’t know, there’s, it’s like this special kind of person. That just they are so they got dreams, you know, like, they really have ambition to go do something and there’s just this like fire. And sometimes you find those people and you got to grab them. They’re really rare. And it’s kind of a goal at our company. There’s, there’s our mission is not really like drilled down into sort of like that corporate typical structure, we actually just have a quote, it’s one of my favorite quotes. It’s, I don’t know if you know, T. Lawrence’s but his quote is all men dream, but not equally as a dream at night and the dusty recesses of their mind wake up to find it was all vanity. The dreams of the day are dangerous men for they may act on their dreams with open eyes to make them possible. So that’s my favorite quote. And I want I want dreamers on my team. I want people that are dreamers of the day that have really big goals. And if me as an employer could help them accomplish those goals, that would make me feel like my life had a lot of really great purpose. Yeah, that’s sort of my goal.

Adam G. Force 24:06

Interesting. Yeah. That’s a cool quote. I haven’t heard that. Who was it? Again, I want to write down.

Trevor Anderson 24:11

It’s T. Lawrence. It’s, yeah, it’s one of my favorites.

Adam G. Force 24:14

T. E is an Edward?

Trevor Anderson 24:16

Yeah, it’s Thomas. Edward Lawrence. I think I could totally butcher that. But I just know the T part.

Adam G. Force 24:23

That’s cool to get started. So I’m curious. You know, we all kind of have our failures, like what I mean, it could be losing a client from money breath. It could be, it could be other things to a bad hire. It could be the execution of a project in the wrong way. Anything stand out to you. I mean, we’re all human. So maybe we can get some dirty laundry out here from you about a failure to make us all feel like you know, we’re not alone.

Trevor Anderson 24:55

Yeah, no, I think that’s such an important question asked like what I was When I was starting to sort of dabble with the idea of entrepreneurship, I spoke to a lot of people that I grew up with, like parents and business owners I knew. And I knew that the failure component is so important. I think it’s through a lot of them off, because I would ask them like, hey, what was your biggest failure? And I learned so much from that, first, I learned that people are lying. If they say they don’t fail, I fail all the time. Yeah. And it’s the big thing with failure is how you bounce back from it. So I’ve done I’ve had failures where I was like, Oh, this is it, you know, there’s no coming back. For example, one that comes to mind is I had a probably the biggest client opportunity that I had had at that time. And at the moment, I was managing, like all of their PPC spend and stuff like that. And Google had like, rolled out this update where it would double spend, if it thought it could optimize for conversions. And so it ended up spending, like, I think it was, like $20,000 over their budget, or something like that. It was absurd how much money it’s been over. And obviously, like, the thing that was funny, it kind of ended up working out for them, because they got leads out of it. But I was like, they were so upset, right? Because I mean, we just we totally blew it. I mean, it’s like unprofessional, and everything like that. And you know that it kind of gave me a feeling of like even imposter syndrome. I’m like, man, should I really even begin this? Like, how did I mess up that bad? I mean, that’s the thing, like, we’re all human, right? Like everybody, everybody has those mats up. Like I say, you just gotta you gotta take those things in stride. And you got to learn from them. And you got to not make that same mistake again, right? So if you make it twice, then it’s not a failure, you’re just an idiot. If you fail once, that’s okay. And that’s the other thing too, like, you gotta understand, like, a lot of people don’t have an employee, you fail. And they fire them. And it’s like, you got to understand, you know, just like you fail, they fail to, yeah, you got to empower them to learn from that mistake. And sometimes, you know, that’s moving what they’re doing, or, you know, the solution isn’t just to fire that person. All right, you got to give people chances. And when you do, and you’ll find that a lot of people will bounce back from that. So…

Adam G. Force 27:20

Yeah, yeah, I think you nailed it, man. I mean, you know, we kind of learned that failing is a bad thing throughout school, right? Oh, you fail. That’s terrible. Yeah. Now, you can’t do this, you can do that. And it’s kind of this like, subconscious cultural thing. And I always say that the idea that failing is bad as a bad idea. But like you said, you know, you have to learn from it. If you’re the dodo, that makes the same mistake over and over. Well, that’s on you. But yeah, those failures are, it’s, it’s just that inevitable part of the process, like you can’t I mean, okay, you can go on and on, and look at all these famous people from Michael Jordan to Steve Jobs, or even Milton Hershey, they failed more than anybody.

Trevor Anderson 28:10

Yeah. Big time.

Adam G. Force 28:12

You know, whoever fails the most, tends to be the most successful.

Trevor Anderson 28:16

Yeah, and you’ll notice those people, they’re not scared of failure, either there. They’re the kind of guys that, you know, you’re gonna run through that, that glass ceiling, and they might get cut on the way, but they’re gonna do it.

Adam G. Force 28:27

That’s it, man. I mean, it makes a huge difference. And that just comes down to perspective. So, you know, I think a lot of people get nervous about starting a business because, oh, there’s a lot to it, right? If I look back at Change Creator of past four years, or I look at it, and if someone told me, this is all the stuff you’re gonna go through, I probably been like, hell no. I mean, oh, my God, just so much stuff. And I’m sure you bend down the same same road of just figuring things out. So those are the early stages. I think there’s like that tipping point of trying to establish revenue streams. So I’m curious, like, it sounds like to me, you did it right. Meaning you started even your first business with your buddy in college, and you just went in? And you guys were focused on creating a revenue stream right out of the gate, right? Sure. And I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs really start businesses and they’re like, I’m gonna do this podcast, I’m gonna, I’m gonna create this blog, and they have no real plan for monetization and making money. They’re just doing stuff that they think they should be doing.

Trevor Anderson 29:37

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s super true. I mean, just just to people that are looking to even start a business. I think there’s two types of individuals. I think there’s one person that is scared to make the leap, which was kind of me. I was like, oh, man, this is, you know, I’m too young to be an entrepreneur or whatever. Then I think there’s another type. It’s kind of like you I’m gonna be an entrepreneur and they don’t, they don’t really understand, okay, what does that actually mean? And it The reality is not attractive, right? Like, you know, you may see people on Instagram or whatever and you know, they’re driving cars and whatever, like they’re just they’re living their best life. The reality is, I mean, it’s late nights, it’s working hard. It’s sometimes losing your sanity a little bit. And it’s, you know, receiving panic texts and calls or whatever. I mean, even today, like, just before the podcast, I had a text and call this morning, and we’re having this big issue, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, just while I roll over and turn my phone on, do not disturb, but like, you gotta, you know, react to that. And you got to, you know, sort of take that and enroll it. And that’s an answer reality like it, there’s no, like I said, there are no shortcuts. I hate all this, like, kind of get rich quick schemes and things like that. It sets people up for failure is like, Man, I’m not making it. It’s like, yeah, you’re not gonna make it in the first month. And it takes time. And you gotta, you gotta set like little baby goals for yourself, right? Like, it’s like teaching baby walk, like one step and then do this stuff. And when you set those little micro goals, and they start achieving them, they snowball on each other, right? And then all of a sudden, that’s building into a bigger snowball, and you just keep going, and keep going.

Adam G. Force 31:22

Yeah, I mean, we’ve noticed that a lot of entrepreneurs, essentially, we built up this magazine, and you know, it did well, we decided, like, we had to get another revenue stream, because magazines, just it’s not much. And we surveyed our audience. And one of the things we learned by getting on the phone talking to all these people, is a lot of entrepreneurs are excited, and they have this, this willpower to do what they need to do. And they’re masters of their craft, right, just like an artist is a master of their craft, but they don’t have the business skills. So now they’re just out there doing all this stuff. And they don’t have the business skills, and they don’t know how to communicate their brand, like their brand story and positioning and all these things. And this is a big gap for them. And that this is the number one thing that we saw that was causing them to struggle and fail.

Trevor Anderson 32:17

Yeah, I think I think branding is one of the hardest parts of starting something. I mean, I think that’s where people really go wrong. A lot of the times, I mean, even just like the day to day business side, like, you know, how do you do accounting? How do you you know, make sure you’re paying the right taxes, like all that stuff, right? Like, it could be a master your craft, but you got to you got to, you know, figure out all those other things. And the thing is, you just gotta people focus just on growing way too fast. You gotta keep your startup costs low. And the beautiful thing is, in the world of the internet, your startup costs could be so low. I mean, they really could like minus starting your LLC, or whatever. I mean, you’d be up and running on Shopify with like, 79 bucks. Yeah, yeah. You know, like you can, you can really go and start something out of nowhere. But like you said, you got to find a revenue stream, you got to find a need. And you got to build a brand. If you don’t have a brand, and a story behind what you’re doing. You’re not going to go anywhere, at all makes sure you listen, your podcast, he talks about story brands, and the story is important part. I mean, I totally agree with you just even listening a little bit. It seems like you really get to value that through.

Adam G. Force 33:31

Yeah, I mean, that’s, that is our bread and butter here is because and it’s because of that, that research we did with our audience and hearing that gap. And we’re like, no, our team me, Danielle, Amy, like, we all have tons of experience in branding, brand storytelling and things like that. And I do, you know, design and all that stuff. So that was an area, we were able to help people and we built up part of our business, a educational program around that for people. But I love branding and design. I love that kind of stuff. So let’s take a few minutes, because we’re almost at the 30 minute mark. But we’ll take a few minutes just to touch on branding, because it’s such an important part of the business. And I think there’s misconceptions around what branding really is, especially when we start talking about brand storytelling. You just mentioned that you think it’s critical part of the business. So tell me just you know, your thoughts about branding? You know, just off the cuff.

Trevor Anderson 34:25

Yeah, well, I think I think branding in its essence is responsible for leaving that first impression on the customer. Yeah. So, you know, back in, like the reptilian brain or whatever, you know, just like the very simple brain that we have, you know, there’s that immediate reaction to what you see the look and feel. You know, if somebody is trying to communicate to you that they are a luxury brand, and they don’t look at theirs like that disconnect, right? Yep. And so there’s there’s so much to that. It’s like you got to build culture. He’s in a look and feel with your offering, you’ve got to build that perception. Like, you have to know what that perception is that you’re trying to build, right? Like, you got to know, how do you want people to perceive your business? And what does it need to look like, and not just look but feel like, in order to really communicate that, and then beyond that, you gotta, you can’t just like be this empty vessel. Like, that looks pretty cool, right? Like, you gotta have some juice in there some story. And, and you gotta, you know, make that cool, and you don’t even like, that’s another thing, like, people always focus that guy that’s really good logo. And the colors gotta be on point. And all that’s great. Trust me, like, that’s awesome stuff. But, you know, you see companies out there that have kind of cheapo looking logos, and not really the best image overall look, but it’s because they’ve got such a rich story, right? People, they just get pulled into that. And so it’s important for people to really figure out like, Hey, what’s your story? And what are you selling people beyond just like your product, right? Like, what? What’s your what’s your, your goal? What’s the organization’s goal? Like? What are some of the things that you guys are doing outside of just the business? I’ll be overly promotional, and provide value outside of just the product you’re selling, whether it be content or whatever. So yeah, there’s there’s so much to it. It’s I love branding. It’s a personal passion. It’s fun.

Adam G. Force 36:23

Yeah

Trevor Anderson 36:24

I designed all our stuff.

Adam G. Force 36:25

Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah, I found the same. I do a lot of this stuff as well. And yeah, you know, I only because I like it, I like to do it, you know, so there’s no way I would want to outsource if I can do stuff like that. Not that I want to spend all my time just doing those things. But I do see it as part of building brand equity, which does tie into, you know, generating revenue in the end, because, you know, everyone says, can you sell you could sell without a website? Sure. Is it easier? No, it’s not easier. But it’s like you, you don’t need a pretty website. You know, like to to do well, but first impressions do matter to people in this world. And I know, there was the Edelman report came out for in 2020, that Edelman report for 2019 came out. And it’s all about trust and business. And I don’t remember exactly the numbers. But I will tell you right now that a ton of people like more than 50% of people don’t trust brands. And when they don’t have a good website, and those times it’s they check out almost immediately because they lose trust.

Trevor Anderson 37:38

Me and that’s, that’s a big philosophy of ours. Like, it’s like where does that first interaction happens today, with customers. And for us, like we feel like that is most often going to be with the website, like the website is really at its core could be like your ultimate 24 hour a day salesman that speaks your brand’s assets, maybe even better that you could write. And so it’s so important that that website doesn’t just look good, that has, you know, a great user experience. And you really start to build trust and having like the right little nuggets of information, right like having persuasive copy, having great testimonials, you know, showcasing all these different things that make your business great. websites are so important. And yeah, that’s that’s really foreign on going to be the first time that somebody really gets to know who you are and what you’re about today.

Adam G. Force 38:33

I agree, man, I mean, it’s like the center of the hub, right? I mean, he got traffic around all the social media and all the other digital areas. And you know, we we used to talk a lot about doing sales funnels, and all these things. And obviously, we have all that stuff. And we kind of reframed it, you know, if you think about the door to door salesman is knocking on the door, and he gets to sit down and talk to you. So whatever you’re saying he can deal with the objections or whatever misconceptions you have, and all that stuff. And you can adapt the stories you’re sharing, right to talk about your products and whatever. in that conversation, you have an hour or whatever. But today, we don’t have that we have very little time. And we have this whole digital thing. So we started saying, instead of looking at it as a sales funnel, where we’re looking at targets clicks and conversions, we started calling it a digital conversation saying we’re not it’s no different than the door to door sales guy, but now we’re just digital. So what part of the conversation are they having where right and and now we’re just having we’re humanizing marketing a little bit, right?

Trevor Anderson 39:38

I really liked that. I might have to steal that from you.

Adam G. Force 39:41

I’m trademarking that man.

Trevor Anderson 39:44

That’s a great way of playing. I mean, it really it is and people’s attention spans are so so low today. You know, he really got to figure out how to how to pull them in and then yeah, like, how do you how do you tell that? What’s your elevator pitch right with you? Whatever you’re showcasing them.

Adam G. Force 40:02

That’s key man there. I just did an interview with Brendan Kane. He wrote this book hook. And he did like marketing work with people like Taylor Swift, MTV, like all these big players. And it’s all about how you only got three seconds to get someone’s attention and hook them. And then your story becomes, you know, very important, but you got to get the hook, you know?

Trevor Anderson 40:25

Yeah, I mean, that’s critical. It really is.

Adam G. Force 40:27

It is. It’s good. It’s good. All right, man. Listen, I’m glad we got to touch on some of the branding stuff. I think it’s important. appreciate you sharing some of your, your wins and your failures and stuff like that. It’s really good stuff that you’re working on. So I appreciate you jumping on here today.

Trevor Anderson 40:44

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you having me on. It’s been fun talking to you. I feel like we can do this all day, man. We’re speaking the same language.

Adam G. Force 40:50

Yeah totally. Hey, listen just in case, you know, we got some companies out there that want to check you out, you know, work with you or see what you got going on? Where do they where’s the best place for them to find you?

Trevor Anderson 41:03

Yeah, I mean, of course, they could go to our website, Andersoncollaborative.com. I like to point people to just go ahead and do a Google search, because we’re on a lot of different listings and things like that where you can actually see case studies and reviews and kind of paints like an overall larger picture of some of the stuff we’ve done. So if you really want to check us out, get to know us outside of what we talked about kind of the salesy side on the website. Just google search Anderson collaborative Miami, you’ll find a lot of great info on ourselves

Adam G. Force 41:34

Awesome all right there you have it guys Anderson collaborative check it out. They’re doing some good stuff here in sunny Miami. It’s been freakin cold the past couple of days.

Trevor Anderson 41:43

It has. They declared like a weather emergency which is funny because it dropped below 50. Apparently that’s a weather emergency.

Adam G. Force 41:50

It is in my world. Okay brother take care appreciate your time.

Trevor Anderson 41:57

Hey, you as well.

Adam G. Force 42:01

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Richard Lau: Choosing the Right Logo For Your Business

Listen to our exclusive interview with Richard Lau:

Change Creator · Richard Lau: Choosing the Right Logo For Your Business

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Does a logo really matter to the success of your business? We spoke with the founder of logo.com who is also a serial entrepreneur that has built and sold several companies to discuss. His name is Richard Lau.

About Richard:

Richard Lau has generated millions of dollars in revenue in the internet industry. NamesCon, his in-person conference focused on domain names, began as an idea in the fall of 2013 and is now part of the GoDaddy family. Resume.com is an online resume builder for millions of job seekers and is another of Richard’s recent successful exits, this time to Indeed.com. His current project is Logo.com – an AI-powered logo maker that has the ability to design a unique logo for your company in just a few minutes.

Learn more about Richard and his work at > logo.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam force co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big, visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. All right, what’s going on everybody, happy holidays, and welcome to the Change Creator podcast show This is your host enforce. hope everybody’s being safe and had a good Christmas, this is recording after the Christmas holiday. And, you know, we have the new year coming up just around the corner. So hopefully everybody is ready with their 2021 plans and are taking some family time here to enjoy some relaxation, and kind of catch up mentally after a very interesting 2020. You know, a lot of people thrived in 2020. And a lot of people didn’t, because of the unique circumstances. So hopefully, you guys were able to plan ahead and figure things out with your digital businesses so that you can continue growing and helping people. So we’re gonna kick this show off with Richard Lau. So he has a lot of interesting experience. And we’re excited to chat with Richard. So he has, he founded two really interesting companies and sold them. So he’s he’s founded and built and sold multiple companies actually. And so for example, one of them is my domain Comm. And the other is resume.com. And there’s a few others there. You know, he has a really interesting model, like a formula. And it’s it’s interesting to hear him how he kind of is growing these businesses and selling them and how he thinks about them. So this is going to be very valuable as you listen in to his strategies and insights. So aside from that, he also gives back because he is the executive director of water School, which is a charity focused on clean water projects in Uganda. So a lot of interesting experience here as far as business and otherwise. We’re going to dive into that in just a minute. If you missed the last episode, we didn’t do one over the over last week over the Christmas holiday. But we the last episode we did have was with cat leukoc. And she is an she is a lot of experience as a social entrepreneur and helping people create their social enterprises. So we talk about how to empower your social enterprise and make money. And we get into a lot of different details there. So there’s a lot of value in listening to the discussions around money and things like that, because there’s there’s common struggles for social entrepreneurs. Alright, so let’s get into this next episode. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, go to our Facebook page, follow us there. And from there, you can also find our button for our Facebook group so you can join a more intimate community, which is called Be Change Creator. Alright guys, that wraps it up. We’re gonna dive into this conversation with Richard. Okay, show me the heat. Hey, Richard, welcome to the Change Creator podcast. How you doing today?

Richard Lau 03:37

I’m doing fine. Adam. It’s really an honor to be here.

Adam G. Force 03:40

Awesome. Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time. I forget where you’re located.

Richard Lau 03:45

I’m up in Vancouver, Canada. So a couple hours north of Seattle.

Adam G. Force 03:49

Oh, Canadian. Yes. Two of my teammates there in Canada. I’ve been there once. No, twice. Maybe twice now. Have I been there twice? I think so.

Richard Lau 03:57

Oh, come back a third time.

Adam G. Force 04:02

Yeah, no it’s fun. It’s fun. I was out in Toronto and Kitchener and Waterloo or something like that.

Richard Lau 04:07

Okay. Yeah, back east. We call it Yeah. West coast is sunnier, more relaxed, you know, more outdoor focused.

Adam G. Force 04:15

Cool, cool. Cool. So, I know you got a lot of interesting projects that you’ve worked on, and that you’re now working on currently, like logo.com that’s a quite a domain that you locked in there

Richard Lau 04:30

I’ve been in the domain name business for over 20 years now.

Adam G. Force 04:33

And so you had that in your back pocket for a while?

Richard Lau 04:37

Yeah, you know, I’ve had a lot of fantastic domain names come across, come across my desk, and, you know, have bought and sold a lot of I’ve represented some, you know, and occasionally you have the opportunity to lock in a fantastic domain and, you know, so I’ve built up a small portfolio of fantastic names that I can see myself or business partner, or even, you know, my kids developing out one day as real businesses and logo.com was one of them. And, you know, we’ve sat on it for a number of years, and then about two years ago started to build it out as a real business. But, you know, we’ve had the idea of what we wanted to do when it percolating for, gosh, six or seven years.

Adam G. Force 05:25

Yeah, as I say, you must have gotten it a while. Because if you try to buy a domain like that, today, you’ll probably spend a million.

Richard Lau 05:32

Yeah, you know, we spent, we spent a lot. It was in the six figures. And but yeah, it’s, you know, yeah, if you were to buy it today, it would be worth it would be worth even more…

Adam G. Force 05:44

Why build a business, you just sell the sell the domain?

Richard Lau 05:49

Yeah, we, we’ve proven that with resume.com, that it is worth building a business around, you know, these category killing domain names. It’s kind of like eat your own dog food, right? I’ve been buying and selling domain names for 20 years. And, you know, the the, what we’re preaching is that it when you have a category defining domain name, it gives you a running start and gives you that extra wind in your sails. And you know, it, we’ve proven it, it does work. Resume calm is an absolute huge, you know, first hand example of taking a premium domain name, super premium domain name, putting building a business around it, office employees, the whole nine yards, and then exiting. Yes, we’re getting a lot more than what the domain name by itself would have would have been. So yeah, you know, we could sell, we could sell logo.com for a million dollars. But you know, why not build a business and sell it for 10? Or 20? Or 50?

Adam G. Force 06:50

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Richard Lau 06:52

And have a lot of fun and help a lot of people along the way.

Adam G. Force 06:54

Cool. Now, you created just to give people a little history, you created a resume.com? And you said you sold that to indeed?

Richard Lau 07:01

Yes.

Adam G. Force 07:02

What was the process? Like? Like? Because here’s what I want to get a little comparison on the evolution of your process. So in a sense, what did you do for resume calm to build that up? You know, the overview there and sell it like the strategy? And then are you doing anything different here based on lessons learned with logo.com?

Richard Lau 07:21

Absolutely. Um, so really, you know, resume was our third, my third exit in in 15 years. So my first exit was an unmitigated disaster. You know, it’s like, you know, how do you become a millionaire, you start with 10 million, you know, you like when you, but we, I had a domain name business, registrar, and it was worth around the neighborhood of $4 million. Long story short, I merged it with another company, private equity. You know, they were doing some Enron accounting, and, you know, I end up with a severance, check my tail between my legs, and I come home, and everyone’s patting me on the back. So you know, you just come back from Silicon Valley. And I’m like, Yeah, do you have some money I can borrow? I’m broke. And so that, that that was the biggest lessons, you know, the the school of hard knocks, then we I built a domain name conference called names con, and that’s now part of the GoDaddy family. And that was, that was also that was a successful exit. And, you know, but it was a it was a fair deal. It wasn’t, you know, wasn’t life changing money by any means? Yeah. And then the resume deal. You know, now that we’re coming up on, you know, exit number three, so, now I’m familiar with, like, due diligence and data, you know, a data bank, and, you know, all the due diligence questions and kind of the process and putting your, you know, the your hat on in terms of like, what is a buyer wanting to see, what are they expecting? You know, there was, it was very little surprises in the, you know, 250 questions that they sent us to say, you know, where’s this? Where’s that? And so, you know, I actually did did a session at a one of my last in person conference, I went to back in January, almost a year ago. Yeah. And it was my, my session was on building for an exit, you know, so it’s like, when you’re building your business, what do you have? Or what thought process have you put in place, right at the beginning, having an exit in mind? Because, man, it can make your life so much simpler when you’re doing the due diligence responses that you were like, Oh, you know what, when I started this, I actually it was anticipating having to answer this question three years later, so you don’t have to go back and recreate or get confirmation letters. And so yeah, it was a good question. Like, what is the process? It’s been a building process of learning what buyers want to know, and preparing for that in advance. So it makes the process so much smoother.

Adam G. Force 10:10

Yeah, that’s interesting. What can you give an example? I don’t know, if you have something off the top of your mind of just the kind of question you might want to be asking yourself up front. So that you’re prepared.

Richard Lau 10:23

Absolutely. So, you know, when we’re building logo.com, you know, we’re obviously looking around where we’ve got it. It’s an automated AI powered logo maker. So basically, you come in, you put in your business name, you put in your slogan and put in a few keyword industry, and we generate hundreds of designs based on that, man. So that’s pulling in templates. It’s pulling in, you know, ai powered conversations of what design will look best, etc. But underpinning all of that are licensing, you know, so you have to have licensing for the fonts, you have to have licensing for any drawings or icons. Yeah. And so we were looking around at our competitors, and we’re like, wow, you know, they’re they’re doing that, and they’re doing that, and you’re like, how are they doing that? Yeah, they actually licensing that font properly, and I dig into it, and no, they’re not, they’re absolutely 100% blatantly copyright infringement. And you’re just like, wow, that’s not good. Because, you know, when they do go to sell, eventually, they are going to have a massive due diligence problem, they are going to, you know, because I can guarantee you that any purchaser, whether it’s a p firm, or it’s a dot design house, or you know, vistaprint or Fiverr, anybody who’s looking at a logo maker, and there’s a number of us online, and they’re looking at at this, they’re going to ask the questions like, have you always, when did you license this font that you’ve always, you know, what was the date of the license, what, you know, what is, what is the your product is sold built on, and they’re going to have a problem, because they’re, they’ve been around for a number of years. And for any customers that they’ve had up to the point that they, you know, corrected it and change their, their font. Yeah, they have a huge liability, because you’ve not sold, you’ve sold the logo to a customer that you didn’t have the fonts licensed for. And so if those customers ever get hit by the font owner, that’s not just the cost of the of the logo, they could hit you for the cost of branding, change of damage to their brand, and, you know, the the cost of, of having to update their website, letterhead, trucks, etc. as well as any damages that they need to pay to the font owner. Yeah, the chances of that happening. Sure, it might be slim. But if you’re a public company, and you’re purchasing a logo maker, and you’re asking them for their licensing agreements, and they’re like, well, we didn’t do any licensing agreements, we just stole fonts off, off offline, you know, that we found online, it’s just like, oh, my goodness, you know? So like, we know this, right. So from day one, before customer one, all of our licensing agreements are in place, you know, we we know what the questions are going to be. So it helps us be a better person, right, as a better entity, a better organized and ethical, because you know, there’s going to be accountability, there’s going to be a judgement day on that when that exit is on the horizon. That’s your judgment day somebody comes in, and they ask you every single tough question, and they look at every single skeletons in your closet. So don’t have any skeletons, you know

Adam G. Force 13:52

Got it, got it. Getting ahead of the game, being smart up front, I mean, all those legal things. You’re right, when you get to that you may coast for a while, but he gets to that exit and those opportunities, and I can see the headache now.

Richard Lau 14:06

Absolutely. And you know, it may not kill the deal, but it sure would, it sure would lower the price.

Adam G. Force 14:11

Yeah. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about I mean, you seem to have this process you’ve kind of created, it’s your own formula, in a sense. It’s like, get a great domain, you know, a great brand story, and a great company does start with that name, right. And it should say something about the business that the business is designed, like the essence, right. And these are obviously just very verbatim, you got logo.com resume, that guy’s like, you can’t really screw it up. You know? And so you get the logo and you are looking to you start with an exit in mind. I’m going to create a killer business. you’re leaning into AI and things like that. I love the formula. And I’m curious though. You’re you are though passionate about branding and things like that. But resume.com it’s not like you were passionate about resumes. So how did that play in for your personal experience?

Richard Lau 15:16

That’s it’s very interesting. And it’s easy to miss, right? It’s easy to say, Okay, well, look, you’re just building a resume builder. Yeah. And, you know, how boring is that? Right, and let’s just, let’s just get to the chase. But really, what, what excited me and got me, you know, just pumped every day, quite frankly, was the, you’re not just building, helping someone build a resume, there are behind every single resume, we had 4 million resumes built on our site shit behind every single resume as a person, and behind every person is a story. And what you’re doing is you’re reaching into this person’s life, and you’re giving them a helping hand. So you’re like, if when someone comes to came to our resume website, we want it to be able to say, Okay, look, by the time they leave, they are leaving as a better person in terms of a better opportunity, or they’re going to have a better chance of getting that job that they’re they’re applying for, you know, where that they’re going to leave whether they pay for our service or not, they’re going to leave better than when they arrived. And the change that we were actually able to see in terms of like high school students coming in, and then being able to have a better resume than if they were just like opening up a Google doc and starting with a blank page. And, you know, we’d see people build a resume when they graduate from high school. And then two years later, they build another resume, because they were at a university, and they were seeking like a TA position. And then again, when they graduated from university, and they’re seeking a professional, so you know, it was so cool to see this, these kids growing up on our platform, and seeing the jobs that they’re adding to the resume that they got, because they were using resume.com. And so it’s, you know, I have this life philosophy, which is basically simple, which is to be helpful, right? It’s just and that covers a whole noun, the whole aspect of positive attitude, you know, beneficial relationships, like how are you benefit being a benefit to your, to your, you know, close knit colleagues, friends, family, as well as to your extended network, as well as to your community, right? Because at the end of the day, it’s, you know, money is a tool, but life is about relationships. So it’s like, what, how are you being helpful in the relationships that you have with your customers? And so that that’s what we did with resume is what we did with the conference. And that’s what we’re doing with logo, you may not buy from us, but at least you’re going to be better, and hopefully have been helped by us when you’re when you come to logo.com.

Adam G. Force 18:08

Yeah, yeah, I checked it out. It’s pretty, pretty cool. I mean, I love the the dive you’re taking into leveraging AI. And I think it’s a really, it’s a great jumpstart for creativity for people. So I mean, I look at something like this, and it’s kind of like, where does someone begin in exploring AI capabilities? There’s got to be a pretty hefty investment in the, I guess, research on on developing that kind of tech.

Richard Lau 18:45

Yeah, Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think, you know, we’re still early days. So for us, it’s, you know, we know, from resume as an example, you know, we rebuilt the platform, gosh, three or four times, and each time, it looks pretty much the same to the to the end user, the you know, they’re coming in, they’re building a resume and, but on the back end, we’re like, starting from scratch, sometimes we were completely changing the entire back end language and then platform. And so with logo, we are able to, you know, we were able to plan it out. Much more in advance. Yeah. So we haven’t had to rewrite the platform, but we it is an ongoing growing entity. And we’re using all onshore developers, either in Canada or the US or the UK. And it’s more expensive for us, but we’re finding that we’re better able to communicate. And, and we’re just having, you know, we operate primarily on slack and Asana. And we’re, we’re able to communicate as a team faster. And it’s so important when there’s so much To learn, because, you know, we’re taking, we’re taking this branding conversation, right? The typical process would be a user needs to a customer needs to design a logo, and they sign up with either a freelancer or an agency. And they have a few dozen conversations back and forth about what it is they’re looking for. And so, you know, the challenge to the team is okay, guys, we these are the predictive conversations that that someone would have over the course of either three days or three weeks, with their designer or with their design team. We need you to put that into algorithmic conversations and have it AI based so that it it can go faster. Right. Yeah, it is like, Okay, tell me what you guys could do. Right? So I’m not an AI expert, but I can point at other things that that other people are doing and say, Look, they’re doing it, they solved it. You guys figure it out

Adam G. Force 21:06

Yeah, figure it out now. Do what they’re doing, but better.

Richard Lau 21:10

But I you know, so we we pose the problem, we can see that people are, are coming up with solutions, whether it’s in the local space or on other AI. problems. But yeah, it is a lot of work. Let me not. I’m not going to sugarcoat that. Oh, yeah, it’s a problem. AI is fun and easy. No, my guess is a lot of work. It’s a lot more work than just pretending and putting in scotch tape and, you know, 100 monkeys. So it’s, it’s, it’s a lot of work. And it’s not easy by any means. And we’re paying for that expertise locally. And yeah…

Adam G. Force 21:51

Yeah, yeah, I did some consulting for a legal team who’s doing some serious AI stuff to shake up and disrupt the legal industries, old, undisturbed ways. And we worked with a few agencies and went through all kinds of storyboards and stuff on the flows and everything I was helping with the branding and user experience of their app, and all that kind of stuff. And, man, once you get into that AI world, because it is, it’s all like the wild, wild west, in my mind, meaning you can really do almost anything, it’s just do you have the team that can figure it out, and like break the rules of what is now right and kind of be on top of all the latest technology or breakthroughs and things like that. And you’re right, it’s labor intensive, lots of meetings, lots of figuring things out, testing, man, it is it’s a lot.

Richard Lau 22:48

Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s quite amazing. But it’s also amazing, then once you are able to solve some of these problems, you know, the ability to come in is, is going off a little bit off AI, but the ability to come in post the the information in, and then, you know, we were to the end user, it looks like we’ve just pulled all these designs out that we had pre loaded. But what’s happening in the back end is we’re spinning up 300, Amazon Web servers, having you know, you know, each one of these has multi threaded multi processor, they each have a conversation with various different API’s, and then return results. But, you know, really what we should be doing is like, okay, enter your information. Okay. In tomorrow, come back. And we’ll have a bunch of designs, but instead our texture, like, you know what, we can solve it a different way we can make it look instant. And so it is it’s instant, right? You know, we’re generating dozens of dozens and dozens of designs at a time to present to you but in our back end, where we’ve got these servers spinning up, they’re having these conversations to say, Okay, what, what font set? What font matching? What icon? how big should that be? should be on the right, left center? You know, what colors? Yeah, there’s all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going on. But it allows the user to kind of sit back and you know, call it like Tinder for logo design. You’re just like, No, no, no, no, no, I kind of like that one favorite. No, no, no. Yeah. Like that one favorite. No, no, no, no. Right. And then you get it down to your favorites list. And then you take a look and you’re like, you know what, I like that one, but I think the icon should be bigger, okay, with just click on it, make the icon bigger, you know, and so within 20 minutes, you should be able to walk away from logo.com with a logo. And that is like taking a three week process down to 20 minutes. it you know, we we’ve spent the money we spent the 1000s and 1000s of programming hours, that we are confident that people can do that. And

Adam G. Force 24:58

It’s huge, that’s a big impact. I mean, I like what you said about resume calm and how you’re helping people. It’s like, You’re, you’re injecting yourself in part of a process that, you know, like everyone says, right, you gotta find, find the pain point for people. And you really helped me make someone’s life easier by providing this type of solution, faster, save time, save money, all that kind of stuff. And I mentioned before, like, you know, these guys came up with a solution to say, well, we can kind of do it and make it look instantaneous. I love when tech guys have ideas that I never thought you could do that. Ah, yes, I love that. Right.

Richard Lau 25:42

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, no, we, we have a lot of fun. We do give our tech guys a lot of leeway in terms of being expressing their creativity, because this this is, this is a very interesting problem to solve for, right? You we approach it our visitors as if they’re asking us, hey, you know, Adam, can you design a logo? For me? It’s like, okay, yeah, let’s get it out right now. Right. It’s not a back and forth. And so, you know, our texts have to be able to just say, look, this is the problem, you guys figure out how to solve it. Right? We don’t handhold them in terms of like, Okay, well, I want you to program this. And I want you to program that and but it’s just like, what do you guys think? Like, let’s all like it. And we use this amazing service called user testing, calm, you know, no association, no affiliate here, just, and they do screen recordings of users going through your website and running into problems. And we don’t filter that we don’t like, Oh, we got a bunch of user testing. Here’s the report. And this is now text, this is not what we want you to guys to fix. It’s like, No, we all watch it. Because that is like gold, right? Every single person in the in the whole org watches, every single one of those user testing videos, because it’s, it’s important to know exactly what is it the user is experiencing? And it’s important for the text to know what it is that they’re delivering. Yeah. And how are people interacting with what they’re delivering? And it’s, you know, there’s no better way it’s kind of like, you know, was it called the Undercover Boss kind of thing, right? You want your, your your people dealing on the front line, even if they never have that experience? We have text doing jumping into customer service, right? Yeah, yeah, you know, and it’s like, oh, you know, I shouldn’t be in customer service. It’s like, we’re all in customer service. This is all about customer service. Right? So it’s like, it’s, we do things a little differently but as you say, it’s kind of lessons learned from resume and, and and other past businesses we built

Adam G. Force 27:56

cool. Yeah. When I love that kind of testing, you mentioned two Hot Jar does that kind of stuff with their recordings, I love those recordings. And like, oh, man, I could see like, certain, you know, funnel sequences working or not working, where people get stuck or page loads, get hung up and stuff like that. And there’s another one too, you probably get a kick out of I think, I am trying to remember, I might use it in a while. But I used to use it a lot with clients I consulted for, and it’s about a five second test. Okay, on usability hub. So basically, you get in front of all these people, and you can throw up your landing page or whatever webpage you want. And you do a five second test where it helps you optimize your design because you measure the recall and first impressions and what people see and are they getting? Are you getting across what you hope, like, I’m saying, and you can learn if it’s actually making the impression you think it is.

Richard Lau 28:54

Exactly that I mean, that that’s really that’s so relevant to logo design as well, you know, we people come to our site, and sometimes they’re like, Why are logo it’s very simple. I want this, you know, modified to include, you know, a flag and an eagle and a wrench for my, you know, plumbing service. And it was just like, you know, you’re overly complicating it because you’ve really got, you know, a fraction of a second to communicate your name. goodwill trust, professionalism. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, a lot of people, if they go to a freelance designer, and the freelance designer is, you know, just trying to justify their rate, they’re there they over design it and they end up putting in too much stuff and there because the freelancer is looking at it, like my customer is the guy who’s paying my bill. Right? Yeah. Where’s really, what they need to do is like is is say to the guy who’s paying the bill, look, I’m the designer. You You got to remember that what we’re what the end goal here Is to communicate to your customer. So the customer is your customer? Not? Yeah, the the guy just paid the bill. So it’s it, you know, but you know, if you’re paying a freelancer, you know, 50 bucks to design your logo, he’s, he’s just like, I just want to make you happy to move on. He doesn’t really care

Adam G. Force 30:19

That’s it. He’s not trying to Yeah, he’s not trying to, to help you out. And then like, you know, give you all kinds of strategic advice or anything like that. Yeah. So I wanted to talk a little bit, if you don’t mind, before we get, you know, close the end here a little bit about logos and brands with you. So you kind of just started because it’s a segue, you kind of just started talking about keeping it simple, making it clear and understandable. You know, you’re buying domain names for 20 years or more. Tell me a little bit about what people should be looking for in a logo today. Right? Like, where your mind is that as far as a quality logo, because there is a lot of over complication, especially with domain names. For example, a domain name that is a common word, but spelled differently. And like, I always struggle with that, because especially as we get into more voice, you know, like Alexa and Google Home, like, they will confuse those things. Right. Yeah, so that’s, you know, I like to hear your thoughts on what makes a great logo.

Richard Lau 31:30

Um, so yeah, I mean, there’s two, two parts of that puzzle there, there’s what things make a great logo, and then what things make a great name. Yeah. So, you know, talking about logos, you know, if you look at the the trend right now is simple, clean, easy to read logos, you know, you look at canon, Samsung, you know, they’re they’re really just wordmarks, there is no, you know, canon doesn’t have a stylized camera that they’re pushing, they’re pushing canon. And so, you know, on the flip side, if you walk around your neighborhood, take your dog for a walk, or look around at like the the landscaping company, the local plumber, local electrician, you’re going to see overly stylized logos. And now, because as humans, you know, we have that, that mark, sorry, that that book, blink, you, you’re going to make a decision in the in the fraction of a second, when you see a logo, and you’re not going to know exactly why you’re making that decision. You just know it. And, and but if we you know, as a person who just lives and breathes logos, now, we analyze this, what you’re what you’re what’s happening is you’re seeing hundreds, if not 1000s of logos a day, and you are taking and analyzing those logos, and equating them to the size of the company, the longevity of the company, the trustworthiness, the professionalism, basically, goodwill. And so what you’re going to equate to right now is these overly stylized logos are equating to a small company, a, probably a one man show, that that may or may not have been around for very long, whereas the simple wordmark maybe a very simple icon. Those are going to you know, and the simple icon doesn’t have to mean that it’s not customized, but a very simple icon is going to have a an impression of a larger company more professional and that they know what they’re doing. And they’re not so you know, there’s definitely this trend to clean logos and I think that’s because it’s gotten so busy that you only have a half a second to communicate what is my company name that that you that you have to be able to just have the user focus on your name Yeah, not on the eagle and the wrench and the sink. You know?

Adam G. Force 34:17

Yeah, I’ve always been a fan of having the the lockup with like an image but it’s, it’s you’re right like the simplicity unless it makes sense. Like if there’s real rhyme and reason for it to be there. Otherwise, because I mean, there’s uses that are important and I I had a regret where we you know, we created Change Creator magazine, and we use the logo icon as the primary face of the magazine with the name very small. You know, and then I got a call from Shark Tank because Blake Mycoskie was going on there and they’re like, we want to show your magazine cover on the show and I was like, well, it’s amazing. I’m like, shit, I don’t have like my name spread across that thing.

Richard Lau 35:01

Whereas if your name is your logo, like come to logo.com we eat our own dog food.

Adam G. Force 35:05

Yeah,

Richard Lau 35:06

there’s no icon in our logo.com logo. Yeah,

Adam G. Force 35:09

yeah.

Richard Lau 35:10

Right? And, you know, we we put a lot of time and effort and thought into what we what we should have as our logo. Because you know, if you’re, if your logo.com and you have a crappy logo, what are you doing in the business? Right? Yeah. So, you know, if you want to take a look at somebody, or a company that has spent more time than you can ever imagine designing a logo, come to logo.com. And you can see, simplicity is where it’s at.

Adam G. Force 35:39

Yeah, I like simplicity. No, for sure. So, yeah, and what was the other part of that, that we wanted to say? Say the logo, and then the, what the heck was…

Richard Lau 35:49

the naming, naming, so yeah, yeah. So you know, I see this a lot, and especially coming from the domain name business, you know, there’s, there’s things like radio test is that if I say, a brand name to you.com, will you be able to go over to your computer and type that in? Or, you know, if I if I’m saying Okay, yeah, it’s chatter.ai. Right. Yeah. And do I. So now you Am I asking you implicitly to remember two things. Am I asking you to remember that chatter has no e?

Adam G. Force 36:21

And it’s Oh, yeah, yes. So

Richard Lau 36:24

So those are what I call hacks, right? So if it’s an auto.com, it’s a hack. Okay. Well, and it’s not necessarily bad, right? But don’t do two hacks. Right? So if it’s going to be chattered on AI, then have it be the real word. chatter.ai. If it’s going to be chatter with no E, then it better be the.com. Because if you’re saying, hey, it’s chatter, dot.io. And there’s no e the guy’s like, What? Wait, what? Yeah, right. Yeah. And, and you’re gonna lose them. So, so you know, you can have one hack, but don’t have to. So, you know, feel free to drop the E. Lots of people do that. But stick then if you’re doing that stick with the.com

Adam G. Force 37:07

I agree. 100%. I mean, I, if you have to explain to someone, something like that, like, Yeah, when you do it, make sure you spell it this way. Like you you’re already setting yourself up for like a challenge. I’m not saying it’s impossible. There’s great brands out there there have done it, they crushed it, right, but he doesn’t make your life easier, that’s for sure. And, you know, like if I was going to do like, I remember I did a rain forest thing a while back years ago. It’s like an activist and I wanted to do something and I kept it instead of being like, the rain forest initiative bubble or whatever the hell like people do. I just said, I love rain forest calm. It’s like a statement that you believe in, you know, right. Keep it super simple and natural, you know? Yeah.

Richard Lau 37:52

Yeah. You know, there there are a lot of new non coms that are available. And might you know that that’s kind of like a, an open field to go for but you know, so again, if you if you’re going to go for a dot XYZ, don’t go for a three word.

Adam G. Force 38:09

Yeah, right.

Richard Lau 38:09

Don’t go for I heart rainforest dot XYZ, you don’t need to. You don’t need to worry. But you could go for you know, you could go for rain forest on eco. Yeah, right. or rain forest green or rain forest dot life

Adam G. Force 38:21

or logo dot XYZ, right.

Richard Lau 38:26

No, don’t do that.

Adam G. Force 38:26

Don’t do that.

Richard Lau 38:29

No, go for I heart logos all day dot xyz. And there’s E

Adam G. Force 38:34

Yeah.All right. Alright, Richard, I’m gonna let you go here. I really appreciate it. So obviously, people can find you. I know you got logo.com So guys, super easy. Go check it out, play around with it, get some creative ideas, do some business with Richard and team that doing some cool stuff. And also if you’re, you’re you’re listening to this, you’re not looking for a resume. So scrap that. But Richard, is there anywhere else people will find you Where’s logo.com? The best spot?

Richard Lau 39:06

Yeah logo.com. So Richard@logo.com or hit me up on LinkedIn. I’m a big believer in building, building a network in mutual mutually beneficial ways. So I’m richard@logo.com on on LinkedIn, easy to find.

Adam G. Force 39:18

Got it. Got it. All right, Richard. Thanks again. Appreciate your time.

Richard Lau 39:23

Thank you Adam.

Adam G. Force 39:26

Thanks for tuning in to the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Kat Luckock: How to Empower Your Social Enterprise & Make Money

Listen to our exclusive interview with Kat Luckock:

Change Creator · Kat Luckock: How to Empower Your Social Enterprise & Make Money

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What should you consider about money when running a social enterprise if you want to be successful over the long term? We decided to talk to an entrepreneur show runs 3 social enterprises and is an expert in increasing trading income for companies, Kat Luckock. She has a wealth of experience and advice to share that will help you on your journey.

Learn more about Kat and her work at > shareimpact.org

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Kat Luckock 02:46

Yeah, brilliant. Thanks very much for having me

Adam G. Force 02:49

Excellent. Yes, I’m excited to have a fellow social entrepreneur here who’s doing great things. Um, so just give a little background, if you could just tell me a little bit about your business, how you got into it, why social entrepreneurship, all that kind of stuff.

Kat Luckock 03:03

Sure. So I started as a social entrepreneur back in 2013. With my best friend Jen Born, I always have to mention her because it was a partnership. And, and she’s still running the social enterprise currently. So and we had an amazing opportunity, we were basically given the opportunity to take over an education program that had been running more as a charity. And but they’d there was all sorts of different challenges. And but they were about to close the organization down. And we just happened to be there at the right time having the right conversations with the right people. And the board then who were closing the organization offered the program the education program to us. And we were really interested in the idea of turning it into a social enterprise and generating a sustainable trading income for it. So it wasn’t dependent on grant funding. Yeah. And we had had some success of working with corporate partners. And previously, so we had some links there. And we really believe because of the program, which we’ll go into if that’s of interest, but and we could yet develop a trading model essentially to promote well to secure income. And because we believe there was an offer in there for corporate benefit, as well as the teenage in school benefit that was core to the program. So when we did that for Well, I did that for three and a half years or so. It was my dream job. absolutely loved it. And it was just brilliant. And and the only reason was really to that I kind of moved on. I’m still a board member, I’m still very involved. I’m just not involved operationally day to day. And was I we were have to expand pregnant as we make sense, but we were delivering an education program in secondary schools and to 11 to 14 year olds around and sustainability. So environmental sustainability, and kids had to come up with a sustainability challenge they were most concerned about and create a business solution to that challenge and we supported them throughout the academic year in their teams and was a bit like Dragon’s Den, they had to kind of and create a business plan and present their idea at various stage of the competition. And we had a comp, we have a competition finals in Parliament each year, here in the UK. And so we were running that for three and a half years for three and a half years was obviously like any sort of business was full on. And we were in it 100%. And I had just moved, and from London back to Wales, where I’m from, and but I wasn’t spending any time at home, I was kind of we were on the road four nights a week. So it was a real kind of difficult decision for me around and sort of separating myself from what I was really loving doing workwise. But seeing that there wasn’t really a role for me at that time in the organization where I could spend more time at home, which was really important to me as well. And also, I was starting to see we’d worked a lot in the social enterprise space with a lot of startup programs and been engaging with a lot of other social entrepreneurs at the same stages of us. And we were quite unique at the time and having success with selling to corporates. And and I was really interested in the certainly here in the UK, I’m not I’m less aware of what it is elsewhere, that here in the UK at the time, there was still a lot of sort of mindset around being dependent on grant funding, and, and not generating trading income. And I found this really interesting, because it wasn’t my understanding of what social entrepreneurship was. And so I really wanted to see and learn more about what we were doing differently in terms of selling successfully to corporates and how we could share that with others. So fast forward, and a few years. So, in 2017, I think it was I started sharing Pat, for two reasons, I really wanted to I’m super passionate about social entrepreneurship, and I really believe that it is the future and the way we should be running business as a whole, like, it should be the normal way that we do business. And it frustrates me that it’s not yet. And I appreciate that that will take time. But I want it to be part of that solution that you know, we can create a an economy of social entrepreneurs much quicker than we’re getting there currently. But for me, that’s not possible, unless we have and profitable social enterprises that are quite ambitious, in in their sustainability goals in terms of their business being sustainable. Because I think all too often, and lots of people are coming to social entrepreneurship with really great intentions, amazing innovations and ideas, but don’t necessarily have the business background or the ambition to make it sustainable, financially sustainable as a business. And, and often give away way too much for free. And so I just don’t think that’s very sustainable for the sector. And I also don’t think that, you know, being reliant on grant funding, and is particularly a sustainable way to create this economy. So for me, I wanted to create share impact, and, and kind of help social entrepreneurs to achieve that. And two areas that I really want to focus on, from my experience at solutions to the planet, which I felt, I’ve kind of learned in that place, and also from my previous career was, and helping social entrepreneurs communicate their social and environmental impact better to their clients, customers, stakeholders, and through better impact measurement, and communications. And then the other is Yeah, selling to corporates generating a trading income, if that’s not something to corporates, you know, having a strong solid business model that will help and get going in those first few years. So that’s where Sharon Pat came from. And that’s why now I call myself a social entrepreneur coach, because I’m a business coaching impact strategist specifically helping social entrepreneurs. But I do think it’s important for social entrepreneurs, I come from a particular perspective, my background isn’t in business. I’ve always worked in charity and third sector, but I am have experience of setting up and running a successful social enterprise.

Adam G. Force 08:52

Sure. Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot said there. So let me just kind of rewind for a second. And I’m, you know, it’s interesting that you’re supporting the corporate space and also the social entrepreneurs themselves. And, you know, it is a way that business is transitioning and shifting and I remember speaking to this guy, Taddy Blecher, he won the skull foundations award for social entrepreneurship and all that stuff. And he’s out in South Africa. And he was like, you know, I love what you know, people like you and Change Creator what we’re doing like, because what we’re doing because he’s like, you’re normalizing social, yeah, social entrepreneurship. And, you know, something that Amy and I always say is I, we kind of just, sometimes we just give up on the terminology. I’m like, I don’t even want to call like, why do we don’t even like it doesn’t need its own name. It’s just just doing business. You know, and it’s interesting, and I’m curious on your perspective around business today, we obviously have a capitalist you can I’m Max system. And I’m curious if you feel that business of this nature is a square peg in a round hole or that it fits well, because you know what I mean? Like, how do you feel about that scenario?

Kat Luckock 10:15

Conflicted. If I’m completely honest, so sometimes Yeah, I think so entrepreneurship is and can operate, I think in the capitalist system. And I think it’s certainly come out of that. And I think, in terms of my perspective about social enterprises being profitable, yeah, it comes, you know, I, I, we are, I’m a grown up in and, you know, just all intensive purposes, I have to accept that I am a capitalist as well. So and whether I want to be or not. So I think, for me, what’s more important and how I defined for me social entrepreneurship, it’s more about and profitability for the social impact. So the mission or the cause, not for personal profitability, and not for individual gain. Now, that’s not that I don’t think founders and employees of social enterprises shouldn’t be paid well, and fairly, and I have this on my website, because I think it’s really important that social entrepreneurs pay themselves really well, because I believe they are the innovators the transformation, you know, the creating the transformation of the new the new economy that we want to create, and the new society that we want to create. So I do think it’s important that that’s recognized that skill, but innovation, creativity, yeah. But for me, it’s not about endless, like becoming endlessly wealthy as an individual or to enable other people because I don’t think that part of capitalism, and that’s part of our economic system, creates the equitable society that I truly want to see. But we can’t eradicate poverty, if we’re all striving to be multimillionaires and billionaires, like, I just don’t see how that’s possible. And for me, in my values, it’s much more important that we live in a more equitable society, I want to, you know, challenge the current situation. So that’s how I kind of, yeah, I’m making sense of it at the moment. It’s not fully formulated, but that’s definitely

Adam G. Force 12:10

Yeah, it’s, um, you know, it’s something that takes a lot of thought, and there’s all these books about conscious capitalism, all these things. And, you know, an economic system like that, I think would be a long time to change. It’s just so engrained into people that they’re, you know, anytime you talk about anything different, you’re automatically a communist, or socialist, or something outside, it’s like, so to me, you know, we’ve always we’ve come to respect the, the way that because there’s good and bad for anything, right? So we’ve learned to respect money, we’ve learned to appreciate the power that it gives us as opportunity to make a difference. And here’s the deal, right? And this is something that we tell people a lot, it’s like, well, if we’re going to really start shifting things, you’re going to have to compete with the big players that are making the decisions out there about the economy and about how that money is used. So, you know, you can call out guys like Jeff Bezos and things like that, that this guy could eradicate poverty in America 10 times over, probably around the world, if you want it to as he becomes the first trillionaire. You know, but like, if you’re not willing to, to respect money, and make money and think of it in a way as this is how I transform lives. If I, someone said this to me one time, and they were like, well, if you love your audience, then you should sell to them. And I was like, Yeah, you’re right. I like that. Right. That’s a, it’s a perspective shift. And if they don’t get to that point, you’re never going to create $100 million business to compete with the other big players to actually make a difference, because they’re always going to be on top and funding the political platforms, you know.

Kat Luckock 13:51

Exactly. And I think that’s where I came to is that if we’re not being ambitious, and thinking creatively about how we generate that kind of wealth, how do we challenge the status quo? Yeah. And I think it’s about how do we, and you know, and it’s not about, like I said, it’s not about individuals, it’s about collectivism and kind of working together to create that change and create that wealth collectively, and redistribute. Generally redistributing it, which is I appreciate, certainly in America, they might see me as a communist when I say that kind of thing, but I kind of… I don’t have a problem with that. Like, for me, the state the situation economically across the globe is not okay, like it’s not equal. And, and, you know, we need to be able to support and empower people to help themselves out of poverty, because I also have an issue with just giving away charity and aid. Like, that’s not the way to transform people’s lives and give them true freedom. So I think, you know, we have to find ways and I think social entrepreneurship is brilliant at doing that.

Adam G. Force 14:51

It is. It’s like teaching someone to fish right? That’ll old analogy, because, you know, I’ve gotten in arguments, even with family members about these things, and they’re like, oh, You can’t just, you know, there’s study after study out there, you can’t just give people housing and give people things because they, and they’re right. And I’m like, Yeah, you’re right, because they don’t know how to handle that. They don’t just like someone who wins the lottery, they don’t know what to do with, you know, millions of dollars, they have no idea, right? And that’s why it usually goes out the window. And you know, they’re just not educated around that. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be educated. So it sounds like what you’re saying is, you know, we’re now empowering people to actually use these skills and do it for themselves and Karp, like, kind of create their own pads. Right?

Kat Luckock 15:38

Definitely. Yeah. And I think recognizing that some people in certain situations, and even, you know, across the whole world, you know, I don’t when I say that, and social entrepreneurs shouldn’t apply for grant funding, it’s not, you know, I definitely think there’s place when you’re starting up, and, and when you’re piloting things, while you’re testing out new ideas, there’s definitely a place to receiving funds, investment and support. And, and I’ve got no problem with that at all. And I think that’s the same for anybody that kind of needs a little bit of help. And to get to where they want to be to kind of enable their brilliant idea to actually see full fruition.

Adam G. Force 16:14

Yeah, I agree. And I think that I mean, I’ve kind of over the years personally, and you mentioned the grants and things like that, and I, I’ve learned in my own perspective, this is totally, you know, subjective. And I, I think there’s a place for it, depending on the type of business you’re in, right? If it has a requirement for very large sums of upfront funding, kind of like starting a restaurant, right? Like, you just can’t do it with the money at your pocket, most likely. But if you’re one of these people carving out a path, you know, like an e commerce shop, or a Shopify store, or like a course, or you’re a t a coach, or creator, or whatever, more modern day entrepreneur today in the digital space, I don’t think you should be taking grants and loans, because it’s not going to help you in the end, right? Because here, you get money, and you haven’t learned how to make money yet. So you’re just gonna spend it and you still don’t have a system or an understanding of how to sell how to create a marketing strategy that works. So it’s just wasted. And so I’d rather see people build their own foundation themselves. What do you think?

Kat Luckock 17:29

I totally agree with that. And that’s definitely one of the things I speak to my clients and audience about, is that if you’ve got that kind of online digital business, and, you know, I don’t know what it is, I think it’s kind of a fear and a mindset thing, issue around and needing a safety net, which I can understand, but at the same time totally with you on the fact that if you’re going to create a business, you need to learn to sell and sell, learn to sell quickly. And, and kind of learn the mistakes along the way which are inevitable, and just learn an approach that works for you and your business. And this is something now but as I’ve reflected more and more on how me and Jen got started, because we had no sales experience when we started our social enterprise, but we knew, you know, what we wanted to achieve and what our business model was going to be. And so yeah, it’s kind of like you just have to get on, you know, start learning and start doing and make those mistakes, and, and be humble enough to go Yeah, we’ll just, you know, we’ll learn from that. And I think for us, that was one of the real keys have just been really open to learning all the way through it. And finding out what worked for us what worked for other people. And yeah, all of that all the way.

Adam G. Force 18:36

Mm hmm. So, I guess through your experience, have you seen any… Can you give me an example of what are some of the Okay, actually, I already know, one, we talked about selling, and this is an important topic for this conversation. And they think, you know, you know, there’s a lot of stigma around it for good reason, you know, historically, of all the trends that have happened in marketing and bad sales, but why do you think on your, in your own perspective, the entrepreneurs you’re talking to, they’re not, they don’t feel comfortable with this process of selling and do you see them trying to outsource this type of work to a marketing team and others, like they’re just going to set that up for them?

Kat Luckock 19:27

Yeah, that’s really interesting. I think lots of people would love that. They could have that support that so I could just bring somebody in and do the selling for Yeah, yeah. Because if they just that, it kind of paralyzes them this idea of selling so I, I think for me, so I work predominantly with female social entrepreneurs and a relatively early stage they usually at least six months into their business, but within sort of two to five years of starting. And for me, I think one of the things around selling is that it’s that experience of sales previous And all of that, like exactly what you said, all of those preconceived, preconceived ideas about selling being really hard, very masculine, in their own minds like and, and very unethical and very pushy. And for me, it’s just as a coach kind of helping them reframe, yes, that might have been your experience. Well, that might be your perception of sales. But sales doesn’t have to be like that, you know, you can create how you choose to interact, engage and sell to your clients or customers, that is your choice. As a business owner. That’s your approach that you take. And it’s how you bring your personality, your ethics, your values into that. And I think what you said earlier, like, the key to this is, for social entrepreneurs is and selling through service, like being of service to people and recognizing the value that you’re offering by people purchasing your products or services. I think, when I help people reframe the difference they’re actually making, whether it’s, you know, to people’s lives, or the impact that they’re able to create, because of those sales, it takes time, but it’s easier for them to see that, yes, they are really being a value. And, and I think sometimes it’s this shift as well around, and essential products or services and non essential things, and like recognizing that those non essential things, you know, whether they’re frivolous things, whether they’re fashion items, whether, you know, they’re not food, water, shelter, etc. But there’s still things people want the need and desire, and that’s okay. And the only area that I kind of where I don’t work in necessarily is where, but it doesn’t usually fall in this is a very small area is where social entrepreneurs are selling products that I don’t feel. And actually, you know, because I’m very conscious of like the waste we create. And so for me a product has to have a purpose, and or be very much thought through in a sort of circular design module. And but apart from that, I think, you know, people can be selling in a way that they desire, and they choose to sell, but that can kind of be very, very different to the kind of very heavy negative sort of sales perspectives people have.

Adam G. Force 22:17

Right, and a lot of these people as well, they have this inspiration, and they’re even motivated to really get, you know, people are very excited when they’re starting businesses and things like that. And they don’t, they don’t always know the depth of, you know, different supply chains and things like that. And, you know, we had somebody come to us and our program, the captivate method, and they’re like, I want to do bottled water and plastic bottles as like, whoa, wait a minute. So we kind of, you know, had this conversation and talked about it, and it and they found a workaround solution in something that was biodegradable, and all that kind of stuff. But you know, it’s interesting, just to see, though, where people’s minds are at where they had a certain I forget exactly what the angle was that was mission driven about it. But it was still using resources that were not in line with those types of values. And you could still see that coming up to the surface, you’re like, Wow, so there’s just different mindsets, and I guess, understanding of these things at different levels. And it’s easy for you know, us to be like, it’s obvious, because we’re so knee deep in all this all the time that we forget that not everyone’s that that well versed in it yet.

Kat Luckock 23:29

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, some social entrepreneurs as well have very much a so called social focus or a very environmental focus. Yeah. And I think it’s, it starts, you know, it’s thinking about how can you bring those closer together, because although you might have a very specific social mission. And I believe that, you know, you should be able to build in some positive environmental impacts or reducing the negative environmental impacts within your business as well, just not as the core mission, but certainly as a business that does good and thinks through the wider impact. It’s having. Yeah, yeah. And so I think that’s a really interesting thing that I think, increasingly social entrepreneurs are coming to, and recognizing, but absolutely, I think we all come from a particular experience and on a particular part of the journey and have different worldviews and I think, it’s, it’s not a hierarchy of, you know, some people are more experienced and more knowledgeable, like, all of this stuff, is quite radical, new and exploratory. And the evidence is constantly kind of coming out and kind of also changing. And we don’t, you know, you just have to be open to learning all along the way and being willing to share that learning, I think, as well, because it’s, you know, there’s so much going on at the moment, there’s so much to learn, you know, you think you could be doing good in one area, but actually then you realize you’re having a negative impact. And sometimes I think we just have to accept that for the next 25-30 years. It’s going to be messy. You know, people we’re going to get it wrong, but without intentionally trying to do so. 100 percent, it’s just,

Adam G. Force 25:01

I mean, not everything could be perfect. And, you know, sometimes we’ll help people get to the point where like, they want to be at z in the alphabet right out of the gate. And sometimes you might have to take some steps in order to get to, you know, through ABC and D at first. So that you can get there. And, you know, for an example of that may be somebody that wants to have a market, like they’ll say, our audience are people in Kenya, or another area that maybe in Nepal, and we’re like, Wow, that’s amazing, they want to help them. But to have them as an audience, like, You’re, you’re obviously gonna need grants and funding regularly, because they’re not going to be people obviously, don’t have money to be a customer, right. And so to flip the business model into something that can earn profits, and earn money from people right on its own, versus the grants and everything else, and then using that money in a way that supports those others that you want it to so kind of like shifting things around a little bit, can make a big difference for people’s business model so that they can be self sustainable and not fighting for, you know, donations and grants on the regular.

Kat Luckock 26:11

Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s really important. And sometimes it’s just recognizing what and skills and expertise and that they can be sharing in in slightly different ways that may not have been, they may not have thought of as their sort of core business activities, but I absolutely generate income.

Adam G. Force 26:26

Yeah. And that happened to us too, because you know, out of the gate with Change Creator, we had this business model in mind that one was way too complicated for somebody starting out of the gate. And two was not revenue focused. Well, we thought we were right, we had this, the Change Creator magazine, which was has been stellar for brand equity and things like that, because we’ve connected with so many great people. But it’s a really tough sell an app that’s a magazine and and to actually be profitable, because your marketing dollars can only go so deep before you can return a profit, like on a Facebook ad, right. And so we learned all that the hard way. And we had to do like b2b support of our strategies and to help other clients. So we had to find another revenue channel, which was part of our overall business strategy in the long term. But it wasn’t, we had to pull that in early. We better start doing this b2b. I mean, you can build up an audience on these types of things like the magazine, but so anyway, you know, these things shift and change, and you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to get from one step to the next. And I think another great point that you made was regarding like, the social impact people have, and it’s like, your business doesn’t have to be about just one thing, like, Oh, my business social impact, is this, right? It’s like, Well, no, I’m just operating according to my values, which means yes, I pay people fairly Yes, I source ethical, you know, materials that are biodegradable, it’s just, it’s not like you don’t have to sit there and say, I’m a social, you know, enterprise, because I do this and fair trade, it’s, it’s just, this is just, you’re running a business that aligns to your values.

Kat Luckock 28:09

Exactly. And I think that’s where, that’s what’s really important. So and when I was saying before about this as an evolving space, as well, and there’s gonna be, and it’s great that we’ve got this huge diversity, because if we’re creating the future economy, we have to allow for all types of businesses. And I think we also have to allow for the fact that globally, there are difference. So my background is actually in interfaith and intercultural dialogue, and like bringing people together from backgrounds of different faiths and beliefs, and facilitating, sometimes difficult, but sometimes brilliant compensation. And I think we have to recognize that, you know, if we want this to happen, there’s going to be people have very different value sets of where they come from, and different worldviews and different belief systems. Yeah, and I definitely think there’s increasing commonality across those things. But we have to allow for that diversity, and that is somebody else, if somebody wants to focus more on the human rights aspect, or, you know, compared to somebody that wants to just eradicate plastic from the ocean, yeah, we should be able to allow the diversity of that within the economy. And so I think that’s really key.

Adam G. Force 29:15

It is it is, and the more that we have people approaching businesses for the right reasons, and that align to those values that they have, obviously, that power of collaboration gets stronger and stronger, which is an exciting development, and we see more and more of it, but there is a major gap in the social enterprises actually becoming profitable. So many are dropping off the map, because they just can’t figure out how to sell how to do the marketing and, and I think, you know, because we talked about it a little bit earlier, people tend to have a mindset, they have this mindset of service, which is great, but then they feel like well, you know, I just I want to help people. So like, I’m not gonna sit here and charge them when they’re going to tell me, you know, I don’t have a lot of money, but I can scrap it together and you’re afraid to take the money because now all of a sudden, you just want to help. You just want to give it away. And this bartering stuff starts to happen a lot. And next thing, you know, a year goes by and you’re like, I wonder why I’m not profitable yet. You and like you said in the beginning, people give away too much for free, right?

Kat Luckock 30:22

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s a real risk, and that we, as social learners have to recognize quite early on. Like, I think it’s great that people want to be that giving an altruistic, but I do think that lots of people make this decision, you know, a bit too late. I bet. Yeah. Like you said, a year or two years in, yeah. But it’s kind of like, if you want to run a business, you need to learn to be okay, with generating income, making sales and selling to people. And, and recognizing that you’re doing that for a greater good and to be in service to people. Yeah, and not to, and because unless you’re already very wealthy, there’s, you know, how else are you going to generate your income unless you’re going to go and work full time and, you know, try and do both things at the same time, which some people do successfully, but for me, that’s not now I want to I want to work, you know, I, it’s important to me that I find a good balance with work and life. Yes. And one of the same thing as well, actually, exactly. And so I think, yeah, so I think it’s just really important that social entrepreneurs really recognize and I think if they’re not feeling comfortable, Well, one thing I say to a lot of my clients is do you if you if you don’t, if you don’t want to? And if you don’t want to charge for your services, or you don’t feel like it’s right to charge for your services, why don’t you set up as a charity? And I think that’s a useful thing for lots of people to think about. Because certainly here in the UK, there is this, and lots of people do set up a social entrepreneur enterprises, I think sometimes because they misunderstand the concept of it. Yeah. And because there’s some funding, and they assume that there’s more funding available, if you set up a social enterprise, and there is charities, the reality is, it’s all quite, it’s just going away. And so, but I think it’s important because sometimes I think people do come social entrepreneurship. And actually, they do have a charity in mind, like, it’s a great charity, and it should be a charity, and they should focus on generating donations, or having crowdfunding or, you know, getting sponsorship and support. And I don’t have a problem with that. I think there’s probably still space for, you know, there is space for lots of charities. But I think you do, you know, if you’re a social entrepreneur, you have to you have to see yourself as an entrepreneur that you’re, you know, be business minded. And recognize, yeah, that and get to that. And it’s taken me a long, like, it’s probably taken me the best part of seven years to get to this place myself, but recognizing that it’s okay to make money, if you’re depending on how you’re choosing to use it. And for me, that’s the big thing. It’s like, are you, you know, I think our problem with money is often because of this perception, rightly or wrongly, and I’m not saying that this is necessarily the case, but rightly or wrongly, that money creates all the world’s problems. And the wealthy people are bad people, which I think interesting anyway, because, you know, most entrepreneurs are a long way off create methods, billion dollars, but at the same time, that’s, you know, they’re resistant to creating money and making wealth in their business, because that’s what they associated with it quite strongly. And I’m always quite surprised how strongly held that is in people. Yeah. But I think, yeah, it’s just becoming more comfortable with the fact that, you know, I’m on a journey of making money, but it’s because I want to create this change. And at the moment, this is how I create that change is by having money to invest in the things that I want to invest in or support or give back to, or enable. Yeah. So So yeah, absolutely.

Adam G. Force 33:45

Yeah. 100%. And I, and you know, and I want people to be excited about selling. And, you know, it’s interesting, because we had a client recently, and he was like, like, we part of our what we do in some of our b2b is we take our course and we have a do it for you kind of like, you know, for businesses. Yeah. And we had somebody that actually bumped up from our program and was like, I just want to get help, like, more intimately work. So we started working through some stuff, because, you know, he spent like, $150,000, over 20 years. He’s like an expert coach, or like pro athletes, Olympians only stuff. And he’s been a rock star. And so he’s like, I spent $150,000, trying to like help more people by going online. And he’s hiring marketing teams, website, teams, all these things. And it was so disjointed nothing really ever came together with his messaging, and it wasn’t making sales. And as we went through everything, and got more in tune with it, he was able to kind of, he’s like God, he made his first $3,000 a day within just two months, and he was like, Well, I’m so excited to sell now. He was a guy that we felt like this old perspective, but once we shifted the way he like saw things and was able to help people is like Now I’m excited, I can’t wait to sell more. And that’s what I would love to see more social entrepreneurs feeling.

Kat Luckock 35:05

Yeah. And I think that happens when you like, and that was certainly my experience of solutions to the planet, when we made those first few sales with corporates, it is exciting because that weight of I don’t really know how I’m going to do this, if we don’t get paid next month, or, you know, can I actually afford to pay the bills this month, which is, you know, that ongoing challenge. And at the, in the early days, as soon as you start seeing that money coming in, and you see that, it’s not just making the sale and having the money in your account, it’s the recognition that somebody’s putting value on what you’re doing. And that really motivates you. And it’s kind of it’s that external validation that no, this is of interest to other people, people want to be a part of it. And people see the difference that we’re making, it’s not all in our heads, they’re just making this up. And I think that’s as well, where the excitement really comes from. It’s like, it is a validation of all the time you’ve invested. And in the idea, yeah. And but it also I think, creates for us, it created the relationship with corporates. And it really changed my perspective of, of the business and industry as a whole, like, at the end of the day, recognizing that there are always people out there, and individuals in all sorts of different walks of life, but also, you know, all across business, who are really interested, passionate, and wanting to be supportive of what we were trying to achieve. And that they knew that they could enable that to happen through their business by paying for our services, you know, and they saw the value. And obviously, they saw the value that we added to them. But they also saw that by working with us in particular, there was additional value, and that we created. So I said, Yeah, and it does become exciting

Adam G. Force 36:46

It does become exciting. I mean, I was somebody that was the old mindset of money is the root of all evil kind of thing. And I, I probably subconsciously have some old, you know, residual thoughts around that stuff. But I’ve literally have read books about Biology of Belief or the subconscious mind, I’ve had to like, retrain and reprogram my brain to understand the power of this and how important it is and to appreciate it in the right perspective. So I know the feeling. And I would watch our you know, whether it was personal or business account, like float around certain dollars, it’s It was amazing how it would go up. But I always found my way back to a certain number. I was like, What the hell is going on here? And I started learning about money mindset. And I was like, holy crap, and totally sabotaging myself. And yeah, until that that work was done. And I’m still I do it all the time. It changed and all of a sudden, the universe starts opening up, you start seeing that you’re accepting money into your life, and you’re actually holding on to it.

Kat Luckock 37:47

Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s really important. And it is a challenge. I think it’s a challenge for all of us. And, but it’s something that we as it’s something I’m really passionate about helping social entrepreneurs and something I’m still working on just like you as well. It’s just one of those things. And I don’t think it I don’t think it ever goes I’m sure it doesn’t I’m sure that we all even, you know, multimillionaires have, I’m sure they have limiting beliefs around money as well

Adam G. Force 38:09

Must be I mean, it’s just it’s, it’s hard. And it’s hard to know what you’re, I kind of want to coach that can help me work through the subconscious stuff. Because it’s such a, I was reading this book, the Biology of Belief, and it’s like 90% of our daily actions are determined by the subconscious. So like, you can’t, it’s like, it’s like saying in the conscious mind, like, I want to lose weight. So I’m not gonna eat donuts anymore. You could say that all day long to yourself. But saying it consciously is like trying to wish the CD player to change the song. He’s like, you have to actually go and reprogram it, you have to actually change that what is playing. And until you can do that you will end up with a doughnut in your hand and before you know going son of a bitch, like, I gotta stop doing this.

Kat Luckock 38:56

Absolutely. It’s powerful stuff.

Adam G. Force 38:58

It is powerful. Listen, I appreciate the work you’re doing on both ends, the b2b and the with the entrepreneurs who needs support, especially focusing on you know, women and stuff. That’s cool. So how do people who are listening, learn more about what you’re doing and connect with you if they want to chat?

Kat Luckock 39:17

So if people want to connect, I’m on Facebook at shareimpact. And I also have a Facebook community called The Impact Entrepreneurs Club. And I’m also on Instagram at KatLuckockCoaching

Adam G. Force 39:34

So what about your website here shareimpact.org and you can find all kinds of stuff there too. Kathy, thanks for your time. today. It was fun to talk with a fellow educator and social entrepreneur. We will stay connected and talk soon. Brilliant.

Kat Luckock 39:52

Thanks Adam.

Adam G. Force 39:55

Thanks for tuning in to the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com folks Go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

Eric Partaker: Practical Steps to Transform Your Health and Wealth

Listen to our exclusive interview with Eric:

Change Creator · Eric Partaker: Practical Steps to Transform Your Health and Wealth

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Have you ever felt like you can’t get out of your own way? How can we overcome old habits and step into a new version of ourselves for more success? This is exactly what entrepreneur and author of 3 Alarms, Eric Partaker helps CEOs and entrepreneurs do.

Eric Partaker is a CEO of the Year, Top 30 Entrepreneurs in the UK, Formerly Skype, McKinsey, Serial Entrepreneur, Peak Performance Coach for CEOs and Entrepreneurs.

Learn more about Eric and his work at > www.ericpartaker.com.

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:00

And we are recording. Alright, so, three, two and one. Hey, Eric, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show. How’s everything going, man?

Eric Partaker 00:10

Going really well, thanks a lot. I’m excited to be here. And yeah, thanks for everyone who’s given us their time to listen, really appreciate that too.

Adam G. Force 00:20

Absolutely. Yeah, well, we’re gonna give them some juicy bits here and talk about some good stuff that will help their businesses. So, you know, before we get into it, I always like to know, I mean, everyone, you know, we tell a little bit about the history and stuff, but I kind of want to share Well, what’s happening most recently in your world these days? What are you focused on? what’s what’s the drama, The exciting stuff?

Eric Partaker 00:42

Yeah, well, okay. So, on the drama front, one of one of the most challenging things I had to deal with recently, I mean, I’ve done a lot of different things, you know, I’ve been a consultant help build up Skype, and it’s early days, and, and then I built a chain of restaurants here in the UK. And, sadly, the whole thing, you know, after 15 years of work with, with COVID, the whole thing went into bankruptcy, because just 00 sales, zero revenue environment, and cash eventually runs out. And so so that, that was, that was a big blow. And, you know, it took a while to kind of come to terms with that, but it also in a weird way, was easy or easier to come to terms with, because there’s little you can do, right, and so when it’s kind of totally outside of your control like that, then it somehow does make it you know, easier. But on the upside on the other side of the equation, you know, I was just on the board of that company. And, you know, my main focus right now is helping entrepreneurs, leaders, you know, CEOs just, you know, do do a much better job at just, you know, closing that, helping helping them helping them scale up not just you know, the the entities or the things that they’re working out, but helping them scale up themselves as well. So helping them become kind of like better people at the same time. And that’s, that’s what I do, you know, my day job now I work with, with with individuals and their organizations. And so that’s been very exciting. And the other exciting thing is I just wrote a book. So just read a book called The three alarms, out on Amazon. And that’s essentially a guide into how to close the gap between kind of your current and your best self.

Adam G. Force 02:56

Ah, I love that. Cool. And was there a particular inspiration for, you know, taking on the, from what I hear from a lot of other people in my network, the challenge of writing a book?

Eric Partaker 03:12

I mean, it is very challenging. Yeah. I, I had the benefit of somebody who helped me with the whole process and, and the whole thing. His name is Jeff Goins. Great guy. And he did, he did demystify it for me. And it’s like anything, though, it’s, you think it’s hard to do it? Right. So it’s like my seven year old when I said to him four weeks ago. Okay, so let’s take the training wheels off your bike. Yeah. And he was like, Ah, no, he’s like, that’s not gonna work. And sure enough, what happens? You take the training wheels off. And suddenly his face just lights up, because after the second or the third attempt, he suddenly go in for, you know, a good like, three seconds. Yeah. And what seemed impossible suddenly becomes, you know, possible. So it’s like, that was written a book as well. Right? So it’s like that way, everything.

Adam G. Force 04:18

Pretty much, you know, it’s funny, you bring up something, you know, with family, and, you know, my wife and I had a baby back in April. So he’s just over seven months, and he’s getting to that point where he’s like, trying to stand up, right. He’s like, climbing up like with his hands on the couch and getting up on his feet. And for the past several weeks now I watch him stand up, fall down, stand up, fall down. Sandell Hold on, and it’s just such a prime example of what you’re talking about. You’re not thinking about, oh, you know, I failed. It’s too hard. I’m just not going to do it anymore. Right. And you just keep going. He’s not even thinking about it so innocent, you know. And it doesn’t matter how many times he falls down sooner or later, that habit that constitency of him doing it every day, he gets better, he gets stronger. And next thing you know, he’s running right?

Eric Partaker 05:06

Totally. Yeah, exactly. It’s like that for like, literally everything in life. And, and so if there is anybody listening who is thinking about writing a book, and you’re like, I’ll get around to it someday, or I think it’s so daunting. A book gets written by doing the number one most important thing sitting down to write. And, yeah, if you focus on that on a daily basis, it gets done eventually, you know, you just focus on continually starting and the finishing takes care of itself.

Adam G. Force 05:36

Yeah, I’ve gotten a little obsessed with the idea of habits. And just doing small, attainable habits every day, every week, whatever it might be, consistently. And when you do that, it just slowly chips away. Same thing with the book, right? You’ll just slowly it’ll get there sooner or later, you just got to consistently put the effort in. So it’s awesome that you put it together, you got it done, it’s out. So congratulations on that. So let’s talk a little bit about it. I mean, what so let’s just like in a nutshell, let’s just we’ll break it down. But in a nutshell, what is the intention of the book for, say, the people who are listening to this podcast? What do they get learning from it?

Eric Partaker 06:21

Well, I like to think of it this way, if I had a magic button, and I went around the world, and I said to every single person, look, if you press this button, you’ll instantly become the best version of yourself. Is there anybody on the planet? Who would press the button? Right? It’s like, everyone, yes, a regard. And I think this is our one universal faith, regardless of you know, religion, or spirituality, or geography or age, I think the one thing that unites us all is a desire to unlock our potential to become all that we’re capable of being and to become the best version of ourselves. And so if that’s a universal desire, the book then starts from Okay, well, if we all want this, what’s the issue that, you know, it’s not, it’s not the desire, we all have that. And we want to do that. So the issue is more how, you know, how do we do it? How do we navigate, you know, the up and down terrain of, of life. And so the book presents three house, if you will, okay. So how to how to step into being your best to the power of identity, how to optimize yourself for action, through increased productivity, and how to get much better at handling the unexpected, by building your anti fragility, so identity, productivity, and anti fragility, IPA, like the beer but better for you.

Adam G. Force 07:54

So I know, you can handle the unexpected based on your restaurant story that you just just gave me. Let’s before we get into that, I want to talk a little bit about productivity, because it’s popular for people. Now, you you’ve been, you know, reading your biography here, you know, as a CEO, coach, mentor, you’ve got a top 30 entrepreneurs in the UK, you know, all kinds of, you know, recognition, right. So you’ve done a lot. And I’m just curious, what have you learned about productivity from your experience over the years? Right, so can you tell us a little bit about that the evolution of yourself?

Eric Partaker 08:39

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So first, it starts with the fact that I used to be the world’s worst procrastinator. Yep. And I mean, I would sit down, and within five minutes, I’d be distracted working on something else, I’d sit down, be trying to focus on something, I feel this, like, insatiable desire to have to move and do something else. And it was just awful. So all of my success came at, you know, I have a heavy price and with a lot of a lot of pain. And there’s a handful of things which I implemented, which I talked about in the in the book, amongst other things that have had a profound effect in my experience, and in the experience of, you know, the people that I coach and so what I’ll what I’ll get people listening is three powerful routines. And of course, there’s more here, but you know, these are three things to run with. So, one is recognizing that a productive day doesn’t begin the day out, but it begins the night before was getting eight hours of sleep. Yeah. And if you get less than eight hours asleep, your studies clearly demonstrate that you’re going to be more prone to distraction You’re gonna have trouble focusing at some point, probably be a bit more irritable and anxious. All things which don’t bode well for productivity. Yeah. And so the way that we protect our eight hours asleep is by launching a campaign against all of the artificial light that really shouldn’t be going into our eyes so late at night, because when the light from your phone, from your TV, from your tablet from your laptop, when that gets picked up by the eyes, it goes into, literally gets picked up at the center of your brain by a gland called the pineal gland. And then that gland then says, Oh, it’s still daylight out. So we’re going to start producing melatonin. And your melatonin production drops by 50%. You need melatonin to sleep well, it’s a sleep inducing hormone. And so the first routine to implement is what’s called a digital sunset. And it says simply means all the electronics go off one hour before bed, so that you can go to sleep with a brain full of melatonin and actually get the eight hours of rest that you need. The second thing is, how do you start your day in the morning, and most people start their day me included in the past now these days anymore, but they start their day in reactive mode. And what I mean is that they’ll start their day, typically in their inbox on social media, looking at the news, they might do this on the way to the bathroom, while they’re still in bed on their way to you know, have some coffee. And this really damages productivity once again, because it puts you into this scatterbrained kind of, you know, state, and instead, what I would encourage people to do, and you’ll experience a huge shift in your productivity, if you follow this is just to start the day, focus on being creative, rather than being reactive. And by being creative. I mean, you know, work on one of the top three most important things that you know you should be doing, but that you haven’t provided any time for yourself to do. Yeah, and if you just do that, for the first hour of the day has a huge impact on the rest of the day. And then the last routine I’d recommend people install is the routine or the habit of single tasking. We lose 28%, on average of our workday to the inefficiency that results from jumping from one thing to the next, start working on a presentation in your inbox, you reheat your coffee, go back to the presentation, you answer the phone, you answer an email, go back to the presentation, suddenly, the hours up, you look back and be like I only worked 12 minutes in the presentation. So 28% loss of the day, means that if we extrapolate that to the working weeks within a year, that means that the average person there’s loses 13 weeks a year to jumping around on stuff, the inefficiency that results from doing that 13 weeks a year, that means the average person is losing an entire quarter every year, they’re playing with three quarters in their year instead of the full four. So of course, they don’t feel productive. And if we extrapolate that across a 40 year career, the average person loses a decade. What could you do with an extra decade? That’s like two extra careers there? Yeah, so. So we get better on this last routine by really focusing on single tasking. And that’s, you know, phone out of sight off, don’t have 17 browsers open, you know… Don’t if you’re working on a document on your computer, put it in full screen mode, just eliminate all of the distractions, and really catch yourself and focus on I’m going to work just on this for 30 minutes, just on this for 60 minutes. I’m not going to jump around to anything until that block of time is done. And when you do that, you can reclaim that missing quarter every single year.

Adam G. Force 14:03

Yeah, wow. I mean, that’s a lot of time that you miss out on I you know, and I I’m one of these people to where, you know, several years ago, you know, starting my first business I was I was all over the place and I know exactly what you mean, when you sit down. It’s it’s the I always talk about the cringe list, which is like things we don’t necessarily want to do but have to be done. And yeah, it’s like sitting down to do that presentation. But you end up like doing, you know, some something else that you enjoy doing. And, and you’re easily distracted. And I see you know, through our our captivate program, we have a lot of students that come through there, and it’s the same story because we have all these ideas. There’s so much stimulation coming at us throughout the day, and work on someone I spoke to once before put it really well. They’re like, You’re like a dog who sees a squirrel and you chase the squirrel, right? It distracts you and you run after it. It’s like There you go. And I know this is a major pain point for a lot of entrepreneurs and something I had to work really hard on. And I still continue to always work hard on his discipline. And you can’t have discipline if you don’t have focus, right. So the things you’re talking about, I think, are instrumental to nurturing that focus.

Eric Partaker 15:23

100 100%. And the more productive days you can string together, you know, the more focus that you have, the happier, more fulfilled, you’ll end up being because you’ll be achieving the things that you you you want to be doing. You know,

Adam G. Force 15:39

That’s it. That’s the bread and butter, right? It’s like, you have something you want to do. You got to have a you know, I think Jim Rohn put it, I think it was Jim Rohn. He said, You can struggle through the discipline, or you can struggle with the regret.

Eric Partaker 15:54

Yeah, so pick…

Adam G. Force 15:55

Pick one. Yeah, I mean, cuz it’s hard it mean, we’re all human, right? Not ever, you wake up at four 430 in the morning, and your emotional side wants to hold you back. And your logical side says, This is what you need to do in order to become the best version of yourself that you want. Right? So you have to you just got to make these decisions and stick with it. But we all struggle with that. Right?

Eric Partaker 16:22

Yeah. 100% and that, you know, that’s a good segue to another area that I cover within the book, which is about identity, young kids. If If you can bring more intentionality into your life and and say this is who I want to be, you’ll, you’ll suddenly tap into the power of behavior following you know, identity and what I mean is that we get to choose you know, as a kid if I if I give my seven year old was talking about Leo before my seven Yeah, if I put a spider man costume I don’t need to tell Leo then. Okay, this is what you should do next. I put him in the costume. He doesn’t need training, he doesn’t need instruction. Immediately he’ll start shooting webs from his wrist jumping around and making funny noises. Right? Yeah. So and we all have this this superpower you know, as kids we you put the superhero costume on and behavior follows identity it just we just we become that person. And so I do this on the three most critical fronts of life every single day, the three most important things people you know, are are consumed, you know, with her about his their health, you know, their wealth and I don’t mean like turning into a billionaire I just mean you know, having the wealth and the means that provide you with the life that you want. Yeah. And, and our relationships, health, wealth and relationships, also the three most search topics on the internet. Right, so So I took that as a as a guide, and I chose and created a superhero identity on each of those fronts. So something a phrase that represented me at my best and then I put that into my phone and time that identity to go off to show at the time of day that would most benefit from being powered by that superhero version of me so at 6:30am the first alarm goes off it says world fitness champion because that’s me when I go into the gym I it’s that version of me right? At 9am next alarm goes off world’s best coach to remind me how to show up for my clients and at 6:30pm most powerful alarm of all goes off for me it says world’s best husband and father to prompt the question How would the world’s best husband and father walk through that door right now? Yeah, so by bringing that intentionality into play, I you know, I have something to shoot for right and something to measure myself against. And, and it just changes the way I show up on on those three fronts.

Adam G. Force 19:14

So good way to trigger that because you know, we don’t we we can think about these things, acknowledge them, even write them in our journals. But as the days go by, if we’re not reminding ourselves, we may not show up that way, right? We we forget or we we digress in some way to old behaviors. I love the idea of triggers like that. And and the I wrote down what you said, I think this is a great quote, behavior follows identity, right. So to become that person, you know, we as people fight, fight, fight to do stuff with their business, their life, whatever it might be. They start realizing that they have to become a different person. And you have to take these steps to do it. And the first thing is to what does it feel like to be that person and remind yourself, so I love the identity strategy that that’s pretty cool.

Eric Partaker 20:11

Exactly, exactly. And it’s all about making this stuff. Like super simple and, you know, easy to, to apply. And I think people need less theory more kind of like, practice. Right?

Adam G. Force 20:24

Yeah, I think that I’m glad you said that. Because it’s true. I mean, you can you can read a lot of books from guys like Robert Kiyosaki and others, you know, say someone’s trying to get rich, whatever it is, there’s a lot of theory, and it’s inspiring, and it can give you some perspective shifts, but there’s not a lot of practicality and, you know, anecdotes or steps you can take, you know, to start doing those things the right way, right, you’re kind of left to figure it out on your own.

Eric Partaker 20:53

Totally, totally. So, so and so in, in, in the book, I take people through lots of practical tools to help them, you know, step into being their best on the identity front, improve their productivity. And, you know, we didn’t, we didn’t talk about it much, but there’s loads of tools in there about building your anti fragility as well. And just, you know, as a wrap up point, as a thank you, for anyone who’s listened all the way up to this point, you know, like, seriously, big thank you to you. And, and if you head over to my website, as a as a thank you additional Thank you. I’m glad to gladly give you caught a free digital copy of the book. So if you just head over to Ericpartaker.com. And you could pick up a free digital copy of the book. And there’s also some free training and worksheets to help you embed some of the some of the concepts. So if you’re listening, and you want to take any of this stuff a little bit further, go a little bit deeper. There you go. And we’ll welcome you with open arms.

Adam G. Force 22:17

Yeah, me, and we’ll have the URL in the show notes, you know. And Eric, you know, but we got a couple minutes. Before we wrap up. I also just want to kind of touch on that last part that we didn’t talk about too much. Just real quick. Give me a little insight on that, was it fragility? Is that you said?

Eric Partaker 22:35

Anti fragility? Yeah. So Nassim Taleb, he wrote a great book called anti fragile, and basically, what so when you ask the average person, what’s the opposite of fragile, don’t say something like robust or resilient. And it’s not really the opposite, you know, so fragile, if you’re a fragile person, you get ahead a few times you break if, if you’re a robust person, you can take more of a beating, but eventually, you know, still break. If you’re a resilient person. Well, definition of resilience is simply that it absorbs shock, and it stays the same. So anti fragile means the more you get hit, the stronger you become. I say, and, and that’s where we want to get to, that’s where we want to be playing. And people people may think, Well, yeah, but Okay, now we’re getting all theoretical, this, this isn’t real. But you’re dead wrong. Because every single person listening right now, all of us, our bodies are like the perfect Temple of antifragility. So what I mean is that you stress a muscle and it causes it to grow. Right, you expose the body to germs and bacteria builds the immune system. So you’re already anti fragile. You just need to get what’s naturally going on in your body, which isn’t intelligence in and of itself, right. And you need to get that into your head into your mind consciously because it’s happening without you even realizing it subconsciously. And the way we do that, you know, that the top tip I’ll give people is simply to reframe stress, it starts there. There’s loads of other tips in the book to build on that. But at the Foundation, it’s reframing stress. And what I mean by that is that stop pursuing, stop stressing yourself out by pursuing a stress free life and exactly and instead, realize that stress builds strength. And in the same way that if you’re at the gym and you step towards a dumbbell rack and you pick up a weight and you curl it and it you know, makes you stronger, every every challenge, you know, moment of adversity thing that doesn’t go your way. Turn life into one Big mental gym, all of these are being are like dumbbells or weights being presented to you. And you can either run away from them and then you don’t get stronger, you can step towards them. You know, grab hold complete, the repetition becomes stronger as a result, right?

Adam G. Force 25:15

Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Partaker 25:17

So that’s where antifragility starts with the reframing.

Adam G. Force 25:20

Nice. Yeah, I love it. Man, I love I love all three topics that you’re hitting, because they’re so important. You know, we get really hung up on the tactics and the business skills. And yes, you need business skills, but they’re gonna be worthless if you haven’t mastered these fundamentals of productivity in different disciplines and habits and things like that. So that sounds like you’re offering a lot of good perspective shifts, but also practical steps people can take to start implementing them in a way that’s understandable.

Eric Partaker 25:52

Yeah, that’s the whole point. That’s, that’s what I was shooting for. So yeah, so yeah. Yeah. I hope that was useful.

Adam G. Force 26:03

It is it is. And I appreciate you taking the time to jump on and just kind of share your story with us. And, you know, I gotta get a hold. Can I get we get you for one more minute? Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to hear a little more on the, you mentioned the restaurants, they had a chain of restaurants. What was that all about? I mean, so you start, it’s more like several restaurants Like what? Like, what’s up with that?

Eric Partaker 26:29

Yeah, so I help build up Skype in it’s early days. And then this is going back like 1615 years ago. And then we had we sold to eBay for about $4 billion. And then after that, I was thinking, what to do next. And I was, you know, I live I live in London in the UK, but I grew up grew up in Chicago, even though I haven’t been I haven’t lived in the US for for 20 years. Yeah. And, and I thought, well, when did I have the most fun? And it was in the restaurant industry. And then I was missing Mexican food. So I decided to start a chain of, well, it was one restaurant, and then you know, eventually it grew into 12. And, and, yeah, and so I was just kind of following, you know, following a passion and did that for you know, well over a decade. So. So yeah,

Adam G. Force 27:28

That is a tough industry too, man and to do multiple restaurants. Kudos to you.

Eric Partaker 27:34

Yeah, it is. It is. Thank you. It’s very, very tough industry. But if you kind of pay tribute to what people find most important, which for me, it’s all about the flavor at the end of the day, and then you get rewarded.

Adam G. Force 27:49

Love it, man. Awesome. Well, listen, thanks again. Congratulations on all the great work and the book that you have out. Sounds like it’s gonna help a lot of people. So guys, you can pop on over to Ericpartaker.com. It’s spelled just like it sounds really. So pretty simple. Grab a free copy of the book. I mean, you have nothing to lose, but a lot to gain. Right, Eric, thanks again. We’ll catch you next time, man.

Eric Partaker 28:14

Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Adam G. Force 28:16

All right. Bye bye bye.

#interview

Adam, Amy, & Danielle: Seriously, What’s My Niche?

Change Creator · Adam, Amy, & Danielle: Seriously, What’s My Niche?

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

You might be surprised to find out that most entrepreneurs struggle with truly understanding their niche. Join the Captivate coaches, Danielle, Amy, and Adam for this roundtable discussion about a topic they get asked about over and over and over — do I really need to niche down? What is my niche?

Here’s what they will discuss…

— Why do you need clarity of self first?
— What is a niche and why do we need it?
— What does this mean to your sales?

PLUS so much more.

If you’ve been struggling to sell, to really find that core audience, you’ll want to pay attention to this discussion today.

Get more training at changecreator.com/gobig

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Danielle Sutton 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host Adam Force co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life. To go big, visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast happy to have you here for another episode. If you missed the last episode, it was with Trudy lebrun. And we talked about creating an anti racist business spin a big topic, obviously, with everything that has happened in 2020. And she has a lot of experience in supporting companies to kind of see where changes can be made. And I think you’re gonna get a lot out of this conversation. So if you missed it, it’s really powerful stuff. And it’s very important. So hopefully, you get a chance to circle back check it out. So for this next episode, I have myself, Danielle and Amy. So Danielle and Amy are both co creators of the captivate method, we are coaches, they’re one of our programs, and we’re getting together to talk about your niche. You know, it’s funny how so many people, you know, we start our businesses or we’re a few years in whatever your case may be. But we’re not really clear on what our niche is. Many times we think we are until we start digging a little deeper until we start realizing that we’re not getting the sales, or we’re not attracting the right people that we had in mind as our ideal customer, right? So we’re going to talk about why you need clarity itself. What a niche is, and you know why it’s important? And what does it mean to your sales, right. So if you’ve been struggling to sell and really, you know, attract your perfect customer, this is going to be a really important conversation for you to check in on. So we’re going to dive into that in just a minute. If you guys haven’t had a chance, stop by Change Creator, calm forward slash go big. We have a new training up there, you could check it out all about authentic brand storytelling. This is one that I took on myself, and I’m going to walk you through all kinds of really good insights that will be very valuable for you. All right. This is been my wheelhouse for the past 20 years in business, branding, brand, identity, storytelling, all these types of things. And when there’s some really powerful insights that I share about the industry, what’s going on the market, so I think you’ll get a lot out of that there’s just a lot of it. So just carve out, it’s about an hour, so it’s an hour within a QA, like some frequently asked questions at the end that we go through. And I kind of walked through all kinds of stuff. So check it out. It’s Change Creator comm forward slash go big, you’ll find it there. Alright, guys, we’re gonna jump into this conversation and talk about your niche. Okay, show me the heat. What’s up, everybody? So what are we even talking about? Today, we’re gonna talk about the infamous power of niche is something that we continue to talk about a lot internally here at Change Creator and with the captivate method, because a lot of students and people that we mentor and coach, they struggle with finding that niche, or a lot of times, they don’t realize they don’t have the niche. And that’s why they’re, they’re having a hard time with their messaging and having a hard time with connecting with their actual audience. So there’s a good example that I think Danielle has. So Danielle, maybe just a quick intro for yourself, and you could share that great story that you have

Amy Aitman 04:04

So much fun to have you here today, Danielle.

Danielle Sutton 04:07

Yeah. Thanks for having me. It’s super fun to hop on these lives with you guys. Always a blast. So, yeah, my name is Danielle Sutton. I’m one of the CO creators of the captivate method along with Adam and Amy. And yeah, niching is something we talk about a lot with our calculators, something I have a lot of personal experience with. And all of the people that I’ve coached over the years, it always comes up, right because as Adam said, it you get it’s something that you can really get tripped up on. If you’re feeling like you’re unclear about what to say or you feel like, you know, you’re being vague or wishy washy. It’s a nice problem, right? So, and it can go miles miles in terms of helping if you if you kind of talk it through and get clear and clear. So for my example, my personal example is when I started my company about seven years ago now, I really started with this idea. I want to Work with nonprofits. I had I ever worked for a nonprofit? No. Had I ever started my own nonprofit? No. But this was, you know, I was really passionate about social entrepreneurship, and using the power of business for good. And I saw, from my own perspective, like, wow, the nonprofit industry is, you know, ready to take this by storm, and like, I’m the one to help them.

Amy Aitman 05:27

I love that enthusiasm.

Danielle Sutton 05:31

Right. I mean, I was, you know, young and naive and hadn’t had seven years under my belt yet. So I thought this would be a no brainer, like no problem. And just because you see an opportunity of how you can help, if it’s not aligned, which is what we’re going to talk about, it’s not necessarily going to be the best fit. So what I learned through trial and error is that I was, you know, speaking about nonprofits integrating more entrepreneurial strategies, and it just kind of like, it was felt though, it just kind of didn’t land as well as I wanted, I wasn’t getting people, you know, coming to me excited, necessarily, I was just kind of like, roaming around talking about this. And, and it wasn’t until I started to talk more about my own experience as an individual entrepreneur, who, you know, didn’t set up a nonprofit, but was still using the same strategies and principles. I was a solo entrepreneur, once I started speaking more about my own experience, I was attracting those types of people. And we had really great conversations, I was able to create a lot more impact and connect with them a lot better, because I was also that person, right? And it just felt so much better. And they got a lot more value out of it. And I felt way more aligned. And I knew exactly what to share. And because I knew what their struggles were. So that’s kind of the first thing we wanted to talk about today is that that clarity of self goes a long way in in aligning and landing on a niche that’s going to really work for you. And so I you know, I still was doing the same type of work, but very specific for solo entrepreneurs, who were starting potentially for profit businesses and not not in the nonprofit bucket doesn’t mean the work they were doing was that different. But the messaging was totally different. And the path was quite different to get there. That’s a good story that gives a great example and it actually reminded me of the same exact thing you know, before Change Creator guys, I was trying to create hemp water bottles, and I tried to start a media page for like a Facebook page for like rain forest protection. And as I was right I was literally writing articles on rainforest like biodiversity, all these things and trying to become like really become an expert in that space. And it felt like something I was passionate about, because I hate seeing the rainforest destroyed. But it also like you said it didn’t feel like it aligned, right. So it’s something I chose, right? Something that I uncovered that was in line with who I was that that Kyra L. and I literally still have my old notebook. It’s like one of these small ones. I was writing so many notes traveling on the trains. And when I was working back in the day, trying to figure this all out. And I would have all these notes about going in, I didn’t even know what I was doing at the time, besides figuring myself out. And I called it self inventory. At the time, I was taking an inventory of my my skills, my passions, my gifts, like my values, like all these different things and trying to figure out how to like connect these dots. And then finally I came to this conclusion that I was leaning into the wrong niche based on who I was. And then it led me to Change Creator and it’s a complete reflection of who I am.

Amy Aitman 08:05

That sounds like a lot of coaching that we do in the captivate method is like, let’s get you really clear on who you are, and who you can serve the best because all of us social good leaders and social impact people guess what we want to help everyone, right? We want many people as we want. Yeah, so many people that come to us have big ideas, they want to create movements, they want to create serious change in the world. And we love that we want you guys to go viral. We want you to guys to have your big ideas. We want everyone to know who you are. But it can’t it doesn’t start that way. A movement starts with you know, you helping the right two people.

Adam G. Force 09:24

Yeah,

Danielle Sutton 09:26

That reminds me of a client that I worked with who is an urban farmer. So he’s really passionate about climate change and soil health and healthy food and would you know, do spin farming in the city. So take over people’s lawns that they weren’t using and grow food and like, do the whole thing. And he wouldn’t we would do our sessions, like he had so much passion about soil and all these like really big, big issues. But he just needed to get his hands in the dirt. But there was always this confusion of like, I want to do speaking, I want to do a course I want to, you know, start, do more activism around this. But at the end of the day, his business was spin farming and he had to go get his hands in the dirt. And so there was this always this tension around it. And you know, we did a lot of talking about how can you be part of that bigger thing, but do your one piece and niche gives you that power to really make a difference in that in that one piece.

Amy Aitman 10:25

That’s a really good point is that a niche can give you so much more power in the bigger scheme in the bigger picture. It’s like a superpower

Danielle Sutton 10:36

It is. A superpower that that you dial into, right? And I think a good example actually is an amazing human being who’s in the captivate method that we worked with closely, Rubin. Because what is it? What does niching actually mean? To your sales? Right? That’s one of the things we want to talk about today. And it made me Just think of this, you know, Ruben is a rock star. And he had all kinds of experience of training, like Olympians as a coach, and all these other high performing pro athletes and stuff like that. But when he decided to go online, he kind of wanted to scale as big as he could. That was the objective of going online is reaching as many people as possible. And he had this big heart that he put out on the internet, which was, I want to transform your life I want I believe in collaboration, I believe in it. And it got so diluted from what he did like offline, right? And so we looked at everything, and he had no clarity on anything. So what does it actually mean to your sales? Well, after we worked with him very closely, we went through all these crazy processes, we found his theme, his niche, right. And within just two months, he started selling a 1500 dollar program. And instead of feeling like I don’t really want to sell, I just want to help people. Now he feels like I can’t wait to sell because I’m selling something that I know is transforming someone’s life. And it’s so in line with who he wants to be and how he wants to contribute back. Right? Yeah. And what is it into sales, that means you actually get sales. Yeah. And the transformation.

Adam G. Force 12:04

And the transformation

Danielle Sutton 12:05

Because if you are purpose, building your solution for a very specific person, you can purpose build it so that you know, A, B, C, D, they are going to take the right steps and get the results. If you’re kind of building a general solution, the steps are going to be general and you can’t guarantee the results like you can when you’re very specific.

Amy Aitman 12:27

And it’s really hard to get up that hill when you’re talking when you’re thinking in general terms and you’re thinking reaching everyone. When you really narrow your focus and narrow your niche, it becomes really easy to create a new product to create a new offer to create some new marketing things. Because Yeah, everything is so specific and niche. I mean, I like to think of my friend, a local friend who has who’s a baker and she had really a lot of success in the Kate in the Cato space. Like she lost weight and she was feeling great. And she started just to have a little candle bakery. So this was like no sugar. Cato I like I don’t know everything about the keto diet, but it’s, you know, higher fats and whatever. But she wasn’t just she didn’t just start a bakery and start a small business. She started a Cato bakery locally. And her facebook group within I’d say a year got to like 22,000 people, because he was so nice. She was like anyone know, anyone in the Kitchener Waterloo area that I live that wants to do Cato, or wants sugar free baked goods that are that don’t use gluten knows that knows to go to her. And her business just expands, expands, expands, expands all the time. I was like, every time I talked to her, she’s like, Yeah, I got another 5000 people, a group, like so crazy, because it’s just so narrow. But she could have just been like, I love to bake and I want to bake and I want to help everyone with my baking and she would have really gotten stuck in that area. Right? Because…

Danielle Sutton 13:59

Yeah, I mean, that’s a good example of, we were just talking before we came on about how do you actually know if your niche down enough? Right? Are the signs? Yeah, are you because, again, it can be hard to see yourself. And that’s why it’s so beautiful being in coaching and in group programs because you have people to reflect things back to you and ask you questions. And sometimes you get some big lightbulb moments there. But how do you guys like to, like how do you know if someone’s niche down enough?

Adam G. Force 14:30

Are you asking us?

Danielle Sutton 14:31

I was going to keep talking but I’d rather shoot it back to you guys. Yeah, I mean, you’re gonna know because you’re gonna attract the right people to your business. So for example, I’m Amy’s friend who has a bakery, I would not be buying keto. It filters it both ways, right? You’re gonna get people who say, Oh, I need gluten free. I need keto. And I’m gonna say well, that’s not for me. So now you’re not gonna have people who are going This is interesting. It might work for me, but I’m not sure. So you don’t have that anymore. When you have a niche you have I know that’s for me, like specifically, right? People say raise their hand. There’s no there’s no vague like, maybe I could use the right. They’re like, no, that’s me. I need that. Thank you very much. Please help me.

Adam G. Force 15:19

Exactly. Go ahead

Amy Aitman 15:22

Another good sign is when people can introduce you, and they know exactly what they do when someone else can tell your story or tell your little one line, what you do. You’re pretty, you’re pretty clear. It’s like when we have that wishy washy vagueness like Danielle was talking about before, that’s when you know that you’re not nice enough. It’s like if someone else can say Daniella, I want to introduce you to so and so. Who does this? Because I know you do this, then.

Danielle Sutton 15:47

Yeah. And that’s exactly what happened to me. Amy. Right. So with that, my first story. And people were always very confused at the beginning, like Danielle does is weird online stuff with entrepreneurs, I don’t really know. And over time, as I got, as I got more clear about myself, and how I wanted to work with people and who I wanted to work with, then people started sending other people my way, because they knew that I could help them. And so then I was receiving input and receiving inquiries and not going after inquiries. And that’s also a good sign is when your referral. And yeah, people send their friends to you for a certain thing, a membership person, that nonprofit person, like you know, very specifically, and it’s easy to to point people in that direction. I love that. And then I will, I will tell my little Rachel Miller story. We mentioned her because she’s a rock star in the face, rock star in the Facebook space. And people might think that if I go niche, I won’t make as much money, right. So that’s like a, that’s like a limiting belief that people have, and they get FOMO fear of missing out. So I want to reach everybody, and I want to get more, but actually marketing to more people is very expensive, and you get less return for your money. So the quick example, as she was telling me, we had a phone call one time, she’s again, I have this woman who’s one of my students, and she has a Facebook page for like, accountants who are women in their 40s, or something like that, like really dialed in, you know, and it’s like, she was telling her like, how many people do you think really, you’re going to get here? And she said, Well, and so she had a page of just like, I think it was like 165 or 200 people on the page. And that’s it. And she was making $10,000 a month of reoccurring revenue, which blew my mind, just from those people. So when Rachel was like, Hey, can I share your success story and a link to your page for people to see like how you have it all set up and everything? She’s like, No, no, no, no, because I don’t want anybody that is not my audience to come in. Right. So she really drew a line in the sand there. But the power of the niches, you know, very specific group of people who are going to be very passionate and loyal to what you’re offering. And small numbers can have a lot of value, if they’re all engaged, and they’re paying customers, you know,

Amy Aitman 18:02

Definitely.

Danielle Sutton 18:04

Well, that’s a good segue into our little analogy that we like to share about niching in terms of if you think of all the resources available to you to get your message out and find the ideal people to work with. You can think of a little drop of food coloring, a little blue dropper, right? So imagine one little drop of blue food coloring has all of your time, your money, your energy, and that you have available in 24, seven amount of time in your life to to connect with the right people. So if you take that one little drop, and you drop it into a Tupperware of water, is anybody like, is the water gonna turn blue? No, it’s just gonna be clear, it’s gonna stay exactly the same, that little drop disappears, that all that energy and effort just goes poof, right? Yeah, if you take that same drop of energy, and you drop it into a small little glass of water, it’s gonna be blue. And you are making a difference. It’s visible. And it’s contained. It’s, it’s a smaller audience, but it’s way more impactful. So that’s how we like to think about niching rather than great visual.

Adam G. Force 19:12

There’s a book on a similar topic, the Red ocean blue ocean. Yeah, yeah. It’s such a, it’s a good way to help think about that. And it makes a lot of sense because a lot of major categories, the top level, categories health, you know, well, like these things, like, they’re just so saturated, big players in there throwing lots of money, like, that’s the blue ocean, that’s the blue drop of water, like, you’re never gonna stand out there. You’re just gonna get crushed until you go another layer deep and then another layer deep and you start creating your own red ocean, right? That’s like unique into its own self. So part of it is like, how are you going to stand out if you’re in an ocean of saturation that’s just going to crush you with big players.

Amy Aitman 19:56

Thats where that clarity of self comes back in to play again, because it becomes your differentiator, if you figure out what your story is what you do, how you can help. So specifically, that’s where your marketing has so much power. That’s where your business has so much power because it becomes your differentiator, and you get more and more niche. And you’re like, we put that tiny little glass, so that you are so brainy.

Danielle Sutton 20:21

Yeah, I was literally talking about this with one of our captivators last week. And when you’re in an industry where it’s a little bit generic or more of like a commodity, like, like web design, or fitness training, like some of these things, there’s just in every neighborhood, there’s somebody with a business offering the service, and it’s great, like people need all that. But you need a way to stand out from the crowd, you need a way to differentiate yourself with your own stories. And with the niche, the layers, like Adam was saying, and it makes the world of difference.

Amy Aitman 20:53

And I remember back in my agents that when i when i was really focused on my agency, and they first started, figuring out this niche for yourself is a process. And it’s not easy, like it does help to have coaching and mentors and people that are helping you clarify that because most of us just think that like if I just promoted myself as a content strategist, that’s enough. Like I do content strategy. And as you dig as you dig in, I mean, personally, for me, I was very to way too broad, did not figure out what I did not figure out what I could do. And like we do help a lot of people in like in the kaktovik method with this, because people come and say, oh, I’ve got my target audience, I’ve got my niche down. And then we ask questions, and then we say it becomes, it’s something that you can’t just I feel like nobody can just do perfectly by themselves. It’s not you don’t create your niche in a bubble.

Adam G. Force 21:49

Its tough when you’re so close to something, and you have your own, because you have your own beliefs around it, and your own limiting beliefs, like we talked about the FOMO, right. So you may not acknowledge those about yourself, but they will be holding you back and keeping you at this niche that you think you have. So when we ask questions, and this becomes such, it became such a topic of discussion in our coaching calls, that we created additional lessons in the program to go really deep on the topic, because if you’re not nailing this, you’re going to struggle to get results and obviously want everyone to get results. So that was an area that came up so much that we actually put in that extra content there to talk about it. So now it’s important, and it’s tough. When you’re when you’re doing it, as I said, I struggle to like I struggled for a long time trying to figure out niches for different businesses and stuff. And it can be really tough if you don’t have someone to bounce it off of, because you have your own blocks.

Danielle Sutton 22:52

And you know what the funny thing is, is because it’s so aligned to your clarity of self. And when we are thinking about ourselves, sometimes we miss the most obvious things. And so oftentimes when we go through this process, you come full circle, and then you’re like, of course like that, of course that makes sense. Yeah, did I not see that? It’s because it was so close to you so obvious. And so that having that opportunity for reflection and conversation is so valuable

Amy Aitman 23:18

It is

Adam G. Force 23:19

I know we’re gonna wrap up here. But one other thing I want to say is like… Have you ever have those moments where it’s like, You’re like, okay, someone says something, they teach something to do something and you’re like, Oh, I get it, I get it. And you like having your head like, okay, that’s cool, whatever, I got it. And then like a couple months go by and someone else like, teaches a different way different perspective. And all of a sudden, like this light bulb goes off, like you just said, Danielle, and you’re like, Oh, now I really do get that. Yeah, like clear. I mean, I’ve had that happen to me on the most basic concepts where it’s like, you get these newfound layers of clarity. It’s like, and then you say it to you like oh my god, I had an epiphany. And then you say it out loud to yourself or to like your partner, I would tell me and I’m like, this is like the same thing we’ve heard a million times over. Why did I never see it the way I’m seeing it right now. It’s crazy.

Danielle Sutton 24:11

Every day and you’re a new person, right? New experiences and it adds up. But yeah, I’ve totally done that too.

Adam G. Force 24:19

Alright everybody thanks so much for joining today. We will see you on the next episode.

Amy Aitman 24:27

Bye guys

Danielle Sutton 24:27

Bye

Adam G. Force 24:27

#interview

Barbara Stanny: What You Must Do to Create Financial Wealth

Listen to our exclusive interview with Barbara:

Change Creator · Barbara Stanny: What You Must Do to Create Financial Wealth

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Why are some people so good at making money while others are not? What does it take to change that? In this interview, we talk with Barbara Stanny who is an expert in the field of financial wealth creation. She’s an author and expert who has dedicated her life to helping people like you win financially.

Learn more about Barbara and her work at > www.barbara-huson.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Barbara Stanny 03:04

I’m doing great, Adam. Thank you.

Adam G. Force 03:07

Excellent. I appreciate you taking the time to be here. As I’ve mentioned, too, I love talking about mindset, wealth, all those good things. And you made an interesting comment about that there’s a difference between wealth and profits. And we’ll get into that in a little bit. Now, I know you have a new book coming out rewire for wealth. And so let’s let’s take a few steps back before that book and how you got into this whole category of focusing on wealth, creation and mindset and things like that helping women. What was the path there? Like what happened in your life? Can you take us there?

Barbara Stanny 03:46

Yeah, if anyone told me that this, I wouldn’t be writing eight books on money. I would have told them they were crazy. I grew up in a wealthy family. My father was the heir of h&r block. And the only advice he ever gave me about money was Don’t worry, don’t worry. I thought that was great advice. I didn’t understand money. I just wanted to spend it. And of course, under that those words was the assumption they’ll always be a man to take care of you and there always was. And I married a man who was a stockbroker and a certified financial planner. So he was perfect. But what I found out very early in our marriage is that he was a compulsive gambler. And over the course of our 15 year marriage, I continued to let him manage the money, even though I knew he was gambling in a way. That’s how terrified I was and intimidated by anything to do with money. Finally, after 15 years, I got a divorce. And I decided money’s not my thing. I don’t want to deal with money. Well, I have this theory that if you don’t deal with your money, you Money will deal with you. And in the next year after my divorce, I got tax bills for over way over a million dollars, almost 2 million for back taxes. He didn’t pay for illegal deals he got us in. And, of course, my signature was on everything. And my ex had left the country, I didn’t have anywhere close to a million dollars. And my father wouldn’t lend me the money. And that’s when I knew I had to get smart. I had three, three daughters. One was just a baby, I was not going to raise those girls on the street. But every time I go to try to figure out my finances, trying to understand money, my eyes would glaze over, my brain would fog up. I was I was really at a loss, I was really at my wit’s end. But I have this theory, that if you that when you make a commitment, like a down to your earth, down to your toes commitment, the universe revolves to help you reach your goal. And I was writing for this, I was a journalist writing for the San Francisco Business Times. And I got hired for a freelance writing project, to interview women who are smart with money. And those interviews changed my life. I not only got smart about money, but I wrote my first book, Prince Charming is incoming how women get smart about money. And suddenly I had this whole new career, and I was traveling all over the country doing financial education for women, but I couldn’t make money. So I decided to interview women who made lots of money. And I started making six figures, three, four times what I’d ever made, before I even finished writing my next book, secrets of six figure women. And then I was trying, then I decided to see if I could teach others what I was learning. And I started giving overcoming under earning workshops. And that became my next book. And then my next book was called sacred success. And now my latest one coming out rewire for wealth. So it was a journey I never expected to take.

Adam G. Force 06:57

Interesting. So what was the shift that took place that, you know, you said you interviewed some women of wealth. And then you started making your six figures and beyond? What started changing?

Barbara Stanny 07:12

I think the biggest thing it was with my first book, when I was interviewing women who are financially savvy, and I’ve seen this all the way through, it wasn’t what they did. It was how they thought. And when I shifted my thinking, that’s when everything changed. Yeah, and I see, I just see that across the board. It’s it’s not the behavior, it’s the cause of that behavior.

Adam G. Force 07:40

I want to go a little deeper there, because I think it’s so important because a lot of times we hear whether it’s about being an entrepreneur, you’re gonna hear, oh, it’s 80% mindset, right? It’s you got to go from the employee mindset to the entrepreneur mindset to be a successful entrepreneur, you got to think a certain way. Oh, to be wealthy. It’s about mindset. It’s like most of life and how we are crafting our futures and who we are as people and the things we have, it comes down to how we think and how it dictates the decisions that we make. So I’m curious on, I mean, are there any just examples of like, how does your mindset have to shift? And what were the changes in your life that you started noticing? because of certain shifts? Or did you have to do things like affirmations? Like what steps did you have to take to really start making these shifts?

Barbara Stanny 08:35

So I’m going to tell you what I did , but it took me a long time. I think the biggest thing, and then I’m going to tell you where I am now with that, because it’s shift, it’s changed. So I think one of the biggest things was, and you may not, this may not connect with you as a man. But I, but so many women have this rescue fantasy that someone Prince Charming is going to come along and save them. And one of the biggest things I learned from interviewing these women, one of the first things, no one got smart while harboring a rescue fantasy. It’s like, it’s like driving a car with water down gas, you’re just not going to get very far right. And when I when I saw all these women, they came to a point where they said, no one’s going to do this for me. No one’s going to do this for me, I need to do it myself. And when I realize No one’s going to save me and Prince Charming doesn’t need to be a man or or a, you know, Princess charming. Prince Charming could be anything you think is going to rescue. It could be the government, it could be an inheritance. It could be just this amorphous something that when you give up the rescue fantasy when you get, you know, or the lottery when you give it up, that’s when you start shifting between that time and the time that I really, really became financially successful, it took a long time. And what I began to realize about six years ago, that shifting your thinking isn’t enough that our behavior, everything we do, every single thing we do, whether it’s inhaling and exhaling, saving and spending, building a business. It’s controlled by our brain. Yeah, it’s controlled by our brain, but our brain is controlled by our thoughts. Yeah. And so when you understand how the brain and the mind work together, you can so speed up your learning is phenomenal. So I don’t know, if you want me to go into that. Or if you had something else you wanted to talk

Adam G. Force 10:49

No. I mean, I like the flow. I think that just getting that sense. I mean, that’s a good example of a shift for people, like, you know, for some women, it might be this limiting belief that someone else is going to take care of them because of historical cultural stigmas and, you know, ideas, but that’s not the case. That’s not how life works. So that’s a major shift example. And I think, you know, as we all grow up, right, it’s like, we have these types of limiting beliefs, whether we’re aware of them or not, but it’s like how we’re programmed, right? And so I guess I’m curious, if you don’t know that your feeling is, hey, someone’s going to save me? Like, if you don’t know about that, how do you start uncovering those beliefs that are holding you back?

Barbara Stanny 11:43

Okay, that’s a really good question. Because most of us don’t know, most of us don’t know, I still get to the point where I’m seeing I’m stuck somewhere, and I don’t know. And the key, the key, the place to start looking, is wherever you’re unhappy, wherever you’re unhappy, is probably where you’re giving your power away. And the key, the place to start, is what I call the power question. And that’s asking yourself, what do I want. So if your business isn’t succeeding at the level you want, if you’re not bringing in the income you want, if you’re not attracting the right, clients you want and, and you’re not feeling good about it, the questions get really clear on what you want. And then to look at what may be getting in that way of that, right. And sometimes it may be a belief, but other times, and usually everything goes down for a belief, but but you think, all beliefs, all beliefs come from at the core of all beliefs come from early decisions you made, right decisions you made about yourself, in the world you made about money you made about how it works. And those decisions were programmed in us by by the world by our families, vibrant culture, by our schools by the church. And so the more you can go in and ask yourself, What am I afraid of? What is this telling me? What is what do I What do I need to know what would happen if I did have all the money I wanted all the clients I wanted? And that often brings up our fears?

Adam G. Force 13:35

Hmm. That’s an interesting way to think about it. Because I think part of it is really, you know, and everybody learns differently, right, Barbara? So it’s like, you know, sometimes you can read a book or two on a topic, and you’re like, Okay, and you kind of get it. And then you read a third book on the same topic, but the way that person explains the ideas is different. And it registers with you. You’re like, Oh, I thought I got it. Now. I really get it. You ever have that experience?

Barbara Stanny 14:02

But sometimes it took those three books before

Adam G. Force 14:05

Yeah.

Barbara Stanny 14:07

You know, to pave the way

Adam G. Force 14:09

There you go. It’s part of the process. Yeah.

Barbara Stanny 14:12

So yeah, everything’s a process. You don’t just go in a straight line that you want. Sustained change.

Adam G. Force 14:18

Right. Right. That’s interesting now, but go ahead.

Barbara Stanny 14:22

Yes. To answer your question. Yeah. Sometimes it just clicks. It just clicks. Yeah. But it takes a while.

Adam G. Force 14:33

That’s the thing, you can start acknowledging some of those limiting beliefs and you can start trying to shift the way you think about things. One thing that I’ve learned and this is always a challenge, and it still is, you know, just being honest, it’s like well, I think that breaking because it’s easy to consciously tell yourself things all day long, but that’s kind of like in my mind, trying to tell The record player to change the record without actually going in there and like reprogramming what’s actually playing? Right?

Barbara Stanny 15:08

You know what’s actually playing the brain. It’s your brains wiring, right? So we think just changing our thinking a little bit is going to change our brains wiring. Ah, that’s it. And it’s understanding how to rewire your brain. And it takes a period of time, anywhere from three weeks on to really make the change and sustain the change.

Adam G. Force 15:40

Yeah, yeah. And do you think that these changes for people to take those steps and actually sustain it is a very uncomfortable process. It’s kind of like trying to pick a new habit up. And it’s just like, one of those things that you keep falling off the wagon and back into your old unconscious habits?

Barbara Stanny 15:59

Well, first, I can say some, I can say several things about that. But yeah, the number one requirement for going to the next level, in anything in anything, whether it’s making more money or losing more weight, the number one requirement is the willingness to be uncomfortable. Yeah. So, um, discomfort is a sign that you are moving in the right direction, right? Because all success, all of it is always found just outside your comfort zone. You know, I ask ironers When’s the last time you did something you thought you couldn’t do? Or we’re scared to do? And they scratch their head? And they say, Oh, I don’t know. I ask hires that same question. And they laugh. And they say all the time. It’s just a way of life. In fact, I have what I’ve labeled the higher earner slogan that when anything comes their way. They just ate whether they understand or they believe they can do it or not. They just say it was not illegal or immoral. I just say yes.

Adam G. Force 17:03

Yeah, and just go for it. Yeah, I like that, too.

Barbara Stanny 17:07

And the reason, the reason we are experiencing discomfort is because our brains been wired, it’s been deeply embedded. To do things the same way over and over again. You know, who was it? The wealthy industrial said, wealth is a matter of habit. And it’s so true. You want to create wealth, or success or whatever, you change your habits. But changing your habits means reprogramming your brain. And the way you’re going against the brain’s wiring is like going against gravity. Yeah, it’s like everything will just suck you in. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 17:49

That’s a good way to put it.

Barbara Stanny 17:50

Yes. So it takes Yes, you may say you slip back. But by over repeating, and I have a process that I created to help you rewire your brain so that when you when you slip back, you know exactly what you need to do next.

Adam G. Force 18:10

Okay. And that’s in rewire for for health. Your book

Barbara Stanny 18:15

It’s actually called rewire for wealth.

Adam G. Force 18:17

I’m sorry, oh my God, I can’t read.

Barbara Stanny 18:19

But it’s rewire for health too. It’s perfect.

Adam G. Force 18:23

Yeah. Wealth and health. Yes. rewire for health. So these are steps that you outline in the book, correct?

Barbara Stanny 18:31

Yeah, yes. Yes.

Adam G. Force 18:33

Perfect.

Barbara Stanny 18:34

Yeah, I’m just assessing how the whole process works, the steps you can take, and then how to make sure you stay on track.

Adam G. Force 18:43

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people want to know that stuff that, you know, so anybody listening, that’s why I wanted to bring it up. So these are things that we’ll go deeper in. Maybe you can give us just a little example. An idea of like, okay, so I got to rewire her, I got to acknowledge where my issues are. We kind of touched on some of the like, how we start narrowing that down a little bit. But now I need to actually reprogram the way I think and obviously there’s there’s habits that have to be made here and changes. So can you give an example of just, you know, a small taste of what’s in the book about, you know, how that starts that process?

Barbara Stanny 19:20

I would love to let me just give you some background. Yeah, sure. I’ve been working with women, helping them become financially savvy, some financially responsible, cre Well, for 20 years. And then about five or six years ago, I got this feeling. It’s just feeling in just this feeling that something was missing in my work. And I worked with thousands and thousands of women, and they couldn’t figure out what’s going and it got to the point where I was losing interest in my work, right. And I couldn’t understand it. And so I can’t I took a break. And I think, okay, if anything’s missing, I said, my little prayer, if anything’s missing, show me. And I was, I was, I was on my computer, and I was looking at my email. And this article about neuroscience shows up in my inbox, and I start reading it. And it’s like, these lights went off in my brain, I can imagine like, like, like a slot machine. And it’s that you found it and found the missing piece. And the more I studied neuroscience, the more I saw how this was missing in our discussion about changing our financial changing our habits, period, right. And what I learned is the the mind and the brain work together. And the brain is a physical organ in our skull, right. And it works on electrical chemical impulses. The mind is not an organ, it is a non physical, intangible entity that is a source of our thoughts and feelings, right. And the every time you have a thought, or you feel a feeling, it sends electrical, these electrical chemical signals in the brain, which either connect with an existing neural pathway or start building a new one. Okay. So if you want to create a new habit, you have to look at the thoughts that were contributing to the old habit and change those thoughts. But then you have to understand the process of wiring your brain. So it took me it took me a while It took me a long while I did a lot of experimentation, I did a lot of retreats I did a lot of work with, with with my wonderful clients who became my my willing guinea pigs figure out a very simple but very, very, it’s not easy process. It’s a three step process, to train your mind, to rewire your brain for wealth, and well being. And because wealth without well being is not the purpose, not the purpose of my work, right? You want you want both. And so let’s say you always have a thought, there’s never enough, there’s never enough. Or you may have a thought, I’m not enough, I can’t do this. I’m not enough, whatever it is. And you may have learned that your parents may have said that you may have learned that from your teachers at school, whatever that thought, sends those electrical chemical impulses in your brain that they’re like little shovels that keep digging a neural pathway, they dig a ditch deeper and deeper and deeper until it becomes a hard wired habit. Yeah, so that anything you do, you will start doing things unconsciously, to get what’s called confirmation bias, because the brain always confirms your beliefs. So you start doing things unconsciously, that will show you there’s never enough that will make sure there’s never enough that will prove you’re not enough. So how do you change that you change your thinking, but just to change, your thinking is not enough. Because willpower will not do it? It won’t. And so the I’ll tell you the three steps, and then I will explain them briefly. And then we could go into a deeper if you’d like. Okay?

Adam G. Force 23:40

Yeah, great.

Barbara Stanny 23:41

So the three steps are recognize, reframe, and respond differently. And this is a very important process. Okay. So the first is, oh, I’m Have you it’s recognize a thought or, and having a thought, there’s never enough. You walk into a store and you want to buy something, and you think there’s never enough? I can’t do that. So you just recognize the thought, Oh, isn’t that interesting? I’m having a thought about not being there’s never enough. And what that does, it separates you from the thought. Because the thought is not truth. It’s just a thought that has been programmed in your brain that has been influenced from some outside source. So you say you recognize that you observe it like a like a, like a bystander like like an out of body. Oh, I’m having a thought about there’s never enough, but you do it not with judgment. You do it with curiosity. Oh, isn’t that interesting? And then after you’ve observed it, the second thing is to reframe it. How can I see it differently? How can I see it differently to put look at it in another way and it could Be, no matter what happens, they’ll be enough. That’s one way. Or it could be, oh, this is a good opportunity to rewire. But find some way to reframe that situation instead of going into that downward spiral of not enough. Or I will find a way to make sure there’s enough. Because when you reframe, and you replace that thought with another one, it sends your Neo your frontal cortex into looking for strategies to create that. But anyway, you recognize you reframe, and then you respond differently. you respond differently than you normally would. Yeah, you do what don’t doesn’t feel comfortable, do what doesn’t feel like yourself. And you do that over and over and over and over again, because repetition is the key, and you will start noticing that your world changes, right. Was that clear?

Adam G. Force 26:03

Yeah. No, I mean, I think it makes sense. And this is the challenging part. Because, you know, it’s like, you know, you catch yourself, you know, my wife, and I do this where we’ll say something like, Man, you know, always something this or that. And he like, catch yourself saying these things. And then, you know, I realized, you know, I’ve read a handful of books about the unconscious mind all these things. And I’m like, that, even if you’re saying it to someone else, or you’re saying it about your own situation in the moment, you are still carving those pathways in your mind to continue to replicate that scenario for yourself. Right?

Barbara Stanny 26:42

Exactly. Exactly. And our words are so powerful, that people don’t realize how powerful our words are. So if you do nothing else, just be hyper vigilant about the words you use, just like what you just said. And when you catch yourself using seeing things that you don’t want to create, in your reality, even if it’s you’re just talking about someone else, you stop. And yeah, I’ll even go Stop that, Barbara. Stop that.

Adam G. Force 27:15

Yeah, yeah. And I remember, I’m sure you’re familiar with like T.Harv Eker’s book, the secrets of the Millionaire Mind. That was one of the first books I’ve read about money mindset years ago. And he would always say, like, when you catch yourself, like blaming justifying something like, you know, all these negative things, to like, literally take your finger and run it across your throat, because you’re cutting out your financial, you know, potential. And I always found it to be so weird, but he was creating just like you said, Tell yourself like, stop, like, you have to create almost like this physical reaction to shut it off.

Barbara Stanny 27:53

Exactly, exactly. And you have to do it again. And again. But here’s the thing, you don’t do it from a place of anger or judgment. Because even though you’re slicing your throat, yeah, if you do that, you know yet dumb idiot. What you’re doing is just reinforcing another opposing negative belief that will make changing that belief harder, right? So, and it’s not see what I want to get away with is thinking it’s just mindset. Okay, that it is also the mind brain connection. Right? Because if you shift your mindset without understanding how the brain works, it was it’s too easy to fall back into old ways.

Adam G. Force 28:44

Yeah, definitely. Wow. So I always found this stuff to be such a, I found it to be a lot to take in and course correct. And, you know, it helps to have mentors and things like that. And, you know, I’ve tried affirmations and all these things, and I recognize certain things about money mindset for myself for years. But I always found it very challenging to overcome and course correct, I really, I just, it’s one of those things, no matter how aware I am of finding a way to really stick to a routine that creates these new habits creates a new way of being. Personally I find it very challenging.

Barbara Stanny 29:26

You know, it’s interesting about affirmations. I’m going to talk about the law of attraction, right? That the way you think and just just focus on the positive and, and just everything will come to you But what they don’t talk about is the law of congruence. And the law here is that you get what you want, not what you asked for. So if you say I want money, I want lots of money. But if what you really want is to stay safe Or to be liked. And you think wealthy people aren’t likable, or they’re greedy, or they’re bad, right, then money isn’t what you really want. And so it’s really important that if you’re, if you know what you want, buy what you have, that shows you what you want. Okay? And if you don’t have what you say you want, then it’s because a party doesn’t really want it. And that’s where it’ll look what part of me doesn’t want it.

Adam G. Force 30:31

Man. Yeah, I mean, and do we go see a psychologist to work that out?

Barbara Stanny 30:37

Not necessarily No, not. Yeah, I mean, believe me, I’ve seen many psychologists to work many of this stuff out. But honestly, sometimes simply talking about it. Right, I do a lot of journaling. And I asked myself, if you ask yourself the right questions like, why don’t I want it will happen by habit? What would happen? If nothing changed in five years? What would happen if everything changed in five years? Yeah. You look at what comes up for you. All the answers are there. And if you tell yourself It’s hard enough times, your brain will not let you ask excavate the truth.

Adam G. Force 31:19

Yeah. I like the idea of asking the right questions. This has been something I’ve really been investigating a lot, just as an entrepreneur in general, let alone for financial wealth and growth and stuff. But just in general, like asking the right question, because asking the wrong questions can lead you to just an ongoing whirlwind of challenges that never gets you anywhere. And I realized, as I’ve grown in my second business, how important it really is to ask the right questions in order to make real progress.

Barbara Stanny 31:57

Oh, that’s so good. It’s important to ask the right questions. And the second part of that is to be brutally honest in answering them.

Adam G. Force 32:06

Yes, I like that. That’s, that’s, it’s so true. And most people they want to, they know what they should say, because that’s the right thing. And so it’s like, it’s like these surveys, you know, we started years ago with the business, we were going after social entrepreneurs, because all this data out there and you know, I had personal interest in it. And then all the data said, Everybody wants to put their they’ll spend more on sustainable products, organic, they want to do better in the world, they want to be a conscious shopper. But that that survey data is what everyone would like to be. And then the hard data of sales and all that stuff. It never reflected it. So it’s like, here’s when it comes down to putting money on the table, what really happens. And I think a lot of times we like to tell ourselves what we know and would like to be. And then that’s it. You know what I mean? So being honest with yourself, it is very important.

Barbara Stanny 33:00

Yeah, and sometimes it’s hard. We spent so many years covering up the truth I’ll never forget, like when I was when I was going through all my money crap, when my life was falling apart, and I go to the bank, and I put my card in and they would say sorry, no money. And I was terrified, terrified. But I couldn’t get smart. I couldn’t I couldn’t read. I couldn’t. I couldn’t go to class I couldn’t understand. So I went to therapy. And I remember saying to the therapist, oh, Daniel, I really want to understand money. I really do. You got to help me, I really do. And the therapist looked back at me, looked me straight in the eyes. And I said, Daniel, I really want to get smart. And he said, No, you don’t. And it was like a part of me. It was like, I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t argue. It was like, there was a part of me that didn’t Hmm. And it was only when I explored the that part of me that was afraid that if I got smart and I took charge of my money, I’d lose everything. Or that my parents would be furious because they didn’t think women should manage money. Or I thought a man wouldn’t love me if I was financially successful. All these things that were in my head that I didn’t even know.

Adam G. Force 34:22

Yeah, wow. This is part of that discovery process. And it’s it’s tough because you always feel like this is for people listening. I know what it’s like when you keep doing things, something doesn’t work out. And then you’re going to try to work on your your mindset like through these processes, like you’re outlining and things like that. You always feel like you’re going back to square one. You’re going back to start or something new again and you’re not like you know any mean you’re not like getting deep in it making that progress, like you feel like you’re always starting over

Barbara Stanny 34:53

Then that is a lack of that…The one cause of that is lazy thinking and a lack of discipline. It’s so much easier, it’s so much easier to take the path of least resistance, which is the way your brain is wired. It’s so easy to go back to, oh, there’s just never enough are all the I hate wealthy people, they’re so greedy. It’s so easy. It takes a terrific amount of discipline to continually say, when you hear yourself saying, Oh, this is so hard. No, it’s not hard. It’s challenging. And I’m up for the challenge. Yeah, if you can just notice yourself, recognize yourself saying it’s so hard and reframe it and saying, it’s challenging. And I’m up for the challenge.

Adam G. Force 35:40

Right? Right.

Barbara Stanny 35:42

I just last week, okay, just last week, my team and I decided we were gonna, I was gonna, we were gonna do this project. And of course, I had to create the project. And I’d never done this project before. And I have this, this thing that it’s, it’s so old, but it keeps sneaking up because the old wiring never completely disappears. And I started to do this work on this project. And as part of me says, I don’t have what it takes. I don’t have what it takes. And I started to like panic. And I said, Wait a minute. This is an old wiring. I don’t have what it takes. And I think this is going to be so hard. Because I don’t have what it takes, right. And I said, Stop. How can I? I see that as an old? I recognize that as an old programming, an old thought. But that’s just a thought. It’s just a thought that’s been wired in, I know where it came from. So how can I reframe it? How can I see it differently? And I tried, I have what it takes. But then I thought no, I thought I can handle this. Whatever it is, I can handle this. And I have it I’m looking at my post it note, I wrote down, I can handle this. And then I started responding differently. Writing the the script, I thought I didn’t know how to write but writing it anyway, which I didn’t want to do. And I could have easily not done but I did it anyway. Right? And eventually, when you we will recognize and then reframe it to I can handle this and then do what you don’t want to do. It starts to get easier and easier.

Adam G. Force 37:19

Yeah. I love that. And yeah, it’s it is just, I’m excited to you know, read your book and stuff. I want to be respectful of your time. And I think that these processes are so important for us to understand, I mean, first thing to do is understand what’s going on with yourself, right? Like I always like to tell entrepreneurs like you have to get oriented. If you want to get to point B get oriented on where exactly point A is, and it comes down to that point you made the honesty part of where you really are with yourself and the business and things like that. So just getting oriented and then being willing to take the steps now that are necessary, and be disciplined doing it right.

Barbara Stanny 38:04

Exactly. Be disciplined, but be disciplined, not out of a place of punishing yourself, you know, you idiot keep going do that. But out of Oh, this will help me be a better steward of my money. This will help me make a difference in the world. This will help me serve more people. If I can rewire if I can. If I can. If I can make it easy for me. I will be able to serve more.

Adam G. Force 38:32

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It’s a good note to to wrap up on here Barbara. Let everybody know like where do they learn more about you your book when it’s coming out all that kind of stuff. Can you just give us a little bit for people listen

Barbara Stanny 38:46

Sure thank you, my I on my website. Great place to go is Barbara-houson.com. And my book is up for sale. Now. It’s pre sale, and it’s hits the shelves on January 12.

Adam G. Force 39:08

Exciting, very cool. Barbara really appreciate you taking the time to talk about all these great insights that you have and I look forward to reading your book.

Barbara Stanny 39:18

And thank you so much for having me on your show. I really enjoyed talking to you. I like how honest you are.

Adam G. Force 39:24

I did my best. Okay, take care Barbara.

Barbara Stanny 39:29

Thank you.

Adam G. Force 39:29

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast. Visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Trudi Lebron: Creating an Anti-Racist Business

Listen to our exclusive interview with Trudi Lebron:

Change Creator · Trudi Lebron: Creating an Anti-Racist Business

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What if we aren’t aware of how our business may play a role in different forms of racism? How can we improve to live up to our value of equality? We spoke with expert Trudi Lebron, Ph.D., who is a diversity, equity, and inclusion coach who teaches individuals and institutions how to build successful, anti-racist businesses.

About Trudi:

In the past seven years, she has grown her company, Scriptflip, into a multi-six figure machine for helping others maximize their social impact. Trudi is the host of the Business Remixed Podcast, has been featured in Forbes and was recognized as one of the Hartford Business Journal 40 Under 40 Leaders in 2016. She lives in Hartford with her two children.

Learn more about Trudi and her work at > www.trudilebron.com/

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:01

And three, two and one. Hey, Trudi, welcome to the change credit podcast show how you doing today.

Trudi Lebron 00:07

I’m good, thank you for having me.

Adam G. Force 00:09

You’re welcome. I’m excited to talk about some of the things that you’re focused on. So before we get get into it, I’d love and always like to share some background. So if you can just go ahead and let people know kind of like what’s going on in your world today. And just that little bit of a nutshell of what what you’re all about.

Trudi Lebron 00:31

Yeah, so I am a business coach for folks who want to scale their business. And at the same time, make sure that they’re doing it in like equitable and inclusive, diverse ways, making sure that they’re really prioritizing their impact and the things that they care about. So that’s the kind of work I do. And I do that through, you know, one to one, consulting, some coaching programs, trainings. So we’re a service based business and really working with people at all stages of business, we have folks who are right at the beginning of their journeys and wanting to make sure that they that they do their business in a way that is super aligned with their values, all the way up through multimillion dollar companies who have been around for a while and are trying to get trying to get in alignment, make sure that their business is really truly an example for what they actually believe in, in the world.

Adam G. Force 01:30

Yeah, and, you know, that’s just one of these things that’s becoming more and more important today to people as they for, like I would say, I want to say generations now have been kind of feeling that burn of doing things that don’t align to who they are, right. So it’s kind of like percolating more, do you think?

Trudi Lebron 01:49

Yeah, I definitely think that that’s true. We are, I think, especially now that we’re in such a place of social shift, where Yeah, we’re really having to confront some, you know, Major, you know, major social issues. And so people are looking at all parts of their lives, not just their business, but to see how they can, you know, be more on alignment.

Adam G. Force 02:11

Yeah, for sure. And I mean, in a, you know, I’ve had people come to me, like, Adam, this was actually someone on Facebook reached out in a comment, they’re like, do you do you believe that their work life balance could be a core value for somebody and I, and I think it’s always interesting, because there’s always been, historically those conversations around work life balance, and things like that. And I think just to the point of people doing more meaningful work and trying to make a difference in the world, there is no I always say there’s no work life balance, there’s just life and how we choose to live it. It’s like this one streamlined thought process. And we were, I don’t know, just historically, we kind of like be, I guess this through the Industrial Revolution, where we kind of came up, and we’re working to pay my bills and do this, and this is how I do it. And then I have my family life, and I have this stuff. And I think that’s all kind of falling apart right now. And we’re trying to build just a life. And that’s it.

Trudi Lebron 03:07

Absolutely. And I think the thing about work life balance is that we think of, I think that the idea of balance, elicits this kind of view these images of sameness of like evilness. So I spend equal amounts of time doing one thing versus another thing. And I don’t know, I don’t think that that is a helpful way to think about balance, I think about balance over the course of longer stretches of time, right. So, you know, maybe there’s a few weeks or a few months where I have to be working a lot, and it feels like it’s in imbalanced or out of balance. But then maybe there’s a another three month period where I don’t have to work as much, and I can spend more time with my family. So I think if we stretch the way we think about time, that might be helpful for folks thinking about where actual balance can come from?

Adam G. Force 03:57

Yeah, yeah, I think so too. And it’s, you know, and I noticed too, like, and we’ll get into some more of the specific topics that you’re focused on a second. Just you know, as you I don’t think enough, people are actually clear on what exactly they want, they kind of learn what they need to do, and they go through a certain motion. So what I’m trying to say is like, if you write down, I just want to work four days a week, you know, I for me, for example, I have a baby boy, seven months old, it’s my first time we just bought a house life has just been flipped upside down several times for me. Yeah. And, you know, even before that, my my objective was at first objective was I want to stop work by 3pm because I like to, you know, go for a run in the afternoon, do other things, you know, and I, and I started thinking that way and because I wrote down that that’s what I wanted. I started making all these decisions that would help me do that right. Oh, well, then I better automate this. Oh, then I need a VA for that. Right, and you just start doing these things. And then if it’s like, I want to work four days a week. So anyway, my point is like we, if we don’t know what we want, it’s like, we’re just floating. And we’d have we’re never going to create these systems and ideas to come to life. Right?

Trudi Lebron 05:15

Exactly. Yeah, I think being really clear about what we want is definitely a first step.

Adam G. Force 05:20

Yeah. And you know, and that’s, and I just always laugh, because I’ll ask people these things, and they go, you know, I’m not sure. I’m like, you are investing all this money or doing all these things. And they’re, they never, it sounds so fundamental and basic, but a lot of people are do not clearly sit down and especially write it down, like what they want, right? So tell me a little bit more just about the work you’re doing. So how, how do we start helping people with these types of processes? Like what’s what was your approach? And why has this become so important to you?

Trudi Lebron 05:56

Yeah, so this has become really important to me, because it’s really the intersection of so much of my like, personal life and my professional work. So I came up through the nonprofit industry, working with youth in an inner cities, like kids who grew up like I grew up. And so I worked in the nonprofit sector, doing a lot of work in schools, and, you know, working with students to make sure that they were, you know, graduating if they had you know, that we’re making good choices, and all of those kinds of things. And, through that work, I got really interested in the ways that that the systems that play including nonprofit loved nonprofits themselves, and school systems themselves were kind of set up to disadvantage people. And that kind of led me into work around diversity, equity, and inclusion. So I spent a lot of time doing that kind of work in schools and nonprofits. While I was doing that, I was also getting a master’s degree and working on my PhD in it on the similar kinds of themes and really started to understand the ways that, you know, our world is kind of set up in ways that privilege some folks and disadvantage other folks. And what it really takes for people, my goal was to really understand what, what’s the difference, like what are the things at play that helped people have exceptional outcomes that help people beat the odds. And so, I also, being in the nonprofit industry, wasn’t making a very lot of money, like enough money to, you know, support myself and my kids, I was a teen mom, I had two kids, by the time I was 16. So, you know, I needed to make money, it was not that I couldn’t like just, you know, get by on a $30,000 a year salary. It just wasn’t working out. And so I needed to, you know, I needed to figure out how to make more money. And so I started like side hustling and like listening to podcast, and you know, like, kind of getting into the world of like, lifestyle, entrepreneurship, to see what I can do to leverage the skills and experience I had to make extra money. And so I had these like, parallel paths of being in the nonprofit world, and my career kind of accelerated through the nonprofit world. And so nonprofit leadership, and I was an assistant professor for a while at a local university, still not making enough money to survive. Yeah, and like side hustling, and building a consulting practice on the side. And I realized that the two worlds of like entrepreneurship, particularly lifestyle, entrepreneurship, you know, online entrepreneurship. And the world of the nonprofit had a lot to learn from each other, especially around around service and impact and using your business as a force for change. Whereas the the entrepreneurial world was really kind of, I felt like it was really self centered and very white, like, not competitive at all, not diverse at all. And I was like, there’s something here, like, I need to figure out a way to start bringing these worlds together. Yeah. And so that’s why I got really obsessed with it, because I saw business as a way to improve life outcomes. And also as a way to, if we can get more people using their business for good, a real opportunity to create change in communities. And so that’s how I got, like, really obsessed with this work. Yeah. And then, in terms of like, where to start, it’s funny, you know, you’re talking about having a vision. That’s where I start with all of my clients, every person that I work with, whether it’s a one on one client, or someone like in a, you know, in one of our masterminds, we start with what are your values and what is your vision for your life? You know, like, what are the things that you care about? Because if you can get really, really clear about your values, And your vision, that becomes a framework for how you make all your other choices, like forget any other roadmap, and he was trying to like give you or any other framework. Like if you don’t start with your values and your vision, you’re the risk that you are going to build something that is out of alignment with what you believe is quite high.

Adam G. Force 10:19

Yep. Yeah, that makes sense. Wow. So I guess I’m curious. So have you one, I’m curious, like in this type of with this type of work that you want to support people with? were you doing b2b? were you doing b2c reading books?

Trudi Lebron 10:40

Yeah, a little bit of both. And it was really important for me to do both. Because I didn’t want to get into this pattern of like coaches, coaching coaches, coaching coaches, which is something I talk about a lot, and I think is really a really dangerous pattern. I think that I really always wanted to make sure that we were working with people who people who are in businesses, so b2b, but also people who were, who worked in who were the end user, right? Like, we’re really trying to create, create shifts in the way that they live. So our programs kind of how we have, like a variety of programs that we offer to make sure that we’re, you know, serving people who are in different places.

Adam G. Force 11:32

Okay, and but, um, so your programs, when you and then really want to dig into this for people listening is that when you’re having an idea, like you have an inspiration, obviously, this is something meaningful to you. And you’re going to look at and say, Well, how do I help others? How do I monetize this, because there’s the one of the things that we’ve learned through our research talking to a lot of our customers doing surveys, things like that, is a lot of people struggle to get their business off the ground, because it’s not that they’re not willing to do the work, right, they’ll work and do all the stuff they need to do. They also have that that passion for what they want to do, right? So they’re very fired up. And they’re a master of their craft. However, there are business skills. So we do have to figure out how to get leads, how to do marketing, how to do sales, right? And you have to go through these systems for every product that you have. And everybody has a million ideas, a million products only thing. So take a step back for us a little bit. How did you start coming up with a plan and say, here’s how I’m going to get leads? Or what ended up working? Like what was the Can you give a little shine a little light on how that works for you and how you got set up? Yep.

Trudi Lebron 12:47

So for, for me, it was really about consistency. I, you got to understand, like, five years ago, I might have been one of the only people it’s like one of maybe a handful of people who was talking about diversity in the coaching industry at all, but then we’re not, you know, so I was I felt like, you know, about how I felt like I was screaming for like years just kind of be like, hey, there’s a fire in the back of the room. Like pay attention. I’m telling you, this is not you know, this is a problem. And it just seemed like people were ignoring me like, Oh, yeah, you know, like, whatever. Um, or people say, yeah, you know, it’s important, but you know, what, is it gonna? Like, what, how is it gonna improve my bottom line, you know, like, it was very much like worse, the cost benefit analysis of doing that kind of work. And, but I knew that it, I knew that it was important because I had been working in other industries where people have been paying attention to this issue for years. And it just hadn’t kind of crossed over yet. So consistency was really important for me. So it was, you know, starting a podcast, even though it felt like nobody was listening and just show up, you know, week after week after week, writing articles doing Facebook Lives, going to the events, shaking people’s hand, just meeting people telling people what I did over and over and over and over and over. And little by little people started to see, people started to know who I was. So name recognition, because I literally was just everywhere talking to everybody that I could, and, um, and being of service, right, so having a podcast where you’re giving massive value for free and you know, just like that investment of time that you make and money to. I edited our podcast for a year. Yeah, I got it. You think about editing podcasts. But the first year that me and my co host for our show, that’s not how that works. I learned how to edit a podcast and that’s that’s what I did. And so we would like break down things that were happening in the Industry when something went wrong, I would kind of like, you know, write a blog about why it was a problem and what could have done what we could have done better and how it could have been handled. So people really started to trust me, you know, that whole, like, trust, you know, know, like, trust,

Adam G. Force 15:15

Know, like, trust. Yeah

Trudi Lebron 15:18

So I got to say, so consistency was the very first, the very first thing. Because by the time and now I’m, you know, maybe I would say, two, two years ago, when people started to really kind of wake up, I had had a, you know, 50 or 60 podcast episodes, by that time that were like bank to waiting for people to go and, like, listen to and all kinds of articles and of course, that people could take, you know, so being consistent and resisting the urge to shift, you know, to kind of say, oh, nobody’s listening to this, maybe I should do this. And maybe I should do that. Or maybe, you know, cuz I get the urge for that, especially when you have to make money. You have to just keep trying to, to make changes. So I always tell folks, like, tinker with your idea, but don’t completely shift it, like, stay stay with the one thing that you know, is, you know, if you have that instinct, just stick with it, and and keep showing up for it. And so that meant, you know, that I was taking consulting gigs on the side that were, you know, like, into stuff that I didn’t really want to be doing, but that were gonna pay the bills

Adam G. Force 16:28

You got to pay the bills until everything else is going. Yeah,

Trudi Lebron 16:32

You know, and so I did a bit, but that’s what allowed me to have the time to build the business the way that I wanted to build it. Because if you put too much pressure on your business to work overnight, you’ll suffocate it, and it can’t grow. And you’ll end up with something that you don’t want. Mmm, yeah. Yeah. So that’s, I would say that that’s the most important thing that consistency and space and giving it time to breathe, are critical.

Adam G. Force 16:56

Yeah, and I think a lot of people miss that point that you just made, which is, you know, sometimes, well, most times, you gotta straddle two worlds meaning Yes, you’re doing work that maybe you’re not super interested in, you’re hustling on up work, or who the hell knows what to get some kind of consulting gigs, make a couple dollars gives you the flexibility. And you know, that’s that and there. And, you know, I hear a lot of I don’t have time. But it’s funny how people like yourself and others always find ways to make the time when it’s important, right?

Trudi Lebron 17:30

Yeah, and just like, just for Super transparency and clarity, right. Like the deal was, you know, I worked full time while I was building my business, I incorporated my business in 2013. So yeah, I was working full time and kind of side hustling. Then maybe six years ago, I left work full time, and was running the business but but come doing a good deal of subcontracting work for like national consulting firms around diversity, equity and inclusion. And so you know, I say I was consulting on the side, but that was bringing in like, $80,000 a year. So it’s, it was it was work. It was like full time consulting. Which meant that, you know, that I was editing my podcasts at midnight sometimes. And, you know, like, that’s just what, that’s what wasn’t desirable. But, you know, it, I was committed.

Adam G. Force 18:24

Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing. And I always, you know, I remember years ago, when I had some one of my some of my earlier interviews, I was talking to Joel Brown, I was like, Is it true? Like, I had somebody close to me, it was like, yeah, you know, I got the kids now and this man, I really want to do this, but just don’t have the time. And I, in my mind, I was always the kind of person I like, when I get an idea. Like, I don’t care what the time is, like, I’m, I’ll figure it out something like, I’m not you’re not gonna stop me. And I’m like, so Joel, like, Is there such thing as not having time and he’s like, unfortunately, people, like a lot of times, they will make excuses instead of making the time. And, you know, like, we always like, I was traveling from Philly to New York for years, because I was still working at Web MD and doing all that stuff while trying to figure things out. I had to wake up at three and four in the morning. So I had to make additional hours in the day in order to do something new, because you can’t just stop what you’re doing originally and replace it right away. You know what I mean?

Trudi Lebron 19:18

Yeah, and I think that, you know, what, what I was encouraged people to do is get is really settle into your choices, right? And so what I mean by that, is that the the, I don’t have the time reason, right? I don’t like the word excuse. But the reason I don’t have a lot of time as it is kind of an incomplete reason. And so what I ask people to consider is, you know, if you say, I don’t have the time, complete that thought, so maybe it’s like, I’ll give you an example. So I really, I have completed all of my coursework for my PhD. I need to write a dissertation. I don’t have the time to write a dissertation and invest The time required for that dissertation to be excellent. And run my business and spend time with my family the way that I want to, and, you know, and like shower regularly, like, all of those things that’s a complete, you know that that is real I can, I can put that on a chart and show you that, even if I wake up early in the morning, it’s all not going to get done at the quality that I am comfortable with. Ah, right. So the time that I couldn’t do it, if not, nothing would be getting done excellently don’t me. So I settled into the idea that, like, I’m gonna wait on the dissertation. Right. And so that’s just my choice, I’m not gonna like it, like, I don’t have the time to do it. Like, I don’t have the time to do it to the, to the degree that I want to be able to do it. So I’m gonna wait. So you prioritized, like, lean into those, like, complete, you know, complete, like complete reasons, then your system can settle. And you can be like, it’s just just not for right now. You know?

Adam G. Force 21:00

Right. And so you prioritize, right?

Trudi Lebron 21:03

Right, exactly.

Adam G. Force 21:04

Yeah. I, you know, I, I can see that. And now my only challenge on it would be if something’s really important, I guess you prioritize based on the importance, right. So whatever is most important to you, you find ways to make time because it’s important to you. And if you have three things, and to your point, I get it. I mean, there’s obviously, like, if I had to, you know, write several articles a week, I’d be like, you know, what, I definitely don’t have time. And if I did it, I would be doing some pretty crappy articles. You know, so then you look at that and say, well, is this a priority or not?

Trudi Lebron 21:38

Right?

Adam G. Force 21:40

Yeah. It’s tough, man. Cuz these conversations always come up. Because so many entrepreneurs, you know, you’re helping entrepreneurs, we’re helping entrepreneurs in our own ways, and you hear these things all the time, overwhelm stress, not sure what to do and all this stuff. So it’s really finding ways to just think about these things and prioritize you know, yeah,

Trudi Lebron 22:01

Absolutely.

Adam G. Force 22:02

So tell me a little bit about, I guess, you know, before you work with someone, and after, like, what is that transition look like for people?

Trudi Lebron 22:16

Um, so usually, folks, the majority of folks who come to work with us have been through some kind of coaching program, or they’ve been in business for a while. And they’ve learned some strategies and techniques that, that don’t feel good to them anymore. Or they look at their business, and they go, Oh, snap, like, all of my clients are 95% of my clients are Wait, like, how did that happen? That’s not, you know, I would prefer to have a diverse community like this, I don’t understand. I don’t know, you know, how did I do that. And so they come to us, because they want to learn how they want to get additional skills to learn how to scale, to do it in a way that’s aligned with their work with their vision with their values that you know, is really prioritizing equity, diversity, inclusion, anti racism, that though, they want those things to be very active parts of their business, not just like, not intentions, but like, really, you know, like, really clear components of their business. Yeah. Um, and so they come and they work with us, you know, for a range of either six months or 12 months. And then they, we kind of we keep our folks in our community. So when people come and work with us, they don’t like, come and work with us for six months, and then leave, they come and they stay in our community, we have a community called the equity centered coaching collective. And so anyone who comes through our programs, stays in that membership forever, at no additional charge. And they continue to have a place we call the collective like a gym for your equity work. It’s like a, it’s a place where people can come and really build a practice around diversity, equity and inclusion in their business. And so they stay and they kind of, and that’s something that we recently rolled out that we’re super proud of, because we wanted to keep our community tight. And it’s just really important to have other people like a community to talk to about these things. Because these are the kinds of things we’ve been talking about race talking about diversity, talking about privilege and oppression. Those are things that are super uncomfortable for people. Yeah, but we’re going to start solving those problems and using our businesses to solve some of those problems. We need to be talking about it. And so having a safe place to talk about it where you know that other people share your values and have like a shared language is like critically important to entrepreneurs who want to continue to do that work ongoing. So they stay in our community, which is great. And then for after, you know, sometimes people want to work with us one on one and do intensives and things like that. But it’s really for us people have to kind of go through some of our foundational work before they can kind of move into intensive work or more one on one stuff.

Adam G. Force 25:21

Got it. Yeah, that’s pretty cool that you get people to stay in. How do you manage that? I mean, just out of curiosity, for my own sake, I’m curious if you have people like you’re building up, and let’s say the community is, so it’s a conversational community, you don’t have you’re not like hands on coaching or training or doing anything there. But it is a safe place to have these conversations. That’s, that’s what I’m hearing, right?

Trudi Lebron 25:44

It’s actually a guided learning community. So um, so it’s a little bit of both it’s, we’re doing we’re not doing coaching we are doing, we’re doing some training in there, we are giving people every month we released like a learning guide. So people can kind of go through the resources, they can ask questions, they can reflect on, you know, the different things that we’ve shared for them. And then yeah, and then they can, like, have conversations like in, you know, in the community itself. So, but we had, you know, we have a team, so I have a full time coach, a part time community facilitator, have, you know, the operations person, so we have pretty have a pretty robust team to kind of manage all the clients that we work with.

Adam G. Force 26:30

Got it. Got it. And I’m curious on what your take is, I heard recently, I know, and this is like a sensitive topic, and, you know, having workplace equality and all these different topics that we’re talking about here. There was a guy who went on the news, I’m trying to remember his name, but very academic background, very significant PhD this that is, and he is a black guy. He’s older now. He’s been doing stuff for a long time. And he comes out, you know, and he think he’s doing more harm than good, because he came out and he’s like, on fox news or whatever news station. And he saying, There is no such thing as systemic racism. Yeah. Have you heard that? Do you know what I’m talking about? Yeah,

Trudi Lebron 27:19

that’s all, I mean, that he’s, there’s a couple people out there talking about that nonsense. It is a lie. Um, and I, here’s, here’s a fact. Right, right now, today, and for and forever, like in our history, right? In the past, we can, we can accurately predict someone’s life outcomes by their race, and their zip code. Yeah, so with no additional information, race and zip code, we can make really accurate predictions about, let’s say, for example, someone’s educational attainment, or someone socio economic status, we can predict health outcomes, we can predict the likelihood that someone’s going to go to college or just any any number of things, right? That that is impossible to do. If we’re only accounting for like ethnicity, there is no reason there’s no like biological reason for us to be able to make those kinds of predictions. The only reason that we can do that is because this because of systemic racism, because the structures in the world in our that, you know, have a major influence over how we live day to day, break down against color lines, like bait breakdown against race, like your access to quality education or to safe have like a safe place to live into places that don’t have, you know, environmental hazards, for example. Like that, that’s all a system that is that is that has been pre determined, which is why we can drive through neighborhoods and look at maps and see where the, where the communities were, where black people black and brown folks could not buy property, you know, because it was a law that they couldn’t buy property there. It was written into deeds, that people of color couldn’t live in certain places. That’s that’s systemic racism. We and we still live even though those things are illegal now. Like they’re illegal. We can’t like write those things up. But the the systems that are at play, still kind of maintain those old school laws like we don’t need the law anymore because we have all of the structures and the we have other ways to marginalize people. So the idea that there’s no such thing as systemic racism is just, it’s a, it’s a lie. There’s no evidence for that.

Adam G. Force 30:06

There’s a ton of evidence otherwise, you know, yeah, I’m here and go through history and watch the progression of, you know, creating laws and all the policies, and then things that have changed over time. And there was just a significant, you know, bias, obviously, that made things difficult for, you know, like you say, black and brown people and things like that. And that’s because it was coming from a time where we had those biases. It’s like, they weren’t there to make it easier for them. They were just they were, they were going, leaning into what the law says, but certainly not making it any easier. And I don’t know how that someone can come out with a straight face, especially a black guy, and they come up and they say these things. And you know, now that’s the one thing you know, we have our you know, not to get political will switch, switch off this, but it is important. And it’s like, you see these these things happening, and you have to scratch your head, because now you have all these people who that’s the one person they said, Oh, we’ll see. I told you, I told you, and now that’s the only thing they’ll lean on is that, oh, he’s so credible and amazing. And he said it. So it’s real, right?

Trudi Lebron 31:17

No, yeah, there’s no, we have to be more discerning, we have to like, look at the evidence, we have to just look around us at our day to day lives and ask ourselves like, Why? Why are there communities and schools where they’re only white kids are 96% sent white kids? Like, why is that? Like, that’s not because black and brown folks don’t want to send their kids to that school is because they don’t live in that community. Because at one point, they legally couldn’t live there. And now, and then after that, they were, you know, they were priced out and unable to get mortgages. And you know, like, there’s just so many reasons historically, for that to happen. It I don’t know how anyone can, you know, can say that that’s not real.

Adam G. Force 32:05

Oh, it just drives me crazy. I’m like, even if you heard this guy go up there and lie, I’m just like, you’ve got to be able to think for yourself. I mean, geez, dude, like, come on. Anyway. So, you know, I’ve literally one of our mentors, like I mentioned that, you know, she, you know, came up and she did a whole talk to everybody who was in her master class that we were in and stuff. And she was just like, She’s like, I wouldn’t be able to make changes in my business myself. Because she’s like, there’s things that I have no idea, right? And she literally bring someone in as a consultant to help understand and retrain the way we think about business and how to be more supportive, and equitable, have greater equality between people and stuff. So it is not a simple thing. And there’s a lot of things I think that happened that were unconscious to like, we don’t even know, you know, what I mean? Like, it just it has to be pointed out?

Trudi Lebron 33:05

Absolutely, absolutely. It has to be pointed out. And you and you have to do the work. It’s not like a checklist of things that you just kind of do, like, oh, like, make sure that there’s, you know, more diversity on my website, and that’s gonna solve the problem. Like, that’s not the problem. They’re, like, it’s really just like with anything in business, like there’s the internal game, and then the external game, and you really have to be, you know, committed to the internal work and getting, you know, being prepared to hold the responsibility for, you know, leaving a diverse community leading a diverse team, standing up for people, you know, making sure that you stand against racism and oppression, you know, there’s there’s internal work that has to be done in order for you to be prepared to do that.

Adam G. Force 33:52

Absolutely. So tell everyone, what are the ways you are supporting companies today? I’m sure you started somewhere, you’re kind of consulting doing things. Where are you now? Like, do you have? Are you just working hands on with people? Do you have courses trainings? Like what’s out there for people today? Yeah, so

Trudi Lebron 34:13

for the one thing that we have, that we’re really most excited about is that equity centered coaching collective which I referred to earlier that is open to anyone who’s interested in starting this journey, who just kind of is made might be a little new, or who are working with other coaches and want are like business coaching and just want the the equity perspective, like who want to come to a place to just start supplementing their business education by getting some of this equity centered coaching skill. And so we that is like a membership program. It’s a year long membership, and people can sign up for that anytime and like I said, it’s a guided learning community. We do coaching in their live streams, we released learning materials every month, then we have a mastermind that we open, we welcome our cohort a couple times a year, that’s called the Amplified impact mastermind. And that is for folks who want a little bit more of a step by step coaching, to get some of this work done to make sure that you’re scaling for social impact, that you’re looking at the way that you sell, you’re looking at all aspects of your business, the way that you build a team, the way that you sell your offers your marketing, it’s kind of like that next step. And then we have some, you know, limited one to one, coaching and consulting available. And next year, I’ll be working with a friend of mine, Elizabeth D, alto, and we’ll be teaching a hybrid mastermind for folks who have been in business for a while who are leaving bigger businesses and want to do this work, you know, with their, with their teams and really start to heal some old business patterns.

Adam G. Force 36:01

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. And what’s the best place URL or whatever for people to find you?

Trudi Lebron 36:07

Yeah, so folks should come and hang out with me on instagram where I’m hanging out more these days. So Instagram just at Trudi LeBron, I’m shooting with an eye. You can find me on Instagram. And my website is just www.Trudi lebron.com.

Adam G. Force 36:25

Awesome. Appreciate it. Trudi, I appreciate you bringing this work to the table for people. And I think it’s just such a positive step for the evolution of business and just how we think about and approach business. You know, we are pushing people to think about business in a way that’s meaningful to others and protecting the planet. And you’re bringing just this whole other level of important meaning to business as well, which I love.

Trudi Lebron 36:53

Thank you so much.

Adam G. Force 36:54

Awesome. All right. Well, thanks again for your time today. We’ll, we’ll talk again, another time. All right. Take care. Thanks. All right. Take care now. Bye bye.

#interview

Brendan Kane: Getting Your Customers Attention in 3 Seconds or Less

Listen to our exclusive interview with Brendan:

Change Creator · Brendan Kane: Getting Your Customers Attention in 3 Seconds or Less

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What do you do if you only have 3 seconds to get someone’s attention today for your business? This is exactly what expert, Brendon Kane, has become an expert doing. So much so, he’s helped Taylor Swift, MTV, NHL, and so many other big players.

More about Brendon:

Brendan Kane is an outside of the box thinker, speaker, and author who empowers brands to scale by helping them stand out and beat the competition in crowded and oversaturated markets. He is the author of the international best-selling book One Million Followers and the newly released Hook Point: How To Stand Out In A 3 Second World, as well as the founder and CEO of the Hook Point agency. Brendan has worked with hundreds of individuals and brands providing business and digital strategy for more than 15 years, including MTV, Taylor Swift, Rhianna and many others.

Learn more about Brendan and his work at > https://book.hookpoint.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Brendan Kane 03:12

I’m doing well Adam, it’s awesome to connect with you and all the listeners out there.

Adam G. Force 03:18

Awesome, man. I appreciate it and appreciate you coming here. And taking the time this is actually just…your experience and this topic are something that I’m very interested in for selfish reasons and to share with the audience, right, we are big on storytelling here at Change Creator. In the social impact space, storytelling is just growing more and more significant. And as you know, more than anything, we have this whole, you know, culture of immediacy and the three second world as you call it, and your new book, hook point. So tell me a little bit just about your background just so people can get kind of grounded on where you’re coming from and how you got such expertise where you got to the point of working with people like Taylor Swift.

Brendan Kane 04:03

Yeah, so I started off my career in the film industry and I wanted to produce movies. And as soon as I got to film school to really learn about the business side of it, I quickly realize they teach you nothing about business and film school. So I had to quickly adapt and find a way to to get that experience that I was really looking for, and and find that education on my own. And I figured the best way to do about do that is to start a business of my own. And the most cost efficient way at the time and still hold true today is to create internet companies. So I created a few internet companies was going to college really to just learn and experiment. And then when I moved to Los Angeles in 2005, to pursue a career and film, it’s when the entertainment industry started to reawaken digital after the.com bust and basically, you know, as the subject goes of how do you stand out and capture attention and there in crowded markets, I just realized that there was 10s of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of other people moving to LA to pursue a career as a as a film producer. So I wasn’t really standing out and I just saw that there was a lot of questions being asked from producers, directors, screenwriters, actors on how this how digital after the.com bust, and just the emergence of social media could be leveraged to effectively promote these films that they invested so heavily and work so hard on. So I just leveraged that experience in forming those internet companies to provide that that strategic value and quickly went from you know, making copies and coffee to creating a digital division for a studio and, you know, helped oversee the the digital strategy on films ranging from $15 million budgets, which extended to helping you know, actors, directors, producers, screenwriters, and further syndicating their brand online. Yeah. And through that process, I just realized that the film industry, which everybody thinks is such a sexy creative thing is just another Corporation. And I am very much an entrepreneur at heart and decided that it wasn’t the right strategic fit to work within the ecosystem. So I, I left and I started building technology platforms and licensing them back to media companies. And they created partnerships and licensed technology to the likes of Viacom, MTV, Comedy Central, Vice magazine, Yahoo, paramount to name a few. And it was really the MTV partnerships that opened up the doors to work with Taylor Swift and to work with other notable celebrities, musicians, athletes, and you know, from there, I just continued into the digital and technology ecosystem. And I’ll just stop there, because I just threw a lot at you. And I can dive in further if you have other questions

Adam G. Force 06:59

Yeah, a few. Oh, there it is. There’s a there’s a lot that comes up there. And it’s really interesting. So just to give us a little sense, what were some of these original digital businesses that you put together?

Brendan Kane 07:12

I had done email marketing. There was a I don’t know if you remember back in the day, but Alexa was like the big website not the Amazon Alexa the Alexa for web traffic, we had created a system to increase your overall Alexa ranking. And there was a digital consulting thing, they came up with helping people strategize on how to get online as well.

Adam G. Force 07:37

Okay, so now, when you’re talking about hook point, so just so everybody knows who’s listening, you know, one of the his latest book is called hook point and how to stand out in a three second world which, you know, since the rise of digital, obviously, you know, this attention factor becomes like attention as this resource, right? And it’s something that everybody’s fighting for in the markets gets more and more saturated. So, Brendan, I guess over the years, I’d be curious to know your perspective of just how you have seen, you know, business in general changing like this fight for attention. Like, it’s, it’s evolved a lot, right with the rise of digital. So anything stand out to you of like, why we just live in this three second world now, like how we got there?

Brendan Kane 08:23

Yeah, there’s a bunch of contributing factors, one of which is that today, there’s over 60 billion messages sent out each day. And that’s billion with a B, that’s through your social media, push notifications, text, messages, emails, all this noise is sent out every single day. So when you think back to before social media before the internet really took off, there was wasn’t that much competition. But now, you’re living in a world where you’re no longer just competing against your direct competitors, you’re competing against every piece of content that’s published. So like it or not, the world that we live in today, you’re competing against LeBron James, you’re competing against Kevin Hart, the rock, Netflix, Paramount, all of these content providers. We’re all fighting for attention. And that’s where it’s just come, become so critically important to really capture that attention in those first three to five seconds. And as you started off the podcast, and one of the brilliant aspects of your podcast is storytelling. And the fact of the matter is, is your story is critically important to However, if you cannot win that first three to five seconds, they will never get to that story. And that’s where a lot of people struggling both people starting out and even, you know, major corporations billion dollar corporations that I work with is is that they they have to to When that first three to five seconds to get to their story to get to their message to get to their brilliance, and and that’s a huge mind shift for most people for most content creators, and I just see a lot of people really struggling with that they just dive straight into the story, they just dive straight into the sale or their product or their service or their message with really not understanding how they’re fighting against all this other content on these platforms each day.

Adam G. Force 10:30

Yeah, I mean, it’s, it is grown so much. And I’m mean, we get to this three second factor. And is that like, so you talk about that? And I, in my mind, I’m thinking for people that are listening, it’s kind of like, well, where are we fighting for the three seconds? Is it? Is it everywhere? Like when I go to their website, you have three seconds to get my attention? Or you put a video up on Facebook? Are you do a Facebook Live or Instagram Live? You have three seconds? So is it everywhere, meaning every touchpoint digitally that you’re fighting for that three second attention?

Brendan Kane 11:05

I see it offline as well. Yeah, definitely online. But even in the offline world, because a lot of the success I’ve had has been able to secure your high profile meetings and maximize the potential of those high profile meetings as well. And oftentimes, oftentimes, you won’t even get the meeting, if you don’t have that strong hook. And then in addition, it’s critically important, once you get into that room to really win it, win the attention up front now is it really three to five seconds, if you’re sitting in front of a boardroom, typically have a little bit more time. But if you’re taking a high profile meeting with a major CEO, celebrity or any of these people, like you need to you need to really grab them, otherwise they’re going to zone out, or they’re going to end the meeting early or, or they’re just going to move on to the other things that they have to do with their, their their day.

Adam G. Force 12:02

Yeah. And I mean, how do you so you know, give people a little taste, I guess of like, what, how do you define a hook point, like, what, what makes a hook point in your mind

Brendan Kane 12:16

A very high level hook point equals grabbing attention. And there’s three core pillars to to creating a successful hook point. Okay, the first part is what we’ve been talking about is, is generating that pattern interruption in the first three to five seconds to get somebody to stop, and just be like, I want to check this out, or I want to watch this rolling or read more about this, then once you have that attention, you have to tell a compelling story, you have to retain that attention, because we’re not talking about clickbait here, we’re not talking about tricking people, because we trick people, then they’re gonna fall off with the story, they’re gonna fall off of the message, you want to share them. And one of the biggest contributing factors to having success on social media is playing to what the algorithms are looking for. And the algorithms are looking for two key things. One, are people stopping when they see your content? And two, how long are they spending with the content that they’re consuming from your account. So it’s critically important that once you get somebody to stop, that you contextualize your message in such a way that it holds their attention for the longest period of time possible. And then the third core pillar is Do people believe what you’re saying? Do people trust what you’re saying, and all three of these key pillars have to play together? You know, because if you don’t grab attention, you’ll never get to the story. If you grab attention in your story, your message isn’t strong and you don’t retain it, then you’ve lost that attention. If you have a compelling hook and a great story, but people don’t believe it, that it all falls apart as well. So that’s really how I look at developing hook points for clients, both online or offline are essentially for any medium. Those key principles have allowed us to be very successful in our endeavors, and also for our clients.

Adam G. Force 14:08

Yeah, wow. No, that’s great. So those three pillars for everybody was pattern interruption, a compelling story. And then, you know, do they trust what you’re saying? And you’re right. I mean, people have, we live in a time where people’s defenses are up, right, like the old days of infomercials and all that, like, you know, like making up stories and just, you know, people’s guards are up and the red flags go up, right? I mean, isn’t that like an immediate response to people today? Like you have to almost break through their defense?

Brendan Kane 14:43

Yes, I would say I would say that, that in addition to their protecting the most valuable asset in the world, which is time, and we all live in a world where we get all of this content pushed to us. Thus, we prioritize our time. Yeah, it’s like for me, when I look at my email inbox, I probably get 1500 emails a day, between clients being cc on stuff that, you know, email newsletters, I’m signed up for promotions, all that stuff. And when I look at my email inbox, there’s no human way that I have the time to read every email, right, so I have to prioritize my time. And I’m sure this goes the same with every person when they check their email inbox, and it applies to all mediums, not just the inbox. even looking at social media, when you open up Instagram, there’s probably 1000 pieces of content that the algorithms can see to you. Right, they’re prioritizing on your behalf, which are the top ones and that’s why you’ll see accounts with large followings and low engagement or low reach. It has nothing to do with that they have a fake audience or it’s an unengaged audience. It’s just the algorithms that prioritize other content above it, and are suppressing that reach, right. The other way that I look at it, too, is just my consumption of television and movies today. Because like there is so much content out there, when I’m watching, even if it’s a show that’s recommended to me. And there’s several high profile shows that have been recommended that everybody loves, if I don’t get into it in the first five or 10 minutes, like I’m done. Yeah. Why? Because there’s 15 other shows that have been recommended to me. It’s not It’s not that like it was back in the 70s and 80s, where there was only like, five television shows, television stations, and like 15- 20 shows to choose from.

Adam G. Force 16:38

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, things have changed quite a bit. And, you know, as you have now, I guess, gone through you have your own process that you’ve created. What, before I even asked you about some of the case studies and stuff, what has led you to create the process? I know, you talked about earlier businesses and trying to stand out in the market. What got you to the conclusion of the three pillars that you have?

Brendan Kane 17:10

Well, in the book for hook point, there’s actually a five step framework that we use to develop hook points. So the three key pillars are what ultimately determines whether a hook point is successful or not got it. But I have been using this process for over 15 years. And it’s when people ask me, well, how did I close taylor swift as a client or to MTV? or How did I you know, get promoted to running a, a movie studio, a marketing arm? or How did I generate a million followers in 30 days? Or how do we generate billions of views for our clients? I had to really take a step back and analyze Well, what is the common theme? What is the through line that has generated all that success, and it really came down to standing out and being different, and you’re capturing people’s attention and very noisy and over saturated markets. And that’s where I felt that I could provide the most value to the world, and decided to create the framework and the pillars around that to contextualize what it is that that myself and my partners have been able to do to really reach the scale. And it’s also when I work with clients, again, somebody just graduated from college, or the CEO of a multi billion dollar organization. They’re often lacking that innovative strategy to continuously stand out to capture that attention. And second, barely, and just as important maintain it as well.

Adam G. Force 18:43

Yeah, yeah. Hmm. Yeah. So I guess I’m curious, you know, about some of the case studies you have done, were any of them. I’m sure some were more challenging than others, and have unique circumstances maybe they were dealing with so I’m sure. Can you give us an example, maybe of something that you got brought into and how that played out? Maybe some of the challenges that you had to overcome with that. And in setting this up?

Brendan Kane 19:13

Yeah, like I could start with the work that we did with Taylor Swift is, when we were brought in she was having problems with her official online presence. At the time, you know, the time spent on our site was like below 40 seconds, there is a 98% bounce rate off the homepage. And she was really struggling to connect in a meaningful way with her fans through this platform in the same way she was able to do so brilliantly through social media. So we had to really construct a strategy that matched her willingness and ability to connect with fans in a deep and meaningful way and translate it to an official website to a fan club. where it was notoriously not an engaging experience, not just with her, but with most celebrities and musicians. So we needed to really find a way to kind of flip that on its on its head. And we had, at the time built a technology, that literally you, you could dynamically change any element of the site yourself without writing a single line of code. So when we rebuilt her site for her, we did it in less than six hours. And when I walked into the meeting with her, I gave her the mouse I said, you can change every single element of, of this yourself. And that’s gave her that control and that flexibility to communicate through this. In addition, we had to really look at how we could scale the engagement level because for her she was so hands on one of the reasons that she was so successful is, she really understood the value and importance of fostering one to one communication with fans. Understanding that each time she signed an autograph with a fan took a photo, responded to a comment not only to turn that fan into a fan for life, but it turned that fan into a brand advocate. But because she was becoming such a huge global superstar that doesn’t scale. Even even with her willingness to do like a 13 hour autograph signing for an album release. Yeah. Like you can only reach so many fans with that. Yeah. So we partnered with a few other technology platforms to really foster that community by connecting fans to one another, and connecting them so that they can communicate with each other around their love for Taylor Swift and their music and things of that nature. And then we also looked at Well, we have all these brand advocates that we’re building, how do we give them more tools, and, and fun and creative ways to really continue to share Taylor’s brand at the highest possible velocity. And I was really thinking about a hook point with with my team of what could do that. And in our research, we identified at the time, there’s about 30, Taylor Swift fans, that actually took the time to learn how to read and write code. And that so that they could create their own official tail so fansite and really express their love with for Taylor’s music with the world. That Well, that’s amazing. What about all the other fans? What if we could give something like that to all the other fans without having them learn how to read and write code, because we all know that this is a very daunting and arduous task. And that’s where we came up with a concept and technology that we built, where we can automatically turn any Facebook page into an official Taylor Swift Fan site in less than 60 seconds. And what we did is, once you accepted the permissions, we would extract your name and your photos, and we would automatically pull it through the API and insert it into one of 15 different designs you could choose from. And again, once you click that button, that was it was done in less than 60 seconds was built for you customized for you. And then the little secret was that it was the same platform that Taylor Swift span, our website was built on. So really, fans were getting the same technology. And they could go in and customize it even further, if they wanted, we had some fans that literally deleted the entire site and created a brand new one from scratch. Because they had all these tools at their fingertips. And, and we went from 30 Taylor Swift Fan sites to over 35,000 in just a few months. And that was a hook that really amplified that connection between Taylor and her fans. It also made them feel like they’re part of the team and giving them tools to really express their their love for Taylor and again, feeling like they were a part of the team.

Adam G. Force 23:50

Yeah. Wow. So I mean, how do you define so in that particular scenario, you said this technology you created, create a website in 60 seconds? You know, you started off saying that we had to create more connection and give control like to have more meaning from Taylor Swift connecting with the audience and stuff. So how do you define a hook point here? for this type of process? You we’re calling the technology hook. So is that or is this a technology? It’s forming a hook point?

Brendan Kane 24:20

there is several hooks in that story I just told you, you know, first and foremost, the actual hook that I gave Taylor’s or did I express the Taylor Swift when I sat down with her, and it was, hey, Taylor, I built this site for you in less than six hours. And I know your frustration around your current thing, you can control every element of it. So it was you know, there’s a few things one is the last thing six hours, one was giving her the mouse so that she could customize any element and see that control. And another was you never have to deal with a developer again, if you don’t want to. Right then there was the hook for the fans. It’s like, hey, we’ll create a official Taylor Swift Fan site and less than 60 seconds by clicking this button, no code required. So those were, you know, different hooks one was the b2b hook in the, in the, you know, expression to Taylor Swift and to get her excited to get her engaged and interested in working with us. And then there was to the fans of you creating this custom Taylor Swift Fan site for you in less than 60 seconds with a simple click of a button.

Adam G. Force 25:29

That’s interesting. Yeah. I mean, I could see how obviously something unique like that, like you were saying, and you know, make something different. That kind of gets your your ears perked up and go, Wait a minute, what are you saying I can do this in 60 seconds? And you want to hear more? And now there’s actually an interesting story behind why you’re doing that too, right?

Brendan Kane 25:48

Yeah, absolutely. Again, that the hooks grab the attention, what you do with it still matters immensely, I just see that most people in the world have something amazing to offer, have a true genius have a product or service that is extremely valuable. What they lack is the way to really bring people into the conversation in a unique way I was. So for example, I’m advising the largest real estate company in the world, they have 180,000 agents. And I was talking to one of the heads of the company. And it was interesting, because what they’re saying is all of their sales associates, especially their top ones, they’re amazing salespeople, but they struggle with marketing. And that makes sense is their job is to sell. But when you’re entering this world, this noisy world, entering a world, especially with COVID, and everything going on and everything moving digitally and socially. You’ve got to flip that on its head and turn yourself into a marketer turn yourself into a storyteller to earn the right to sell. Because most people struggle with selling something because they’re just doing that they’re selling something when they haven’t earned the right to that part of the conversation yet,

Adam G. Force 27:05

right? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I love it, man. Yeah, this goes deep. I’m you. Have you hooked me I want to get I want to get the book. Yeah, I mean, this this kind of stuff. You know, as you know, we do like a lot of storytelling I mentioned earlier, and kind of focus on the power of storytelling for business today, an identity with your brand and things like that. And as you kind of get into pattern interruption, and then backing it with the stories and all these things, like it all ties in really nicely. And I think this culture of this three second, you know, grabbed the attention in a saturated market factor. If you can’t figure out how to break through that to your point. It’s just going to be an uphill battle forever. So I, I kind of love that focus on that, that breaking that right out of the gate.

Brendan Kane 27:56

Yeah, the world that we live in is oversaturated across the board. So if you sitting there thinking, my industry is not oversaturated you’re looking at the holistic picture, not in the wrong way. is is you are competing for attention in everything that you do

Adam G. Force 28:14

Everything, yeah, that’s exactly it. Yeah, it makes a big difference. And I don’t know that that it’s gonna go away anytime soon. You know, we can niche niche niche, But to your point, that the market, we’re still bombarded with, you know, thousands upon thousands of ads every day and different people trying to grab your attention for different things. And it’s exhausting. So if you if you can’t grab someone’s attention, you just, you’re not even getting, you know, a conversation with them at all.

Brendan Kane 28:44

On number seven, and also even if you’re going niche, niche, niche is you got to understand that, especially when you’re dealing with organic and it does have played play apply to paid as well is the more niche you go with your message, the more you’re training, the algorithms that that message is, is is for that for a specific niche, and thus they’ll prioritize other content over your content. And that’s a struggle I see people have when they go way too specific with their content. Oftentimes, they’re they’re not going to get the reach even to the people that are following them, or the people that have opted into it. Because the algorithms are just controlling that overall distribution. And that’s when we learn to work with clients what we try and reshape their their marketing strategy to develop hooks that can bring in that wider audience so that you can get that mass distribution and within that mass distribution, you will hit your core audience.

Adam G. Force 29:45

Hmm, that’s an interesting point. You know, you’re right. So we are being served information based on our interest and if you dial in extremely niche, your messaging will connect with that particular audience. But as far as to your point, the social media technology goes, you start kind of cutting your legs out from underneath yourself, in a sense, you’re saying,

Brendan Kane 30:10

Yeah, and it’s not just social media, it’s even like emails like email deliverability is impacted by what are the open rates of your emails? So it just again, it’s like how can you contextualize it to make it bigger to make a wider audience be attracted to it? So I’ll give you an example. Yeah, that I think really demonstrates this. So there is a real estate agent named Ryan, sir, hands on. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him. But he was initially on million dollar listing. But that’s not the reason that he’s like probably the most famous real estate agent in the world right now. It’s because of what he’s done on social media. And he works at the highest level, like he’s representing properties, like between 5 million and like 100 million dollars. So for him, he has a very, very niche audience in terms of who’s gonna buy his property. But what he did so brilliantly, is he understood everything that we’re talking about. And he started developing content, and developing hooks for the wider audience. So what he’ll do is if you go to his YouTube channel, and and sort by the most popular, he’ll go and tour, a $200 million mansion, even if he’s not representing it and give that tour, or Hill Hill go tour, the biggest closet in all of New York City. And what that’s doing is that those hooks bring everybody into it. Like who doesn’t want to see what a $200 million home looks like? Who doesn’t want to see what the the biggest closet in New York City looks like? So what he’ll do is he’ll generate millions and millions of views on those videos, and 99.9% of the people viewing that can’t afford it. But there is that percentage of people that can’t afford it that do tune in because the algorithms are giving it so much reach. He is he is openly expressed that he is sold properties because of his YouTube videos. Like people don’t even tour the home in person, they just see the YouTube video then put in an offer. killing it. He’s building this huge brand. And now he’s diversified into his own brokerage, he’s diversified into building his own media network. Whereas most realtors are just focused on how do I sell this one property do this and market it to this specific audience. He had a larger vision, he understands the power of these hooks to win attention. And by winning attention, he gets far more distribution through his social content than any other real estate agent out there. And same thing with Gary Vaynerchuk reason he’s so successful, his team has mastered that first three to five seconds as well.

Adam G. Force 33:00

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s interesting, two very different types of people. And you know, you think about because I guess when I think about going broader, like you’re saying, is this organic that we’re talking about, or for paid marketing as well? Meaning, you know, when we go broader, it does cost more money for us to reach a broader audience. So do you need $100,000 marketing budget?

Brendan Kane 33:26

Sometimes it costs less to go broader because the more the more variables you put into these ad platforms, and the more restrictive you say, this is the exact audience I want. Typically, your cost of the auction increases significantly. Now, I’m not saying never to do that. Like, listen, if you have a very if you’re just I’m, I’m need to sell this product to CMOS. And there’s only 500 of these CMOS in the world that obviously, yes, but I always recommend people test. Like, for example, I was working on a campaign for a company called chat books. And they were pretty sure they still are the number one online photo printer in the world at the time I worked with them, which was like two years ago was like a million subscribers. Yeah. And they came to me with a Mother’s Day campaign with some amazing creative that that my friend had produced. And it was like three to like 10 year olds talking about how their moms are like superheroes. And they said, We only want to target mothers 45 plus with this content. And I said, I’m willing to test that. But let me go broad and just see what happens. Let me test a few other audiences. And when I got into the data and launch these campaigns, what I saw what was happening is that it was actually resonating most with females 18 to 25. And I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. And I dug in deeper and what was happening is these females 18 to 25. were sharing it with their mothers and tagging them in it. So that’s What’s happening is we are actually hitting our core demo in a far more powerful way of bridging this this emotional connection between mothers and daughters by the daughter sharing it with the mother, in addition to the fact we opened it up to a completely new audience, and the correlative effect is because we went broader is our cost in the auction dropped as well.

Adam G. Force 35:22

Yeah, so I can see how costs go down. When you go broader. I guess the question would be, and you guys did end up reaching your target, meaning the people who would actually buy so if you spend more up front on ads to go narrow? Do you have a higher sales conversion rate, if we’re doing something specific for a product, but you know, in this case of what you’re talking about, for increasing reach and having, I mean, that scenario that you just mentioned, is pretty unique and interesting to see how the daughters are sharing. And then, because the moms may have never even found it. So by reaching them, there’s also a level of trust being conveyed, that it’s coming from the daughter. So there’s an interesting effect there, I think, too.

Brendan Kane 36:04

Yeah, absolutely. And each business is unique, each business is different, we’ve just seen far more success in helping our clients position for the broader scale of things than just Hey, let’s pinpoint this exact audience. And that’s all we’re really serving at the end of the day.

Adam G. Force 36:23

You know, we’ve seen that too, because we would go and do ads, like very specifically, and you’re right, you know, the more specific and niche you get, you’re gonna pay more for that that’s a high value, you know, group of people, for your business, but we loosened up our marketing, and we actually, you know, worked with some ad teams and stuff and kind of saw some things they were doing. And we’re just seeing that very minimal. Like, parameters were, were applied at certain campaigns. And they were very successful, because the algorithm does start to find the people that are most relevant, but you are reaching more people at the same time. So I think from a marketing standpoint, there, it does make a pretty fair amount of sense, the only thing we would do is one top level parameter, which could be like a country Plus, you know, they’re interested in entrepreneurship, right, very broad. And it starts to work its way through the algorithm, and it works well.

Brendan Kane 37:22

Yeah, and like my book is, is another my first book is another example is the hook, a million followers in 30 days is very broad, and appeals to a very wide audience. Yeah. And the strategy that I employed with that was by design is I wanted a strong hook that can bring in the widest audience possible. And within that widest audience, I will find my core clients that will engage with me on a deeper level. And that’s going to be less than 1% of the people reading the book. But I knew that by having a hook, like 1 million followers in 30 days, I could, you know, push a bunch of copies into the market and saturate the market. So that even if I’m not directly putting my hands into the book into the hands of the person, that is that ideal client, it will get there. Like, for example, that real estate company, yeah. I mentioned, it’s, uh, they got into the hands of one of their top real estate agents, they applied some of the tactics and you know, generate a lot of profit. And then then she sent it to the founder of this real estate company, and now I’m engaged with them. Yeah, top of that I just built, you know, massive brand awareness, a massive, a brand push by getting all these copies into the market at the same time.

Adam G. Force 38:47

Wow. Yeah, no, it makes sense to because if you have the right hook, you’ll get a lot more if you are doing any kind of paid marketing and stuff like because it’s going to just like, it’s going to be a little more viral, right? So do you do any tests for let’s say you call it like the title of the book like that hook? Do you test those things in any way first?

Brendan Kane 39:12

In some ways, like have been doing this long enough, that for both of my books, I knew that the overall hook was solid, there was certain tweaks to words, and then also tweaks to design and expressions of it, that we test. But we’ve got enough data and enough experience to really understand whether or not something’s going to resonate. And then also I have a network of some of the most successful people on the planet that I’m constantly having conversations with as well. And I’ll always seed an initial hook or idea to them to see how they respond to it. And also to see how I can express it and also hone in on the story that I tell once I have the hook coming in. So we don’t Do necessarily, you know AV testing on the overarching hook online I do most of that kind of through experience and also some of the the networks that I have. But once we have that hook, we’re going to test many different creative assets into it like for our ads into our books, will test hundreds and hundreds of different expressions of that hook to bring people in and different expressions of the story to bring people in.

Adam G. Force 40:29

Got it. Interesting. Very cool, man. I love it. Well, we are over our time so I want to be respectful of your time and we’ll wrap up here let’s just make sure everybody knows where the best place to go online is to find your book maybe learn a little bit more about you and your team and how they can even work with you guys if they wanted to stuff like that.

Brendan Kane 40:52

So I would I would start even if you’re interested in 1 million followers book I would start with Hook point because it really sets that that foundation and groundwork to be successful on social and they can go to book dot hook point com to get that if they do want to dive into the 1 million followers book or they can go to book dot 1 million followers calm and if they’re interested in working directly with me and my team they can either DM me on Instagram at Brendan Kane or email me at BKane@Brendanjkane.com

Adam G. Force 41:23

Cool. Awesome Brandon. Really appreciate your time today and love what you’re doing and listen, thanks for just kind of sharing these insights really valuable stuff.

Brendan Kane 41:35

Yeah, my pleasure. It was awesome connecting with you and everybody out there listening. I really appreciate it.

Adam G. Force 41:46

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

#interview

Taryn Larock: How She Went from Model to Creating a Sustainable Fashion Business

Listen to our exclusive interview with Taryn:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

The fashion industry has a lot of bad practices that need to course correct, but where you do even start?

Taryn Larock went from a model to a sustainable fashion business owner. In this discussion, she explains why she made the change and the steps she had to take to make the business happen.

About Taryn:

Taryn Larock is the founder of the sustainable brand Sage Larock, who previously worked as a model until launching the brand in 2015. Taryn Launched the brand specifically to offer women a sustainable & ethical alternative to traditionally made apparel. Taryn previously apprenticed under eco-fashion pioneer Linda Loudermilk in Los Angeles. SAGE LAROCK was recently awarded ‘Best Made in California Brand’ by the Los Angeles Business Journal (PETA Nominated), and has been featured in the Zoe Report, Modern Luxury Magazine & Angeleno Magazine.

Learn more about Taryn and her work at > http://www.sagelarock.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Adam G. Force 03:09

Hey, Taryn, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show how you doing today?

Taryn Larock 03:13

Good.

Adam G. Force 03:14

Awesome. I, as I mentioned, before, we jumped on here, I’m excited to talk about the fashion industry. There’s just such a big matzah ball out there when it comes to fashion. And the cost of you know, we’ve all heard probably by now fast fashion or having supply chains that are, you know, not fair trade, or there’s children involved, you know, under age workers and things like that. So, so much. And then, of course, the pollution factor, right. So I’m excited to hear more about, you know, your journey of why you started a fashion company and made that decision, and kind of like where you are today and what’s going on. So we’ll dig into that stuff. Maybe you can just give us a little background to kick us off of kind of like, why, why you’re where you’re at now.

Taryn Larock 04:04

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, for years, I worked in the fashion industry in a different way. I did some modeling work in the US and Europe. And so I came out of that and I, I knew I wanted to be able to leverage the knowledge that I had gained from the industry. And I wanted to do something entrepreneurial, but also something that was sustainable. And so at that point, I was looking into different avenues whether I want to do textile design or, or work for a brand and I just, I found it very challenging to to find something that was in alignment with my principles of sustainability, and also from a human rights perspective. And I think what you said is it’s it’s a big matzo ball is the best way to put it because, and it’s getting the industry is getting better, but going back to about 2012 13 when I was I was just working with this as a concept central rock as a concept and a sustainable brand, that, that had that deeply embedded into our brand ethos. There just there was an awful lot out there at that point. So that’s that’s how I kind of got started because I was having difficulty finding a job that was in alignment with my own principles. And it would that I found would be interesting. And could could go in a direction where sustainability and and ethical production would be at the forefront. I just had, well, I’m not finding it. So I should just launch it. So here we are.

Adam G. Force 05:45

And what were some of the major, I guess, as you were figuring this out, and we all go through this discovery phase of figuring things out, you know, you know, what was standing out to you about the industry that you wanted to make sure if I do this, I’m going to do it differently. I’m going to do X, Y, and Z, like what were the I know, there’s a lot of different things about the fashion industry, but what really important to you and stood out, that’s a major issue that we’re tackling here that you want to do differently.

Taryn Larock 06:16

So I there were a couple things that struck me is really important, from the get go. And one of them was using fabrics that are either organic, or upcycled. And then also ethical production. And there’s a lot of greenwashing in the industry. I think specifically now with with the industry, it’s kind of trendy or cool to to be sustainable or have a sustainability initiative embedded into a brand. But I wanted to be transparent and have integrity in that rather than just say, Oh, well, we do one one piece that’s kind of sustainable, or that I can pass off is sustainable. I didn’t want anything to do that. Because having been in the industry in a different way, I saw that. I saw that. Women and now unfortunately, this is this is happening to men, we’ve all been kind of sold a bill of goods where we need to consume different things every season. And that has to be very trend driven. And it’s like we’re all kind of women. And as I said, Now men were locked into the cycle of consumption. And I thought that’s, that’s not really the way it should be. I understand that that drives more profits, but it’s it’s not in alignment with in my opinion of running an ethical brand to to constantly be in this loop of buy and do away with what you had. I think that that’s probably one of the least sustainable things we can do also. So I wanted to really drive a product that we lead with style and quality and wearability season after season and year after year, something that wasn’t going to fall apart in the washing machine, which happens with a lot of swimwear. Unfortunately, after you know you wear it for summers done, it looks trashed. But I’m yeah, I’m proud to say with the materials that we use in the in the manufacturing process that we use, but that isn’t the case. Just to test this, I kept the very first suit that we that we cut and sewed for myself, and I wear the heck out of it. And it’s still it’s still going so I wanted to lead with that. And then also, you know, I I’ve seen sweatshops when I was interviewing garment production here in Los Angeles, and I previously thought they only existed, you know, in mainland China or, or Sub Saharan Africa, but they are they’re underground parking. Lots here in Los Angeles in the financial district I’ve seen so it’s just and they’re quite sad places and a lot of brands use them because it you know, can double or triple your your profit margin. But yeah, I didn’t want anything to do with that. So, you know, just really Those were the key factors that I really wanted to consider in in even coming up with a prototype. And if we couldn’t meet, if we couldn’t meet those standards, I was going to step back and revisit how to do things in a better way. Yeah, I definitely believe that the fashion industry is operating is kind of an old dinosaur crawling around from ethical and sustainable standpoints. And it’s it’s changing, but it needs to change more quickly and catch up with consumer demand and doing things in the right way is my opinion.

Adam G. Force 09:35

Yeah, I mean, you brought up washing and and you brought up you know, a couple of key things that were important to you. And I think there is there’s just you know what it’s like not that greenwashing has come up when when the sustainability movement got traction. And I realized that it’s greenwashing it’s for everything. You know, it’s really just everybody wants to pretend To be something in order to get the reap the benefits, but not actually follow through and act, you know, walk the walk. And we see it so much. So I am… Now, if you look so as you explore this and you figure out like how you’re going to set up your business? Were you talking to like, were you looking at manufacturers overseas or just in the US?

Taryn Larock 10:25

So initially, we were just looking in the US just because I’m launching the brand, it was just myself and one other woman. And we we just really wanted to make sure we had full visibility on on what was going on. We didn’t want someone to say, Oh, yeah, we’re going to make this but we’re we’re going to send pieces over to Xyz factory, and we don’t have visibility on that. And then we’re calling ourselves an ethical and sustainable brand. But yeah, we really wanted to make sure that was the case, and also support the local garment industry here. A lot of it post 2008 went overseas, and there’s just so many talented people here we wanted to support.

Adam G. Force 11:06

Sure. Yeah, I mean, I’m always curious about that, because, you know, we’re not ecommerce on our end, and I have explored those ideas. And I’m looking at things like Ali Baba, and I’m just like, wow, yeah, a million different things, and then travel all over the place and look at these places. And it just got overwhelming to me. I mean, keeping in the states is nice. I mean, in my mind, more importantly, I like what you said is like it’s easier to manage, if it’s in the States, because you can get it and things like that. That’s smart. I guess the most important thing would be getting the quality of the product as in sustainable or whatever materials and all those things. Sometimes that stuff can get really expensive in state, and did you notice big differences at all? Or are not really?

Taryn Larock 11:55

You’re quite right. It definitely is more expensive. I think just because the sustainable market is kind of a niche market. So it’s, it’s definitely gonna be what I’ve seen about double or triple the cost. But on the flip side of that coin is the, it matches the quality with that, too, for what I’ve seen. So I mean, I just think from the perspective of building a better product, it makes sense, because our customers being interested in sustainability, they don’t want to just buy something and throw it away. After after one season. So yeah, it is more expensive, though. And it’s unfortunately unavoidable. We get all our materials from Italy, so it’s even more expensive. But worth it.

Adam G. Force 12:46

Yeah, I mean, listen, listen, that is the differentiating selling point just has to be clear. And you’re right, people will pay for better quality, meaning I don’t want to buy 10 bathing suits, I wanna, I wanna, you know, and my wife and I, like I literally was just buying, we were looking because we bought our first house a while ago. And we’re like buying a lawn mower. And I’m like, I could use the exercise anyway. So we’re paying someone to cut the lawn right now. It’s like, I can do it once in a while too. And as soon as we go to buy anything, I’m like, you know, I could get this like longmore for like 200 bucks, but then I’m gonna end up buying another one a year later. So it’s like, yeah, piece of crap is gonna play out. Same idea with any product, right? Like you always want to buy, it’s more expensive to buy cheap than it is to just get quality right out of the gate. Right. So true. Yeah, that makes a big difference makes a big difference. So I think that’s worthwhile. I think that’s good. And one thing that’s challenging in this marketplaces, and I don’t know, if you’ve seen this is like, Well, everyone will quickly fill out a survey or tell people that they support sustainable products. And that’s what that they’re going to spend more on organic, sustainable, whatever it might be. But it’s odd, because the survey data says, Whoa, look at this, look at these behaviors and attitudes are all in line with this, I’m gonna I’m gonna create this sustainable product, we’re gonna be rich. But then, when push comes to shove, and they get to put money down, and they see a really cool bathing suit from like, h&m for $50 versus another one for 75 at like scotch and soda or something, you know, they’re like, yeah, okay, I’m gonna get the one for 20 bucks. And this is what’s happening. It’s a very interesting disconnect about what they what they want to feel and say and do with what they actually act on.

Taryn Larock 14:35

It’s so true. And and I think it’s, you know, just to give everyone a brief little history lesson, it’s the fashion industry in 2008. When we we had the economic crisis, a lot of a lot of our production was sent offshore and in order to compensate for for and kind of correct consumers not purchasing and looking for discount goods or Not purchasing at all. The market was flooded if everyone remembers back with a lot of fast fashion. Yeah. And so I think, you know, it’s the $5 t shirt or the $20 jeans, and he said, the $15 bathing suit or swim trunks, and it’s just, you know, or five pairs of socks for like 10 bucks. And there’s a cost associated with that. Like, he doesn’t want to buy something in Payless. Everyone does, of course, but at the same time, there is a cost associated with that. And a lot of those costs are you know, we’re we’re destroying waterways by dumping toxic chemicals from carcinogenic dyes into waterways. And guess what those dyes go into your bloodstream via the largest organ, we all have our skin. Yeah, and you know, and that’s, that’s probably a whole nother discussion. There’s a human cost associated, which is there’s an estimated I think it’s 20 million people in modern slavery, which are in the fashion industry, garment production industry. And that’s just below tech and animal agriculture. So the fashion industry isn’t really doing well with with rankings on human rights, labor laws being upheld, because a lot of it is done in in third world economies, whether those regulations are in place, or as I mentioned, like underground kind of secret places in just under our noses, and in other global cities and first world countries. So it’s like, yeah, I want that $15 bikini, but what is it? What is the cost associated with it, and you’re right, it is like, it’s like your lawnmower, you’re just gonna end up buying another one. So it’s kind of like, we all have to be retrained. And unfortunately, the garment industry, like the market isn’t gonna do it. For us, we have to, I think it’s a reprioritization of our values. It’s like, if we look at our parents, closet, or grandparents closets, they had like, four or five really nice suits. You know, my grandmother had like four or five really nice dresses, some suits and then some things to wear to like a wedding or a cocktail party. And she wasn’t she might add a thing or two a year. Same with my grandfather, but it wasn’t this constant consumption of crap. Right? And so it’s, it’s like, what are we buying? And like, we’re throwing it away, it’s going in a landfill, I would say about 80% of the clothing being made is polyester or acrylic, which is plastic. So yeah, and it’s, you know, we’re pumping, I believe we’re pumping about 70 million barrels annually of crude oil to produce virgin polyester. So it’s like, you know, and that contributes to oil spills and fracking. So it’s just what is the cost for that $15. swimsuit. And I think that it’s a lot to ask consumers to sit and break that all down, it’s taken me years to research and I’m a little, I’m obsessed with it. So for me, it’s fun. But it’s it’s a lot to ask as someone who just wanted to go out and get a T shirt. So I think brands need to be remote responsible. And unfortunately, it’s like going in a grocery store. Just because something’s on the shelf doesn’t mean it’s good for you to put in your body. You know, you know, we kind of have to empower ourselves and take that back and be like, No, I don’t want to wear something made by a slave that has a carcinogenic aizome dye in it. It’s just gross. So I’m gonna pay 30 bucks more.

Adam G. Force 18:31

I mean, it’s a tough, you’re right, yeah. Tough shift for people. And I think, you know, the more I learn about human behavior and understanding how environment triggers behavior, it’s like, I struggle. You know, how do I want to say this? So for example, can we really rely on people to make the decisions like that, right? Because they’re in a position where they have all these considerations? And it’s like, Well, sure, I can’t afford this right now. Or it’s in like, they have this intention, where it’s like, it’s an honorable intention. That’s what they want to do. But when push comes to shove, and they have to, they’re scraping by check to check. It’s like, well, I’ve I just can’t afford to do that. And so I think it’s challenging because in capitalism, we have to build businesses. And there’s always gonna be somebody out there cutting the corners to be higher profits, to be higher profits to have higher profits. And that means to do these things that maybe no one else is doing, right. It could be child labor, it could be polluting, could, someone’s always going to be doing that. And we have to rely on the consumer to make the smart choice. When in reality, the way it would work best is if the environment itself didn’t rely on the consumer, just any choice they had the status quo was these these operations were done in a proper way like you’re doing

Taryn Larock 19:58

Yeah, and and You’re so right. I mean, it’s just all things being considered and when the market is offering you, you know, from let’s use h&m as an example. Like they they position themselves as a conscious brand. They’re conscientious of their production. Well, not to knock h&m but yes and no, if you look at the data, so I think that there’s a lot of misinformation out there. And you’re right, it should people should be able to, to make that decision. But what I found even from a consumer standpoint, being a consumer of sustainable fashion, as much as possible, myself, there aren’t that many alternatives out there. And the ones that are, yeah, you have to retain yourself, say, Yeah, I want a sweater. Well, that one’s $90. But it’s organic. And it’s the price I think we need to meet in the middle, like, there needs to be more accessibility for manufacturers and brands to to make things that have a profit margins that are acceptable to do business, and support, support production economies that the consumer can consider accessible. We just make sustainability and ethic you know, ethical fashion, a luxury option. It’s like organic food, like organic food. Now you go into some like dollar stores, there’s organic lettuce, like it has to be accessible.

Adam G. Force 21:22

I know and that that is the biggest challenge, I see a lot of these brands and if someone’s going to tell me that the quality, not only is it organic and sustainable, but the quality of it is going to last me like oh, you can put this in the wash 1000 times and you can wear it you know roughhousing with the kids outside, you know, for three years. And look, it’s still the same high quality shirt or pants I that sells me because I’m buying the quality. So it all of a sudden, like the sustainable part of it is nice, because you’re making a conscious decision. But as far as making sure you’re getting your money’s worth that I think that quality over time factor comes in pretty big.

Taryn Larock 22:04

Yeah, then you’re like sold, I’ll take it there’s a there’s a value add beyond my just feeling good about it. Ladies, I’m actually going to get my money’s worth. It’s like a little return on your investment for your being able to wear it for a few years. She said yeah roughhousing with your kids and your dog, it’s it’s going to pay off. But so I think manufacturers just what you said, Adam, they need to take that into account as well. Because that will be a value add for customers. So for those who are considering a sustainable or an ethical brand, right, like, yeah, embed that in the product, and then it becomes interesting to people. And then also like things that aren’t so trend driven. Because that’s a little trick that the fashion industry is done on us to keep profits, right. I mean, but it’s not necessary. It’s it’s just the way it’s been done. It doesn’t need to be the way it continues to operate. No, no, you’re right. And then that’s where the higher price comes into. We’re not gonna keep selling you a bunch of random things. It’s its own style. Yeah, you’ll be good new year or two

Adam G. Force 23:09

Man, smart people were a lot of the same thing all the time. Remember that?

Taryn Larock 23:13

Yeah, it’s true. It’s more efficient.

Adam G. Force 23:16

It is like a uniform, but where’s my black t shirt and jeans? That’s my outfit.

Taryn Larock 23:21

Uniform dressing. I’m a huge fan

Adam G. Force 23:24

Yeah. So tell me a little bit. What were some of the most actually before even ask that… Does the higher costs necessarily come from the manufacturer or from the materials that need to be accessed?

Taryn Larock 23:41

So it’s, it’s kind of twofold. So I mean, in an ideal world, the savings would be passed on to the customer, right? Like, I’m not going to create some some, you know, arbitrarily high profit margin for myself. To to qualify, the fact that I bought some fabric that was more expensive. With what we use specifically, the matter of fact is even though it shouldn’t be the case, like organic cotton farming, or like hemp farming, because it uses, like, bugs don’t like hemp, they’re just not going to touch it with a 10 foot pole, so you don’t even need insecticides on it. So it’s nice. It’s it’s just yeah, it’s not something they have an appetite for. So you would think that would be less expensive, because it’s less. It’s more efficient to produce, you know, it’s less like ours tending the plant, right. But that’s not the case because it’s still kind of a niche product. They’re producing less of it so it’s more expensive. And with this swimwear fabric we use they’re actually teams of divers. And then recently, we worked with the marine conservation group, Sea Shepherd, and they’re pulling out like plastic poachers, nets. That it’s crazy, like some of them are miles long each. So there’s not a cost associated with getting like besides the crews pulling them up, but it’s like the product is already there and you just there’s a process to like grind it up and turn it into fabric. So, you know it, it is, I think it’s more expensive because less of it is being done. Yeah. And then also, you know, we just live in a world where, like, if something doesn’t have all the chemical compounds and whatnot going into it, it’s, it’s going to take more time potentially to produce because again, less of it is just there’s less demand for it. And so I think once that demand grows, then things will become more accessible. So when more brands, you know, companies get on the bandwagon of utilizing these materials, it’s going to be better for all of us.

Adam G. Force 25:54

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It’s like going Costco versus the family owned little corner store.

Taryn Larock 26:00

Totally. It get support, but it may be double the price. So yeah,

Adam G. Force 26:05

Yeah. Oh, my God. It’s tough man. But I yeah, I guess yeah, I then I’m, it kind of leads me into my question I wanted to ask before is just what have been some of the challenges for you personally, not just with, you know, I guess just anything in the scope of getting your business off the ground that you’ve had to overcome, you know, during your process, since you started?

Taryn Larock 26:35

Yeah, and it’s, it’s interesting, um, I think some of the some of the things that we roadblocks that we ran up against initially have what I’ve been proudest of having kind of is our brand ID later on, and really what is made, I believe the brand worthwhile and special. Like, when when I was starting out, and trying to source some, some organic or upcycled fabrics, people would be like, Well, I have no idea why you want this, this is not the way it’s done. And I got so much pushback, you know, and and now this is what is the differentiating factor of what we do and why we do it. So there was a lot of that and just, I mean, finding things that are a reasonable price. And, and that it’s still in the fashion industry, a lot of the organic stuff. It’s like, I mean, I you know Whole Foods has like a little clothing section in some of their stores. And it’s nice, it’s like Fairtrade cotton, the manual, like the quality is not always it’s not always like a lot of longevity built into the product. Because it’s, it’s, it’s not supposed to be a luxury product. But it’s like finding things that will last it’s like using some of those organic fabrics. It’s nice that it supports Fairtrade. And it supports, you know, organic farming. But then I think, I think looking at things and being like, well, I can’t use that because I bought those before they fall apart after being washed four times. So shrink. And so it’s like finding something that is going to be functional, stylish, and have some longevity, longevity and then be have quality production. And like when I was trying to put all those pieces together again, I kept getting pushback of why would you want to do that? Why would I want? Why would I want that when I can go to Whole Foods and get you know, the organic underwear for like 15 $18 Why would I want to pay more? Why are you making this like show us where the demand is. And again, I feel like the pushback that we got is what has made us special. So I’m glad we stuck through it. But it’s still it’s still a process that is consistently being worked out. So I don’t want to say that that’s totally in the rear view.

Adam G. Force 29:03

Gotcha. Gotcha. Makes sense. And what what do you I guess, what’s the vision now for you over let’s say in 12 months, like, what does your brand look like?

Taryn Larock 29:19

Um, so we’re continuing to grow our our swimwear line, I mentioned that we recently worked with the marine conservation group, Sea Shepherd. So they had pulled out 40 tons of nets out of a marine reserve. These were poachers nets from Chinese fishing boats that their shark fishing net. So it’s for shark finning. And some of these are worth like 10 grand each. You know, they’re they’re not supposed to be there and they kind of have to sneak in and be very stealth and drop these nets that are pretty much unbreakable. So we’re very proud to be able to work with the different nonprofits to, to kind of highlight what they’re doing and then show how the fashion industry, I think it’s interesting that the fashion industry has a lot of power, because it’s got a lot of visibility. And it’s like, you know, people pay attention to fashion. So one of the things we like to do is, is partner with nonprofits or causes that are tied to the fashion industry or tie them in different ways. Like canopy planet we also work with as a nonprofit, they, they work to protect global forest areas from the fashion industry. And it’s like a lot of people don’t know that millions of trees, old growth trees even are logged every year to produce cheap fabric rayon and viscose. So it’s, I think we’d like to continue to raise awareness about protecting key conservation areas by which can be actually done through fashion consuming, which I think is kind of cool. So we’d like to continue on in that vein. And then also, we’re rolling out a couple new product lines, and one is going to be lingerie for women. And so we’re going to be doing all organic fabrics dyed with botanical, totally non toxic natural dyes, because I saw that there’s a lot of organic, like underwear socks out there. And those are the things that are closest to our lymphatic system where we absorb like a lot of what we put on our body, which is kind of scary that most of it is pretty toxic. So and then there’s a lot of organic stuff out there, but it’s dyed with chemical dyes. That kind of negates the fact it was organic to begin with another greenwashing issue. So we’re gonna do like, totally clean, we’re excited about that. So just, you know, I would really like to grow the brand and offer more to consumers, and more diverse product range with diverse partnerships to just really highlight that sustainable fashion can be functional and stylish.

Adam G. Force 31:55

Hmm, that’s awesome. Yeah. And it’s interesting that you’re partnering with lots of different nonprofits and I guess, what about like, how is it been from an e commerce standpoint in fashion? You know, marketing, like getting set up with an e commerce shop like or, you know, or is your site on Shopify you doing your own thing? I think some of those little details might be helpful for people just to see like what you kind of worked through and where you landed?

Taryn Larock 32:23

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, we’re on Shopify, which is, which has definitely helped. I think that’s important for product base, e commerce platforms. And also, we’ve just started exploring doing some, some different partnerships, and some digital marketing. And then we have also partnered with some influencers that are aligned with the brands. So from a marketing perspective, when we started out, it was just kind of organic word of mouth. But now is, as we’ve which is amazing that we got a lot of brand ambassadors that way, just aligning with with some people’s principles and what they were interested in, and they’re being excited to take part in, we were really honored and blessed to have from day one. But now growing, we’ve partnered with a really amazing app, I don’t know if you’re a lot of your listeners or your community of check this out. But it’s called good on you. And it’s a they’re out of Australia. And they’re an app that ranks on pretty much every brand out there in terms of sustainability, ethical production. So it’s a really nice resource for consumers to be able to just have on their phone or check out online, and you’re like, Oh, I really like this brand. What are they up to? Is this sustainable or not? They, they kind of do all the research for you. And then tell you why it is good or not based upon their rather thorough rating system. So we’ve partnered with them to to promote our brand, digitally as well. So So yeah, we’re just exploring a few different options. And we’re looking into getting into some I know it’s a funny time for a lot of businesses right now. But we’re looking to expand it to Australia, southern hemisphere, but more as well.

Adam G. Force 34:18

Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Very cool. Well, listen, I want to make sure you get a chance to give a shout out. So anybody interested in checking out your shop and what you offer and all that good stuff, the products? Where do they go?

Taryn Larock 34:33

Totally. So online, check us out at Sage la rock dot com and then feel free to message us on Instagram. If you have any questions. And it’s Sage underscore laroc. And, and and yeah, we’re happy to answer any questions about sustainability. We love to chat about that. So yeah. And look forward to connecting with people.

Adam G. Force 34:54

Cool. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here. Sharing all your insights and doing What you do appreciate it. Thank you Adam. Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Wei Houng: Creating The Right Money Mindset

Listen to our exclusive interview with Wei Houng:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What if your money mindset is limiting your financial results as an entrepreneur? What can you do to change that? We connect with an expert on that topic, Wei Houng, who is the founder of the 6 Figure Academy and host of the podcast, Money Lab.

About Wei:

Founding Member and 6 Figure Breakthrough Coach, Wei Houng, has made it his passion, purpose, and goal to help people eliminate anxiety around money to achieve financial success and live a 6 Figure Lifestyle.

And it wasn’t because he was always a 6 Figure success.

Despite having his first 6 Figure business at the age of 22, he struggled for years to consistently make 6 Figures AND keep it. When he finally figured it out (along with going broke several times), he vowed to make it his mission to help others avoid as many of the pitfalls as possible to 6 Figure success.

And over the last decade and a half, his desire to help others achieve financial enlightenment has evolved into a symbiotic adventure for both him and his clients. He has worked with celebrities, industry thought leaders, and countless entrepreneurs to re-define the role that money plays in their lives. The results have been life changing.

Success Starts From Within, is his personal mantra. It came as an “ah-ha” moment while working with one of his own mentors. The “ah-ha” was that most of his failures were due to him looking outwards for success instead of within. Soon after, he discovered that to help his clients achieve the results THEY were looking for in money, it was more than just about helping them solely in the area of financial success.

“It is about creating success in ALL areas of life to reach your financial goals. Every one of these areas have an impact on each other: finance, health & fitness, mental & emotional, and spiritual.”

The 6 Figure Academy is literally a physical manifestation of Wei’s life experiences. Its philosophies guide all the life coaches and business coaches in the company. By coaching and guiding individuals to reach a high level of clarity in their lives, all the coaches at the The 6 Figure Academy live by the mantra to educate, empower, and inspire others to what their next steps should be, and how to make it happen.

With a background in Computer Science & Engineering and a cohesive minor in Business Management from UCLA, Wei has infused the rapid problem-solving engineering approach in a holistic way to the strategies at The 6 Figure Academy. The holistic side comes from him being a Certified Life Coach, Master Practitioner and Trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Master Practitioner of Hypnotherapy, and Master Practitioner of Mental and Emotional Release® Techniques. He is also an ordained minister in spirituality.

Learn more about Wei Houng and his work at > 6 figureacademy.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Wei Houng 02:38

I’m good. I’m good. Adam, thanks for having me on looking forward to it.

Adam G. Force 02:41

Yeah, absolutely. I’m excited because I always like to talk about money, and especially the mindset around it. So yeah, listen, for anybody that doesn’t know you know, my story a little bit Wei and I connected back in January, when we were able to travel out in California at a summit that we were at together. And He is an expert, he did a great talk on money mindset. So Wei maybe you can jump in and tell us just a little bit about how you got involved in this topic and why it’s so important to you.

03:14

Yeah, that’s a great question, Adam. I didn’t actually choose this niche to be in my, my audience actually chose it. Okay, for me, which was always the best way to do it, I guess. Because that way it takes the kind of the guesswork out of like, what should I do? What’s my purpose? What am I here? How am I going to help my audience, right. And one of the things that came up with the work that I do prior to be too special, you know, to me specializing in, you know, the this money mindset piece was, you know, I was always working on people’s potential and working on helping them achieve the lifestyle that they want. And because of the capitalistic world that we live in, inevitably, we were we would always work around something around money, you know, there’s some kind of a blog around money or challenge around money. And mostly it showed up as anxiety and stress and worry around money. And for me because of my own journey around that. I mean, it I just basically said, You know what, let me show you what I did. Let me show you what my teachers teach me or taught me. And over the years, I developed a systematic approach because of my engineering background, from college, to reengineer, bad money stories to the deep core reasons why we create the challenges anxiety and stress that we have around money. And so one day, a few of my clients said, You know what, as they were giving me their testimonials and reviews, they said, you know, you changed my life, there’s a whole whole a whole set of things that you were able to do but one of the most important things one of the most significant things was to was that you helped me eliminate anxiety and stress I had around money which opened up the doors to all that was possible. me as an entrepreneur to make my impact on this planet. And I said, Oh, that’s interesting and not even see it. It took my coach to tell me like, hey, by the way, do you see a trend here? And I said, No. It says, they are talking about your ability to help them to remove their attachment or improve their relationship or limit their anxiety and stress and work around money. I said, Oh, okay. Well, maybe I’ll do that. And ever since then, I haven’t looked back because I realized it was they were right. It was like the keys to the kingdom, that if I help an entrepreneur who is really focused and wanting to make an impact on this planet, and wanting to make a difference, the last thing we want to do is to occupy our days and times, constantly worrying and stressing about money. Once we get that out of the way, what can you do then?

Adam G. Force 05:54

Yeah, I mean, so that that’s, that is a major force of anxiety and doubt. I mean, what’s the scenario, right? You’re, you’re working a job, but you want to become an entrepreneur, you start a business. But now you know, you’re not making enough money. You got got to put food on the table, you got a mortgage, you got these things going on. in there, of course, is anxiety. So there’s some of it is like, so how much do we attribute Wei to… well, some of this is just like, do you have a good product and any business acumen whatsoever? And some of it is going to be business mindset? Or does business mindset trump wall? I mean, money mindset trump all

Wei Houng 06:36

right, money business mindset could kind of go hand in hand. So they’re both are correct. I would say because we live in an era where you can make money literally doing anything. And there’s a part in one of my courses where I talk about shifting the mindset of your internal narrative or rhetoric that your niche won’t work or your product isn’t good enough. And I list out all these ridiculous products out there and are making millions in the world today. Did you know for example, that there is a a plastic wishbone company, that all they’re doing is making these plastic wishbone you know, the wishbones that we did, and we pull it apart and make a wish? Yeah, there’s literally boxes of it. You can buy with like hundreds of wishbones in it that you can just open up and start making wishes on your own. And it’s a multimillion dollar company selling plastic wishbones. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 07:33

So not only are they selling some Bs, but they’re polluting the world with it too.

Wei Houng 07:41

I don’t think they’re eco friendly plastic wishbones. Right. So that’s one of the things that, you know, kind of shift the perspective and again, it becomes a mindset type of a hack, it’s a way so if you have this intention, and in this desire to make a difference with your idea with your product with your service, there is always a way for you to monetize what’s keeping, you know, entrepreneurs with their purpose, or as you like to call social entrepreneurs, from becoming successful is not that their product or service isn’t good enough. I’ve seen enough of that over the last couple of decades of doing this work, that it’s more about the what your mindset is, what your relationship with money is that will allow you to think of the different avenues and channels of monetization, that can happen for your product or service. And also, it lends to that ability for you to truly own the value of what it is that you provide for your audience. So I absolutely think it’s completely a mindset. I mean, it’s the full embodiment of owning that piece. And it’s, it’s it’s almost less about the strategy or I mean, obviously, if you had terrible copying and terrible marketing strategies, and you terrible packaging and stuff like that, then yeah, that might contribute to that. But what then led to you making those decisions to have terrible copy, to have terrible packaging?

Adam G. Force 09:09

Agreed. I was just gonna say, if you have a poor money mindset, then you won’t invest in good copy.

Wei Houng 09:15

Right? Exactly. Or you will unconsciously make decisions that will maintain and validate a bad money mindset.

Adam G. Force 09:26

Yes, I love that. So I’m gonna even write it down. So you unconsciously, this is so important, anybody this thing that because we all do this, and I’m gonna have Wei explain why this happens in a second. But we unconsciously make decisions to undermine what our success could be because of what we’re telling ourselves all the time. Is that do I have that right?

Wei Houng 09:49

Exactly. That’s exactly right.

Adam G. Force 09:51

Yes. It’s like you’re making yourself fit the mold. So if you’re constantly in your mind, like saying things about yourself or How hard it is to make money or that it’s like it’s it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. And then that’s exactly what you’re going to start creating as your reality. Right?

Wei Houng 10:10

Exactly. That’s exactly right. I mean, prior to me picking this niche, what I specialize in was working with the most powerful part of the human consciousness, which is the unconscious of the consciousness. So many of us focus on the conscious mind, because that’s what we’re aware of. We’re conscious of it. Yeah. However, most of our emotions, our decision making process, everything that runs and governs our entire existence is powered by the unconscious mind, in other words, is done autonomously. Yeah, which includes a lot of the programming and the stories around money that we grew up with. And what happens is, the unconscious mind spends its entire lifetime of you, looking for events and circumstances and truths, so to speak, to validate the existence, or the purpose of keeping those stories alive, because we use those stories to survive when we were younger. But then when even if we outgrow it, we forget to expire those stories. And we keep looking for ways or doing things, to validate its existence to validate as a truth and maintain it as a truth even though they may not be serving you anymore as a appropriate truth.

Adam G. Force 11:25

Yeah. So you’re validating a truth that does not serve you and, and I mean, you know, I’ve noticed this too, and I’ve read a few books with guys like t harv, eker, and things like that. And it’s like, he’ll tell you, like, don’t say bad things about other people who make money. Because even if you’re saying bad things about other people, just the fact that you’re saying it, you’re kind of just programming that into your own mind. Like, it doesn’t matter if it’s about someone else or not, it’s still gonna affect you, it’s like you programming yourself with the same thing. Right?

Wei Houng 11:53

Right. And let’s go even deeper with that and see what t harv. eker is talking about is how to condition yourself out of that, what I what I deal with is, well, how did you know how to use that to begin with? Yeah, because what you’re trying to kind of re hearse yourself out of by doing the affirmations is a deeper programming of learning that you had at a very, very young age, and a much quicker ways to get to well, how did you eat? How do you even know to vilify rich people? How do you even know to make it a bad thing, because that wasn’t something that you were born with. It was something that was trained into you to nurture it was nurtured into you, by a teacher, such as a parent, such as a relatives such as society, such as culture, yeah. And until we get to that route, we can rehearse and sometimes this is what’s so frustrating a lot of people because I believe in t harv, eker. stuff, the millionaire mindset, what people don’t realize is that if you don’t get to the root cause, you may get a little frustrated as to why things are taking so long to work. But if you want it to work faster with those affirmations, you want to get to the root cause you want to get to what, where you learn that to begin with, unpack it there, deconstruct it, let it go. run some forgiveness around it. Then when you run the affirmations, you’ll be running it on an empty canvas. You’re not trying to paint over something that’s already there.

Adam G. Force 13:22

Yeah, I love that you made me Yeah. So it’s, it’s much nicer when you put a tattoo on a blank piece of skin, not when you’re trying to do a cover up.

Wei Houng 13:30

That’s exactly right. Because you have a tattoo, so you get it right. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 13:36

made me think of that. It’s very powerful, very powerful. Now, I’m, I am someone who read the books, and I’ve done affirmations. But for me, I mean, honestly, I get on to a kick for a little bit, but then you like fade back into old habits. And you’re like, oh, why did I stop doing that? And it’s like, you do it and it feels good for a little bit. And as soon as you feel any, like, goodness from it, you’re like, all of a sudden, it’s like you got somewhere with it. And now you just fade back into old habits. Do you see that a lot with people?

Wei Houng 14:09

Yeah. And that’s a function of our culture, educating us or teaching us that the way to success is willpower and your ability to will yourself to success and that is such an arduous process I found over the years because I went through it myself as well. You know, I always talk about look at the salmon and they swim upstream. But we forget that salmon only do that right before they die. They don’t do it all their life. Most of the time they’re swimming with the current they’re not going against it. They’re going against it just so they can reproduce and then they die.

Adam G. Force 14:41

Yeah, it’s true

Wei Houng 14:42

And so what what I you know, through my my journey of understanding why is this so hard, I realized something is that we’ve been trained to use the part of our mind to achieve results. That is the least powerful out of the two aspects there. There are essentially two complete ponents of our mind, there’s the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. And there have been clinical trials done to test the power or the processing capability of each component, the conscious mind processes information, and they say about 7 million bits per second, which sounds like a lot, because that’s 7 million bits. As you’re scanning around looking at the room seeing what’s going on, what we don’t realize is the unconscious mind processes at 70 million bits per second, which is 10 times more powerful, which is why the unconscious mind is capable of continuously running our bodies, our endocrine system, our sweat glands, our ability to breathe, and blink and beat are heart that’s all governed by the unconscious mind because it has the processing power to do that. What we are doing is we’re not allowing the unkind word basically over tasking our conscious mind, we’re willing it to get to a certain point, and then we get burned out. And then we start to slip back into what we let the unconscious mind take over, because it’s more powerful. But the unconscious mind is still running those old programs. And that’s why we will ourselves to somebody Yes. And also, why is this happening again, is because the unconscious mind has yet to buy in to that new teaching that new learning because it’s still trying to run that old operating system, those old bad money stories of how money supposed to be.

Adam G. Force 16:17

Yeah, so tell me, I mean, and that’s, I think everybody right, so like, we all have certain blueprints that are, you know, created as we grow up. And as we get older, some people start to recognize them and others don’t, you know, like others just continue to keep on keepin on. And, you know, as as if you become an entrepreneur, there’s gonna be a point where you’re, you are trying to figure out well, how do I, you know, mature as an entrepreneur, and how do I take myself to that next step? And I think it always finds its way back to a mindset. Because it’s like you said, you have an operating system that’s kind of outdated. It’s kind of served its purpose, but it’s like you need to, you need to download the latest updates.

Wei Houng 17:02

Exactly.

Adam G. Force 17:04

Right? So I just want to ask, though, but tell me a little bit about because you got into that blueprint conversation, the root causes? I mean, how does someone start acknowledging and figuring out what those are? I know, you obviously have supported a lot of people to do this. Maybe you could take me through just a high level of what that looks like.

Wei Houng 17:24

Yeah, absolutely. Great question. Because, you know, here’s the thing. Why I love working with entrepreneurs is because, you know, one of the things as an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, entrepreneurs who have made it will figure out that in order for your business to grow as an entrepreneur, you have to grow. And this is why I love about working with truly dedicated entrepreneurs, because they know that in order for them to grow their business, to scale their business, to take their business to the next level, they have to invest not just in their business, that the highly invest in themselves as well into their own personal growth, because their business, their passion, is going to be an extension of themselves. And so one of the ways to uncover that is to be constantly in the inquiry of, to understanding yourself to Know thyself, as a Greek philosophers would often often say, since the beginning of Greek philosophy times, they would talk about Know thyself. And the reason is, because every human being that I found in the work that I’ve, that I’ve been doing thus far, it has a unique success, and money blueprint, no to humans, will make money the exact same way. Because the way you make money and create money flow, I would often say you have your own unique frequency of money flow. And to understand how to get to the root cause of bad you need to pull the veil back of what you came into this world with, as your unique what I like to call unique money vehicle. What are the behavior patterns that are naturally authentic to you? What are the things that drive you? What are the things that affect your communication style on how you learn and how you communicate with others? What is your alchemy of refinement, right, because if you buy into someone who has a high refinement, and you’re not designed that way, you’re more earthy, more organic, than trying to get those fancy toys and the fancy materialistic gains is not going to drive you however, there are those who can be motivated and driven that way. It’s different for every human being. And that’s why we use this patented human assessment technology that we have to help kind of disconnect people from the matrix so they can finally see themselves get the operating manual for themselves, to understand what it’s going to take to create the unique flow of success and money and prosperity and purpose in their lives. And if they don’t connect to that core part of them that came that they came into the world with. It’s always going to be a struggle because you’re trying to be like somebody else or you’re trying to make money like somebody else. But the thing is, everybody makes money. differently. And they may seem similar, but there’s very unique drivers in place that will distinguish one person from another even though they’re doing this employing the same strategies and tactics.

Adam G. Force 20:13

Yeah, I think that’s interesting, because they’re, it’s very common. And we see this a lot that entrepreneurs look to other companies that are doing well and want to copy them. Obviously, there’s a number of reasons why that’s not the best idea, because you don’t know really what the success is behind what they’re doing. And also, like you said, there’s, it’s like a certain fit for certain people. Right. And so it may not work the same for you. And there’s so many other factors as well. But I, I agree, I mean, that just, I see that happen a lot. And I’ve been down that road where you see and aspire to certain things. And you realize, wait a minute, why is that? So working so well for them? But but not me?

20:52

Right? Exactly. Exactly. And a lot of entrepreneurs, especially if they’re investing heavily in their business, will come to a certain point where they say, wait a minute, I think I need to and and this is part of the growth, you know, you, you realize, wait a minute, that my greatest investment and where I should invest most of my time, energy and even money is on myself. Yeah, that is what’s going to grow your business faster than anything else. That is what’s going to make your business more sustainable. And that is what’s going to help you make the greatest unique impact that is in alignment with your passion in alignment with your purpose more than anything else. Because if you just do a paint by numbers, ABC XYZ strategy that someone else did that worked for them. Yeah, what they’re not going to realize is Remember, we talked about most of its unconscious, so what most of what made it work for them worked on an unconscious level. And unless they invested heavily to elicit that from their unconscious mind, you’re only going to get a part of the equation. And the other part requires you to figure out how does that then fit with my unique model with the stories that run underneath? That’s things that are driving me on an unconscious level, both emotionally energetically and mentally. Across the board. Yeah, that’s what’s going to make the difference. That’s why I always tell people yeah, great model, the model, the strategy, model, the tactic, and then when you get a basic fundamental idea of how it works, start to lose your unique essence all over it, because all you got was the sticks and bricks in that moment. Now it’s time to make it yours. And when you do that, that’s when you make a difference in terms of utilizing what anybody else teaches you to take it to the next level.

Adam G. Force 22:33

Yeah, I love that. And that, and that is you get a model. But it’s like any sales funnel or tool or anything. What matters is like what you put in it, right? Like the message is the content and how you use it and stuff like that. So it’s just like, right, you know, it’s like having a car, we can all drive the car very differently. Now. You know, someone’s a wild man’s and then there’s a lady that goes 10 miles an hour.

Wei Houng 22:56

Yeah, totally. My cousin and I, both years ago, bought a Ducati, the same Ducati motorcycle each. And we were the same model, just different color. And then of course, I understood like, you know, these handmade Italian bikes, you’ve got to really drive them because they’re meant to drive hard and drive on a track. And so I did my cousin other hand, he kind of drove it very, like a civilian would drive it. Right. Right. One day, we decided to switch bikes, just to kind of see if there was a difference. And he goes, why is your bike so much faster? And I said, Why is your bike so sluggish? And I realized it was how he was driving it, versus how I was driving my motorcycle. And it created a created this custom experience that was uniquely my signature. And that’s I think what a lot of people are missing when you’re learning something new from you, or from me or from anybody else, is that at some point, you’re going to have to allow the tone, the frequency, the unconscious, unique, beautiful configuration of programs and stories that exist within you to then kind of like imprint it on to the sticks and bricks of what you’ve learned from somebody else.

Adam G. Force 24:06

Right. Right. Yeah, that’s a great little analogy. I liked I should use that a lot. It’s a good one. Yeah, so So tell me I guess what? I’m curious. Like, if someone works with you, what do they expect?

Wei Houng 24:29

It’s it’s pretty straightforward. Over the years, I’ve refined the process. So it’s very, you didn’t used to be that clear, used to be like, just show up and we’ll talk about things and have a breakthrough.

Adam G. Force 24:39

We all start their Wei. So anybody listening, your first iteration of anything, it should and will most likely not be ideal, but it just gets it gets to where Wei is now with starting there first.

Wei Houng 24:53

Right? Well, one of the first things we do is we I make sure every every student every client gets an offer. portunity to finally see themselves for what they are not who we use the word what. So that we could distinguish between what was nurtured into you that may or may not be working for you, versus what you are uniquely designed for. So we utilize our patented human assessment technology. And we basically give them a, an operating manual for themselves so they can see how they authentically are and what feeds them, what helps them thrive in this lifetime. From there we go deeper into really understanding what each of those components are, because it’s, it’s like a whole new language. If you met, if you remember from the movie matrix, when Neil was first disconnected, there was a, there was a little bit of like, what the heck is going on? Right? Yeah, it’s kind of like that. And so we take it step by step, then from there, we go into in the more one on one more intimate type of coaching, we then dive into what we like to call a breakthrough session, which is, I like to call it we take a sledgehammer to all the old programs inside you that no longer serve you get that out of the way, clear the debris, clear the floss and clear the roadway. So that when we take the speed limiter off your vehicle of success, you can go as fast as you want without running into something on the road, or worse yet and running into a wall. Right? Yeah. And then as soon as that’s done, then we then we go through the support of making sure if you’ve never driven 200 miles an hour before, and you’ve only driven by 80 miles per hour, well, there’s a little bit of learning that needs to happen is how do I drive at 200 miles an hour without killing myself? Yeah, and so we would go into the, you know, the ongoing coaching that way. And plus, as we continue to help you understand the intimate details of how to use your operating manual itself, to help you, you know, create success in what it is that you’re trying to do in this lifetime. And so that’s, that’s, that’s the core, you know, steps of the process so that, you know, that we’ve kind of whittled down kind of whittled down over the years as one of the most effective ways to get results. You know, you’re you’re increasing your money flow and optimizing a mindset, but more importantly, what’s happened, what’s, what’s that underlying secret mission is to unlock your unique code of happiness and success in this lifetime. Life Mastery.

Adam G. Force 27:24

Yeah, I mean, I love that. And I think that it’s, it’s, it is such an important part, as we’ve been talking about. So, you know, as you guys listen to two ways, you know, talking about I mean, this is, this is the kind of thing that I’ve been fussing around with for a long time. And I see over and over going, you know, into these like summits we were at in January, or you know, Caitlin’s mastermind program and stuff and right. Everybody’s, this is just something every entrepreneur goes through, because to your point, it’s just how we are historically programmed, we’re not really unless you grow up in an entrepreneurial family, and just like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you grew up in the family with the Rich Dad, you’re just not programmed this way. And it’s gonna if you want to live your life a certain way, you’re going to have to figure out how to get oriented to where you are now and then figure out how to make the adjustments, right.

Wei Houng 28:17

Yeah, and it’s such an irony, because America was essentially built on entrepreneurship. Yeah, you know, and for some reason, it’s never taught to us really, as children growing up that that would be the way to as a as an adult, you know, as an option or as a venue to create a life for yourself. Now, for a long time, my parents really didn’t understand why I wouldn’t go work for somebody else. Yeah, I know. Yeah. That’s, and if we think about what all the pioneers of, of our country is in us anyway, because I’m sure your podcast reaches people all over the world. But if you think about it, everybody started off. I mean, all the pioneers were had their own business. Nobody, Wednesday, I’m going to go work for you. Right, we brought on help. But for the most part, every human being trying to make their way in the world chose entrepreneurship as a default, because what else were you gonna do?

Adam G. Force 29:15

Yeah, pretty much. And it’s true. And when you said that, we’re not taught that it you know, it made me think about Sir Ken Robinson, who recently passed away it was a big speaker on education, and he’s got the number one TED talk about how schools kill creativity. And you’re right, like he gets very clear on the fact of the matter is, schools were created during a certain time where we needed workers for industry and that is what school is based on. You know,

Wei Houng 29:42

It’s the Rockefellers

Adam G. Force 29:46

The Rockefellers, man. Yeah, I mean, it’s time for change. I mean, are there things like social entrepreneurship classes and entrepreneurial things? Yes, of course, like you can do those things and 90 and 90% of the time you just have professors who’ve never, ever done business before in their life trying to teach you something of a book.

Wei Houng 30:03

Right? Exactly. Theoretical entrepreneurship, right?

Adam G. Force 30:05

Yeah, great. But, you know, even guys like James Wedmore talk about how there’s a total 180 flip from the employee mindset to the entrepreneur mindset. And, you know, I, we had our conversation you and I, for your show. And, you know, we talked about my own issues, and we all go through this guy’s so as you’re listening to this, this is such an, I wanna, I just want everyone to take it very seriously. Because we get so excited right way about, you know, running the business, building the business, seeing it come to life, which gets into very tactical thinking, and like, I got to just build all this stuff. And, you know, like, we we will say, I’ll invest in programs about like myself development and things like that, when I’m successful. And I always look at someone saying, tisk, tisk, tisk, you got the horse? You got the cart before the horse, you know what I mean? Exactly.

Wei Houng 30:58

Yeah. Because the reality is right now, with social media, the way it is, you can literally Google some of the most amazing business tactics and strategies, and piece together everything you need to create a six figure or even seven figure business, what you won’t find in that journey, in a piecemeal format is a way to effectively and consistently get get you to grow on a personal level, which is what your business needs more than anything else, right to create sustainable, long term success and the ability to put your purpose out there and help as many people as possible. That’s it,

Adam G. Force 31:38

man, that’s 100% it, you get the right mindset, you tell the right stories, you’re off to a pretty good start.

Wei Houng 31:45

Yeah, yeah. And though it may not immediately give you that instant gratification, I think that’s the big thing is people are looking for that instant gratification. But that’s where we create the roller coaster effect of results. You know, I think we have to let make sure people understand that when you’re investing in yourself, you’ve got years and layers of stuff to kind of suss through, to reshape and just kind of like get out of the way. And so it may not be kind of an immediate thing. But in the long run, it’s an exponential growth opportunity that you’ll have by investing in yourself first, or maybe concurrently with everything else that you’re doing. Agreed.

Adam G. Force 32:23

I mean, well, that’s that the instant gratification is a factor to consider. Because people get so jacked up on Well, I had to pay the bills next month. And I get that that is like, I just hope people don’t quit their jobs before they are successful with a revenue channel in their business.

Wei Houng 32:40

Exactly. I mean, unless you’ve invested, I mean, we’ve had we’ve had that happen, but they but these are students who have really kind of committed themselves to understanding what it means to shift their but their money stories in a way where just simply allows money to flow in without attachment to how it comes in. And we see a lot of that happening. And they are making able to make that leap because they did that deep internal work around their bad monasteries, reengineering, eliminating the stress and worry so that money has an easier time just to come in. You know, most human beings when they struggle with money flow, it’s not the economy. It’s not politics, it’s not media, it’s literally themselves. They’re literally putting a block and dictating how money should come in. So that actually keeps money from wanting to come in, because money doesn’t care how it comes into your life. It just wants to come in. Yeah. But if we had these mental blocks around it, we’re not gonna let it in.

Adam G. Force 33:35

I still got mental blocks, I got to work out.

Wei Houng 33:38

We all do. I mean, well, as long as you were raised in a capitalistic world, you’re gonna have layers of blocks. Every level of growth, financial growth, but it’s so worth it when you finally get those blocks out of the way. Because when you do it, right, they don’t come back. And then you don’t have this roller coaster effect. And you can enjoy continuous growth every single time you do.

Adam G. Force 34:00

Right, exactly. It’s true. And it’s just and and the other thing and then we’ll wrap up here. It’s like, everything takes time. Like we have to stop thinking and even Gary Vee is out there saying it now he’s like, give it 1011 years and you might have a nice little business. He’s like, stop saying, I’m gonna be a millionaire before I’m 30. And all this other bullcrap. You know, it’s like, everybody wants it right away and breaking down your money mindset and really getting into more of an abundance mindset with money. It’s gonna take time, building a business, trying new ideas, different revenue channels, it all takes time. Like, you know, months go by when you’re testing these things out and doing all this work. And so if people would just give themselves a break, and realize, like, if you think it’s going to take a year, it’s probably going to take two years. I mean, just right, but like, like, I love Alan Watts, and one of my favorite quotes and I’m gonna just abbreviate this, but he talks about how The point of a song is not to get to the end, it’s to dance during the song. This is the dance. So enjoy the journey, right?

Wei Houng 35:07

Exactly. Enjoy the journey, enjoy the dance and just recognize the fact that so what if it takes one or two or three years if you’re doing the work that we’re talking about? that literally translates to 20 to 30? Maybe even a lifetime of struggle? eliminated in just what a handful of years?

Adam G. Force 35:24

Exactly

Wei Houng 35:26

It’s the perspective that needs to be put in place there. So that way, you know, people don’t really think oh, it’s taking so long. It’s like, really, you just, I have one client, he’s a teenager kid that his mom said I need to work. And he is constantly in a rush because he’s His eyes are open now. He’s been disconnected from the matrix. And he’s getting frustrated five, six months in I said, Dude, you just you just shaved 20 years of guessing and seeking out of your life and you’re only 18 have a little patience with yourself

Adam G. Force 36:01

that’s a man, you see people do it all the time. Like oh, man, just it’s I get it. I do get where they’re coming from, but right.

Wei Houng 36:08

And they’re not dancing, and they’re not realize they’re in the song. The dance is there. I mean, they can dance now. Right? They can enjoy it now. But they’re so hell bent on this results driven society without realizing the results lie within every step of the way.

Adam G. Force 36:22

That’s it, man. You’re right. All right Wei, listen, how do people connect with you? What if they want to work with you and and take that next step in their own life? What do they do?

Wei Houng 36:32

Yeah, there’s a because of the depth of what we do, I always encourage people to there’s so much free content out there, like with my podcasts, or with the YouTube channel with hundreds of videos on there. But one of the best ways to go to the six figure academy.com and or you can go to go dot the six figure academy.com. And there’s an E book that talks about from money anxiety to six figure mastery. And when you go in there, it starts to introduce you into the world as a little e course that comes up, it’s all free to kind of introduce you to how profound this work can be. Because it’s not for everybody. And I’m not for everybody. Because I can get a little intense because I want to help people get results without with a minimal amount of time. And so I think one of the best ways to engage in the free resources and contents out there, there’s a ton of it. I think I even have a free masterclass that gets introduced as soon as you get the E book. So there’s so many different ways. I think that’s one of the best ways to kind of understand what it is that we do to help people not only increase your money flow, but completely change the paradigm of existence of happiness and success and create sustainable lifetime success.

Adam G. Force 37:40

Yeah, sounds amazing. So everybody listening, it’s the and then the number six, figure academy.com. So the six figure academy.com. And you can grab all kinds of good stuff in here. Get Wei’s masterclass is free download stuff like that, just to take those first steps, get acclimated, learn a little bit more about what was doing. And you could basically take it from there right away.

Wei Houng 38:06

Yep, absolutely. There’s so many different ways and all roads lead to me. And, you know, I’m not, I don’t not pay attention to emails and private messages or direct messages. So if you want to just reach out, I’m there I’m really easy to find you just do a google on me. I’m everywhere.

Adam G. Force 38:25

Awesome. Listen, I appreciate your time today and just sharing your insights and your stories. So we will stay connected man have a great rest of your day.

Wei Houng 38:34

Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate you letting me kind of help you, you know with your purpose and your audience. Really good stuff that you’re doing here. Really appreciate it. Thanks. Appreciate it, man. Take care.

Adam G. Force 38:45

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast. Visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Adam & Amy: How to Take a Stand with Your Brand and Not Lose Sales

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Personal beliefs vs business beliefs? Where do we draw a line between the two? Will we lose sales if they get to close?

In this episode, Change Creator cofounders Adam and Amy discuss how to put your values into your business & in your marketing without losing the right people who will buy from you! They talk about misconceptions about selling, why people really buy, and if heart-led business = heart-led sales actually works.

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Amy Aitman 02:57

And just to reiterate… your personal Facebook page? Is your is your business page. You don’t have a separate account for your business. Adam g fourth, or Adam fourth. That’s it. Right?

Adam G. Force 03:09

Yeah. So we’re gonna get into all those little details. Before we dive into it, guys, if you do catch the replay of this video, put replay in the comments. And at any point, if you have questions on the topic, go ahead and fire those in the comments too, because we like to answer questions.

Amy Aitman 03:25

Yeah, we would love to catch your ideas on this discussion. Like this is so relevant today.

Adam G. Force 03:29

Yeah, so um, so exactly what I put in there was I don’t even remember exactly what I said. But I said something about what’s going on in Portland, and made a point to say, Hey, everybody, and I kind of put it as a question. Do we consider what’s happening today? Here it is. So I said, so let me get this straight. This administration has federal police attacking Americans with force to suppress opposition? How is this not a fascist dictatorship? What am I missing here? And since that point, just a few minutes, but an hour ago, we’ve got 42 comments on there, and everybody’s getting all worked up. So you have to wonder, you know, is it a good move to put your opinion out there like that as a business owner? Or is it a bad move? And so we kind of wanted to get into some of these conversations today. And guess what? We started Change Creator, right, Amy and the whole, the whole reason we started Change Creator was to take a stand against business without a soul businesses that are only profit first, they’re ripping down the rainforests, they’re creating more inequality. You know, they’re plastic polluting the ocean with no regard for people or planet. So yeah, we take a stand and put our beliefs into the business, right?

Amy Aitman 04:42

The current capitalist system, like we have, that’s what we’re taking a stand for here and the people that we highlighted on the magazine, on our blog, in our Facebook, like all of the great entrepreneurs, that’s what they’re doing. And a lot some of them are taking bolder stances. Some of them aren’t but like, I think Good question is, you know, should we talk about our personal values? Or just our company values?

Adam G. Force 05:05

Yeah. And the answer, honestly, from the, from our perspective here at Change Creator, and what we have seen as the evolution of business continues to unfold and how we’re interacting online and things are changing, your business has to have your values integrated into it, right? So you are kind of operating under those ethos. So there is no separate world for you as a person outside of your business versus the person who is operating your business. Your values are all one, right. And they’re threaded through the business. And we have seen this with people like Blake Mycoskie, and every entrepreneur on Change Creator magazine is taking a stand for something that they believe in. Amy, I think you had a really good example.

Amy Aitman 05:52

I think like, that’s a really good question too. Because I feel like people, if your business values are different from your personal values, I would ask you why, why are they and I hope to leave, like leave a comment if this is really you. We’re not saying that like that. This is bad thing. But I want to know why you feel like your personal values don’t align to your business values, because I feel like that is where we’re starting from. Right here. It’s like, we are saying that your personal values and company value should align. But I know that a lot of you were out there and said, are saying that I don’t see them fully aligning, or I feel one way personally in a non another way if my business so it’s really hard. And a lot of people have like they put these into two worlds. Yeah, I know. There’s so many people like I Blake Mycoskie that doesn’t do this. Or like Ben and Jerry’s, let’s say that’s a great example. They put their beliefs out there. So they put a bold post and I shared it in the Facebook group for Change Creator Facebook group. They put up really bold blacklivesmatter post out. And guess what? They’ve lost more customers. The completely did.

Adam G. Force 06:58

They probably gained more loyalists as well.

Amy Aitman 07:01

Yeah.

Adam G. Force 07:02

And so my question then Amy would be okay, so there are people who are like, well, these are my personal values. And then there’s people who are like, well, this is my business, and that’s operating this way, right? It’s different. Why are they afraid to inject personal values into their business? and expose that? I want to know what what is that belief that makes that a scary thing? Or gives them a reason to hold back? I mean, what do you think people are feeling with that?

Amy Aitman 07:29

Oh, I can tell you from experience, I felt this before. I have like a ton of people on my Facebook. And I’ve been in business for like over a decade, digital business base, I have lots of friends, and a lot of business associates on, I’d say left and right, if you want to go the political or all sorts of values. And I know in the early days, I didn’t even want clients on my Facebook page, because I was like, they’re gonna judge me on this, they’re gonna judge me on that they’re gonna fire me, I need to pay my bills. And that’s just like me as a small, you know, digital entrepreneur working on my agency, I was like, does it really matter if we believe the same things for them to be support for my business. And as I’ve grown as an entrepreneur, and I was like, obviously, being part of Change Creator, I really had to let that fear go and say, you know, I have a voice. And this business is so different. I can understand people with profit, first business models, really separating themselves, but we’re not talking to you, we are talking to the people who want to have to use their business for change. So that’s you’re going to have to put yourself out there business is changing right now, do I think people don’t want to buy from companies that are that they don’t know where they stand?

Adam G. Force 08:46

Or they don’t know? Exactly, no, it’s true. It’s true. I mean, more buyers today, everyone’s always like, well, you got to know the width of them, right? What’s in it for them as a buyer? And that has also shifted to say, well, they want to know what’s in it for me, what’s in it for you as the seller, but why are you doing this? What are you getting out of this? And so this is becoming more important. I know, there is an old school line of thought around this, you’ll hear it’s kind of like that boomer generation thought process where it’s like, Oh, I hate it when a man who or a woman who has this big business meaning they have lots of people following them paying attention or media coverage, they put they inject their political opinion or personal opinion about a civil rights matter or something like that. And they put that out there and they use that platform. And today, it’s almost more in line with saying I can’t believe you’re not sharing your opinion not taking a stance so I know there is like deep rooted feelings around them. Generations where it used to be like, you can’t do that. That’s wrong.

Amy Aitman 09:50

What gives you the right I hear that a lot people I mean, even celebrities get blasted for that. Well, we’ll give you the right to take a stand what gives you a right to tell me your personal values. You know, that that’s that’s very true.

Adam G. Force 10:04

And I sit there because that you see this happens a lot. I even know within my family, like if an artist, like a musician would say something on stage, they did Oh, my god and everyone gets mad, like, how could you use that platform to do that? And I think these, these things are shifting because today, the things we do, like if I’m a musician, or I run a business, they are not separate from who we are as people. They’re not separate, they should be integrated. That’s what makes us wake up. We live happy, we live accordingly. Right? We want to live to our truth, right? And so if you’re trying to separate these two worlds, you’re being fake, like you have your business. It just doesn’t work that way. So now I think that it is it’s instrumental because your business is based on who you are. That means yes, your values and your your your comments around these things would be important. Like, what about Rachel? That was a great example.

Amy Aitman 11:01

Yeah. And I will tell you one thing to silence is an opinion. Silence is it says a lot

Adam G. Force 11:07

It’s an action.

Amy Aitman 11:09

Things are happening. We we are, I mean, the world is literally on fire right now in so many ways. And if we’re silent about things, that, that says something about our values, just as much as if we put our values out there. So Rachel Rogers is a great example. And I didn’t even know who Rachel’s Rogers was, yet. She’s in the same space as I am. And I discovered her because she was sharing, she’s just gone on Facebook one day, Black Lives Matter. No bra didn’t fix her hair, draw a total raw, emotional talking about calling people like me out calling people like liberals out on that they were silent that they weren’t holding space for Black Lives Matter. And it shook me to the core. Because I was like, Am I doing enough? And I like I texted Adam, like, share, I share this on my Facebook fade out and I was like this woman had like, it’s saying something. And she’s so real. And she’s putting it out there. But because of that post, and because of her really taking a stand against Murray folio and her group and not giving Black Lives Matter, you know, a voice. I started following her business. And she had she’s a killer entrepreneur. She’s an amazing business. And I just like, kept resonating with every narrative, every narrative, I bought one of her products right away, like literally the next day, I become more aware as for her, and she called me out of my shit. how uncomfortable is that? Like, that’s an uncomfortable feeling. She was taking a stand. And I was like, you know, it’s nice for us to feel good about ourselves. But it was really, it was really genuine. And she was super authentic. Like everything about that video was screened authenticity. Yeah, it wasn’t a plan media stone, I can tell you that right now.

Adam G. Force 12:56

Well, and there was even further for that. I mean, just threaded throughout the business. She has commentary around her beliefs and you know, saying things like, if you believe that all if you’re saying things like all lives matter, you know, the same place for you. Lying in the sand. And here’s the thing. Let’s talk a little bit about that. Like, let’s say you put yourself out there, what happens to your business? What happens to sales? Well, no matter what, when you’re out there, you never if everybody’s agreeing with you, then you’re not saying anything. Okay? If you get people who take a hard stance with you, and then people would take a hard stance against you. Now you’re saying something. Now you’ve got people who are on one side or another or whatever it might be, you just can’t appeal to everyone. So if you are appealing to everyone, that means you’re you’re just kind of like this diluded…. That doesn’t resonate

Amy Aitman 13:48

with anybody, but you’re wishy washy. You’re if you’re silent, you’re going to be wishy washy. And Rachel Rogers had her best month. She had a million dollar month. Yeah. And this is there’s no coincidence that she’s putting her cell phone more boldly. She’s getting herself and she had an entire business that already did this. So people when she came, it wasn’t like, Oh, I I might know what you stand for. No, she had a million dollar month because of this.

Adam G. Force 14:12

Yeah, but I want to, I want to expand on the point that when she was willing to put herself out there when any entrepreneur really does that, and then you read through their business and their copy and everything is continuing to take a hard stance on things that she believes the person that reads it that agrees with those things, is becoming a super duper resonate cafe. They want to be part of this community because it’s there, you’re speaking their beliefs already. Right? Whereas if you have a different worldview, and what we teach in the Catholic method is you’re never going to change someone’s worldview. There’s people are going to go through it and they’re gonna say this is not for me, and yeah, Rachel’s okay with that, because she doesn’t want those people. She’s building a community of people around these beliefs that are looking to do business. That does certain things. So, I mean, you want to if you want to attract the right people, taking these bold stances, you’re going to get the people that love what you’re saying. And now you should have people that hate what you’re saying, to be disrespectful or mean about anything. You respect the opinions of people, but you shouldn’t be ashamed or shy about sharing your own.

Amy Aitman 15:21

No, all right, and that’s your business values. I mean, like, I’d say, all of our entrepreneurs that come to us, they started their business because it aligned to their values, and they want to have a life that they come into. And so you’re right, they have to weed that narrative and those beliefs throughout everything throughout their website, through their, in their Facebook, their personal because that’s when that’s where the authenticity comes in as well. And you are going to alienate people. Of course you are, if you’re taking a stand, I mean, there is still people out there that don’t believe in climate change.

Adam G. Force 15:51

So the earth is round.

Amy Aitman 15:54

Yeah, I mean, like, really like, there. I’m sure there’s an audience for them, too. But I’m saying that if your business is helping save the oceans, there are people out there that don’t believe the oceans need to be saved in any shape, way or form. And they think that this is an exaggeration, you’re not speaking to them. I mean, it sounds so obvious, but it’s like, it’s like having a vegan restaurant and hoping that, you know, carnivores come to eat at your restaurant. And I don’t want to like, I don’t want to talk about animal rights as a vegan restaurant, because you know, why not? And we can see that so clearly with these easy, simple examples. But yeah, that’s how people feel.

Adam G. Force 16:32

I like those examples where you can get up there, okay, I swear to God, it’s flat. And all around the big ice walls. I mean, you have people out there doing this. And yeah, you’re gonna find a bunch of other people that align to that no matter how radical and ridiculous it might be. They’re out there. They have loyalists, loyalists that believe these things. So I mean, it’s

Amy Aitman 16:57

Talk about building a community of people. I mean, our honoree, Renee Taylor, like she put out, she puts out her story, she puts she puts out her opinions, ideas, she is a radical activist, and her entire business is about body activism. The body is not an apology, and she takes that to to for everything. And I mean, I love We love I love meeting her loved interviewing her. I think she’s an amazing person, I still follow her. She’s not afraid. And she built up just on that just putting out those ideas and her millions and millions and millions of followers. And guess what she gets a lot of hate to. She gets a lot of people that are like, why are you on it? But like, like, yeah, there’s always winners. There’s always haters

Adam G. Force 17:43

Even if you’re not saying anything that’s bold and taking a stand there’s haters, you know, people make fun of my beard my you know, not having… there’s always haters guys.

Amy Aitman 17:54

To put yourself out there as a CEO, as a business, there’s gonna be people that don’t like you.

Adam G. Force 17:59

Absolutely. And you know what it is to people. Everyone has their own opinions and other times they hate because they’re jealous. They see you out there taking action doing things you’re making your voice heard, you’re getting out there, and they’re not they wish they were they wish they had the courage right. So they’re gonna hate on you for doing it because misery loves company, right?

Amy Aitman 18:18

But your people and the people that are actually going to buy from you and support you believe in your mission and support your mission, are going to want to see you put yourself out there, they’re going to be there for you. They’re going to they’re they don’t want to see silence. People don’t want to hear silence anymore. I mean, I think the one of the biggest shifts in the last decade has been the social media world that we have that were given this gift. I know back in when I was in university, I may be dating myself a little bit. Facebook had just started when I was finishing University, like all this social media stuff did not exist, we did not have accessibility, it was like if you want to see somebody using opinions, see them on TV, or like local news or TV now anyone can have a voice and everyone should have a voice in their business. It’s actually a huge gift. This is something that I like I’ve wanted to have a voice I wanted to tell stories. For decades, I wanted to do this. And now we can go on air like on Facebook Live, we can start a business that really aligns to our values.I don’t think this was even possible to do it in the way and to have the impact that we have 20 years ago. I don’t think it was.

Adam G. Force 19:24

Well and think about it he was when you’re doing building a following like let’s say on Facebook, everybody wants to know how to build a following on Facebook. One of the primary first steps is to create content that is already saying what’s in someone’s mind meaning their belief. Yeah, when you’re a kid, what do you have on your walls, everything that reflects who you are posters, all those things, they’re just a reflection of what you believe and what you like. So if you’re speaking to that, at a high level, the the followers you bring on to your business and people who love your business are gonna be people that usually are aligned with like things that you like and things that you believe in, and so To, to push those even harder at different levels is only going to create stronger bonds and bigger crowds of people that align to that as well. Because the ones that don’t, you’re not going to change their mind. So it doesn’t really matter, you might as well filter them out in a very good way, like a strong way.

Amy Aitman 20:19

To them out right away, because honestly, it costs you money, especially start getting into like the paid or even organic, it’s going to cost you money to keep them on to keep to keep reaching out to them. If we just talk bottom line here, bottom line, it’s more, it’s more cost effective, it’s better to actually weed people out in the beginning, whether that’s from your the way you need, or from the things that you share, or the take a stand stories that you share. All of those things help grow your business.

Adam G. Force 20:50

Yeah, so as far as it can go, we’ll tie this into sales, because as far as that goes, nine times out of 10 today, especially the younger generations, they they want to know not only what’s in it for them, but they want to know what’s in it for you. What do you stand for? Who am I getting behind, right as support while you just said to right, Adam, but you don’t even need, you know, I love the data. I’m a data nerd, sometimes when it comes to these things. But at the end of the day, the market will tell you, you just go out and you put up some look at the post I did, I created an entire conversation, which is great. You know, and I don’t mind people knowing where my head is at. Because if you’re if you’re thinking that what’s going on is a great thing, then we’re not going to work well together anyway, right? It doesn’t matter to me, I will always be respectful. And I try to always have a logical sound, you know, talking point around these things, you’re not just making up conspiracy theories and things like that. So I think at the end, you’re having those values injected into the business, that is the way to do business today, your business should be part of who you are. And if you’re taking a stand for something that’s meaningful, that goes through your business, your business is that tool to do those things right

Amy Aitman 22:06

And we’re talking about values here. We’re not necessarily talking about politics, right? Like your values, this goes so much deeper. It’s like human rights. It’s animal rights. It’s it’s the environment, like it’s all of these big beliefs and big values that we’ve created. It’s not just about politics. Politics is like an interpretation of values, I feel. And there’s a lot of layers to that. But I feel like if this is if we’re talking about putting your yourself and your values into your business, so like what we started talking about if your business values don’t align to your personal values, why, like, you know, why don’t they?

Adam G. Force 22:44

People are afraid, people are afraid that goes back to those old sentiments from boomer generation. I feel like that boomer generation.

Amy Aitman 22:55

I mean, yeah, I feel like nowadays with, like I said, with such accessibility, because of digital media. And because of this, yeah, I don’t think there’s room for us to like, be silent or to hide, to hide what we do. And for us, heartlight entrepreneurs that we this is what we do. This is all that we do. You could do any other kind of business to if we was just about like doing marketing and making both like making sales, right, we could be in doing other things, but I think why we….

Adam G. Force 23:25

We could do marketing or many different things but we created Change Creator because we’re taking a freakin stand against business without a soul. We are trying to change that narrative, and then empower entrepreneurs that are actually doing things the right way. You know, I read through Rachel’s sales page website and all those things when all the commotion was going on that, you know, Rachel, the person we were talking about earlier. And I as I read it, I slowly was like, Oh, my God, I want to be part of this. I want to be part of this. This is a great little group of people. Like I like what she’s, and that’s because she was speaking to me and my beliefs. But if I was on the other side of the belief system, I would have been like, Ah, this isn’t for me. I’m out of here. That’s fine, too, right?

Amy Aitman 24:04

Yeah, no, I loved it. I mean, someone on our team actually did join her club. Yeah, they totally did. I mean, she was pretty amazing. She is such a badass, and I loved it. And you put yourself out there. And I watched her that video several times since then, and learning a lot from her. Let’s just say like, I know, this is what we believe what we teach in our program. But when you’re seeing people do it so well, and just getting themselves out there. It’s really, really inspiring. Yeah, that’s the kind of entrepreneur that I want to be to. I don’t want to be someone that, you know, hides away or is afraid to say what I say or silence like, I think today 2020 if you’re silent, that says a lot as well, that says a lot about you.

Adam G. Force 24:49

It does just say alot. You can’t just sit there and hope that everything works itself out. You know, and then people wonder like why they get into these really bad situations. And why certain things are going on in the world. We all play a part and part of it. I know people feel like insignificant in some sense. Like, if I do this, that’s it just doesn’t make an impact on the picture, right? The big picture. But that big picture perspective is so important. Yes, everything that we all do all matters, because I don’t want to go at all like Neil deGrasse Tyson, like, we’re all connected here, guys. I mean, that’s just the way I am typically, you know, proven all that stuff, you know, whether it’s biologically chemically, all those types of things, but like, the things we do matter, they plant seeds, the ideas move forward, they get into other people’s minds, like, think about all the information in the media that is, we just say, Okay, here’s this clip, right, and they share just a piece of a statement, so you don’t get the full context. Yeah. And that goes down that goes, everything that inspire, think about the compounding effect that has, think about the effect it has, when you do one good deed, someone else sees it, you inspire them, they do a good deed. And all of a sudden, there’s a compounding effect, like, you know, if it takes one person, up know, two people to create that movement, right? You ever see that video, those people dancing, the guy who the music’s going, he’s dancing all by himself, and then one more person followed only because he took a stand, he got up, started dancing by himself. And only because of that one other person got inspired, followed him. And then after that second person, everybody came

Amy Aitman 26:31

That’s what Dr. Yunus, Muhammad Yunus said, start with two people. And that’s what like, if you think about having that you want to have that big impact? Start with two people, guess what you are helping people with your business

Adam G. Force 26:45

Absolutely,

Amy Aitman 26:46

You can help two people, you can start a movement.

Adam G. Force 26:49

So for those of you that don’t know, we interviewed, he’s a Nobel Peace Prize winner. We interviewed Dr. Muhammad Yunus, which is a very special interview, you could find it on our website, if you want to listen to it, pretty compelling stuff. And what Amy said, that was a great point. I’m glad you remember that. Because he was like, Adam, when you start a social business, you want to do something different work, just help two people. And if you can help them, then all you got to do is start repeating that process. But it starts from there. And it starts growing. And I was like, ah, he made it sound so much easier, is it? It’s a lot less overwhelming, right? Oh, yeah, got it that way.

Amy Aitman 27:22

And the big picture in mind, like you want to start a movement, you want to start a change. But you can’t start any change unless you help two people.

Adam G. Force 27:31

But you can’t start a movement without storytelling. So you guys, this is why at Change Creator, when we take a stand, and we want to change the world want to change how business is done. We have now focused on storytelling, because this is the biggest missing ingredient for entrepreneurs who are taking a stand with their business, and they want to make a difference. And you can only do that if you get people on board with what you’re doing. All social progress in history was created with storytelling, all progresses due to storytelling, Master storytelling, and that’s what method Amy, I think it would be a great day to leave the storytelling roadmap just to give her guys we will put our free storytelling roadmap. It’s just a little brain dump about some storytelling insights and strategies. And then there is a link, if you want to take it further to our master class, you can check that out. So it’s free, check it out and enjoy it. And we’ll put a link in the description when we’re done here.

Amy Aitman 28:25

Sounds great. Yeah, there’s some mistakes too, about storytime mistakes. That’s really good.

Adam G. Force 28:30

Yeah. Yeah, it’s a good first step for everybody. Definitely. All right, are we ready to wrap this up? I think we are way over what we usually do, but we can go

Amy Aitman 28:39

We don’t really have a time limit on these. Now we can only be talking, we keep talking. Yeah. Really.

Adam G. Force 28:47

Since we’re talking on Skype all day, we should just sit on here and just do a live. Alright guys, listen, I hope this was a little bit inspiring. I hope it kind of like got you fired up to get out there. Take a stand. You know what we teach in the cafeteria method. One of our stories is the take a stand story. So we teach how to craft that. How to think about it. What is it all about when used to take a stand story? Right, like Timing is everything. You got to have the right timing and you got to get to the right people. But taking a stand is an important story that we share. And you guys can learn more about that. And in the program. Yeah, stuff. Okay. Awesome. Let’s wrap it up. Okay. Later,

Amy Aitman 29:31

See you tomorrow, tomorrow’s our last day. But if you have a burning question. And if you want to get in on these discussions, like literally leave a comment on on here or join us tomorrow and ask your question and get it answered live. Like that’s what we’re here for. We’re putting ourselves out there. We’re taking Stan we’re putting ourselves out there. We want to help you guys. And so yeah, tomorrow’s our last day of this little series. Yeah. I think we’re gonna keep coming on Facebook Live more.

Adam G. Force 29:58

Yeah, we’ll have some different series topics and stuff down tomorrow 12pm PST and we’re gonna have a special offer to connect with you guys tomorrow as well.

Amy Aitman 30:06

Yeah. Okay, see you tomorrow. Bye.

Adam G. Force 30:10

Thanks for tuning in to the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

Lisa McLeod: How to Start Selling with Noble Purpose to Drive More Revenue

Listen to our exclusive interview with Lisa:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Why are so many big companies now jumping on the “good business” bandwagon? Because that’s what the market wants! But how do you do it? We spoke with an expert, Lisa McLeod about her work helping big companies make the transition and why it’s so important to their sustainable success.

—

Lisa McLeod is the global expert on purpose-driven business and the bestselling author of Selling with Noble Purpose: How to Drive Revenue and Do Work That Makes You Proud. Lisa has spent two decades helping leaders increase competitive differentiation and emotional engagement. Her work debunks the myth that money is the primary motivation for most employees. She developed the Noble Purpose philosophy after her research revealed, salespeople who sell with Noble Purpose, who truly want to make a difference to their customers, outsell salespeople who focus on their own targets and quotas Lisa is a former Procter & Gamble Sales Leader who founded her own firm, McLeod & More, Inc. in 2001. She helps leaders at organizations like Cisco, Roche, Volvo, and Dave & Busters drive exponential revenue growth. Lisa has keynoted in 25 countries and authored over 2,000 articles. She has made appearances on the Today show and the NBC Nightly News, and her firm’s work has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR.

Learn more about Lisa and her work at > https://www.mcleodandmore.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam force co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big, visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. All right, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the show, I hope that you’re doing amazing we have some good stuff today. I’m excited because we’re going to be talking with Lisa McLeod, okay. She is a, an expert in something that we love, purpose driven business and selling. Okay. So she’s she is known around the world as an expert in purpose driven business. And she’s actually the best selling author of a book she wrote called selling with noble purpose, how to drive revenue, and do work that makes you proud. Now, she spent a few decades working with leaders to increase their competitive differentiation. And here’s what’s really important emotional engagement as well, all right. And she kind of breaks down this whole process for these big companies and how to put more purpose into their business, get them on the right track, not only just for the field goodness, and protecting the planet, protecting people doing the right things, but because doing that is actually more profitable. And there’s evidence out there, we’re going to talk about these things today. So you can really kind of get your head wrapped around like the direction business is going from the top down. I mean, it’s started with like this whole transition to social entrepreneurship and small businesses. But now it’s just kind of starting to boom, and it’s starting to vibrate through all size organizations. And so this is an exciting conversation and how she broke in and started actually consulting on this is pretty cool. So lots to learn through this conversation. Now, if you missed the last episode, Amy and I spoke about how marketing is not just about numbers and big audiences. Alright, so this is an important conversation, because we kind of get wrapped up in the wrong things, especially when we’re running a solo business or just with a founder. And we’re kind of like, in our own world. And we’re so wrapped up about numbers and big audiences, it leads to bad decision making bad decision making leads us to being stuck, because it’s usually based on asking bad questions. Okay. So definitely an episode, go back, check it out. If you haven’t yet, I think you got a lot of little gold nuggets out of that. Um, so lots of exciting stuff going on here at Change Creator, we’re going to be having kind of like a big revamp across our general network. And we’re still running a lot of content on Change creator.com. So guys, don’t forget to visit there, you can just go to Change creator.com forward slash, go big, and grab some of the free assets that we have to help you out. But also, that’ll lead you to the rest of our website, we do lots of good reviews of tools, guys. I mean, we are all about brand stories, okay, so we help people get very clear on their brands and their identities and the stories that they’re telling. Because this is so important. It’s the backbone of your business. And we have to be able to deliver those messages, right. So this is where the tactics come in. But first, we got to know what those stories are. All the tools and things we’re doing. This is your presence. This is your world to deliver your stories. Alright, so we get deep on those things to help you guys make good decisions on that. Alright guys, let’s dive into this conversation with Lisa. There’s just so much good stuff here. We’re going to cover so let’s do it. Okay, show me the heat. Coming to the Change Creator, podcast show, how are you doing today?

Lisa McLeod 03:52

I am awesome. Despite social unrest and a pandemic, I’m still awesome.

Adam G. Force 03:58

Yeah, the pandemic that’s a we can go off on a tangent on that one. But let’s not do that. So we are here to talk about you know, meaningful business right, you know, selling with a noble purpose as your your latest book is titled, and we’ll get into that more. So before we do, just tell everybody a little bit about what is going on in your world today and your business like what’s the latest and you know, a little bit of background on how you got there.

Lisa McLeod 04:28

So, as you said, I’m the author of a book called selling with noble purpose and like a lot of people my story to get there had a lot of twists and turns. And so I’ll say the thing about my backstory is what selling one noble purpose did was it brought together my super hyper competitiveness about wanting to sell and help companies sell along with wanting to make a difference in the world. And it relates actually to the pandemic and all this social unrest because the thing works. Seeing in our business right now, I work as a consultant that I do a lot of training for sales organizations. And we’re seeing this fundamental question that people are starting to ask, which is, you know, who am I? Why am I here? And why does this job even matter? And so what’s happening is that is coming at the same time that customers are saying, Why are you here? Are you just trying to close me? Or are you trying to actually help me? And so you have customers that are starting to question intent? And then you have people in sales jobs that are starting to say, does this even matter? And if you can’t answer those two questions, you’re going to be out of luck.

Adam G. Force 05:39

Yes, I love that. And I love that you brought up the intent because one thing I’ve been saying for a while, and now I got some backup I hear from you is like, I’m always saying, guys, yeah, the customer, you they want to know, we call it with them, what’s in it for them? Right? And but I go, it’s much more than that today. Now, they’re gonna look at you and say, well, what’s in it for you? Why are you doing this? Yeah, I think we’re seeing that more. But a lot of people aren’t really taking notice of that, because you still see a lot of promotion of marketing, like, Oh, it’s all about the customer. And what’s in it for them, forget everything else, focus on the benefits for them and all that stuff. I’m like, it’s going beyond that. Now, don’t you know, and that sounds like you’re feeling the same way.

Lisa McLeod 06:18

I am. And it’s more than just you and I feeling that way, there’s actually hard data that tells us this, I want to go back to what you were saying about the wiffen what’s in it for them. That’s sort of sales 101, you know, to get away from here’s my product, and just the spray and pray. And I’m old, I’ve been in sales like a really long time, I’m not going to give a number but a lot older than you. And that old sort of wisdom thing was based on this, if I could show you a way to save money and do this really preachy inauthentic model, and so now, customers are reading your true intent. And what the data tells us is sales people whose true intent is to improve life for customers, not just toss out some with them. So Cz, here’s your little benefit, but whose true and noble intent was to improve life for customers do a couple things. They outsell salespeople whose internal talk track is focused on their own targets. They also this is really important for this time, put for more effort. And they have more tenacity. Because if you’re just in it for yourself, I mean, you just mentioned to me in the warm up that you have a five month old, so you have definitely experienced this. If you’re just living life for yourself. At a certain point. You’re not going to make the extra effort. But if you know someone else is counting on you, that’s when we go the extra mile. It’s part of our DNA or hardware that way. And so the sales people that felt like their customers were really counting on them. And they were doing something valuable, put forth more effort over time, and they could rebound in the face of setbacks.

Adam G. Force 07:56

Yeah, I love that. And I would actually love to know where this hard data comes from. Can I get my hands on it?

Lisa McLeod 08:05

Absolutely. So the best place is in our book selling with noble purpose. And I’ll tell you, it comes from a couple of places. One, there was a real breakthrough study out of Michigan State University by Dr. Valerie Goode, who this was actually her PhD dissertation that she did this across multiple industries. And she was able to through interviews, discern what the mental talk track was of the salespeople, whether they were thinking I’ve got to hit my number, I’ve got to close this deal, versus whether they’re thinking how could I improve life for the customer. And so she was able to discern that those who had that second talk track were the top performers and have more tenacity. There’s also organizational research, there was a huge article in Harvard Business Review. And a former I used to work for Procter and Gamble, a former p&g colleague of mine, Jim Stengel, also study this, that organizationally, when you have a purpose bigger than money, you outperform the competition. Stangl study said by 350%, by the HBr study said you also outperform the competition on not just sales, but also employee engagement, and customer retention.

Adam G. Force 09:18

Yeah, that’s great. And I you know, so hearing those types of things it makes me think of, we call it money breath when you go as a sales rep, right? Yeah, you get money breath because you are concerned about hitting a number getting the sale, and not as concerned about helping that person which, you know, we have those mirror neurons that start firing and they people pick up on that, whether it’s whether they realize it or not, they’re picking up on that body language, facial expressions, whatever it might be, that’s sharing that kind of feeling that person has, right.

Lisa McLeod 09:53

That’s exactly it. I love I’ve heard it called money breath and quota breath and it’s kind of like onion breath. Yeah, yeah, if I ate for lunch, I might not have onions in my teeth. But if I’m breathing them on you, you know I hadn’t? Yes. And so the here’s the important thing to recognize is, we uncovered this several years ago that this different mindset was the difference between average performance and top performance. But here’s what organizations unknowingly do. They are literally doing the equivalent of feeding their employees onions at lunch, because if you think about the average way an organization communicates with their sales people, they don’t say, how can we make a difference to customers? unless there are top performing organization? Most organizations say hit the number, hit the number hit the number. So then that person is out there breathing, as you call it, money breath on the customer? That’s because that’s what their company fed them for lunch.

Adam G. Force 10:50

Yeah. Yeah. Hundred percent. I mean, it’s, it’s it’s a symptom of the model.

Lisa McLeod 10:55

Right? Is the model. Yeah, it’s the ecosystem around the seller.

Adam G. Force 10:59

Yeah. And it’s a product of desperation. Sometimes.

Lisa McLeod 11:03

It can be. And I really understand that. And so when I say this, this is what they fed them for lunch. I say it with great empathy. Because I have run a business where we were worried about money during the recession. And it’s horrible. You lie awake at night thinking, How can I pay my people? You know, can we make payroll Friday, it’s a terrible feeling. And so what we wanted to do in the book, Simon noble purpose is actually the second edition, because we’ve learned a lot since the first edition, is we wanted to show well intended people, how you can create an ecosystem in your organization, and how you can create the mental tenacity in yourself to always be focused on improving life for the customer, because it’s easier said than done. Because everything in a traditional business model points you the other way

Adam G. Force 11:52

It does and it is easier said than done. And I can see so many roadblocks for that. Because, like we said product of that ecosystem, or just system in general, because people are always stressed about money if they’re not making enough one way or the other. And because we live in that kind of a system, you’re you’re kind of stressing about, you put all your energy on that. And so now you get into a mode of just, I gotta get this money, I got it. And that’s all you’re focused on. So it’s hard to flip the script, because you have, you have like, and you’ve been indoctrinated to feel and believe certain things based on everything that’s happening around you.

Lisa McLeod 12:29

That’s right. And it something monumental happened last summer, that was not noticed by a lot of people outside the corporate world. But the CEO Roundtable, which is several hundred of America’s top CEOs put a stake in the ground, and they renamed the purpose of a business because up until that point, we had been in what folks refer to as a shareholder primacy model, which is, the purpose of a business is to make money. And what these CEOs saw was, if that’s your Northstar, not only do you run the risk of unethical behavior, hello, Wells Fargo. But for most people, most people aren’t going to be unethical. But what happens is, you don’t create competitive differentiation. Because all you’re thinking about the money, you’re not thinking about customers, you don’t create emotional engagement. And so the CEO said, the purpose of a business is to provide a return to stakeholders at the top of the list is customers. And so it was an important thing. But what we made it our practice to do is particularly for organizations that are sales driven organizations, is we identified 10 places within the ecosystem where you can flip the switch, to make it easier for people to focus on making a difference to customers.

Adam G. Force 13:48

Interesting. And so this is the consulting that you offer, right? You go in and you kind of have a blueprint have areas that are pivotal to look at, diagnose and optimize in order to get new results.

Lisa McLeod 14:02

That’s right. And one of them is so simple

Adam G. Force 14:06

Give us an example, you guys have to read the book or whatever to get the details. But let’s let’s get a little taste of what you got going on.

Lisa McLeod 14:13

So I’ll give you a very specific example. So one of the things that we know is the way you run your sales meetings, is again, you got to run your sales meetings differently than traditional. So we were working with a client and this is all public. It’s in the book. It’s on our website. It was a bank, out of Atlanta, a commercial bank called Atlantic capital bank, great bank, nice people, several hundred people, profitable bank, but they said we want to up our game. We want to be differentiated. We want to stand out in our space, and we want to become a best place to work. So one of the things we did a number of things, but one thing we did was we changed the way they ran their sales meetings. And so instead of starting the sales meeting the way we usually do, here’s the numbers. Here’s what the pipeline looks like. Here’s what we need. Close, all important things. Sure. Instead, what we taught them how to do, and every single person the bank knows how to do this is they start their meetings with a customer impact story, a story about how they made a difference to a customer. And it can be as simple as, here’s this customer we loaned money to, for their chain of dry cleaners, there are now 15 people employed there. This is what they do, this is how they do it. Here’s a photo of the owner, we’re making a difference. This wasn’t just money that went out the door, what we’re doing is we’re fueling their prosperity. What that does, when you start your Start your meetings like this, you fire up a totally different section of people’s brains. There’s neuroscience on this, because now everybody’s frontal lobes are fired up, empathy and compassion are fired up. They’re saying, Wow, we make a difference, we have this higher purpose, you can literally make your team more confident and more authentic by telling these stories in every meeting. And that’s one thing that we did, and you can like anyone listening to this podcast, you can start doing this, like in a half hour from now

Adam G. Force 16:04

Yeah, I mean, it’s a very simple adjustment. But you might need to really, it might first mean that the team has to actually focus on those things to get those stories because they might not even be paying attention to that yet.

Lisa McLeod 16:18

Well, that’s the part telling the stories isn’t challenging, finding the stories can be challenging. And so that’s a lot of the work that we do with companies is finding their stories, because in organizations, we tend to have two kinds of stories, we have the wind story, we closed a million bucks, we’re awesome, whoo, this bomb, yay, or I guess elbow bump now. Or we have the product story. Here’s what we make and how cool it is. What we do is we put the impact that you have on customers at the center is very different than a lot of companies will say we want to be customer focused, but that tends to be nonspecific. And so selling with noble purpose goes beyond pleasing customers. It’s about improving customers. And that seems nuanced. But you can probably hear the difference in it.

Adam G. Force 17:09

Oh, yeah, of course. And you made me think of Danny Meyer’s, I don’t know if you know who that is. He’s a wrestler. He’s like a world famous restaurant owner. And he has some of the most ridiculous restaurants in New York, like multiple Michelin stars, all that fun stuff.

Lisa McLeod 17:26

I know who he is. He has not cooked for me though…yet

Adam G. Force 17:29

Yeah, we I took my wife to 11 Madison for a lunch and it was like $1,000. So you know…

Lisa McLeod 17:35

Hope it was a good lunch.

Adam G. Force 17:36

It was a very good lunch. You know, he wrote a book called setting the table. And I was like, why would I read a book from a restaurant guy. But it was all about business. And his whole thing was going above and beyond for the customer. Like, for example, he had a call from somebody that he knew a potential like someone that comes to the restaurant. He’s like, Listen, can I have a big thing going on? And I want to know if you can open up the restaurant for this important business thing I have happening. And it’s like midnight or something. He’s like, Are you kidding me? But instead of like resisting and saying No way, he was like, Sure, I’ll do it. Not only did he do that, he found out information about the people that he was bringing, and what was going on. And he went above and beyond. And he made it an events that they would never forget, right. And he did this on a regular basis. He literally would Google people who made reservations. And he would sit them next to each other so they can start sparking conversation, like these types of things.

Lisa McLeod 18:35

And you’re giving evidence to how effective that is. Because you’ve eaten his restaurant now I can’t wait to eat as restaurant now we’re spending our precious air time talking about the guy and were enamored of him. And that’s what we find is when you have this clarity about what your noble purpose is, which is not making money, it’s beyond making money in that bet particular bank, it was we fuel prosperity, when you have clarity about what your noble purpose is, then you can get everybody in your organization lined up. Because the challenge is so often, especially if you’re an entrepreneur, you usually do have clarity. And you didn’t go into business, just because you thought it would be you know, a whim, you usually have clarity about how you want to make a difference. The challenge is cascading that down to customers, and to employees so they can cascade it to customers. Because what usually happens is, somebody has this great idea, oh, I’m gonna, you know, do this great restaurant, I’m going to make it this way and have this great customer experience. Then when it goes down to levels and that person isn’t in the room. You find yourself saying things like focus on the customer. Yeah, but that’s not exactly what he meant. What he What if I was to work with him and come up with his noble purpose. It would probably be something like we make memories that last a lifetime or something like that. If I tell the server, you’re making a memory, it’s gonna last last a lifetime. Well, that’s totally different. Totally different.

Adam G. Force 20:03

Yeah, totally different than focus on the customer. Exactly. Take care of the customer customer first, like that doesn’t really? Yeah. What does that mean?

Lisa McLeod 20:12

It doesn’t, it doesn’t provide you with the disk with a lens for decision making. And that’s what we’ve seen with our clients is, the noble purpose does three things. It seeds, your culture, it gives you something to stand for. The second thing it does is it provides a lens versus Dziedzic decision making. So if your purpose is make memories that last a lifetime, or fuel prosperity, or whatever it is, helps you figure out what to say yes to and what to say no to. And then the third thing is it drives sales behavior. And that’s where you get the huge economic win.

Adam G. Force 20:45

Yeah, I think that’s great. I mean, I love that distinction. Because the clarity is so important, especially when you’re trying to grow a team, and you want to stay true to the original intention.

Lisa McLeod 20:56

That’s right, it takes what we’ve done, we’ve worked with a lot of smaller and midsize organization, and it takes what is implicit in your business, and makes it absolutely explicit. So with that, with that bank, and they’re on our website, you can see the CEO talking, it’s what he and the other founders had in their heart. But yet, as they grew to several hundred people, it was starting to erode. So what we did was we put that stake in the ground. And I’ll give you another thing that you can do, that we talked about, we coach a lot of sales managers. And one of the things that we do is we anyone can do this is we insert what we call the game changing question. Okay. So the game changing question is, after you ask your salesperson, when are we going to close it? How much is it going to be? Who’s the competition? And when we get the money? You ask one single question, how will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us? And that one question will point your seller towards the customer, it will also tell you what your likelihood is of closing the business.

Adam G. Force 22:06

Yeah, I like that. I mean, you’re it makes you very focused on the result. Right, right. So it’s not? Yeah, I mean, it really puts the attention there to make sure that you’re walking away with the result that you intended.

Lisa McLeod 22:20

That’s right. Because if I ask a salesperson, how will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us? And they can’t tell me? They’re not going to be able to tell the customer? No. And so, yeah, so every product you make, every presentation you do, every coaching session, you have, should be aligned around answering that single question. That’s why we call it the game changer, because it totally, it shifts your focus from you to the customer. And it shifts your focus from trying to do something it’s nice to try and do some actually makes a difference.

Adam G. Force 22:55

Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. Now, tell me a little bit of just about you, you know, you’re you start working with these clients. I’m curious on, for example, let’s go back to when you decided, you know, you’re not working at PNG, you’re doing your own thing, and you’re getting clients based on the idea of this. What were some of the challenges you faced on locking in a partnership?

Lisa McLeod 23:22

So I’ll tell you, I left p&g many years ago, and I went to work for a small consulting firm. So I was very fortunate in that I could work for someone who already had some established thought leadership, we were in the sales and leadership space. And I could learn a lot there. And I started my own firm, I’ve started to be really honest about this. I know a lot of people start their own firm because they’ve got some big sexy idea or something like that. I started my own firm, because I was a VP of sales, who worked a 70 hour travel week, and I had a baby. And that was not gonna work. So it was really I loved what I did. But that was back in the days when you didn’t go to your boss and say, Hey, I’d like to work 20 hours a week. So I decided to do that on my own. But my biggest challenge in getting clients in the early days, especially around this idea of noble purpose, because I don’t have it quite as as clear as I do. Now. The biggest challenge was helping people connect the idea of belief and seemingly soft things with hard revenue. Because when I first started doing this, we know how to study for Michigan State. We didn’t have a front page of the HBr Harvard Business Review. It was. And so what we ended up with in the beginning was this handful of clients that said, yeah, we believe that will work and we didn’t have a lot of evidence. We had some psychological studies, but not any real hard business evidence. So for example, one of our early clients was Hootsuite. Yeah. And we started to work with them in early days. And then chief revenue officer Steve Johnson is pretty well known guy in sales, you know, heard me speak and said that thing, that noble purpose thing we got to younger on Salesforce, we need that. And it took off like lightning around the globe, they own their space. They grew revenue by 2,000% during the time that we worked with them. So after we started getting some hits like that, from people who instinctively knew that this was right, then we had the evidence.

Adam G. Force 25:30

Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of difference. And I want to make a point of clarity for people listening is like, when you have these ideas, the fact that you weren’t as clear as you are now about really, you know how you were going to do this thing? Yeah, what it actually looks like you were kind of like working through it that didn’t stop you from reaching out and selling the idea, right?

Lisa McLeod 25:53

No, it didn’t. And I want to clarify, it didn’t stop me the lack of clarity didn’t stop me from reaching out and trying to sell the idea. I wasn’t always successful in selling it.

Adam G. Force 26:03

But that’s okay.

Lisa McLeod 26:04

But that’s okay. And that’s how you learn. And so what happens is, the essence of your idea will attract those early adopters, those people who were already thinking about this, so we had Hootsuite was an early client, company advocate, another company out of Canada, g adventures was an early client, we had a company called shelf Genie that makes glide outs for your shelving, you know, so so it’s easy to get to. And all of those, there were individual leaders who said, This is what I’ve been thinking, you’re naming what I’ve been thinking. And so it wasn’t new to them, but I had a little more clarity than they did. And so the the me that you’re interviewing now, is 10 years later, we’ve done this with, you know, over two dozen firms, we have hard numbers, but the me in the early days was there’s something bigger than money here. And if we can tap into it, I think we can do big things. And the lease and people listening probably have an idea like that stated that way. And don’t try to convince the skeptics go with the people who go, yeah, that’s sort of what I was thinking tooo. those are your people

Adam G. Force 27:15

Exactly. Yeah, it makes so much sense. And, you know, you got to let you got to go out there, get the feedback, see what people are responding to that data is just priceless. And I mean, how are you getting in touch with Hootsuite? How are you like, you know, getting leads for an idea like this just emailing out and pitching the idea? Like, how do you get someone’s valuable time to say, Hey, I have this idea, I can get you more sales. What was your strategy?

Lisa McLeod 27:41

It was content marketing. It was putting it out there and seeing what people responded to. And for, in my case, because I do consulting and training and speaking, it was speaking at a lot of conferences. And so when we traced back, all of those early sales, every single one can be traced back to something I put in writing, even if it was speaking at a conference which sign that Hootsuite even if it was that I was at that conference, because something I wrote.

Adam G. Force 28:11

Okay, so your content is people took notice, it was of interest and it got you recognized got it,

Lisa McLeod 28:18

right, one of our biggest clients read an article, founder of a global adventure travel company, read an article, he sent it to his VP of sales and said, This is what we need to start doing. And the VP of sales, read it and thought, well, I’ll just call her.

Adam G. Force 28:32

Exactly.

Lisa McLeod 28:33

And so that’s that’s the important thing. And most folks know this now, as it’s hard to resist the temptation to do marketing, early in your content, if you know what I mean. And it’s hard to resist temptation. Talk about yourself is not interesting to people. That’s not interesting. What is interesting, is your point of view your take on things, and also how you’ve helped people.

Adam G. Force 29:01

Yeah, yeah, I mean, something that we like to emphasize is, you know, we teach storytelling for marketing. And we talk about telling the right stories to the right people at the right time. There’s a time and a place for you to use your personal stories to demonstrate different lessons or experiences. And you’re right, you the timing factor, if they’re coming in, for the first time to read an article like what is that article going to be about isn’t going to make sense for them based on you know, where you are in that journey?

Lisa McLeod 29:29

Right. Because back to what we were talking about with sellers and with customers, people are starting to gauge intent in a much more skilled way. And there’s a couple of reasons for that. One, we have a whole generation of people who grew up as digital natives, you know, I’m old. So when I watched the news, I was like, well, it’s the news. It must be true. You know, and I had a hard time on learning that but you have a lot of people that are like your age, like My daughter’s age. She’s a first year school teacher. And they are looking for intent in everything that comes at them. Yeah. Yeah, completely different. So you have all these young people who are looking for intent. And then the other thing you have, and I don’t talk about differences between men and women very often. But in this one instance, it does apply. You have more and more women buyers, and women have centuries of learning how to gauge intent. And we can spot it.

Adam G. Force 30:32

Yeah, it’s interesting. Good, for good reason. for good

Lisa McLeod 30:39

reasons. Our lives depended on being able to assess intent. And those skills have been handed down to us for a long time. And I had I had one VP of Sales say to me, you know, about half our buyers now are women. And if I get one more complaint about my salespeople going on and on about themselves, I’m gonna scream.

Adam G. Force 31:01

Yeah, of course

Lisa McLeod 31:02

because they’re reading that intent. That aside, all customers are in a heightened phase right now. And and now that all sales are being done virtually, and we don’t have the come on in and shake my hand have a cup of coffee, all those necessities, people reading your intent in the first 30 seconds. 100%.

Adam G. Force 31:21

Yeah, I mean, and it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s a different dynamic, for sure. And I think a lot of people are struggling to adapt, but it’s gonna be interesting to see, you know, what happens over the next 12 months.

Lisa McLeod 31:34

Yeah. And it’s from where I sit, and what we’re seeing with our clients, that companies whose sales people can go out, and be clearly there to help customers and be excited and be compelling, are the ones who are going to win. And you create those sales people. You can’t create passionate, compelling sales people unless you have a passionate compelling story, inside the company, and desperate to hit our numbers is not a compassionate, compelling story. So organizations that really create that customer impact story, that noble purpose, and they infuse it into every phase of their sales process and their daily cadence. Those are the ones who are going to win. And they’ll be still standing a year from now.

Adam G. Force 32:19

And that’s the thing. And then you also create a loyal client or customer, whatever you want to call it. And so your your, the lifetime value of that client will probably go up as well. And the person with the best lifetime customer value is going to have the biggest marketing budget.

Lisa McLeod 32:38

That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And the things that we’ve seen with our clients that have embraced this idea of selling the normal purpose is they have increased customer retention dramatically. The bank I mentioned to you, their earnings were up 40%, that is a lot of money. They won a Best Place to Work award two years in a row voted on by their employees because their employees are on fire. And they were voted two years ago best bank in America, the CEOs on the cover of American banker. And it’s because once we get beyond food and shelter, human beings have two fundamental needs. We want belonging and we want significance, we want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. And if you can capture that, as an employer, you don’t have to be curing cancer. I mean, if you are good for you, but I mean, we’ve had, you know, Hootsuite, they’re empowering human connection, this bank, they’re fueling prosperity, the people that make the glide out shelving are putting more joy and love into the home, because you’re not going to bang, throw your cabinets to get out your cookie sheet. I mean, it doesn’t have to be world peace. But if you have clarity that your work makes a difference. That’s how you create what we call the tribe of true believers.

Adam G. Force 33:53

Hundred percent. I love that. And you know, it’s interesting, because we’ve had like, similar pivots and people’s mindsets where we’ve literally had people join, like one of our programs, and they’ll go through and be like, after they go through this process, because we’re all about this intention as well. Right? Like, yeah, they meaningful and when they go through certain processes, and they start thinking about why they’re really doing things and who they are, are they aligned to their truth, all these things? It’s like, they’re like, wait a minute, I think I need to change my business. Like, yeah, well happens all the time. You know,

Lisa McLeod 34:25

It happens all the time. The thing that makes me so sad about that, is in a lot of cases, they might not have needed to change their business, because a lot of companies do really make a difference to their customers. But that’s not what they give voice to. Instead, the positioning, right. It’s not the positioning, it’s not the voice. Everything in business, pulls us too, talking about the KPIs talking about the numbers, and that then becomes the story. And those are important, but they’re not the story. They’re the result of the story. And so I see a lot of people discouraged with They’re companies. And oh, my work doesn’t matter. I had one guy Tell me after I gave a big speech, he came up afterwards. And he said, Well, this noble purpose stuff, it really resonates with me. But my wife is the one who has the real noble purpose. And I said, What does she do? He said, Well, she’s a preschool teacher. And I’m like, What do you do? And he says, I manage logistics for this huge company had 250 people working for him. I’m like, she has a noble purpose. I mean, I love toddlers. But come on, buddy. Like you’re managing 250 people, your words are affecting how they experience their life every single day. I think you need some noble purpose, my friend. If you’ve ever been in logistics, you know, getting your shit done on time kind of matters to a lot of people

Adam G. Force 35:45

Yeah, so many things come down to this perspective, and it drives our decision making. And you know, people always used to ask me when we first started, Change Creator magazine, what’s the difference between an economic entrepreneur and a social entrepreneur? And I was just like, honestly, the decisions that we make, that’s really what it comes down to.

Lisa McLeod 36:02

Yeah. Well, and I will tell you that our work has revealed the social and the economic are linked. And yeah, oh, yeah. They are absolutely linked. And if you’re driving forces to make money, chances are, you’re gonna make less of it.

Adam G. Force 36:19

That’s the thing. And you might make money like, yeah, sure you got wolf on Wall Street, he wasn’t out to help anybody made money. But there’s other downsides and cost to that one may not be sustainable to you may not be later on down the road feeling good or fulfilled with your life. And three, it may be short lived, you know?

Lisa McLeod 36:38

Yeah, it is usually short lived. And if you look at I use Wells Fargo, and as an example, there are a lot of really good people that work for Wells Fargo. But what happened in that organization is the CEO said, Our purpose is to cross sell. Our purpose is to increase the share of wallet, our purpose is to hit these metrics. And when the CEO says it, it amplifies down to then everybody every day is having a report on these metrics. Had he said, as our friends at Atlantic capital set, our purpose is to fuel the prosperity of our clients. Right? Right, they would have cascaded as we did with Atlanta capital, we cascaded down an entirely different set of metrics. That’s why they’re on the cover of American banker, not in front of Congress.

Adam G. Force 37:24

On 100%, you know, one last thing that came to mind that I didn’t get to pick your brain on before was what really intrigued me is like your early days of like getting this thing going, because I know a lot of people in our who are listening here, they’re, they’re figuring things out, right, and you got the you got the ball rolling with an idea that you had. But when you brought on early stage clients, I’m curious around the idea, like so you, you’re actually doing something very significant. Like you’re working with some pretty decent sized teams, you know, seven figure companies, they have sales teams, all these things set up already. And you have to go in, and as a consultant adjust what they’re doing. So at one point, this was just an idea with that you had no personal data, or evidence from besides like literature and research and things like that. So was it hard for you like, with your confidence to go in there and be like, Oh, my God, I’m gonna go in there. I hope this works. You know?

Lisa McLeod 38:26

The short answer is yes. The short answer is yes. Having said that, we had done enough research. So the the idea actually came out of some of the research that we had done early days, that wasn’t our idea. It was a client’s idea. They had a study their sales team, and identify what differentiated the top performers. And that’s how we actually landed on selling with noble purpose, because I thought I was just doing a project for a client. And what ended up happening was, we were able to through these interviews that we did with folks, we watched himself, he looks at product knowledge, all these things. But I’m really interested in what goes on in people’s brains. And it wasn’t even really part of the assignment. But I thought, well, I’m gonna be out with these people. I’m gonna have to have dinner with him every night. I want to figure out what’s what here. And so when we studied the sales team, what I realized was there was a certain percentage of people that had this completely different mindset. And so we went back to the company, and we had done this study, it was a blind study. And they said, Who do you think our top people are? And I said, I think these five are the top people. And I was right. And I realized it was because they had this sense of purpose. And so when you ask, how confident was I, I knew that what I had spotted was real. In the early days, what I wasn’t as confident on was the way that I would bring that to life with people who didn’t have it. That took only a solid decade. So I knew that I could I’d seen it. I knew this thing was real. And so the the way That I managed that, you know, as an imperfect human was, when I went in and tried to act, all bravado and I got this, that actually didn’t work as well, right as when I went in, and we decided early on that our company purpose was to help leaders drive revenue, and do work that makes you proud. And so what we decided those two parallels is we would go in and just start asking questions about Where’s your revenue? Now? Where are the opportunities? Where do you think it could be? What areas do we want to increase? What’s employee engagement? Like how well do your sales people tell a story, and so instead of acting like we had the script for everything, we started to co develop this with our clients. And the more we did that, the more confidence we built, the more we went in and tried to act like we knew anything, everything, the more people would poke holes in it and erode our confidence. So it’s kind of ironic. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 41:00

Yeah, I mean, going in and just being honest and genuine. And yeah, I guess putting on that front. It never ends up going, Well, people can, you’re right, they poke holes in it, and they’re gonna break it down.

Lisa McLeod 41:11

And it also kind of tends to be confrontational. And that was the thing. You know, once you have a new thing, you think it’s a bigger departure from what people are already doing than perhaps it is. And that’s natural. When you have a new idea, you want to be distinct, you want to be different. What I came to realize over the years of doing this is what we’re doing is taking what people are already doing, and taking it up a level.

Adam G. Force 41:35

Yeah, yeah.

Lisa McLeod 41:37

And those are going to be our best clients and people that say, yeah, we already are pretty customer focus. Yeah, we do have a good business. We hope those kinds of people take it up a level. And you know, now when I go in, I can confidently say, There’s 10 things we look at, let’s do this, let’s do this. But it’s still a collaboration with the client.

Adam G. Force 41:54

Yeah, yeah. Great. I love it. Thank you, Lisa. This is a lot of good information. So hope everybody listening, sees all the gold nuggets that I’m seeing, and I appreciate you sharing it and the work that you’re doing, just sharing it in the book and kind of helping these clients and that you have, do things the right way and think about business in the right way. I mean, that is the key. For us, too. It’s really how we think and approach business. So dictates the decisions that we make. Right?

Lisa McLeod 42:22

That’s exactly it. And they’re the thing for us that we’re working on now is scale of when we, when we look at what’s happening in the world, you know, there’s some areas we can affect, there’s others that we can’t. But one thing we know to be true, is that business crosses, the lines that divide us business crosses international lines, it crosses a lot of socio economic lines. And the way we are at work becomes the way we are everywhere. And if we can get people thinking in this noble purpose way, and out of their own head and the ability to see the other, whether it’s a customer or whoever it is, is not just a means to your own end. But as someone that you can help when you flip that switch. Your Business changes, but so does your life.

Adam G. Force 43:13

Yeah, 100%. That’s a good note to end on here. We’ll wrap up and let’s make sure people know where do they learn more, and you know, find your book and stuff.

Lisa McLeod 43:23

Google selling with noble purpose, you will find our website go on Amazon. It’s available. The new version is available right now. And I really hope I want people to take away we work as a consulting firm with a lot of big organizations. If that’s what you’re interested in, we’d love to work with you. But if you were an entrepreneur, we made this book so that you could implement it on your own because I was founded a small startup and I know you can’t hire people. So we made this book with scripts and task lists and lots of small actions that you can take so that you can do it. Absolutely on your own. Beautiful.

Adam G. Force 44:03

Thank you so much, Lisa. We appreciate your time.

Lisa McLeod 44:06

It was so great to be with you Adam. Take care.

Adam G. Force 44:10

Thanks for tuning in to the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Adam And Amy: Marketing is Not Just About Numbers and Big Audiences

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Many of us believe that if we have a website, numerous social media accounts, and learn a few marketing ‘tactics’ our business will suddenly take off.

We spend so much time on tactics and distribution (should I start a podcast? what about Pinterest? What about Instagram?) that we MISS OUT on the #1 ingredient in your marketing…

Today, Adam and Amy will talk about what the # 1 missing ingredient is in your marketing.

We’ll cover:

— The counterintuitive way you need to look at your marketing strategy
— How do you know you are ‘missing’ the number 1 ingredient
— Why we tend to focus on the wrong things, at the wrong time in our business

Need a little help to get started, download our Storytelling Roadmap (FREE) today: changecreator.com/storytellingroadmap/

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam forest co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big, visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show This is your host, Adam force, we have an interesting discussion that we’re going to have today, this is going to be with me and Amy, we’re going to be talking about the fact that marketing is not just about big numbers and big audiences, this is something that so many of us get stuck on, just because of the way that marketing has shifted over the years, as we went digital, the perspectives of marketing and how we communicate, and what we’re trying to achieve has changed, right. And it causes a different objective in the minds of marketers, we had another discussion called stop thinking like a marketer, right? So, you know, a lot of us feel that when we have our websites, and social media accounts and all these things. You know, we want to learn these tactics, and probably heard before, like, stop focusing on tactics only, and all that kind of stuff. But we feel that those are things we can accomplish the things we can figure out. And that’s what’s going to make the difference in our business and help it take off. So we spend all of our time on these these ideas like Pinterest, and Instagram. And they’re important, and they play their part. But what we’re saying is, it’s not just about numbers and big audiences. So we want to get into that in more detail in just a few minutes. Um, guys, if you missed the last episode, it was a fun conversation with Corey Ames. And it was about carving out your own path and getting traction with smart marketing. He’s somebody that was a CEO of an agency and did he has a lot of digital marketing experience, kind of like me and Amy and our backgrounds. And he made the transition. And he started his own company grow ensemble, and he’s had some successes. And he so he shares that stuff. It’s inspiring to hear, we want to make sure we have people on the front lines here, kind of giving their aha moments and how they’re getting started and how they’re getting traction, right. It’s always helpful to hear from people’s experiences. So we’re going to get into that stuff. We have some exciting stuff going on here. We’ll be making some updates here at Change Creator, we’ve had just so much evolve in the business, and you guys will start seeing some of that come down the pipeline. Just as far as our, you know, branding and things we’re focusing on, you know, we’re really, our backgrounds are really in the branding and storytelling space. So kind of like how do we identify with clarity? Like, what the heck, we are all about who we are and how do we communicate our stories with the world and get attention, but not only get the attention, we are actually understood. And we get loyal customers, right? This this is all has to work together. And we’re going to be talking a lot about that stuff. So if you guys haven’t stopped by Change, Creator calm, go over there. We have a lot of our show notes from the podcast and other articles that are going up. That will continue to to get that stuff populated there. And if you want to learn more about storytelling, right, getting clarity that you need for your brand story, and then your sales stories, get on the waitlist for the captivate method. Alright, you’ll find that on the homepage, over at Change creator.com Alright guys, that is it. For now I’m gonna shut up and we’re gonna dive into this conversation with Amy and Mike. Okay, show me the heat. All right, we made it What’s up, everybody? Adam and Amy here. hope everybody’s having an awesome day. We just wanted to talk a little bit about you know, marketing and what it really is, right? Because we get so excited about having big audiences and reaching tons of people and all that stuff. So we’re going to tap into what is actually the truth behind marketing what that missing ingredient is today. So Amy, and I’ve been talking about this quite a bit. And so marketing is not just about big audiences and how many people we reach and distribution, right. That’s a small part of it. Do we need to get traffic? Yes. So we’re going to tell you a quick story about a friend of ours who has a killer program. It’s a it’s a course based program. And how they went almost a full year with no results, just sales trickling in. And then all of a sudden, in the 11th hour, they blew up. All right. So what happened? This is interesting. And Amy, you could chime in with any details here on this as we go. But you know you get set up and you’re running all these operations and they were they were kind of like fixing Their program and trying to really get it to connect with people. And they were getting as much traffic as possible into this program. But the sales weren’t coming in. And so they had to really kind of just sit back and figure out, well, what’s going on? And they would try all kinds of different things and different audiences that you would go after to get different types of traffic, right? Well, maybe we need to go after this audience or these people with these interests and things like that. And it just wasn’t making the connection. And so they started figuring out well, we may not have the right story, right. So what was the missing ingredient here, that really started to turn things around, and after about, I think it was 10 out of 12, like months right out of the year. They were we had a comment from them. And they were like, we’re so close to having the right story. And we were like, Oh, my God, I love that story. Here, right. And so on the front end, when people think about marketing, Amy, right, we say, all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook ads, like, that’s what people automatically associate with marketing

Amy Aitman 06:06

Perfect. E-mail list, all that stuff all the tactical things…

Adam G. Force 06:10

And why is that? Because, you know, we’ve all believe that the more traffic and people we get in front of the more our businesses will thrive. And so our friends, you know, they were getting in front of all the people, but why weren’t they thriving yet? Over time, they kept refining their story, which is when we say that we’re saying their marketing message, right? storytelling is your marketing. And that’s what we teach in the captivate method is really, that’s the most important part of the marketing strategy. So we say marketing, instead of thinking, distribution, and connecting a big audience and all that kind of stuff, and ads, we should be thinking, messaging stories in Italy, right? Like, we want to connect. And guess what, they finally got the right story, their their strategy aligned, and in that 11th month and 12 month, that 11th month alone, they had 70 sales. Now you multiply that by I think it was a 1500 dollar program. That’s a good chunk of change.

Amy Aitman 07:09

It’s a higher ticket offer.

Adam G. Force 07:11

Sure, it literally happened in that one month,

Amy Aitman 07:14

from like one or two sales to 70 in a month.

Adam G. Force 07:18

Exactly. And all of a sudden, I was like, Whoa, so the power, like you can have all the reach and big audience. And it doesn’t matter if you don’t take the time to create a really smart marketing strategy. So understanding how to use storytelling to connect with people, get them on board with what you’re doing. That is the key, and obviously why we put so much emphasis in it in the captivate method program. And it’s kind of counterintuitive, right, Amy? People don’t, it’s not something people feel like, Oh, I don’t have time to do that. I got to work on, you know, running my ads. And I got to work on getting Pinterest set up

Amy Aitman 07:57

I think if I asked a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs, like, what is your marketing strategy, I’d say nine out of 10 of them do not say storytelling, they do not say anything about storytelling, they feel like storytelling is a great add on. Or I can fix my messaging when or I can hire someone to fix my messaging. You know, that’s just a copywriting job. But really, I’ve seen it so many times, if your sales aren’t coming in, if your marketing is not effective, most nine or 10 out of 10 times, it’s your messaging, which is your storytelling. You know, sometimes there’s a there’s a problem with these, the automations are whatever, but nine out of 10 times or 10 times it’s your messaging, that’s not working. Because a lot of people get, you know, get really good at the distribution side of things, they get really good at, you know, creating a funnel or having their website or doing social media. But just because you get attention doesn’t mean you’re getting sales and doesn’t mean your marketing is actually working.

Adam G. Force 08:58

Exactly. I mean, I mean, and we see it a lot, too. I mean, you get on to Instagram, Pinterest, and all these sites, and you get so excited about like, Oh, I’m gonna create a killer Instagram strategy and all these things, and you spend so much time see this over and over again, whether it’s a social media platform, or maybe a podcast, right? I’m going to create a podcast, I’m gonna get in front of all these people. And, you know, we have a podcast, and we had a magazine, all this stuff. And we started a very complicated business at Change Creator. And I’ll tell you right now, every time I hear someone say, depending on where they are in the business, right, that I’m going to start a podcast. I want to be supportive and say, Yes, get your story out there and get in front of people. But I also know that it’s going to be a massive distraction, and it’s going to be very difficult to monetize. So this idea of this distribution on the podcast is so sexy and fun. I’m going to interview people and do all this stuff. Yeah, we can enjoy it and we want to do the things we enjoy and that we’re excited about. And all of a sudden, a year goes by and we look back and realize I was just solving the wrong problems. I wasn’t doing what I needed to do, I needed to understand, let’s say, three key things right aiming, it’s, well, how do I create the right marketing strategy based on who I am as a person and the business that I want to run? Right? How do I get clear on how to talk to my perfect customer? Right, how to connect with them and get them to understand my business? And then how do I create a system to automate my sales, so I can free up my time, like, these are your factors. And none of that you can’t create the system and automate sales to have the right message. Right? The right story

Amy Aitman 10:40

It’s a step that you can’t ignore, I see a lot of people coming to us in the captivate method. And they spent years, not just a year, they spent years and years and years on their marketing, and focusing on the wrong things at the wrong time. And really missing this key ingredient. And like kind of hoping to skip over it. Because I feel like this, this is something that may or may not come naturally to everyone, but it’s something that you can learn and you can develop, and it can become a practice that you that is really energizes your entire business. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of digital entrepreneurs, especially like, we just focus on the wrong things. And it’s usually things that we like to do. Yeah, so for me, I would say, early days, I mean, I love writing. So blogging was like writing blogging, content strategy, I could spend all day doing that, you know, but it’s like, actually getting out and doing the things that I need to do and tapping into my core story into into the stories for our marketing. Well, at first those a little uncomfortable, wasn’t it? Adam?

Adam G. Force 11:43

It always is. I think a lot of people avoid this work because one, they think they’re above it, they think they’re above digging into this, but to they also get very uncomfortable, right? It’s uncomfortable to dig into what is necessary to really create the marketing strategies that we need today to connect with the right audience. It takes real work to get this stuff done. And that’s why we have such a powerful methodology to help people get through that process. And once you do, you like you don’t ever want to outsource your marketing strategy and your sales in the first several years of your business. Like you need to master that craft yourself.

Amy Aitman 12:22

Yeah, messaging, you’d never want to outsource that messaging her and you really can’t, it’s almost impossible. Because I’ve hired a lot of copywriters over the year, I’ve been a writer for years. And the first thing any great advertising team is going to do and any copywriting team is going to do is they’re going to ask you for your story. That’s right. I mean, really are they’re gonna ask you about your story. They’re gonna ask you about your customers, they’re going to ask you for the things you need to know for your messaging. And if you let them guess,

Adam G. Force 12:53

You’re screwed.

Amy Aitman 12:54

You’re screwed.

Adam G. Force 12:54

They’ll take your money, they’ll take your money.

Amy Aitman 12:56

They will, they’ll take your money, and they’ll guess,

Adam G. Force 12:59

and they’ll guess. And we’ve done that we’ve hired expensive PR teams, marketing people, because we were thinking, hey, they know this better than us, or we just don’t have the time for it, or, you know, like, we have all these doubts in our brain. And then we start doing that, and we spent tons of money guys sent tons of money. And it was a huge waste of time and energy. Because now like, for example, we have all this stuff, obviously very solidified tons of stories. This is what we teach and we thrive on. And so we have a Facebook ads team. And guess what one of the first things like Amy said, we gave them a folder of like 3040 stories that were essential. We gave we know exactly who we’re talking to. So they could set up everything based on who we are as a brand, based on the stories that we have in order to accomplish certain things. It depends where someone is on that buyers journey, right? Yeah, what story do I tell? When do I tell it? What, like, there’s so much to this. But the more you focus and practice and get into these flows, then when you put effort into your distribution and reaching many people, it’s going to be effective, right?

Amy Aitman 14:05

Yes, it is. And you’re not going to spend waste time and money. putting things out at the wrong time. wrong message the wrong people. So how do you know how would you know, Adam? I have an answer for this one, that you’re missing this number one ingredient that you’re missing storytelling in your marketing. How do you know? What are the signs?

Adam G. Force 14:25

Yeah, well, I guess one major sign is that you’re not you’re not selling consistently. I mean, that’s number one, right?

Amy Aitman 14:32

That’s a big sign.

Adam G. Force 14:34

And people will start to say, ah, these Facebook ads stink, man. They don’t work, right. I can’t, I can never get sales. I’m like, Yeah, dude, because your messaging is completely off course. Not. Not only is it the wrong message, but it’s not being done in a way that’s compelling and thought provoking. It doesn’t it doesn’t connect with people. Marketing goes deep on how you actually connect with someone. And you should know Do they say in traffic every day, are they drinking a glass of wine having a, you know, drowning their sorrows every night like who is this person? And there’s lots of, there’s lots of ways to get to that. And that’s obviously stuff that we go through and teach in our program, because it’s so important. And did you have other thoughts Amy about…

Amy Aitman 15:23

I was gonna say the same thing, you know that you’re missing this when parts or all of your marketing is not working for you. So if you invest, say so much time into an Instagram strategy, and it’s just not connecting, it’s not getting to sales. This is where I like to look. And I like to say, okay, what’s missing? And it’s usually this messaging, if you find yourself getting a lot of people that like, love what you do, but are buying from you, then it’s, you’re missing this key ingredient, right? Um, that’s those are the two like, those are two key indicators that I’d say, look at your marketing. And I look at if you if you feel like everyone that you’re bringing into your world is not the right audience. This, again, is probably the the missing ingredient for that too

Adam G. Force 16:14

And you know what? There’s a major distraction that causes some of this for people. When we think marketing, remember we said earlier, we think marketing, we think social media advertising, you know, the distribution side of it, we don’t think that the connection, the communication side of it, but when we think about that distribution, think social media, well, we’re gonna say, we have a fear about what people think about us. Right? Yes, trade. For starters, people were afraid to put ourselves out there. And then when we do well, what are people going to think when I only have 20 people on my Facebook page? No one’s gonna trust my business. No one’s gonna buy from me, right? And guess what? That is the furthest thing from the truth ever. Okay. It’s about what you’re saying. It’s about who those 20 people are. What if each of those people was spending $1,000 a month of reoccurring revenue with you? Because they’re your perfect customer. So you got to Facebook people making $20,000 a month, okay?

Amy Aitman 17:10

This is a big mistake that we see so many people making, especially when it comes to story is they we they confuse trust with big numbers and they say if I had a million followers, and everyone would trust me, and I want when I when people tell me that I always ask them, okay, I have a product here, and I’m going to send out an influencer with the million followers, and it’s going to try to sell you or I’m going to send your best friend in the world that says, You got to try this product. Dude. This is the best product ever have I love this product? Someone that is that close to you? Who do you trust more? The Kylie Jenner’s of the world, or your best friend, or your best friend?

Adam G. Force 17:54

What about that story there is that girl on Instagram where they’re like, hey, she has like a couple million people or something following her. Like, she tried to sell a T shirt that someone was like sponsored to pay her to, like sell or something. And she was only able to sell like four t shirts to like millions of followers. And, you know, again, no connection. It was fake. Like, we just making the point about vanity metrics, this stuff just doesn’t matter. So that will hold you back. Yeah, it’s a leaf, right, or a false belief. And it’s based on that fear, the fear of what will people think? Right?

Amy Aitman 18:28

Yeah, because really, in today’s digital marketing, especially for mission driven entrepreneurs, it’s about connection. It’s about building trust, it’s about business connection. And it’s about finding the right people that our products can serve. That’s what it’s really about. It’s really not about how many people we have, you know, on our Instagram accounts or honor, you know, Facebook accounts. And I can tell you from being in the business and in the digital marketing space for quite some time, there’s a lot of ways to fake food, fugazi these numbers, and people know that… People totally know that as well. And so I feel like Nowadays, people really want that connection. And it’s more and more important than ever before, to have to build that connection with our audience to get that trust.

Adam G. Force 19:16

Absolutely. It makes a big difference to what you’re doing. So, you know, just to recap, the lesson here, guys is to where you’re putting your energy. I mean, we have to understand storytelling. Again, storytelling is your marketing. It’s how you’re communicating how you’re getting people on board with what you do, how you’re connecting with them. It’s also grounds your business and what kind of business you are and what you stand. There’s so much behind it. Storytelling is where you should be putting most of your energy any any company that has a great story to add is great, what storytelling will be a great company. Right? I think that covers that topic. I mean, it’s such an important one. So anything final words here. Any questions from anybody that is listening? We are happy…

Amy Aitman 20:03

No, Krista just said thank you, Adam. It’s so important only understand what you’re talking about connecting with your ideal customer. That’s true. Yeah, you see that a lot as well. I mean, it’s so important to have these connections and to build that trust.

Adam G. Force 20:19

Yeah. So think about your messaging. And connecting with people don’t worry about the big numbers and the distribution. Everything has its time in place. So we can always do the right things at the wrong time and averaging. So we really want to be take putting our priorities in the right order here. So marketing is not just about your distribution, it’s about what you’re saying, who you’re saying it to, and why you’re saying it.

Amy Aitman 20:46

Definitely. And like our friends that finally got the 70 sales on month 11 that we finally got the right story. And I can tell you from from knowing their story, they spent a lot of time and energy building traffic and doing that. Yeah, that wasn’t that that’s not what works.

Adam G. Force 21:05

Awesome. All right, guys. We’re gonna wrap this up and we will catch you on the next episode. Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast, visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Cory Ames: Carving Out Your Own Path and Getting Traction with Smart Marketing

Listen to our exclusive interview with Cory Ames:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What does it take to start making a real difference in the world? Do you have the confidence and belief in yourself to pursue your dream? We decided to speak with the co-founder of Grow Ensemble, Cory Ames, about his transition from CEO of a marketing agency to pursuing his own business driven by smart marketing.

—

Having figured out early on that a traditional path didn’t appeal to me, I left college early and joined a mutli-million dollar marketing agency where I ultimately became CEO. I enjoyed the work and learned a lot, but there was something I wasn’t getting from that work: fulfillment of what I saw as my social responsibility as a business person. I decided to combine what I’m good at (marketing, with an expertise in SEO) with what I’m most passionate about––improving the world through social impact. I started Grow Ensemble in 2018, a digital marketing, training & consulting company that helps nonprofits, social enterprises & social entrepreneurs market their mission online.

Learn more about Cory and his work at > https://coryames.com/

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

SPEAKERS

Adam G. Force, Cory Ames

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host Adam forest co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big, visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host enforce excited to dive into today’s conversation. But before we do so, if you missed the last episode, Danielle and I jumped on and we spoke about what the backbone of a great marketing strategy actually is. This is such an important topic, so many entrepreneurs Mr. Mark, we don’t get done. We don’t get our marketing done right in the market. And guess what happens? We don’t get sales. And it makes everything stressful, difficult and overwhelming. So we want to really dive into that topic. And so if you missed it, definitely go back, check it out. This week, we’re gonna be talking with Corey Ames. So Corey Ames is one of these entrepreneurs that was not happy about the cookie cutter path. Right. So he actually left college early, and he joined a multimillion dollar marketing agency where he actually became CEO, you know, but it just wasn’t exactly what he was looking to do with the rest of his life, the idea of having more fulfillment was attractive. And so he ended up starting his own business, he wanted to make a difference in the world in his own way. And now that company is called grow ensemble. And that started in 2018. So not too long ago. But he has a lot of digital marketing background experience and insights that are going to be exciting to discuss with Corey and share with you guys. So you know, grow ensemble is itself is a training and consulting company that actually helps nonprofits, social enterprises, social entrepreneurs, all really get their missions out there online, right. So this is driven by marketing, expertise and things like that. So we’re gonna dive into some cool stuff with Corey and see what he has to say. And if you guys are not already, follow us on Facebook, make sure you join our Facebook group, the profitable digital impact entrepreneur, we love to connect with people there and share all kinds of goodies, step by Change Creator calm, lots of fresh content, show notes, from the podcast, interviews and all that good stuff. And you can get on the waitlist for the captivate method, where people are crushing it. We’re literally getting posts from people in our private group. They’re saying this was the best decision I made in my life. You know, what we love helping people align not this is for entrepreneurs who want to go from offline to online. This is for entrepreneurs that want to really get their marketing strategies moving forward. By using the power of story story is a lot more than a format we use for a social media post or things like that. story goes beyond that. And it is an art and every great business masters this art and it will help you align who you are with what you do very closely so that you do have a life of fulfillment. It’s very powerful stuff and it is the key to a great marketing strategy. Alright guys, so we’re gonna get into some marketing conversation here with Corey right now. Okay, show me the heat. No, you go. Hey, Cory, welcome to the Change Creator podcast. How you doing today?

Cory Ames 03:51

I’m doing good, Adam. Thanks for having me. How you doing?

Adam G. Force 03:53

I’m doing great. You know, we are getting through all kinds of work here on this new house. And it’s been exciting to get it done, getting our lives back. So I know you’re on the house hunts as well. So I wish you luck with that, my friend.

Cory Ames 04:06

Yeah, entering the world of homeownership. So taking your example, it seems like I might be a project manager sometime soon for some construction

Adam G. Force 04:16

It’s, it’s fun. Okay. Yeah. So listen, tell me just a little bit. So I like to start at a point of action. So like, what is exciting and what do you got going on? You know, these days? what’s the latest? What’s the greatest let’s start there.

Cory Ames 04:36

All right. Well, at the moment, you know, we we grow ensemble, we invest so much of our time in our own sort of content production and content marketing efforts, because it’s really been the absolute number one way in which we’ve been able to build a community around our own brand. Our own business is since we’ve been around about two years now. And so you know, I’m myself. I have have a background in search engine optimization, SEO. And so I’m always kind of tinkering and stuff like that it’s kind of what’s the next evolution of our strategy and our process. And so one thing we’re working through right now, which kind of has me pretty excited, and enthusiastic is the way in which we’re able to make the most out of all this existing content that we’ve created. So I think a lot of people, you know, think that they publish a blog post a podcast, whatever it might be, and they just kind of set it and forget it, forget it, and kind of, you know, set themselves on this endless hamster wheel of content creation, always meaning to produce something new. Yeah. And well, you know, putting out new stuff is really great, of course, and you want to kind of continue with that contextually relevant content, content, timely content, you know, in responding to your community, there’s just always a wealth of content you’ve produced historically, that can be repurposed, reutilized, and reorganized. So we took a look at our site the last few years, you know, we have 100 plus 150, plus almost 175, you know, different pieces of content from our podcasts or blog posts. And, you know, what we start to find, as you kind of evolve a content marketing strategy in SEO strategy is that the more content you create, there is the potential that there actually becomes some issues on your site. So the more content you create, the more strategic you have to be with how you organize it. So what we’ve just done, you know, previously, we’ve had just a long extensive blog feed along feed attached to our podcast, but now we’re starting to organize things, you know, thematically based off of topics, you know, whether we’re talking about issues in, you know, zero waste, or we’re talking about the topic of, you know, composting, the benefits of that for the economy, communities, etc, or social entrepreneurship, you know, digital marketing, we’re starting to group and batch all these things together. And I’m really excited about it, we’ve created all these different kinds of content hubs, as we call it, these landing pages for different topics, themes, you know, and, you know, subjects that we cover. And now we’ve made it a lot easier for searchers. And then ultimately, Google to access all this content, we spent so much time in creating, and are really starting to see a good spike in our traffic, and you know, must start to see that kind of stuff overnight. Because Google kind of allows you a bandwidth or, you know, amount of kind of a cut, I think they call it a you know, crawl breadth, the amount of time that Google is going to spend on your site trying to capture all your resources. And so making it easier for searchers, and visitors to find your resources ultimately, is something that Google likes. And as a product of that, you know, we’re seeing a really great spike in the amount of people that are circulating around girl ensemble today. So that’s, that’s where I’d start. That’s where my brains at in the world of SEO right now.

Adam G. Force 07:49

No, that’s good. It sounds like you’re on the right track. We’ve definitely, you know, as a media company, but down those roads and been lucky because Amy’s a total SEO nerd, and she thrives in that where we go. And, you know, we have reorganized our site several times. And it’s definitely gets tricky as the algorithms change and shift and just kind of leaning into the latest, you know, what Google is looking for? and all that. But yeah, I mean, setting up the hubs and organizing, there’s so many different ways to slice it, then you do have to make it easy for people. And there’s certain ways to group those things that make it really impactful. But yeah, sounds like you’re going down the right track. And similar because we’ve had those experiences. So that’s cool. Now tell me like, Where did you get experience in SEO? What’s some of your background that led you to, you know, one starting grow ensemble? And just your knowledge around SEO and things like that?

Cory Ames 08:45

Sure. Well, you know, my, my experience in digital marketing touches back all the way to, like the start of college for me. So I went to Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, where I’m originally from, and I, I’ve always kind of considered myself generalists, like I’m good at, and pretty good at getting good at, you know, enough things, but I’ve never been like the top 1% in any particular skill, you know, I’m above average, slightly at, you know, above average, in a lot of different things. And I never really knew exactly what it was that I wanted to do. And so originally, entrepreneurship and in building online businesses, specifically in digital marketing appealed to me because I, you know, I thought it would be a vehicle to create a lot of freedom and autonomy in my life to be able to pursue, you know, whatever it is that I wanted to do after, you know, so I thought that that digital marketing in building an online business would kind of be the gateway for that. So starting as like a freshman in college, I started tinkering around with websites. And you know, being a college student, you have no money. So, you know, I couldn’t I have these websites up, you know, what I’m trying to build some sort of kind of micro side business with it and figure out how to drive traffic to it and monetize. But the thing about being a college student with no, you know, extra cash on hand is that I couldn’t pay for any paid advertising. Yeah. So I learned first and foremost about SEO that, you know, well, obviously, you know, people, you know, pay SEO consultants and teams and all that kind of stuff, you know, it could be something that was driven off of labor, you know, if I figured out how to do it, you know, spent the time and put in the effort. And I ultimately, you know, could get thousands, if not 10s of thousands people coming in these websites that I was building, to come to the site for, you know, I’m putting in quotations here free. And so college student who’s, you know, money poor, but time rich, I spent a lot of time tinkering around with websites. And after a few failed projects, I ultimately had one that gained some traction, you know, build a pretty high traffic blog, a little kind of side business attached to it. And so I remember that first month with that site, and I made like, 170 or so dollars. Now, I really thought that I had made it as an entrepreneur, it was like that moment, like, Oh, my God, real money. Yeah, well, $170 for a college student is that’s a good amount of cash. So, you know, it’s from that moment that it was important, you know, and it kind of validated for me that I can learn this skill set, you know, and I became a bit more obsessive about it. And so, my pursuit initially was to try and make that something that would, you know, actually go from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand and sustain a living, you know, for a young kind of new entrepreneur, but luckily, and kind of serendipitously I ended up connecting with, who would then be my boss, and, you know, a mentor I’ve had for a few years. And he was running a digital marketing agency. And, you know, we got connected and hit it off and asked about the projects I was working on. And clearly from that, you know, what they did for their clients, I had a lot of relevant experience. And so I never ended up making that site, like what would be in my business, I ended up getting a full time job with this, this digital marketing agency. And so the the promise there from him, you know, I was like, the fourth employee was fast growing. Yeah, you know, they had 30 or so clients at the time, you know, by the time I was finished, there, we had over 100. And his promise was, you know, come, you know, hustle work for me, and I’ll teach you everything I know about digital marketing. So, you know, it was there, I learned so many the ins and outs of all things, PPC, SEO, you know, conversion rate optimization, all that good stuff. But it was that digital marketing agency experience that, that really, you know, set the stage for what would become great ensemble today.

Adam G. Force 12:27

Okay. And so what is the intention behind Grow Ensemble right now?

Cory Ames 12:33

Well, for us, you know, we have kind of two very, very basic aims in a lot of the resources that we create and share. And as well, the the work that we do for our clients in our community. So first and foremost, you know, we want to create really valuable resources around you know, all the topics that surrounds, you know, what we say, of building a better world, leaving the world and more just equitable and habitable place than we found it for all of us, not just some of us eating. And so what we’re doing is both, you know, my, my fiance, and I actually, we co founded gr ensemble together, and so we’re, we’re both so happens to be, we’re both generalists, and we love to learn, you know, and so the the first kind of selfish pursuit and creating all this content, having all these interviews with experts in this space is just to learn as much as we can about the space of sustainable business, social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, and in as well, you know, General sustainable living. And so we’re creating and sharing these resources, you know, really with the second aim of to bring more people into that community, from, you know, what we see as maybe as accessible of a point as possible, you know, we think that even by making some small, you know, more incremental daily changes, that you can make a significant impact over time, by being a little bit more cognizant and conscious with what companies you support, you know, in, in how you, you know, quote, unquote, vote with your dollar. Yeah, or as well, you know, how it is that start to spend your hours at work, you know, maybe you kind of more critically analyze the practices of the business that you work for, you know, or run, to see how it can be more impactful to, you know, so we kind of believe you don’t really have to everyone doesn’t have to be Mother Teresa, you know, dedicate their entire life to service. But, you know, maybe that’s a progression, and you ultimately get there, you know, but we want to invite people into the community from, you know, as accessible as possible. So it’s those two really kind of broad aims for us. And through those processes of creating content, what we’re learning what we’re developing in our own skill set, you know, we then help kind of train and support social enterprises, nonprofits and purpose driven businesses in the space that we feel hold on to those values and ethics that we still respect in this business space. You know, we help them get the word out about the good work that they do.

Adam G. Force 14:47

Hmm. And so I’m curious just on some of the challenges you’ve had in, you know, trying to get Grow Ensemble off the ground and, you know, really make it the business that you’re envisioning.

Cory Ames 15:01

Sure, so I think the thing that is, I mean, you know, with all these different business models, service, you know, in consulting and more kind of information based businesses are a little bit tricky because the model can kind of change overnight, you know, you can all of a sudden say, like, Hey, you know, we’re offering this now, we didn’t, we didn’t offer that yesterday, but now we offer this service, you know, it’s SEO services, or whatever it might be, right. As opposed to like a product based business. You know, where you’re very, like, you’re very tangibly attached to that product, obviously, you can launch new ones or whatever, but what you sell is very tangible and clear. You know, okay, here’s this, this widget, this is what it does, you know, do you want it or not? Obviously, you know, I know you’re a storytelling guy can get more a little bit elaborate than that. But, you know, for us, I think it’s been figuring out and, you know, what exactly is the model for us, you know, and how we, we shape and mold this thing around? What are our strengths, our skill sets, you know, where we feel best positioned to, to serve, and connect with this community of social enterprise leaders, purpose driven business leaders, and we’ve been kind of redefining that over the last years, which I think is, you know, very common amongst young companies. And so we’ve had the patience to really focus on that kind of audience building, you know, community building, so that we really immerse ourselves in the folks around the folks that we want to serve, you know, and then kind of having the patience to swap slowly tweak, you know, refine and adjust. What is this exact, you know, kind of business model, so to speak?

Adam G. Force 16:31

Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess, you know, as far as gras ensemble goes, and some of the stuff that you’re talking about? What has been so those are some of the difficulties or challenges and stuff like that, but you must have had some wins, remind me how long have you guys been in active now?

Cory Ames 16:53

Just about two full years, so we’re coming up on maybe a year and 10 months or so. Okay.

Adam G. Force 16:59

Yes, yeah, pretty young. So what has been some of the wins that you’ve had now to, to during those during that time?

Cory Ames 17:09

Certainly, so, you know, I feel that a lot of our wins come around come from the community that we’ve been able to build around girl ensemble. So, you know, for us that that really started with the podcast first and foremost, you know, is when we officially launched girl ensemble, that was really what was running in parallel was the podcast, that got us connected with so many different, you know, really exceptional, prolific, and as well as generous, very generous leaders in this this space of sustainable business. Yeah, you know, and so I would recommend that for folks, you know, maybe with the resources or the know how, and that podcasting is such a great way to build, you know, really key essential relationships early on, in your business as well multifaceted with being a wonderful opportunity to just kind of be, you know, almost a member of the media or like a journalist in your industry, learning so much about what’s going on, you know, who who’s involved, you know, what, what’s important to them, it’s such a great place to start, you know, and then soon after the podcast, we launched the written publication over at our blog, you know, really kind of leaning into our expertise of SEO and content marketing. And then it was in about six, seven months from then, you know, we were able to see our first 25,000 visitors in a single month around the site. So bootstrapping a blog, versus kind of hiring, and, you know, utilizing resources on a whole writing team is a different, different effort, my fiance and I have written maybe 60 to 70% of the content that’s attached to the blog. But, you know, with that kind of sweat equity, we’ve been able to build a pretty solid audience around it, and it’s continuing to grow, you know, maybe 10 to 30%, every single month. So, we’re excited about that, you know, that community and that’s allowed us to, you know, we have all sort of little mechanisms to kind of trigger conversations in our business with who’s engaging with the site, who’s, you know, subscribing to our email list, reading our newsletter, responding to those newsletters, we want to learn, you know, who’s who’s behind those, you know, email addresses on that, or so it’s, it’s been wonderful to see, you know, the, I always get kind of struck, struck with the absolute depth and insanity of the internet when, you know, it’s people in rural Africa, you know, replying to emails, you know, Vancouver, British Columbia, you know, overseas in Europe, wherever it is all working on these different social impact related nonprofits, you know, a social enterprises, whatever it might be, I’m always just kind of struck with Yeah. Now how the internet, you know, gives you access to all corners of the globe.

Adam G. Force 19:53

Mm hmm. I know that feeling. So, you know, and I think it’s important for people to realize that you know, and they are earlier days that the sweat equity is important, I mean, so, you know, when you’re putting in that time, I’m curious, like you’re creating this content, what has been your way, as you know, SEO takes a while to pick up. Especially if you don’t have a newer site, you don’t have the authority recognized by Google yet. So you may not, you know, you may not rank right away, and then let alone get traction from an article for another nine months, or whatever it is. So how else are you trying to or successfully getting your content in front of people?

Cory Ames 20:33

Sure, so yeah, obviously, SEO is more of a game of patience. So long term game. But I would say that, you know, outside of that organic search, that we’ve been able to accumulate, it’s predominantly partnerships, you know, so really, if you categorize traffic into three different buckets, you know, it’s that organic, traffic, paid content, or paid traffic, and then it’s referral based traffic predominantly. And so for us, you know, we’ve, as I mentioned, you know, now some hundred plus episodes into the podcast, we’ve been able to build a lot of really good relationships. And so, of course, you know, in the podcast exchange, you might, one of my number one goals with that, and hosting folks on the podcast is to, you know, have them feel like it’s a, it’s a special experience, you know, because I’m very grateful for the time that they’ve, they’ve taken to spend with us, you know, share their expertise, share their story. And so we really want to do our best, you know, to make it meaningful, not just something that’s transactional, you know, every other podcast that you’ve been on. So as a product of that, you know, we really kind of set the stage for what we feel are pretty good relationships. And we’ve had a lot of partners, communities that were attached to promote our content, things as a product to that. So you know, every single podcast episode, for the most part gets shared by our guests, you know, and that’s not always something you can count on. But now, that’s been a wonderful way for us to get plugged in to audiences that we wouldn’t otherwise you know, and when you’re bootstrapping, and budgets are tight, it’s going to be predominantly organic, and then maybe sharing from you know, referral partners that you’ll be able to get that sustainable traffic early on, especially when you’re, you know, really trying to refine and articulate your business model. You can’t just really throw paid traffic onto a funnel that’s super unproven. You know, it kind of depends on where, where your bandwidth is for, you know, experimentation and testing. And so it’s been predominantly those those partner sources that we’ve been grateful to get more exposure to places that we otherwise wouldn’t have.

Adam G. Force 22:29

Yeah, and you’re right, you can’t always rely on people to share those things. Yeah. It’s like we do the magazine. And we, you know, we’re, oh, man, we’re getting all these famous people, and they’re gonna share it to their massive networks. The only real big share was guys like Gerard Adams, and Jay Shetty and stuff like that. But most of the time, these guys did not put it in the circulation of their strategies.

Cory Ames 22:52

Oh, no, yeah, it’s that’s something that I’ve learned from the podcast in reading a lot on podcasting, and how to grow a podcast, everybody usually set like, there’s two things I see most commonly said, it’s like, oh, build out your show notes for SEO purposes, like just have a good set of show notes for SEO, and then to, you know, get guests to share your show. And those have been probably the greatest kind of misconceptions, I think, that I’ve seen in growing a podcast, that one, you know, with SEO, like, it doesn’t do you very good normally, to, you know, receive traffic off of like, the guests name or the guest company, you know, people who are searching for that probably aren’t searching for, you know, what your, your business is about, or even, you know, what, what kind of topic is being discussed on the show. And so, you know, we’ve seen, we’ve created really great show notes over the last year, and so many of those get such little ongoing traffic after the fact that we’ve published them, unless we, you know, really manually promote it, but no organic search, right? So we try to construct our show notes instead, kind of like blog posts, you know, because people, most shows aren’t interviewing celebrities of any kind, right? You know, we like to think that they are in our space, but, you know, name ID is not as big in this space of, you know, social enterprise or social entrepreneurship as it might be in film, you know, or something like that. And so, you know, we build them around the topics that people might be interested in. And then on the other end of that with, with partners, you know, you don’t want to be off putting in any sort of way, you know, you want to give them the option to promote it, obviously. And, but not force it upon them. Because people don’t like that. No, don’t like that. No. And and so what we’ve got to see is by really just prioritizing the experience, you know, more often than not, we can get those episodes in circulation, but by all means, it’s you know, we’re never pushing that we’re never leading with that. It’s always Hey, at your discretion, if you so choose, you know, whether you feel comfortable or not, you know, totally up to you. We just like to, you know, focus on did they enjoy their experience, you know, being a guest on our show.

Adam G. Force 24:57

Yeah, I mean, that that’s really what the focus needs to be it’s, you can’t, you can’t have the expectation of that kind of distribution and support and all that stuff. But a lot of times, you know, it depends on who you’re interviewing or working with. And I guess, you know, when it comes down, and one thing I have found is that they’re usually willing to do like a review for a podcast. But as far as sharing to their audiences, networks can’t always rely on that. But I found that at the end of a show, you usually would ask someone to do like a review, because that’s valuable, like on iTunes, and for the algorithm and all that kind of stuffs. And, and they usually will do stuff like that. So that that that tends to work. And, you know, I didn’t always do that for Change Creator podcast, and then even just like, the past year, I just kind of started doing that. And I was surprised that people were following through with that, you know, and I think it’s because you have a good conversation, you connect, and there’s value there. And they’re like, you know, they you have them on the line, it’s different when you’re just emailing someone cold, versus we just smoked for and a half hour, and now you’re asking for a little help, you know, what I mean? Makes me

Cory Ames 26:05

Absolutely, yeah, that’s, that’s why I’ve loved the podcast has been just a door opener, you know, for so many different relationships that are, you know, directly or indirectly relevant to our business, you know, it’s just been such a, a source of enrichment and fulfillment. In doing so, over the last two years, I highly recommend it, you know, if if people think that they might have the aptitude or interest in sustaining one

Adam G. Force 26:31

Yeah, well, that’s the thing too, I, you know, we get a lot of people that want to jump into a podcast. And it is, it can be tough and, and I want to touch on SEO in a minute. But, you know, starting a podcast, there’s a lot to it, especially if you’re not technically savvy, or you don’t, and you don’t, and then you have to do the editing, the marketing, the distribution, all this stuff. You know, it’s a bit of an operation, you got to get the recruitment down, and you got to, you know, do the interviews and all that stuff. So a lot of people tend to get distracted, or they think they’re gonna monetize it, you know, real quick and make a good chunk of change off like advertising monetization. And right, you know, that’s a lot more difficult than you might think you need some big numbers to do that stuff. The relationship building is great. And I agree with you like building that network and connecting with people having great conversations, all that stuff is super valuable. But I, I have found that like, when people are trying to sell an offer, and they have a product, whether it’s service or tangible, but they’re doing the podcast, and their early days, there’s a there’s a bit of it can be a bit of a distraction at the same time. So it’s kind of like, it’s it’s, I think, for your company is like more media focus, it makes a lot of sense. Same for me, we started with the podcast, but I think if I had to do it all over again, I might rethink that and start with a product that I sell immediately. And I’m curious on your thoughts just on the workload, the effort behind the podcast, based on the ROI that comes out of it, like, what would you advise now that you’ve done over 100 episodes, and you started this thing?

Cory Ames 28:11

Sure. So yeah, I mean, just to reiterate what you mentioned on maybe more traditional advertising or sponsorship models, yeah, you kind of have to throw out throw that away. Yeah, if you seriously think that that’s gonna sustain it, I think it’s like, you know, 1000 downloads is equivalent to maybe $20, maybe, or something, you know, for, right. And so, you know, that’s not a good, good approach to take. And so you do have to, you know, consider a few things. You know, for us, first and foremost, you might my priority was to install some good systems and processes around it, because I knew, you know, if more than the the effort of, you know, preparing for the interviews, hosting the interviews, recording them, you know, and kind of strategically thinking about the content, if more of the process involved me than that, you know, we’re we’re not going to, we wouldn’t hit 100 shows like we have, you know, yeah, consistently publishing twice weekly. Right. And so with that in mind, obviously, there’s more expenses that we accrue on, you know, what it costs to produce an individual show. Yeah. And so, you know, you have to be prepared that it will require some resources. And I think if you’re going to be serious about podcasting, you should invest the resources. But exactly like you said, You know, I think you have to know what you’re getting yourself into, as to how you can sustain it on the other end. So, yeah, for us, you know, we did a lot more consulting and service, you know, in the first year of our business than we do now. And so, the, it just so happened, that the guests that we’re reaching out to were potential clients for us, you know, and so I talked about, you know, cold email outreach versus inviting someone on for an interview, you know, you’re gonna get a lot more conversations and it’s a great door opener, you know, to see if, you know, validate some of your assumptions or hypotheses at this person in there. company might might be in need of your services or could could benefit from your services. So, for us, you know, we were able to turn around and again, with service based contracts, especially when they’re, you know, kind of five figure six figure contracts over a year. It’s a long sales cycle. And it takes a lot of time to build trust. Yep, you know, but we were able to see a positive ROI on on the podcast from, you know, pretty early on because of that,

Adam G. Force 30:25

That’s a good strategy. And that’s why I brought it up. Because I think it’s an important point, because you hear it a lot, like, oh, start a podcast, build the audience. And people have a misconception, that that’s how they’re gonna make money. Right, and that that’s gonna be like their bread and butter. But it’s a lot of work. And you need to know what you’re getting into. And you need to have a plan on how to actually monetize now, your monetization strategy of building partnerships, doing consulting, I think this is a powerful approach, especially for early stage businesses, is to really connect with clients work with clients on as part of your revenue channel while you’re building up the business. Right. So having that as an approach to build these partnerships is great. So to me, that’s the missing piece that a lot of people may not catch, or understand that you have in your pocket. Up, you know, we did something similar to like, I would connect with people on podcast, and they big Hey, I’m going to be in Miami, and we’d go get breakfast. And then we talk about their business. And we do some work. And, you know, early days, even to this day, depending on the client, like we still take some clients, and we will do a do it for you service, right, we have our membership and our program that we teach all this stuff. But we also do do it for you services, and we have some some other stuff we leveraged with our SEO strategies on our site with clients, and you know that the b2b stuff is valuable. So I think there’s, there’s always big money there. So if you do have some intellectual property to share with people, I think that you nailed it with the podcast as a great way for a lead generation tool.

Cory Ames 31:58

Absolutely, I mean, you just have to know what like be more more familiar with the medium that you’re getting yourself into, you know, just purely as a volume based lead in traffic strategy, podcasting is not that great. Because I think growing a podcast is a little bit more unless you have an existing kind of built in audience email is a lot of traffic around your site. You know, in social media platforms, that makes it a lot easier, obviously, but growing one from scratch, as we did, you know, with no existing traffic around our site, it’s a long, it’s a hustle to get it to, you know, what would seem kind of any, you know, me coming from the SEO space, I’m seeing 10s of thousands, you know, 50,000 hundred thousand visitors to the month in a site. And then I start growing a podcast, I’m like, Damn, this is hard. And like, I’m not seeing the same numbers that I normally would. And so you know, it’s it’s great for for nurturing relationships with an audience. It’s a much more committed committed medium than people scanning blog posts, consuming blog content like that, or email newsletters. You know, podcasting is great for for nurturing and cultivating relationships. And then, you know, for early podcasters, if you are looking for that, that source of monetization or sustainability, you know, the most valuable relationships you’re going to get out of the podcast are not necessarily listeners to start, but it’s probably the people that you’re going to have on the show, you know, whether that’s some sort of, you know, joint joint venture partnerships you can craft up, or if you can serve them, you know, specifically, of course, you do have to be, you know, delicate with how you have those Converse, you don’t want it to seem like it’s explicitly a mechanism for, you know, creating sales conversations for you. So you do have to be, you know, Cognizant and authentic, about how you do that, but it’s probably going to be the guest relationships. Yeah, that that will be the most important for you in the first year, honestly. You know, we we focus there.

Adam G. Force 33:56

Yeah, I think that’s, that’s good advice. So let’s touch on SEO, we’re kind of hitting our time here, but I want to just kind of talk a little bit about it, because it’s so important. And it’s really valuable. I think that you know, I’m a big fan of it. And because it’s sustainable. Now, there’s lots of little tricks and things like, you know, to stay on top of as far as like Google, you know, algorithms and all that stuff. But, you know, you have a, I’ve seen a lot of companies, Cory where they get investment media companies, you know, and they will pump out content, and then they promote the hell out of Facebook and other things. And you’ll see, like we will, we’ll go into h refs, or whatever tools we use, and we’ll look at their traffic patterns, right? And we will kind of investigate and diagnose a bit, and we see the massive spikes for the next like six months after or a year after those investments. And then all of a sudden, it’s like it falls off a cliff. And we’re like, Hmm, I wonder what happened and what we what Amy and I would talk about, you know this maybe two years ago, we’d be looking deep into this stuff. We’d be like, okay, so they got that investment. They spent all the money, but they didn’t have real content strategy or SEO strategy in place. Whereas those short lives bikes that they paid for, once the money’s gone, boom, like that’s it, it falls off a cliff. But with if you have smart SEO, why I love it, and I’m sure why you love it is because once you start building it up, it’s like a snowball, and it becomes reliable, reoccurring traffic over time.

Cory Ames 35:28

Definitely, yeah, no, I, I totally agree. I you know, and I think that SEO can kind of seem a little bit like a dark art or something. As people think about it, like, I’ve been asked, like, how much do you pay Google, you know, to get to the top spot, maybe a little less so now than a few years ago, but you know, what, there’s, there’s a few principles or components for me that it seemed to be most important. You know, while SEO can be complex, you know, that’s kind of why I’ve had the job that I’ve had in the last few years. You know, it really boils down to a few things, you know, to kind of break it down as simply as we can, you know, you in at the end of the day, what Google wants to do is provide the searchers with the absolute best potential possible result, you know, for whatever it is that they’re searching for, what question that they had, what problem they’re trying to solve, you know, what topic they’re wanting to research more or learn more about. Google wants them to be as satisfied with their result as possible when they click on the second search for search or what have you. And so what I always tell people is to think about when you’re creating, you know, your blog posts or content for your site, you know, think about how you can orient to that experience, you know, what would provide the most comprehensive, engaging blog post for what I’m imagining is my, my potential reader, you know, or potential site visitor as possible, you know, and, of course, that’s a horizon line, it’s, it’s tough to get that you work to it over time. But reverse engineering, everything that you do in this sense of, you know, thinking about how your site technically can perform. So like, if your site’s, you know, taking 10 seconds to load that’s going to be distracting to the user experience, right, and they’ll bounce off and leave, you know, if you think about the content itself, if it’s actually unique, you know, telling maybe an interesting story, or sharing, maybe relevant or interesting facts and data, things that people are really going to hang on to, that’s going to provide, you know, a much more positive experience than maybe what I see a lot of SEO companies produce, which is just, you know, some sort of kind of me to content or Mirage content, where it looks like everything else, you know, that is on the internet. You know, you want want to take that top line of what’s going to be the absolute best resource I can create and reverse engineer everything from there from the technical to the content, you know, to everything in between.

Adam G. Force 37:51

Yeah, yeah. And it’s a deep topic. I mean, we can go on for hours talking about SEO, obviously, and, you know, the hierarchy and the structure of the sites. I mean, it’s amazing how many times we have like, had to think through just how, because you can slice and dice the organization of your site in many ways. And you want to have certain things linked to your homepage for SEO purposes versus other pages and things like that. And it’s interesting, you know, like we, we have certain articles that do very, very well consistently for SEO. And I think one of the things I love is, if you have the right strategy in place, you are attracting the right people, right. So then when you have products, and you have your sales funnel set up, it’s going to be relevant. So like, if you have people coming into SEO, and then you have a lead generation mechanism set up to give them a first step towards you know, your, your journey to be a buyer. The conversion rates go up, right when they’re coming through the right stuff, because you’re attracting the right people. So there’s a nice, a nice flow and sequence, if you’re thinking it through on from head to toe, right. So, you know, we have an article about 21, like the top, or I think it’s 21 of the top leadership podcast. So people are interested in a leadership podcast, that’s a great start for us to get the right kind of person to our site, who’s going to be interested in what we’re offering. So thinking I like to make sure people are thinking like, what kind of content we’re putting out there not just to get eyeballs, but to attract the right customers for my products, right?

Cory Ames 39:20

Absolutely. And you know, when you can get into the nitty gritty of like keyword research and all this kind of stuff, but you know, I like to start from, you know, suggesting to people like what what questions are your customers currently asking or have historically asked you, you know, like in the sales process, business development process, you know, what sort of things are they interested in, you know, attempt to deconstruct what those you know, needs are those pain points and those challenges are in construct your content around that, because if you’ve been asked those questions before, there is a possibility that other people are as well interested in it, which is essentially what keyword research you know, this component of SEO is doing is providing For you, you know this, this data as to what people on the internet are searching for what people on the internet are actually interested in. So start with real people, you know, and see what questions you’re getting asked and build your content ideas around that.

Adam G. Force 40:14

100%. And, you know, I think we’ll wrap up here, but I think that that one of the beautiful parts of really locking that in is you got to be out there talking to your customers, if you’re not having those conversations, it’s everything is then a hypothesis when it comes to the, you know, the questions like you start in the right point, what questions have you already heard, and a lot of people if you’re not having conversations with your clients, or potential customers, or you know, all that stuff, you have a hard time really knowing them well, and if you don’t know them, well, it’s really hard to create content that they’re going to be looking for. Right.

Cory Ames 40:49

Definitely, yeah, no, that is certainly the first place to start. And I know we’ve we’ve touched a bit on podcasting, but this is one of the reasons I loved it, you know, because it was it was constantly triggering good conversations with people in my space. So just another plug for podcasting. Yeah,

Adam G. Force 41:04

yeah. Awesome, man. So I think that should wrap us up here I appreciate you just kind of sharing your experience building up grow ensemble, you guys are still young brand and it’s nice to kind of have conversations as you guys are on the front lines doing something cool and supporting the social impact space and all that kind of stuff. So appreciate that. And let’s tell people how do they learn more about grow ensemble get in touch with your podcast, all that good stuff? Where do they go?

41:35

Sure. So we host the twice weekly show The Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Podcast so available anywhere you listen to your podcasts, of course, but you can go to Growensemble.com where you can easily find that our whole you know, 100 plus episode feed and then as well Adam, you know, as it relates to SEO and some digital marketing specific stuff, we put together a little resource for the audience here at Change Creator, you go to grow ensemble.com backslash creator, and you can find a 10 point SEO checklist for mission driven entrepreneurs. So we’ll get folks started with a few of the basic components of SEO technical content in building your authority in the eyes of Google.

Adam G. Force 42:15

Let me just write that down. So grow ensembl.com forward slash creator Yep. Got it. All right. Yeah. So guys, we’ll have that just in the show notes when that gets live on Change Creator calm and you’ll be able to grab that stuff. And we’ll take it from there. So Cory again, thanks for your time keep doing what you’re doing appreciate all the work and the the push towards better businessman.

Cory Ames 42:44

Thanks a lot, Adam. Thanks for

Adam G. Force 42:46

giving me the time. Got it. All right. Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Adam & Danielle: What is the Backbone of a Great Marketing Strategy?

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What is the backbone of a great marketing strategy? Adam and Danielle discuss what every business MUST have to position their business right, create smart content, build relationships and ultimately win the hearts and wallets of the people they serve!

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Danielle Sutton 02:16

I’m co creator of the captivate method and hang out with Adam and Amy and do all kinds of fun things together.

Adam G. Force 02:23

Yeah, we are here to talk a little bit about, you know, what the backbone of a great marketing strategy actually is. And you know what it isn’t. It’s really important. I mean, it’s funny how many companies big and small, really miss this. So if you don’t have a really great marketing strategy, which is the backbone of your business, what happens? There’s a couple of pitfalls. Well, people get confused. And a confused person never really buys. So you’re probably seeing that with your business. And you become your content becomes kind of all over the place and inconsistent. Right, because you don’t, you don’t have something that is kind of clearing the path of where you should take that content. Any other thoughts there? Danielle?

Danielle Sutton 03:09

Yeah, I mean, I think the, if you don’t have this backbone for your marketing, two things happen, right? You, you say too many things all over the place. And you’re just rambling. You’re kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall, especially on for media, right? Because it’s easy to just throw a post up here. And you, you know, you have all these internet marketing folks saying you have to post every day four times. It’s like, you have the tactics in the back of your mind and you’re just kind of throwing things out there without the strategy, or the opposite thing can happen is you just go quiet. And you just don’t say anything because you’re not necessarily sure what to say. Right? So those are two of the issues or you waffle back and forth. And then people are just really confused about what what are you doing?

Adam G. Force 03:55

You know why this happens too? It happens to all of us, right? In business….because we get to a point where when we ask tactical questions, we get tactical answers. And those answers lead us on a path that really isn’t serving the business that in the way that it should. And it all starts with asking the wrong question and say, No, and you have to think about I mean, should a business really be just a product or a service provider? Or should it be a vision that an audience can actually subscribe to and believe in and get excited about being part of Now think about that, think about the companies you love. There’s so many big ones out there that we get excited about. If you look at Tesla and Apple as the big ones, everybody knows, they created a vision that people want to be part of. And I think a key takeaway is really something you said earlier, Danielle, right, is that you can’t really separate your story from your business, right?

Danielle Sutton 04:56

Yeah, and that’s why that’s really the backbone of it. That. One thing about marketing is, like you said, the tactics. You I think, if you’re asking those tactical questions, you’re asking yourself, What? How often should I post on Facebook? Okay? So that’s technically a marketing strategy if you sit down and figure that out, but and you could do that on Facebook, and you could do that for your email. And you could even do that for your website. So you’ve maybe thought through your strategies for each of these different places or even you know if your brick and mortar, okay, but what is the backbone? What are they all connected to? And really, marketing is not separate from the ethos and the vision of your business. So, like what you said Adam, about the businesses that we get really excited to be part of and to purchase from and be fans of and advocates for, whether they’re apple or you know, the corner coffee shop, it’s because they have a vision that you subscribe to, and that vision doesn’t come from an isolated Facebook page. It comes From that marketing brand story, being baked into everything you do in your business, everything you share across all the channels, and how do you know how to keep that consistent? It’s your brand story is the narrative that you share. And it’s something that’s always consistent.

Adam G. Force 06:19

It becomes the North Star, right? I mean, so. So the answer of what the backbone of a great marketing strategy is a clearly communicated story that is the backbone of a strong marketing strategy. And I think people misunderstand what story is in business because it’s not just the stories we put on social media and that we say on stage and things like that. There is something outside of that that’s much bigger. And that is that brand story. It’s the ethos it is what you are all about in a very punchy statement, right? Like you should be very clear because this becomes the theme. Everything you do the content and all the stuff that we said, you know, that becomes like a pitfall for people. tactically, it now has a North Star, right? So a lot of a lot of big brands have like AI big ideas and visions and dreams and all these things that they want to share. And they know what they stand for in their minds. But when it comes down to actually communicating the story, throughout the online ecosystem, like Daniel said, their content gets very confusing and ambiguous. And like we said, it becomes inconsistent, because they’re not clear. Now everyone might say, Well, I have a story and I’m gonna put together but the clarity on really what that brand story is so important, in order to have very good marketing that follows, right?

Danielle Sutton 07:42

Yeah, absolutely. And this actually came up in a coaching call a few weeks ago. One of our captivators has this great product, and there’s actually so many big vision benefits to it like she’s been able to combine the environmental sustainability and sustainable employment and like a really kick ass actual product to solve the need itself. And so we were talking about well, each of these could be a story. But actually what’s like that bigger story? What’s the five word statement that brings it all together? And then those individual stories can reinforce that bigger message. Right? So I think that’s kind of the trap that you were mentioning, that people fall into is, yeah, I tell stories here, there and everywhere, like my newsletters, really fun to read. Okay, great. But is it serving that bigger vision? And is it communicating something that your audience can remember and share?

Adam G. Force 08:41

And actually, I love that you just said that what your audience remembers and shares them that is more important than ever today? Because with the rise of social media and digital, there is more emphasis today on the fact that it’s not just the brand who’s curating the story. The story which becomes the marketing right? is also now being facilitated by the customers more than ever. So you can have them telling a bad story about you. Or a very good story, which is what you really represent and what you’re about. So you have to be clear, like some of this is out of your hands, but what you’re putting out there is what they’re gonna feed off of, and it’s the story they tell about you as well. So that’s, that’s a big part of this. I mean, you look at like, you know, I’ve seen interesting debates around guys like Russell Brunson, who we’ve interviewed a couple times and you know, he’s always been a super cool guy and we put them in the magazine and stuff like that. But this is a guy who got out there. You know, he started this he we all know he loves junk mail as a kid, if you read his books, and he’s had a potato gun business. He’s gone ahead and created this hundred million dollar business. And it was something that is not just because he has software Click Funnels. It was because he got out there and he created a culture, whether you like the culture or not, that’s that that’s, you know, aside the story here, but he created a culture that people are excited to be part of. If you look at his funnel, hacking live conferences and stuff, it is just like an insane club, you know, and people go nuts for this. He has certain values and ideas and the way he does things which are part of his brand story that people now really thrive off of and they understand clearly what he’s about and they want to be part of that vision that he’s building It’s really impressive on what he’s done and I think there’s a million stories we can tell about it you know, change craters vision to is we want you to be a change crater. We want to use business to change the world. We want you to live your truth and make a difference that way because only when we live our truth, do we make the biggest contribution back to the world, right? So realigning ourselves and, and taking those steps that’s what Change Creator is all about. Collaboration is a major value for us. I’m sure you have stories too, Danielle, anything come to mind of entrepreneurs that stand out to you?

Danielle Sutton 11:09

Well, yeah, I mean…

Adam G. Force 11:12

I’ll put you on the spot.

Danielle Sutton 11:14

Yeah, well, I think I mean, it’s easy to go to the examples that get shared often like Steve Jobs, and they are so memorable, right. And so there’s so much passion there that’s shared from not just the product, but what that person has been through and what they stand for, like, you know, if you think of Steve Jobs in his famous speeches about introducing his new products, did any of us ever need any of those products when they were launched? Absolutely not. It’s not about problem solving at this point in the world. I mean, of course, the products and services that we consume, do solve kind of surface level problems, but it’s more than that. It’s about You know, tapping into the aspirational vision of ourselves. Yeah. And as a consumer, no matter whether it’s you know, hiring a coach or buying a pair of shoes, or buying a house, you know, or whatever it is going to a certain hairdresser, all of these things, give ourselves our identity as as a as a person. And so we’re kind of connecting to the identity of the people we consume from.

Adam G. Force 12:27

Well hey… Let’s talk about socap. As an identity story, we met with Jake ORAC, right? So Jake Orac, we were hanging out with him. He was somebody that was on the first cover of change care magazine. And he built this incredible business right where he’s keeping culture alive. That’s a tagline for Jake that’s part of his brand story, keeping culture alive. And he sells bags that use these artists and designs from around the world to support their cultures that were being overtaken by industry. And so when we were there, what happened Danielle, we Go someone comes up and they know oh my god. So ethno tech bags. So cool what he has his story out there, how he built this company why he’s doing it? In a glance, people know what he’s about. And when they buy a bag, what is Jake say? He says, Welcome to the tribe and people are excited. Oh, man, I’m so excited to be part of this. And guess what else happens when he’s positioned this way with a powerful story is he has a bag that cost twice as much as a regular bag, but are excited to buy it.

Danielle Sutton 13:30

And yeah, it makes you feel good, right? Like Amy and I both bought bags from him and we’ve carried them around for the rest of the conference. And we were happy as clams you know? It doesn’t matter that it was twice as much. We wanted to be part of that story. And that I mean, meeting the founder is actually a really interesting example. Right? Because we buy from people and not from companies and so that’s why you actually have a much higher affinity for any products or services where you know, the Founder you know, that they This is their business, their passion, right? Like if you think of a corner coffee shop, would you rather go support someone who you’ve met the owner and they know your name and they give you your favorite coffee every time when you walk in versus, you know, a Starbucks modle. It makes a big difference.

Adam G. Force 14:18

We invest in humans more than anything. And the more we get that story out there, the better and, you know, I look at Crystal Earle, like we were at a conference with her. And Amy and I were talking and a girl comes up to her and she’s like, she was…People would go up to Crystal, I can’t talk right now. And they’d be like, telling her story back to her. Right? And Chris was like, Man, this happens all the time. People come up to me, and they tell my story back to me. And because her story is just so riveting and powerful, it’s incredible. And so when you hear that, it’s like man, this really works and people are because here’s the thing, you can have all the products, all the features. All the stuff in the world It doesn’t matter if you don’t have the right brand story and you don’t know how to create an emotional connection. If you can create the emotional connection, none of the other stuff matters, the traffic the visitors, all the followers, it doesn’t matter when you have someone coming up to you saying your story back to you and they emotionally are tied to what you stand for. And not just the item. The items cool, but they’re actually buying into the vision. This is game changer.

Danielle Sutton 15:29

And we have a really funny example of when this just falls flat and doesn’t work, don’t we, Adam?

Adam G. Force 15:36

Yeah, we were talking before this or like, what’s a great story of a company that really didn’t um, you know, have their their brand story on lockdown and not a position themselves. Is that more like, I don’t know, because we don’t know their story. Yeah,

Danielle Sutton 15:50

They’re not on our radar. They’ve fallen off…

Adam G. Force 15:54

I would have to work too hard to dig that up.

Danielle Sutton 16:01

An example is like you’d be memorable and shareable. And the way you do that with marketing is to weave it into the full vision of your business and have a cohesive brand story that is authentically everywhere in your business.

Adam G. Force 16:18

Let’s reiterate that. Alearly communicated story is the backbone of a strong marketing strategy. All right. That is key. Ladies and gentlemen. Um, I think we’re gonna wrap up I think that’s it right? Otherwise, I’ll just start babbling and repeating myself.

Danielle Sutton 16:34

Yeah, no, you ended that’s what we want to remember…

Adam G. Force 16:37

I mean, this is so important. And I know a lot of people misunderstand storytelling, but there’s this these different layers that I hope we create clarity for you about. Alright, that wraps it up. We’ll catch you on the next episode. Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast, visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive you Your business forward

interview

Greg Shepard: Should You Be Thinking About Your Exit From the Start?

Listen to our exclusive interview with Greg Shepard:

Change Creator · Greg Shepard: Should You Be Thinking About Your Exit From the Start?

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Should you be thinking about your companies exit from the start? What does that do for your business? We spoke with the founder of Boss Capital and serious entrepreneur (14 companies sold!) to find out the strategies you need to know!

GREG SHEPARD is the CEO and founder of BOSS Capital Partners. He is a Serial Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker and Angel Venture Capital Investor with a legacy of building and running sustainable growth businesses. Driven by a transformational leadership style, Greg has spearheaded multiple company exits in the BioTech, TransitTech, AdTech and MarTech space. Two of his former companies were acquired by eBay Enterprise Marketing Solutions in January 2016 as a part of a cross-brand deal totaling largely over $900M. The transaction comprised the purchase and sale of numerous companies, two of which were Greg’s.

He has won: Tech Deal of the Year Over $250 million, Private Equity Deal of the Year Over $500 million to $1 billion and Cross Border Deal of the Year Over $500 million to $1 billion to name a few. Most recently, he has been authoring a book titled: ‘Meet the BOSS – The Agile Playbook for Startups’ slated to publish soon. Alongside the book will be a TEDx talk.

Learn more about Greg and his work at > https://www.gregoryshepard.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Greg Shepard 03:00

Fantastic, thank you.

Adam G. Force 03:01

Yeah, I appreciate you being here. You have such an incredible background. I’m excited to dive in everybody listening, you know, Greg has done so much it’s but I had to have a very serious prep talk in order to figure out where we need to put our attention. So there’s a lot of good stuff that we’re going to get into. And I’m excited that you focus on helping entrepreneurs today. It’s such an pivotal part of addressing some of the biggest problems around the world. So, Greg, if you could just give a little background about like, what’s going on in your world today and how you got there with boss and the direction you’re taking?

Greg Shepard 03:33

Yeah, so I started out with nothing. And I started building companies and I did 12 of my own startups, actually. 13 another one just sold a couple weeks ago. But I did a ton of these different startups. And in that process, what I was trying to figure out is how to get this down. You know, get it down to the point where I could understand everything. So I did a lot of planning ahead of times and a lot of retrospectives. And then I looked at all the things I call operating systems. So that’s like, you know, a lot of people don’t even know about a lot of them. But Six Sigma, everybody knows about agile, lean con Bonn, you know, so on and so forth. And during that period of time, I would test these different operating systems at different stages of the lifecycle of business, the maturity of a business, and in different companies. And I was able to figure out a way to align these things. So they aligned with the five levels of a business, and the five levels of funding and so on. And so there’s always five for some reason, but there’s these different five levels of things. And so what I did is I figured out how to do it, and then I would test things and then I would see what worked, what didn’t work, and I got it down to a science. So basically, instead of it being, you know, this, you know, the fog of war kind of walking in and never knowing what’s going to happen the day you walk into the startup, you know, it’s more of a science and so it’s more proactive than reactive. Yeah. And then I turned it into something where I decided to share with everybody to try to increase the the success rate of entrepreneurs and startups. Why is that important to you? I started with nothing myself. You know, my mom was a nun, my dad was a priest, they left the church and got married, and then, you know, adopted and foster children. And so I was born into this, this world of altruism. And I found it very, very difficult to get off the ground. Because I didn’t know anything. And I was like, Well, you know, these entrepreneurs, they are the future, right? So every time an entrepreneur succeeds, you see that money move from this big giant block. You know, that 1% that everybody talks about down to these entrepreneurs who have not only worked hard, but usually don’t have much and then it changes their life and because they’re different people, because they’ve had, you know, they’ve had to go through some grit to get where they are. They’re very altruistic. So see a lot of them giving money to charities and you know, you see them paying off student loans and their employees or stock options and all this stuff happens. And I was like, I can actually help with wealth distribution by helping more entrepreneurs succeed. And that’s what I decided to focus on. And this is the angle I decided to do it with boss.

Adam G. Force 06:18

Yeah. Interesting. And so what is boss specifically do that is so beneficial for the entrepreneur?

Greg Shepard 06:26

So it’s the it’s an acronym, its business operating support system. So the concept is, is that it’s an operating system like you would have on your computer to support your business. And so it has five stages. And these five stages were developed after years of doing I did like 1200 interviews with entrepreneurs that succeeded those that failed investors, accelerators, just all kinds of people. At the same time, I also tried to figure out you know, in the in the world of operating systems, what else was out there? So I entered The Navy SEALs in the first fighting, we have Air Force manufacturing fire departments, please spawn anybody that has a process or has to have a process to be efficient. Yeah. And then I applied all that stuff. And when I learned about the five areas that businesses fail, I created five areas to prevent that failure from happening starting at the beginning.

Adam G. Force 07:23

Interesting. I love that. And so how does someone even like this is very new to me. I’ve never heard of someone creating, like now, is this an operating system that would replace like, how does that work? I mean, you have to install this instead of like your iOS operating system?

Greg Shepard 07:39

No. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Okay. I call it an operating system, but it’s not software yet. Anyway, it’s not software it is. You think of it in terms of an operating system, but it’s more of a methodology and a set of tools.

Adam G. Force 07:50

Got it. Got it. Okay. So, these are some key principles from your experience and a strategic methodology that will help guide people through a process That is designed to help them take the right steps with their business towards an exit, right?

Greg Shepard 08:09

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it starts out with keeping the end in mind at the very beginning, right? So one of the biggest problem I see and this is riddled all throughout all of the five different areas that they fail, is they don’t start with the end in mind. They don’t start by, okay, who’s going to buy my business? So it think about it this way. If you are if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re building a company, you’re building a company to solve a problem most of the time. I mean, there’s only two types of companies those that are creating taking advantage of an opportunity or those that are solving a problem in either scenario, you have a customer and a profile of the customer, you know who your customer is, you’d never build a product and then go figure out who your customer is. You know, you don’t want to be a solution looking for a problem. So, if that’s the case, and your business is only a product to your acquire, remember Remember that acquire who’s buying your business, they’ve already invested a ton of money in acquiring their customers that money is spent and invested. Yeah, what they want to do now is they want to grow the the lifetime value. So you have the customer acquisition cost the CAC to the lifetime value ratio, the only way for them to make money more money on the investment they already made in their current customers is to either buy or build a new product, and they always buy, they don’t build. So that new product has to match their current ICP ideal customer profile. So if you don’t start at the very beginning, thinking about who the customer is, of you’re the buyer of your business, then you could build your business and then go to try to sell it and say up Nope, not wrong but wrong profile, and then they’re not interested in buying it or your multiples going to be really low, because there’s no match. And that’s what synergies are.

Adam G. Force 09:53

So yeah, and I love that thought process. I don’t think you know anybody listening I just don’t think enough entrepreneurs are thinking About exits, you know, it’s Oh, no, I’m not gonna exit. It’s gonna, you know, be long time forever. This is my passion. I’m never gonna get rid of it and all that kind of stuff. But there is a certain perspective that comes when you are preparing and operating the business with the perspective of exiting, would you agree?

Greg Shepard 10:17

Oh, for sure. And if you’re raising money, the only way the investor gets their money back is when you sell. Yeah. So if you’re not thinking about an exit, when you’re talking to investors, and when you’re, you know, building your business, then you right there at that moment, you’re already off. Yeah, you’re dead, because you’re literally going to investor and saying, Hey, give me a million dollars and all this deck and all the stuff you put together to build this business. I don’t know when I’m gonna return your money. I have no idea. In fact, I’m not even planning for it. Right? I mean, you know, that’s insane.

Adam G. Force 10:47

Yeah, no, it is and you know, we’ve had those conversations and you definitely want to know the exit and I like the decision making that occurs because if you are going to sell it, that means that you really do need to create systems within that. business that someone could take over and start operating when you hand it off, right?

Greg Shepard 11:04

That is so smart. Nobody ever thinks that’s exactly right. So it’s like, think a business is a hell of a lot more complicated than IKEA furniture. And IKEA furniture comes with directions. Yeah, right. So when you go to try to sell your business, there’s that’s where another big point of failure is, they can’t sell it because the buyer can’t figure out how to operate your business. And therefore they can’t figure out how to take advantage of your product being sold to their customers.

Adam G. Force 11:30

Yeah.

Greg Shepard 11:30

So when you build a technology business, and you write code inside of the code, there are comments, things that explain what that line of code does. If you don’t have that, when somebody is evaluating your code, they’re going to be like, my engineers don’t even know what these things do. So we have no idea where to even start. Yeah. Now, you would never do that. Right. I mean, you know, you always, every programmer knows any engineer that’s out there knows that you have to put those comments in there so that, you know, people know oh, this does that. This does that. And this is that. So that’s like what you do. Right. And so the five stages of bas are first the Northstar, which is understanding where you’re going and when you’re going to get there, and who’s going to buy your business. So think of that as like a GPS. So if you’re going from one place to another, you need to have two localities, right, you have, do you know where you are? And you need to know where you’re going. Right? Yeah, otherwise, you’re never gonna get that.

Adam G. Force 12:25

True.

Greg Shepard 12:25

Yeah, you know. And then after that, you have to have a plan strategy. So that’s like turn by turn directions, including things like oh, there’s traffic or a detour or you’re going this fast. So that means that you’re going to arrive at this destination at this time. And then after that, you have to have the ability to execute on it. That means literally getting in the car and driving to that, you know, destination. And then after that, you have to have the ability to standardize it so other people can go the same route that you went, which is standardization that’s accountabilities, best practices. And that allows you to Figure out where you’re going to go and how you get there. So accountability is what is being done in who’s supposed to do it, which functional areas supposed to do it, best practices, how it’s supposed to be done and triggers or when it’s supposed to be done. And now you have literally, this is how the business runs. But there’s a lot more benefits than than just that huge number of benefits as you grow and scale. And then, after you get standardization, you go through the Kaizen loop, and Kaizen. And Japanese just means continuous improvement, which I got from the Toyota Production System back when Toyota went from being nothing to a monster, and having huge quality and retention rates on their revenue. Right. And so, you know, that part allows you to go back through the best practices, figure out where you can optimize to eliminate waste using the lean methodology, and then put it back into the plan. And that’s why it’s a loop.

Adam G. Force 13:53

Mm hmm. Yeah, that feedback loop. I love the lean methodology and yeah, The stuff you’re talking about is so important. And I think that, yeah, the the exit strategy and the decisions that people are making, creating those processes. You know, we coach a lot of different entrepreneurs also. And we have found that these are, these are major gaps for people. So when it comes to marketing, and you’re right, it’s like, where do we put our attention? How do we find focus what’s important? And if you have the right, I guess, if you have the right frame of mind and where you’re going, you can make smarter decisions. We always tell people, you come in here, I’m like, well, you guys want to join this program, but tell me where you want to be in 12 months, and if they can’t do it, I’m like, well, then I can’t help you. I’m like, you have no idea where you want to go. How am I going to get you there?

Greg Shepard 14:44

Yeah, exactly. So in the North Star, there’s a few different stages. So I actually broke down each one of these higher broader phases, yeah, into what I call gates, okay, so that the entrepreneur can walk through and sort of slice this up into smaller pieces, so that they I can get through one of these phases until they understand the whole system. And it’s, you know, it’s it’s really actually there’s going to be a, it caught the attention of UCSD, the University here, which only number two in technology to MIT to use it in their business program, and they’re doing a TV show, actually YouTube show on it, which is pretty cool. Yeah. Which is awesome. But

Adam G. Force 15:30

I love that. So that’s interesting how these things kind of pop up like that. And I’m wondering, you know, you’ve sold a lot of businesses now. So let’s just talk a little bit more about the exit strategies. So when we go through the boss system, you’re you’re setting people up through the stages, but what are some of the critical lessons that you’ve learned? Like you’ve obviously replicated the process by selling multiple companies? I mean, you you are identifying, you know, the key customers profile for buying the business, you know, people do that for their products. And I can almost see at the volume you’re at, you’re looking at businesses just as your widget that you’re selling. So it’s like you’re looking for that ideal customer? And what are just what are some of the things you’ve uncovered with regards to exit strategies? And and actually, making sure you understand who that that right customer for buying the business is ahead of time?

Greg Shepard 16:25

Yeah, so, you know, I look at probably, I don’t know, between 100 and 200 deals a month. And when I look at these deals I look at, I go through pitch after pitch after pitch, because you know, we invest in companies through boss Capital Partners. And in that process, I swear, probably one 10th of a percent of the time, do they even have two things that I think are really important one is a go to market strategy. And the other one is your exit strategy. Yeah, right. Like, how are you going to actually go to market and how are you going to exit and when they do, they don’t understand what that actually means. an exit strategy isn’t sitting there and going, Oh, I’m gonna sell to Google. I mean, Google is that’s like saying, I’m gonna travel, where are you gonna go? The United States? You know, what state what city? What, you know, I mean, it’s like, really, you know, so. So that’s one of the things. The other thing is that they don’t actually back into the acquisition like, why is this company going to buy? What is their ideal customer? And do those things align? What is the behavior of the buyer of your company in the past? Like, do they have a pattern of buying can’t do they have the money to buy? You know, how many companies have they bought, like all this sort of research that you do when you develop the ideal acquire profile, you know, the, so those two profiles are critical. And an exit strategy is a plan, which includes, you know, data around, you know, who’s going to buy and all the reasons why and how to build your company for that. The thing that people don’t understand is, it’s not like you can work on your company for three years and on the third year, go Okay, I’m going to sell it Then just do that, that that is not how it happened. You know, so you’re the whole three years you’re planning the entire three years, you’re planning for an exit. So everything that you’re doing in your business is moving it towards being acquired by somebody else. And I’m not saying build a shitty business and sell it quick, right? Really, really good business, but you have to do it in the direction. So it’s directionally correct to the end destination that you’re that you’re shooting for.

Adam G. Force 18:27

I think people get so overwhelmed, Greg with you know, just getting a product to sell and just getting off the ground and all the decisions they have to make. And, you know, there’s a ton of information out there that takes everybody in different directions and we see it happen all the time with different entrepreneurs, you know, before they come into our our own program, and I’m curious, like if they’re struggling just to sell the products and get all stuff. I mean, is it I feel like a lot of people will come to me and say, well, it’s really hard for me to focus on trying to sell the company when I’m just trying to sell the product…. What do you think about that?

Greg Shepard 19:04

You’re not trying to sell the company the whole time, you’re just building a company that is easy to buy.

Adam G. Force 19:11

Yes.

Greg Shepard 19:12

You know, so, there, you know that when you sell a business, there are certain, you know, sort of, you know, Crossroads that you have to go through. So, there’s a process to that, for example, you know, your customer and their customer being the same, as I’ve explained before, but also things like, how do they know that the technology is going to integrate? How do they know that the financial numbers will integrate and benefit them? How do they know that the culture is going to fit? Yep. You know, there are integrations that you know, so in that process, you know, there’s there’s a few different targets like big benchmarks that you’re shooting for. And typically, you know, in the exits that that I do and the way that boss functions is you sell to people that you already have started a relationship with over many years. Yeah. So yeah, you can’t just on that If you want to sell in three years, which is my business is usually selling three years, if you want to sell a business in three, even five years, you can’t start that process at three years, because you have to realize that just the acquisition itself, if it’s a 50 hundred million dollar deal, just that one process is going to take at least six months. And then before that even starts, you have to have a courting period. Right? That’s like another six months. So you’re a year out right there. Yeah. So you can’t start that process that you know, when you want to sell and then before that, usually, there’s some sort of a small investment that they make. And before that, usually there’s some sort of a partnership and before that, there’s some sort of integration and you know, so it’s like, you know, you can’t be like, okay, now I’m ready to sell and then start that period because you just added two extra years or three extra years onto your, your exit strategy. If you had thinking thought about that the whole time. You would be doing things that benefit your company company at the same time setting up an acquisition in the future. Which is something that a lot of people don’t think about.

Adam G. Force 21:02

Yeah, that makes sense. And I think, you know, you’d be having certain conversations, connecting with people that you think might be the right, you know, buyer. And I think through those conversations, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re going to be learning more, it’s kind of like consulting, like getting on a strategy call with a client to find out well, what are you guys up to? What are you looking for what’s important to you, and really kind of get that data so that maybe you can take your assumptions and turn them into real insights that you’re operating your business around? Right. So how do you know what the key milestones stones are that you want to hit in order to sell to that company? That probably doesn’t come without a lot of conversation with that company? Right?

Greg Shepard 21:43

Right, yeah. I mean, it’s a lot. So the analogy I give to entrepreneurs a lot of time to make it really understandable. As I say, listen, so it’s not like you meet a girl and you go, Let’s get married. It doesn’t work that way. Right? It’s like Okay, let’s go have coffee. Let’s have dinner. Let’s have dinner again. And again and again, you know, and then after a period of time, you’re like, I trust you, I care about you, all these things happen. And then you say, Okay, let’s get married. Yeah, when somebody buys your business, it’s like that there is a lot of courting that happens before that. And you can’t just start that you can’t just say, Okay, I want to sell now and then just do it. Yeah, it just doesn’t work that way. You know, and if it does, a lot of times, the transactions will fall apart in that process. And when they fall apart in that process, usually the entrepreneurs in a very bad place because the process of selling a business is a massive distraction. Yeah. So, you know, they’re working through this process, and they’re working through this and they’re distracted by it. So they’re not paying attention to their business. And then all of a sudden, now, the deal falls through and now they’re, it’s like, it’s devastating. Yeah, so two things happen. Either the deal falls through completely or they lower the price and change the terms and then they end up you know, which is a lot of times the strategy of the acquirer. Yeah is to, you know, kind of just, you know, they have a Yeah, there’s a term right treat him like mushrooms, keep him in the dark and feed him shit. You know? And, you know, so you know, there’s there’s terms for these things because they’re real, right? So if you’re not newer, and you’re, you’re planning this whole thing the whole time and that happens, you’re like, it doesn’t matter because it’s just the flow of your normal business.

Adam G. Force 23:19

Yes, that is so important. And it’s easy. I mean, we only have so much time and energy to invest, right? And that’s a valuable resource those things and so, you’re right. I mean, what the if you’re going to distract yourself with these things, you want to make sure you’re doing it the right way. So easy. It’s so easy to get distracted for all kinds of different things. And everybody has all these ideas. So…

Greg Shepard 23:44

BOSS keeps people focused and on the rails, right, because I call it squirrel syndrome. You know, when you walk your dog and it’s like squirrel, it just bolts off. Yeah, exactly. That’s what entrepreneurs are live. It’s in their nature. Yeah, and it’s a positive thing. But you got to have a you know, one of those leashes that goes out that runs out and then comes back.

Adam G. Force 24:04

Yeah. A little stretchy.

Greg Shepard 24:07

Shiny syndrome. Yeah, exactly. Cuz, you know, shiny syndrome is you know, shiny thing syndrome is is real for entrepreneurs. Oh yeah.

Adam G. Force 24:15

Oh, everyone’s got new ideas all the time as like people come on to our coaching calls and it’s like, Oh, I got it. I’m gonna do this new podcast, I’m gonna do this, it’s gonna be paying it. I’m like what happened to the primary focus of like your offer, like all the sudden you’re like off on another tangent? Yeah.

Greg Shepard 24:33

huge problem, huge problem. So boss keeps that focus, right? Because when you use boss correctly, what happens is your board deck, you know, what you’re telling your investors is your boss system. And you literally show them. You know what you planned and you want to show predictability and also for your buyer. Nobody wants to buy a company that’s unpredictable. So if you create a path of predictability, it keeps you focused. And it shows you in the retrospective what happened. Yeah, but it also shows you that you’re predictable, right? Which is key. No investor wants to make an investment into a business that’s unpredictable. Or the people are unpredictable, and no buyer wants to buy a business that’s unpredictable because they’re betting on that being predictable. Right?

Adam G. Force 25:15

Yeah, predictability I can imagine is super important. Now we have zero focus primarily, primarily been tech, different variations of tech companies.

Greg Shepard 25:26

Yeah, I mean, I’ve done I did a, a lender in my when I was younger, and I did a biotech plant environmental biotechnology company, but ever since the internet came out. I’ve been Yeah, I mean, this software is just, you can make anything it’s a it’s a literal, you know, you know, self manifesting playground.

Adam G. Force 25:53

Yeah, but how does one even think about that? I mean, how like, in other words, when I think of software, yeah, I can get a million ideas, but the actual putting it together processes where you get lost, like if you don’t know how to code or you know, any of that kind of stuff.

Greg Shepard 26:08

Yeah, but you don’t need to now, you know, there’s a lot of really good development houses, and they have really good product people. So if you have a concept and you are through ideation, you can go to one of these development houses. And you can actually, you know, ask them and they’ll supply you with a product person, which is key. A lot of people think, Oh, I just go into engineering and then I, you know, and a lot of engineers think they don’t need a product person, a product person is very critical. Okay. I always tell people, I’m like, do you have a product person know who’s doing product? Oh, I’m just doing it. No, man. No, that’s not that you can’t do, that’s a special…

Adam G. Force 26:46

Define that for people, define the product person.

Greg Shepard 26:49

So you know, basically the product person is not only the voice of the customer, but they’re also watching what’s going on in the marketplace with competitors and they take all of this data that comes in Including, you know, feedback that comes from the current customers, and the fantasies of the entrepreneur. And then they distill those down into requirements and the requirements boil down exactly what this thing looks like. And then the requirements are coded. So you can’t go from if you have an entrepreneur, acting as a product person, this is very, very, very big happens all the time. You have an entrepreneur who already has squirrel, you know, shiny thing syndrome, and they’re trying to manage the engineers, it’s going to cost 100 times more. So a lot of people go I can’t afford a product person, but you can because if you don’t, it’s going to cost more money. Because you’re going to be going all over the place. And the engineers their mindset in the way that they operate is off of like blueprints. So basically, not having a product person is like building a house without blueprints. It’s like a contractor just going for it.

Adam G. Force 27:51

Yeah

Greg Shepard 27:51

And you’re just walking over there every day and going No, no, no, no, no, sorry. I want to window here, not there. And the contractor is like, dude, I got to put a beam in there. I got to rip this hole. Fallout I got it, you know, and that is the issues, right? So if you have a product person, it’s like having an architect, draw out exactly the plans and what they’re supposed to do giving that to the contractor and having the contractor build exactly what’s on the plans. And then you do iterations you do, you know, you improve later on, after you get a proof of concept and validation, which are extremely crude critical. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 28:24

Yeah. And I mean, what kind of money is required up front to you know, get a get a tech product like this, you know, put together as beta work with a product person that isn’t that,

Greg Shepard 28:35

I mean, I’ve done I’ve done, you know, proof of concepts for 50 grand, you know, so you don’t, you know, I mean, it sounds like a lot to a lot of people. But to get a round of financing for 50 grand, even an ideation is pretty easy. But, you know, I’ve done him for that. And then you do iterations because you have to come to the table with something you can’t just come to the table with a stack of you know, PowerPoints And go, Okay, this is just, this is what I want to do. Now I want to raise a million dollars. Yeah. You know, they’re like, no, look, how about you start by showing me something, you know. So I’ll give you 25 grand. And then you can see what you can put together. And then you do a minimum what’s called an MVP, a minimal viable product. Yeah. And that’s the minimal the minimal stuff you need. That’s viable, meaning it works. So at that point, you’re not trying to at that, that stage of an MVP, there’s a lot of MVPs. But at that stage of an MVP, you’re just trying to get to the point that you can demo something to an investor, you get the money to create something, then that can be demo to a customer.

Adam G. Force 29:41

Yeah, I mean, and that’s interesting, because you’re saying to get an investment to get that first 50 grand, so someone’s just got to believe in the idea and say, Okay, I’ll give you 50 grand.

Greg Shepard 29:50

Yeah, but or you just do it yourself. I did it myself. I mean, I worked for jobs. And, you know, that’s how I did it. I just, I just put every dime I had into Um, in the beginning before I, you know, started making exits, I put everything I had into it worked a bunch of jobs, and you know, paid for myself literally, they would send an invoice. And you know, I’d be hustling, and I don’t I dealt with it sort of like paying your rent. Yeah, I was like, Okay, I know I’m gonna get a $5,000 invoice, I need to go make five grand. So I would go work make five grand and pay their invoice.

Adam G. Force 30:26

I mean, I love that because that’s the kind of stuff people have to do. I mean, sometimes you’re straddling two worlds, right? You got to do the work and then you got to push your push down the path where you have that vision right? So if you don’t just make money with your business right out of the gate, sometimes you have to actually make money doing things that maybe it’s not your ideal dream.

Greg Shepard 30:45

Yeah, and you know, it’s like if you’re, if you’re doing that strategy, even if you’re not doing your…

Adam G. Force 30:53

Greg I think I lost you.

Greg Shepard 30:56

Wait, can you hear me up?

Adam G. Force 30:57

There you go.

Greg Shepard 30:58

Okay. So you’re doing strategy on a diet, right means that you’re, you’re paying a, you have a finite amount of money to use for your, you know, to get to the point where you can get something that has a proof of concept. In those scenarios, who is doing the product and the technology engineering for you, is very critical. Because you can spend that money screwing around or you can spend that money getting something done. And furthermore, the way that the things are done are really incredible. Like you know, if you do a monolith, which is like one big piece of software versus micro services, which is individual pieces that interchange, when you later on and you build your software, if it’s on my monolith, you know, when you’re trying to do iterations, it’s like playing whack a mole. Every time you do something, something else breaks and you know, it’s a nightmare. Versus in microservices, only that one thing breaks instead of everything. Yeah. So there’s like a lot of stuff you have to think through when you’re doing that, that you don’t know that in a good engineering group does know because they built this thing 100 times. Yeah, you know, so they’ve learned those lessons, you go to them and you’re like, Look, all I want is this one, like, give me any right now on building software for boss to run boss. And because it’s all in spreadsheet right now. Got it. And you know, with these guys, I went to them and I was like, Listen, all I want is an MVP on the North Star, not the rest, just the North Star. I just want to get to that point. And I want to make sure it’s right. And I went to a group that I had used several times for other businesses. And that is the the correct way to go. You don’t want to you don’t you know, build a house by slapping the whole thing together immediately. You know what, Mike, I’ll give you a good analogy. When I was younger. I had this mentor named Jim Eubanks, this guy was so cool. I was just young and I was just fighting to try to make a living and I was on a mission. And every afternoon on Wednesdays, he would send me drive me out to this bus bench. And across the street from this bus and this is an LA in the summer and I’m wearing a suit It was awful, right and I’m on commission so I’m sitting there not making money and he dropped On this bus bench and across the street was a cyclone, fence and dirt lot. And sign said coming soon. And I was like, What the hell, I’m like sitting here, you know. And then for you know, for a long time, it just said coming soon and then a really long time they dug that deep hole that a building has to have. And then they laid all the foundation stuff. And then the thing just blew up. And after the building was done, he goes, Hey, what did you learn? And I was like, well, I sat there for a long time. And I basically said the same thing. And he was like, so what you learned is that planning is more important than building.

Adam G. Force 33:33

Yes, I love that.

Greg Shepard 33:35

Footings took forever, the planting took forever and the rest of the building was you know, flew up. And you know, and that was like something that stuck with me and I was like man and so boss itself is that.

Adam G. Force 33:47

I love that. I love that. Yeah, and it’s so critical. I mean, you see it all the time and we we talk about that when it comes to course development online courses and stuff. It’s like you can spend you know three times as long planned. Adding the outline of the course and doing that correctly, and then putting in the actual program together, boom, you’re done in a heartbeat. And that’s, you know, so you spend most your time, like you said in the planning phase. So whether it’s your business or any other thing, I think it’s, it’s, it’s universally applicable when you’re putting something like this together.

Greg Shepard 34:19

Yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, pencil progress. Perfection.

Adam G. Force 34:25

Yeah, like that. So what kind of companies have you been investing in now?

Greg Shepard 34:30

They’re all software companies. So, you know, the market is now you know, there are bear markets and their bull market. So bull markets, you know, like I said, there are companies that sell things that are solving problems and there are companies that sell things that take advantage of opportunities. And in a bull market, you can invest in things that are taking advantage of opportunities. And in a bear market, you sell things that are solving problems, because in a bear market, people are trying to save money in a bull market, people are trying to make money. So because the market is shift now into more of a bear market, you know, because of COVID and a lot of other factors, you know, you have the ability now to sort of say, Okay, well now I need to change my investment strategy. I need to look for things that are recession resistant, not proof resistant. And these are businesses that are saving businesses money, because that’s what happens when you’re in a bear market. So the investment investments that we make now are not opportunity type businesses, they’re, you know, problem type businesses.

Adam G. Force 35:29

Hmm, interesting. Interesting. Awesome. Well, listen, we’re hitting the end of our time here. So I want to make sure we give you a chance to just give yourself a shout out. Where do people find more about you? What’s the best place to get more info?

Greg Shepard 35:44

Gregory shepherd.com. So it’s just my name.

Adam G. Force 35:48

Simple as that Gregory shepherd.com. We will have that in the show notes on the website when this goes live. Greg really appreciate it. I mean, obviously you got a ton of experience. You know, by creating and selling companies so appreciate you just kind of diving into some of that and the ideas behind the boss methodology. So yeah. Thanks again for being on the show man. Appreciate it.

Greg Shepard 36:13

Thank you.

Adam G. Force 36:17

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Adam And Danielle: When is Sharing Your Story Too Much (And What’s The Real Benefit?)

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Do we really need to tell personal stories in our business? Should we? And when is it too much?

This is a question that comes up a lot with students in Captivate. So, Danielle and Adam tackle it head on to share some important considerations.

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Danielle Sutton 02:20

Hello. Hello, everybody.

Adam G. Force 02:23

So, you know, we were just on a coaching call together Danielle is one of the CO creators of the captivate method. And we were inspired to come on here and just share an idea about sharing your story, right? We’ve seen through our experience coaching lots of entrepreneurs that sometimes not only do they wonder, Well, why would I share my story? But what is really the benefit? And an interesting question came up today about a very personalized story and is it oversharing? Like, when is it too much? Right? So that’s, that was a really interesting question, Danny, I’m gonna let you Just kind of if you don’t mind, we can TSF a little bit with kind of where where we were taking this idea of oversharing and why it’s so important.

Danielle Sutton 03:10

Yeah, for sure. So I mean, I think it is a question that’s come up a lot with different people in our program and that I’ve had just personal conversations like, okay, so you’re talking about storytelling, but why do I share my own story? And really, ultimately, it’s about building trust. Right. And I think we’ve talked about that before. But let’s get into the details of how that happens when you’re talking about your own experience, or even sharing the more vulnerable pieces, because the thing is, with surface level stories, they don’t necessarily they might teach a lesson. They’re kind of like the moral of the story is this, but does it create connection in the same way that going deeper or sharing something a little more vulnerable, a little more? You know, something you wouldn’t share with everybody. So then the question of the What is that point? Because you don’t want to overshare but also how do you get under the surface so that you can create more connection and more trust. So I was telling Adam, before we jumped on about this memory I have when I was really little, and I was maybe 10 or so. And I had met a new person I don’t know, at school or at a summer camp or something. And I remember her saying, she leaned over, she’s like, do you know how you make really good friends, you know, picture 10 year old girls, right? She’s like leaning and you tell them a secret that only you shared with them. And and that creates a bond instantly. And then you can go off on your merry way and have a bunch of fun, right? So I thought it was an interesting insight, especially for a 10 year old, but it relates to exactly what we’re talking about. Because, yeah, so jump in Adam

Adam G. Force 04:49

Sure. So, you know, when we’re running businesses, and we decide, okay, I know I have a story to tell my story. And sometimes entrepreneurs will tell us like, Well, why don’t I have to share my Story, all they care about is the business, the product and what we’re doing. And the stories behind that. Yes, those things are important. But today, people are raising red flags when it comes to marketing. And they’re going to say, I don’t only just want to know what’s in it for me, but what’s in it for you, as the CEO of that business, right. And so when we’re in, especially that zero to $10,000, a month range, we’re connecting with people, we have to have more intimate relationships to build a foundation of clients or our audience. And that is a relationship building process. And so part of that is, you know, you’re sharing value to these people, which means you might have tough lessons, you’ve learned big failures or things that make you feel a little bit uncomfortable. You kind of put them in the back of your subconscious don’t really want to think about it anymore. But it’s a powerful lesson that you’ve learned. And maybe if you share it with people, not only does it tie into what your business is all about, but they benefit and they Learn that same lesson. So the reason we’re really sharing these stories is not just to have fun and talk about the business, it’s to actually help people and to build more intimate bonds with people. So now you’re getting a loyal customer. And like I love Daniella, your example of the little girl who tells the secret because now you’re sharing something. Have you ever had someone say to you like, wow, I really appreciate you like sharing that with me, because I know maybe it was tough and you’re sharing something that is just a little bit more vulnerable. And it goes a long way in building relationships, right?

Danielle Sutton 06:37

Yeah, for sure. And it it like we said, creates that trust because why would you tell you know, if you’re putting yourself out there and sharing something that’s a little bit uncomfortable, potentially. You have you know, that recognition that this was really tough for me or hard on me in a certain way, or it was embarrassing or I’m ashamed of it or I wish I did things differently and by sharing it Not only is it a little tough for you, but you’re doing it because you’re helping the other person. And so they recognize that they will know from the story that that must have been hard to share. Because that you As humans, we put ourselves in each other’s shoes and you imagine yourself in that story, and you think, Oh my gosh, like that sucks, or that must have been really hard, or I can’t believe they went through that. And so instantly, you have that connection, because you’ve both one of you has been there and one of you is imagined being there. And it brings up all the emotions, and that’s how you can relate to each other. And also, you know, the person listening can realize like, that took some some courage or it took something they wouldn’t have done that unless it mattered, right? unless it was important to share. So I appreciate that and then it builds the trust that way.

Adam G. Force 07:49

It goes a long way. I remember I was writing for this. What’s his name? Brian Cameron was last name. He has a really great website. You know, he I forget, what’s the name of that was an odd name. It was not a real word. And that’s why, and I haven’t read it. So anyway, I wrote for and he gets when you put an article out on his media platform, you’ll get you know, we have had over 1500 shares, let alone views, right. And so one time, I decided that I was going to be a little more vulnerable and a story that I told, and I told the story about when I was younger, and I was in wrestling. And what was really vulnerable was, the story was about how, how our results can change from one day to the next, just based on how we’re thinking. And really interesting. And the vulnerable part was I put a picture of me when I was a young kid, and I was on the little podium with my little trophy and wow, I mean, it’s an embarrassing photo. I’m in my little thing singlet I put it out there to all those people, right because The lesson that I was trying to share from an entrepreneurs perspective to other entrepreneurs, to me was really important. And yeah, I have to share that story sometime. But it’s like, it was. It was the strangest thing. I’m tempted to share it, but I don’t want to take up…

Danielle Sutton 09:17

The thing already…You’re blushing even now and you already shared it 1500 times. Already shared it 1500 times. Yeah, but I mean, that’s a picture is worth 1000 words word sometimes. So it’s interesting that you mentioned the picture there because again, people will see it in a flash and they can put themselves, they can imagine Oh, imagine being like a little wrestler kid. And what the story is about you were fighting or wrestling a guy who was way bigger

Adam G. Force 09:44

I’ll tell the story in under three minutes. You ready? So by the time I completely freaked out and I had to do a doubleheader in wrestling. All right, so I was at a wrestling tournament. And there was this kid I was actually a really a pretty good one. wrestler and I was in the finals. So I was watching the semifinal match right to see who I would be wrestling. And there’s this kid named his name was Luke. And so he goes out there and he’s like this crazy nutty, like, full of energy kid. And he goes out there and within a minute he, he throws the other kid and broke his a collarbone. I was like, Whoa, dude, like, this kid’s an animal. Like, I gotta go out here and wrestle him. He’s gonna break my arm. And it freaked me out. So I go out there and within a minute, he pins me I’m embarrassed. I’m like, oh my god. So my father talks to me. And he’s like, Adam, you’re just as good as him gave me the whole pep talk. Right? And so here’s where it gets interesting. The next day, I had to wrestle that kid again at the the one on one team meet. Right. So that was a tournament which was just more random. And so I had to go back the next day, get on a bus and so that night, I was like saying to myself what my dad says like you’re just as good as him. Do this and really trying to get my head. I mean, again, I’m young kid, I think I was 1011 years old. We get there. And then you know, they’re playing the national anthem. And I’m like, we’re all lined up on the edges of a mat. And my heart is like racing out of my chest. And then finally, I’m the first match because I’m a small guy, I was the lightest So first, as soon as that national anthem was done, I had to go out there and face my biggest fear. And I ended up we had one of the best matches in my life. So ended up winning like for for 16 points to 14 points. And I won the match. I mean, so nothing changed from the day before to the next day where I got pinned in less than a minute. It was just getting myself time to think the right way and believing in myself right from a little some words of encouragement from pops, right. So to me, it’s just a really great example of how your mindset can really dictate your behavior because you’re acting through fear and reservation and all that stuff. So that was my story about that.

Danielle Sutton 12:01

That’s good. I like that. You know what that actually reminds me of an embarrassing story I can share that’s related

Adam G. Force 12:07

Fire it up.

Danielle Sutton 12:08

I don’t think I’ve ever told this to anyone. So you guys know that really famous TED talk about I should know the name but I but I don’t, but it’s in one of the top 10 about using your power poses, right to get, like physical stance can help you get in, get confidence and present yourself better. So I went to a startup pitch competition in Brazil about seven years ago

Adam G. Force 12:34

Cool.

Danielle Sutton 12:34

And we were living in Chile at the time, building my business for… I had no idea what I was doing. But applying to different startup competitions was something I had done and happened to get chosen to go to Brazil, Sao Paulo and the way it was structured it was for social impact organizations. So that part was really great because often I was sharing about my work with other startups. had nothing to do with social impact. So, I mean, I was excited to be there. But you had to present to two talks, two pitches. One was a one minute pitch in your category. And then if you saw, I think there was eight startups in the education category. And if you were one of the top two, then you had a chance to do a five minute pitch after that. So on the way there I had to basically prepare and memorize a one minute pitch and a five minute pitch had no idea if I was going to do the five minute pitch, like in Brazil did not speak Portuguese and it was like a whole adventure. But I can vividly remember standing in the washroom, doing the power bombs before one of the pitches I forget if it was the before the one minute I think it was before the one minute pitch. I was like, I gotta psych myself up. I went there by myself, you know, I I didn’t have any kind of friends or support people there and anyways, they join us He did tell me that I need to get sick too. And so I was like fighting a fever and I’m in the wash. Okay, I got to do the power pose. And I actually I nailed the one minute pitch and I was shocked when they said, you’re gonna do that you’re in the top two. You’re gonna do the five minute pitch. I was like, Oh, crap. Now guys. Remember what I prepared for that? And it’s all you know, in the same day. Anyways, it’s so I’ve done….

Adam G. Force 14:25

I need a picture of that power pose, okay?

Danielle Sutton 14:26

Yeah, I can’t demonstrate now because I haven’t like holding my computer. I don’t have a table in front of me. But you know what I mean, TED talk. I love that.. Oh, yeah. Mindset is everything. We talk about that a lot in that debate, as well.

Adam G. Force 14:41

And keeping just in mind as we talk about sharing our vulnerabilities like when you’re in especially it goes for any time in business, but especially in those early zero $10,000 a month. Like we’re building relationships, this is the focus so, you know, connect with people share your life lessons and make sure they’re aligned with your business. It’s not just random stuff, but like, don’t be shy to put yourself out there because you know, when you own your past and you like become confident with it and you’re willing to share with other people, you grow as a person to write.

Danielle Sutton 15:12

True, yep, it’s win win for sure. And, but like we said, at the top, the point is not just, like you said, share random things. It’s really to, hey, I’ve been there, I understand where you’re at. And guess what I learned something that might be helpful for you and help you avoid this pitfall, or at least not fall as deep or at least, you know, do the exact same thing right after you heard my story. At least, you know, we both been there and that feels magnetically right. So it goes a long way.

Adam G. Force 15:44

You know, we just shared on a coaching call to like, I don’t know if anybody listening knows Russell Brunson and some people love them. Some people hate them. That’s the way these things go. You know, he’s a great marketing mind. And he went on stage for two hours and told every failure story that he’s had. I mean, just the deepest of darkest like failure. And afterwards a woman, he told me this, and we interviewed him. And he told me this. He was like, you know, this woman came up to me afterwards. And she was like, thank you so much for sharing all that. Because I realized now that I’m not the only one, I’m not alone. And I was about to give up, throw in the towel, and you really have re inspired me to say, Yes, I can do this. Like, if you went through all that, and you still succeeded, I can do it too. So that relatability the lessons that were learned and just feeling like you’re not alone. I mean, these are powerful things. You know, she’s probably loyal now, as a customer to you know, his business just because there’s this connection. It’s like, hey, let me tell you a secret kind of thing that we talked about, right. So it’s a beautiful thing. All right, listen, I guess we’ll wrap up. But I think that those are some really important takeaway. So you might look at this lightly, but I would take it very seriously when it comes to creating your network, right building an audience like really creating like actual relationships with people and It’s not just about throwing up ads and trying to sell, sell, sell it’s connect with people build a really strong foundation for your business.

Danielle Sutton 17:07

Yeah, love it. And if you’re watching, let us know if you have a story about this inaction or you know if you’re inspired to share vulnerable post or a failure story and let us know what happens because it’s always Yeah, it’s always surprising and yet not surprising, you know, like, it helps you connect with people for sure.

Adam G. Force 17:26

Yeah, we will see you on the next live. All right, guys. Take care.

Danielle Sutton 17:32

Bye.

Adam G. Force 17:34

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast. Visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Blair Sheppard: Four Urgent Global Crises and Their Strategic Solutions

Listen to our exclusive interview with Blair Sheppard:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What are the world’s biggest priorities today and how can you help? We hooked up with the head of Global Strategy and Leadership at PricewaterHousecoopers who’s leading the charge on this very topic to find out.

Blair Sheppard is the global leader for strategy and leadership at PwC, a network of professional services firms committed to building trust in society and solving important problems. He is also the Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, where he taught for thirty-three years. He was the principal force behind opening Duke’s campus in China, and the founder and CEO of Duke Corporate Education. Blair is a regular speaker at high-caliber international forums including the Global Solutions Summit, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, and Slush. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada) and lives in Durham, North Carolina (US).

In his new book, TEN YEARS TO MIDNIGHT: Four Urgent Global Crises and Their Strategic Solutions, Sheppard sets out why that timeline is so crucial, what the most urgent challenges are and the key elements of a solution.

Adam and Blair discuss the world’s four key crises that must be addressed and the solutions that are necessary to get it done:

A crisis of prosperity, with rising inequality, poor life choices for young people, the squeezed middle class and a mass of people on the brink of retirement but lacking the savings to sustain them;
A crisis of technology, as our economic system drives innovation but fails to manage unintended negative consequences which pollute key elements of life support, from our atmosphere to our news;
A crisis of institutional legitimacy, as traditional institutions try to maintain their existing structures in the face of major global forces, and find themselves buckling and warping rather than adapting; and,
A crisis of leadership, as those who should help us manage these crises instead focus on narrow priorities rather than leading the world towards holistic solutions.

Learn more about Blair and his work at > https://www.pwc.com/gx/en.html

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Blair Sheppard 02:48

Great. Thanks, Adam. I’m glad to be on.

Adam G. Force 02:50

Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time. You know, I’m excited to dig into this conversation with you. You obviously have a pretty extensive background and want to hear more More about your book and all the great, great conversations you’ve had, but also just being an entrepreneur yourself and those experiences, I think there’s a lot we can we can cover here in a short period of time. So it would be helpful just to kind of tell us well, I like to start where the drama is like, what, what’s going on in your world these days? Like, what’s the latest? What’s the greatest and then I’ll you know, ask for a little bit of background on how you got there.

Blair Sheppard 03:24

So, um, I actually did stop writing maybe 25 years ago, right? Because I became an administrator and I started my own business. Yeah. And I decided to pick it up again, because I’m really worried. Because the we went around the world and talk to us people across 60 countries and the same worries came up again and again and again. And we would underneath it we dug behind them. They’re real, and they’re at a point where we don’t do something about them. In the next 10 years, the world will go much, much darker. And so I started I decided to write Because I’m actually pretty anxious about the world we’re now living in.

Adam G. Force 04:03

Yeah, I can understand that. So now tell us a little bit about just your background and how you got into the position that you are to be traveling around these countries writing this book. I know, you know, you have a lot going on there.

Blair Sheppard 04:16

So I was originally an academic I taught at Duke for 33 years. form, do corporate education while I was there, so took took time off to be an entrepreneur, then was asked to come back and be Dean. And so I left the organization I created, became Dean and then persuaded Duke to open a campus in China. And we weren’t going to move to China and be part of it, because we’re rooted in North Carolina. So I essentially worked myself out of a job and thought I’d go do the typical thing. I’d be a president somewhere or another Dean. And then this guy was chairman of PwC invited me to do a job that doesn’t usually exist which is help a very large global organization. Create a strategy that’s resilient for today’s world, but also build leaders who can execute the strategy that you almost never get those two together. So yeah, I picked it. And it’s been real fun been really, really fun. I wish I’d learned that you could shift out of the academy and do something like this years ago, because this has been a blast.

Adam G. Force 05:19

What has made it a blast?

Blair Sheppard 05:22

Well, I mean, we’re in virtually every country in the world, right? We’re in 156 countries. And so part of it is that you get to see the whole world. Part of it is that we’re huge. And so the impact we can have is pretty significant. And then the other piece is that it’s a ship that that needs needs to move like all the big ships do. And the challenge of getting the, the Queen Mary to move is is a really interesting challenge. So it’s been fun.

Adam G. Force 05:50

Yeah, yeah. It is. That’s not I mean, I love the idea of just being connected with so many people. So tell me a little bit about the conversations and But what we’re hearing from people around the world?

Blair Sheppard 06:03

Yeah, so this started, we had created a strategy for the firm. And it turns out, you don’t create one other thing like this, you’d negotiate with a lot of people. It had been formed. And then two years in the we had a new chairman. He had both traveled to four continents, and came back and said, Blair’s gotten really gritty, is the strategy still relevant? So what we did was we had conversations with government leaders, leaders, civil society, business people, like our clients, and I just listened in coffee shops and talk to taxi drivers, right. And in every country, there are about 60 countries in total, the same questions and same worries everyone had everywhere in the world. Yeah. And so they were, we coined the phrase adapt, asymmetry meaning disparity between people and between regions and generations, the disruptive effects of technology and the unintended consequence nology polarization and what it was doing to the world. The massively growing distrust in institutions, and then the impact that sort of demography age was having on that. So in old countries, you’d have things like the pressure of health care, and people retiring without support, and putting a burden on those who are still generating taxes and young countries. So the massive need for education and their jobs. Yeah. And and so we started researching that and realize that actually, they weren’t just worried people ahead. They were real crisis. They, they actually were putting the world at serious risk.

Adam G. Force 07:33

Yeah, so maybe dig in a little bit more there. So putting the world at risk. Let’s define that a little bit.

Blair Sheppard 07:40

Yeah. So so let’s use examples from from each of them for a minute, right. So if you take disruption, D and adapt, right, what we mean by that is not what most of the people on this call would think of, which is how technology changing business models. That’s part of it, but what we’re particularly interested in is because technology is everywhere because it’s ubiquitous when it when it has a negative consequence. It’s a population level problem, right? So take it to example. So Industrial Revolution. No one knew when we created the Industrial Revolution, that carbon was going to be a byproduct. Right now, it turns out it is. And we’ve got 10 years before the feedback group start getting bad. And so places like where you live or underwater, right, we got a decade to solve it. Or we’re in trouble. The the, you know, no one knew that 16 year olds 16 year old males are gonna have suicide is one of the primary causes of death or girls would would self harm with cut, right? And it turns out at each of the cases, we looked at them so you take disruption, or you take disparity or you take distrust in institutions. For example, as you look at the anger that’s happening, so you go back to the wall street city, and then me too, then Black Lives Matter, every time it’s hotter, and our senses that you’ve got about a decade before The whole thing blows up on itself. And we’re not good at making massive change at scale in 10 years.

Adam G. Force 09:07

No. And there’s also a lot of resisting forces, I guess, behind that change, for sure, for reasons that, you know, I mean, this is my opinion, this is not i’m not saying these are facts, but I think that there is a lot of resistance. And I think that they’re for short term, unethical reasons as well.

Blair Sheppard 09:28

Yeah, yeah. So I think you’re right, I think there are two sources or three sources of resistance, right. One of them is self interest, which is what you’re describing. Yes, people, people are pushing back or they’re or they’re reframing the debate to something they can keep their arms around, rather than the real issue, right. is a is a subtle way they do it. But the other one is actually, a lot of it has to do with sort of the institutions that make our life work like the legal system or the education system when the tax system or political system it turns out, they’re slow to change and they’re supposed to Right, because we want them to be reliable. But but they’re not. They’re not adapted to the world we live in, and therefore they’re causing more harm than they are good in many cases. And and so we have to figure out how to keep what was good about each of them, and then change everything else. Which is really hard.

Adam G. Force 10:20

It is hard.

Blair Sheppard 10:21

It’s difficult to it’s not it’s not just bad intent. It’s also tough.

Adam G. Force 10:27

Well, yeah, I mean, and I guess the when I, when you say things like that, I say, I’m looking at those systems, right? We have the education system and different systems, and yes, they need to change, but then who are the influencers behind that change? And you know, who’s controlling the money and allowing these things to change? Right.

Blair Sheppard 10:47

Yeah. So I have a bit of sympathy for leaders, right? Because one of the, one of the dilemmas we’re describing is the dilemma of leadership. So think of the following thing, right? Yeah. So a leader in any one of those systems. has an incredibly polarized group they’re trying to bring together and typically the people have completely diametrically opposed views and think the other was completely wrong. Right? So so they got a lot of negotiation to do. Second thing is, they’re starting with a thing that actually has a lot of traditions that doesn’t want to change. The governance model makes it hard to change that. The third is that actually, trusted leadership is at an all time low. And so it’s really hard to do the change and we don’t think they can do it anyway. Right. So the person who can step up and do that thing is actually pretty remarkable. I think. We don’t have many remarkable ones unfortunately. But it’s pretty remarkable.

Adam G. Force 11:41

It is Yeah, I am. Yeah, it’s it’s that’s I feel is a very difficult and slow process because of these, you know, resisting forces that we’re talking about and, and they see it all the time. You know, and I don’t know what to trust anymore. When it comes to politics. You have all these guys making decisions, guys. And girls, and it’s just, it’s kind of scary to see some of the selfishness behind these things. And it’s sad at the same time. And as I just told you earlier, before we started this, you know, I have a three and a half month old boy. And so it really makes you think about the future like you’re looking at a 10 year outlook. I mean, what does that mean for my son, if these types of people are leading us in these directions that really aren’t the right direction? Right. So that’s scary to me.

Blair Sheppard 12:25

Yeah. So that’s why I actually wrote the book is, you know, we have grandkids not too too much older than your than your new son. And I worry about their future. Right. So. So the thing that’s interesting, though, is we’ve shown through COVID, that we can do things massively and quickly. Yeah, we shut entire economy down basically, overnight. Yep. We, we’ve made really big changes really, really quickly. So it’s doable.

Adam G. Force 12:55

I think it’s going to require both leaders who can do it say this is their Going to follow. And then I think that people on this call are particularly important because we’re going to have to kind of innovate and small businesses are way out of a lot of these things. Because that’s where the energy is going to come from. That’s where the solutions are going to come from. And so I think the community of socially minded entrepreneurs are the leading force in getting things to happen. And and if we can get that collective to sort of say, we agree on what the issues are, and we’re going to put our energies against solving them in our own independent ways, we can make a heck of a lot of progress. I love that. And you’re right. So I mean, anybody listening? You know, we can all feel like we’re small potatoes. And we don’t we’re not significant. But, you know, the idea here, like we thrive on the value of collaboration, right? So if we’re all making better decisions, we’re all approaching business with these mindsets of doing something better and doing something ethical that aligns to our values. Then together, it becomes a very strong force. And you know where like what you’re saying. And what I really appreciate is that there is a role for big companies out there, they have certain power and influence. But the small companies can take on more risk, they can be more nimble, they can change faster and adapt to what’s going on in the market. So there’s a lot of change that can come from the young innovation.

Blair Sheppard 14:23

Yeah. And it also relates to they’re also central to the argument about what I think we need to do. So let me let me do that in income. Yeah. Right. So So if you think about how we got here, right, we got here because we had 70 year run and success, amazing success, right? We repair the Second World War damage. We created massive wealth, we brought 2 billion people out of poverty. We integrated whole economies like China and India into the market economy and amazing success. The reason we did is we focus on three two simple ideas right, overly simplistic ideas global ization is great. Technology is only good and simple measures of success are all that matter, GDP and shareholder value. Yeah, yeah, that turns out those are really good when you’re trying to drive economic growth period. But if what you’re trying to do is ensure that you’re bringing well being with you, and you’re distributing that growth evenly, it doesn’t work. Right. So because globalization will happen is they’ll take a job away from somewhere, I’ll destroy a little cow city for the interest of the shareholder and I won’t see it because I’m measuring overall economic wealth for the entire country. I’ll miss it whole parts of the country are getting harmed. Yeah, so that’s the base. That’s what started the crisis was essentially 70 years of success and the unintended downside, right. So is it go to the solutions and and say, how do you solve it? Well, first of all, you got to say, globalization only works if you have thriving local economy. So local first, right? globalization, technology only works if we actually think about the unintended consequences that human beings As a technology and and simple measures don’t work unless they’re complemented with things that are more inclusive. Now ask yourself, who’s going to drive local growth and thriving global economies? Who’s going to worry about things like the social consequences of business, not just profit and loss? And who’s gonna worry about the unintended consequence of technology that people on this call? Because that’s where they start. Right? So. So the point is, it’s a clarion call for the social entrepreneur. Yeah, there. They are the solution to the challenges of the next 10 years. And they’re also the ones who can challenge the institutions and make them adapt to their needs, right.

Adam G. Force 16:41

Yeah, I think I mean, I it’s a very important message that you’re saying right there and I want to drop a little bit of a bomb on you right now and ask a big question. Okay. The big question is, we’re talking about the 70 year winning streak. You know, the Industrial Revolution or The stuff that’s happened, which is great. It got us where we are today, but not without a cost, right? Yes. And so we look at Okay, why why did our behaviors actually shift into those with those unintentional costs right now we see them. But I think we’re we have these worldviews where it’s still how we operate, because that is the nature of the system. And this leads me to the question about your thoughts on capitalism, and can we make the necessary changes through that system?

Blair Sheppard 17:37

Yeah, so I think we have to because it turns out that there isn’t a better answer. Right. Um, so it and two pieces here first is we took capitalism, which which was essentially always the ascension of capitalism, that would be regular taury control that made it work, right. And that it was local. So to go back to the father of capitalism, he wrote in Edinburgh, right? If I was an entrepreneur in Edinburgh, I went to church with I went to the market with I walked down town with everyone in that town, I couldn’t be a person who was purely self interested because I’d be running out of town. So I worried about my labor force, I worried about what I was doing to the environment, I worried about what I was doing to the, to the consumer, I worried about what I was doing to the city. And so we took an idea that worked because it was based on people living in a community and building your business community, and generalized it. And then what we did is essentially we allowed a few schools, most particularly University Chicago, build an economic an assumption that everything in life was a market and everything in life was self interest. Yeah, that turns out that was never the intent of a capitalist model. Right? The notion was that you would you start a private enterprise, you’d make it work, you’d add to the society, you’d pay taxes, you’d help the society you donate, and you’d be a thriving member of that community. We pulled the notion of well being, and an economic success away from each other. When a colleague of mine calls uncoupling a social well being and economic success, and so it doesn’t have to be we just have to sort of rethink capitalism and say, I’m in business for a purpose and to make money and the reason I’m in business to make money is I can’t sustain my business if I don’t make money, but it’s not the only reason I’m doing it. Right. It’s not a hard change, by the way, but but a big one because we’ve had 70 years of doctrine. It says, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong. So we have to rethink. Yeah, I come back to the people who are already doing it like your audience.

Adam G. Force 19:52

Right. And that does put a lot on the the entrepreneur, the entrepreneurs shoulder To, for us to rely on them to be a good decision maker when times get tough. So that would mean that when you have a large company, you go public and you have to appeal to a shareholder, we have to hope that when it comes down to the bottom, their bottom line each quarter that they were reporting or monthly reporting, that they are making decisions. So what if they’re faced with a decision that says, Well, you know, you can get rid of this materials that’s hazardous to the environment, but it’s going to it’s going to decrease your bottom line for the quarter versus increase? Can we really rely on them in those big situations to make those decisions?

Blair Sheppard 20:38

Well, actually, so there’s a second group we have to affect right, but they’re already going here, by the way, which is the investor. Okay, what is prior prior to the advent of COVID there was a massive movement among the major investors to say you’ve got to worry about it. You got to worry about social issues and environment and governance. Not just Not just profit loss. And actually, some of the bigger funds and funding groups had taken essentially, you said they weren’t going to invest unless you’ve met a certain set of criteria. Now it was it was nascent, but it was really growing. Right. And I think the reason was growing is that people were starting to see the unintended consequences of climate in particular, right. And so I think if we can get the investment community and the entrepreneurial community to both recognize there’s a bigger story here, we could make a lot of impact and that and then what we have to do is have both of them put pressure on the institutions as you start having earlier. So go to the education system and give us the right kids give us the right graduates go to the legal system and say, fix the legal system, go to the political system and say fix it. But those two working together are massively powerful entrepreneurs without the investors behind them get put in a real bind. Right. And but I think the investors are coming. I really do.

Adam G. Force 21:56

Yeah, I mean, I think there’s been a pretty big growth spike in In investors who are looking to invest in the socially conscious sector, even you know, our mutual funds are all Sri socially responsible investments. So there’s investments from investors who are in supporting the entrepreneurs, but even from the consumers who are just playing mutual funds or stock markets, they can also be investing in companies ethically, right? Yeah,

Blair Sheppard 22:22

yeah. I think that the heart the real measure for me is whereas private equity, right, because you think of them as sort of the ones who are the toughest minded The, the really sort of the ones who are going to focus on on short term success. So it turns out that actually, most of the private equity funds were beginning to take a pretty serious focus on ESG. Now, the problem right now is that a lot of the firms have invested in had some pretty bloody balance sheets and so they’ve got to repair that, but I think you’re going to see because of COVID or multiple have consequences COVID that environment will come back and ESG generally will come back as with a vengeance in about four or five or six months. And so I think the the investor winds are behind the entrepreneur. They were their social entrepreneur was fighting an uphill battle. I think the winds are going to be to their back. The old Irish saw it made the Sunday on your face and the wind at your back. I think it will be for the next. Yeah, fortunately, because we need it.

Adam G. Force 23:25

Yeah, I agree. It’s interesting, huh? Yeah. So it’s nice to see a lot of this is scaling. You know, like social entrepreneurship, for example, was when I started Change Creator several years ago, there was nothing out there about it. I couldn’t find anything about it. There was maybe one book it was called make good by a couple young guys and I read that book and inspired me, but nothing else was available today. It’s in the top universities around the world. You know, it’s like, that’s something

Blair Sheppard 23:54

I remember one of the founders of social entrepreneurship actually came to Fuca… It, there was a lot of snubbing going on at the time, and now the he actually unfortunately died. But but his legacy is incredibly powerful now, right. And so I do think though the problem is that we need to sort of understand the depths of the issues we’re grappling with, and have a kind of consensual agreement on what they are. Because one of the dangers with 1000 points of light or a million points of light is that each point goes in a different direction. And so you have entropy. Yeah, right. And so we need essentially for the community you’re part of to actually talk to itself and agree on what what it thinks is most important, allow all sorts of innovation and entrepreneurial activity, but at least have some sense of direction. So that we make progress because the risk is everyone goes into something really cool, but it doesn’t add up. Yeah, it’s also why we need the institutions to be there. We need To be reinvented, that’s that’s the thing who’s going to be hardest are going to see need some heroic leader in those institutions?

Adam G. Force 25:07

Yeah, those are great points. And I see it a lot actually with some of the entrepreneurs we’ve spoken to who are working in, you know, areas like Cambodia and other countries. And it’s all from the ground up, starting with the community working outwards and pulling in these institutions that support and already know the community well, so everyone works in collaboration. The community is educated, informed, and we get all their insights because they’re close. They’re living their day to day, so it has to come for them.

Blair Sheppard 25:37

Yeah, exactly. It has to happen to scale. So an example, there’s a guy in India who left the second largest national bank, been very, very successful business leader, and essentially said, this is the wrong answer. We need massive entrepreneurship. So he created this thing called the Global line. So massive entrepreneurship. Here’s the story. He’s talking about, he believes that in the next decade, India needs a minimum minimum of 10 million new businesses that are successful, not started successful. Wow. That’s a tall order. That’s a big order. Right. But so so the thing that’s important here is that the other thing we need is not just a general sense of direction, and I and you’re right, it’s going to come from being embedded in the community because it will tell you what’s needed. But we needed at massive scale. We need way more listeners than you now have, like orders of magnitude 10 times greater. Yeah, yeah, for this to work.

Adam G. Force 26:39

That’s that that is the challenge. I mean, and the key is, you know, can we can we shift how people are thinking about business fast enough, and get enough successful businesses off the ground?

Blair Sheppard 26:53

Well, I think that, you know, in a sense, we’re gonna have a whole new group that will have to So, so if you think about the number of people who are made career and know a lot about something that are going to lose a job to technology, and you think about the number of people who actually are going to be out of work as a result of COVID versus staying period of time. Yeah, we have to get a huge percentage of that group to actually think of themselves as social entrepreneurs, not people looking for a job.

Adam G. Force 27:26

Exactly, exactly that. And that is, that’s it. We see that now to like more people who had been in business and they’re not there, they lost their jobs, like they’re trying to get online now. And they’re trying to start their own businesses. And I think the opportunity is more ripe than it ever has been. It’s just, and that’s where we step in. And we have programs where we’re helping people understand how to get there faster, and do take the right steps, right, because we all need a community of support and these things. So there’s more and more of this happening, and I’d be curious to understand like Where did you get 10 years from? Like, why do you say 10 years?

Blair Sheppard 28:04

Well, it wasn’t. We came to it on happily but grudgingly right? Because I’m an optimist. Actually, you wouldn’t tell it by the title of the book. I’m an optimist. And so it actually, it’s what happened is when we looked at what we call the crisis, prosperity, so the people who think the future is going to be worse than than the current reality, and therefore Why bother? Right? Right. Turns out that as we looked at the data that all comes to life in 10 years, so let me give you two groups. 50% of Americans ready to retire from the private sector ready to retire have less than $10,000 saved? Wow, there’s no way they can survive retirement on $10,000. No, right. Now, now then flip it and go to Africa and say there are 28 countries with an average age under 20. total population of those countries at 885 million people, which means there’s a half a billion kids that need an education a job in the next decade. So their retirement, the retirement crunch in United States is going to happen in the next 10 years. The education job crunch in Africa is going to happen the next 10 years. Climate if you take the unintended consequences of technology and carbon. Turns out that all the experts say that if we don’t get our arms around it in 10 years, the feedback loops make it turn much worse. Right if you if you take a look at the trust issues, trust in institutions have been inclined to declining steadily year after year after year after year. Harvard’s trust index that basically said we’re getting to a point where we’re not that far from revolution, right and and if the thing continues at the pace of Tat, what occurs is the whole thing blows up, right? It looks like in about 10 years, it gets to a point where you’ll have irreversible so what happened is is Every time we look at one of these crises, what we discovered is there’s a decade to solve it. Now, here’s the thing, Adam, right? You’ve got to understand the answer to the problem, you got to begin solving it, you have to start really having an impact by 10 years, don’t you don’t just have to start focusing on 10 years, you actually have to have it, at least largely, but gun to be solved a big task.

Adam G. Force 30:23

Well, and it requires immediate attention. And you hear a lot of companies who say, well, we’re going to shift to this sustainable format over the next 10 years or get there and Mike, okay, that’s not gonna help.

Blair Sheppard 30:34

Exactly. It’s too late. This is the part of the other reason we wrote the book. And the reason for the title. If you look at it, it’s a pretty dark title.

Adam G. Force 30:40

Right? And we Let’s read, let’s read the title real quick for everybody. So 10 years to midnight, for urgent global crises and their strategic solutions. So let me just tell everybody, make sure we’ve been talking about them. But let me be clear on what those four things are. We have the crisis of prosperity, technology, institutional legitimacy, and leadership. These are the key Exactly. Okay.

Blair Sheppard 31:01

Exactly, exactly. If our, if we don’t have leaders we need in 10 years, we will get the problem solved. If we don’t have the institution’s repaired in 10 years, it’s too late. If we don’t solve the consequences of technology on climate and honor society, it’s too late. And if we don’t solve the disparity problem, and therefore the sense of lack of prosperity, then it’s too late. Right? So yeah, and the book is a black cover. It’s got a clock on the front, right. So so it’s meant to scare people. And I don’t like scaring people. But the thing I want to emphasize for everyone is, we really only have a decade people, right? And so we got to get to it. And and we can’t and so I think, Adam, part of the point you’re raising is even the well intended people. And there’s a lot of them don’t have the sense of urgency. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 31:51

Yeah, exactly. And we see it all the time. And you have to scratch your head and wonder, you know, like, Is that is that going to be helpful to accomplish that by 2050. So…

Blair Sheppard 32:05

By that time your kids are going adult and they’re living in a world you don’t want them living in.

Adam G. Force 32:08

well, right because I always think of, I can’t I always mix these up Murphy’s Law, Moore’s law, which one is the compounding effect

Blair Sheppard 32:15

Uh…Moore’s Law. Murphy’s laws what bad, what could happen bad will happen. Right, Moore’s laws is a compounding effect.

Adam G. Force 32:21

Right I think of Moore’s law. And I think that you know, as we have certain traditional, I call it a traditional mindset, these old school mindsets like these people have worldviews on, oh, that’s not gonna happen. Oh, and we’re so manipulated, easily manipulated and stuff like that through these commentaries and narratives and stories. These are the Moore’s Law effects. So if we’re waiting another 10 years, like how much deeper in this hole Are we going to be because as the population grows, and we’re straining the resources and all these things are happening, it’s just gonna keep compounding year after year. saquon. Oh, it stresses me out.

Blair Sheppard 32:57

Yeah, no, I do think I do think actually in a way It’s a terrible thing that happened. But actually, the silver lining in COVID is I think it it’s a wake up call. Right? You don’t you can’t you can’t possibly miss the fact that there’s a bunch of people being left behind by our economic model. Yes. You can’t miss it today, right? You can’t miss. So you take any of the crisis we were describing, you can’t miss the leadership challenges, right? You, you can’t you can’t miss the unintended consequence with technology. And so I think in a sense, it raises the urgency and you know, we’re muddling through. I agree that one other words after muddling through, but I do think people are waking up to this is pretty serious stuff.

Adam G. Force 33:42

There is I think there is there’s definitely a shift but you would, I mean, I don’t know about you, but I have been shocked by it. You know, one of the things we teach is storytelling for marketing. Blair, you know, how storytelling has created all social progress throughout history, right. This is how we communicate as human beings And the fact of the matter is factual information is not what changes minds, unfortunately, right, so you have these old worldviews that are very, very difficult to change. And despite how bad leadership is today, I won’t point out Donald Trump or any of those guys, but it is so bad, but people will still find a way to only see what they want to see. Right. And they continue to support someone who’s potentially leading them to a very bad place. And this is what blows my mind. So you’re, when you mentioned that people are shifting and I think some are, but there’s still a lot of people who no matter what you show them, like factually about something, it’s not changing their mind.

Blair Sheppard 34:47

So I think we have to tell good stories. Right. And I think I think we have to highlight is it’s a collective leadership problem. You can’t just point to one person say they’re the problem. Of course, it’s a it’s a collective leadership problem, right. So so I think that the thing we have I have to do is we have to start crafting two kinds of stories, right? So, in a way, we tried to do this, and I don’t know if you succeeded, but we tried, which is we, and we tried to create a two act book or two act play that was pretty dark. Just say, look, it’s urgent. It’s important now, but there’s actually a lot of hope, if we do something about it. Right. And I and and I think we just have to get a lot of people to do the same thing. And, and so I agree that, that in a sense, at the heart of your point, though, is that unless we add leaders we need none of the other stuff will occur. Right. And we talked a bit about that’s a it’s a different kind of leader, right? I mean, so that’s the key issue, in part is we prepared leaders. Remember I created a business whose job was to actually create leaders in the world right, and it was a pretty successful business. You can blame me for the proper

Adam G. Force 35:53

What did you do?

Blair Sheppard 35:55

You know, Blair, You’re writing a book as a guilt thing. So, but the thing is we’re preparing people for the world I described now. Now, here’s the challenge of leader today, they essentially have to reconcile things that are inherently paradoxical. Let me give you three examples. Right? So one of the things we talked about in the crisis of technology is actually the technology, the people who built technology because it didn’t understand people well, and human systems, well build technology, they had these very negative consequences for society and individuals. So you know, one example is that mobile telephony is taking the executional part of the brain and making it dumber. Right? They didn’t mean to do that. I promise. They didn’t mean to do that. Right. And so but the issue is they had they didn’t know enough about psychology or sociology or political science, right. And so what you need is a leader who’s really technically capable, because if they don’t, it’s not technically capable. They’re irrelevant today, but understands people and human systems. To help people work, right? You need a leader who can bring people with very divergent factions together, but actually has massive integrity. Now ask yourself, just take those two examples. How many who are computer scientists? You know, studies, psychology, sociology, political science as well. How many sociologists and psychologists studied double E. Right? Right? How many? And if you say how many people you know that you think it was really good political, do you think of integrity, right? And so what you have to do is we have to take another example, think about people have to fix institutions. They can’t just break it and throw it away. They actually have to recognize what’s central to the thing, its core traditions, and then innovate around everything else. Yeah. So the job of a police force is to make us feel safe.

Adam G. Force 37:48

Yep. And remember

Blair Sheppard 37:50

that and cherish that and then innovate massively right. And so that’s hard. So now we have we said to a leader, look, you’re living in a world where people People just can’t get together, living in a world with a massive need for change immediately. They don’t trust you. And by the way, your job is harder than there’s ever been before. Because you got to put things that are inherently at odds with each other together in yourself. Yeah, that’s tough. Yeah. And so it’s my only point is that the day a couple things in that first people are going to have we’re going to accept that people are imperfect. But the other point is leaders probably gonna have to surround themselves with others who have the compliment to themselves, right? If I’m great at technology, I better have a psychologist is my number two, right? If I’m really political, I bet every person who’s sitting as my conscience on my shoulder, if I’m really willing to take tough, courageous actions, it’s better to have one who’s pretty inclusive and remind me this mistakes I make right on a regular basis. Right. So but but we’d never prepared leaders for that world. So I think we got to give them a bit of a break and say, Let’s help you But But you know, it’s not their fault. It’s It’s It’s our collective fault that we are the leaders we ask for Really?

Adam G. Force 39:06

Yeah, I mean, that, that there’s so much truth to that. I mean, everything that the world is presenting us right now is just the result of our own collective thinking, right? Mm hmm. I mean, that.

Blair Sheppard 39:18

Here’s another example of why you should be really mad at me. You know, I was the Dean of a business school, we taught the stuff you said was the problem for 70 years, right? And so we have to essentially unlearn all the stuff we were teaching his professors and teach a different model. That’s not easy, by the way, right? So but the thing that’s important to recognize at the time, it was right. It’s wrong now. It’s, it was right for the moment, the moments a different moment now. And so we need a different worldview, a more complicated one. And I’m just

Adam G. Force 39:49

happy that people like you are acknowledging it and taking action and you know, like I, the younger the generations get, I see that they’re more and more geared up towards this stuff and Now obviously the older generations have older traditional thought processes that are those worldviews that are tough to change, but with the right stories and the right people, you know, it I don’t know, there was a documentary on Netflix about some like religious group and stuff, but their key strategy was to be very close to all the the leadership like in government and politics, because they had the most influence and we kind of are in the same place where these people of influence have to be sharing the right messages.

Blair Sheppard 40:29

I agree. I mean, I agree that essentially, the people who succeeded in the world I described are the ones are going to have to provide the resources at least, and facilitate us going where you need to go. So sort of what we need is the energy of the use, and the resource and the support of those old like me, right. And, yeah, I think we put those two things together. It’s unbeatable. It’s, it’s that’s the American story. By the way.

Adam G. Force 40:53

It is the it is the American story. I will let you know. I heard from someone who’s associate engineer And he’s like, he’s like, Listen, unfortunately, the way this is gonna work is we’re gonna have to face a complete catastrophe and breakdown before everyone bounces back. But, you know, the question is, we usually do bounce back, we usually do innovate, and we come through at the last minute. Unfortunately, it is always the 11th hour that we respond and make things happen. But I’m putting my my faith in the fact that we are resilient as a species and that we can figure this thing out.

Blair Sheppard 41:29

Yeah, and you know, there’s an important point, right, which if you go back through history, we have confronted times like this before. Yeah, it turns out, it goes one of two directions. We either create the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, or we have warm revolution.

Adam G. Force 41:46

We have plenty of that’s for sure. That’s an ongoing so

Blair Sheppard 41:49

Soo we could use another enlightenment another….

Adam G. Force 41:53

We could use another enlightenment. Please, let’s change gears. Exactly.

Blair Sheppard 41:55

And And to your point that those were created by people who took stories and people who are willing to do massively entrepreneurial things.

Adam G. Force 42:04

Yes, right. Yeah. You know what, Blair, that’s a great note. Let’s end with the push for enlightenment and inspiring entrepreneurs who are listening today to be conscious of these four key areas of crisis and how we’re addressing them through our efforts and businesses.

Blair Sheppard 42:23

Great. I enjoyed the conversation a lot. It was it. He took me someplace that I haven’t thought about for a while. It was really fun. Thanks.

Adam G. Force 42:30

Now I tend to get that a lot. Listen, let’s give everybody a shout out where do they find your book? I mean, obviously, Amazon probably just like where do they connect and learn more all that stuff?

Blair Sheppard 42:41

Well, a couple things. So the book is 10 years to midnight. And it’s on it’s it’s available everywhere, including independent bookstores. And if you look at 10 years, midnight Blair Shepard, it’ll take you to the website and PwC has a bunch of background material. Cool and and I hope you did. Again and if anyone has a question, I’m easy to find. There’s only one person that you’ll get when you when you click on that information.

Adam G. Force 43:08

I appreciate it. That is awesome. Well, thanks so much for your time and your expertise and all the great work that you’re doing.

Blair Sheppard 43:14

Thanks, man. Keep going. We need you.

Adam G. Force 43:20

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast. Visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

Cory Lee: Going From Idea to Selling Several Companies!

Listen to our exclusive interview with Cory Lee:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What if you have an idea to do something HUGE, like start your own gym but don’t know how to make sure it works? Well, Cory Lee and his wife built 4 gyms and 2 health clinics in 5 years and sold them, so we decided to talk to them about how it all worked.

Cory Lee is an entrepreneur, business builder, and leader developer. He was trained and mentored by the world-renowned leadership expert John Maxwell and is now an executive director with The John Maxwell Team. In 2012 Cory and his wife opened their first business, a physical therapy clinic located in a town of only 1,100 people, Within 5 years they were billing over $2 million per year from that one location and had opened and successfully sold 2 physical therapy clinics and 4 gyms. Cory is an accomplished speaker and is often invited to speak and train employees at companies looking to develop a culture of leadership. He also provides individual leaders with opportunities to maximize their own growth through one-on-one coaching and mastermind groups. Cory is most passionate about helping entrepreneurs navigate business growth but not at the expense of their faith, family, and fitness. When he isn’t helping companies and individuals grow, Cory can be found spending time with his family. Cory and his wife of 14 years Kimberly reside in Mississippi and have 3 children: Colton (9), Kendall (6), and Brady (4).

Learn more about Cory and his work at > https://www.coryleeleadership.com/legacybuilders

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host Adam forest co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and like to go big visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash growbig to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. What’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. Happy to have you here. If you guys missed the last episode, you can check it out. Damian, not Amy. Nope. Danielle and I talked about what digital conversations are and what they mean to your business. This is just an important marketing perspective to understand. So if you missed that one, check it out. There’s a lot of gold nuggets in there from Danielle and I. Okay, so For this episode we’re gonna be talking with his name is Corey Lee. All right, so he’s got a quite a background in 2012 him and his wife actually they opened up their first business and he’s going to talk about how all that stuff happened. But it’s interesting and you know, it was a physical therapy clinic and they also had some gyms, they started a gym. But within five years, they were billing over $2 million a year from just one location, and then they opened up a bunch of others, but they ended up selling two physical therapy clinics and four gyms. All right, so massive build ups and sell exit strategies, which is really cool. So he’s learned a lot over this time and how he actually kind of tested the waters got things off the ground, all that good stuff, and we’re gonna I’m gonna dive into that with Corey so you guys can really get some insights on how that all worked and how he made it happen. All right, so you know, he does a lot of talks. Now around company culture and leadership, and supports people on their own growth paths, right with coaching and mastermind groups, and he’s going to talk about some of that stuff here today as well. You know, outside of that Corey is a family man. He’s got three kids and all that good stuff. And I think you guys are gonna really enjoy this conversation. So lots to learn here. So stay tuned. Latest and greatest, you know, it’s interesting, because we had a, I had a conversation with somebody that sold 14 businesses now just the other day. So that is Greg shepherd. So that interview is going to be coming up soon and a few weeks. But something that was really interesting that he brought up about, we always say you got to slow down to speed up. And one of the things he mentioned was, it was he said, you know, you have to put more time into planning than you do in development. Not that you want to get stuck in the planning phase forever. But you know, we really do want to like build a strong foundation. That is the point he gives a really good story that demonstrates that So you’re building a strong foundation and taking your time on the key fundamentals, so that when you’re ready with that, the rest is going to go. It goes quick, right? The build is the easy part. It’s getting the right strategy and making sure that you know what you’re doing and you’re testing and you’re ready to rock and roll with a strong foundation that makes all the difference in the world. That creates fast growth. Right. So another exciting thing that happened recently that I haven’t really mentioned here on the show is I got this email the other day from I saw from Shark Tank on ABC. And I thought it was gonna be some like trick or spam. But no, it was actually their clearance department where they get legal clearance because they want to they want to show Change Creator magazine on Shark Tank. So How exciting is that? We were pretty jazzed up and pumped about it. So yes, Change Creator is going to be getting their appearance one way or the other on Shark Tank. That’s going to be the Blake Mycoskie, magazine cover because Blake is going to be a shark. So we interviewed Blake, there’s a video interview, you can check out that we did. And we put them on the cover of the magazine. And so he’s going to be a shark on there and he’s going to tell a story and part of his story and his road to success. He’s including Change Creator, so they’re going to be putting the magazine up on the show and people will get to check it out. Anyway, I thought that was exciting. And this is what good storytelling and Marketing Leads to and attracts people to and these bigger things then take place and that’s why we teach what we teach in the captivate method, guys. Okay, so let’s dive into this conversation with Corey. Okay, show me the heat. Hey, Cory, welcome to the Change Creator podcast. What’s going on, man? And how are you doing?

Cory Lee 04:46

Adam, thanks for having me on. Man. I’m excited about our conversation and really just talk about what’s going on. It’s just an exciting time. We were talking before we came on. We have three kids and they are all back to school. So maybe a little bit of sense of normalcy kind of coming on as well. So excited about that.

Adam G. Force 05:06

Yeah, was that that’s it. Where are you located? Again? I forgot.

Cory Lee 05:10

We are actually in Mississippi, um, people will hear the here the southern slang and they say you from Texas, right? I tried to cover it up, but I can’t but I’m from Mississippi.

Adam G. Force 05:20

Okay, Mississippi. Alright, so kids back in school that gives a little takes a little pressure off. I know, I’ve been talking to a lot of other my friends in my network in the entrepreneurship space. And it’s tough because they’re becoming the teachers, you know, as well. And it’s just adding this layer of complexity. Kids are getting bored. And, man, it’s just a big mess.

Cory Lee 05:40

Yeah, yeah. So here, they had an option of going back or doing online stuff and our son, he said to me, so you’re not gonna have me behind technology all day, are you? Yeah, they love people just as much as I do. And they want to go back. So yeah, it’s good stuff.

Adam G. Force 05:55

Good, good, good. Alright, so why don’t you give her us all just a little bit background. I know you’ve had an interesting past when it comes to building businesses selling them, stuff like that. So I think we want to dig into some of that today, because there’s just a lot of questions around how all that works. And so if you can just kind of tee us up a little bit with like the background in a nutshell.

Cory Lee 06:20

Yeah, so in a nutshell, so my background is actually in the physical therapy space. I’m a physical therapist assistant. And, you know, my wife, she is a physical therapist, and while she was in school, you know, like many entrepreneurs, we would be driving around town, and I’d have this idea of like, you know, wouldn’t it be cool? Like, wouldn’t it be really cool if we had our own business? Like our own physical therapy clinic and Ooh, you know, wouldn’t it be cool if this physical therapy clinic if we also had a gym along with it were yesterday physical therapy, but, you know, maybe we’re making an impact on the community. Well, wouldn’t that be cool? And you know, she graduated we we were actually out in Phoenix, Arizona for a time we moved back to Mississippi And about that time is when we transitioned into business. We opened up that business and we opened up. Adam, we opened up a physical therapy clinic in a town of 1100. People, man 1100 people, right. And, you know, and it was awesome. It was great. And our our focus was to make an impact on the community. In a five year period of time we, we actually had started four gyms, to physical therapy clinics, and in 2017, we sold pretty much all of that in a five year period of time in that one physical therapy clinic that we opened up in the town of 1100 people when we sold we were billing out over $2 million a year. And in 2017, we transitioned out and I now do business coaching and speaking and training, just love, you know, help an entrepreneur newars and really leaders step into their vision and their dream of owning a business or leading a team as well. So that that’s, you know, super quick super brief, kind of where I am today and what we’re doing now.

Adam G. Force 08:14

Yeah, I mean, I love that and I you know, I have been that person my wife and I were you know, we we got super serious about our health and we were going to that we were when we were living in Philly for six years we were going to the gym you know, four or five days a week sometimes he was definitely dragging me there but we made it and you know, like we kind of were like, man, it would be really fun because we always go to these gyms are like, this is cool, but man, I wish it was like this like that. And I know like there’s a market for this or that don’t make it be cool to really open up this kind of a gym. Right? So I’m curious as you had these thoughts. How did you decide on the like a type of gym to open? Like, what was the market? Who was it for exactly what was the style like? So how did you come to conclusions on what would make sense and Was there any preliminary testing to figure out this would work for you or not before you went all in?

Cory Lee 09:05

Yeah, that’s, that’s funny. So, you know, when we started I have zero business knowledge or business experience, right. But I had a ton of enthusiasm. And let me say we opened up in a small town, right? Like, if you would have went to a business school, they that’s probably not very smart, right? And what we did though, was kind of as you’re talking about what kind of jam and those kind of things I just did what I enjoyed to do, right like I was thinking about the gym, what what would I love in a gym? What what kind of classes or fitness or what kind of equipment would I like, and what people what you find is people are attracted to passion, right? And people saw the passion that we had and that that attracts people, the passion that you have for your business is very attractive, you know, yeah. And, and, and not They people with passion, they stand out. And people take notice. And a lot of people will get caught up in that way. So for us, it was just really what we were personally passionate about. And people were attracted to that, you know?

Adam G. Force 10:14

Yeah. I mean, I like hearing that kind of commentary. And I’m wondering, you know, so people say they’re attracted to Pat, and I think they are. I mean, I think there’s more like, when I worked in corporate years ago, they would say, what’s the width of them the what’s in it for them, and always thinking about the customer? And they’re gonna say, well, what’s in it for me? And they think more today we’re hearing will, what’s in it for you from the customer? Like, why are you doing this business and why would I work with you and they want to know a little bit more so having that passion and a real intention behind it, such as, you know, you had, I think translates like you’re saying, Yeah?

Cory Lee 10:55

yeah, you know, and, and as you’re talking there, what I found too, is when you You are passionate about, you know, you hear people talk about what’s your purple cow or I know you say the golden calf right? What makes you stand out? Well, what, what helps you exceed expectations? Well, I think it becomes easy to exceed expectations when you’re doing something you’re passionate about. So you you serve your clients or your customers, or however you define them to a higher level when you are passionate about what you’re doing. And that’s what I found for us anyway. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 11:28

Yeah, it’s true. It’s true. Um, you know, so let’s say you got this passion, you decided to do a gym that, you know, kind of reflects who you are. And you know, there’s other people out there like you that are interested in the same thing, right? And that kind of starts defining this differentiation. It’s, it’s based on yourself and your story and all that kind of stuff. But there’s got to be a point where we’re making some real business decisions, right? We got to put the CEO hat on, and we’re going to have to make decisions because you know, while the passion takes us to a certain point, there’s a A lot of mistakes to be made that money can go flying out the window or you hire the wrong PR and marketing teams too early or who knows what you buy the wrong equipment? Or you get a lawsuit? I don’t know. You know, so you got the CEO decisions to make. So we got to have a combination of passion and business smarts. So what were some of the steps like, let’s just let’s just stay with the gym idea for now. Because I’m super interested in that. And you know, this is obviously a physical store, but like, what were some of the early decisions in getting that set up from a business standpoint on Well, how do we get members? How do we get equipment? Like how do we get the money to do all this? Yeah,

Cory Lee 12:41

Yeah, yeah. So from the gym standpoint, I’ll tell you. We just started doing exercise classes out in a field and in a park, you know, and we would do that and we charge people $5 a class. And, you know, as that bill, we kind of, I guess, I guess you could say we kind of tested it that way. Yeah, yeah. And kind of built slow. And even then the physical therapy side, we built slow, right? We didn’t go all out from the get go, we, we built slow and developed relationships. And then from there, as the money did start coming in, then we started to invest in our business. But, you know, you talk about some of the decisions that we made when we started out slow, and we developed relationships, and we went from there. But, you know, as, as we grew, what I also realized was john Maxwell talks about being the lid on your business, you know, as the leader or as a business owner, you are the lid on your business, that your business will never exceed your ability to lead it. Yep. Well, I inherently kind of realized that that I was the lid on my business that I couldn’t do everything and I shouldn’t be doing everything and that we had a big dream. And if we needed if we had this big dream, then we needed a big team and that’s when we really kind of once we got it. Going saw the need to bring your own team members. And I’ll be honest with you, that was probably one of the scariest moments of our business is when we hired somebody else, right? You know, scary, leaving my job and my wife leaving her job. But when we hired that first team member, that that was probably even scarier, because now somebody else, you know, the decisions I made didn’t just affect me and my family now they affect to somebody else’s family. Right? And, and really, that drove me to become a better leader and to learn. So when we just started out slow and then also realized that we didn’t need to be doing anything and shouldn’t be doing everything. I mean, find other people that that kind of could fill in the gaps where my weaknesses are, and there’s many of them and where somebody can fill those gaps and you know,

Adam G. Force 14:49

Yeah, no, it’s important, and I think timing is important for when you do that stuff, right. So yeah, I’m sure you got a taste of that. And I think like you You answered one of my questions already, which was, you know, how are we testing these big ideas before we’re dumping, you know, all this money into it to find out that it doesn’t work. And there you go, everybody. I mean, here, you know, Cory, when they went to a park, they had people pay a few bucks, were they interested, but they’re also now just getting attention kind of building an audience, if you will, right, getting people familiar. And, you know, here you are, like, testing out the idea. And it’s like, if you’re getting people to sign up, and they’re taking the classes and they’re doing the thing, you might have a little something there. You can also have an audience to get some feedback from and learn from and connect with and all that kind of stuff. And they can become little word of mouth marketers for you. Hey, oh, this new gym is opening, right?

Cory Lee 15:40

Yeah, exactly. And that’s, that’s exactly what we did. You know, and I remember one night, we had just a real small area, but we had 41 people show up one night for one class. Oh, that’s great. And that that was kind of at the point that we realized, you know, we needed to do something we needed to take this. I think we have something here, you know, Yeah, yeah, it started out just doing a little bootcamp class at a park you know, for $5 a class but but but but also starting out small. It didn’t overextend ourselves, but it also helped us get good at first, right?

Adam G. Force 16:15

Yes, yes. Yes at the flow.

Cory Lee 16:18

Exactly. It helped me to. It really helped me to learn how to not only structure class but manage a class. And not only do that but pay attention to each person, too because it can and we’re talking about Jim stuff, but you know, it’s very easy to get going with all your hats that you’re wearing as a entrepreneur trying to get going you’ve got a market you got to do all these things, but Miss kind of the needs of the people that are coming to you, it’s very easy to do that. So it helped us get good first and grow, grow at a good pace as well.

Adam G. Force 16:54

Yeah, I like the idea of get good first, like, learn the flow. Get familiar. You know, you don’t have the overhead of a ton of equipment and a storefront and all that kind of stuff. So you got a lot more flexibility, less like stress and weight on your shoulders to figure this out. And so you got it. Now I am assuming when you started, you must have started somewhere where there’s like, you know, almost like maybe you had a class and nobody signed up, or then you had two people and then five people, and there must have been a little bit of progress there. Is that true?

Cory Lee 17:23

Oh, yeah, definitely. You know, and, and that could easily be dis discouraging. But then also found, you know, two people showed up, you know, and if two people I very much value time, I very much value my time. So I try to value other people’s time as well, right? They made a decision to get in their car, to drive to wherever we were, they made the decision to get out of the car. And if it’s just those two people, then I need to show up for them. Right. And because behind each one of them, there’s a behind that tree. There’s a forest Other trees, right? And they need to take care of them for the fact that they showed up, but then the the secondary part of that, too is, you know, if they’re served at a high level, when it’s just them, you know, they become raving fans too. And that’s what we love to create, right?

Adam G. Force 18:17

Yeah. I’m curious, can you tell me a little bit about when you started getting the word out to invite people to this concept that you have to see if they would come and join? How did you get the word out? But more importantly, what was your story that you were telling them of why you’re doing this and what this is all about?

Cory Lee 18:37

Hmm, that’s good. That’s good. So you know, you do the all those social media type things. And what we did at the time, was just post pictures, put it on social media, we tagged them, and you know, they love seeing that and they would comment and, you know, that does something to the Facebook algorithm and those kind of things but we’re also very intentional to not This is where we had failed in other parts and sometimes fail in the business now is being intentional about hey, you know, we’re having class Thursday, invite a friend, right? specifically asking for that referral, if you would say, right in and really getting going that way. Kind of getting that marketing out really helped that way too. And in our story, too, you know, like I said, we wanted to do something that was impactful for the community, we did not want to just be another business that was part of the community. So we want to impact the community and one of our visions was, Mississippi is constantly one of the most obese states in the country where the whole country has obesity epidemic, right? Well, Mississippi has the number one is always you know, one of the worst and could Not stand that right, we wanted to change that. And that was kind of our vision for it. And, and one of the visions I had was to make this town, this town of 1100 people, one of the healthiest small towns in the state of Mississippi. And that was kind of my vision for it. And you kind of cast that now, making making this town, one of the healthiest towns in the state of Mississippi. I never really said that to anybody other than myself. But But the other part was the vision that I was trying to cast where we’re doing this kind of community type thing. We’re wanting to be a part of the community. And, you know, when there were community events, we tried to show up, Ryan and we tried to show up and kind of unique and different ways you know, and just being a part of the community and real quick own that that was kind of my vision for it was to make this town one of the small, healthiest small towns in the state of Mississippi will. The year we transition out they were awarded a Blue Cross Blue Shield award for being one of the healthiest small towns and The state of Mississippi which was really cool to kind of see the community do that and to be a very small part of helping them do that too. So that was kind of cool.

Adam G. Force 21:10

That is kind of cool. I like that. So okay, so we got through this process of kind of getting your story out there change is having an impact on the community and you know, kind of doing doing something special and from the heart right talks about you know, you were talking earlier about how important it is to have passion in the business. And so you got that out there as your marketing and spread it on social media invited people to the parks, no overhead, great, great way to test this type of thing. Now you’re ready to buy a place it did. I mean, I find it daunting. I go into a gym and I don’t know how big the gym is or what kind of gym you have. Exactly, but you know, it’s like you got to get all the equipment, you got to get a location and buy the property and all that stuff. How do you handle those types of things like what Are some of the steps just high level that you had to consider in order to make that happen?

Cory Lee 22:07

Yeah, so that that is funny you say that because a lot of I’ll be honest with you, Adam, a lot of my stuff is out of ignorance. Right? So. So, you know, like I said, we had 41 people show up for one class one night, and our physical therapy clinic was, was really busted now the same. So I remember telling my wife, I said, You know what, we’ve got to do something, it’s time to do something. We were renting the space for the physical therapy clinic, and we were just meeting at the park for the gym stuff. And I said, You know what, I think we need to build something, let’s buy some land. And let’s build something. And I said, you know, I’ve seen some signs on the way into the clinic. I want to call them tomorrow. So Adam, I get get to work and as lunchtime and I’m about to get in my truck to go Look at the signs and I see this lady from the bank walking over. And I know she’s coming to talk to me, I was like, ah, and I know she’s gonna talk and I love her, you know, she’s super nice. But man, I really want to look at these land this land, right? And she comes up to me says, Hey, I see what you guys are doing in the community. And I just want to let you know, my husband and I have some land. And we’ve kind of just like to give it to you for a very small fee. And I, you know, we want to give it to somebody who’s gonna make an impact in the community, and, you know, I just want to listen about it. And I was like, Okay, well, I mean, that’s cool. You know, it’s probably not gonna be very good land, but I’ll go look at it. I go look at this, and it is prime location for this community. Right. And, as I’m spot on, right, so we do that and we ended up building a 1600 Square, 6800 square foot building that had our physical therapy clinic and actually today in there, in this, this was kind of, you know, you think about up until this point we were charging people $5 a class, right? Yeah. Well, now we’re moving into a building that we’re building. And we’re about to go up to $75 per month. Okay? So we’re asking people to make a commitment now, you know, $5 per class, you’re not really committed too much, right? I’m a contract class here, there. But now I’m committed and most gyms in that area are going, you know, 30 $35 per month, but we’re kind of doing CrossFit. Right.

Adam G. Force 24:37

Yeah.

Cory Lee 24:38

Yeah. So that’s a commitment. And, you know, it’s kind of just a leap of faith and, you know, kind of personal faith and I really felt like it was it was God ordained, I guess you would say and it you know, it was awesome. Right, but a lot of it was acting out of ignorance. I’ll be honest with you. He just gone for it. Yeah, just going for I remember sitting down with him. The contractor and tell him everything I wanted to have. I said I want to have 20 foot ceilings, you know, in the CrossFit gym, I want to be this big and he kind of dropped his pin and looked at me said you want this here? How’s that? Yeah. And I remember through this whole process talking to the bank and the bank is like, you know, they were kind of surprised that the loan went through and the contractor surprised the city approved. I was like, What are you talking about? Surprise, like, why are you surprised and you know, I can see it in my mind I see it anyway. But yeah, so…

Adam G. Force 25:36

Aw, man that’s pretty awesome dude, because you know, you’re not you’re you were not being bound by you know, I guess stigmas of like thoughts of what should be like this contractor had right he’s like this here because he just is you know, his preconceived notions. Yeah, that’s pretty cool. So you talk about having leaning into ignorance. Well, I guess there’s there is a benefit sometimes when ignorance can kind of lead you to just do what you think you got to do and kind of break new boundaries.

Cory Lee 26:09

Yeah, and, and along with that, you know, my wife, she is a very wise woman, too. And, you know, she balances out some of that. And she’s almost my measuring stick to if it’s a good idea, and if we get her blessing, she’s thought through it and prayed through it as well. And it’s Let’s go, Ryan. And if we’re both on land, and we’re all in, and I think that’s a lesson as well is, you know, once we made that decision, we were committed to the decision. And there are other decisions in the past that I’ve made where I was not fully committed, and working with entrepreneurs as well. I see them say, Well, I’m gonna try this but kind of in the back of my mind, if this doesn’t work out, I can go back to my job or I can go back and try this and I’ve found that that does not always work. Because when you make the commitment up front, that you’re all in, you have to mentally make the commitment up front, that then you’ll do everything that’s necessary to bring that that business or that goal into actual reality, you know?

Adam G. Force 27:15

Yeah, hundred percent. You know, we always say to, you know, people in our community that if you’re not willing, if you’re waiting to go all in for your business to be successful, like if you’re waiting to be successful to go all in on your business, you’re gonna be waiting for a very long time.

Cory Lee 27:30

Yeah, yeah.

Adam G. Force 27:33

People say that all the time. They’re like, Well, when I get more sales, when I am more successful, I do this, then I will invest in myself, then I’ll invest more in my idea. Hey, you know what I mean? It’s backwards chicken in the egg kinda.

Cory Lee 27:45

That’s wrong. That’s right. I know. We’re not transitioned out of the, the therapy in the gym stuff and doing kind of what I do now with the leadership training, those kind of things. Or remember early on, you know, in the back of my mind, I was doing the same exact thing as well. You know, more give this a try. But if if it doesn’t work out, I can always go back. You know, I can find a job as a physical therapy assistant, I could open up another PT clinic, but I’ll give it a try. And I had indeed.com pulled up on my phone a lot, right. And I realized that I wasn’t fully committed to the jury. And I had, you know, I had bet, you know, burn the ship to the nba.com. Right, I had to throw that out. And when I did when I made that commitment, something kind of magical happened. I don’t know what it was, but the business started to grow itself, right. And making that commitment up front is key for us.

Adam G. Force 28:38

Yeah, it’s tough when you got your mind in multiple places, trying to be good at multiple things, right. So it’s like, if you can find the focus, you got it, you only have so much time and energy, so you got to put it all in there and try to make it happen. Now. Some people need to make money on the side here and there, but the more the more of that percentage of the pie of your time and energy you can put towards your Your primary focus the better.

Cory Lee 29:02

Yes, sir. That’s right.

Adam G. Force 29:03

Yeah. Now tell me a little bit about like, what’s going on today. So I think you were in business for five years, but you sold everything. How much did you sell it for? And what are you working on? Exactly. Now? How are you helping entrepreneurs?

Cory Lee 29:15

Yeah, so I’m gonna say we had the physical therapy clinic. And in that five year period of time, we sold off the gyms kind of individually. Okay. We sold the physical therapy clinic and we sold it for over a million dollars. Yep. And one thing that I noticed, Adam, that this was a key lesson for me was that I knew I had made a mistake, right? And the mistake that I had made was a leadership mistake. Our business was growing. We were doing great. But I had developed a bunch of followers, right, people who went above and beyond, we talked about five levels of leadership. Well, I hadn’t developed any leaders who could step in once I stepped out When that happened, the business kind of went down. Right? This kind of back is back up now. But But that was a mistake that I made I you know, one of the things that we talked about is, as leaders, the power isn’t within us the power is in empowering other people. And I did a poor job of that. But that was a lesson for me. So we later on sold the two physical arms or the two gems, the 24 hour gym and the CrossFit gym, to a friend of mine, and was a little bit more intentional about that. So he started out actually as a member, and he has some great leadership qualities, some great leadership traits. So kind of in that he became one of our coaches. And then over time, he continued to develop and he became our head coach. So then he kind of took on more, more roles and responsibilities, and when it came time to sail, he was the obvious choice to sell it because he was the leader of that group. And now you He’s taken it on to, you know, even better than what we had it but, but that was a lesson for me that, you know, to develop other people to see the talent and potential within other people and extract that talent and potential and put them in the positions to succeed and that’s how your business grows. That’s how it actually multiplies is by developing leaders within your business. So,

Adam G. Force 31:24

Yeah, no, that makes that makes a lot of sense. And you know, you guys got to that point. I’m curious were like, Did you always have the exit strategy in mind? Like within five years, we want to sell this. Was that always the plan? No, not one bit.

Cory Lee 31:41

It wasn’t right. It never was. Right. So again, I am a person of faith and, man, I loved it right. I love the business. I loved every aspect of it. I love the business side, the marketing side, the the leading and all that stuff, right. And I remember, you know, God told me I said, hey, you’ve got you’ve got this out of the realm priority order. And I tried to negotiate with God. Right? Well, hold on, you know, I’ll put it back in its place. Right? And, you know, it’s like, you know, you gotta you gotta let it go. And the best decision we’ve ever made right to do that, because it’s allowed us. I have grown personally, and professionally, I would say, almost need to telescope to see how far I’ve come since then. Right. And and I don’t think I would be from the personal growth standpoint where I am today, if we hadn’t made that decision. And one of the things that really helped make that decision as well as you know, I loved it. But we had small kids too. In that five year period of time we had the four gyms and two PT clinics. We also had three kids during that five year period. And I can remember one night I had been at the gym early in the morning at five then I was at a physical therapy clinic all day and I was about to leave again is about Four o’clock in the afternoon to go coach all the CrossFit classes that night. And I was telling her older son Good night, and that I would see him in the morning. And this is at four o’clock in the afternoon, right? And he says that he, you go into your house. And it hit me that I had been spending way too much time away from our family. And that had gotten out of the wrong priority order. Right. So it was never intentionally planned that way. But But also, I’ve realized in this growth to some of my gifts and talents or to encourage and motivate other people, but also to get things going to get things off the ground and get people excited about something and find someone else to hand that off off to and we could probably do a whole podcast on on that as well. But that’s been a real growth that has helped me to see some of my where my giftedness lies.

Adam G. Force 33:54

Yeah, I mean, that’s awesome. And now you’re doing some speaking Are you mentoring anybody? What’s going I like that stuff.

Cory Lee 34:01

Yeah, so I do speaking and do one on one coaching. I also do some leadership training where go into businesses and work with their leadership teams and call it developing a leadership culture. But one of the things we’re really excited about and passionate about right now is helping male entrepreneurs kind of get their businesses up and going. And really, if they’ve been going for a little bit how to get it to the next level, one of the things we found is, again, had zero business knowledge or business experience, but we had a ton of enthusiasm, right? And we realized if our business is going to grow that like we’ve talked about, and as you probably know, Adam to is that we’ve got the grown right as the leader, we’ve got to grow. So we read the books, we went to the courses, the seminars, the webinars, all those kind of things, but we had people who can mentor us from a distance through their courses and material but I didn’t have that individual or that group of other guys that I could go to to share some ideas with and say, Hey, what do you think about this who could up level my idea who can also relate to what I was going through in business, or even served as guardrails as I wanted to grow that business, but not at the expense of my faith, my family and my fitness. So, as entrepreneurs, we created that right. So we’ve created a mastermind group specifically for male entrepreneurs. And, man, that’s been fun. That’s been exciting. And I love seeing what’s happening with their men that are in that group. And I know you have a community as well, I would just want to encourage anybody that’s listening to really fully take advantage of the group that Adam is offering there, because there’s some power in community there.

Adam G. Force 35:37

It’s true. I mean, I like that you started the mastermind, and you can support people that way, because you’re right. I mean, the idea of surrounding herself and getting that real time feedback, asking questions, getting coaching, like, I can just imagine in my mind right now a car that’s racing down the highway and when you mentioned the guardrails, it’s like, they keep you from going off in a million different directions off the road. You know, he You get to this point of no return, because we have so many ideas and decisions that it’s so easy to go off on a tangent. And so you know, a year goes by and it’s like, oh my god, like what have I’ve even been doing?

Cory Lee 36:12

Exactly right.

Adam G. Force 36:13

Yeah. Happens all the time. All the time. Yes, sir. Good stuff. Yeah, it is good stuff. I mean, that’s the challenge of entrepreneurship. And, you know, every great entrepreneur has a mentor or coach or community. It’s just inevitable. And I hate like when people talk about being a self made entrepreneur, because there’s no such thing. There is no self made entrepreneur, everybody has what they have because of the help of other people. That’s right. Listen, record. I really appreciate you sharing your story and your insights and some really great key lessons. These are all applicable. These types of lessons, whether you’re online or offline business, just the idea of testing taking these steps and you know, hiring at the right time, you can definitely hire too early. So a lot of people will say you got to delegate the things that You’re not an expert in. And Cory, I agree with that too. But I want to make a clear point for people that timing is important there too. Because, you know, if you’re starting a business and you don’t know who your audience is, you don’t know how to sell to them. You don’t have to share your story and connect and get people on board. Hiring that out is going to be a challenge, right? Because you’re just kind of like saying, Here, create that strategy for me take take something I love, and you figure it out for me. And I feel like you went through those early stages. And then when you were ready to grow and really get the gyms you hired out to take the next steps, but you kind of had the strategy in place, right?

Cory Lee 37:35

Yeah, yes. 100% I’m glad you clarified that because you definitely can and, and I found that people, you know, when you hire team members, people fail as being a team members when they don’t get proper training, or when they don’t know what winning looks like. And then the other one is the attitude which hopefully you’ll catch that in the interview process, but they fail when there’s not proper training. And if you haven’t figured out how to do so, So with those things to properly train them, you know, then that’s that sets them up for failure and it sets your business up for failure as well. And, and you know, and when they don’t know what winning looks like, that was a another big lesson for me is Hey, can you do this? Right? But but not telling them what winning looks like so

Adam G. Force 38:18

yeah, exactly, exactly. No, it’s just it’s one of these little things that gets kind of like missed. So I want to just kind of point that out. It was important. Thank you so much. I really appreciate we’re at the end of our time here. I think it was a really great conversation. I’m excited to hear more about how you guys continue to make progress. How can people just you know learn more about your mentorship and everything that you got going on?

Cory Lee 38:41

Yeah, I don’t appreciate man. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. And I hope this has added value to your listener. So Adam, I’m a I’m a I’m a cookies on the bottom shelf kind of guy, right? You got to keep it simple. So I’ve created a page for your listeners specific to your listeners. I got them two free gifts to write but but on their own this page I’m going to give to you it has, you know some information about our legacy builders mastermind group. And you know, it’s got the icons on how you can follow us on social media too. But I’ve got two free gifts one is a, a personal assessment where you can kind of ask yourself these questions, see how balanced you are in life. But add on the other one is a spousal survey, right? So you get this and you hand it to your spouse and they answer questions from their perspective about you. And and, you know, it sounds tough, but I promise you, it opens up great communication if you’re going to have a great relationship with your spouse, and I believe this world needs a mommy and daddy who are united, right? And anyway, anyway, it opens up great communication. So those can be found at www Cory Lee leadership.com slash Change Creator and that’s just for you and your listeners there, Adam. I appreciate you guys.

Adam G. Force 39:56

Awesome. I appreciate that. Cory that’s pretty cool, man. So guys, You could check that out we’ll put it when we get this published formally on the website. We’ll have that there for everybody to grab. And I’ll make mention of it in the intro and all that stuff. So, Corey, Thanks again so much for your time appreciate it man and let’s stay in touch. Awesome man. Um, I thoroughly enjoyed it man. Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast. Visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Adam & Danielle: How Digital Conversations Drive Your Business

Change Creator · Adam & Danielle: How Digital Conversations Drive Your Business

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What are digital conversations and why is it so important for you to become an expert in them? Co-creators of The Captivate Method share everything you need to know.

This talk will cover…

— Digital marketing and vacuum sales
— The role stories play in our online business
— How we navigate the Story Map

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Danielle Sutton 02:43

I got all the good weather. Really, it looks nice.

Adam G. Force 02:46

We got the rain out here over the ocean. And we’re we’re looking today to talk about a digital conversations you know what is a digital conversation and why it is essential for your business now. It’s something that really came to mind for us, actually in the past year. And it’s a way of framing something up because we are storytellers here, right, Daniel. And we look at marketing a little bit differently because we’re trying to come at it from a very authentic place. And this is just what has worked for us. So Danielle, and I were talking just a little bit before and I’ll let tell you a little story about how he came up with this and what it actually means to you and your business. You know, we were running paid ads for a while and putting a good chunk of change in there. And so when we were doing that we kind of gotten absorbed into the world of these funnels. Right now everyone’s talking about funnels for years now or like, you know, it’s part of the sales process and nurturing someone to become a buyer and connecting with them and things like that. But it’s very the way people talk about marketing right now and they talk about funnels. It became very got, like absorbed in it and a little bit lost in it. And it became very cold as this process, right? So we have all these different pieces of the puzzle online. And we would be putting them together and mapping them out, oh, we gotta say this, we got to do that. And, you know, it was all about the transactions and getting the buyers and all these things and you kind of get lost in this marketing thought process. And it’s kind of like what we talked about in the first Facebook Live just past Monday about, you know, stop thinking like a marketer. Because at the same time, when we were not getting the sales we were looking for, we would follow up with people, we get on the phone and what happened. We, they we would get on the phone for just market research to find out Well, why didn’t you buy and get that feedback? But what happened was, we would actually end up getting questions from them and they would then join our program and become a buyer right? So there’s someone that we can help and we started scratching our head saying Okay, so it didn’t work going through through our funnel, right and then when we get on the phone we’re able to make this happen. And we were like, Well, how do we I literally remember this at night, one night text messaging Amy and Danielle, and I was like, I think we need to just shift the way we’re thinking about these funnels and look at it as a digital conversation. How do we take those types of phone call conversations, and start applying it to all the pieces of real estate online and make it effective and warm. And remember that these are people we’re talking to, right? They’re not widgets that we’re just trying to get across the finish line. And it kind of changes how you think about each piece of real estate online. And everybody that we spoke to on the phone is unique and had and we had to tailor that conversation and it’s really no different that’s what really kind of led us to being more personalized and leaning into like behavioral marketing and things like that. So the digital conversation is the is replacing this idea of funnels to remind us that we are having a conversation right Daniel, it’s like we always talk about knocking on the door. When people go door to door selling vacuums. And they get an hour of somebody’s time. And they sit down. And as that person’s talking, I don’t need the vacuum because or, you know, I have, I’m skeptical because of this, and you get to give a tailored response. And we like to use stories. So we’re storytellers, and we have our stories that we tell to help people get around those barriers. But in the digital space, you don’t get to sit down and in real time, tailor the conversation. So you’ve got to think of how do I take that conversation and put it in the digital space? So that’s sort of that’s, that’s,

Danielle Sutton 06:34

I think that… No, no, that was a perfect intro. And it’s true, like the digital conversation is just bringing the whole experience for both the person providing a solution and the person seeking a solution. Back to the human way of doing things. I think people can get really tripped up when they are trying to build an online business by Yeah, the minutiae of the tactics and the like, what’s the click through rate. And what’s the CTA the call to action? And what’s the ABC c d step? Right and, and of course, every bro marketer and their cousin is teaching all of these strategies. And if you don’t do it exactly the way you’re supposed to, then it’s not going to work, right? And, and so it’s really easy to get sucked into this vortex of like digital marketing, best practice. But the reality is, if we strip away the digital veil, we’re just humans getting to know each other, and providing, you know, a puzzle piece fit where I have what you need, and you need what I have. It’s as simple as that. That’s business, right? So we need to kind of get back to the basics. And that’s why this whole philosophy of the digital conversation has worked so well for us because we’re not thinking of a funnel in a linear step by step. approach. Of course, you know, there’s things we might be trying to improve and iterate and there’s always kind of those details. But at the fundamental level, how are we thinking about the relationship we build with the people are in our world, like in our realm, right? And it’s about that two way street, it’s having that conversation. So one example I shared with Adam was, you know, if you have two people at a ping pong table, and one person is shooting the ping pong across the table, if you don’t give the other person a chance to reply, or like being part of the game, then the game is gonna be very, very short. Right?

Adam G. Force 08:25

It’s such an important part of the process. It’s really a perspective shift. And when you have that perspective, shift, you start, you don’t look at it and say, I need to have these really clever benefits outlined on my landing page. It’s, it’s you’re thinking about it differently. And you’re thinking about, well, at this point in the conversation, what needs to be said where are they it really forces you to think about where they are and their own journey. So you can say, Oh, I understand where you’re at. Let me let me give you information that’s going to help you understand this better, right. Will this work for you? What’s it going to do for you? Like, what do you need to hear based on where you are in that journey? That’s a really important point, we’re adding warmth based on the perspective we have with this digital conversation format.

Danielle Sutton 09:07

Yeah, it makes a big difference really. And like you said, with the, the door to door salesperson, even like a more modern example might be thinking of going for coffee with somebody who you met at an event and they said, Oh, like I’m really interested in what you do. I’d love to learn more. You know, let’s meet for coffee. We might have aligned interests. I’m sure this has happened to you. It happens a lot. Right? And and then when you’re there in the coffee shop with your lattes, you actually can ask these questions like Adam said, and you can address misconceptions, which is another big piece early in the process, you know, to help someone understand more what what your what you are offering and how it can help them. All of these little touch points, you know, can go really quickly in a one hour coffee chat, but online, they’re gonna be very in pieces. And so like Adam said, how do we think about where we tell each other stories so that the person on the other end gets the full picture. Even if it didn’t happen in a one hour Sit down. Right? Yeah.

Adam G. Force 10:08

And that that is the key. I mean, and this is like a big shift when it comes to marketing and everything that we’re kind of talking about. So, you know, we, we go through this a lot. And this is something that we’ve now adopted into the captivate method teaching as we go through it, because we, we get into this thing called a story map in there. And so I know nobody knows what that is, because it’s something that we just made up, it’s proprietary. I’m gonna tell you about it. So basically, what happens is, you know, you learn how to connect with people, you learn how to set yourself up, but the story map is going to be kind of like a compass for you, right? And the way we look at it is, well, where is somebody in the conversation? And so we have this map concept, and it’s like, well, maybe they’re not even aware of you as a company. So that’s like you’re at the intro phase of the conversation with the buyer. And then you think about well, what’s the next step of the conversation? Like, how would it develop? If you bumped into someone like the vacuum cleaner? It’s like, Who are you? What are you about? And you get, that’s the beginning. But if as they get warmed up, they know who you are and things are changing. They’re gonna move down the line on the story map, right? So we’re mapping out where they are. And then based on where they are, well, what stories do they need to know at this point. So now we’re aligning which sales stories and things they need to understand. This is not a way to manipulate anybody. This is a way to be relevant and personalized and make sure that they have the right information. And we use stories because you don’t just tell people things because that’s not going to be effective in the sense that they understand it in a way that you want them to with a lot of clarity. Clarity is a big word around what we do. And so stories are better because they demonstrate and people get aha moments and they go oh, I see how that could save me time? Oh, I see how that could apply to my life, right? So it becomes very clear. And so that story map goes through every phase of that buyer journey and all the stories that are most relevant at each stage to be very effective in in our marketing. So that’s a big piece of like, what has a kind of like, come to life, if you will, based on the idea of this digital conversation? So yeah, I mean, that was I just wanted to share that. And I don’t think we’ve ever really talked about the story map outside of the program.

Danielle Sutton 12:33

No, we haven’t. But it’s one of my favorite tools. Because again, so we’re not it’s still there’s still a strategy with these digital conversations. It’s not like we’re throwing all the best practice out the window, but we’re shifting the lens that we look at it through, right. So with a story map where things like Adam said, are they even aware of of your business? So there’s certain places online, where it makes the most sense to share those stories about you and why your origin story? Why you started your business, what your values are, and how you got there. And those stories go really, really well in certain places online. And then in other places, you know, because of how we logically, you know how someone moves through this digital conversation later on, we need to tell different stories, so that they can, like Adam said, see themselves in your examples. So it’s relevant to them, and they’re able to understand if it’s a good fit for them, again, it’s not manipulation at all. It’s like, let’s give them the information so they can make a decision. And if you only have part of the information, you’re not going to make a decision. And that’s like as you and you shouldn’t be like you. It’s our job as the communicators of the value that we provide to give our listeners enough information to make a good decision for them. And that’s how it’s Win Win and that’s how your impact grows. And that’s how people can really benefit from what you have to offer.

Adam G. Force 13:58

Yeah, hundred percent. And it makes me think about something that I learned over the years. And it’s not something I’m making up. It’s something that our mentors have taught us and helped us mature as entrepreneurs. And so I’m going to share this little pro tip with you is funnels don’t really matter. They will optimize your financials, in some regards, I totally get it. But you can say, Oh, look at this formula, this this funnel flow, or this webinar model or framework, whatever it might be. And those things don’t actually matter. They work for certain people, and they accomplish certain things based on all the trial and error that particular entrepreneur might have had. But what really ends up mattering is, do you know exactly who you’re talking to? And what stories are you filling the funnel with? So now when we call it a digital conversation, we’re saying, we’re here to build a relationship. And yeah, we have stories to tell you so you can get to know us you can get to know why, what we stand for what our product will do for you. And now we’re having this conversation and warm them up, it doesn’t you can put them through all kinds of different funnels, you just need to have the them filled with the right messages and the right stories. And that’s why we focus on that so much in captivate, because it’s all about the storytelling that’s like the fuel for the car. I don’t care how you build the car, but

Danielle Sutton 15:19

It could have all it could be top line car, right Ferrari level components.

Adam G. Force 15:25

Exactly. I mean, you can get Russell Brunson webinar script or his funnels, and if you put crap in it, it’s just not gonna matter. It just will not work. Okay, so this is how a lot of people also get hung up, because they’re like, Oh, I put all this stuff together. And I’m gonna now run this ads and you know, $5,000 later, it’s like, oh, my God, like, I don’t have sales, what’s going on? It always comes down to how we’re communicating with people. So storytelling is what has created movements. This is what has created all social change. And if you’re not harnessing this as the CEO of your company, It’s gonna be a long road, I think. Yeah, yeah.

Danielle Sutton 16:03

Yeah, I agree. I think Adam Let’s leave everybody with a little challenge because we didn’t talk about this before. But I think now that we have shared this idea of the digital conversation, I want you to listen like pay attention to somebody new a new business or a new person that pops up into your perspective and if they interest you, like pay attention to why you want to keep learning from them or why you don’t and if you decide to take the next step with them and like kind of go meta on on somebody new in your world and just notice you know, how they do the digital conversation well or not well, I think he that some, some experiences from the receiver and can feel very, you know, flat or dull or just plain annoying, right? And some are such a gift and you think like I can’t wait to hear from this person again. So just notice that as a as a receiver of the messages.

Adam G. Force 17:02

Yeah, absolutely. I think that covers everything. I mean, the the primary takeaway really just comes down to, you know, how we think about is I had a note here. Yeah. So I mean, the primary takeaway is really just how we’re thinking about our marketing. If we step away, remember that we’re talking to human beings, that we’re building relationships. And these are conversations, just because we’re online, let’s not lose touch with the fact that these are conversations with people. We’re not just filling online widgets and hoping for sales like we’re actually talking to people. It’s just that we’re doing it in a different way. So you know, we focus a lot on how to how to use each piece of real estate, what stories to tell, I mean, there’s a lot of moving parts. But when you become a master storyteller, this stuff is fun, right?

Danielle Sutton 17:51

Really fun because it’s just as fun as getting to know someone new at the coffee shop or at the bar or meeting a friend of a friend. You know, that’s the feeling we want. Be able to have so.

Adam G. Force 18:01

Exactly exactly and listen, one of the things that I love about storytelling and these marketing principles that we’re teaching is they are not a fad they’re not come in and go in and like gonna get oversaturated or die out and they don’t work for some people but not others know, this is tried and true. It’s proven throughout all our history. It’s just a matter of really getting to know how it works for your business and putting it into practice. It will work for you and it’ll work for the remainder of your years as an entrepreneur

Danielle Sutton 18:28

Yeah, I’ll back to clarity right you get that clarity and you can rock and roll.

Adam G. Force 18:34

Coming here from Change Creator, we are all about making the world a better place. We are all about helping people. So when we talk about selling and getting rich, we mean Yeah, get rich and money get rich and fulfillment help people make the big difference in the world. All that good stuff.

Danielle Sutton 18:50

Awesome, thanks Adam

Adam G. Force 18:50

Thanks for tuning in to the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other things great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Jon Macdonald: Get More Sales Through Smart Optimization of Your Existing Website Traffic

Listen to our exclusive interview with Jon Macdonald:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What if you could increase you monthly revenues without spending more on ads? What if you could just optimize what you already have and jump your sales up monthly? We decided to talk with Jon MacDonald, who is the founder of The Good, which specifically helps brands optimize their conversion rates to get more sales from existing website traffic.

Jon MacDonald is founder and President of The Good a conversion rate optimization firm that helps brands convert more of their existing website traffic into buyers. The Good has unlocked results for some of the largest online brands including Adobe, Nike, Xerox, The Economist, and more. Jon regularly contributes content on conversion optimization to publications like Entrepreneur and Inc. He knows how to get visitors to take action. As President, Jon has helped lead The Good to become one of Oregon’s top 20 fastest growing private companies. The team at The Good have made a practice of advising brands on how to see e-commerce sales double or more. In recent years, brands that have worked with The Good have seen an average revenue increase in revenue of over 100%. Jon volunteers for several causes throughout the Pacific Northwest and is an active committee member of industry associations and peer groups such as Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).

Learn more about Jon and his work at > https://thegood.com & https://jonmacdonald.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

SPEAKERS

Adam G. Force, Jon Macdonald

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host Adam forest co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and like to go big visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash growbig to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. What’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the show your host here at force. If you missed last episode, we had a killer conversation with Gino wickman. If you don’t know Gino, he is the author of a famous book called traction. He also runs a company that has over 400 employees based on the Eos program. So we tap into all that stuff in that conversation. A lot of great insights about what it really takes to be an entrepreneur. Now Gino says not everybody’s cut out. So do you fit the mold and what does he mean by that? So really important conversation, and the guy knows his stuff. So dive into that. That was the last episode again, it was Gino wickman. Today we’re going to be talking with john McDonald. So john McDonald’s founder and president of a company called the good. And he’s all about conversion rate optimization, right? To help brands really convert more of their existing website traffic into buyers. I mean, something that we all want, right? So we want to get the most out of the dollars that we spend, we, at some point in our businesses, we have to actually put money into our marketing, right, the organic stuff is beautiful, and it should always be ongoing. But sooner or later, sales will plateau and we have to expand our reach and do paid marketing. And that means bringing more traffic to our website. And then the key is to get the most out of it. So the more people we can actually get into our sales process and have them become customers, the better the and the healthier the our business will be. So we’re going to talk a lot about converting And sales, optimization, all that kind of stuff today with john. So I think you’ll get a lot of value out of that. And just a heads up. So if you’re catching this today, today is what July 14. So starting next week, this will not be a timeless point here that I’m making. But if you are catching this at the right time, on the week of the 20th, we will be doing a live series on Facebook. And we’re calling it the mid year boost because it’s all about kind of what we’ve learned from this first half of this year and all the chaos with the pandemic and the civil rights movement and everything that’s happening. You know, we’ve all kind of have to take on different ways of thinking about our businesses and all that stuff. So we want to give people a mid year boost kind of reactivate and energize our businesses for the second half of the year. So we’re going to be doing a number of topics on that specifically, and to help out the different entrepreneurs and that’ll be going Live, I think it’s gonna be every day at noon next week. So the week of the 20th every day at noon, you can catch us on our Facebook page or group, okay? Now if you have a particular issue or challenge or something you’re facing in your business, and it’s a topic that you want us to think about covering, you can go ahead and email me directly. I’m happy to take your email Adam at Change Creator mag, comm email me, let me know what you’re thinking. And we will weave it in there. And then you’ll if you’re on our email list, we’ll we’ll put notices out and stuff about when we’re going to talk about different things. So, guys, yes, so live series next week, it’s probably something we’re gonna do more and more of, but we want it to do this mid year boost, because it’s just been chaos in twine in the first half of 2020. But a lot of entrepreneurs are having the best month of their lives. So let’s get into it so that you can start having the best month of your life on the second half of 2020. All right, guys, we’re gonna jump into this conversation with john McDonald. Don’t forget to visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go be okay. Show me the heat. No, you go. Hey, john, welcome to the Change Creator, podcast show. How’s everything going, man?

Jon Macdonald 04:11

Great. Thanks for having me today.

Adam G. Force 04:13

Yeah, you’re welcome. You know, like I’ve mentioned to you before this call, I’d love conversions and sales, and we need lots and lots of them. So I can’t wait to dig into it. So just tell us a little bit about, you know, where you are now with your business and how you got there just so we can get a sense, you know,

Jon Macdonald 04:35

of course, so the good we are, as you mentioned, a conversion rate optimization firm, so we help brands to convert more of their ecommerce visitors into buyers or customers. And we’ve been doing this we just had our 11th anniversary a couple weeks ago. So it’s been over 11 years now. And you know, we started out as a development shop ecommerce development shop. We were helping brands to Get online. And pretty quickly what we found was that was one commodity, right? So there were tons of development shops out there. And all of e commerce was moving over to software as a service like Shopify, etc. So they didn’t need that custom development, that high level development that we were able to do. And so I saw that trend coming down the line. And our mission at the good is to remove all of the bad online experiences until only the good ones remain like that. Yeah. And that’s how we got our name. And so I kind of went back to the roots and said, Okay, what are we what can we do that’s going to have the biggest effect in our mission? And how are we going to affect change online? Knowing that, quite frankly, shopping online is a pain in the butt, right? It can be can be, and it’s come a long way over the past 10 years, but you know, I went around the country and I interviewed all of our best clients and asked them why they hired us and said, You know, I’m just going to show up at your door, can you give me 1520 minutes, I’ll bring a coffee, whatever it takes. Everybody was willing to have a conversation, believe it or not, which was amazing. And they I heard kept hearing a common theme between all of them. And that’s that they didn’t hire us because we could build them the best website that hired us because we knew that one when we launched the site, it wasn’t going to be perfect. And to that, perfect perfection is not obtainable. But an continual iteration of improvement on the site, to make the consumer experience better to remove all of those bad experiences, was really the the methodology that they fell in love with and why they decided to work with us. And lo and behold, that’s basically what conversion rate optimization is today. Back then it really wasn’t a term. So that’s how we ended up where we are today.

Adam G. Force 06:59

Yeah, I love that. It’s it is it is an interesting art to really go through that iterative process. And I think, especially with a lot of people in who are probably listening right now I, we’ve been down this road ourselves, Amy and I and our team and stuff and many others that we’ve coached and things. So it’s people who like when things aren’t working, we can get into like this panic. And instead of really diagnosing the problem and making very simple updates and testing, we start changing everything and then we just get lost in this world of changes and we don’t know what’s working and then it just leads to this stress. That never really gets you to your your mark. Right, your goal. Have you seen a lot of that happen?

Jon Macdonald 07:46

Yeah, you know, in the best way to eliminate that stress because it is super common is is to use data, right? So don’t don’t guess and instead, don’t, don’t follow your competition blindly. Right, because you don’t know if something’s actually working for them and so many brands that are starting out, look at their competition. And they say, What are they doing? I need to do that too. Well, that creates a sea of sameness, right? And if you’re not going to be a little bit different than how you’re going to stand out and when, when that customer, yeah. And second, you really don’t know if it’s working for them or be if they were running a test that you got opted into, and you’re just seeing the test. And they were just trying to figure out if it’s working. Yeah,

Adam G. Force 08:30

yeah. I mean, what’s under the hood, you have no idea. Like, you see the surface of the model. And you’re like, and we see that too, like, Yeah, that’s a great point to make. Because people tend to look at their competitors and model them without really knowing like, what the magic sauce is underneath, like, based on circumstances you mentioned, or just all the workings that are happening that you don’t know about.

Jon Macdonald 08:51

Right? That’s exactly it.

Adam G. Force 08:52

dangerous, very dangerous, and it does happen a lot. We’ve been we’ve been down roads like that, you know, several years ago where we were, we thought we were being smart. And I always got to a point now, that was my first business with the second business Change Creator, I was. People will say, well, let’s do you have you done any competitor research? I said, No, I don’t care about my competitors. I’m not even paying attention to them anymore.

Jon Macdonald 09:14

And it’s interesting, but best econ businesses that we run into, say that exact same thing. They’re not concerned about their competitors, they’re concerned about providing the best experience for their consumers. Right. So, you know, if you track every click and movement on your site, and you can do this in aggregate, I’m not talking about individually identifiable information here. I’m talking about you know, looking at analytics, understanding where people are dropping off in the funnel, where they’re exiting your site, perhaps even where they’re spending a lot of time on an individual page, which is contrary to most marketers, most marketers will say you want a high time on site. I always say you want the slowest time on site possible because you want people to be able to get in accomplish the task they showed up to your site to do and then leave, because they’re not there to hang out. Right? They’re there for two reasons. One is to something or somebody told them that your product or service can help them solve a pain or need that they have. Yeah. Right. So they’re there to do that research. That’s the first thing. And then the second thing is if they determined that your product or service can help solve that pain or need, they want to convert as quickly and easily as possible. So anything you do to get in the way of that research or tech conversion, and it just makes people frustrated, and they have to spend too much time looking. So just tracking every click and movement can really help you understand what people are doing on your site, what content they’re engaging with, and there’s a lot of different types of data that are readily accessible are all within privacy regulations, and all can help you to just have a better experience online.

Adam G. Force 10:58

Yeah. I think that It makes a lot of sense. And I think a people where people get tripped up, and they’re a little bit afraid, is understanding how to not only read the data, but to even track it. Right? This is, this is not easy for a lot of people, especially when you’re in your first few years of business or you’re running solo, and you don’t have someone familiar with Google Analytics or whatever, you don’t know who to hire. If you hire them, you don’t know if they’re, you’re doing the right things. So like, you start having to figure out this foundational strategy at the beginning. And then you could really start tracking these things. And I think, you know, hiring obviously, a team like yours, who knows how to read the data to track these things is valuable. But what tips might you have for somebody to start thinking about their e commerce shop right now? And what kind of you know, analytics would be valuable for them to look at? And is it just as simple as using Google Analytics to do it?

Jon Macdonald 11:58

The short answer that Yes, it is. And here’s the thing. A lot of people do overcomplicate this and they get concerned that they they’re jumping into a tide pool that they can’t, they can’t swim in. The problem here is that Google Analytics in itself is out of the box is, you know, not that complicated. Now, you can add layers on top of it to get more rich information and have a better understanding. But don’t stress out about any of that. Now, all you really need to do is just set up two things on your site, Google Analytics, and hotjar hbot. That’s going to give you heat maps of where people cursors are on your screen and where they’re touching on mobile. It’s going to give you scroll maps how far down the page or people scrolling on desktop and mobile, and it’s going to give you session recordings. So this is going to be where they’re going to show you a user who and how they clicked or several users and how on average, they click around your page where their mouse flies around their page that kind of gives you an understanding of where they’re looking on a screen because yeah, on desktop, your cursor is generally followed by your eyes locked. So now, these pieces of data are not as overwhelming as people might make them out to be. And the best way to just get over that hump is set your expectations low, and just say, I’m not going to become a master at this right away. And that’s okay. All you really need to do is dive in and take a look at that data on a regular basis. So maybe every other day, spend 15 minutes look into the data. Right? All you need to do is just spend a few minutes a week. You know, if you’re spending more than an hour a week, I’d say you’re even probably spending more time than you should be looking at this data. Here’s what you’re looking for. You’re looking for an AB banalities. So what are the days or the things that are happening on your site that spiked or dropped and then trying to just look real quick and say okay, what did I do that day and that caused the spiker that drop. Did we send out an email and some message was really, you know, provoking and got people in? We did we make a change on the website that people really liked. You know, just all you have to do is look back on that. And it’s really about the rhythm. Right, you’ll start to see

Adam G. Force 14:17

the signing process. Like, when you say rhythm, it makes me think, like, get into a process that’s consistent and gives you the feedback loop that you need, basically.

Jon Macdonald 14:28

Yeah, that’s exactly it. And the only way to truly have that perspective that would come with a feedback loop is to be looking at it on a regular basis, so that you know what, something that is abnormal looks like, right? Otherwise, you don’t have that baseline. You don’t know the trend. And that’s really what you’re looking for here is just if you can pay attention to one thing, it’s just what’s the trend over the last week, over the last month, year over year, and then you can start doing you know, more advanced things, you know, and they’re not Given that advanced, you should use something in Google Analytics called annotations, you can google how to do that. It’s pretty quick and easy. But that’s just like, Hey, we sent a marketing email this day here is the topic. And you just start logging those things into Google Analytics with the date and time that you did them. And that really can help you just have some idea of what you did each day to your site, or your marketing activities that can really help you notice why those trends were changing.

Adam G. Force 15:28

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think, you know, as people are measuring these things, and this is in our program, the cat’s away method, we hone in on on making tracking important and simple part of the process because there is no growth without tracking, right, like you just, you’re just throwing darts without a dartboard, basically. And it makes a huge difference in one of the things that we have found personally with Change Creator too. I mean, right now we’re running conversions. You know, you know, lead magnets, opt ins and things like that are Around 70%, right. And I think you know that a big change occurred for us, not just on, you know, optimizing what’s on the landing page and things like that as far as like button copy and things. But it was as our story got more cohesive, and it aligned to the audience we attracted so they were the right audience, right from Facebook ads or wherever the traffic might be coming from, that holistically all work together more cohesively. So now the story was clear, the audience was attracted and related to it. And the conversion rates went way up, because it used to be closer to like, you know, 25 to 35%. And now, it’s going higher and higher and higher as we get more dialed in to that that internal narrative that the customer has.

Jon Macdonald 16:46

Well, I think you’re you make a really great point there, Adam, which is that a vast majority of folks run ads, and there’s no real connection to the landing page. You’re sending people to Yeah, in that connection, that context, the When somebody comes to a landing page, I get calls every day, we’re talking to people who want us to help just optimize landing pages, and they call up and they say, Hey, you know, we just want to touch our landing pages. And it’s like, Whoa, you know, that’s like telling me that you need new tires and only changing one tire. Right? It’s, you’re going to leave so many more problems there. Because that could really be solved. So don’t fix just a part of the problem, right? You need to fix the entire problem. And we don’t do anything at the good with driving traffic. It’s not where we play, we play on site. Once somebody reaches the site, we help make sure they convert as quickly and easily as possible. But understanding the context at which people are arriving at the site and what messaging was sent to them is a very integral part of then optimizing a landing page to resonate with that same audience and with a similar message so they know they’re in the right place. You know, obviously that message got them to click on the ad so then don’t He’ll he won’t ignore that message once they get to your site. But then a lot of people, it’s really, really common to bounce off of a landing page, but do something like just type into the browser, URL bar, the the the base URL for the site, because, you know, most landing pages get rid of navigation, things of that sort. So people look at, you know, if you’re not paying attention to the trends of data, you would just think two things really quickly, you would think somebody bounced off your landing page, and it was the ads weren’t working. Because when they come into your site, it’s going to be a organic or direct visit, because they just typed in the URL or deleted everything else out of the URL, just to get to your base site, right, your homepage. And so, you know, if you’re not paying attention in the data, you would miss that connection. And instead, you would just think, well, I’m getting a lot of direct visits. My ads aren’t working because people are bouncing off of the page, so I don’t need the ads anymore. Yeah. So it’s really easy if you’re not paying attention to data, too. To make assumptions like that, as opposed to data back decisions about what has been effective, what is actually working?

Adam G. Force 19:06

Yeah, no, it’s a great point. And you do have to look at the holistic experience, right? Not just a part of the funnel, you had to look at the entire funnel. And, you know, the steps in the tech are great, but to your point, just keeping things cohesive, having that story, really aligned just throughout the whole process is so important. And another thing that we have found valuable and I’d be curious to hear your thoughts is really thinking about where the traffic is actually coming from, because they are going to be in a different mindset, as far as the buyer journey. So if you get in front of someone on Facebook, that’s very passive, in sense of, they’re just kind of stumbling across something they weren’t actually looking for it versus, you know, a search platform like Google where they’re looking for something specifically, and you might offer it so that you already know they want that and the expectation is there versus on face. It could be a little bit different. So like we started adding certain things on the page, like, here’s what to expect with this. And we tell a little about who we are build up our credentials if they don’t know our brand, and, and we have seen stuff like that help the conversions. When we put the right information, it could be about us, it could be expectations, or whatever the offer is, and things like that. It seems to help a little bit. I’m wondering if you have any similar experiences?

Jon Macdonald 20:26

Well, again, I think it’s all about, you know, making sure you have more than one landing page. Yeah, a lot of a lot of brands that are smaller that we start working with, what they’ll do is just have one landing page and say, I don’t understand why this isn’t working. The challenges you know, you if you’re hitting on different pain points, again, remember people only clicking on that ad coming to your site because they have a pain or a need they’re trying to solve and they think that you know, you can help them do that. So you need to that needs to resonate and every audience might Have a slightly different pain, or a slightly different reason for clicking on that ad. So tailoring different landing pages to different markets and different ads you’re running can be really, really valuable. And I think it’s really important, you know, as you get into Google and people are searching around certain pain points in terms that you have a landing page that matches up with that, and is optimized for that. To address that concern.

Adam G. Force 21:26

Yeah, yeah, no, that’s such a good point. I love the idea of having multiple pages for to tailor it based on who that audience set might be. Another interesting thing that we learned was to separate your experiences between paid and organic. So we have it’s the same product, same sales funnel, but we have one for organic and one for paid and they could be tweaked accordingly. But you can also see the variations in the results and stuff to see what what’s doing better.

Jon Macdonald 21:57

Yeah, and again, it’s all about having to the right data tracking, right? I mean, this seems to always come back to that point. But it’s true like, otherwise you don’t know what’s effective. And you don’t know what’s actually being engaged with your consumers. So you really need to have that data to both, you know, the qualitative and quantitative side. And that means go and just ask people to take a look at your site and give you thoughts on it. So this is something that gets missed quite a bit. We, we do more advanced user testing, but this is again, something that a lot of people hear user testing, and they’re like, I’m gonna just run the other direction because I think it’s really complicated. You can make it very simple, especially right now while people are, you know, in their homes have more time because they’re not commuting, etc. Offer to get somebody on zoom, and just do or Google Hangouts or any of those and just say you know what, I want you I’m going to give you a 15% off coupon or gift card, for my Store whatever it is, I just want 1015 minutes of your time. And what I’m going to do is, we’re going to load up the website, you’re going to show your screen, your camera and your audio, and you’re just going to answer a couple of quick questions, you know, and speak out loud as you’re going through that process. So what do I what I mean? Well, first of all, let’s say you’re selling t shirts, just high level example here. You could tell people find the right t shirt and right size for you. Then just be quiet. And ask them to talk about what they’re thinking as they go through that. And there’s, you know, okay, well, I’m trying to find where the T shirts are on this site. Now I want to browse what category I like in these t shirts. Now I’m going to try to figure out what size is the best fit for me, and how do they go through all these decision points, right, really is eye opening. And you can learn so much just by watching somebody and observing somebody do that on your site.

Adam G. Force 23:52

Yeah, I mean, that is a classic UX, you know, way of doing things and seeing and I mean, that’s what hot jar is. helping with too. It’s it’s a little different experience. But I do love hotjar and the tools that you mentioned, because they are super powerful. And getting that kind of like, especially when it comes to e commerce, I think it is really powerful to see people and how they navigate your website. So you can see where are they getting hung up? And I guess it would be a little bit different when you see it in person versus you know, the hot jar approach. I they both serve a similar, I guess purpose, but you can definitely get some interesting different points, I guess.

Jon Macdonald 24:31

Yeah. And that’s exactly it. I mean, it’s having a full full picture of not only what people are doing, which is one hot jar will tell you, but also why they’re doing that. And that’s what you would do user testing for.

Adam G. Force 24:43

Yeah, that makes sense. And I feel like a lot of people, especially early stage entrepreneurs, will feel like oh, like I just need to get this up. And they kind of don’t take these types of things seriously. Like it’s not, they’re not there yet. Or you know what I mean? And they skip these types of steps. And then you know, a year goes by, and they realize they’re just kind of treading water. And they’re not really making progress. And they wonder why.

Jon Macdonald 25:11

And this is, you know, again, if even if you don’t have any traffic to your site, you could do user testing. Yeah. And I highly recommend you do that before you would you’d go live with any new new site, you will have a harder time until you start getting more traffic to really see trends and data. But the traffic level doesn’t need to be that high. Right? I mean, you could have, you know, a couple hundred visitors a week and you’ll start seeing trends. It’s just a matter of, you know, making sure that you’re getting that more qualitative data early in the process.

Adam G. Force 25:45

Yeah, I mean, exactly. And that that becomes a big thing for people. I think you hit the nail on the head when it comes to the traffic. It’s like, well, I don’t have that much traffic. So why would I go through all this effort to set up this tracking and everything else? I I started When people say that, because you’re gonna have to get traffic for your business one way or the other, and like you said, even if you’re getting 100 people a week, that is data that you want to be tracking, you just hope I guess the key thing too. And maybe this is a big point that when you work with your clients, it’s like, well, let’s say they’re getting 1000 people a week. But I guess my first gut check is well, are they the right people? Right, like, because if we have people that are totally irrelevant, you know, like, sometimes people will want to cut corners and be like, Oh, I’m gonna do Facebook ads, and I can get tons of traffic, and they’re just doing these countries that really have cheap ads and traffic, but they’re not necessarily their target audience. So is that even relevant data now? And it kind of like voids the whole thing?

Jon Macdonald 26:44

Right? Yeah. And you think that it’s really, really important to, you know, focus on converting your core audience before you would expand out?

Adam G. Force 26:55

Yes, yes. Yeah. 100% Yeah. You know, as as early entrepreneurs, a lot of times people have a very deep fear of, we call it a niche FOMO of actually going Nish, like looking for that perfect customer because it’s they always have a rationalization. Well, you know, I can I can help these people in these people and I want to make sure you know, it’s like, No, dude, you’re just hurt in your marketing. When you do that. I see it all the time.

Jon Macdonald 27:23

Yeah, no reason to waste your valuable money early on in the process. Really just focus on who your target is. and get those folks to convert. Once you do that you can expand out and start driving traffic. But the, you know, this is the problem with with paid traffic in general is eventually that paid traffic. In order to get more and more and more of it, you do have to expand the breath a little bit and you get less qualified traffic, you start going after keywords that are less and less relevant, right? But early on, you can really tailor that to just the folks that are Going to be most relevant for you. And that’s where you’re going to do a lot of learning. So if you don’t pay attention to the data early, you’re losing a ton of valuable information that is going to get more watered down, the bigger you get. So not having that tracking in place. As soon as you launch is a huge mistake, you really need to set that up immediately. And even if you don’t touch it, and you just have the data flowing in, you know, fine, you know, you got to set your priorities, I get that. But if you don’t set that up immediately, then you’re not going to have that historical data over the long term to even go back and study. So it’s really important.

Adam G. Force 28:38

Yeah, makes sense. Awesome, man. Well, I think this is all really valuable. And I guess the last thing I just want to cover and then we’ll jump I when it comes to e commerce, is there anything else that stands out to you for early phase entrepreneurs, that you see regularly with with clients and things like that, that they might want to be aware of when it comes to conversion? Specifically in the e commerce world, right, not just in general, but in e commerce?

Jon Macdonald 29:05

Well, I think that the first thing you should do, as I mentioned, is make sure you have the right data tracking, and you’re actually talking to consumers when brands don’t have that. It’s a huge issue later on. But beyond that, I think that the biggest concern I see is that a lot of these small brands are looking for quick wins, and they end up falling for gimmicks. And what I mean by that is they’ll put the latest Shopify app on their site that they feel like is supposed to somehow magically increase conversions. And the reality is they just don’t. There’s no quick win when it comes to conversions. I know that probably crushes a lot of people when they hear that. Here’s the reality though, it’s it is relatively simple to get conversion rates up if you start making data back decisions, but that means you have to have the right tracking and pay attention to it. And if you’re willing to make that commitment for even an hour a week, you will See your conversions go up and your return on adspend go up and all the other metrics that make you make an entrepreneur and e commerce smile, they will help be there. So I highly recommend that you really start giving that some thought immediately.

Adam G. Force 30:17

Love it. Thank you so much, john. Appreciate it. Let’s give a shout out where people can learn more about your business. Maybe they need your support. How do they How do they get in touch and learn more?

Jon Macdonald 30:28

Yes, so the good is just at th e, g, o d calm, so the good calm. And, you know, we’ve got a variety of optimization services that we can deploy for brands large and small. You know, we’ve been doing this 11 years. So we work with brands like Xerox, Nike, Adobe, the economist, but we also work with with hundreds of smaller brands as well. So I highly recommend checking out our conversion growth assessment. This is where we can help tear down your site and provide some really actionable feedback and it’s, it’s at a price point that is great for every brand large and small. Awesome.

Adam G. Force 31:09

All right man, thank you so much for all your insights and taking the time to share with us today.

Jon Macdonald 31:13

Of course, thanks for having me.

Adam G. Force 31:15

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Jon Tobin: Legal Stuff Entrepreneurs Need to Know to Run Their Business Effeciently

Listen to our exclusive interview with Jon Tobin:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

The legal stuff tends to be the last thing we want to tackle as entrepreneurs, but what exactly do we need to know? We spoke with Jon Tobin who is an attorney and the founder of Counsel For Creators to find out the details.

Jon Tobin is an attorney who helps creative businesses on any legal matters involving intellectual property, technology or the arts. As a former software developer and designer, Mr Tobin can give insightful legal advice not easily found elsewhere.

Learn more about Jon and his work at > https://counselforcreators.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Jon Tobin 02:23

I’m doing great. Thanks for having me. Great to be on here. Yeah, I

Adam G. Force 02:26

appreciate you taking the time. As I mentioned to you earlier, before we started this conversation here, I’m excited to shake it up, kind of dig into some of the legal stuff. It’s kind of it becomes this after saw a lot of times with entrepreneurs within the first few years of their business. So I wanted to dive into some of the things they need to be aware of and be looking at, you know, when they should be thinking about them and the risks and things like that. So if you could just give a little bit of background for people, what what you’re all about what’s going on in your world today, stuff like that.

Jon Tobin 02:57

Yeah, so what we do, I have a law firm called counsel for creators. And what’s our sort of mission here is to make the law user friendly for small businesses. So one of the things we’ve noticed is a lot of small businesses, sort of, like you’ve said, would treat legal as an afterthought, which might be fine in some cases, but in a lot of cases we’re seeing it was causing problems down the line. So things that could have been dealt with really early on in the business, these legal problems have a tendency to grow as the business grows. So what we want to help people do is understand that law is accessible, that it’s there to support businesses. And so it’s, you know, it’s not something that you want to necessarily wait until you have a problem that might be too late. You know, you want to set things up correctly, whether that’s choosing the right kind of business, having good partner agreements, thinking about trademarks, all that stuff. So our goal is just to make that easily accessible. And we do that through we have like a subscription legal program that a lot of people join, to just get our advice, get our sort of insight into the legal issues that might face their business.

Adam G. Force 03:58

That’s interesting years ago. I did some consulting for some folks who are trying to disrupt the legal space and and do a lot of this like AI based, like legal services to really kind of like shake things up. And I love the subscription model format and having access, where it becomes more affordable for people, right versus that traditional studio. That’s the idea. I love that. And I think one of the biggest setbacks are people in the entrepreneurship space. I mean, everybody’s always strapped for cash when they’re starting a business because they’re putting all their money in the business and you know, you got to take care of the family. And so it’s like, well, who has another grand or two laying around to get a trademark or, you know, so you end up putting these things off? And, you know, like, we just as an example, we spoke to traditional lawyers to get get some stuff put together for our investor pitches. And you know, just getting all these things put together caps, tables, the whole setup, all these things, you know, it’s like five grand I was like, and that’s like, just to get started. Like, yeah, it’s wild man.

Jon Tobin 04:59

That was one of the barriers we noticed.

Adam G. Force 05:01

Yeah, yeah, no. And that’s why I love what you’re doing so. So let’s dig into your what you have going on a little bit. So I’m actually on your website because I’m kind of this is the kind of thing I get really interested in, I’d love to see this evolution in the legal space. So as you people get set up with you guys, now, they get access to just give it a little Give me just a little bit of insight on how it flows. Like what’s the user experience once you get to become a member?

Jon Tobin 05:29

Yeah, so when someone joins, they’ll get access, we have a member network that we’re building out with a lot of different content you can deal with other members. But the key thing is mean sort of the the core of the whole thing is you can schedule an appointment with myself or anyone on our team. So any any attorney, it can be me It can be my partner or associate or anybody else. And you can also submit documents for review and we did that. So again, it’s really easy to talk with us and so it’s not like you have to spend thousands of dollars to get any legal advice. You know, we’ve designed it to be $95 so you can get right in there and find out you know, okay, what do I need to know for this business? What do I need to think about a lot of people have that anxiety and we wanted to make it easy to get in there. So yeah, they get in there and they can get our advice and one of the things we often do because as you mentioned, it can be expensive to do things like register a trademark or get a good contract drafted or do something with an investor we can help people make a plan right so one of the things we might say is okay, you might not need to register your trademark now, but we’d say you know, plan on doing that in the next six months so people can you know, plan ahead they can budget they can think ahead for things and you know, also know that okay, I don’t have to worry about it right now. I can do it later. Some things are like that.

Adam G. Force 06:43

Yeah. Well, I’m so I’m curious because that’s an interesting as these models like this are popping up and I love this, like I mentioned, and I’m thinking about an experience I had, you know, early on with trademarking and I found somebody who was, you know, on Upwork or whatever. And they had experience doing trademark stuff. And of course, I was looking for the lowest cost possible. So I ended up going through all this stuff and having to resubmit several times. And then it costs more money. And it was just a mess, right? And we found out like the magazine we have, we wanted to basically trademark the name Change Creator plus the logo. And like we they would only take the magazine based on like the use of the magazine, it wasn’t just the name Change Creator. So like, and then we had to get into that space one and all this other stuff and the costs add up. So if someone’s going to get a trademark, are they looking for a trademark? Is it something they should be doing right away? Or should they wait? Like when’s the right time to think about something like that?

Jon Tobin 07:42

Yeah, so for trademarks, in particular, those are one of the things that we’ve noticed are pretty good investment as early as possible. Now, of course, money is always an issue. And so you know, we tell people, hey, if it’s not available, it’s not available. But the reason why is because one of the first things you do when you register a trademark that we always do with our Clients is you do a trademark search and so that it’s a pretty comprehensive search where we look for names that are similar. So any any kind of name that could conflict with a brand that you want. That’s something you want to find out early before you’ve invested in your brand before you’ve invested in that name and gotten it out to people. Because you don’t want a situation where later on you find out somebody else has a similar name, and they send you a cease and desist or you can’t get your trademark registered. So you know, kind of doing that search is a good start, but then also registration and make sure that nobody else can sort of clear space. So nobody else can adopt a name that’s too similar to yours and cause confusion. So it’s one of those things to do early. Like I would even say even before your brand is fully established, I would say look at a trademark early on, because you want to know any problems like the problems if you deal with them upfront, they’re, you know, it takes a little investment to do, but it takes a lot to change. It takes a lot to deal with that trademark conflict.

Adam G. Force 08:57

yeah, that is and I’ve heard that The horror stories

Jon Tobin 09:01

It can get bad.

Adam G. Force 09:02

It can get bad. Yeah, I’ve heard of smaller brands getting you know those letters from big brands and there’s really no way around. You can’t fight them. Yeah, yeah.

Jon Tobin 09:13

Yeah, it happens. It’s so nice. It’s just a money issue. You know, the big brand has a lot of money to throw at it and you may not and you know, even if you have a good legal position, are you willing to spend $10,000 to prove it out?

Adam G. Force 09:26

Yeah, exactly. And so if if somebody was like, Alright, great. I want to get a my trademark completed. Let’s say you have a business, your e commerce and you want your name and logo. So I mean, they can go to you guys and you have this membership. But you can get involved now is the $95. I have to assume there’s additional costs to actually get the trademark in addition to the 95. Just so we’re clear. Is that is that true? Yeah.

Jon Tobin 09:53

Yeah, yeah, that’s how we do it. So anything where it’s sort of, you know, getting a trademark or setting up a new business Or drafting a contract, we typically do a flat fee for that. And so we try to make those affordable. And obviously people can contact us about it. But yeah, we try to make them affordable flat fees just so people know upfront, okay, here’s what it’s going to cost. So we don’t do what a lot of law firms do, which is Bill hourly, and you don’t know is it going to be 600 bucks, six 6000 bucks somewhere in the middle. Our sort of goal is we want this to be predictable. We want people to be able to budget for this, like they budget for anything else. Yeah, I mean,

Adam G. Force 10:27

so and, and as you start growing as a business, I mean, here you have this for 95 bucks a month, you can have access to ask questions, that includes things like contract reviews and things like that.

Jon Tobin 10:39

Yeah, yeah, that’s what it is. It’s really, you know, we sort of use that as sort of preventative medicine, right. So one of the stories I always tell is, I would have clients who might have a legal problem, right, and they don’t come to us and this was in the old days before we had the subscription. They wouldn’t come to us because they didn’t like to be billed hourly or whatever. And so they would have this legal problem that would then build and build. And by the time they came to us six months later, that problem was way bigger and way more expensive. So what we wanted to do is make it be like, you know, okay, let’s make it easy for you to contact us when that problem starts to develop, because there might be something we can come up with in 10 minutes, that solves it, or at least, you know, helps you out of it. Same thing with contracts, you know, the time to negotiate a contract or for us to fix something in a contract is before you sign it. So we tell people, hey, send it to us have us look it over, we’ll point out any issues and, you know, just so you can go in informed when you sign a contract.

Adam G. Force 11:38

Yeah. And it’s nice to if you can get um, you know, for your business or types of services, you provide, like to get contracts that are templates that you can use moving forward with clients and things like that, too, right?

Jon Tobin 11:51

That’s right. Yeah. And so we offer that and then you know, also helping people understand how do you develop a good contract. So you know, one of the things we often talk about whether Our clients and people on our network is what kind of conversations Do you want to have, even before a contract is written? What kind of understandings Do you want to come to, you know, and when we’re talking about things like ownership, or royalties, or anything else that might come out, but we want to make sure that everybody’s on the same page, before we actually put it into writing. So that’s something else that we sort of coach people through.

Adam G. Force 12:22

Yeah, I like that. And I’ve been through scenarios where, you know, when early days people get eager to partner up with others, right, oh, we’re gonna partner we’re gonna work on this project. And then, you know, before money’s being made a loosey goosey contract is okay. But when real money starts coming in, and everyone starts to go, Oh, wait, wait a minute. And then if you don’t have a button, we’re all gonna start referencing that contract. And it’s like, well, wait a minute, we didn’t say this and say that and, and and you have to elect right.

Jon Tobin 12:50

Yeah, you have conflict, and that’s when it becomes expensive. Those are the kind of things where, you know, I’ve noticed as a lawyer, it’s it’s the conflicts that are expensive. So when you hear about Lawyers charging a ton of money. Yes, there can be a lot of money on things like setup, especially as as it gets complex. But it’s an order of magnitude more to have a conflict, you know, it’s, you know, 10 or 100 times more in terms of cost, and energy and distraction, to have a fight with someone legally than it is to set things out early on. And sometimes, you know, sometimes it does feel like overkill at the beginning, why do we need to discuss all this stuff. And the reason is, is if your business is going to be successful, there might be tension later and let’s not have that tension turn into a fight.

Adam G. Force 13:30

That’s that’s, that’s what I’ve learned over the years is, it seems like unnecessary upfront to be so formal and get it all buttoned up and invest in any kind of money into it. But when you are if you are taking yourself seriously and you are gonna make money, this type money changes dynamics among teams. So if you don’t have everybody on the same page, and it’s not clear, it can really it can tear the team apart and destroy the business and the at the end of the day, too. So yeah,

Jon Tobin 14:01

Same Yes, Sam Exactly. Like I’ve seen it where, you know, we’ve seen people where their businesses successful customers like what they’re selling, they have a good mission. They’re clear, everything’s good. But then there’s a fight between the partners. Yep. And the business goes away. Exactly, exactly.

Adam G. Force 14:17

So let’s talk a little bit about like, co founders, co founding teams. I’m curious, you know, it’s like, everyone is like, Well, one thing that we’ve done is we historically, like in the beginning, we put off getting like a contract a formal contract, we get an agreement verbally, but then we don’t have a co founder contracts, for example. Is this something that you know, we should be people should be addressing right away? Is it something that can as long as you have verbal agreement can be done later? You know, stuff like that. I’m always curious about that, that setup as well.

Jon Tobin 14:55

Yeah, what I tell people is something like that, and I think with any contracts, This might be true. The answer is that it’s scalable, right? So, verbal contract is minimal, right? So that’s the most minimal thing you can do, hey, we’re going to split this 5050. So anything that comes in, we split 5050, then, you know, you scale it up a level. And again, this is going to depend on resources and time and inclination. You know, the next level is okay, we have a sort of informal written agreement, even a piece of paper that we hand wrote that says, 5050, you know, and this person is responsible for costs or has to put in more money later, then the next level is a more formal written contract. And then you know, so that you can make those contracts as complex as you feel that you need to. So if you’re like, hey, a two page agreement works for us, it captures everything because what we’re doing together is clear, fine, but you know, if it’s a more complex thing, and there’s different level of investors, we always want to scale that contract up. So the point is, is something in writing I think, you know, the main point I’m trying to make here is something in writing is better than nothing, because One of the reasons we do writing is it’s a for accountability. And it’s B to remember. So one of the things is the human mind doesn’t always remember what was said verbally a year ago or six months ago. And if it does remember, was that just a suggestion? Or was that actual commitment? Yeah, you know, and we’ve seen that where someone’s like, I’ll make you a founder, you know, and, okay, but we’ll spin that around.

Adam G. Force 16:21

no, no, that’s not what I said.

Jon Tobin 16:24

Exactly. So we write it down. So you know, even with the best intention and best memory and all that the human mind just doesn’t keep information or like that around perfectly forever.

Adam G. Force 16:35

Right. Right. Now, that makes sense. Yeah. And there’s two areas of like, you know, dividing up, you know, and maybe you can share some feedback here to give people a little bit of insight. One is around the co founder setup, and the other would be around preparations for investors. So, the first one around co founders or co founding team. I mean, how should people be thinking about bout, you know, the splits like is it? You know, for example, if someone starts a company, they’re in it for a year, then they bring on a co founder and then another one. And so there’s a, there’s a stagger in time invested money invested and things like that. So how to any insight on how teams should be thinking about that stuff?

Jon Tobin 17:22

Yeah, I mean, generally, I think the sort of economic way to go about it is, the more risk that somebody takes, the more sort of risk they take, especially at the beginning, the more rewards so that’s why you’ll see, you know, angel investors might get more than, you know, some later round when we’re talking about like a startup, right? Because that first person is taking a lot of risks, so maybe they are going to be able to get more value out of the resulting thing. So

Adam G. Force 17:47

yeah, it’s it’s, it’s also the contribution right? And so anytime you have a company, you’re going to have shares, you’re going to have equity and that equity is divided by Well, what is this person putting in, you know, what is this organization putting in? are they putting in money or Putting in time experience, what are they contributing? And then what you know, what’s the value to the organization? How is that going to carry forward and create value in the future? And then so how does that person benefit? Right? So you got basically what experience and maybe your network like connections that you’re bringing that bring value, it could be your time and expertise, the work you’re actually doing as value or just a financial investment. So if someone started something, and you put in 10 grand the first year, if you came in, you want to do a 5050 split as a co founder, you can either bring some kind of value that’s a substitute for that 10 grand, or just put in 10 grand and match it, right?

Jon Tobin 18:38

Yeah, and it’s really, you know, you could sometimes you can reduce it down to numbers of Okay, this, you know, this service, you know, would have normally cost you $10,000. So, you know, in exchange, I would like $10,000 worth of shares, please, you know, and it might be more, there might also be a risk premium, because there’s a chance you don’t get paid, you know, and so you might say well You know, normally I charge 10,000, but I want to premium. So, you know what? $20,000 worth of value.

Adam G. Force 19:06

Right? Right. That makes sense. Okay. And so the other big, big area for people, especially who are listening here today is, you know, when we’re approaching an investor, I mean, there’s a lot to, to consider and in those circumstances, and, you know, we always when we did it in our earlier days, you know, we had a lot of conversations with different lawyers and investors and stuff like that, and when is it appropriate? Like, I guess, you know, you go through and you got to get it set up with like, you know, different cap tables and all these different things. But you don’t necessarily always need that right away. So I want to give people who are listening, a little sense of, you know, if you’re just starting to kind of pitch people and get out there, what do they need to be prepared with and when should they be taking steps to invest in getting legal setup with everything?

Jon Tobin 19:58

Yeah, so I mean, I think the Initial preparation is just sort of understanding what your business is worth initially. And it’s not always going to be immediately clear. I mean, it’s very hard to value a brand new business. Yeah. But I think as you start getting numbers as you still, as you start building a history of what the business is doing, then you can actually have a good sense of, you can have a good sense. Do you still hear me?

Adam G. Force 20:24

I do. Yeah, you’re good.

Jon Tobin 20:26

Okay. Yeah, you get it, you start to get a good sense of what the business is actually worth. And so at some point, there might be something maybe you guys have heard the term like evaluation event where somebody is going to put in money, let’s say they’re going to invest $1 million into the business, they want to know, well, what’s the business worth? Right? And at that point, maybe then you start doing cap tables and you start looking at Okay, you know, for someone to give $1 million. What do they get in exchange? What percent what equity do they get in this company? Right,

Adam G. Force 20:56

right. Yeah, that was an area that We actually never ended up investing in ourselves. And I do hear a lot of people having conversations around. Well, what do I need? And how do I get set up? And if you don’t know, and you’re not clear on it, you could take a lot of wrong steps, which is why I’m I was asking that question. Yeah. And we hear it a lot from people in our, in our audience, just who are everyone gets excited about pitching, but they don’t really know what they need to get set up and do that.

Jon Tobin 21:26

Yeah, yeah. And there’s pitching and then I think, you know, there’s the second step of actually having a deal, you know, an understanding, you know, what it is that you’re that you’re giving, right, you know, so, you know, if somebody is investing, they want something, they want something in return, you know, so if they’re making a financial investment, so they might want, you know, simply a financial return, or they might want control, so they might say, Hey, you know, as consideration for our investment, we also would like a board seat, you know, or some sort of other preference so that they have control over how things go and so you’re you might end up Partnering with someone so you know, not every investor is the same, you know, you want to find someone who can really contribute to the mission and not just financially necessarily.

Adam G. Force 22:08

Yeah, that makes sense. For sure. Yeah, we always we always had the thought process of not just getting an investor but a strategic adviser, somebody that can really support you know, the approach and thinking of the company as well with their connections and stuff.

Jon Tobin 22:24

Yeah.

Adam G. Force 22:26

Yeah, I’m looking to like, you know, I’m looking at your site here, like so as people are thinking about their business setup. You have just under your services, business setup, legal subscription and trademarking stuff like that. Tell us a little bit. I think the business setup would be relevant for a lot of people like business setup and trademarking. So, can you tell us a little bit about the business setup?

Jon Tobin 22:46

Yeah, that’s another one along with trademark that we feel is really important at the beginning. So, business setup that can be as simple as somebody setting up an LLC to house their company, right and so, you know, the The main thing is you’re creating legal separation between yourself and the business. So if something you know, and we don’t want this to happen, but if something goes wrong in the business, you have legal protection, your personal assets aren’t at risk or even your other businesses. And you know, of course, nowadays, a lot of people might have two or three businesses. And so if something goes wrong in one, we don’t want that to affect the other. So business setup is part of that, you know, setting up an LLC, or a corporation, it becomes even more important kind of going back a little bit in this conversation when you’re partnering up. So doing an LLC or a corporation by yourself is easy. You make all the decisions, everything is on you. It’s your responsibility. It’s your reward. But once you start getting two people or three people, we want to make sure that everybody has a good understanding. Right? So what’s the ownership share? What is everybody contribute what’s expected? What happens if someone leaves how do we bring someone new in so we’re going through and answering all of those questions at the beginning, rather than trying to figure them out later, and as you said, especially when money is involved, People’s positions tend to become more static. There’s less flexibility.

Adam G. Force 24:04

Yep. Yeah, that makes sense. And I think talking through all that up front is valuable. And I know when you start looking at investment, too, there’s benefits to moving away from being an LLC to like a corporation of some kind. Is that right?

Jon Tobin 24:18

Yeah. Yeah, that is true. What? You know, what I tell a lot of my clients is that investors, they typically, and it’s not always a Delaware C Corp, sometimes you hear people say, well only do a Delaware C Corp. That’s not necessarily true. But what investors typically want is they’re going to want shares in a company. So these are just similar to shares that you might buy on the stock market, they’re gonna want to purchase a number of shares from a corporation and LLC doesn’t have that what’s cool about LLC is they’re simple to set up. So if your plan is not to take investment, or like, Hey, I’m going to self fund this an LLC might be the answer, but if your plan is, I would like to take on investment at some point maybe a corporation is and you know, another thing that we also point out If these things aren’t necessarily set in stone, so you can convert things later. So it’s not like, once an LLC, always an LLC, you can change things. You can restructure things. It’s all flexible. Right?

Adam G. Force 25:11

Yeah, that makes sense. So john, what what any other, I guess top of mine, like risks or things people should be thinking about in the early stages that we haven’t covered already?

Jon Tobin 25:22

Yeah. And we talked about branding and trademarks. We talked about contracts, we talked about business setup. Another thing I would tell people, and especially people listening, and a lot of the people we work with, is starting to know a little bit about things like copyright and other intellectual property. So a lot of businesses now innovate. They create things, whether it’s ebooks, videos, marketing material, anything that is creating value in your business that you’ve created, is protected, potentially by copyright. And what that does is it allows you to stop other people from copying it. And so you know, copycats do exist. And so I think, understanding what those creative assets are that you have is going to put you in a good position to know, okay, here’s how I protect that maybe copyright registration or DMCA takedowns, or whatever it is just understanding how to work with those creative assets that your business is producing.

Adam G. Force 26:11

Yeah, makes sense. That is a big one. I remember years ago, starting like a media company, I had to do so much research on that. So getting the quick guidance on that would save a lot of time and a lot of stress.

Jon Tobin 26:27

Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s, it’s it’s hard. It’s hard to you know, if you go on the internet, and you look for answers to legal questions, sometimes you can find good answers. But you know, I’ve had people where they, you know, again, this was even before we had the subscription, they’d say, I spent all weekend looking for an answer to this question. And I’ll say, you know, we could have I could have answered that in five minutes. We could have been doing something else. Exactly.

Adam G. Force 26:48

Um, something that comes to mind we’ll wrap up here is when is it appropriate to use the TM

Jon Tobin 26:55

symbol? Hmm. That’s a good one. Yeah. So tm, you can use tm any Time, you sort of have a brand anything you want to assert trademark rights in. So that’s something honestly it’s you’re free to use it right so anybody can use it if you’re asserting trademark rights, you’re sort of building a brand now, the one distinction that we’d always make is when you see that are with the circle around it, that’s for only for registered trademark. So only when you actually have a registration for your brand, which sort of enhances your brand rights. And so that’s a special thing and you can’t really use the are legally at least unless you have a trademark registration.

Adam G. Force 27:33

So what does the TM do for you?

Jon Tobin 27:36

So all it really does is it puts people on notice that you are asserting rights in that so you know, if you say something like I have developed a brand system tm, right so you put the word tm, maybe you have some trademark rights and so whatever trademark rights you do have, you’re asserting them now one of the things I tell people is having trademark rights without a registration is something it’s not an Nothing, but it’s also not a lot, right? It’s not very powerful. So I always tell people try to move your way up from just being TMX to being registered because that actually holds legal weight now,

Adam G. Force 28:10

right, right. Okay, that makes sense. Perfect. Good to know, I think these are like the low hanging fruit questions that a lot of entrepreneurs have. So I appreciate you taking the time to share your insights. And I do love the the subscription model. So guys, you can check them out. JOHN, why don’t you go ahead and give a shout out where you want people to the best place to find you and learn more.

Jon Tobin 28:34

Yeah, so you can find us at counsel for creators calm, or you can go to creators legal program calm to see our subscription. And yeah, those are the two best places and you can find our email address. You can connect with us schedule phone calls with us right from our site and you know, learn anything you want to about what we offer. Awesome.

Adam G. Force 28:54

All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

Jon Tobin 28:57

Yeah, thanks for having me. It was a good time again.

Adam G. Force 29:02

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

Gino Wickman: Do You Really Have What it Takes to be an Entrepreneur

Listen to our exclusive interview with Gino Wickman:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

How do we know if we really have what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur? Can anyone do it? In this interview, we talk with entrepreneur and author of the legendary book Traction, Gino Wickman, to find out who should take the leap!

An entrepreneur since the age of 21, Gino has had an obsession for learning what makes businesses and entrepreneurs thrive. At 25 he took over the family business, which was deeply in debt and in need of help. After turning the company around and running it for seven years, he and his partners successfully sold the company. Gino then set out to help entrepreneurs and leaders get what they want from their businesses. Based on his years of real-world experience, he created the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), a practical method for helping companies achieve greatness. He has personally delivered more than 1,900 full-day sessions for more than 135 companies, helping them implement EOS. He is also the author of the award-winning, best-selling book Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business, as well as Get a Grip, Rocket Fuel, How to Be a Great Boss and What the Heck is EOS?. Gino is the founder of EOS Worldwide, an organization that helps thousands of businesses implement EOS with the aid of an international team of over 350 professional and certified EOS Implementers and online support. There are almost 100,000 companies using the EOS tools Worldwide. Gino is now devoting time and energy toward helping entrepreneurs-in-the-making get a huge jump-start on taking their entrepreneurial leap, which is why he created Entrepreneurial Leap.

Learn more about Gino and his work at > https://www.e-leap.com/

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Gino Wickman 02:44

Okay, show me the heat.

Adam G. Force 02:48

Hey Gino, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show. How’s everything going, man?

Gino Wickman 02:53

It is going great. Happy to be with you Adam.

Adam G. Force 02:56

Yeah, appreciate appreciate you taking the time. I know you’re busy guy and You know, I did. I’m one of the avid readers of that book traction that you have. And I’m excited about your new book, the entrepreneurial leap, I think this could be really a good one for our listeners to dig into. So thanks for being here to talk about it and kind of sharing some of those insights and stuff like that. If you could just share maybe a little bit of background like, just let people give that give you that bird’s eye view of your background for those that don’t know, traction and EOS like really, in a nutshell, and then how you got to transition into this new book.

Gino Wickman 03:32

Yeah, happy to so the quick entrepreneurial journey is that I’ve been an entrepreneur since 2001, took over a family business at 25, did a big turn around, grew it, sold it and then set off to pursue what I really discovered is my calling and that’s helping entrepreneurs and so I created a system called Eos. I’ve written five books around it traction being the kind of epicenter of all the books that explains Eos. Those books have sold over a million copies. We have over 100,000 companies running on that system using that system. And I built an organization with my partner Don tinny called EOS worldwide that now has 375 EOS implementers. All over the world, helping companies with that system sold that business two years ago, still on 12 and a half percent still the EOS guy still on the books, still doing talks, still have clients, all that good stuff. But taking us to where we are in for this podcast. It was about 12 years ago when I was 40 years old. And I said when I turned 50, I’m going to shift my energy. And I’m going to go to the front end of the entrepreneurial journey, and I’m going to help entrepreneurs in the making, get a huge jump on taking their entrepreneurial leap. And so after almost three decades of helping entrepreneurs, you know, I feel like I’ve dialed in the genetic code in and what this book is all about entrepreneurial leap is doing exactly that what I’m actually doing is teaching and helping my 18 year old self and so there’s an old saying That says we teach what we needed the most. And I’m basically teaching my 18 year old self. Because if I knew what I put in this book and what I’m teaching the world now, when I was 18, I would have literally had an 11 year jumpstart, because it was around age 29, that I really realized that I was an entrepreneur, and then capitalized on that. So that’s the fastest version of the story.

Adam G. Force 05:23

I love it. Thank you. And I’m curious, just that last part, what what made you realize that you were an entrepreneur when you’re 29, what happened?

Gino Wickman 05:33

It was an intersection of a whole bunch of data points. And so I had done the family turnaround. I was getting a little bored with that, because that was running and growing it. I was in a program called the Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan. I was in an organization called ye oh now known as EO the entrepreneurs organization. And, and it was all of those intersecting points being surrounded by entrepreneurs, and I really realize, you know that there was a light bulb moment that just, you know, helped me see that I am a wild and crazy entrepreneur. And, and then I also really realized my calling, which is this gift that I have for helping entrepreneurs. And so I took an entrepreneurial leap, we sold the business, I then took an entrepreneurial leap and built a business around what I really realized that I was here to do. Hmm.

Adam G. Force 06:25

It’s interesting, cuz I noticed in you know, the early part of your new book, he talks about how you either are or you are not born with it and saying entrepreneurship is nature, not nurture. And I kind of want to just talk about that a little bit, because I’ve had, I’ve had mixed perspectives around that meaning Some people say everyone’s an entrepreneur, and you’re saying something a little different. So I would love to hear your perspective on that.

Gino Wickman 06:52

Yeah, for sure. And it’s a great debate. So I really urge you to, you know, voice your strong opinions, because we may not agree and I think that’s the best thing we can do for your audience is for them to hear the contrast, of course, and I’m really excited about your audience because you know, you and I were talking to, you know, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in the makings, and so they’ll totally get this. And they’ll form their own opinion. But you know, very directly very strongly. I believe a true entrepreneur has six essential traits. And we can talk about those if you want to get into that next but but I believe they have six essential traits. And this is 30 years of history working with thousands of entrepreneurs. And not only that, I believe you are born with them. I don’t believe these traits can be taught you can’t teach a trait you can teach skills, but I believe you’re born with them. And so it’s truly nature over nurture. And so assuming all that is true, I want to I’d love to hear your response to that. But I want to create a context for your audience because this will really help them see in their mind, exactly what we’re talking about. Because if you picture an arc, I teach something called the entre General range. And what the entrepreneurial ranges is, this is where all self employed people reside. This is where all people that own their own business reside in. So if you picture the far right side of the range, picture the words true entrepreneur, and if you picture the far left side of the range picture, self employed people. And so on the right side, true entrepreneurs, the far right side are the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Sara Blakely, on the far left side, are all of the one person shows people with a side hustle consultants, things like that. And so with every self employed person, everyone with a business falls somewhere on that spectrum on that range. And when I say true entrepreneur, the people with these six essential traits, I’m talking about the people on the right half of the rain, the people that go out and build organizations with people and so you know, everyone Listening is somewhere on that range if they’re all self employed entrepreneurs. And then the last little point is that I really feel like I’m doing a service to the world because right now everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Just like in the 70s. Everyone wanted to be a rock star. And with all due love and respect, not everyone was cut out to be a rock star. And not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. And listen, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be true entrepreneurs are borderline crazy in some really freakin hard and get your ass kicked on a daily basis. And it’s not, you know, all it’s cracked up to be. So there’s my jumping off point for you.

Adam G. Force 09:39

Yeah, I love it. I mean, no, I totally get where you’re coming from. And maybe for some people, it would start with defining exactly what we mean by entrepreneur, right? Because I think some people might have different definitions of that as well. And you know, you’re talking about some of the greats and the largest organizations in the world and then the self employed person Who is, you know, making a living on their own, but they’re not building large teams at scale. So I like the idea of this range. And I think you know, for me, I guess in my perspective, you know, I had a conversation with Muhammad Yunus. I don’t know if you know who he is, he’s like, I see that. Okay, so he’s a Nobel Peace Prize winner in the space of social entrepreneurship. And he started Grameen Bank and all this stuff. And I had a conversation with him and he believed that you know, everybody’s an entrepreneur. And I think it comes down to these definitions and how we’re looking at it. And when you talk about some of these essential traits, you know, being a risk taker a problem solver. I start to wonder well, what how did somebody grow up? What did they learn and it does this become a a effect of human behavior and conditioning? To make them the kind of person they are right so they’re not skills but they are? subject subconscious behaviors, right. So can those things be changed? If somebody actually wants to change it, right?

Gino Wickman 11:03

Yeah, love it. And so like, I’ll give you another couple thoughts and then indirectly answer your question because, you know, I know a lot of your audience out there, you know, they consider themselves entrepreneurs, but they’re one person shows and the first point I want to make is that is absolutely admirable, respectable, you’re still taking a risk. And I just consider you to be a business owner, I consider you to be self employed in that case. And so to hold that thought for a minute, I always use a just a really kind of raw example. And that is, you know, somebody with handy skills can become a handyman or a handy woman charge 60 bucks an hour, make 100 grand a year and go do what they love. And if they’re good at it, and they do a good job, they’ll get referred and they will be busy for the next 25 years of their life making 100 grand a year and that is so admirable, and then you and I could give 1000 examples Have a business one person could go into and do and obviously, your audience has a lot of that. The point I’m making is, I just don’t consider that to be a true entrepreneur. And you’re right. It’s definitional. This is just my definition. So yeah, don’t get don’t get pissed off at me. I’m talking to your audience. But, but that’s just my definition. The point I’m making now is someone with these six essential traits, they can’t help themselves. But to turn that into a business. It turned that into an organization, grow it and start bringing on people and so that handyman that has the six essential traits is going to spend a year doing that work and then realize, holy cow, if I hire someone else, you know, I can elevate myself and someone else and someone else and all the sudden they’ve got a construction company, the person that cuts a lawn cuts 20 lawns, 30 lawns realizes, wow, I hire somebody to cut those 30 lawns and go cut 30 more. They can’t help themselves but to build an organization This is a cautionary tale because so many people I’ve talked to, you have people in your audience right now, they just need to remain a one person show and make their hundred 200 300 400 grand a year and that is admirable. And there’s actually there’s a piece that will come over them once they realize they probably don’t have all of these traits. But for the ones that do, the idea is now that you know this after reading the first part of the book, which I call confirm, now you clearly know what you are. And I’m going to show you a path in a way that’s going to make your journey much more seamless. you’ll avoid half the mistakes you’re about to make, I can help you get there faster. And I I’m just trying to save the person that goes out and tries to build an organization and they go through 10 years of hell and fail because they really didn’t have what it takes to become a true entrepreneur and be on the far right side of that entrepreneurial range. We talked about God

Adam G. Force 13:56

Yeah, I see where you’re going with it. And it is in that that that realm of growing an organization having, you know, 100 people on your team, I guess, and you’re far more. Right.

Gino Wickman 14:09

Exactly. And then to that same point, having 100 employees is not all it’s cracked up to be, you know, yes, worldwide is over 400 people in that organization. And it is daunting, it’s complex. It requires, you know, a whole different set of skills. And then it prompts another thought, and that is just using me as an example, when I sold the family business, took my entrepreneurial leap. I was actually that one person show for the first five years I was out there as a coach working with entrepreneurs, but again, I couldn’t help myself, but to turn it into an organization again, that now has over 400 people in it. I just couldn’t stop myself and it was a pretty damn good, peaceful life, those five years in the work I was doing, but I was just compelled to keep growing and growing and driving and driving. So anyway,

Adam G. Force 15:00

Yeah, no, I mean, I think that all makes sense. And it sounds like you know, for a lot of people, you have to really be honest with yourself and what you want, right? So, you know, some do you want to have 400 employees and all the complexities and everything that comes with it, right? Because there comes a different responsibility and different pressures and stresses and things like that. And if you have a team of one to five people, but you’re making a million dollars a year, that’s a very different dynamic as well. So I guess it comes down to what somebody really wants out of their life.

Gino Wickman 15:32

Yeah. And that you know, and so you just perfectly teed up part two of the book because once you finish with part one, there’s an assessment you take, you ultimately get a score. That assessment is available on the website, free and downloadable E dash leap calm but once you confirm that you have the six essential traits, and you’re a true entrepreneur. The next part of the book is called glimpse and then I spent the next third of the book showing that potential entrepreneur a glimpse of what as possible in the world for an entrepreneur and more importantly, what all the options are. And so to your exact point, I created this tool called my biz match. And what I’m teaching in this part and leading to this tool is to help that entrepreneur out there listening to understand all of your options, because there are so many more options to being an entrepreneur than just a billion dollar tech, unicorn entrepreneur. I mean that that’s one in a million, and it’s not for everyone. And so what I teach and talk about are all of the industries available out there. And then I talk about the types of companies because there’s three factors when it comes to type of company. It’s Are you a product service or a business service? Are you a product business or a service business? Are you b2b or b2c? And are you high price, low volume, low price, high volume, when you start to weigh all of those factors, I believe every entrepreneur is drawn to something and then the third thing you get into is size. Just like what you’re talking about there, because, again, 10,000 employees is not for every entrepreneur, there is no shame in having a $3 million heating and cooling company throwing off a 20% profit with 40 people. In other words there that is respectable, admirable. And so there’s no shame in that. And so with my biz match, you literally just click on a bunch of buttons, answer some questions, and out pops the perfect business for you. And so we’re all built. They’re our product people in this world. They’re our service people in this world, and they rarely meet. And so it’s just trying to learn and understand what you’re drawn to. That’s going to greatly increase your odds of success and keep you doing something you’re totally passionate about.

Adam G. Force 17:42

I love that. Now that sounds pretty cool. And and I think it’s such an important part of the process that a lot of people skip is, you know, simply becoming clear about what you want and what’s going to make sense for you. Because, you know, the way we’ve always looked at it too is if you write down your in your notes or you take a process like yours, Going through here and you see, well, here’s what I want. You may not know what that looks like, or the person that you actually need to become to get there, right? So I always looked at it as a way to start getting clear on something. And if you have a book like this, and you’ve been down this road, then like, it’s really hard for an entrepreneur to say, Well, I do have that drive and vision and I want to have, you know, 400 employees also, but they don’t know what that business looks like. And it’s really hard to create something when you don’t know what it looks like.

Gino Wickman 18:32

Yeah, and it’s exactly what I do and why I wrote this second part of the book is to create that glimpse, because in my mind, you know, I picture this word entrepreneurship, and that potential entrepreneur listening as this big block of marble and and in there is the sculpture in there is that person so I always I describe it as helping them to see the light and then see their light and so the light is understated. This whole context of being an entrepreneur, their light is then seeing where they fit in that entrepreneurial world. And so I’m quite proud of how powerful it is. Because by the end of glimpse, you had this vivid picture of what the perfect business is for you what the life looks like both Heaven and Hell, how to avoid the eight mistakes that every entrepreneur makes when they take their leap. And I also give countless stories of entrepreneurs who were right where you are, and and what they did to grow to what they grew to. And then from there, we go to the third part of the book, which is path and then I show a clear path for how to greatly increase your odds and eliminate half the mistakes you still will make the other half it’s part of the journey and they’re unavoidable. Hmm,

Adam G. Force 19:49

interesting. So let’s touch a little bit on the three parts in a little more detail. So we did kind of cover off on the range concept and things like that. Let’s just quickly If you don’t mind touch on the some of the essential traits and and why they’re important.

Gino Wickman 20:05

Yeah, you bet. And so at a very high level, I’ll give you all six. It’s visionary, passionate, problem solver, driven, risk taker, and responsible. And so those are the six, you know, in terms of why they’re important. They’re kind of self explanatory, but I can do a really quick, you know, one or two minute riff that paints a vivid color of all six if you’d like me to, but at a high level, those are the six and they’re all vital. And so I get asked, Well, what if you don’t have one or two? Well, here’s the answer. If you don’t have one or two, you’re probably not a true entrepreneur. And it’s a great awareness, but they’re all vital. Mm hmm.

Adam G. Force 20:47

Interesting. And I like the responsible one because you see a lot of leaders today that blame everyone but themselves so to see a leader who can blame no one and you know, really Look in the mirror and and be that kind of a leader I think is really important in the kind of leadership it takes to build these big companies, right?

Gino Wickman 21:08

Yeah, here, here. And I’ll do a little 32nd riff on that one, because that’s one of my favorites. So people are always shocked when they’re hearing this list, and I get through the first five. And those all make sense. And all of a sudden they hear response, I’m gonna go, Whoa, how is that on the list? It is so vital. And, and so here’s how I know that you’re born with it. Here’s how I know that it’s nature over nurture. And that is, you can put the entire world in one of two categories. There are people that take responsibility when something bad happens. And there are people that blame everyone else. When something happens, they take no responsibility. And the reality of it is you will have a household with four kids, four siblings in the same household and as you’re listening out there, you’re putting all the people in your life and these two categories because it’s so obvious, but if you think about a family with four siblings, you literally will put those siblings in one of two play one of those two buckets? Because how on earth is it possible that those four kids because you out there listening Think of your brothers and your sisters, it’s very obvious how could they grew up in the same household by the same parents same raising same teaching same everything. And yet, half of them end up taking responsibility half don’t you’re born with it its nature over nurture. And responsible means this it means that you blame no one. It means that when something goes wrong, you default to looking in the mirror. You don’t look at who to point to. You take total responsibility for the outcome. You don’t believe in entitlement. And I had a friend that said it so well in a sentence that he said somebody who’s truly responsible when they’re building gets hit by a meteor, they believe it’s their fault. In other words, you chose the building, you built the building you chose to be there and so that’s the essence of responsible and I would also say you know, both are a psychology disorder, there are people that take too much responsibility. People don’t take enough. Both are psychological disorders. I’m not saying it’s healthy for those of us that take responsibility for everything because we carry such a burden. All I’m saying is, it is a trait of a true entrepreneur. And if you don’t have it, you’re just not going to be a successful entrepreneur.

Adam G. Force 23:20

Yeah, I love that. That’s, that’s one of my favorites on the list there too. And I think let’s just jump over to a glimpse, he talked about some of the critical mistakes. I think people listening would like to hear, you know, what are some of these critical mistakes that you’ve come across? Working with a lot of different clients and all the different experiences that you’ve had that really stand out here that might be interesting to talk about?

Gino Wickman 23:42

Yeah, I would love to. And so contextually the point here as I go into these eight is, I paint a vivid picture for that potential entrepreneur of what a day in the life of an entrepreneur looks like. And so you shoot out 10 years from now and picture one of these two scenarios. And so I paint both the dream And the nightmare. And the point and that is I’m showing them how to live the dream. I’m also showing them how they create their own nightmare. And there are eight mistakes that almost every entrepreneur makes when they take their entrepreneurial leap that put them in the nightmare. And so I’m going to go through each of them very quickly. And I would love it you know, you know your audience better than I do. If you’ll just kind of pick the top two to you that you think they would like we can drill down on that, but here are the eight very quickly, number one, not having a vision. Number two, hiring the wrong people. Number three, not spending time with your people. Number four, not knowing who your customer is. Number five, not charging enough. Number six, not staying true to your core. Number seven, not knowing your numbers. And number eight not crystallizing roles and responsibilities.

Adam G. Force 24:50

Yeah, it’s great list. There’s two that I can pull out for our listeners. And I think the two would be actually there’s three but I’m going to call So let’s do not knowing who your customer is, and not knowing your numbers, I think those are two major mistakes that whether they realize it or not, those are the mistakes that are happening.

Gino Wickman 25:10

You’re here. And so the classic mistake here is and for what this is worth, you know, in everything that I write, there’s not one ounce of theory, this comes from the real world. This comes from my three decades. And so this is based on the hundreds, if not thousands, of clients that have come to me and us. And these are the issues they’re facing with us, when they’re at 10 to 250 employees, and these are the mistakes they made. And we’re basically fixing all of those mistakes. And so not knowing who your customer is. The issue there is, is you’re taking this buckshot approach to the world, you know, you’re selling your wares, you’re selling your service, you’re selling your product, and you’re just kind of selling it to everyone. And it’s diluted and it’s murky. And so the idea the way that you saw that is you take a big step back and you get clear on the demographic geographic psychographic of your ideal customer. Who are they? Where are they? What are their? What are they? And to the degree you can get abundantly clear, that’s going to really focus your marketing energy, resources, dollars to greatly increase your sales because now you know who your ideal customer is. You’re speaking their language, you’re using their colors, you’re using their verbiage, and you’re attracting more customers. And so typically when that entrepreneur takes that leap, again, they’re just casting this wide net and and selling very little.

Adam G. Force 26:30

Yeah, yeah, love to hear it and keep reinforcing that for everybody.

Gino Wickman 26:34

Yeah, and then going to not knowing your numbers, that the downside of having the six essential traits almost always is true entrepreneurs, wild and crazy visionary entrepreneurs typically are not good with the numbers. I can still barely read a p&l, quite frankly. But they’re just not great with numbers. And so with that, they’re unfortunately flying blind. They’re always going with their gut. It’s chaotic, and they Not maximizing the profits, they’re not maximizing the growth. And so three simple solutions here, implement a weekly system where you’re looking at the five to 15 most important weekly activity based numbers. Number two, implement a monthly p&l look at a monthly p&l and number three, manage a monthly budget. Even if you don’t know what the heck those three things are, and you just do them by default, you will be forced to learn it in the next two months, you’ll become an expert. So implement those weekly numbers. Look at a monthly p&l manage a monthly budget, and you’ll be an expert within two months, if not a year.

Adam G. Force 27:39

Yeah, it’s so important and it’s a hard lesson that we’ve learned because I’m not somebody that I mean, I like the numbers but I’m not one that’s pulling it together and organized around it. I get like I just want to keep doing other things in the business and growing and stuff. And, you know, I’ve learned the hard way that what you don’t measure doesn’t grow. So keeping an eye on Those things and the most important things is going to be key to growth. Otherwise, you’re just kind of like, you know, floundering a bit

Gino Wickman 28:07

here here and I, you know, one last little point on so I call it a scorecard five to 15 numbers. I learned it from my business mentor when I was 25 years old. He taught me the concept of scorecard. I ran my first business on 14 weekly numbers, ran my second business on 14 weekly numbers. And what it does for you is it literally helps you predict the future because you what you do is you’re looking at those weekly numbers, you want to look at 13 weeks at a glance. So you’re able to see patterns and trends and you can literally predict outcomes three months from now, if you’ll work from a weekly scorecard. So I urge each and every one of your listeners listeners that implement that this week.

Adam G. Force 28:43

Yeah, absolutely. Really good advice. I love that. And why don’t we wrap up on one last part here in the path because I think this is important for people. I mean, everybody in our audience is acting based on their passion, they want to do something meaningful. So what I want to touch on here as you talk about the importance of having a mentor, you know, we have our program, the captivate method where we put storytelling at the heart of their marketing. It’s very authentic, we get consistent sales. And so this is like a group coaching experience. And, you know, a lot of times I feel like people will say, you know, I’m not ready for this or that, and they have this fear that holds them back, right, or perfectionism and things like that. So I would love to hear your thoughts on why it’s so important to have a mentor.

Gino Wickman 29:25

Yeah, that’s a great question. And I’ll share a couple things there. First is I’m going to talk through the pure mentor relationship and the process for finding one and then I’ll go to the second point, but the idea here is for you to find someone out there who is where you want to be. And, and rule of thumb, you’re going to need five to 10 names because you’re going to hear a lot of nose but you reach out to those people and meet with them for an hour. Ask them what you’re looking for. They share their stories and their insights. You share your story and at the end of that if it feels right, you decide to move forward. You agree on a structure. And so I met with my business mentor every month, hour and a half for literally five years. And he taught me so much. And so that’s the mentoring relationship and about 60% of all of the entrepreneurs that I’ve worked with my research, the ones I’ve talked to have had a mentor. And so the point here is if you don’t have a mentor, it’s not a death sentence, you’re going to be fine. But having a mentor is like a speed pass, you really can jump ahead with a mentor. Yeah. Second point, however, is the world is different now. You know, when I was 25, almost 30 years ago and was I was with my business mentor mentoring the last 2030 4050 years was a one on one relationship. And and it there was no money exchanging hands while the world has changed today, with coaching and masterminds and these organizations, there’s a lot of paid mentoring going on, you know, frankly, I’m a paid mentor for my clients. Yeah. And so, so it’s a little different. Now. The reality of it is you can still very much Find a free mentor and I would urge you to do that but but through the incredible amount of education and wisdom and how easy it is to access and in the the kinds of things that you offer entrepreneurs, you know, I’ve had my paid mentor has been Dan Sullivan for 23 years, I’ve been flying to Chicago every 90 days, I pay a lot of money to be around that man because I learned so much. So I’ve had free mentors, paid mentors, you just ultimately have to find someone who’s where you want to be and attach yourself to them some way shape or form. Love it.

Adam G. Force 31:36

Alright, Gina, I really appreciate your time today. We’re gonna close out here. Let’s make sure people know where do they reach you to learn more, find the book, maybe your website, wherever you want to point them here.

Gino Wickman 31:47

You bet. So the epicenter for all things entrepreneurial leap and everything we’ve been talking about is eat, sleep calm. The book is available entrepreneurial leap is the book. It’s available through all major Retailers but you can get to it through the website again E dash leap calm and then you’re also going to find a ton of free resources. There are nine free tools all intended to help you confirm that you’re an entrepreneur in the making and take a much better successful leap. Love it.

Adam G. Force 32:17

Thank you so much for your time today Gino,

Gino Wickman 32:20

my pleasure Adam had a blast.

Adam G. Force 32:22

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

interview

Adam & Amy: Why You Should Stop Thinking Like a Marketer

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Have you ever felt like taking a shower after seeing so many spammy ads? It makes you not like the idea of marketing sometimes or gives the wrong impression. What if you stopped thinking like a marketer for your business?

Change Creator Co-founders, Adam and Amy, discuss why you SHOULD stop thinking like a marketer and share some fresh counterintuitive perspective that will help you sell more and feel good!

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host Adam forest co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and in life to go big. Visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. What’s going on everybody? Adam force here, hope you all are doing well. So we have some exciting topics to discuss today we’re gonna be talking about why you need to stop thinking like a marketer. And I know that sounds totally counterproductive but this is a fun conversation that Amy and I want to have and kind of share. We’re kicking off a Facebook Live series this week. So if you’re catching this live during Release here on the 21st. Or this week, just go to our Facebook page in our Facebook group and get to catch every day at 12pm noon. Yesterday, we will go boo will be going live can’t talk today. And we’re doing a series about sales and marketing for social good leaders. All right, and we’re calling it the mid year boost, because it’s been a crazy first half a year. And if you’re having some struggles, we’re going to talk about a lot of stuff that will help you with the second half a year to make sure that you boost your business so you can hit your goals and get where you need to go. So tune in to those Facebook Lives. You can catch them as we do them everyday this week at 12 noon, St. This conversation that Amy and I are having is, as I mentioned about stop to stop thinking like a marketer. And we’re going to get into a number of different topics and tell a couple stories around this. I think you’ll find really helpful it’s like a perspective shift. And if you missed the last episode, it was with john MacDonald. We talked about optimizing your existing website. site traffic so that you can get more, you know, sales buyers and things like that out of it. So, you know, we don’t want to just keep paying for paying advertising and getting one offs and things like that we want to for all the people we bring in, we want to get as much out of it as possible. So we had that conversation. Alright guys, I’m gonna let I’m just gonna get right into this conversation today. So let’s talk about why you need to stop thinking like a marketer in order to grow your business. Okay, show me that. Hey, what’s up everybody? We are so excited to be here right now. Because if you if you have caught us over the weekend or since late last week, we have been mentioning that we’re doing our mid year boosts. And this is going to be the first session for that mid year boost because it’s been a little bit chaotic the first half of the year, you know, few punches in the business world. But hey, this is no reason for us to not be successful and growing our businesses. So we wanted to use this week, every day this week to do a conversation at the same time 12 St. To kind of ramp you up and get you pumped with information and insights that will help you for the second half of the year. So you can be the guru sales and marketing person you need to be as a social good leader. So now if you’re catching the replay, just a reminder, I would love for you to let us know and just put replay in the comments. And of course, guys, if you have questions, put the questions in the comments, be part of the conversation. I know you’re not on here live like talking with us. But if you’re listening, and you have questions or comments, fire them up in there, we will get back to you and answer those. And we’ll take it from there. So, today, Amy, what are we talking about? I’m gonna pass it over you to kind of TSF on the topic and such.

Amy Aitman 03:50

Oh, well, today. This is really exciting because I think when I think of a mid year boost, I mean 2020 has been quite a year as we all know But like you said, it’s no excuse for us to keep growing our business because we need to boost our sales we need to boost our marketing we need to boost our the money that’s coming into our businesses so that we can help more people. And that’s why we’re here. Which video we’re going to cover the topic

Adam G. Force 04:23

thinking like a marketer, so you can have better marketing dude. All right, so stop thinking like a marketer Why? And you might be like, stop thinking like a marketer, I need marketing for my business. You know, so let me explain this a little bit because we’re going to cover a couple key things around the tech and the things that Amy outlined, and you’ll see in the description. But let me just kind of I want to share a story real quick that will help demonstrate this. So I had a just recently in April, we had a newborn baby little Jackson. Alright, he’s three. He’s just a few months old now. So my wife and I, we live in this amazing condo, we’re so lucky and grateful. here in Miami. We’re on the only little island in Miami we have an obstructed ocean views. My balcony is like an outdoor living room. It’s insane. And so love love being here. But ever since we had this little man, we need a little more space. Okay. We, that we’ve been together for over 10 years married and we decided, hey, we are going to buy our first house and we’re going to go into a nicer neighborhood by the bay and all this stuff. And so now we have to get rid of this condo and we don’t own the condo we’re renting. And yes, that is costing a fortune to be here. But it was well worth every penny. That’s for sure. You know, as we’re going through all this, guess what? We’re buying a house we’re selling. We’re getting this condo pass over to new tenants. We had the baby we had COVID we we had the Black Lives Matter movement, like everything is piling up. And so it’s been pretty stressful. So as people were coming in here, we had to keep cleaning up the house, get people to show the house too. And so the owner and the real estate agents, they’re all kind of like trying to get this done because we are out of here at the end of next week. We’re moving. That’s it right here. So they need someone to fill our space. Alright, so we had these couple come in, and we have many couples come in right? And so I would always try to talk to them if they had questions whatever I share insights but the the one day this couple came in, they had a baby, they’re about our rage. And they’re going through the house and they had some questions stuff. And I started like, really brain dumping like oh my god, you got to know this about the building. Oh, I don’t know this about the staff. Oh, this restaurant over here and I’m going I’m going I’m, I’m like doing all this stuff. And finally they left and they were here probably the longest compared to anybody because we really connected they’re really cool couple and they were very kind of in line with who we were. They had a baby that was also born in April. She was carrying it on her chest.

Amy Aitman 06:51

The odds of that, right.

Adam G. Force 06:55

So when they left my wife is like what are you doing? Like, what do you mean? What am I doing? And so she’s like, why are you selling this condo so hard, though, who gives a shit about it? Okay. And so I was like, confused for a second. I was like, Yeah, you’re right. I was like, honestly, I’m not selling the condo, I just, I genuinely love this place. I love where we are, I don’t really want to leave. I’m doing it because I love my my new son. And we want to get a new opportunity where we have this neighborhood and stuff. And so I sat down and this is a perfect example of when we are thinking of selling and marketing. You take the marketing hat off, stop thinking about marketing and think about what you love why you do what you do. If you are in line with who you truly are and something that you’re passionate about. You’re not selling, you’re not marketing, you’re truly genuinely just sharing information because you want someone else to get the same benefits that you’ve had. Right? This is when marketing and sales becomes a beautiful thing. And this is When you can truly help people get something special out of it, because you’re not approaching it with just a money mindset. When you do that we call it money breath. People know, you have money breath, and it never works. And you might get some wins here and there. But there’s nothing better than waking up and being super excited about what you have to offer. Because you love your clients, you love your customers, you want to help transform their lives, you want to make the world a better place. So this is what we do. And that was a great example of me not even realizing it and my wife calling me out okay,

Amy Aitman 08:34

but don’t leave us hanging. Did they ended they ended up renting out the condo,

Adam G. Force 08:39

very next day. I was supposed to have another group of people come in and they didn’t show up. So I reached out to the real estate agent and I guess there are no she was Oh, forgot to tell you. The couple yesterday made an offer and I said hey, how much of that commission do I get? I was so so Hello. So I don’t get any commission, but I get knowing that another couple who has a young baby is going to get this beautiful space that I know they are going to just adore. Okay, so that’s what makes me happy, right? It’s not to say I’m not going after a sale, I’m going after someone’s happiness, I’m going after helping them, okay, make some very, very big difference in our perspective, and the results that we ultimately get. So that’s why we say stop thinking like a marketer. All right?

Amy Aitman 09:31

Oh, that’s really yeah, that’s so true. And that’s why I’m part of this discussion that we want to talk about today is like when you need to ditch the tech and when you need to, like, embrace the tech. And we’ve seen a lot of people come to us and they feel like they’re one tech solution away. One, you know, one tactic away from their marketing really exploding. And like Adam says, they kind of put on this what they think is this marketing path and for some reason, it has to do with With tech and tactics, like we’ll hear a lot of marketing gurus out there talking about the next tactic and in next, a system or tactic or something that’s just going to save them for the marketing, and especially for social good leaders and people that have put a lot of passion into their business like, like Adam showing the apartment. I mean, he really loved this condo, it was any love the people and he could, could see them there. It wasn’t, it was completely genuine and we really love our business. So I thought sometimes I wonder why we seem to want to put on this marketing hat and think about tech and tactics. And we forget all of the things that make us special.

Adam G. Force 10:39

Let me just say based on that is the tech part of your business? Of course you need some technology. Do you need it to make sales and get going if you’re in the early stages, not at all You don’t even need a website, okay? And I can, I can stand behind that hundred percent. Now, the town end as we’re trying to grow and do different things like that. So, yes, the tech can feel overwhelming. But that’s why we have mentors and groups and people, they walk you through it, you don’t have to be overwhelmed with those things. That’s like the easy part. Honestly, it’s how we’re using it and what’s actually filling that tech, what’s filling it up have information and things like that. Because if you have that wrong as a marketer, like, if I was saying the wrong things to the wrong people, when I tried to sell that condo, apparently I was selling that condo, you know, it wouldn’t have connected with them and it wouldn’t have worked. All the tech and angles I played in order to schmooze them wouldn’t have mattered. So this it comes down to really what’s what’s what you’re putting into the machine. You know what I mean?

Amy Aitman 11:44

Yeah, that’s a really important point and I’ve had in my career as a digital marketer and storyteller and communicator. I’ve helped a lot of people like improve their funnels and the first thing I know a lot of people look at is like, did you set this up? Write this up today. Pirbright. The first thing I like to look at is like the messaging is the stories that people are telling. Are they really connecting? And do they know who they’re serving? So one of the things we want to talk about today is like how to attract the right people. And, and how to see like, are you really attracting the people that are going to buy from you that you can help? Yeah. Because you could have had, you could have done like, 10 showings of your condo, and they might not have been the right people. It might have been people that you know, you just you couldn’t see. And as soon as these people came in, and so many things in common with you, you could see them in the apartment. And I feel like that’s how it is with our businesses and our solutions to I meet people, I talk to entrepreneurs All the way All like all the time that are really, really perfect fits for what we do and the captivate method. I also talked to a lot of entrepreneurs that aren’t ready yet. And I say to them, I don’t think you’re ready yet. I don’t think this is for you like, right. You have to really know like, if you’re attracting the right People and I can tell you from experience here at Change Creator, you can get a lot of attention from the wrong people, you can get a lot of attention, you can get a lot of attention. I mean example. So back in the early days, we had one of our contributors, one of our writers that contributed for us had this huge audience in I want to say, I forget the country, but it had a huge audience. Very different. They were they wanted to become writers right out and they want to become writers and he had a huge audience. We asked if he could share one of our lead magnets of the time for the magazine with him. And guess what, we got a lot of people on our list that danger 1000 maybe 15 like for a couple of years. Yeah, couple of thousand one day. And as we were talking to those people, and as we reached out to these people that came on our list, we realized like this is not a good fit. They didn’t really have businesses, they were freelancers. They were like amazing. People and they love what they were doing. But they weren’t a fit for what, like what we were selling. And it was a really good lesson. Like, a lot of people focus on traffic and on getting tons of traffic and getting tons of eyeballs, which is great if you have the right message. It really is. It’s really true.

Adam G. Force 14:18

I mean, everybody, a lot of times people skip that messaging part and we don’t really know what it means to get to how to find that message. Right, that clarity. And you know, I say the word clarity a lot because it’s important throughout every step of the business disparity. And it’s amazing because Amy and I will still get clarity today on things that we are already sharp on and we’ll be like whoa, fresh perspective, like even more clarity. And you’ll notice as you go from five figures to six or seven years like there’s constant stages of clarity as you mature as an entrepreneur, and it makes a big difference and your point about the wrong people as well taken even some of the people that came into to continue my condo sales story. You know, they did come in and do some people didn’t ask as many questions. They looked around, they’re in and out quick. And it didn’t inspire a conversation where I was really like pushing hard. It was this particular couple that came in, they were asking questions they were, and they were the right fit, you know, and all of a sudden, I’m selling hard to these guys, without even realizing it. It’s just because I loved it. And I wanted to see their family, find this place and get all the great benefits and have a wonderful, you know, experience here. So it’s so it’s like, as you get further further along, it’s like you realize these things and and you can simplify the overwhelm of your business so much, right,

Amy Aitman 15:41

you’re so right, that clarity is so important. And one of the things that I’ve really realized is that clarity of self we spend a lot of time working on clarity of self and the captivate method for one reason. And 20 has been a crazy year. And, I mean, this is what happens in businesses. I mean, I saw About an email yesterday and I talked about the changes that that we have to endure. And one of the changes that we have found that’s so important is how you grow and you change. Like Adam said, we still become clearer to our messaging to what we’re doing to our offer every day, because we’re still working on our clarity of self. And this is a mindset and a lot of people want to skip over this. But I can tell you who doesn’t skip over this step seven, eight figure entrepreneurs. That is all they do. This is what they focus on. The ones that need the social impact leaders out there, like, could you imagine Adam is like Blake Mycoskie didn’t tell a story didn’t have clarity themselves. I mean, he still works on that. I see I’m on Instagram feed all the time. And he still journals he still looks on himself. He still looks

Adam G. Force 16:49

Yep. Oh, and maybe I got something in the mail about his new business like I guess Ron is this because you know if you guys don’t know we interviewed Blake, we did a really great like video interview. You could check that stuff out tons of good information. They’re, and he sent this thing in the mail to me. It was a whole package about a new business. He was starting in a powerful story behind the whole thing. trinkets and I’m like, all I could think is damn it must be nice to have the money to send this out. My point is, though, that yes, everything was wrapped in the right stories. And it was pretty, pretty impressive stuff. But yeah, so you know, so I mean, why do some so many digital market goes broke? I think we kind of started hitting that it is because of this lack of clarity when it comes to the message. Or, or let me say and, and this desperation of trying to sell where you’re going after the money which Yes, we all want to get rich. I want to get rich. I want to be rich and money. I want to be rich in my freedom and my joy and everything in life, right? But when it comes to money, we if we’re doing what I did with the condo and we’re selling from a public In our heart without even realizing we’re selling, it’s just that we want someone else to get these great benefits we’re offering. That is the selling that works. And you’re not even thinking like a marketer, or you have the Oh my God, I gotta pay my rent. I’m panicked, I’m nervous, and I got to make How do I make a quick thousand this month? How do I make a quick 5000 and then all of a sudden, you’ve got money breath, and it doesn’t matter if it comes out of your mouth verbally or not the non verbal gestures from bodily expressions. It reeks

Amy Aitman 18:28

from experience. I mean, we just bought a brand new Jeep. And I can tell you, we went to a couple places, and the first person, like kind of wreaked of money breath. I mean, it was like, I mean, I understand it’s been through COVID he’s got bills to pay. He wants to sell us this Jeep, and I can tell you one thing, like we were like, 80% of the way there we went in to see these jeeps. Yeah, we’re like we’re getting a jeep. No one’s talking about that. We want a jeep. This should have been an easy sell. Like a lot of you have people in your audience that are like that letter. Let it Me and my husband getting this cheap. They want what you have. But we put up these barriers because of like, Adam says money breath, or we’re thinking about the bottom line, or the end of the month comes and we have to get our quotas in it or our sales goals in and that’s like, that turns everybody off,

Adam G. Force 19:18

I enroll the wrong perspective like, though what drives their perspectives, sometimes their perspectives that are created from the stimulus of stress, right? You go so that stress creates that perspective that you have. So we have to start orienting ourselves and say, Where am I right now? Like, why am I feeling these ways? How do I overcome that? Because we really it cut, right? I mean, it comes down to that perspective of how we are approaching these situations, that’s going to make all the difference. And, you know, we’ll keep reiterating the story of the condo versus that money breath. Those are the two, two sales worlds that make to make this very easy today, to think about because they’re very different perspectives and You know, I can get into the science behind this. But yeah, people they know and they sense everything that you’re feeling too. So it’s like, it’s like translating to them.

Amy Aitman 20:09

Again, it’s the stories that you’re telling yourself. And so that clarity of self is really important if you’re telling yourself the stories of desperation, or I need to make the sale or I’m not sure if my offer is good enough, or I’m not sure if I’m helping enough people, or there’s so many are selling books, you keep saying your marketing sucks, or here’s one that we see all the time. And if this is you, I want you to be bold, and I want to put your hand up in the chat. You see me you see sucky marketing all the time. And you’re like, Oh, I don’t want to be on this list. I don’t want to see this ad. I don’t want to be on the side. If that is you, I want you to turn that back on you and say why are you seeing that? Is that how you feel about your offer? Because I can guarantee you if you believe, with like, no shadow of a doubt That your offer is helping people, and that your business is helping people and you will love to sell. Because that means you’re helping more people. And that means that you’re changing their life. And if you are someone that sees marketing all the time as slimy and skeezy. Yes, are they’re the slimy gurus out there. They’re the slimy people out there. They’re just I mean, he was part of the deal. Of course, there’s a there out there. But if that’s all that you’re seeing, that I want you to take a step back and look at yourself and look at your money mindset. Look at your sales mindset, and change it up, change that up. Because guess what you’re going to start to attract the things in life, the more authentic you’re gonna start to see that, you know, selling really is helping and we’re going to say this over and over again, because it’s something that

Adam G. Force 21:49

we all need to hear. It’s important to tee up the series this week, too. That’s why this first, we want to create like a little bit of like a stepping stone mindset. And I think we’ll wrap up here, Amy, and my final state is gonna be You know, this is really about how sales becomes authentic, right? And getting new customers, buyers clients, whatever you want to call them is not about being a great marketer or salesperson. It’s really about loving what you do. And truly wanting to share that transformation with someone who want to help someone you want to do something good, like when you approach it from these perspectives, because you’re excited you love it. It just works out way better.

Amy Aitman 22:27

Really great tip to leave us mid year boost on. So your first boost is like, it’s about loving what you do and doing more of what you do. Let’s take our marketing right now.

Adam G. Force 22:38

It’s I hope that the condo story that we did here does demonstrate that well. Okay, Amy, what are we gonna leave them today? I mean, they want to basically let’s give them some clarity. Let’s give them like some things that they can focus on for their own business that we know will be helpful. And I think maybe that’s the the impact business blueprint would be

Amy Aitman 23:03

yeah well we both think that you can download the impact business blueprint. It’s free leave in the comments of course we want you to join us for more days left of this mid year boost sales and marketing series. So bring your questions we’re going to be talking about sales we’re going to be talking about more about marketing we’re talking about find those the right clients.

Adam G. Force 23:24

All that good stuff.

Amy Aitman 23:25

Yeah, that’s pretty good. Oh, what? We’re gonna be talking about sales funnels. That’s gonna be fun.

Adam G. Force 23:31

Oh, yeah. Tomorrow 12pm PST, we will be back. Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

Tom Kulzer: Email Marketing Trends and Strategies Learned From 20 Years of Experience

Listen to our exclusive interview with Tom Kulzer:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

What can you do to increase trust and engagement with your email strategies? Tom Kulzer is the founder of Aweber which started 20 years ago and he has some key insights for entrepreneurs.

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:11

Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show Adam foreseer. Your host. If you missed our last show, it was with Angela Henderson. Angela is super cool and she is out in Australia. She’s done some great work. So we talked about building an e commerce business and adapt identifying new opportunities. Angela is somebody that we actually met in one of our coaching programs that we’re both in she travels around the world spending, you know, 4050 grand a year doing masterminds and programs and we linked up in one of them. And so she was kind enough to be on our show and share some of her wisdom that she has from all her expertise and success in the e commerce space. So don’t miss that one. So this week, we are going to be talking to somebody who’s been In the digital marketing space for quite some time, and his name is Tom Colter, he’s actually the founder of a Weber. So if you’re a betting entrepreneur for a little while, you probably heard the name a Weber before, they are a staple in the email marketing world. So, Tom’s gonna have a lot to talk about when it comes to different strategies, insights, lessons and learnings in email marketing, and just digital marketing, you know, in general, so this will be a really great conversation, because I know we’re all looking to get more engagement, more attraction, which ultimately leads to a better functioning business, right. So that’s why we’re talking to Tom. And we’re going to see, you know, all these 20 years, what are some of the trends and things that he is seeing? Don’t forget to stop by Change creator.com we always have lots of fresh content going up there that you guys can check out and you can get in on the magazine Change Creator magazine right now for 99 cents, okay, so it’s $10 for the year, 99 cents a month, and you get access to our entire library of content. So Guys, we updated the app, make sure you go to the app store and you get the latest version. So download the update, and you’re gonna see some really cool stuff. So one, you’re gonna have all 28 magazines we’ve done so far in the app. And then on another tab, there’s articles, these articles run through an RSS feed. So you get quick, easy access. So every week articles are coming in from the Change creator.com website. So you don’t have to go to the website, just pop the app. And you can go check out conferences, you can check out magazines, you can flip to the tab, read the latest articles, all that good stuff is now in the app. And it’s just 99 cents a month, or $10 for the entire year for full access. I was actually reminded today about a memory from a few years ago, several years ago, when Amy, the co founder, Change Creator and I were in San Francisco, and we were there for a conference but all of a sudden we were running around the city trying to get some things done. And we heard that Muhammad Yunus was in town promoting a new book that he had coming out And he was at the Commonwealth center. So we were gonna go there and say, Hey, we got to go meet Muhammad Yunus. You know, he’s like the godfather of social business. And so we find out tickets are $200 a pop. And we’re like, I don’t know about that, but didn’t matter because they were sold out. He sold out the entire place. And we couldn’t get in which was a huge disappointment. And you know, Funny enough, guess what happened? Well, we decided to get clever. We figured out what what’s the story, we’re gonna tell the story of Change Creator, we’re gonna get in touch with these guys and share all their info. And we got in as media for free. And not only do we get in there, we made connections with his team. We ended up having a killer interview. If you haven’t heard yet, definitely go back to listen to the Muhammad Yunus interview we did. And he was also featured on the cover of Change Creator magazine, such a great addition and it was such an honor to have that conversation at 7am in the morning with Dr. Yunus. Okay, guys, I won’t hold you up any longer. Don’t forget to leave us a review. We very much appreciate it. We’re gonna die. into this conversation with the founder of AWeber. Tom calls okay show me that he Hey, Tom, what’s up, man? How you doing today? Welcome to the Change Creator podcast Show.

Tom Kulzer 04:12

I’m doing excellent. Thanks for having me on today. I got

Adam G. Force 04:15

it, man. So, you know AWeber has been kind of like a staple in the email marketing world for for quite some time. You guys been around for what? 20 years now or something?

Tom Kulzer 04:26

Yeah, 21

Adam G. Force 04:30

was crazy. I mean, I honestly remember 10 years ago learning about AWeber from some of these some of these online marketers when this stuff was all really picking up and they’re calling Yeah, AWeber is the best guy to get on AWeber and as a guy and that’s how I learned about you guys just from other entrepreneurs. Actually, they were probably doing affiliate marketing for you. So yeah, really, really great brand. I appreciate you jumping on here. And I’m curious actually what you were doing before AWeber like what what led you to the email marketing world

Tom Kulzer 05:00

It was kind of a bit of a twisty road to some extent I was actually in school at the time, studying mechanical engineering, managed to then switch to finance, you know, totally related fields. And just kind of on the side, I was selling wireless modems. So this is back in the dial up days, you know, where that was still a predominant method of connecting. So we didn’t all have iPhones and, you know, high speed internet connections in our pocket everywhere. So I was selling these wireless modems and in the process developed a sequence of emails to automate the people that had inquired about the product at the time. And I just wrote a little script that would send these emails out over the course of several weeks. And it worked really well as far as actually like educating people on and ultimately closing sales on those. And that ultimately turned into the initial versions of AWeber was making it something that other people could use for their own business. So I had people that came to me and said, Hey, I want to That email thing that you’re doing nothing like this exists out there. Can you do that? You know, can you do that for my own business? And I said, Well, you know, it doesn’t exist, but let me see what I can do. So, you know, so there was a need, and I filled it at the time. So and the rest is kind of history. And it’s grown from there.

Adam G. Force 06:16

Yeah. You know, it’s funny, because he started off saying you had a certain you’re going to school for engineering and stuff. What was this? an engineering that you went to learn?

Tom Kulzer 06:25

It was mechanical engineering, not computer science. Nothing like that, you know, make sense with my dad. Now. I like to say I’m a jack of all trades, master of none. So I’m sure people would argue with me about that. But uh, yeah, I like to know a little bit about a lot of different things and be able to piece them together in ways to create value.

Adam G. Force 06:46

Yeah, yeah. No, it’s always funny because I always argue with my wife luann about you know, college and stuff like that, you know, for kids and everything. Like, I’m not a fan. Oh my god. They don’t need that. They just gotta learn how to make money in this world. One way Are the other doing something that they just like, you know, and she’s a real big Well, I went to Cornell and it’s been the most valuable thing in my life and all this stuff. So when I hear people like, the guy went to school for this, and then they become an entrepreneur, but it’s totally just doing something totally different. When I heard you say that, I was like, it’s a pretty good example. You know,

Tom Kulzer 07:19

I have, I have little kids as well. And I’ve definitely had this conversation with my wife and friends and and I really think that school even though I never finished, and I don’t have an official degree, I think school is immensely valuable, in that it gives you perspective, and it creates relationships that you wouldn’t otherwise have. So I would always, you know, I would definitely encourage my own kids to go to school. You know, if they take a path that moves differently than that, I’m certainly going to be supportive of it, but I think it’s a good it’s a good direction to at least start in until you have a different direction that you might think might ultimately be better.

Adam G. Force 07:52

Yeah, that’s usually where the conversation ends up. There’s definitely perks for it for sure. So there’s there’s a place you know, and I just, you know, you see a story with, you know, the school debt and everything and people can’t get jobs. So it’s a, you know, it’s funny because you buy a program today, you know, you’re in the digital marketing world and people want to buy something, and they always want to see that 30 day, you know, money back guarantee. And you know, then it’s like, well, you know, you pay all this money for a college, there’s no guarantee that you’re getting a job and getting that money back either. You know, it’s very, yeah. Anyway, so I don’t want to go too far off on a tangent, but I can get sucked into this all day. But I want to hear a little bit more just about the development of AWeber. Because obviously, since you’ve been around for a couple decades now, take us a little bit through the evolution in a nutshell, just kind of like where you started and where you are today. Cuz, you know, we’ll get into like the future of AWeber as well.

Tom Kulzer 08:47

Yeah, I think you know, initially it started out as very, very simple. It was simply a series of seven email messages that were all plain text, no graphics, no fonts or bold or anything like that. because, frankly, email clients back then didn’t support it, you know, eventually that evolved into, you know, being able to support sending email newsletters and that sort of thing. And, you know, to where today you know, now it’s it’s really a full suite, you know, marketing automation platform that allows people to, you know, create really beautiful designs and things that match their, their brand. And, you know, really be able to communicate in ways that are engaging with their subscribers in as much automation as you possibly can to make that not only time saving for end users, but also more engaging for your subscribers to receive content that is relevant to them. Yeah, so it’s really evolved significantly over the years, you know, we have 100, you know, 10 or so people in our office here that are working every day to continually improve the platform. It’s not a you know, design once and be done and continue to sell it forever. It’s very much an ongoing thing and that’s, you know, a big part of the benefit. have, you know why we exist? And why? Having a cloud solution for that is so valuable?

Adam G. Force 10:06

Yeah. Yeah. No curious because, you know, there’s many different email platforms, obviously, that people get, you know, lost doing their research, trying to figure out what’s best for them, and everybody has their own needs, right, that that’s suitable. So who are who does this really suit? Right now? Like, are you geared towards a specific type of, you know, entrepreneur or business owner? Who do you look at as a primary customer right now?

10:30

You know, most of our I wouldn’t say there’s a specific single industry that we target there, it’s more about company size and and how they’re engaging with folks online. So typically, you know, small business customer, whether it’s an entrepreneur just getting started out of their kitchen, you know, upwards of, you know, companies of 100 Plus, you know, we also have big enterprise customers that use us for different parts of their site. So, um, you know, different enterprise class like blogs. Use us for disseminating They’re blog content in an automated way. So that people are able to see their news updates and that sort of stuff. And it’s fully automated. And it’s something that their enterprise email service provider solutions don’t actually support, whereas we do and we automate all of that. So… it really ranges a spectrum. But predominantly, it’s that small business, you know, solo entrepreneur to small teams in the, you know, 10s 20s and 30. Team Member kind of kind of categories.

Adam G. Force 11:29

Interesting. Yeah, I, you know, I, that’s helpful and makes a lot of sense. I just want to ground the people listening here. And, you know, I’d like to hear your thoughts just on, you know, the evolution of digital marketing. Do you have any just I’m just curious, because you’re in obviously, the digital marketing space. You’ve been doing email marketing specifically for for quite some time. How are you’re seeing, you know, this space evolve? Is there anything that really stands out to you these days?

Tom Kulzer 11:57

Yeah, I think when you step back from email, and look at kind of the Bigger marketing digital marketing ecosystem. You know, we started out back in the days of like AOL being giant, you know, and you getting the, you’re getting a little floppy disks, and eventually the CDs. You know, and that’s really when AOL was was a heyday in AOL to a lot of users was internet back then. They didn’t know that there was an internet outside of, of AOL. And I think it’s interesting that over the years as social networks have built up, like many people think that Facebook is the internet. And there is a repetition in these trends of you know, kind of as as different businesses gain kind of that market share. They create kind of these walled gardens that try to keep everybody in and everything else out and they make it really hard to communicate and interact with anything outside of that guard, which is why businesses today, you know, are often told like you need to be on Facebook, you need to be on Twitter, you need to be on Instagram, you need to be on all these different things. And it’s hard for I think a lot of businesses to figure out where where they can have the most impact and how they can connect with their, with their users in the most genuine way. And I think the the biggest kind of trend throughout all of that is email has really remained very relevant. And if anything, the center to a lot of those communications, like Facebook’s one of the biggest email centers on the planet. Yeah, and it’s, and most people say like, social media is gonna kill email. It’s like, no, no social media relies on email to exist. Yeah. And I think it’s something that a lot of people kind of overlook. It’s one of the few mediums where you can actually, not that you own a relationship but that you can own the ability to communicate with with those users, but you don’t own some of your subscribers email inbox, and you have to respect that. That permission that someone has given you to to enter their inbox But, you know, whereas Facebook, you might have 100 people that are following you or that have liked your page, but when you post something on Facebook, that doesn’t mean all hundred are gonna see your stuff it you know, and not even 90 or 80 likes these days, it’s, you know, 10 20% if you’re lucky, whereas email, like if you got a 10 or 20% on, you know, open rate or like a delivery rate and all the other 80% were on deliverable never even saw your message, like, people be like banging down our door with pitchforks. Like, it’s a very different kind of, you know, ecosystem where when you send an email, like 99% of those emails are getting delivered to the people that requested them, and they’re going to be able to see them and it’s not some algorithm that’s deciding that whether you’re going to see it or not see it. If you’ve given permission and you’ve been actively engaging with it, you’re going to see it every single time. Yeah, that’s, that’s that’s probably like the biggest kind of big picture view of the whole digital marketing that I’ve seen overall on the trends as it’s kind of come and gone over the years.

Adam G. Force 14:58

Ya know, it’s it’s a great Point and you’re right. I mean, you get 100% deliverability. Unless you have a junk email that’s, that’s on, you know, you know, but at the end of the day, you guys get it out there and Facebook is getting less and less. I mean, you get I don’t even know if it’s 10% anymore. So yeah, we got like 30,000 people following us and only, you know, 80 people see a post, you know, like, what is that about?

Tom Kulzer 15:23

Yeah, it’s definitely has changed

Adam G. Force 15:25

the other thing too, that is interesting is I think that over time, you’re right, like, it’s a staple for any entrepreneur, like, email hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s only gotten better and smarter. And if Facebook crashes, your email list is still there. It’s not going anywhere, right? Your business doesn’t get disturbed.

15:44

Right for Facebook shut you down, poof, all your 30,000 followers are gone like you don’t have any way of recouping them and nor do you have any way of communicating with them other than to potentially open another Facebook account, which you know is going to be hard pressed to do to begin less if you Got yourself shut down that way where, you know, you know, it’s different. Yeah, I will caveat all that was saying like email marketing should be permission based, you know, you don’t want to send spam. You know, you don’t, you don’t want to, to, to, you know, violate people’s trust by sending them emails that they haven’t requested, you know, you don’t want to get it yourself. One that’s sending it to other people. And I think that that’s something that especially as an entrepreneur can be very enticing. You know, I’ve listened to you actually, I was listening to one of your, one of your guests that you had on not too many podcast episodes ago, where they were basically encouraging people to spend just shaking my head I was like, No, no, no, no. Like, you want to make sure I’m not gonna name names, but uh, you know, it’s, it’s one of those, you know, you want to make sure that people are requesting the information that you’re sending, and that’s overall the best way to have a successful email program and have successful and get influence and relationships that come out of email is to start on the basis of permission. Yeah, so

Adam G. Force 17:06

I agree. And you know, one of the things that, you know, my co founder, Amy and I talk a lot about is, you know, as business is changing today, more and more people have their guards up ad blockers are popping up. And people don’t they don’t trust the information that’s out there. Think about if there’s more videos, you don’t know, if it’s real, there’s more images that you don’t know if it’s real, or articles that are misleading. Like, there’s a lot of factors out there today that are causing people to lose trust. And so trust is becoming the most valuable resource you can have, especially when you’re trying to start a business and build up, you know, advocates for your business. So I think you’re right, if you’re just throwing things out there, people don’t know who you are, and you’re just trying to pitch, you know, spam and sell things. Today, that’s going to be more and more difficult. It’s not like the wild wild west, maybe in the early 90s, or whatever it was, right. So I think the trust factor that you mentioned, and being permission based is going to be really important to developing a relationship that’s sustainable. Your business?

Tom Kulzer 18:01

Absolutely.

Adam G. Force 18:02

So, so, yeah. And I’m curious then, you know, as as this stuff is evolving what what are you guys thinking about? Is there like, what’s next for for a Weber and development? Like, what’s the vision for the next year or so?

Tom Kulzer 18:20

Um, you know, we we don’t get into a whole lot of specific, you know, down and dirty product plans internally, we definitely have a roadmap for those. I think the biggest thing that you’re seeing is, you know, for us is is the amount of information that businesses are putting out there in the amount of different platforms that they need to be on the the ability for them to communicate with their users in the most time efficient manner possible is, is I think one of the most important things like actually today. We just had a big release called Smart designer. And basically what it does is it allows us an end user to come to our site, enter their website address themselves. And we are able to pull out their logo, pull out their images, pull out their color themes and those sort of stuff that they have on their website and create some really beautiful templates as a result of that, without the end user having to do anything like where are our basically, our algorithms are able to put together a bunch of templates that they can pick from that are already branded already look like them, and they can get started with and send right away to their subscribers. And I think it’s those kind of automations that whereas in the past, you might have had to have a designer, you might have had to take, you know, a stock template and tweak it to the way that you like, like most of us, myself included, you know, are not brilliant designers that can make ourselves you know, make our stuff look really beautiful. And while our templates make that a lot easier, I think you know, this sort of automated mechanism for building templates that are fully branded right out of the box is a really cool and innovative way to save people time, but also make them look better. Like make their stuff more engaging with their end users and make it more identifiable when it’s so when it shows up in your inbox is like, Oh, yeah, that’s that website, I was on last week that I gave my email address. And I didn’t want to get these updates. Whereas when you get something that like, you know, has a different color theme, or maybe he’s missing a logo or something, because the site owner didn’t get around to putting it in their template, you know, it, it hampers that instant recognition that I think is needed to help with the overall engagement of the emails that are being sent out to PDF. Yeah. So that continuing of the trend of using machines and using, you know, the the programs and stuff that we have on the back end to be able to aggregate that content and do things that are smarter with it. and sending it to people that are more engaged, I think is going to be kind of a continued theme that you’re going to see from us in the in the years to come.

Adam G. Force 20:50

Interesting. Yeah, that consistency definitely will help you know, it’s like going from an ad or seeing a brand on one platform and then you click through and you’re told it’s totally different, you know, title and color scheme, you’re like, Am I in the right place? Okay, yeah.

Tom Kulzer 21:04

You know, I’m not saying anything about a particular brand or anything, but like, just look at, like, target as an example. Like, I’m sure we’ve all seen the ads, like their commercials on TV. And it’s like, you know, before they ever say the word target or the company name target, you know, you’re watching a target ad, just by like, the way that it feels. And and that I think is, you know, that’s a branding that obviously, you can spend 10s of millions of dollars to get that, but like, you know, the i think it’s it’s subtle things like that of just seeing a consistent color scheme, a consistent theme throughout all the different channels that you’re communicating with users is what helps build that over time. So I’m build that record.

Adam G. Force 21:44

And have you guys had any focus on I don’t know what your internal, like data collection is like, but what do you guys do too? I was going to get into like, you know, the idea of open rates and what you’re saying Seeing is working for people like have you do you collect that kind of data to see like, what kind of emails are working well? Or what are getting good clicks and all that kind of stuff? Is there any kind of data collection like that?

Tom Kulzer 22:11

Oh, yeah, absolutely. That’s the, you know, a big part of the value of our platform is the open rates and your click through rates and your unsubscribe rates, all of that sort of metrics that we roll up for each individual customer, but then we also roll up, you know, across the aggregate and across different industries and verticals. So yeah, now we see you know, 10s of millions of of email send every day and, you know, millions of opens and clicks throughout the platform every single day. So there’s, there’s a tremendous amount of learning there. I think, you know, overall from an email landscape when you’re talking to in it, you know, an individual and business owner, you know, email these days is all about engagement much, much like they talked about on social platforms. It’s also similar to, you know, an email the I think the bar is different in Email than it is on social platforms. But it really comes down to sending engaging emails, there really is, you know, the definition of spam these days from from a mailbox provider. So think like Gmail or hotmail or Yahoo, one of those, you know, the definition of spam to them is really, Does somebody want it? Or do they not want it? And they might have wanted it in the past, but no longer want it? In which case, they’re gonna they’re gonna potentially throw that email in the spam folder. Yeah. And and at the end of the day, how are they judging whether or not you want that email or not, you know, obviously, there’s the spam button that you can click in an email client to say, like, Hey, I don’t want this anymore. But there’s also what you do with the email every time you get it. You know, when you get that email, do you open it? Do you read it? Do you click on links in it? Do you reply to it? All of those sorts of things feed into their algorithms to determine whether or not you and others like you are going to want to receive emails from that sender. So it’s really important that when you’re sending emails out, that you’re keeping your engagement off, meaning you’re keeping people opening them, you’re keeping them clicking them, you know, and even replying and forwarding them off to other people is a really good signal. You know, there’s a reason that all of your personal communications back and forth with like myself or others, you know, are always in your inbox is because you’re replying to one another, you’re having conversations, you’re engaged in interacting, whereas a lot of emails that a lot of businesses send out, you know, they’ll send them with like, a no reply email address. And, you know, it might be a little like Kurt, but like, I always describe that as like giving all your customers the middle finger. You know, it’s basically like your buy my stuff. Don’t talk to me,

Adam G. Force 24:43

essentially, right? Yeah, I see that alot

24:45

And it’s like, absolutely, I see that all too often. And it’s like, absolutely, like the most terrible thing that you can do. Like you want to engage with people like you want to help them and while you know you need to figure out the you know, economies of scale and how you can help people As your audience grows, I think those kind of one to one personal relationships and those personal engagements are really what makes the difference between a brand that thrives and a brand that dies. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 25:14

So have you seen? Or do you have anything off the top of your head? That would be a helpful insight for people when it comes to, you know, engagement in the email space?

25:28

Um, you know, I think, you know, obviously, starting with sending content that’s relevant, you know, what are people signing up for? What are what are you telling them they’re signing up for? You know, are you sending emails? You know, when somebody signs up, Hey, get updates from my blog, you know, 10 tips about whatever it’s like, okay, but are you then going to send them an email every day? Are you going to send them an email once a month? How are you setting expectations with them on the content that you’re going to send, like, I often see like people that send really frequently, you know, they’ll have a signup form on their site and they don’t tell people Hey, I’m going to send you three emails a day. I don’t know about you. But when I sign up for something, I don’t generally expect to get three emails a day from that sender. And I’m probably going to either unsubscribe or complain pretty heavily, as soon as they start doing that, unless the expectation was set up front. You know, I think, you know, as far as ways of engaging, I think surveys are a really good way of, you know, just asking different little questions. And having people kind of partition those users off to different parts of your site that speak to and engage with them more directly than maybe like a, you know, a broader sense. And the cool thing is, is once you do that, you can also like in our platform, you can actually tag users. So if you click on this particular link, I can say I was I was using like a, like a catalyst as like an example. So like, if you click on the dollar articles, you know, I can tag you as dog and if you click on the cat articles, I can tag you as cat. And that way in the future, I can send the cat people, all cats. stuff and I can send the dog people dog stuff because I’ve learned what they’re most interested in. And I can now mark it to them in a more relevant way. I think it’s, it’s kind of a hokey example. But like, it’s, I think it’s something that most people can like instantly grasp as how that would be more relevant, and why you’d be more likely to engage with that content than if you know, half of this stuff that I send is completely irrelevant to you because you’re just not into cats.

Adam G. Force 27:24

Right? Yeah, that’s perfect answer. I mean, at the end of the day, it does come in it sounds so obvious, like, oh, send relevant stuff, which means, but if you took it a step further, before that, which is set the right expectations up front, you know, we collect emails where someone’s like, oh, get this free guide. Next thing you know, you’re on the weekly newsletter, you know what I mean? It’s like, Well, wait a minute. This has nothing to do what I signed up

Tom Kulzer 27:49

I didn’t get told that I was gonna do it that either.

Adam G. Force 27:51

Exactly.

Tom Kulzer 27:53

Yeah. You’re gonna ultimately hurt yourself in the long run by doing that so Exactly,

Adam G. Force 27:57

exactly. And the tagging is a great tech to really help start tracking who’s showing interest where and I love the idea of that segmentation to really again just become more relevant. And it’s almost like just personalizing the conversation over email.

Tom Kulzer 28:14

Absolutely. I think another thing that’s really interesting, like, you know, in, in the marketing sphere, you’ll often hear like, Oh, I’m gonna send an email blast and like, every time I hear somebody say that, like, I just cringe a little part of the die. Yeah, because it’s like, again, it’s kind of that like middle finger to your your audience. It’s like what you want to blast all your all your all your subscribers, like, that doesn’t sound like a really nice thing to do. And I think the best way to reframe it, and what I tell folks is like, don’t write your email to 100 people or 1000 people or 100,000 people or however many subscribers you have, you’re not writing an email to a huge group of people. You’re writing it to one person, that one person that’s, you know, pulling out their phone from their pocket and reading your email or sitting at their desktop and reading Getting your email in a laptop or whatever. It’s, you’re, you’re talking to one person at a time. Yeah. And and I think the best way to kind of get that voice there and to think about that one person is like, when you’re writing your emails, think about like writing an email to your mom, like, you know, your dad, your grandparents or your sister or whatever it happens to be like, write it to one person and make it relevant to them. And it’s much more likely to be relevant to a lot of other people at the same time, because you’re writing you’re writing to the person and not just like this huge anonymous group, which makes your message I think, more personable, and more identifiable. So like, you’re just you’re more likely connect and an actual human level than than just like, Oh, I send an email to my list. Like, I hate when people refer their, their subscribers as as like a list. They’re people. You know.

Adam G. Force 29:54

I know it’s funny because I just had this we just did a discussion. My co founder, Amy and I were talking about how The digital world of marketing is not like when you go door to door and you sit down, you had a full conversation with someone face to face. It’s like taking that conversation and spreading it around digitally. And now when people think of marketing and targeting and all this stuff, it’s become so cold. So to your point, you know, it’s now a person is a click or an impression. They’re no longer like we’re having a conversation. We’re talking to people. It’s like this cold marketing jargon.

Tom Kulzer 30:25

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. So the clicks and the opens and the lists that they’re all people and they’re all somewhere on the planet. There’s maybe a couple floating around in outer space at any given time, but I doubt they’re reading your email. They’re all here. And and I think that it helps to talk to them as people and not as this inanimate object.

Adam G. Force 30:47

Exactly. And and just, you know, it shapes your perspective of what you’re doing. So the step the actions you take can be different just because of the way you frame up the way you think about it. Absolutely, um, you know, one of the things they just wanted to ask Real quick was that came to mind is just when you when you got off the ground with AWeber you know, you’ve done this entrepreneurial hustle. I’m sure you’ve had your ups and your downs and things like that. I’m just curious of any advice you have, you’ve been now, you know, sustained your business for over 20 years. So just any general advice for people who are in their first five years and you know, we all go through our ups and downs like that. So I’m just curious what your thoughts might be to based on your decades of work.

Tom Kulzer 31:29

I would say everybody’s an overnight success 10 years in

Adam G. Force 31:33

exactly.

Tom Kulzer 31:34

Like, like, I think that the news media like Star obviously portray, like these in this this persona that like every business is an instant instant, overnight success. Very, very few are, you know, we’ve seen hundreds of thousands of businesses, you know, come many are successful, many, many are not and I think that as an option For an area kind of have to have a thick skin and a determination to like kind of, you know, walk the, you know, the trodden path and keep moving things forward. It can often feel like a million miles. But I think eventually, you know, eventually with the determination and the right kind of, you know, the right thing that has value to to, you know, people that you’re putting it out there to, I think you will see success, it’s just, it’s just a matter of getting there and very, very few businesses are like instantaneously successful. You know, everyone starts with one subscriber, you know, the biggest trick is like, just starting, you know, I hear a lot of the like, I don’t know what to write and it’s like, just write something because something is better than nothing. Yeah, and and just just that, like, just keep, just keep moving forward. And, and I think that eventually, you know, more more often than not, those that persevere are eventually successful and I think that down that road can often be long and arduous. But I think in the long run it can can be really, really beneficial and really pay off.

Adam G. Force 33:11

Yeah, hundred percent. I love that. Thanks for sharing that. And then, you know, the last thing I’m going to ask you is just kind of this closing question that we’ve been asking people just to kind of give you a chance just to speak from your experience. And you know, if you had this opportunity, you had the world’s ear to share in a message that’s important. You know, what would that message be to everybody?

Tom Kulzer 33:34

You know, I I really gave this some thought in it. And it’s kind of weird because the first thing that popped into my mind that kind of like blanked out on on like the name of your site and whatnot, and the first thing that came into my head was like, be your own agent for change. And then I connected back to two and I was like, oh, that totally sounds like pandering. Like, there was like, with like, being completely honest. It was a first thing that just popped into my head when, when you asked me the question. You know, if you don’t like something, you know, don’t wait for somebody else to make it better. You know, we really have to be our own agent for change, whether it’s stuff in your life, whether it’s your personal life, your business, whether it’s your employer where you’re working, like, you know, it’s stepping over, we, I often use this example in our business here, it’s like if you see if you trap a piece of trash on the ground, like don’t step over it and wait for somebody else to pick it up, like you pick it up. Because if somebody else sees you picking it up, they’re more likely to pick it up the next time they see a piece of trash and I think that being that agent for change can be so so powerful both you know personally and professionally and being the the solution and not part of the problem. You know, we talked about this, this concept called pairing here in our office where like, you know, you might go and you’re, I think a lot of people’s natural reaction is to like add, there’s something negative like I’m gonna To go tell somebody else about this negative thing. Whereas like, really the healthy thing to do is be like, Hey, I see a problem here. And like I see these two or three different solutions to making that problem better, like, and I think everyone’s life is so much more enriched, when you’re really the solution for that change. And the solution for those problems, rather than just like perpetuating the problem consistently, you know, over and over again. And I think a lot of people get really hung up on all the reasons they can’t do things. And not all the reasons that they can do things. And I think that, you know, being that agent for change can be really scary for a lot of people. But I think if you’re not doing something that’s a little bit scary every day, you’re not changing and growing. And if you want different results in your life, you have to be doing things that you haven’t done before, because if you’ve done them before, you would already have seen that success in your life. So you really have to kind of step out of the comfort zone over and over and over again in order to really create Create that change and to create the, you know, the the ultimate, you know, outcome that you’re looking for. So that’s kind of my that’s, that’s my pulpit.

Adam G. Force 36:11

There. It’s so important I like just appreciate you saying those things and, you know, just helps it leave people in an inspired mindset, you know, so I really appreciate your time today, Tom, this is great.

Tom Kulzer 36:22

Hey, thanks for having me on. It’s been fun. Awesome. We’ll be in touch.

Adam G. Force 36:25

That’s all for this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews, and more ways to stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit Change Creator mag comm we’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

interview

Adam & Amy: The Hard Truth About Delegating For Your Startup

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Delegating work is important for any business but what if you delegate the wrong things at the wrong time?

Change Creator co-founders, Adam and Amy, have been there and learned hard lessons that they share in this talk about delegation.

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:11

Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam fours. Hope you had an amazing New Year celebration, holiday break, spend time with family, all that good stuff, maybe a little time off to recoup and get ready for the 2020 year. Amy and I want to kick it off this year, having our first conversation to talk about delegating for the year because, you know, we had a conversation about this before in our community, people were not necessarily as concerned about finding the right people. I mean, that’s very important. But also, are you delegating the right things at the right time? Are you doing more harm than good? Because we’ve been down that road with Change Creator, where we did bring on teams for PR and marketing and other things that we delegated. And we made some big mistakes and so you know, we recouped since then, thankfully, and we want to share some of those experiences. With you have so you can have a solid 2020 as you guys are trying to scale your impact businesses. If you did miss our last episode it was before the holidays here it was with Jessie whose last name I will not try to pronounce because it’s a tough one. But we did talk about selling and tech and things like that. And it’s a really good one because he has a lot of sales experience. And so if you missed it, swing back through, you’ll get some good sales nugget nuggets out of that. We’ve made some good updates on the website, we just put some fresh content out there for you to check out. There’s a really great in feature story we put together with prime roots. They just raised $4 million, and they’re in the superfood space. So we talk about climate change. We talk about healthy foods and that industry, investors are chomping at the bit guys to get in on that space when it comes to vegan foods and that type of stuff. So you might want to check that out. Last but not least, don’t forget to stop by Facebook. That’s where we’re hanging out a lot. So check us out on the Facebook page follow us and if you want to take your conversation to the next level. Talking about your business and learning about, you know, really making it profitable. Well, that’s where we want to stop. Have you stopped by our group it is for the profitable digital impact entrepreneur so you could check us out over there. All right, guys, I’m not gonna hold you up any longer. We’re gonna dive right into this conversation with Amy and I and kick this off. Okay, show me the heat. Hello, guys. We are going to talk a little bit about delegating today. Because you know, when you’re in the first several years of your business, you start thinking about, you know, where are my weaknesses? What do I delegate? So you know, delegating for your business is important. But what if you’re delegating the wrong things, and you’re actually hurting your startup? So what would those things be and why we want to get into some of that today?

Amy Aitman 02:46

Oh, that’s great. Yeah, we’re gonna get into that. But first, I want to ask you guys who loves watching Netflix? I mean, I think everyone, right? Yeah, look, I’m a love Netflix and there’s a show that I’ve done. discovered recently, it’s called million pound restaurant. It’s a fun one. And the premise is, these new restaurant owners get to pitch their business to investors. And then they get to open their own restaurants and see if they get the million pound investment, which is really exciting. And one of the things that restaurants do is what’s called a soft launch. So they opening night, they have their new concept. Some of them have started like street vendors, and then they go into their own restaurants. So it’s their first chance to really sell to this bigger audience in this new location. And imagine that you have this or you have started your own vegan, sustainable restaurant, you really care about the environment. You are an amazing vegan chef to make vegan food tastes like amazing food that even there’s a lot of and it’s soft launch night and there’s so much on the line and a soft launch night so Instead of, but instead of cooking your signature dishes and mingling with the crowd and working your dream, this is your night to shine. You hand the keys over to Gordon Ramsay. And you say to Gordon, now Gordon Ramsay is an amazing chef, and I’m sorry, Turner. I’m sure he’s, I mean, I know he’s really great at running his restaurants. But he comes in with, it doesn’t take the time to get to know what you’re doing. He looks out and he says, I think I’m going to make the steak a steak restaurant because he’s like, I’m going to start to serve steak. So we go then he changed the menu. He changed the stuffing. He does whatever he wants, because he says I’m going to make this a success. And so your vegan your sustainable restaurant becomes the Steakhouse and your customers that came in looking for the best vegan dishes are suddenly getting this menu with hunks of meat with steak on it because Gordon Ramsay is running a restaurant But you’ve been told that you need to outsource this and Gordon Ramsay to the best. So then your soft launch is a disaster. People aren’t really happy even though he’s an amazing chef. And then you get Gordon Ramsay’s bill. So now not only are you broke, you’re not selling the product that you wanted to, you’re not selling your vision. You’re and Gordon says, I’ve set you up for success and he leaves so your business is like that restaurant is like you. A lot of us do this. We have this really strong vision for our company for our brand. But when it comes to actually opening night soft launch trying to make the sale time to get to know the customers we hand the keys over to Gordon Ramsay because we think he could do it better. Yeah, but he can’t always do it better.

Adam G. Force 05:53

Well, and it may not be it see you know, you have a certain intention behind that business right like something that’s meaning To you, so if you are doing a vegan restaurant, you probably care about the environmental, you know, correlation to that kind of, you know, meat consumption, all that stuff. So you know that intention can change and nobody’s going to have that passion and intention, like, like the founder does, right? And so for, you know, it’s a great fun example with Gordon Ramsay coming in and changing things up because his mindset would be, well, we’re here to sell, make money and get it done. So we got to do what works, right? I, you know, he’s not gonna feel and appreciate the intention that you have, you know, when you’re the as the founder writes, it’s just not the same. So handing the keys over at the wrong time to somebody like that could really in reality, like throw your business in a direction that you may not be happy with? You know, like we most of us had heard the advice. I mean, I would say anybody in the entrepreneurship space, you know, you know, if you aren’t good at certain things like we don’t we all were we’re like a jack of all trades in the beginning. We try to do everything and but at some point We got to start delegating the things that are our weaknesses, right? Mm hmm. And so you know, you hear both sides of the story. And the question becomes, well, what do you delegate? And you know, what if you hire somebody that is going to hurt your business more than actually helps your business. So that advice can be misleading for those reasons. And it can make you end up actually delegating the most important part of the business that really you need to own. Okay? And we really want in business today more than ever, with the way that the digital environment is evolving. We really want to build authentic relationships with our audience. I mean, that trust is so important. And it starts with the founder and the core team of like, why they even started this business. And again, no one’s going to be able to speak to those intentions, which really do differentiate your business, the way you can write as a founder. I mean, you can consider somebody like Tom’s And I think, you know, he started this with an intention of helping children that don’t have shoes because there’s so many issues that stem from that. And it was kind of like an overwhelming, you know, sensory overload for him when he came across this situation in Argentina. And you can imagine from the get go him switching it up with them and they go, you know, he actually a great point is like when I interviewed him he was he told me as a response to my question, which was, what would you do differently if you started today? Tom’s and the one thing he said is I, you know, when I brought in the executive team, I was I would take a very different approach, because what he learned is that people come with habits that may not serve the original intention of the business. Okay, not that they’re bad people or, you know, they have malicious intentions themselves, but they have different beliefs, different habits of what it looks like success. So all of a sudden, they changing the business intention, start changing the way things have to happen because they’re going after a bottom line. It’s kind Like you have this social impact business but you’re going to bring in like somebody on Wall Street character

Amy Aitman 09:04

who’s going to go right and could you imagine if he had led that vision go or hadn’t kept driving that vision throughout his so even he’s saying like I might have hired my executive team differently, but even when he did hire people, he had such a strong vision for his company that he could keep pushing that so that’s when when you know, we would never imagine a Tom’s without Blake but it’s because it’s not because he’s the face of the brand because he’s the driving force of his sales of his vision of those intentions that he’s always had the company that’s a really good example.

Adam G. Force 09:40

Yeah, and that’s what’s going to earn a lot more trust is there to see Well, this is the guy that started it, this is why he started it. It also makes him different than other people. So you know, he’s not necessarily competing on price and all these other things. So same thing with Ivanova Patagonia amazing products. Their intention is just threaded throughout everything they do. They do additional programs they do charities, every piece of clothing is, you know, with intention for the environment and all this stuff. So, you know, he is that driving force, and he is he is the face of his brand as well. You know, so staying true to that intention is really important. And we don’t want to delegate it to somebody that might start shifting us away from that, and it might happen slowly to might not be a dramatic thing. And then all of a sudden, a year or two goes by and you’re gonna look back and say Holy crap, like, Where is this gone? You know, like, what are we doing?

Amy Aitman 10:29

So true. And as business owners, we are the one like we have to not only you know, work on our the passionate part of our business and things that we love doing our business, but we have to run our business to Yeah, and we have to be we have to be the driving force of our sales of our marketing. It’s just you can’t you can’t, you can’t pick and choose you have to do both, and to be success. You really do.

Adam G. Force 10:52

I agree. I and in the earlier years and Listen, I’ve done over, I don’t know, hundred 200 150 200 interviews and I asked I started asking people I feel I’m like, you know, you need to be like the sales of your business is what gives you control options, the ability to be a contributor in life, you know, to do good things like this is you need that money to do these things. And you need to actually, this is so important to the business, you don’t want to just delegate that out of the gate, like you need to become the number one salesperson for your business. And that means learning and talking to who your customers like learning who they are by talking to them intimately learning like, can you get on the phone and actually sell a product? Right? I mean, if you can’t do that, you know, you’re going to struggle digitally, especially when you want to go at scale. You know, so these things are really important to consider and you’ve got to build that strong foundation. Now that’s not to say that we never delegate there’s a time right you can do the wrong things at the at the at the right time or the right things at the wrong time. And so you know, if you don’t become the number One salesperson, there’s a couple things that come to mind of what happens. So like what happened? No, firm this up yourself and learn how to talk and sell these products. Yeah, aside from missing out on really getting to know your audience, and really what makes the business tick, yeah, you’re gonna miss out on sustainable growth and sales, right? Yeah. And you’re going to burn out at some point because you’re going to be competing on price and features and those types of things, versus that intention that’s very attractive to people, and that differentiates your business. And then you’re going to have maybe people saying

Amy Aitman 12:34

that happened so many times before, too, especially with social impact companies, it’s like when they’re creating their product, they’re taking all those sustainable things really into consideration, their cost per acquisition or their their price points are really are higher, so they have to charge higher, but as soon as they take a step back and say hire a PR team, hire marketing team, get something on e commerce, like You said they missed out on sustainable growth in sales because all of a sudden, the little few little sales they’re getting aren’t coming in. And we’ve seen this with a lot of examples before. And then some expert says we need to lower your price because your if because your, your cost for this T shirt is $35 and every other t shirts $20 but the whole intention of our company was not to sell a $20 t shirt that you know with tons of water waste and by splashing out into landfills your entire company. And so you get stuck between these two realms when really you need to think about what why you started this company in the first place. And you’re gonna get sustainable growth and sales. So you’re gonna have to, you’re gonna need to sell less and not compete on price. If you are the one that’s driving this intention. It’s really important. We have so many times it’s so easy to get caught into that competing on patients temptation. Yeah

Adam G. Force 14:00

For you, there’s so many crossroads, right? And ultimately, honestly, like, if you lose sight of your intention, you start straying. You are you’re gonna have all this competition on price and features, but you’re gonna start lacking fulfillment in what you do. Right? So part of having this intention and a meaningful business is there’s a sense of fulfillment you’re doing something you are excited to wake up for, that you believe in that does something for the people in the world and all that kind of stuff. So, I mean, you don’t want to end up just doing going through motions that feel like a job, you want to live a life right in harmony with, like who you really are. So this makes a big difference in the business. So it’s a major differentiator, those those things differentiate far more than price points and all that stuff that stuff it will it’s gonna be extremely hard road and you’re gonna go broke.

Amy Aitman 14:48

let other people compete on price, exactly what other people do to play those games because that’s not going to work for your business. Exactly.

Adam G. Force 14:56

So I think it’s really important to state that you don’t have Hire a sales team. When your sales are lacking, you hire a sales team when your sales are thriving. That’s when when you’ve already figured out all those things, and you’ve got it pinpoint. And it’s like a well oiled machine. And you know your audience better than anyone, you’ve built the foundation. Now you can get other people trained in everything that you learned from all those conversations and all those sales right?

Amy Aitman 15:25

Now, that’s the best time to hire a sales team, and then a PR team and a marketing team.

Adam G. Force 15:32

Yet there is always a time and a place and you know, you know, will tell the story we did go down this road to but before we get into that, I know Amy, you were mentioning a couple of these like questions that people might be asking themselves and I think they really tee up.

Amy Aitman 15:48

Yeah, I mean, after talking to so many people, they come to us at this point when they don’t know how to implement marketing and they don’t really want to put themselves out there. So if you’re in place right now where you’ve considered outsourcing that’s which is what we’re talking about today. You might be telling yourself, I don’t even have the skill to sell my products, right? Like, I don’t have the skills I’m fabulous like you. I mean, I totally understand that, that could that could be holding you back. And but these are skill sets that you can everyone can not only learn to do and that you can learn to do, but that you have to do, you have to learn these these skill sets. And I know personally with me and with our time here at Change Creator, there was a time that I really loved to be back behind the scenes and to be in the background, not think about sales copy or questions or talking to the audience because digital digitally you could easily do that you can easily take take a step back and it’s really a mindset block that we have, that we don’t have the skills so there’s ways to learn to get those skills and a lot of questions we get from people in our lives. And when they come to us is why would anyone listen to me? I’m not an authority in this space. And I always like to say, you know, when, like started Tom’s he wasn’t an authority in the space either he was a Blake Mycoskie, we all feel like that, especially in the beginning, and we all feel like, you know, we don’t have the authority, nobody knows who you are. But we’re never going to build that authority. And we’re never people aren’t going to find out who we are, or get the intent or hear about our vision for our company unless we put ourselves out there. And we make this such an important driving force of our business.

Adam G. Force 17:35

Yeah, and I think that’s a fair point. Just to add one little comment there too, is, you know, if you know something that someone else doesn’t know, you’re an authority you can help them you know, if you have something that they need, like you could talk about that you can help them so you don’t need to be over a PhD that has all this need to help people that don’t know what you know.

Amy Aitman 17:56

You’re authoritarian to right now. If you’re at the point where you considering hiring any kind of marketing team, that you’re already an authority in something because you’ve created a product, you’ve thought about sustainability, you probably put your got your website together, you’ve probably done a lot of stuff. You have your own sphere of authority. And you can build upon that once you’ve already if you’ve already got to that point, and a lot of people that come when they’re thinking about considering hiring a marketing or PR team, this is the point that they’re at. They’re really such great authorities in you know, sustainable fashion company. And they know their fashion. They know the numbers, they know water waste, but then they’re like, I’m on an authority in my space. I can’t get I can’t do my own work. I can’t get myself out there. So yeah, I just kind of like that’s a really great point, Adam, because it’s true. We get this question a lot too. What if I’m an introvert, or I’m shy? should I hire someone who’s a people person to do this and I really feel like this is such an antiquated thing for brands. You hire like somebody else to be the voice of your brand and you hire some celebrity or you hire some influencer? Yeah, I feel like the tides have shift with that. I feel like people do not want some fake person that represents your values and your brand. I really feel it that’s to send and the funny thing is 70% of entrepreneurs say that would say that they’re introverted. So there was a lot of really successful, really successful introverts and people that are because I find to the people that are call themselves shy and introverted, when it comes to talking about their passions and what they’re really their vision. They light up. Yeah, because it’s really mean something to them. So if you’re introverted or shy, I’d say that’s even more reason for you to, you know, get yourself out there and to not hire someone who you think is a people person. We all have people we can offer people person. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 20:02

These are all fear blocks. You know, it’s kind of like how if you’re saying these things, these questions your mind and you’re having these thoughts, you will start finding ways then to avoid coming the salesperson because it’s uncomfortable for you. And all of a sudden that’s where these ideas of delegating sound nice. So you hear the Tim Ferriss and all the other start saying, well, you got to delegate and you go, yep, you’re right, because I’m super uncomfortable doing this important part of the business next time, you know, you’re gonna do what we did. And we’ve been down this road where we were busy, we’re building a complicated business, and we thought to expedite our process of promotions and sales. We would delegate we got a PR team was that a couple thousand a month we got a marketing team a couple thousand dollars a month. And you know, we

Amy Aitman 20:49

we hired a salesperson to even hired we did hire a salesperson, yeah, we

Adam G. Force 20:55

this is where we not only not only do we know from other conversations, And other entrepreneurs experiences and stuff about these challenges we’re talking about, but we’ve experienced them firsthand. And we were like, whoa, wait a minute, we’re spending all this money, the ROI is not there. Whereas the gaps, and one of the major gaps was we need to take a step back and get in a grassroots mindset and start talking to our audience and really learning the sales narrative through these conversations.

Amy Aitman 21:23

Yeah, I can tell you we got zero sales from all of the thousands of dollars. And, I mean, we hired amazing salesperson, but if we don’t know how to sell, we can’t tell him how to sell. And so we really just had to take that step back, like Adam said, and really talk to our customers. And, you know, figure out like, what are the objections were what if we had to do the sales conversations and it is uncomfortable. I mean, it can be really uncomfortable, especially. It’s really tempting to just throw money at the problem is sometimes I say, it’s so tempting to to say Make it rain take care of this for me, it is so tempting to do that and i know i there and I and part of me really wishes that would have worked because like, in the early days and we’d be rolling in dough dough right away because you know if we could just throw money at this hiring somebody else that we would that I would have worked for us

Adam G. Force 22:24

and it didn’t know they have different intentions, they have different agendas. They have different passions than you like it’s just not going to translate the way you want to when you got to build that real core audience up front right it’s just you got to do it and you know, now we have over what 100 videos of sales conversations that we’ve had, you know, some of them in the beginning they’re awful we suck and we listened back right oh my god, I was like, This is terrible. Like No wonder they didn’t want to buy anything, you know? Yeah. And that’s gonna that’s okay. You get out there you know, I read a book so like craziest guy has Like $400 million a year agency, and he’s even in this book, he’s like, you’re the number one sales rep. You cannot delegate this and we’re like, yeah, we learned that. Thanks for now the book comes out.

Amy Aitman 23:13

Yeah, you learn the hard way. And we want to make it you guys the easy way cuz trust me, you know?

Adam G. Force 23:18

Yeah. All right. Listen, let’s wrap this up. I think this is a fun conversation. Hope you guys had a couple lightbulb moments. Leave us a comment. Let us know what you’re thinking about this conversation. Have you experienced anything similar? Do you have any thoughts? love to hear from you? And we’ll catch you on the next side on the next video.

Amy Aitman 23:33

Yeah, we’ll continue this conversation on our private Facebook group. So if you haven’t joined by now, come that’s where we get into the nitty gritty of all this stuff. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Bye.

Adam G. Force 23:48

That’s all for this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews and more ways to stay on top of your game. Available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit Change Creator mag Comm. We’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

interview

Brian Robinson: Becoming a Selling Jedi Master For Your Startup

Listen to our exclusive interview with Brian Robinson:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

One skill every entrepreneur needs is to know how to sell! And that’s what we are talking about with author and sales expert, Brian Robinson.

Brian Robinson is a sales and marketing expert, best-selling author, and coach. He has worked for some of the best-known companies in the world, including Coca-Cola USA and Johnson & Johnson.

Upon leaving his corporate career, he helped launch a successful startup where he was the first person in the history of the industry to sell more than one million dollars in business in twelve months—entirely by phone. He has over two-decades of in-the-trenches, battle-tested, face-to-face and phone-presentation experience that can benefit virtually anyone, from Fortune 500 companies to entrepreneurial ventures.

Brian is the author of the Amazon #1 Best-Seller, THE SELLING FORMULA: 5 Steps for Instant Sales Improvement. Brian and his wife Cindy reside in the Oklahoma City area and have eight children – which could be the topic of an an entire podcast in and of itself!

Learn more about Brian and his work at > http://brianrobinson.me

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:01

Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the change critter podcast show. This is your host, Adam force. If you missed the last episode, it’s with Mark Agnew. He runs this eyeglass companies challenging the famous one for one model that was started by Blake Mycoskie. And it’s great to see people continuing to innovate, how they can contribute and tweak their business models for different types of social impact. If you missed that one, I highly recommend going back to check it out. There’s lots of good little golden nuggets in there for you. This week, we’ll be talking to Brian Robinson. And I’m excited because, you know, we’re really focusing in on the sales and marketing stuff and it’s just such a critical part of business and a lot of people in the social impact space are you know, They have a fear of selling, you know, there’s just it’s so tainted from years of sleazy sales. But, you know, we’re changing that. And that’s, that’s a big focus for us, and how do we approach people as human beings today. And so anyway, Brian Robinson is a sales and marketing expert. And he’s also an author and a coach. He wrote a best selling book called The selling formula. He’s done a lot of work with big companies that you’ve probably heard of like Coca Cola, and Johnson and Johnson. So he has a lot of good insights in so we’re excited to see what he has to say about the sales process and and what he’s learned in his experience. And it’s interesting, because just recently, Amy and I, Amy, the co founder, Change Creator here, we were talking and one of the things that we brought up was, you know, how we start delegating things, especially when it comes to sales because we feel like maybe that’s just not our sweet spot. And it’s so important that as founders of companies, we become the number one salesperson because we really, there’s a lot there’s a lot that comes out of that experience and being called close to that process when it comes to understand the narrative identifying opportunities or problems in the, in that process. So we were talking and one of the things that came up was this statement that just kind of came out of nowhere. And it was a nice quote, but it’s important. And we’ve seen it happen a lot, which is you don’t hire a sales team. When sales are lacking. You hire a sales team when sales are thriving. So think about that. Because you know, what we’re trying to say is that if your sales are lacking, lacking, then your systems are not set up, right? It’s not working yet. So you can bring on a sales team spend a lot of money, and they’re gonna have a hard time selling. But if you are able to establish that sale system, then you bring on a sales team and you train them in it, you’re going to be able to really scale the business so it makes a very big difference. People we’ve interviewed have chimed in on that saying yes, been there. It was a very painful lesson. So remember that that’s a good it’s a good little tip and it’ll come in handy down the road. If you’re not following us on Facebook guys, check us out there. We do lots of good content, and we flow everything through there. And then our group is tied to that. So you can take it a step further and the group is the profitable digital impact entrepreneur. So check us out over there. Lots of good content coming down the pipeline. All right, well, let’s see what Brian has to say and get into this. Okay, show me the heat. Hey, what’s up, Brian, how you doing today? Welcome to the Change Creator, podcast show.

Brian Robinson 03:28

Thanks, Adam. doing awesome. Doing great.

Adam G. Force 03:31

Great, great, good to have you. I’m excited because we’re gonna talk about selling today. And you have an awesome book, the selling formula five steps, for instance, instant sales improvement, which is pretty cool. And you know, being transparent, I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I’d love to just hear your expertise since this is a big focus for us at Change Creator and helping our audience you know, sell more with their social good businesses. So yeah, I mean, I if you can Just like what what do you? What do you have going on these days? I like to just get like the latest of what you have going on.

Brian Robinson 04:06

Yeah, so very exciting. Our company, little less than two weeks ago just released out of beta. We’re, by the way, we’re a digital marketing company. We provide in lobby digital signage for a lot of businesses around the country. And we’re the first company to release that service on the Apple TV platform. So you can just navigate to it now find our app works 24. And we offer that service via that app. And there’s some incredible capabilities there. So our whole company’s stoked about it.

Adam G. Force 04:40

So you guys decided to make an app I think, you know, there’s it’s one of these bridges that people are scared to cross sometimes and I’m wondering what what led you to to commit to that.

Brian Robinson 04:53

We provide equipment to play the video content in our clients locations. We work with a lot of banks, credit unions, medical facilities, and the cost of obtaining that equipment, maintaining it. And all that goes with that, plus our whole force of service technicians. It became a reality that if we could provide an off the shelf hardware piece of hardware and it was integrated with the Apple device, then would be a game changer. And just out of the gate, it is absolutely a game changer. It’s changing everything about the way we think our clients think about the service the way they view us. Was it easy? No. It was a challenging road. And we had a good year and a half of development in it with our partner. And but it worked. And we just had to work through the the different components and pieces of making that happen. It was well worth it though. And it should be

Adam G. Force 05:54

I can I can definitely appreciate that. And I know what goes into creating these things. So kudos to you Guys, we’re getting that done and kind of pushing through.

Brian Robinson 06:03

Thank you. Thank you. Good team, we got a great team.

Adam G. Force 06:06

Awesome. So before I get into just the topic of selling and trying to get all the little nuggets I can from you just give us a little overview of the book, like why did you write it? And what are people supposed to take away from the selling formula?

Brian Robinson 06:23

Sure. My background was corporate sales with Johnson and Johnson and Coca Cola USA for a total of about 20 years. And I was in four different divisions. And Johnson and Johnson and I journal quite a bit. So I was sitting outside journaling, and I started to write down what what was it that I did consistently in my selling. And I kept bumping up against these five steps. And I recognized that, gosh, if I could help decrease the learning curve for somebody that’s challenged with sales or as in sales. And kind of questions in their gut, what am I missing? That’s why I wrote the book. And it’s, it’s kind of we talked about prior to the show, it’s kind of a velvet glove approach to interacting with your clientele.

Adam G. Force 07:14

Yeah. Okay. Got it. Got it. So I guess where I get curious is, you know, we are, you know, we’re helping people who are in the let’s just say the first five years of business. This is most common for our audience. And I’m wondering if in your mind, you have any thoughts on the difference in selling during that time? I mean, here we are in startup world, versus you know, we got the Johnson and Johnson’s, what are the differences in similarities? Any thoughts on that?

Brian Robinson 07:44

Yeah, great question. I discovered because I’m, I was involved in the startup several years ago, that I’m now with, and I compare that to what I do with Johnson and Johnson. The difference is With the entrepreneurial approach, truly, if you don’t sell you don’t eat. So you better have some response, you better close some deals. And so in the j&j world, at the end of the day, if you didn’t close a deal, it wasn’t live or die. It might hurt your numbers a little bit. So that’s the dramatic shift that occurred in my world when I went to straight commission sales and start in the startup. So what I found is the five steps if I can share those with you real quick, fire away. Yeah, the first step is to connect with your prospect and set the agenda. And what I found to be fascinating is after a full year of high level sales coaching, my number one takeaway is in this step, and that setting the agenda with your prospect, and that simply sounds like this. Hey, Adam, with your permission, I’d like to go ahead and set the agenda for our conversation today. Is that okay? Yeah, well Who wouldn’t say that’s okay? And you just tell them it’s three steps. And then I go into the in the book I talk about what you should potentially say. And what it does is it brings everything to attention right away in the prospects mind because they know you have a plan. And most people just show up. And you know, I’m gonna say, throw up. And that’s not a good plan, right? The second step is to interview the prospect. And this is critical. I discovered that questions really are the key to life. And if you take the time to craft clear, cogent questions, and literally have a sheet of questions with you pull it out when you’re having the conversation with your prospect. They respect that you’ve taken the time to do that. And it also takes the pressure off you to think about what you might have to say, yeah, and so that works really well. And then third is present your solution after you’ve Of course diagnosed the challenge. you present the solution based upon the answers you received. And then you give your pricing and your guarantees, and close the deal.

Adam G. Force 10:07

So I’m going to just jump in on this and kind of unpack a couple things going through my brain. And you know, you kind of started with this conversation with the with the potential client. But this is in a particular world, where you’re sitting down with somebody and having this conversation, whether it’s, you know, over the phone or in person or whatever it might be. What about people in the e commerce world who are trying to sell these products, you know, in ethical fashion? And, you know, how am I thinking, how is my thought process around selling today, different than if I’m not going and having quiet conversations like that?

Brian Robinson 10:44

So you referring to a more of an email approach or some of the social media approach?

Adam G. Force 10:49

Yeah, I mean, I’m getting there. That’s kind of where I’m going because you have to look at it. And because in our world, we got to say, well, not everybody has that kind of business, right, where I’m gonna go and say, Hey, client, let’s do some work and I want to close this deal. So now there has to be a conversation, I think, kind of translated from that in person, but now done digitally. So we have a different product. It’s a different dynamic. So if I have an e commerce store, and I’m trying to sell these things, how do we get the same conversations going and starting to flow? And this is kind of like what we talked about a lot. And it’s just these, I think there are core fundamentals to selling like you mentioned. So we’re just kind of starting to translate this stuff into like a digital environment, if you will. Mm hmm.

Brian Robinson 11:32

I really think the best way to frame that answer is with one key word and that’s curiosity. If you can convey a sincere, authentic sense of curiosity, with the questions, you ask that open, potentially open the dialogue with your prospect, that’s the key, instead of coming off as I know the answer to your problem. How about do you have a challenge like this? Is this something that you face What’s your 2am issue?

Adam G. Force 12:01

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that’s kind of like starting the conversation with them. So they can start feeling like you there’s something to relate to, like you understand you kind of get in their head a little bit, right? And you’re talking to them out. You know, you’re you’re asking these questions, but you can frame them up in ways where they’re like, yeah, that is me. And in a kind of start saying they start seeing themselves in this conversation.

Brian Robinson 12:24

Right on. Yeah, I totally agree.

Adam G. Force 12:26

Awesome. And so I guess I’m, I’m curious, have you had some interesting feedback and stuff on this book that you had?

Brian Robinson 12:35

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I just had a conversation last week, gentlemen, and I spoke and he said, he bought the book for his entire sales team. He’s with a medical startup. And he had them read it. And they’re actually going to apply these steps. Yeah. In their sales conversations. And so well, that that felt great. ,

Adam G. Force 12:57

Yeah, that’s pretty awesome. Yeah. And you Got a sorry, go ahead. You had something Oh, that’s

Brian Robinson 13:01

okay. When one of the one of the other things that I keep getting feedback on is the pre call preparation, the pre call mindset or mindfulness. Yeah. And that’s something that tends, in my view to be overlooked. And that’s simply taking some time to think about your prospect before you ever pick up the phone, send them an email, or get get in person with them. And it’s just taking some time to like and care and be grateful for them. And really kind of throw that picture in your mind that this is somebody you really want to serve. Yeah, and it changes the whole dynamic.

Adam G. Force 13:37

Right? Yeah, I can see that I can see that. And I think you know, today I one thing that stood out was I was I learned about the the guy that founded Costco a little while ago, and he mentioned that so many people suppliers want to distribute their product through Costco, right. And one of the things he mentioned was he said, you know, let’s say you have a laundry detergent. It’s a saturated market. There’s all these different people who are, you know, have different laundry detergent. So how does he decide which ones to work with? And he said, it’s not always about, you know, the price differentiation and all those things, because there’s a lot of common ground. So that differentiate it differentiation only goes so far when it’s saturated. It’s a saturated market. And he said, so the number one I know number one determinant about it is, I go with the person who I like and trust the most. Mm hmm. Yeah. Does that resonate with you?

Brian Robinson 14:33

Totally. Yeah, totally. It’s, at the end of the day, it’s a like, and trust world with selling. Yeah, yeah. You know, some people are just strictly transactional. I don’t think that’s the vast majority of people though. Now, because we really want to connect with others.

Adam G. Force 14:49

Yeah, there may be circumstances and you can win like that here and there. There’s these transaction things. It’s just a great deal. But in the long run, I don’t know that those methods are sustainable. And there’s gonna be some kind of burnout through trying to compete on things like price like that. I think you start to fall apart after a while.

Brian Robinson 15:06

Totally agree. I’ve seen it happen in multiple industries, too. Yeah, if the old the old adage is if you live by price, you’re gonna die by price.

Adam G. Force 15:15

Exactly. I mean, you just can’t you cannot continue to compete that way. It’s just it just wears out. It can be difficult and then you can you don’t really have differentiation at that point. You just have a momentary blip of differentiation.

Brian Robinson 15:31

That’s right. That’s right. It is momentary.

Adam G. Force 15:33

It is momentary.

Brian Robinson 15:35

Yeah, well said.

Adam G. Force 15:36

Interesting. Interesting. So tell me a little bit more about the formula. I like to hear the way you’re approaching things and I guess teaching and I started in my mind everything we do is digital, right. So like, one thing that we’ve done, I’ll just share this before you get into some details is you know, I Change Creator we talked about how important it is to before you Sell digitally, to get on the phone with people who are who you think are your correct customers. And even if it’s zoom over zoom or Skype and you do like a video call, and and talk to them and sell your product to them on the spot. Mm hmm. And then, you know, the fascinating part of that is, through those conversations we were because you know, everyone that everyone knows do market research to get to know your audience, but it’s super different when you actually try to start selling to them. Because the conversation dynamic changes, all of a sudden you have a sales narrative being built for your digital environment. Mm hmm. Yeah, I’m just curious, like, just to share that because, you know, we’re talking about learning to sell in person in order to sell digitally. And I’m curious on your thoughts of just how important it is to be able to do that as a founder.

Brian Robinson 16:51

Oh, it’s critical. And then it really brings me to a point in the book about the questions you ask. And I’ve discovered a very powerful way to build your questions. And it’s very simple. Just take a sheet of paper or an Excel spreadsheet and make three columns. And then put in your first column, the key feature, right out next to that in the second column, the benefits related to that feature, there’s going to be multiple benefits. And then in the third column, write the key questions that would elicit those benefits. And you’re going to wind up having this fanning out from features all the way to questions of bullet points, and then take the 20% most important benefits and use those questions in your narrative. And here’s an example of that. This is this is in the book, but I’m just gonna read this. I think it’s very helpful, perhaps for your listeners. Yeah. So imagine that you’re selling pre made home cooked meals for two to six people. And what you do is you simply have the first benefit is it saves up to 16 minutes per meal, including for food purchase prep and cooking time. Another benefit is just pull it out of the freezer and put it in the oven. So there’s two benefits you’ve written down for that. Yeah, so three questions. Number one. And the third question is most critical. Number one, on a weekly basis, how many dinners Do you cook for your family? You could see asking that right. Yeah. Question two, how much time does it typically take you to make a dinner for your family? Yes. Okay. That’s a fair question. But the critical question gets down to the emotional piece. If you could just pull your dinner out of the freezer already prepared and put it into the oven without having to think about it. How would that affect the frequency of your family meals?

Adam G. Force 18:39

Yeah, yeah. Right. How does it affect you in general, like your time you free up time, there’s more time with maybe the family. So there’s, I think that’s a powerful point.

Brian Robinson 18:49

And that’s where you want to ultimately go as you craft your questions is into that space where it really affects the individual and could affect their life, their family. And so on.

Adam G. Force 19:02

I love that. Yeah, I like the three column approach that’s kind of organizing your thought process a bit for these conversations. And, you know, I’m one of the things that we’ve gotten really into is, you know, telling stories to people to help them like when they have an objection, you might say, well, we don’t, we don’t like frozen food. And that in that example, you gave, right. And so this, that and the other because of certain reasons, so would you do you find yourself in these conversations with clients to say, Yeah, well, you know, my friend Susie, it’s amazing, Chris, she felt the same way. And but here’s what she found out, and then you tell a story that demonstrates something that kind of like, overcomes the objection that they just had.

Brian Robinson 19:45

That is a brilliant approach. Adam, I referenced that in the book. And you’re absolutely right. What you’ve done in that case is you’ve pre created social proof. It’s third party and it’s not you telling them it’s the story, selling them Really what it boils down to, let me give an example of this a live example. Our car company sells, in addition to digital signage on hold messages for the phone system. So somebody put on hold, though, hear those messages, etc. And they’re custom. I had a client call me he’d been with us six years, and he wanted to cancel our service. And my knee jerk response was, Oh, my gosh, what do we do wrong? And he said, Nothing. I really think people listen to on hold messages, Brian. And I said, Well, let me try something. And Adam, we are involved in conferences all over the country, and we provide a driver for giveaway, it’s worth about $300 in a drawing, and we do this everywhere. I had an extra driver in my office and I said to my client, well, let me try something. I’m gonna go ahead and write five messages. And let’s see if anybody even responds. We’re going to give away a driver on hold. So an example of one of the messages was, we don’t even know if you’re listening to this, but if you are, please tell the receptionist you heard this message when you come off hold and wait. into a drawing for a free $300 driver in 17 days 97 people signed up to win that driver Wow. He kept the service that story I just shared is that is to your point it’s a story I share with people that that think nobody listens to on hold messages and nobody can argue with that because it’s a true experience.

Adam G. Force 21:23

Yeah I love it and that is the key don’t tell demonstrate and that demonstration provides such clarity around the idea it’s powerful and then you’re not just like telling someone something you know where they have no context almost right.

Brian Robinson 21:39

Exactly.

Adam G. Force 21:41

Now the context is there. I love that and it gives value to what you say. I was I was I heard a story about there is a couple of days in Coney Island. This guy’s like I brought my wife to to Coney Island to see this art or no was she brought him to an art display. And there was this guy that did this famous picture of a pig swimming in the ocean. And she’s like, Well, what do you see here? She’s like, well, I see a pig swimming in the ocean. Right? no context. And then the artist, or photographer came over. And essentially this guy started this company for meat purposes on this island, but he didn’t think far enough ahead. And he, you know, didn’t plan on how to feed these pigs. And so long story short, I’m really kind of rushing through it. But long story short, what happens is the he had to a restaurant on another island. So anytime they had all the food scraps, they’d get in a boat, go over to pig Island, and out in the water, they dump all this food and the pigs learned over generation after generation, they’d have to swim out to get the food. So now when they see boats coming, they say, hey, it’s feeding time. And that’s how the photographer was also able to get such close up photos with the pigs and everything else in pig Island. And so at the end his story now the guys like Here’s I want this picture. It’s a great talking piece. It’s a great, you know, like all this stuff, so he added so much value to it. But without that story, there was not a not value where he would want to buy it.

Brian Robinson 23:11

Guess what, Adam? Yeah, I have fed those pigs in the Bahamas get to hell. I’m not kidding. And the weird thing about it, we fed them hot dogs.

Adam G. Force 23:21

There. Yeah. That’s pretty messed up, man.

Brian Robinson 23:27

But it was hilarious. You jump out of the boat and they are they’re just swimming out. It’s so funny. And so fun.

Adam G. Force 23:32

That is cool. That is after hearing that myself. Like, I want to go experience that and it is a cool conversation. Yeah, man. That’s good. That’s good. So um, yeah, so I guess, I guess Tell me a little bit more. I’m curious. One thing that people forget is okay, great. You learned how to talk the talk and walk the walk and you’re able to get clients great. You made the sale. But what about the big, important part of your business, which is post sale and renewals? Mm hmm. I think people forget that part of it.

Brian Robinson 24:11

Well, we’re, you’re right. And we’re fortunate in our industry, we have clients, service representatives, that they’re tasked with reaching out to our clients every 30 days. And so they’re constantly getting touched. So to your point, when renewal time happens, it’s not like I showed up and then come back a year or two or three later and say, hey, guess what, it’s time to renew. And they’re like, Who the heck are you? Yeah. They’ve said, Oh, I’m sorry. I haven’t been changing our content as much as I should. But Kelly always reaches out to me and there’s She’s so good about that. And, wow, I don’t have to work as hard nearly as hard as if I showed up once every x number of months or years, right?

Adam G. Force 24:51

Yes. Yeah. And so I’m gonna just put that into context for people listening is you have a system that works for you. Meaning like, you You don’t have to work as hard because of those very simple light touch points every 30 days. Mm hmm.

Brian Robinson 25:07

And it’s all part it’s automated as well, but we escalate it to a personal contact. If after six days from that automated response, we don’t get anything. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 25:16

And that’s it. I just that’s just a piece

interview

Adam Force & Amy Aitman: How We’re Navigating Covid-19 as Digital Impact Entrepreneurs

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

It’s not business as usual right now but this is a good thing for us as leaders and entrepreneurs.

Change Creator cofounders, Adam and Amy, talk about how we’re navigating these changing times and how you can really lean into your business right now as well.

This is the time when our actions are going to change the trajectory of our businesses and our clients for the next six months.

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:11

Hey, what’s up everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show hope everybody is doing amazing. If you missed the last episode was with Allie ball, she is crushing it, turning her intellectual property into a thriving business. So it’s a great interview for you guys to check out lots of good nuggets in there. She’s in the food, retail space, but she’s talking about how she developed her business online from consulting to actual you know, evergreen digital, so lots of good nuggets in there for you guys. So go back and check that out when you get a chance. You know, today we’re going to do something special, and I hope everybody is staying safe. I know we’re going through some very unique, unprecedented times with this virus that is going around. So I hope you’re practicing your social distancing, saying inside and staying safe with your families. This is so important right now for people. And it’s also a great opportunity. Right? So it depends on how we look at everything. And all throughout history, whether it was Einstein or Nikola Tesla, you know, the idea of isolation and solitude is also, you know, the times that you have the most creativity, those epiphanies and aha moments, giving your brain it kind of like gets into this focus. And when you’re alone, these great ideas can surface Okay, so take advantage of that. What can we do to serve more people? How can we pivot our business to adjust to what’s going on today and help others who are struggling, right. So there’s a lot to consider and a lot to think about. So Amy, and I actually did a Facebook Live not too long ago. And we’ll be doing some more. It’s been a little bit crazy here. So we’re trying to pop on as often as we can. And we talked about some of these things. Because we noticed in our Facebook group, the profitable digital impact entrepreneur, how people are feeling. And I know that people’s businesses are taking a hit, or they’re nervous, or they are, you know, faced with some fear and anxiety around the circumstance. And so we wanted to talk about that a little bit. How do we, how should we be thinking about this situation today, and start adapting? And so this is actually a Facebook Live, I wanted to bring it here to the podcast, because I thought it was a good conversation, and that you all would get something out of it. Okay, so we’re gonna dive into this conversation. And Amy and I are going to talk about, you know, how we’re navigating everything with what’s going on today. Right? Like, what does it mean to your business? How should we be thinking, and it’s just, you know, it’s not business as usual, right? So this is the time to step up as a leader. We are entrepreneurs, we are problem solvers. And this is the time when our actions are really going to start shifting the trajectory of our business and our clients over the next six months. So we’re gonna dive into that chat. And this is again the Facebook Live that we did recently. And I wanted to bring it to you guys here on the podcast. I hope you guys enjoy this and you get something out of it. We’ll be doing more live. So join us in our Facebook group, the profitable digital impact entrepreneur and guys, as always stop by change crater comm we have lots of good stuff being published over there for content that you guys will probably find very valuable. Without further ado, let’s jump into this disc. Okay, show me that hey. Hey, everybody. So pretty interesting times. I think these are unprecedented and a lot going on. So Amy and I have been talking a lot amongst ourselves and our team but also with other teams and people in our network. And we wanted to just bring this conversation to you. So I don’t know if you saw our notes in the group yesterday, but there’s a lot that we Want to support you with when it comes to kind of managing how things are changing? And what it means to us as entrepreneurs, especially as entrepreneurs in the social impact space, right? Mm hmm. So there’s a few things we were going to cover off today that we think would be helpful just to kind of like, start things with you. And so, you know, Amy, we had a couple topics that are really important. And I think there’s Miss misconceptions here. And this is kind of a time where we really want to be empathizing and supporting each other. But, you know, we’re looking at what it means to people and their business right now. Right, like we have this virus taking place. And how is it changing your clients lives? How is it changing the customers you have and their lives? I mean, how many of you are hearing comments from clients? You know, we’ve heard about clients wanting to pull ad dollars out. We were part of a summit in May and our Are the person that was running that are one of our coaches had to rejigged the entire thing to become virtual right to support what’s going on in these circumstances? You know, people are, they have brick and mortar style businesses, and they have to figure out how to digitize them and what that means. So we want to talk about a couple key things. What was the first thing on on our lists, Amy that we wanted to cover?

Amy Aitman 05:24

Yeah, before we get through our proper gonna cover I just wanted to say like, many of you out there, you’re probably self isolating right now. We’re here we’re with our families. I just want like one to say that when our if you see our post yesterday, our like, our businesses, and our lives are so intertwined. And right now like I’m home here with my little guy, he might be home off of school for quite a while and I’m just so thankful and grateful. And Adam, Adam has a little one on the way soon.

Adam G. Force 05:57

Yeah, we’re, you know,

Amy Aitman 05:58

we’re dealing with not just are businesses here but our lives and that’s why we really wanted to come and speak to you guys more, we’re going to be coming on live more, we’re going to be speaking to you guys so much more because we really want to support you during this time. And this is why this our first talk. And you can hear my little guide. So it’s gonna happen. And so these are the comp we’ve been having a lot of conversations with our students with our clients with, like Adam said with other entrepreneurs in the space. And one of these is topics that are coming up the most, the most for people and we really want to talk about so today we’re going to talk about is it unethical to sell your products and services during this time right now? I know there’s a lot of things going on. And this is a question that we’ve actually gotten quite a bit so we’re going to talk about that.

Adam G. Force 06:52

Yeah, which is a good question because we all feel just put Coronavirus aside. You know, a lot of times you say Selling and people give you the face like, Oh, yeah, I don’t want to do that right because that’s kind of a gross thing. It’s not like they feel dirty a little bit. And there is some stigma around it. But what happens when you have a situation like today, right the Coronavirus, like should you be out there selling? And the short answer is as entrepreneurs, we are wired to be problem solvers. Right. And when we are solving a problem, we are trying to transform someone’s life. And that means we look for ways to support them and transform their life, which means we’re selling. And so you know, an example of this would just be having a brick and mortar store and having a service that is offline. But then you have a program that can help someone Bring It Online, right, because during this time, they’re not able to run their business, the way they normally Would. So if they’re losing money month over month or right now week over week, and you can help them kind of get set up to get that money back into their pockets for their family, then it’s okay for you to sell a program that will support them and doing that, you know, we still have to run our businesses and we’re lucky right? Me because you have digital businesses now. Put a comment here if you’re if you hear this talk right now, and you know, maybe you’re somebody that is trying to get digital and you need support for being digital. You know, maybe you’re one of those guys because this is happening a lot. And so really understanding Well, what are your your audience and your clients going through? And if there are creative ways as a problem solver for you to help them. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do everything for free is there communities and discussions about things that are free? Yes, but you can definitely be selling and should be selling Because if you are selling, it means you’re out there transforming someone’s life. You’re helping someone solve what they have, and you’re putting money back in their pocket. Right? So that’s our initial instinct as leaders and as entrepreneurs. I don’t know if you have other thoughts around that, Amy,

Amy Aitman 09:15

no, this is the time that we really need to be helping people and we need to be selling. And I think a lot of us, especially as ethical entrepreneurs, we want to we have such empathy for our customers or for clients. But really, all of you that are sitting out there are good people, you we’re not talking about somebody selling, you know, hoards of toilet paper and selling them on the block. Not doing that, like that’s not what we do, the businesses that you guys have and the businesses that like that we have here. I know that we help people in our program, we help our clients build their businesses, we help our clients, you know, supercharge their marketing, and so that’s something that people really need, especially in these times. And I really believe that this is the time that what the decisions that we’re making now as problem solvers, as leaders, as entrepreneurs, that’s going to change the not just the trajectory of our businesses and of our customers lives, but of our communities and the people that we can really help and we’ve been given such privileged to have online like right now, the internet’s not down. The digital space is not here, there is a lot of ways to help people. And so if you are struggling with thinking about like discounting your your service or not selling your service or taking it offline, I really want to encourage you to say, No, you’re helping, you’re helping people and if you don’t have a digital offer, or you don’t have a digital product, there’s so many ways to get creative. I have seen so many of my friends and people come out of the come into the digital space and a new way and show up and be like how do I use zoom and how do I build my community and how can I start a Facebook group tonight I have at seven o’clock I have a digital zoom book class now is simple. Really? Yes, right. I thought it was amazing that she really wants to that my zoom instructor really wants to lean into her community and say, Hey, I know that you guys are all home. And that you’re all we’re all self isolating right now. So why don’t we do zuba one of our colleagues has his has a lot of events and events space. So he brings entrepreneurs, digital entrepreneurs together six, seven figure digital entrepreneurs together. And guess what, a lot of us in those spaces and depends if you’re an e commerce right now, or if you have depends on what niche you are, if you’re in the travel niche, some of us are really struggling with certain digital aspects. So he’s like, how can I build my community around now on Friday mornings, we’re going to have these talks and we’re going to bring that together. And that’s just really what I’m saying. So if you you guys are good people. You have products, you have services you have offers. That are really helping people lean into that. How can you help more people, I would say, lean away from discounting your service or from taking your offer off the table or from not doing your marketing right now. And guess what, there’s more that you can do. You can offer bonus workshops, you can offer bonus lives, you can offer both bonus things to really lean in, if that’s what you want to do and bring more value. That’s what Adam and I are doing. And that’s why we released a statement yesterday, we are offering more help to our current students and helping them say, Hey, are you guys struggling right now? Are you worried about, you know, creating your digital offer and you want to you want to do that a little bit faster. We’re here to help. This is what we live and what we breathe. Right, Adam?

Adam G. Force 12:45

Yeah, absolutely. And it’s been pretty impressive. You know, there’s just been such an incredible amount of community kind of uprising in a sense. I’ve been invited to digital coffee meetups. To meet while we’re all social distancing, right? We can’t get in person. So great conversations happening about these things brainstorming what’s going on. What have you heard from clients? What have you heard from clients? How can you help them? What are the big challenges they’re facing? Because if they’re losing money, you want to help them, figure out how they can solve that. Right? So, you know, seeing all these big conferences and summits go virtual, I mean, this is leadership, right? They’re not just shutting it down. They’re figuring out a way to continue to serve their audiences and their clients one way or the other just like zoombak continue to serve their audience. I think it’s really impressive and you know, we’re just hammering off like a couple you know, scenarios here. But there’s a lot of scenarios out there for different clients when it comes to advertising when it comes to marketing when it comes from brick and mortar to digital, like all these different things have to be taken into account. There may be a little piece of that equation that you have expertise around and that you could support. Let’s say you have a course or something, it might be part of that program that supports it, and you create a workshop out of it. And now you have that for $100 versus your original $500 program, right? So there’s pieces and things that may not even require you to do a ton more work. It’s just a very focused offering, that will help someone with a very new and unique problem that they have because of this global, you know, challenge we’re facing right now.

Amy Aitman 14:36

And as entrepreneurs, I think it’s really exciting for us to have these challenges and to set our businesses up and to be into really help people and get them said, How are we leaning into our customers and saying, Okay, what is your challenges right now? Where are your pain points? What are you guys struggling with right now? And what can I create to really help you write up

Adam G. Force 15:05

And part of that is get involved in the communities. I mean, we had someone in our mastermind group, start a Facebook community and you know, having some of these discussions. I mean, people are hungry for the support. How do you get involved? Learn More. This is about empathizing. This is about connecting with people online, having these conversations. And it’s not just going in there and thinking, selling selling, it’s, it’s how do I help you? And that doesn’t mean you have to give every all your time, energy and expertise away for free. You just help you solve problems. Put the Coronavirus aside, you’re always solving someone’s problem. You’re not taking advantage of them but you’re giving them a solution that transforms their life. So, you know, that’s that’s the entrepreneurial mindset it is how do we solve these problems? And you know, I agree with Amy, you know, we’re not here to just like discount and Do all these kind of crazy offers because of it, it’s a problem. You’re supporting people. It’s no different than any other way. You want to be sensitive and empathetic to their situation and be authentic and genuine in trying to help right?

Amy Aitman 16:14

I mean, make a really good point and honestly like with or without the Coronavirus, these are the things that we need to lean into. We are problem solvers. We need to think about who we’re helping. And one of the things we talk about a lot around here is digital conversations, and building communities. This is not new to us. This is what we do all the time. This is what we help people do. And so if you’re sitting there right now and you’re worried about your business and you’re thinking about I need to solve some new problems, this is something that you need to be doing with or without staying at home for three weeks or these big downturns in the economy. Like we want you to set up your business for a lifetime. We want you to have these systems set up for a lifetime. Yeah, that’s what we’re, I mean, this is what we can help you, you guys do. And I love that. One of the things that we’ve said we’re talking about today is how to really lean in and build stronger communities. And that’s why we’re here today. Right? We’re, you know, we’re leaning into you guys. And we really want you guys to build these strong communities. But I want you guys to think about what you’re doing today to set your business up for the next six months, the next 12 months because guess what this Coronavirus thing Yes, it’s probably going to get a little worse, we’re probably going to have a lot more shutdowns a lot more things, a downturn in the economy, but it’s going to get better before it will get better things are going to get back to normal and for the for us problem solvers. For us leaders here we can this is a really a time that we can really dig in deep now. I’ve talked to a lot of conversations recently with people about how they shut down their businesses to be honest with you, and what and they asked me what was your what’s your Advice like you have your, your setup. Amy, you have a digital online presence. Yeah. I said, Yeah. Because I’ve always been working on this. This is what I’ve done to recession proof my business, resend Yes. You know, so I said, What can you What can you do right now? And my answer to this was like lean into your marketing lean into your customers, you might not have something to actually sell them right now you have a we might have a brick and mortar store that is that’s where they have to come to get your services. But there’s so many things that you can do set up your online systems, you know, talk to people, email your audience, build your audience, this, these things come down in the next three weeks, four weeks, you know, three months. So then long term thinking, which is where we should be thinking as entrepreneurs, we’re set up. So the decisions that we’re making now and that you guys are making now in your businesses, that’s where they’re really going to pay off for us long term and I want you guys 16 I have taught I know many of you personally that are that are out there. And I’ve talked about your businesses and you guys are doing some amazing things. We really want your businesses to succeed, because you guys are here to make a better world. And so that’s why we’re here today.

Adam G. Force 19:17

Yeah, listen, it taught me to go on and on about it. And I think it’s important to recognize there was a great insight. And this is just part of the entrepreneurial mindset, especially during these times that one of our coaches shared, and that is, you know, this is not a time to respond out of a place of fear and anxiety. Right, because as things around us are changing, hey, I have a baby on the way and my wife works in hospital hospitals here in Miami out right? Yeah, like this is not a good situation for us. My wife was at the hospital until midnight last night doing were coming home like it’s chaos and So that makes me nervous. And this is a difference in my life now. Right? So this is how my life has changed. And I’m lucky I work out of the house. And I think Amy made a great point about being recession proof, you know, we have learned to create digital systems online that work for us. And we, it’s it is kind of recession proof, you know, unless the there’s people, if people out there right now can’t get involved with what you offer, that might be a new dynamic of how you need to support them. And that’s kind of what we’ve been talking about here. But you know, there’s a lot that’s to be said for getting set up digitally. Not even just because of this situation, I would look at this situation to say, this is actually giving me the kick in the butt to back it up. So in the future, I am recession proof, right. And this is what we’re so passionate about in the captivate method program because we are that’s what we help with it as well. about building up your brand story, understanding how to set up digital systems, how to get people to love what you do. And once you have those systems running, you’re in good shape during these times, right? So, you know, these are just some of the key points that we wanted to bring up today. And, you know, don’t come at this from a place of fear and reservation, right? You’re not being unethical. You’re a problem solver. You’re here to help people. That’s why you’re an entrepreneur. So get creative, lean in and figure out what communities you can be part of, and help people, right.

Amy Aitman 21:35

Yeah, that’s, I love that, Adam. And you know what, we’re here to help you guys as well. And there’s a lot of topics that are going to better coming up. I mean, like setting up your digital systems, what tools you can use, how to have build digital communities, how do you build a community around your mission, we’re here to help you and give you guys some ideas and inspire that as well. So if there’s any topics or you guys are having a struggle by Want you to leave a comment? Ask a comment, this is the time that you guys can really dig in. I really feel like this situation in the world is actually a really great opportunity for us as entrepreneurs to really lean into our businesses to focus on the things that are going to set us up to build stronger communities digitally. Like it’s really exciting. I feel like this virus is not political. It’s bringing the whole world has to come together. There are some really positive things about it. So I feel like that’s why we’re given this opportunity right now. This is a good

Adam G. Force 22:32

time. Yeah. Active matters. And while it is a terrible thing that’s going on, and it’s kind of like disrupting things. That’s what we are about as entrepreneurs, we disrupt, right? And so we just look at this and we say, all right, what’s going on? How do we solve these problems? How do I help people get through these tough times? Guys, ask questions. If you’re stuck with your business, you’re not sure how to manage it. Like we’re here. Like we’re leaning in. We’re opening up this conversation. And so that you can ask questions. So if you have questions, or you need support with something, we can set up a digital coffee date, we could do group talks, you can jump on live again and cover certain topics. If there’s something you want us to talk about, that you have questions on, you know, just put it out there. You know, we’re here to help in any way. So, I mean, I think me that’s, that’s, I think, covers most of what we want to

Amy Aitman 23:23

Yeah , I think so.

Adam G. Force 23:24

We’ll be back. We have some other things to dig in. But this was just to kick this off, because we’ve noticed some of the fears people have, but also the automatic response of holding back. Right? Well, mine can’t sell, I can’t sell now, like, I don’t want to be the guy profiting off of this. And you know, that’s not the case. So you’re not selling toilet paper and flipping it.

Amy Aitman 23:48

hand sanitizers and I mean,

Adam G. Force 23:50

like Gary Vee came on, he’s like, I don’t want to see anybody out there, you know, buying up all the Purrel and then flipping it that’s shit. You know? Don’t be those guys. But I think there’s a lot of

Amy Aitman 24:04

I don’t think anyone sitting here are those guys right Adam?

Adam G. Force 24:08

no, no, no, this is all about impact entrepreneurs, guys, we’re here to be honest, authentic, genuine, really help people. There’s people out there that need your help. You might have expertise, tools, insights. So just get involved, talk to people set up a virtual coffee group, you know, whatever it is come up with creative ideas. There’s a lot that can be done to help people get through this time.

Amy Aitman 24:32

Yeah, you guys have unique, unique skills and abilities and great ways to help people. So that’s what I would encourage you guys to do and share your comments. Ask your questions. We’ll be back. Awesome. We’re gonna be here. Alright guys, see you later. Okay, Bye, guys.

Adam G. Force 24:50

That’s all for this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content exclusive interview. And more ways to stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit Change Creator mag Comm. We’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

interview

Shane Foss: Disrupting the Healthcare Industry To Help Underserved People

Listen to our exclusive interview with Shane Foss:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

The healthcare industry has not changed much over the decades and is ready for disruption! But how? We talk to Shane foss who is taking it head-on. He shares his strategy but also other areas in healthcare that could be lucrative for entrepreneurs.

About Shane

With over 20 years of tenure as an executive in the medical industry, Shane Foss became frustrated with how under-served Americans were with the current healthcare options. He set out to make a change and in 2018 achieved this goal through launching Hooray Health, an unconventional health insurance company dedicated to providing affordable basic and urgent health care alternatives to high-deductible health plans. Through Hooray Health, Foss and his team focus on offering peace of mind to lower-income individuals and families who face medical challenges, while also providing business owners with an affordable way to reward and retain employees. Partnering with companies like Sedera, Ameritas, and Aflac, they have be able to add critical services and supplemental plans giving immense value to employers and individuals. Throughout his professional experience, Foss has negotiated complex, multi-million-dollar contracts, worked in device sales management, created business strategies, and optimized P&L. He holds an MBA from Rice University’s, Jone’s School of Business, a BS from the University of the Incarnate Word, and a Surgical Technologist Certificate from the United States Air Force.

Learn more about Shane and his work at > https://hoorayhealthcare.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:11

What’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam force. If you missed last week’s episode, it was with one of the founding partners of a company called lime. If you’ve seen all the scooters running around, if you live in the city that they’re doing one of their tests and they’re all over the world now. They are really transforming urban living with this thing called the micro mobility movement. So we talked about that industry, the trend for disrupting transportation and how it impacts climate change, and all that kind of stuff. So it’s a really great conversation. If you missed it, I would highly recommend you check that out. There’s lots of golden nuggets in there from Andrew. This week, we’re gonna be talking to Shane fosse. He’s the CEO of a company called hooray health. So Shane has over 20 years of experience as an executive in the medical industry and he became frustrated Did as all entrepreneurs do with a problem, the problem was that they’re the Americans were underserved. So this is us base. They’re underserved with the current healthcare options. And this is an area I wanted to discuss as healthcare. It’s a very important area. And it’s been like a long standing industry that hasn’t really changed much. So to see somebody disrupting it and learn how they’re doing that, I thought it’d be a really great discussion, and it’s an area that we need a lot more entrepreneurs in. So he set out to make a change. And in 2018, he changed the goal by setting up and launching hooray health and they describe it as an unconventional health insurance company dedicated to providing affordable basic and urgent health care alternatives to high deductible health plans. Alright, so we’re going to talk about the industry how and Andrew. Shane will also help kind of we’re going to get into maybe some areas that entrepreneurs can get involved to disrupt the healthcare industry and then talk more about what they’re doing and stuff like that. So this is really relevant for business owners and for individuals who are looking for health care options and want to understand the industry. Okay? Step by Change Creator comm lots of fresh content going up there, guys, we just keep it flowing. And we love to make sure you get your hands on it. Tons of good, good stuff. You can also get on the waitlist for the captivate method right off our homepage. Don’t miss out on that opportunity. It is a powerful, powerful community. And we’re having a lot of fun with people that are already involved. And hopefully this is something that can help grow and sustain your business. Right? So it is all about getting it set up, right, how to tell your story to the world and put it at the heart of your marketing, right? This is how we connect with people. And then you got to actually set the business up to scale, get more leads, get more customers, and we got to do these things, right. There’s a million different options out there. And what our team is going to help with is giving clarity about the messaging clarity about yourself. And clarity about the execution. So check that out when you get a chance Change Creator calm. And I think we’re gonna dive right into this conversation with Shane right now. Okay, show me the heat. Hey Shane, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show how you doing today?

Shane Foss 03:18

I’m doing wonderful. Thanks, Adam.

Adam G. Force 03:20

Awesome. Where are you located from? I forget.

Shane Foss 03:23

Oh, Dallas, Texas,

Adam G. Force 03:25

Dallas, Texas. You know, my sister lived in Texas for, I don’t know, 15 years. She was in Denton, which I think is just outside of. Yeah, just north of us.

Shane Foss 03:33

Yeah, just north

Adam G. Force 03:34

of Boston. Now. I have been to the Lonesome Dove and I know that is a very, very good spot for dinner. So that’s definitely yes. There’s a couple spots in Texas that I do love.

Shane Foss 03:43

Yeah, yeah, it’s great state. I moved out here from Minnesota. She’s 20 plus years ago now.

Adam G. Force 03:50

So Oh, wow. That’s a big change. cold cold cold to pretty hot.

Shane Foss 03:55

Yes. Exactly.

Adam G. Force 03:56

Exactly. Awesome. So you No, you are CEO of hooray health, lots of stuff going on here. And I love to talk about the healthcare industry. I think it’s such an important topic and it needs a lot of love these days. So we’ll dive into that in just a minute. But maybe you could tell everybody just what’s going on in your world these days with hooray health, like, what’s the latest and greatest?

Shane Foss 04:20

So, we’re really excited. We We just finished our Series B funding. We closed that up, actually last week. So that was a big milestone for us. We are we’re a startup. We’re, you know, almost three years into it. And we have just gotten to that hockey stick of growth. And so we’re a we’re a product that basically addresses basic medical healthcare coverage for hourly employees, part time employees. And it’s a it’s a product that really is there to serve a purpose. For somebody that cannot afford major medical, and a lot of people don’t realize that when you’re when you’re actually, you know, buying a, you know, $1,000 a month or 1500 dollar a month family plan, that, you know, you’re not going to spend all of that money, right, you’re not going to spend anywhere near that money, you’re gonna have all these deductibles and out of pockets and, and so you’re spending all this money that you can afford. And a lot of people just say forget it, and then they end up with no health coverage. And that’s where we come in. And so, you know, we were really focused on addressing those needs for the people that need it the most.

Adam G. Force 05:41

So, I mean, I like to just know a little bit about how you got there because I in my personal opinion, when I think about the healthcare, industry and insurance of any kind, and you call you say, assurance, which I think is cool spin and I just think of it as such a it’s an old system that has been around for a while done a certain way and how like, I’m curious how you got to the point of actually thinking about tackling this thing and doing something different.

Shane Foss 06:11

So, my background, really, I wasn’t in health insurance. I was from a been in health care in medical device. So as worked with a large, large medical device, orthopedic metal, medical device manufacturers running sales organizations for them. And I’ve always loved healthcare. My wife’s an anesthesiologist. We volunteer every year for medical mission work down in Guatemala, and so it’s, I love healthcare. I was introduced to health insurance after I joined a startup, I guess it was probably about six years ago now five or six years ago, and I just fell in love with the health insurance space because I saw all of this opportunity and I think as an entrepreneur, you you see the process problem, then you’re wondering why people aren’t addressing it. And then so you come up with a solution. And then you build your, your product based on that. And so I’m the founder or co founder of ways I listened to him talk a couple months ago, and we were in this meeting together. And, and he said something that was very profound, it said, Love the problem, not the solution. And so, you know, so what that means is, you know, you got to have a problem that makes sense that needs to get addressed, right? And then you got to fall in love with the problem, not your solution, right? Because that solution, just like for us, you know, it evolves it’s an evolution, right, the, the product you start with, is not what you’re gonna end up with, and it may not be what’s successful. And so, you know, it’s really interesting. I think that being an entrepreneur is, is a huge blessing in the sense that you get To get to go to work today every day and not know what it looks like, right? I mean, there’s something new that happens every day that you didn’t know was going to happen. And so, you know, in preparation for that I, you know, I worked for some great companies, you know, one of them was Stryker orthopedics that really, really gave me the foundation in a business standpoint, to do what I’m doing today. And, and so it gave me the confidence to do what I’m doing today. And so, you know, as other entrepreneurs are out there, getting ready to identify that that problem and build a solution, you know, it’s it’s a daunting task, but if you’ve got the foundation, it’s great.

Adam G. Force 08:41

Yeah. And so is this problem that you’re solving? Do you see it as something that’s just always been around? Or is it something that’s really starting to blossom more now?

Shane Foss 08:56

Well, it’s definitely blossoming I think it’s been exasperated by Obamacare, the ACA, the implementation, you know, that really, you know, I know that the idea was sincere and it was a good, good intention. But the problem is, and anytime you rush to a solution, you know, of course, you’re never going to have all of the angles figured out. But when you rush to a solution like that, that’s this complicated and massive. You’re, you know, you’re going to have follow, you’re going to have huge issues. And one of the things that’s come out of this is our uninsured rate continues to grow dramatically. But it’s really, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s prevented our hourly rate to really grow that middle class, we’re destroying the middle class with the cost of health care. Healthcare now has become, you know, if you’re a part time or hourly wage employee, you pretty much don’t have health insurance. You Don’t have any options. You know, when you’re working for these large corporations, they’re covering the employee. But the family now is 1500 1900. You know, we just saw a renewal for 20 $700 for a family, right with a $6,000 deductible. You know, 20 $700 a month is not sustainable when 75% of America still makes less than $50,000 a year. So, so the problem continues to grow. And so what we’re really trying to address is that population that can’t afford any type of coverage, and we’re giving employers especially large employers the opportunity to offer a product that is that is an affordable kind of basic solution for these hourly employees that are typically younger, right? Most of our population is under 45. And so it just gets them to a doctor with no balance. bills, and you know, you’ve got to fix payment, you’ve got access to telemedicine, you know, 24 hour medical concierge. And then we have a mobile app. Right. Imagine that. I mean, the healthcare industry is so behind in the times, right. But you know, it just so we just do the basic things for this population. And you know, what, our plan starts at $99. Right. So a month, I mean, so it’s very affordable. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 11:29

That’s interesting. And I’m, I’m curious, just, you know, over time that has passed, you know, 10 years or so as you know, coverage costs go up, more people are uninsured. I mean, how have you seen the dynamics of the health care, industry evolving? This could include things like technology and things like that, so that we can start seeing a shift in how it’s provided to people like like you’re doing like what are some of the the changes we see Make some new opportunities possible.

Shane Foss 12:03

So I think really the, the willingness as the, as the millennial generation, which is really our first technological generation, right, they’re born with a, you know, with technology in their hand. I think that they’re more willing to implement, you know, telemedicine, I think some of the things that they’re they’re doing with virtually are is really important, you know, especially mental health, there’s a shortage of mental health professionals today. And, and actually, funny fact is the millennial generation is the highest utilizers of mental health services. So that poses a problem. So I think that that video, face to face technology, I think is great. I think the ability to even talk to a physician on the phone is important. But you know, it’s interesting because healthcare in general There’s, there’s innovation, but it’s very incremental. Right. There’s not a lot of leaps and bounds. Right. So, you know, when you go from, you know, if you look at the iPhone from in, for instance, right, from the, you know, the the razor flip phone, I mean, that’s a dramatic leap, right? I mean, that’s a, that’s a huge jump. Well, when you look at medicine, everything is incremental, because it needs to be clinically tested and proven. And, and it’s a it’s a generation or a generation Excuse me. It’s a it’s a system that is very ingrained in what it’s done historically. So, so new, new innovation in healthcare is really challenging, and the incumbents are so strong. When you look at you know, Blue Cross Blue Shield and anthem, you look at Cigna, Aetna, United Healthcare. They are They are really incentivized really to keep it more of the status quo. hospital systems. Yep. Right. Yeah. And so it’s really, so it’s, it’s hard for innovators in this space. Because, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of money there. That’s, you know, it’s better off not to do something, right.

Adam G. Force 14:24

Yeah, I mean, I see, like, you know, there it is, like, you know, it’s a for profit system. And I think to your point, they’re incentivized to keep things like the status quo so um, so that you know, as we have this conversation about the industry and why I’m asking you how it’s evolving and you know, your thoughts on those things because as we have people here listening, you know, I’m gonna want to get into what what your offer means to business owners and you know, people in general, but I also wanted to give people some insight just about maybe some of the The major issues and I know we’ve kind of glossed over a couple of these things. But I just want to get clear on some of the things that do need help now in the medical industry, so you’re solving a big problem with your business Hooray, health. And I’m curious if you have other thoughts or things that you’re seeing that really do need to break status quo and change, just to give people a little bit of thought, who are listening about? Oh, you know, like, maybe these are areas that they can see themselves contributing as well.

Shane Foss 15:30

Yeah, I think the organization of data and the transparency of that data I think, is really important. You know, if, when you look at healthcare, the crazy thing is, you know, if you want to break it down to the most basic scenario, if I walked into Walmart, and I bought a gallon of milk and I pay $4, for that gallon of milk, I go home, I drink it and you know, A week later, I get a bill from Walmart that says, well, actually $4 was just the initial cost now now you owe us another $10. Yeah. And oh, by the way, I can send you the collections for that. $10. And I will send you the and there’s no negotiating. Right, you know, is it’s so crazy, because what’s happened is there’s this bifurcation in the sense that or dis Association, if you will, of the actual consumer, which is the patient, and then the payer. So the hospitals and the providers are actually you’re not their customer as the patient. The insurance company is the payer, right? They pay the bills. So there’s that disconnect. So I think, you know, in the future, I think that there’s a lot of opportunity in this pricing, transparency, and this ability to go and shop for care because as more and more people be Come uninsured is not going to be just the people that are making less than $50,000 a year, we’re talking people that are making 100 to 200,000 that can justify a 20 $700 a month payment. Yeah. Right. So what they’re going to do is they’re going to take that 20 $700 a month, they’re gonna put it in savings, right? And then if something comes up, they’re gonna need to go get care. And so they may, they may have a crazy catastrophic plan that’ll cover you know, cancer or something big. But, you know, if I if they need to go in for a simple surgery, and even a rotator cuff surgery, you know, I can go in, I can get everything with Anastasia surgeon facility, implants, everything, I can get that done for $15,000 cash. Well, that’s less than what I paid for a full year of health insurance. So I think that this consumerism is really on the rise. It’s not there yet, but we’re at We’ve been at this tipping point for a while on the cost of health insurance. And so you’ve got a lot more people willing to look at that, and, and just say, Look, I’m just paying cash. So when I walk into a doctor’s office, I’m paying cash, what is it? And so if you’re able to, or not organize that data, and you actually get providers, you know, on board with that, I think that, you know, that’s a huge opportunity in the future. So all those entrepreneurs out there, they’re looking for some, there’s a there’s a great opportunity.

Adam G. Force 18:32

Yeah, sounds like there’s a number of gaps, and they can probably be broken down into an another, like, even more niche little areas, which is pretty cool. So that’s helpful. I appreciate you sharing those insights. And I’m curious then, you know, based on where you are now with hooray health, like, just let’s get just clear on how you are different than other insurance providers.

Shane Foss 18:56

Sure. So the biggest difference with us We created our own provider network with fixed pricing. And what’s very unique about that is we, we built a national network of retail clinics. So CVS, Walmart, Walgreens, they’re all our partners. And then you have, we have 14 of the top 20 urgent care of businesses nationally as well. But we’ve got, you know, just under 4000 locations in 47 states, but we have fixed pricing, and so we have a $25 copay, and then there’s no balance bill for our member. And the big deal about that is $25 is a very, you know, predictable and affordable way to get care, okay, because you need to have some skin in the game. But what’s nice is they don’t have they can go in and anything done under the roof of that provider, any of the services. So if they, they had IV, they had asthma breathing treatment, they got an X ray, the guy stitches, everything’s covered under our contract, so they don’t have to worry about about Knoxville. And so that’s our biggest competitive advantage. You know, the other thing is our mobile app, you know, obviously the mobile app with the full integration with. We’ve got telemedicine there, we’ve got our provider network, obviously, we own all of the code, we own the databases, you know, it’s our network. So it’s, so it’s really, it’s really a, all in one centrally located service for our members where they just go to the mobile app, and they can find everything. The other thing that we’ve done is we have on with that fixed pricing, we have fixed price contracting on labs and radiology as well, where, you know, you don’t have to worry about that balance bill. And I think that’s where, you know, it’s pricing transparency, but more importantly, it’s really contracted. You don’t even have to negotiate, right, you just, you literally go in and you know, it’s gonna cost $450 for an MRI, and that’s okay. Yeah. So not 4000 like, you know, I was quoted, so, but so I think that when you look at really key differentiators, it’s, you know, our provider network and our ability to really protect members from that balance bill. And why that’s important is one in five Americans are sent to collections for an unpaid medical bill every year, and the average is less than $600. So the problem is not the surgery, the cancer, all these crazy things. It’s literally the Hey, I went in to see my provider because I was sick. And I got a balanced bill for $600 that I can’t pay. Yeah. And when that when they would have accepted $100 for it, right. So that’s a huge competitive advantage for us. And then the and then the other part of it is that mobile app, that mobile app, really, you know, if you’ve ever tried to find a provider, it’s incredibly difficult, right? And in network provider, it’s very simple with us, you know, you just click search a govt nccn just shows you a right. And then and then the next step is the drugs. So we have our discount program right on the mobile app. So while you’re in the office, you can type in, you know, systemized, and if you had a sinus infection, and it’ll give you the lowest price right there, you can call pharmacist, but it tells you exactly where to tell the provider. Hey, would you just send the script over here? So it’s, it’s really a it’s a nice workflow. It’s a simple process for a very complicated industry. It

Adam G. Force 22:32

Yeah. And that is that’s what I was saying is so daunting. So it’s interesting to hear the steps you’re taking to solve these problems. And are you working with employers like business owners as well?

Shane Foss 22:44

Yes. So we, we work with small and large business owners, we we really focus on their hourly or part time contingent workforce. So a lot of times They have very low participation with that hourly workforce. So we’re able to go in and provide a more cost effective product for them. To make sure that they’re they’re covered. got it

Adam G. Force 23:15

got it. Interesting. And so um, so for entrepreneurs say you’re you’re getting to the point where you’re scaling up your team, you’re looking for charts now, we work with a lot of, they would have to be people who are directly employed. Right, but because you mentioned hourly and part time and things like that as the primary focus. A lot of times I find that those are people that are contractors, but you are talking about people who are fully employed, or are you able to offer insurance to as an incentive to those others other people as well?

Shane Foss 23:45

Yes, absolutely. We can sell it to them as well. So we we can, we can offer our plan through an employer to 1099 right. Contract labor, part time, hourly, yeah, so It’s, it’s a very flexible, we can actually sell it to individuals in certain states. We actually, we can. If you’re a freelancer, right, and you you’re looking for just some basic coverage, you can actually work with us. And if you’re in one of the approved states, then you can, you can buy or plan as an individual.

Adam G. Force 24:24

That’s pretty interesting, because I can imagine some of these startup teams today in the name of flexibility that you might have sales teams and stuff like that, that are, you know, contractors, they’re not necessarily full time employees, but you can still potentially incentivize them with these types of perks.

24:41

Yeah, absolutely. It’s a very inexpensive way. Right? Yeah. I think that with if you look at the market today, the market today is so competitive. It’s the it’s the most competitive it’s been since the tightest labor market since World War Two, right. So being able to offer A differentiated product like us, you know, the other part is, you know, hooray health, the insurance company the assurances are promised, right? We believe health care coverage. It’s too expensive. It’s complicated, it’s untrustworthy. And our goal is to change it. We, you know, we stand for something where our marketing is really, you know, it’s a true product. So our, the feedback we get from employees is they really like the product. They like, who who we are what we stand for, you know, we’re not just another, you know, carrier that, you know, plain Jane, black, white, you know, documents. I mean, we’ve got a little color to us. And so it’s, uh, yeah, so I think that it’s a really it’s a really good opportunity.

Adam G. Force 25:47

Yeah. I mean, so it sounds like you’re really trying to reduce the number of uninsured people and lower standard coverage costs that I mean, those are two key things, right.

Shane Foss 25:58

Yes, absolutely. We, we we always say we don’t compete against major medical, you know, if you have major medical health insurance, yeah, we’ll either supplement that, or we really compete against as not having health insurance. So when we show employers examples of, you know, in a different scenarios, it’s always against not having health insurance. Yeah. Because, you know, you look at these large national, you know, retailers, for instance, some of these national retailers have hundreds of thousands of part time employees, right, it’s 80% of their population, their employer, employee population, and they don’t offer anything today. So the bulk of those people are uninsured. And so it poses a huge quandary for them because people call in sick they can’t afford to go see a doctor. So you know, it’s and then things turn into more, you know, into worse things, right. You know, you end up getting bronchitis, then you get pneumonia, because you know, you Didn’t go in to see a physician to get the antibiotic. So I think that, when you look at the employers in general, employers in general are very maternal to their employees, they want to do the right thing, the offered, the opportunity just hasn’t been there to offer a product that really is effective. And that’s, that’s where, you know, for us, we really have a great competitive advantage, because our network is we match up really well with these national employers, because traditionally, you know, they could take care of their group in Texas, but then the rest of the, you know, 49 states are out well with us. You know, we’re we can have a contracted provider within 90% of all their locations today within 20 miles, which is a home run.

Adam G. Force 27:52

And it’s yours is there like a annual commitment or how is how flexible is the term that you’re someone works with you on

Shane Foss 28:00

Yeah, so if Well, there’s some legalities around it. So if they’re doing a pre tax, then they have to offer the plan for a full year. But if if they’re doing a post tax, then then it’s the flexibility is they can cancel it at any time. So it doesn’t matter. So those are just kind of the legalities of it. But we, we usually sign a contract with the employer to offer and it goes year to year. And so that’s, that’s, yeah, that’s what we do. Hmm.

Adam G. Force 28:34

Yeah. No, it’s interesting. And I mean, I just I, I’m curious and how I have two things. One, I’m curious how you a company like Ray health would be impacted. If you know somebody like Bernie Sanders becomes president and we do you know, single payer health care system are Medicare for all and all those things. Does that impact you in a good way or bad way? Curious

Shane Foss 29:01

Well, you really never know for sure until all the details are worked out. But, but I will, I will say this the, you know, if you look at Canada, if you look in, you know, in Europe and England, yeah, you know, where they have, you know, a single payer system. There really are two pairs, you’re you always have private insurance, employers still offer those benefits because, you know, as a competitive advantage. You know, it’s interesting because where I grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, one of our top revenue generators for the city was actually our Canadians coming down for surgery in in Duluth, because, you know, we’re only a couple hours from Canada. And the reason is, you know, once you once the budget runs out, there are no more total knees. There are more, no more, you know, hard casts and you know, a so I think that it’s it’ll be to be determined, but we’ll I think we’ll have a place no matter what. Just, there’s, there’s, there’s a good chance that even even with whomever gets in the White House that, that they’re still gonna, you know, Medicare for All is still not very popular with everybody because it’s, you know, 38 trillion the first five years I think it is on the budget. So, yeah,

Adam G. Force 30:33

yeah. Well, and it seems to me in these situations, right, you know, it’s like I always talk about not having a Kodak moment if we know the story of Kodak right. So it’s like someone coming up to you saying, we’re gonna have this whole digital world we don’t need your model anymore. Well, you could say, Oh, crap, I’m out of business. Or it’s kind of like Well, how do we just like you said the, the solutions always evolving, right. So the solution, how does it adapt to the to the marketplace and what’s going on? So

Shane Foss 30:57

Exactly.

Adam G. Force 30:58

Yeah, no, this is, this is Interesting stuff and you guys raised money. It sounds like you’re on your series. Be curious how much you guys have raised so far.

Shane Foss 31:07

So we’ve raised a total of just over $7 million. Total. Congrats. That’s awesome.

Adam G. Force 31:13

Yeah, very cool. So what kind of steps did you have to take to get your first round locked in?

Shane Foss 31:19

Really, it was friends and family. It was Yeah, I just went to went to a few of my friends and my family and, and everybody, everybody kicked in the first, the first amount. And then, and then once we kind of had the proof of concept worked out, we went out and professionally raised the Series B, and we’re very happy with our partners. We were very strategic about who we who we partnered with. And so we’re really excited, really excited. We got a lot of good things going

Adam G. Force 31:51

sounds like a chain sounds like I appreciate you sharing your insights about the industry and how you guys are solving some of these major problems and I look forward to seeing where you guys Take it so let’s stay in touch and let’s give a shout out. How do people find where do they find you the best place to find you and learn more?

Shane Foss 32:07

Sure is a hurry healthcare.com h o ra y healthcare.com. That’s the best place to start. Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, Adam. I really appreciate your time.

Adam G. Force 32:20

Yeah, that’s all for this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews, and more ways to stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit Change Creator mag comm we’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

interview

Adam & Amy: How to Effectively Set Up Systems for Your Business Remotely

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Join Adam and Amy today in Part 1 of 5 Days of Support for Your Digital Business. We’ve been in the digital space for over a decade & have lots to share for you!

What we’ll cover:

— Going digital? Should you hire someone to help you (ie VA, developers, marketing agencies)
— Where should you spend your time to get the most results?
— Is this the time to build a digital team (questions to ask yourself)?
— What are some of the digital tools we use?

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:11

Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. I hope you all are practicing your social distancing and staying safe these days. There’s been lots of great conversations going around the business world as we adapt to the situation that is, you know, affecting everybody right now. So Amy and I, if you guys have not noticed, we started doing some talks. If you follow us on Facebook, you might have gotten some notifications and started seeing this week. We’ve been going live every day at 12pm. Eastern. And that’s because we wanted to answer a number of questions and talk about what’s going on. But also just kind of get into some of the solutions and things that are going to be valuable for you to navigate, just for business in general but also during this time, right. So the little Last call. Not the last call, the last episode of the podcast was with me and Amy talking about just kind of like teen things up about navigating this situation with COVID. And, you know, as an impact entrepreneur today and what that looks like. So if you missed it, go back, you can check that out. There’s lots of good nuggets in there that will hopefully bring you some comfort and inspiration. And as we continue this week, we’re going live every day, okay. And every day at noon, and then this Friday, we’re doing a Change Creator, happy hour at 4pm. Eastern. So if you don’t follow us on Facebook, go over to Facebook, follow us there and we have it set up in the events, and we have a happy hour. So that’s going to be a chance where it’s just us everybody who wants to getting online. And we’re going to talk about some things with networking, what we’re doing, how we can support each other, and it’ll be in a virtual Zoom Room where we can all actually just talk you know, there’s, you know, it’s not about pitching or anything like that. It’s just a Happy Hour. So get your favorite bourbon or beer, maybe a glass of wine. We all just want to like take a minute to slow down, network Connect, see what people are working with us solutions or challenges, help each other out and just kind of have a little fun with this conversation while we get to meet each other. Okay. So again, follow us on Facebook guys, you can find the events outlined over there. They’re in the group and on the business page for Change Creator. So today, this is the Facebook Live from the first day of the week. And we want to put these on the podcast. So you guys have a chance in case you didn’t catch them over there. Just another great way to share this content. And so this episode is going to be about you know, we want to talk about going digital and being remote and being effective remote like and where you should be spending your time so it’s kind of like a lot of people are going from offline to digital or trying to expand their digital offers or pivot, right because they’re there you have to To make up for revenues that are lost otherwise. And so we talk about things like, you know, should you be hiring a VA or developers or marketing teams to help expedite your, your process? Or, you know, where do you really need to spend your time right now to get the results that you’re looking for? And, you know, like, should you be thinking about digital teams and and what kind of tools we’ve been using. So some of our favorite tools that we like to use, because our team is all around the world. And we’ve been doing the remote function and everything we do is digital. So we have some insights and favorite things we wanted to share with you at the at the end of this conversation. So that’s the gist of it for today. And I wanted to just share that and we’ll be having more of these live. So I’m going to put all of them from this week on to the podcast, so you guys have a chance to hear them. And just one more update is just the flow of the podcast. So what’s happening is we will be doing expert interviews as usual. And then we’ll be doing some discussions where it’s just Me and Amy are talking about some key topics and bringing you guys our experiences and insights to help you out. And then once in a while, we’re going to start doing some interviews with members in the captivate method to talk about some of their experiences and what they’re doing. So you can start seeing some of that stuff roll out soon, just as we are putting this podcast up with me and Amy talking and things like that. So hopefully, that’s helpful guys. And you know, we’re doing all this just to be as helpful as possible, because we know it’s a little bit scary and uncertain. But that is the nature of entrepreneurship, right? So we’re all used to it. We are problem solvers. And we look at these things in ways to say how can I help someone What can I do? What can I offer like this is a time for us to all unite and collaborate and just get creative with what we’re doing right and how we execute these things. So without further ado, guys, we’ll jump into this conversation. If you get a chance to stop by iTunes leave a review we always appreciate that and love hearing from you. And guys, if you ever have any questions, you can go to Change Creator calm and just go to our contact form. We’ll get your notes. If you have questions or thoughts. Go ahead pop in there, let us know anything that’s on your mind or that you want to hear us talk about or if you just have a question about one of our programs or how we can help you, whatever it might be, we’d love to hear from you. All right, guys, I’m going to jump into this conversation I had with Amy on the Facebook Live session about what you need to do to start setting up your systems for your business remotely, things you should be thinking about and stuff like that. So let’s dive into it. Okay, show me that, hey,

Amy Aitman 05:34

hey, we’re live here. It’s Amy Aitman

Adam G. Force 05:38

Adam force

Amy Aitman 05:40

Founders here of Change Creator. I’ll tell you how the week is gonna go we’re gonna for Facebook live events where we picked really special specific topics because we’re dealing with what we’re dealing and everyone’s at home now. And a lot of you I know are are scrambling to have a better digital system digital presence. So we’re we pick these four things. Topics specifically for you. And then on Friday, and I’m really looking forward to this, because I know that is going to be so much fun. We’re doing what’s called we’re calling the Change Creator. Happy Hour. I couldn’t even name happy hour. I can’t wait. So we want

Adam G. Force 06:18

We needed a more clever name, but that’s pretty much where we landed.

Amy Aitman 06:22

The most important part is that you bring your drink and you bring yourself you bring your questions and we get to mingle and collaborate and you know, have fun in this digital space. I know so many of us are feeling a little isolated. Now that we’re on lockdown and we’re self isolating. So I feel like that is going to be so much fun to like kick off the weekend, at home with your family. So let’s get started with our topic today is how to effectively set up systems for your business remotely. And this is really really an important one right now. Like I said, so many of you guys are reaching out to me and saying, you guys are set up. You have your system set up. You have You guys are all digital and you have your digital offer. And you’re like, What? How can I do this? And a lot of you. I want to caution, the scrambling right now. We really want to like it took us how long to set up our digital systems, Adam?

Adam G. Force 07:16

Well, you know, between the two of us, our third business, and so we’ve been down this road so many times, and it takes a while until you have the experience of doing it, seeing what works. And then you know, you can implement things faster, right. But there’s just so many Crossroads throughout the process. And I’m sure even this title today is probably, there’s probably a couple of different ways people might be thinking about what we’re talking about here. So it’s all around this perspective and things like that. So we’re going to touch on what we thought was really most important to respond to this particular question that we heard from you guys this week. So, you know, I think one of the most important like, just to kick this off, if we’re really trying to advance our digital presence now during this time of social distancing, and maybe you were a coach or a solopreneur, that’s doing a lot of in person or going to events and selling it, you know, trade shows and things like that. And now we can’t do that. Right? So scramble, and we try to get everything more effective in our digital systems. And so I think a lot of times people, Amy, they hear, well, I have something, I have this product, and I’ve been going on the road and selling and do all these things. And now that I want to be more efficient digitally, I can just delegate, get a VA get someone on a marketing team or you know, it really start ramping this type of thing up and that’s, that is I guess, when you’re thinking of that, that urgency, so it’s like what can I do quickly? Because I don’t have the time I’m special. I’m specialized in my area of expertise, but I’m not a marketer, and I’m not a salesperson. Right. So what do we start doing? We start, yeah, outsource. And we’ve all heard that we should delegate things that we’re not experts in. But I think you know, and Amy, let me know if you disagree. But this is a critical point where, when you’re the CEO, let’s say you’re the solo entrepreneur, and you’re running your own business, you need to be the number one salesperson in your business and really start learning the sales processes. And then this is going to be the first part of your strategy really to, to put it digitally, because if you don’t know these things, you’re going to struggle right out of the gate. And so in the world, this is going to create more mayhem.

Amy Aitman 09:35

And we’ve seen this, we’ve seen this so many times before added like, I like to give the example let’s call her Mabel, love that name. And she’s in. She’s a colleague of mine in one of our masterminds, and she was really she’s really, really good at what she does offline. She has an amazing community. She talks. She does a lot of now. Working, but going digital was kind of new for her. And I’m sure a lot of you are in that situation right now. And so a lot of people like even like me say, you know, my VA is are like the lifeblood of our business. They keep us going, they keep our operations going. And and now that we have your system set up our VA are great. And so my, my good friend, Mabel, let’s call her, she said, I’m going to hire a VA. And so she hired a VA and it didn’t go so great. Like, I want this, I want that I want the system set up, I need a marketing funnel, and the VA could only implement what she could give her. So she was like, Okay, I’m gonna, you know, I’m going to get another VA. And so she hired a VA that had specific specific knowledge on these digital systems. And sorry, my eyes are watering today for some reason. And these specific leads to Jill system thinking that this VA could just take what was ever whatever she needs to do. And put it out there into the world. And so months and months went by and long story short, the VA did not accomplish what my friend people thought she needed to accomplish in her business. And so I sat down and we talked about it to her and I’m like, is it wasn’t the VA? Or was it that you did not have that clarity in your business and your clear, offer to go digital, and then it’s really, really tough to hire someone to, you know, try to read your mind basically on me.

Adam G. Force 11:29

Because I think a lot of times what happens is you go, Okay, I need somebody that can build funnels, I need somebody that can set up my, you know, my email systems or something. And so you have these VA s out there with these areas of expertise here, okay, I’m going to hire them. I’m going to tell them I need this and this and this, and they’re going to set it up. And the most challenging part of that is that they can technically set you up. Sure. But what happens is you spend a lot of time, a lot of money and they’re going ahead to Implement based on what they know. And you don’t necessarily have a digital strategy that can really energize those systems to be effective. Yeah, you spend a lot of money on hiring these folks, setting all these systems up, and time goes by money goes out. And then when you’re not getting the conversions and the sales aiming, I could speak to this. And because we’ve done it, we’ve hired PR teams, we’ve hired marketing teams to do specific tasks. And they all you know, promise to deliver the world. And then the first month is, let’s get acclimated Let’s learn about your brand, get all the information we need, thousand 1500 dollars, whatever that that strategy sessions all about. And that’s set up for the month out the window, first month, no real traction, no real results. And then you get this second month and it’s another thousand, okay, we’re starting to really we’re doing this, we’re doing that. And then how long is it to really see that ROI, right. So a lot of time goes by and it’s all based on this foundation that is lacking a strategy to actually make the sales and convert so you just have all the things Without the fuel for the car, right.

Amy Aitman 13:03

And even the best marketing teams the best vas the best, the best experts out there, they can only do so much they can create these amazing funnels. But if your offer isn’t clear, if your business isn’t clear, all the digital strategy in the world is not going to help you set up your business digitally and work remotely, which, which is what we are doing now. So I think that’s what we really want to talk about. And I really encourage you guys to do that. While we’re all here. Oh, Matt cardones said been through that. Yes, man. It’s true man. That to me, I’ve been through that. And you know, like we said at the beginning of this talk, we want to share all the mistakes that we’ve made over the years. And so that you guys get there faster. You know, 10 years in the digital space, you learn a few things, you pick up a few things because of all the mistakes that you’ve made. And we hired like outside we hired those marketing teams and stuff. Yeah. So right now like I feel like where do you spend your most time to get your Results. Where do you spend your time today to get your results? Yeah.

Adam G. Force 14:04

So I guess I can answer your desk. Yeah, I mean, so just to just to recap here, like, there’s urgency right now we get it. So we’re taking actions potentially out of panic or fear, because we’re losing revenues of the in person functionality for our businesses. And now as we want to go digital, we want it quick. And we want it done to start gently compensating for the lost revenue, right? So when we make decisions out of that panic or fear, we tend to rush we tend to make mistakes. And it becomes instead of a shortest path between A and B, it becomes one of the longer paths, like you’re just adding, you know, confusion. So where do we where do we actually spend our time? You know, interestingly enough, the the most powerful companies and marketing strategy starts with the clarity of self because these types of this type of thought process and a lot of people I just hate hearing that like Oh, yes, yes, yes. I already know all that I know. And, you know, we go through so many students and so many clients that we’ve worked with to apply, you know, the strategies we’ve learned over the years. And this the number one, if I could summarize, the biggest challenge for companies in many startups, all across the board in different parts of business is clarity. And so when we don’t have this clarity of self, when we don’t have clarity of who we’re actually supporting, like, who is the number one person that we serve, to transform their life, right? The clarity they’re taking, slowing, as Amy always says, you want to slow down to speed up. So rather than getting panicked, rather than rushing to hire people to build things and do all the stuff that maybe you can’t do right now, you take a step back and start thinking about your strategy, like really like what makes you different from people that you’re going to have a conversation about with a very specific person that you can serve. So you can be very clear, because if you don’t have the clarity there and your messaging is off, it’s going to be an uphill battle. You know, right Amy so I mean about Yeah, I can go off on a tangent here things like you know our niche how Nisha the market and audience be and as everyone thinks they have it just like I’ll MIT like when we started Change Creator you know we had issues on our targeting but it took time to massage and and figure that out so this clarity about who you’re talking to yourself what makes you stand out what makes you original that you’re you can help people with the most and then really being clear about that messaging because that is what has read through everything you do digitally in order to connect and build trust and get people on board. So if

Amy Aitman 16:39

they’re important, and right now I can feel the panic like I am on Facebook and I’ve been a little like more distracted than usual. And I have so many of my business friends and people that I’m following starting to talk about productivity because like, oh, we’re at home now we got to be productive. We got to get these set system set up. Yeah, and I feel like That can really cause us to like jump in and make panic stations, I know some of you out there like I just need to get through the next few weeks my business, I need to make an extra five grand, he made an extra 10 K. But really the decisions that we make and the time that we spend in our business today is what’s going to set us up for success. And I really want to encourage you right now to not think about productivity, but to look inward and think about that clarity of yourself and the clarity of your offer that you have. It’s a lot easier to have that clarity when you’re having the one on one conversations in real life or at a conference or a speech. So how are you going to translate that into an offer a digital offer into a digital system and working remotely? So yeah, one of the questions that we that we wanted to talk about too is is is this the right time to build a digital team. Now we love our digital team here at Change Creator and I have built digital teams throughout my career up Quite a bit, and I love hiring people. But I can tell you right now, you can hire, I could hire 10 people right now and I didn’t have a system. And if I didn’t have a process that worked for our business, those 10 people would not know what to do. They would be figuring things out on their own, and we wouldn’t have a clear path, especially for solo entrepreneurs. If you’re thinking about hiring a team right now to get you digital. I want you to take a step back use this time to really look at your look at your offer and look at yourself and you know, get clear like Adam says that clarity yourself, it’s going to be so important, and it’s going to pay off so much more. I don’t want you guys like jumping in and, you know, trying to figure out so that’s a good question. And yeah,

Adam G. Force 18:47

yeah, so so and I just want to add a little bit more so you know, as far as hiring a team I, I know you might be thinking well how, like based on what you’re saying, How do I start clarifying like my message My offer and those types of things. And obviously, that’s a big conversation. But you know, we’re going to talk a little bit later in this week about niching and targeting. So we’re going to have that conversation. And one of the things that we do teach in the captivate method, which is our group, our mastermind community of people, is about digital conversations. So let me frame this up for you in a way that might help you think through the process. Now, we teach people to be because we work directly with solopreneurs in this program, and so we help them set these things up with easy tools. And we’ll talk about some of our favorite tools at the end of this conversation. But what we call it in the in the captain and that is a digital conversation, because you might have heard us say this in other videos, it’s like today as digital marketing is evolving. We’re all hung up on the technicalities of things right. And so I always like man, you know, we are storytellers. We publish magazines, articles, we run media companies, and then in our past lives, we did all kinds of storytelling for pictures. And sales and all that kind of stuff. And people are no longer in the digital world going door to door to make sales where we had this opportunity historically to basically say, Hey, can I come in? I’m going to talk to you for an hour about this vacuum. And every time they respond and say, Oh, well, I don’t need one because like, you can have an immediate response, right? So you get to hear them see their body language, and have an immediate response to what they’re saying. But what happens when we don’t have that in person, opportunity to sit down and talk now you want to sell your vacuum, and you’re online? And you have to say, Well, this is now a digital conversation, but it’s in these micro pieces all around the internet. And what do I say? Where do I say it? What kind of story should I be Sarah? Sharing to help people get more clear on why they should be part of what I’m doing right then the company grows. So if you’re thinking about the conversation that you have to Have to get people from where they are currently, right? And then where you want them to go, that’s gonna be a great starting point for you to start gaining clarity on those steps now, what we teach is the entire digital system and putting it all together. But you know, from the top end as far as we can go in this conversation here, what I can share is just the that theory to help you think with more clarity about what you’re doing online, right?

Amy Aitman 21:28

Yeah, that’s a really good point, like digital marketing has really shifted, and people can really tell if they’re being sold to if they’re being retargeted. So we created this idea of digital conversations because it is about personalizing your marketing. It is about reaching people really specifically and you know, finding those advocates for your brand and finding those people that are going to support you. And the biggest key in your digital system right now is to focus on these digital conversations and think About the people that you really want to serve. And that’s a really great point on them.

Adam G. Force 22:06

And, you know, we’ve seen this to guys and we’ve worked with entrepreneurs who are in the social impact space and you know, they are so original and unique and specific in what they’re doing. Yeah. This is this is scary for some people to get that clear and really start putting themselves out there as part of their marketing strategy. But it’s it’s fascinating the results that happen Oh, yeah, are willing to do that.

Amy Aitman 22:32

I can tell you I feel like I’ve followed so many amazing people’s stories over the years. And one of them is like our good friend crystal Earl. We first heard her story when we interviewed her at Change Creator and she just gave an update because her daughter after 10 years of trying to adopt her daughter from the Dominican Republic, she finally made it back here to Canada during this crazy time with corner of Coronavirus and everything. And I could tell you I had a serious emotional response. To that update because I know her story so well. And she’s an amazing social impact entrepreneur and she’s weaved her story throughout her marketing and her social media and her Instagram post. And her product and her her product and her story are just like one in one. And we we met her in person last year in Toronto, and Adam came up for the bike and feel good conference and she literally said to me, people are coming up to me buying my product, buying my sandals, buy my bags, and they’re telling my story back to them. And I’m like, Yeah, because he’s an amazing story. And her story really did influence her company her product or offer everything that she does. And yeah, I had an I had a serious emotional reaction. When she gave us this update. It had been 10 years for her daughter. Yeah, come back and it’s really exciting. And that’s how I want that kind of connection. For all of you out there with your customers and with your brand advocates where they literally get excited when you give them an update, and you share what you’re doing, and you share your values, and that’s why we’ve created this digital conversations, especially for social impact entrepreneurs, right, Adam?

Adam G. Force 24:16

Exactly me. And just so you guys know, when you’re thinking about this digital conversation, it’s kind of like, well, where where does the conversation begin? Don’t forget that part. Not everybody that like you’re either reaching people that are in a certain mindset, because that’s where you want to start. So your your message is focused to where they are in that journey of either knowing what you offer, maybe they don’t know, maybe they do know, knowing the problem you saw, maybe they do know it, maybe they don’t know it, depending on the answers to these types of questions and where they are their own journey. Your message changes. So you have to be very clear about understanding where you’re at with people and who you’re who you’re trying to attract. Right. So. Amy, I think you know, we’re at what 20 minutes let’s let’s go cover some of our favorite tools for working remotely. You know, we work with people all around the world, and we’ll probably never be in an office again. And so that’s,

Amy Aitman 25:10

that’s very true. That’s one of the things I do like about this. I will never be in an office and yeah, water cooler chats? Yeah. Kind of back here.

Adam G. Force 25:22

Yeah, digital watercooler chats. So some of our favorite tools, and it depends, you know, some of these are for communication, some of them, let’s focus on that for the moment. So as you are bringing on teams, even when we work with clients, right, that we implement these strategies for or otherwise, like, one of our favorites is slack. So you guys are probably familiar. But slack has a lot of great capabilities for managing your team connecting with Google Drive. And, you know, we do use Google business for our team to have the drive cloud access. But slack is so great because, you know, and I don’t want to take for granted that everybody knows and you This lack they may know it but not have used it. And maybe this will be a bit of inspiration for checking it out a little more closely. So, slack allows you to have multiple channels. So for example, we have a Slack channel for Change Creator as a business and the people who are involved there, and then we have a Slack channel for the captivate method, which is our signature program about, you know, applying storytelling to your business for sales and leads and stuff. So, you know, then those have dedicated teams that are working on those types of projects, right, so the business, the Signature Course, and every channel you can have different groups of people or different topics An example might be new developments or new ideas or you know, lessons and and you know, different teachings that we’re talking about or marketing strategies. And then they have these channels, and you can invite anybody to be in there privately or publicly. and manage teams. We’ve literally brought it developers and other people who are just assigned to specific channels relevant to them is really great. It also

Amy Aitman 27:07

connects with a lot. It connects not just with Google Docs, but it will connect with Asana. And I use Asana a lot in my other my other role with the teams. And I always tell people if you guys want to get a quick answer from me, slack me because I, one of the channels that I like that I communicate very for a lot on and you can just message one person, you can message groups of people, you can actually do calls through slack as well. I’ve done a few slack calls as well. So yeah, slack is a great tool for setting up a digital system. And

Adam G. Force 27:43

it’s pretty sweet actually, I think it’s free and I didn’t even know that slack could do you know, the live chats like Skype and stuff. So you basically have all these tools built in. And it’s great because as you have important documents like we have certain documents for our live calls and sessions and things with our team They get pinned up in the channel. So now they’re all pinned in and available at any time. There’s organizational benefits that are super powerful for that and stuff.

Amy Aitman 28:12

Yeah. You have to upgrade slack to get like screen sharing abilities. So that leads us to one of our next tools that everyone is talking about right now. And it’s zoom, everyone’s

Adam G. Force 28:25

heard of zoom. I’m like, duh. And she’s like, everyone’s talking about it now. Well, I wonder why. Because your virtual talk rooms, that’s where we will be on Friday. Our session, right?

Amy Aitman 28:38

So one of the things I wanted to talk to you about zoom is that this is a great tool that you can use early on in your for a beta program. So when we started our beta program, we literally did not invest a lot of money in our tools right away. We invested more of our time and getting clear and finding people to validate our idea and What we did was slow on Google, Google Docs and Google, Google, and zoom. And that’s how we that’s how we ran our beta program and zoom is great. Hi airy fairy thing. hi to me. And zoom is real great. I do want to give a little shout out to zoom right now. They’re like they’re overloaded, and they’re probably scrambling because a lot of people are using it. I do want to mention that I encourage people when they’re going on chats like this to turn on your camera. Even if you’re like in your PJs or your hair is not perfect or whatever. Like, I think working from home, you get to be casual. You get to have fun, and I’d say I encourage you to use your camera because that’s really where you’re going to build those relationships online. And when you’re working remotely, either with clients or you’re working remotely with your team. I feel like you have to go the extra mile to really start to build that relationship yeah and and here’s a little thing that maybe you guys don’t know I started working with Adam just digitally for a long time how long did it How was it that we work together maybe a year year and a half? At least Yeah Are we actually met up we were supposed to meet in New York at a conference because Change Creator was spa was sponsoring a media sponsor for our conference survive and thrive at the time. And Adam couldn’t come down to the conference because Diane was having a huge hurricane. I was like, we’re never gonna see each other in person. I mean, literally through zoom through Skype through daily to like talking to each other through conversations like this, got to really know each other and build our digital remote system. So any of you that are hesitant of doing that I say get yourself on camera, and you know, try to to make me go the extra mile on it. Coming to connect. And actually,

Adam G. Force 31:01

let me just add a little bit to for people. So zoom, what zoom is good for versus Skype. All right. So zoom is really great if you want to create a virtual room of people, right? So you can have a certain number of people that show up on screen visually for a live conversation where anyone who wants to you can control the room, meaning you can have someone muted or not, and let them talk so you can really control what’s what’s going on, depending on how you want to run that operation. And I know Matt Cardone, you know, he helps teach people meditation. So for example, you’re doing a lot of things in person, and you’re trying to do something digitally. You can 100% manage this type of process with zoom right now. So this is a great opportunity to get people on board. You can see how many participants you can talk with people to prep them beforehand, and then you everybody and go through your processes and things like that. And zoom is great for those types of functions. And you know, a lot of people do interviews And other things on zoom. But we usually prefer for example, if you’re recording conversations for an interview or a podcast and things like that, to do that over Skype because Skype actually has a better audio recording than zoom. So that’s a consideration that we always take is podcast recordings, good audio connection and sound comes through Skype. Zoom is a little less in quality for audio, but is great for visual and community discussions and operations like

Amy Aitman 32:31

zoom does have So Matt Cardona asked a question, what is the best platform for digital recurring sessions? I think zoom also has Oh are using stream yard now? Yes, we’re using stream yard and it’s a great great because you can have more than one person on your call and we can also go

Adam G. Force 32:47

to gym cheer and all that stuff. Yeah,

Amy Aitman 32:49

um, the great thing about zoom too, for like internal meetings and internal classes, or if whatever you’re doing is that you can do breakout rooms as well. So you can actually find people to go off and network or connect from them all back in. There’s a lot of flexibility. Zoom is really meant for this kind of digital remotes. Yes. But we like as Adam says, we like Skype for recording for the podcast for video.

Adam G. Force 33:17

Just real quick the reoccurring the recurring sessions that Matt mentioned. So, Matt, you could definitely create recurring sessions but there’s just it’s however you want to do it when people sign up. If they are getting into a membership cycle, you’re usually your membership software is going to manage the reoccurring sessions based on I’m doing monthly payments and I have this many sessions you know, with Matt right. Or zoom, you can schedule unique events. So then yes, you can schedule them and have reoccurring sessions all day long. They tie into Google Calendar and all those types of things. But I think if you want an automated reoccurring session that is showing up there There’s other tools that you would need to use in the membership space like, just to give you an example, we have a membership piece of software that runs our programs control content and frequency and payment systems. And that is tied in with a calendar tool that will we set up reoccurring instances in the calendar that ties into that for our members. So there’s, it’s just a little bit of getting creative. But you can definitely schedule and calendar things on zoom, it depends on what you’re trying to sell and what that looks like to model it. Okay.

Amy Aitman 34:32

And that’s a really good point that Adam brought up to that I want to kind of mention with tools in general. Sometimes when we find a tool that we think does everything, like I know somebody asked me about kajabi and kajabi does everything, but does it do every single thing Well, I feel like there I know that it’s kind of a pain sometimes but I actually am a little bit of a digital tool nerd. I like learning about tools and testing out new tools and So, for example, our email, our email, email marketing tool, we went, we had AWeber for a long time. And then we really wanted to have the best of email marketing tool. So I wouldn’t just use like Wix email marketing, or like, you know, kajabi email marketing, I want the best of every single tool. And yes, it means you have to set up your system in a logical way. But we want the best. So we recommend Active Campaign. It’s really amazing. It’s really easy to learn how to use

Adam G. Force 35:37

since you brought it up, Amy, so we were using AWeber because it was a well established platform, you can look it up, it’s well rated and it’s good for sending out notifications and yes, you can do some tagging systems and stuff like that. However, our our intention shifted as we want to become smarter with our marketing. And when I say smarter, I want to I want it our Amy and I would Discussing like, we need to be as relevant as possible because we don’t want to annoy people or share information. That’s right. So Active Campaign, they have the best behavioral marketing systems. So we was as we get new members into the captivate method, we go through all these tools, and we highly recommend Active Campaign. And that’s because of behavioral marketing sequences. So what that is just in a very quick nutshell for you, if somebody signs up for a free, you know, tutorial or some offer that you have that gets them acclimated with what you’re all about, they get on an email list, and you could say, Okay, now if they open the email, but didn’t click this link, I want to say okay, for those people that didn’t click the link, I’m going to send them this email over here to me say, hey, oops, you might have forgot this or whatever it might be to try to reengage them on getting that link. Or if they did click it, you’re going to send them down a completely different path. Now that’s, that’s marketing based on the behavior of the user. And this says increased our email open rates and overall campaign results substantially going from overarching like, you know, systems that have a average 20 to 30%, email open rate to a 60. And plus email open rate. So it makes substantial differences when you can really speak specifically to what’s going on throughout that customer.

Amy Aitman 37:20

Digital conversations. That’s that is why we got really clear on what we wanted to accomplish. And we that’s why we started using Active Campaign. So Matt, you have another question for us. I love these questions. Keep them coming. Yeah. Once one of clarity and using zoom and wants to scale, is that a service you offer? Well, actually, we do have a program. We’ve talked a little bit about here, the captivate method, we’d love to follow up with you and share but one of our parts in captivate is scaling and building these digital systems, of course, especially for people like solo entrepreneurs that need to get really clear on their offer need to build a digital system and want to do it quickly. And He’s not Yeah, not. I feel like the only people copy what other people are doing, and they’re experimenting with these digital tools. And it could take you it could be messy for a long time. And if you’re, if your digital systems are messy, Guess how your customers are feeling? Lost? Confused?

Adam G. Force 38:20

Like, what? And around clarity? So, yeah, Matt, I mean, the service we offer takes you through a process because we have to make sure people are they are actually clear. And because we’re helping people do is create their key stories. And there’s different kinds of stories write their sales stories. There’s your core story, and how do we actually apply them to the business so that we’re being original and effective and getting more leads and sales because that’s what it’s all about. So you get a whole sales toolbox is what we call it a sales story toolbox. And we go through then how do we set up our funnels and systems and all the taggings and all that kind of stuff, so that you can apply that that basically the fuel to the car All right, so it can actually run. And so first you learn all the stories, the strategies, and that really important stuff. And then you can fuel the setup of all the technology. So that actually works for you. MailChimp is not like Active Campaign or ConvertKit MailChimp is a much more simplistic tool. Now, to be fair, I haven’t explored MailChimp in a while, but they’re designed for people. Typically, this is the first the first email client people sign up for the free trial offer how many people you can get on your list before you have to pay and they hook you in that way so that you have a database there. And once you start getting into I have 5000 10,000 20,000 50,000 100,000 people on the list price points change dramatically. And the technology for behavioral marketing is not there. It doesn’t compare to a company like I say, like, like Active Campaign. We started in MailChimp went to AWeber. And then we realized we really had to get smarter with our marketing and we went to Active Campaign. So that’s why we recommend that This campaign despite the hefty price point, it’s once your systems are running, this couldn’t be more valuable.

Amy Aitman 40:07

Yeah, I honestly think with these kind of things, too, you can’t just think about where your business is. Now you have to think about where you want your business to be in six months in a year. And when you’re committing to a tool like MailChimp or Active Campaign, it’s there is a transition now you can transition from map MailChimp to Active Campaign pretty easily, but you will anytime you make a transition, you might lose. You might lose people and you might not.

Adam G. Force 40:35

I mean, that’s a kind of like an old myth anymore. I mean, I don’t want to I want to Trump that just a little bit. Okay, so Amy’s right, um, Amy is right, because here’s what would happen. We moved from MailChimp to AWeber. And what happened is, they made everybody opt in again, right or something gets lost in the shuffle so you lose people from your list. But now like we had to say we were so nervous about moving all of our people from AWeber to actually If campaign however working closely with them, they made it seamless, and we didn’t lose anyone, unless they were on our list in a parking lot and not active for a certain amount of

Amy Aitman 41:10

days a good it’s a good thing to do. It’s actually good to clean your list, but you have more engagement and morphing, and we saw the engagement and the open rates improve pretty quickly, do we

Adam G. Force 41:20

not? And so, so Matt, we do recommend Active Campaign and one of the things we’re going to start doing in our program, the captivate method is we’re going to start offering the templates, because we walk through all the sequences and the setups where thing to really optimize leads over the long term and make more sales and things like that. And so we’re going to start with what’s really great about Active Campaign is we can share the automation, behavioral marketing like templates, and then all you would have to do is drop them in there and then put the content in for your email. So you have it all built out already. You don’t have to like figure that out. So that’s something that’s going to be exciting part of what we start adding for now. That’s a good point.

Amy Aitman 41:55

And you know, when it comes to tools as well, the tools are only as good As the tools are going to be the strategy that you create, specifically through your business, and the stories that you tell, that’s what’s really going to give your digital systems that juice that power, those digital conversations, and that genetic quality of clicking.

Adam G. Force 42:18

Because I mean, honestly, ever, like if it was if it was just about the tools, everyone would be doing it everyone would be getting Active Campaign. Yeah, at all, like, you know, email, landing pages that are converting like crazy, because if it’s just about the tools, anyone can do it. There’s more to your digital systems and your businesses than just tools. But I could talk about tools all day because yeah, it is fine. It’s like being a carpenter, like, you do need the best tools to be effective and really good at what you do. But none of that will matter unless you have the knowledge of what you’re doing, which means you have like a strategy in place. Right. So Matt says with ongoing campaigns, I’m not sure so if you have an ongoing campaign and you move over to Active Campaign, they will They’ll help manage that. So if you have certain email sequences or a welcome email set up or something, yes, that can all be rolled over and replicated. So you don’t lose the flow. Right. So, you know, that’s something that you talked about with the team over Active Campaign. We went through a lot of that stuff. And it was pretty seamless. Like we had no real big hiccups or anything. So we were not only happy with the support, but we are been very happy with the results. And if you’re thinking long term as you guys should be, this is not a term marketing, and what am I doing this month to get results? It is about what is my long term? And how much money am I making? How am I growing? And where do you want to grow into you want to grow into a system that has the tools and effectiveness like Active Campaign that is where you can really grow into

Amy Aitman 43:49

definitely, and I feel like that’s a really good way to make any decision when it comes to tool that’s not just where your business is now, which a lot of the tools will mark it in that way. So especially with email Marketing Tools, they’ll say you do how many of you 500 a list of 500,000 thousand, but look up because I mean, if you want your list to be 30,000 40,000 someday, because you’re really ramping up your marketing efforts, then look ahead and think about that. So

Adam G. Force 44:15

and that’s part of what we teach to in the in the Kevin method is we teach how to set up this entire system. So aside from understanding how to really create a marketing strategy, and with the right stories, it’s how do we set up systems that we can generate ongoing leads regularly, and then really optimize them for the most sales for the money we spend to get people in there, or the organic or whatever it might be? Yeah, it all together. So anyway, Amy, I guess we can I mean, there’s a ton of tools. I mean, too much of the the dirty details, but if you guys have questions about tools, you can, you know, let us know, we’re happy to answer those types of questions and Matt or anyone else, if you’re interested in learning more about what we teach, you know, we can’t teach everything here, but we could talk about some of these bigger ideas. To help you guys, if you want to learn more about the captivate method, because this might be something for you, you know, reach out in the comments and say, you know, you want to learn about it or just PMS, and we can have a quick conversation, because our goal is to make sure it’s the right fit for you. It makes sense. We want you to get results as fast as possible.

Amy Aitman 45:18

Oh, yeah, definitely. All right, we do have a guide that we wanted to share a free guide for people that are starting to create those digital systems and thinking about working remotely and what that means for their business. And it’s called the impact business blueprint. And we’ve created this guide especially for for solo entrepreneurs and people that are just starting. So we’re going to leave the link in the in the chat here so that you guys can download that free guide and that’s a really great starting point. And it gives you some really great tips on how to build that. Learn more. Yeah, definitely. Pretty

Adam G. Force 45:54

awesome. All right. So Amy will put a link what in the we can update the description. We’re to the impact business blueprint. And yeah, we can go from there guys.

Amy Aitman 46:05

Yeah. And I mean, I encourage anyone that’s not a part of our profitable digital entrepreneur group to come on into that group, introduce yourself. We want to get to know your business, ask questions, and we’d love to continue these conversations there. I feel like this is the this is the time people that we can, you know, really connect and this week we’re going to continue to to come into the group live and on Friday, let’s not forget about our happy hour. Happy Hour. I want to see you guys there. It’s going to be on zoom. It’s going to be really intimate and really fun.

Adam G. Force 46:38

And tomorrow, guys, same time tomorrow, 12 o’clock PST tomorrow, we’re going to be jumping into our second live conversation about how to bid build digital authority and some things that you need to avoid. All right, so we’re gonna keep an eye out the event is in the group, you guys can, you know, put a reminder and set that up. We’ll be here again tomorrow. 12 Yes, that’s all for this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews and more ways to stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit Change Creator mag Comm. We’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

Stephen Carl: Supersize Your Digital E-commerce Conversions & Impact

Listen to our exclusive interview with Stephen Carl:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

How can cause marketing build following, increase conversion rates, and increase customer loyalty? Stephen Carl is the founder of Needle Movement which is focused on conscious e-commerce, and translating digital trends in to real growth.

Before Needle Movement, Stephen began his digital career at an Amazon-funded startup in 1998, so he’s got five years on people who call themselves the “original gangsters.” At Needle Movement, Stephen advises retail brands on how to achieve sustainable digital growth and profitability. He’s a pro at translating digital trends into online revenue generation and the proof is in the Needle Movement success stories.

Learn more about Stephen and his work at > https://www.needlemovement.com

We also recommend:

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:11

Hey, what’s up and welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host Adam force. And I’m excited today we’re gonna be talking with Steven Karl. And Stephen is the founder of a company called the needle movement, which is a digital strategy company focused on conscious e commerce. He started his company his career actually, early on as an employee at an Amazon funded startup in 1998. And ever since then, he’s been chasing online conversions. Right so his past digital marketing experiences cover a wide wide range of categories, nonprofits, luxury, fashion, home horticulture, and they all have a common thread and that common thread is translating early Digital Trends into revenue growth, which we all need if we want to scale impact. We’ve got to scale our revenues right. So With the needle move, and Stephen decided that, you know, it was really who he was to try to take part in the greater good. So that’s an important part of why he’s doing what he’s doing. There’s this emerging wave of retail brands that are making a real difference to sustainability, social impact and things like that. And so he’s helping mission driven brands navigate the wild wild west of the digital marketing world, and helping them you know, steer towards the, the big wins, and and away from all the expensive mistakes, right? We all want to avoid those mistakes as much as we can. But we make them most times anyway, because we have learned from our own mistakes. We’ve all been there. So this is gonna be a really great conversation. I think we get a lot out of it. So I’m excited to talk with Steven. And just in case you missed last week’s episode, you don’t want to miss this. This was with Brian Robinson and he is a sales Maestro. We call them the selling Jedi Master and you know, he can help wrap your head around some really good insights around Selling because this is a craft and a skill that we all need to have as entrepreneurs. So don’t miss out on that discussion with Brian Robertson That was last week’s episode. And don’t forget to stop by Facebook Follow us get involved engage, we have a lot of good content flowing through there. And from there, you can also get involved with our group. So if you are a business owner or getting started, at least you have a business idea, you can apply for our group. And the group is the profitable digital impact entrepreneur. We’d love to see over there. So check that out. And we have some more intimate insights and conversation going on over there. And guys on Change Creator calm, we have just published a ton of fresh content that you could check out. And we do have that free report on the homepage, three proven skills that every entrepreneur must have to grow their impact business. And these are tried and true. Whether you’re talking to Russell Brunson, Seth Godin, these are all people we interviewed, but also So coming from our own experience of what how we’ve executed things and the primary areas that you really want to put your attention, okay? So this is essentially what we’re trying to accomplish with this free report is to give you guidance, so you’re not spending time doing all the wrong things that don’t matter, right? Because time and money go quick. And while you can make more money, you can’t get more time back. So we want to help you become more efficient, and use your time wisely. And so that’s what these three skills are all about. We want to just detail them and give some real context and insight around it. So check that out, and I think you’ll find it really useful. All right, I think that’s it for now. So we’re gonna dive into this conversation with Steven. Okay, show me the heat. Hey, Steven, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show how you doing today, man?

Stephen Carl 03:48

Doing great. Thanks for having me on. Really appreciate it.

Adam G. Force 03:51

Yeah, awesome. Well, I’m excited because ecommerce is definitely a space we want to talk more about. And why don’t you just do me a favor Just tell me like what do you have going on today? Before I get into your background? I like to see what what’s the latest and greatest?

Stephen Carl 04:08

Let’s see. For my day, what’s happening is I’m, I’m just helping some of my clients with anything from. I have a website redesign that’s in the works and has been on the pipeline for a couple of months. Yeah, so we’re just going through our corrections and making sure that’s good. And then I have a, I have a client who’s doing who makes kaftan dresses and part of the proceeds go back to scholarships, you know, for for students. So we’re working on an Instagram ad campaign for for her company. So a little healthy mixture between digital marketing and e commerce.

Adam G. Force 04:55

Yeah, yeah. Okay. And so that’s your focus these days with clients.

Stephen Carl 05:01

Correct. I have 21 years of experience in ice in digital, most of it in e commerce, a little bit of it and not for profit as well. And these days, I’m trying to bring that e commerce knowledge into the social good space.

Adam G. Force 05:18

Yeah, I love it. So what kind of things and now it’s been 21 years. What kind of trends have you been, I guess, learning and seeing happening over this time up to up till today?

Stephen Carl 05:31

Well, it feels like 100 years with all the time and all the cycles. And yeah, you know, but I think that there are cycles to innovation. And a big part of it is, I mean, it sounds cliche, but you just embrace change and disruption. And you figure out how to learn things faster. You know, so you, you know, you try to open up your learning sources. You know, and have your, you know, have your ear to the ground in various places. And that’s how you that’s one way you can become more savvy on, you know, some of the trends that are happening. I mean, do you want it? So I mean, specifically in e commerce? Yeah. Let’s see the trends. I can go into some of the channels a little bit.

Adam G. Force 06:22

Yeah, I’m just curious, anything top of mind that’s kind of like standing out for you like, yeah, this is interesting, just things you’ve noticed, that are just changing. You know, we, the digital world is just changing so fast. And it’s, it’s, it’s reshaping our behaviors and how we think about, you know, connecting with our audience and all that kind of stuff. So I’m curious and just have you seen any of these shifts, you know, and if anything stands out to you?

Stephen Carl 06:48

Okay, I’ll take the path of, I think the conscious. I know, there’s like two different paths. And it’s a great question. There’s two different ways to answer it. I I think the conscious consumer is emergent. No, I see this. You know, in last fall one bellwether moment was the Nike Kaepernick ad. Right? Right. And it and it was big because brands used to never get involved in social or they used to always want to stay back and have a neutral standpoint not to piss off consumers and Nike, they, you know, they pretty much made a calculated decision that they had to stand up for something. You know, so that’s why they took on this, you know, so that was a moment that it, you know, woke up a lot of marketers, but there is a segment of the audience now that, you know, people vote with their wallets. Yeah. You know, people are being encouraged to like, you know, we, I think social media has helped. Conscious companies are, you know, helped environmental sustainable ability a lot because it spreads messages so quickly, so look At the stop doing plastic straws. Yeah, yeah, you know how quickly that stuff is spreading? And a lot of like, you know, with millennials, there was this recent survey that said, I think it was like two thirds of millennials. Consider a company social responsibility when making a purchase. Yep. Yep. You know, and part of that is that, you know, the right now there’s 100 different places you can buy a product. So the consumer really controls it. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 08:31

Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. And, and I, one of the things we’ve noticed, and maybe this is continuing to shift, and we hope it is, is that, you know, people get excited about the data, which all these surveys, you know, Gallup Nielsen, whoever, you know, they share this data. And they’re saying, Yeah, people want to spend their money on things that are sustainable, they’re, they’re more conscious and you know, blah, blah, blah, and they’re willing to spend more for those things. And I don’t always see. And I’ve spoken to a number of people who’ve worked with like upworthy, and all these other platforms, Huffington Post impact department of their, their platform, and they’re like, Yeah, but we haven’t seen the actual, like tangible results, like we see that people like to say that. But are you actually doing it? Does the real purchasing data show that? And I think when push comes to shove, we’re not quite there yet. So it’s a little bit deceptive in some cases. And I’m wondering if you’ve noticed that at all, like, it’s a nice thing that’s happening, but it’s not quite there yet as the real data.

Stephen Carl 09:37

Right. Yeah, I think there is, you know, talking the talk and walking the walk and examining, yeah, companies are doing the same thing where, you know, people are putting out sustainability projections for 10 years from now on what their you know, what their company will do. We are seeing I’m optimistic because we are seeing some success stories. Yeah, and we We are seeing more alternatives emerge, you know, and, you know, in this space, you know, so you know, so you do have these success stories and sustainability. And I think it just, you know, and that’s why I think it’s a consumer driven movement that, you know, the more mindful people are with what they buy, you know, or deciding, do I really need this, the more they’re going to change the companies because the companies are issuing these statements because they have to now they’re, you know, you know, but I, you know, I agree with your point. I don’t think the conscious commerce segment I don’t have a I mean, I would say it’s maybe 10% now of the market. Okay. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 10:41

Fair. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And, and I think too, it’s like, as we we’ve interviewed and worked with a number of you know, social impact ecommerce brands. And, you know, when we dig into it, what we find is, the better they are at communicating What like, their story is like, what makes them different, you know, like, why they’re doing this. And so, you know, all of a sudden, you know, I talked to someone like crystal arrow, brave souls, and she’s like, yeah, people come up to us and they’re like, I love that I’m so proud to own this product because I know like, what it means I know the story behind it. And so as more companies just get into this values driven business model, it’s like people don’t have to be conscious consumers, they just these are just the way businesses are operated. And I see more connections with these brands through that power of telling their story and it differentiates their brand too.

Stephen Carl 11:40

Right It’s a it’s it’s a marketing strategy. So instead of having to you know, spend your money on the perfect pictures and sneaky copywriting you know, that gets that gets into people’s heads a lot. You know, you’re just you know, by helping others you’re getting there, but something I wanted to say about that is, to your point before is that a company, just having those values is not going to succeed by itself. It’s going to take something else. Yes. And another thing that, you know, ties it in, you know, like all birds is a good example of that, because they didn’t just say we’re making sneakers that are we have a goal of being carbon neutral. Yeah, they really played into the story of New Zealand wool, and comfort that these were the most comfortable thing. So with, I think, with branding, a lot of it is just about setting up those differentiators. Yep. Yeah, that like every product has, you know, should have, you know, let’s just say five things that sets it apart and your your values message. Let’s just say that covers a couple of bullet points. Right, right. You know, there there should be other aspects of it, too.

Adam G. Force 12:58

I totally agree. I think I think people get hung up, like, Oh, I have a social impact brand. That means I’m gonna get all these sales now. And that’s not the case and you know, you’re in for a surprise and we’ve seen it happen so many times. So I think that’s a super important point that you make is that there there is more to it, you still know you still need to have a really good quality product and you got to tell that product story. But I think you also need to know how to sell you no matter how good your company is. If you don’t know how to sell you’re gonna get stuck.

Stephen Carl 13:30

Yep. Yeah, and there’s, you know, I think with with e commerce, I mean, the the channels that I’m seeing people selling on a lot, his email is still going strong. Yes. You know, and just building up your email list and sending out to people. If they like your message, they will. You know, everyone, every few years people talk about emails death, but it’s still going really well. I think Instagram and social media is also it can be pretty good for Discovery, but there are, let’s see, I’m a little mixed on it because it’s, it is expensive to run the you know, it’s, it’s expensive to run programs, and to get results, because the way you’re going to succeed on Instagram is by doing a lot of testing of your message and your audiences and getting to a point where your cost per acquisition is lower. Yeah, yeah, you know, you know, but to do that, you’re not just going to have one ad and it’s going to work perfectly and it’s probably going to be testing five different ads, a few different audiences to see what you know, who’s really hitting on that message? Yeah, yeah. You know, and then SMS is something that’s starting to emerge now and it’s it’s pretty cheap, actually, you know, just marketing through text messages, but you can’t it’s a little more spammy. I think, you know, senses Yeah, I think when people, but if people like your brand’s you can send them stuff, but just, you know, just think about the type of message you would want to receive from a company when you send it out to someone else.

Adam G. Force 15:13

Yeah. And you know, we’ve thought about that ourselves for a certain, you know, projects or campaigns and you know, email is intimate enough, like you’re getting permission and trust enough to get in the inbox. And who knows, they might give you a junk email, but not if they really want what you’re, what you’re offering. And then you think about the text messaging, and we’ve always been a little bit reserved, I’ve literally had conversations with some of those providers that do that stuff. And I think it’s, it’s super powerful and interesting. So if you send the right stuff and you’re not too aggressive, or like overwhelming, that’s even more intimate than the email, but I think there’s definitely a growing place for that. So you have seen it actually, it sounds like in the e commerce world.

Stephen Carl 15:55

Yes, I’m seeing if there’s um, yeah, there’s a big email provider called cleveo. There’s a lot of work in Shopify. So one, one signal is that clay vo just launched SMS this month. Yeah. You know, but there’s other other providers as well. But that just shows it’s getting in the space.

Adam G. Force 16:13

Yeah, yeah, it’s important. We’re big fans of the email channel, just because it’s a great way to continue a conversation with people. And there’s just such value there, you can really optimize the value of a lead over time. From that, and we’ve always as far as like, Instagram and stuff. I agree with you. I always, I don’t know, just it’s just me personally, I see so many people, like, you know, killing it on Instagram. And I’ve tried like, you know, our team has tried like campaigns and done different things. And I don’t know, I’ve always we’ve struggled with Instagram.

Stephen Carl 16:47

You’re not the only one.

Adam G. Force 16:49

You know, and I think I’ve seen other brands where they got in at a certain time they were able to get those influencers to do these shout outs for them at a very, very low price and they had incredible Double like return on those like getting 500 to 1000 people a pop for like, you know a couple bucks. Once we I did a whole we did like this whole campaign once where we got like 10 influencers on board and we like calculated the numbers and crunch them of what the expectation might be like forecasts are our return on this. And it just wasn’t even in the ballpark. Like I was like, well, this is dead. So that was really disheartening.

Stephen Carl 17:24

Yes, you definitely you definitely need to have a CFO mentality when you work on Instagram. Yes, because Yeah, because if the numbers don’t make sense, then you can put your focus on another place but email is is a much more profitable time to start out definitely big time

Adam G. Force 17:41

but well that’s the thing you’re not you’re not as platform dependent, you may have your email client but that certainly isn’t going to change much like a Facebook platform or an Instagram platform whereas you know anything goes wrong or what have you. You do something and they like close down your account or for you know, who knows, like you you’re out you’re in trouble you know,

Stephen Carl 17:59

and with email You write you control the name, where Instagram like a lot of times with organic reach, like Facebook pulled this actually where you have an account and people are signing up but maybe only less than 20% of people are actually seeing the message because Facebook decided to change the algorithm. So right you’re, you have more control with email definitely over that customer. Yeah, yeah, you know, and I think with text actually the one thing I was going to say is, um, phone numbers are also becoming important now with text messaging, that email, the email address is still a great thing to have and get. But companies are starting to think about hey, I should you know if I have that person’s phone number, that I can use it for SMS and other things. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 18:48

You know what number I give people? 55555555?

Stephen Carl 18:53

Yes.

Adam G. Force 18:55

Cuz I don’t want to give my phone number. I’m like hell no, I don’t want to do that. Yep. You know, I was reading some data the other day for some stuff we were doing and I have to forgive me I forget the source but I was looking at the difference today between desktop and mobile. And while there’s so there’s a the the mobile side is dominating traffic. I’ve noticed that for things like e commerce, the time spent on a session on average is far higher on desktop and so are the sales that come through for e commerce is much higher on desktop as well. So you know, you talked about Instagram, which is obviously mostly mobile only. I’m seeing more financial return in through the desktop space versus the mobile space but higher traffic on mobile, you know, but even with this the little the lesser traffic on desktop, the sales are far higher.

Stephen Carl 19:48

I agree with you on Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you definitely. Yeah, we more people are purchasing on their desktops. No, no question about it.

Adam G. Force 19:58

Yeah. I wonder why I wonder why that is. Do you have any thoughts on what might be, you know, kind of making that happen?

Stephen Carl 20:05

It’s, I think, in the West, we’re just more desktop centric in other parts of the world, like in China, and people buy everything on their phones. So there’s just something about people want to wait until they get back to their regular big computer or their laptop. And just and I think there is a research phase, so maybe, you know, maybe as like 5g is coming, and I don’t even know what the heck that means. But it means faster connections for mobile, I believe, among bugs. Some of it is the speed of the mobile experience to shut Yeah, yeah. You know, but I think that’s, you know, so it’s still so at the moment. The I definitely desktop is where I’m, you know, to look at things I think for mobile websites. If your conversion rate is really bad on mobile. Just take a look at it and browse through it and See if there’s I think a lot of times just comparing yourself to other companies or companies where you dig their experience, do you think they have a good website? You know, it can give you a lot of ideas on how to make simple improvements like one time. Like recently, I was looking at a client who had a poor mobile, like just their mobile conversion numbers aren’t good. And I was just looking at their navigation and the type was really small. So I’m like, Hey, why don’t we just make it bigger? Because I can’t read this. Good idea that could help. Yeah, yeah. Or the text. Sometimes if it’s like really small on the screen, no one’s people are more like a mobile. Also, people are more image centric. They’re not going to read the text. Yeah

Adam G. Force 21:43

I can. I can. That makes sense to me. You know, I’m not a big like shopper and I just went to this brand. It’s like a men’s clothing brand called chubbies. It’s like shorts and tank tops like summery stuff, and they have a really good experience. I went ahead and bought Right there on my on my phone, but nine times out of 10. I do get the feeling too if I’m not sure about a brand or I don’t know the brand yet. I will want to be on my desktop to like, do a little research, like you said, I want to read about like, Who is this? and not do they have a good product? What do people think? And I don’t really want to do all that shuffling around when I’m on my phone.

Stephen Carl 22:20

Right?

Adam G. Force 22:21

Yeah, so I think it makes sense. Yeah, so I’m curious then just maybe some of the stuff that right now if you were you said you were working with some clients and things like that, what are some of the strategies, I guess that you are now putting in place to help optimize the experience, you know, let’s say now you’re building these sites and you got to focus on homepage and key pages that really are the trust builders and conversion builders and stuff like that. Any insights on just ways to think about these things and you know, because I know ecommerce is different than a coaching session. Or someone who has courses and things like that?

Stephen Carl 23:04

Let’s see. Yeah, trust is is very important. And let’s see. So in that there’s, there’s things that are trust building and trust seals. So let’s see. So let’s go into how you can increase trust in your company. Because even if you’re a one person operation, like I like to think of it as the Wizard of Oz effect, where, you know, behind the curtain is a short video is a short man. But he seemed larger than life to everybody else. So you just want you want to make your company look big and established. So trust signals would be I think any, any good media, or publications that have written about you a lot of people put that on the homepage.

Adam G. Force 23:48

Yeah. Little social proof kind of thing.

Stephen Carl 23:51

Yes. So right. So that idea of social proof whether it’s, you know, you know, a large media outlet online Also customer testimonials. Where you Yeah, yeah, getting a lot of those. And you just you just have to ask for them from happy customers.

Adam G. Force 24:11

Yeah, and most times Yeah,

Stephen Carl 24:13

they don’t people don’t fill it out on the product page.

Adam G. Force 24:15

No. And everyone’s like, they don’t they think I don’t have any and I will be like, Well how many people did you ask for them? Like literally like, like knock on their door in the sense of digitally and be like, Hey, I was wondering, blah, blah, blah and just really go after it, you know?

Stephen Carl 24:30

And you can also do a customer survey. Yeah. Where you ask for review. So there’s there you know, there’s a few or if you’re on customer service, you know, so there’s a few tactics to get, you know, to get good reviews, but then going into the trust seals that with conversions. You know, people are gonna decide to buy or not buy the product, like the product page is very important. So you have those seals of like if you have a free shipping policy, right, put it on that page. If you’re something that happens with impact, you know, you can have a couple of seals that tell people on that page the you know, the the programs that you have, but when you put those at a spot to put them is right under the Add to Cart button. Yeah. So that right in that headspace where people are making that buy decision, you’re reinforcing that message.

Adam G. Force 25:25

Right, right. And I think you know, going back to the email thing, it’s so important because not everybody, especially if you’re a younger brand, like they’re not, they may not be ready to just buy something right away, but they might be interested. So you know, you want to be able to keep talking to them about it. So those little perks like you know, maybe your first first time buying something, you get free shipping or a certain percent off. So you’re not giving a how to guide like other businesses might, but you can give incentives right so it sounds like those incentives are a good way to just keep people on board.

Stephen Carl 25:57

Yeah, exactly. It just gives it gives people incentive to try out the product and to learn more. And that’s what gets you through the first purchase. And then, you know, I think especially when you have an impact business, you have so many stories to tell people that will convince them you know to buy again, but that is one of the biggest issues in e commerce is the one time buyer problem. Yeah. How do you get that recurring? Yeah, where people are wanting done. So like, once you’re celebrating, once you’re doing that jig for that first order that you got, you got to start thinking about the second order and email is an excellent way through post purchase emails to Yeah, to you know, to tell people more about the product they’re getting and what’s and the team behind it as well.

Adam G. Force 26:42

And all that stuff, you know, people like I find that they’re in these spaces, and they feel like oh, well, no one wants that. They just want to know the what’s on sale. What’s the discount? And I’m like, in my mind, no, no, that’s not true. I’m like people will be interested in what you stand for, why you’re doing what you’re doing all these things and the more that They that you’ve that you resonate with those people, they become advocates. Now they’re really standing behind you and really like what you do, right?

Stephen Carl 27:08

Yeah, I would say with discount shoppers it’s a different type of shopper. And it’s not yeah they’re not. I think when you’re starting out that’s not the best place to go because you want people to buy because they believe in what you’re what you’re doing not that they’re getting 20% off that or 30% off that because that they’re never going to change that they’re always going to expect they’re buying because of the the high of the discount, not because of the value that you’re providing as a brand.

Adam G. Force 27:38

That’s that’s a good point. I like that but and you know, people are so desperate to get the sale that one time sale that they do these discounts when they’re already devaluing the product. And you know, what you want to do, like you said is attract the people that are interested in supporting and getting on board with what you do not just getting that one time sale.

Stephen Carl 27:57

Right. I think the consumer base is all very tribal. Like there’s some people that are huge discount shoppers. And there’s some people that are conscious consumers. And then there’s a lot of people that are in the midst. I think there’s a lot of people that are curious about impact businesses, right? They’ve heard all the big stories. And they in their hearts, you know, like we were saying talk the talk, walk the walk, they want to support it more than they’re giving it a look, but they aren’t there yet. But they’re close. Yeah,

Adam G. Force 28:25

yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, no, this is all we’re super on the same page with these things. And I think it’s, um, this is a helpful conversation for people to hear, especially with the e commerce world because I see most of the time I go to their websites, and they could be a young brand. You’re not a Nike, you know, like nobody knows who you are like, you know, a Nike, right? So you can’t really mimic a Nike when you’re when you’re a startup brand in the first few years. And so like you go to their website, and you’ll see, you know, they just have their products on the homepage or shopping here and, you know, in my mind, I’m like, that’s that’s an interesting way to start that conversation with somebody. And I’m wondering how that works. Because comparatively, I think to your point, attracting the people and telling them a little bit more about what you’re about and getting them like, they’re in that mindset. I’m wondering how that would play out for them comparatively?

Stephen Carl 29:21

Well, it’s, you know, I think there is that apples to oranges comparison, like where, you know, people used to say, Oh, I want to be the Amazon of this. And now it’s like, I want to be the knight I want to be I want to be just like this company that has 1000 people working for them already. Like, you’re not

Adam G. Force 29:37

You’re not there.

Stephen Carl 29:39

You’re not there. But I think with impact businesses, they definitely have the potential to build followings easier, that there are built in communities. You know, you say you’re helping other people. There’s an immediate draw that will you know, so I think kind of like I think with young businesses What can make them successful is their ability to attract a community. It’s a community of consumers. Even on the business networking side, it’s a community of peers and advisors that are going to help them make better decisions. Yeah, yeah, you know, but I think they’re you know, in there is a way to you know, to get your and that community could be in your social following it could be in your the size of your email list. And just like the best way to sell something is for someone else to do that selling for you. You know, so it’s so it’s like finding lining by that Well, let’s see. So with all if if somebody says, Hey, you got a I found a great pair of kicks, you got it. You got to try these Oh,

Adam G. Force 30:47

word of mouth marketing. Like someone loves what you do. So they tell someone else.

Stephen Carl 30:51

Right? Yeah. Okay. Or did you? Gotcha. Yeah.

Adam G. Force 30:54

Yeah. No, that makes sense. And I agree. So like if you if you’re doing something good They give your product a whirl, that word of mouth marketing is is super powerful.

Stephen Carl 31:05

Yeah, so how you cultivate that to with like, you know, kind of, you know how you can use influencers or brand ambassadors, you know, to to get more people on the ground talking about the product. Yeah,

Adam G. Force 31:21

yeah. Yeah, I can see that. That makes sense. And that might, yeah, there’s creative things you can do with stuff like that for sure. So you could set up your home base, you know, your, your, you know, your website and stuff. And if you can get that to convert, because here’s the thing people I’ve noticed, they will, they will slap something up for a website and they kind of set it and forget it sometimes like, okay, it’s up now. And, you know, they go out there and they spend all this money on tactical stuff, even influencers, whatever the advertising channel might be, but their home base is not set up to convert well, so like they’re just not getting sales no matter what they do, because they just haven’t done it right on the website.

Stephen Carl 32:03

Yeah, I think with the right with the website, okay, so I mean a way you can another way to improve your website. I mean, you honestly assess it just look at your conversion rate, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So like, if your conversion rate is under, I think if it’s under 2%. You know, that’s, that’s telling you that there’s there’s a lot of room to approve.

Adam G. Force 32:25

What would you say an average, you know, product conversion rate, we’re talking not high high end products of like $1,000. But, you know, your average 20 to $50.

Stephen Carl 32:36

what’s the what’s the Convert the average conversion rate,

Adam G. Force 32:38

what would you say is a good conversion rate?

Stephen Carl 32:42

I think if you can get over like two and a half percent, that would be a good conversion rate. Okay. And I think under like, you know, two isn’t terrible, I think I think it’s more like when I when I start seeing it more in the ones that’s, you know, that’s more of a red flag, but for the website, mean there’s a couple of there’s a couple of tips one let’s see. Hire a copywriter. You know, it’s not you know and i and i say this actually I have I have a copywriter helping me out and it’s taught me in my on my side of the business how valuable it is. And it’s humbling because I was an English major in university yeah so you you know something Of course I can write all this stuff but but um copywriters helped me with persuasiveness to make it compelling. Yeah. And to get it you have to like so for a website to be successful. You have to read the consumers mind a little bit and you have to understand the objections they have in their head. Absolutely. Yeah. So, so he do that and then, you know, a copywriter or, you know, a lot of times people will use Like their early customer feedback or like their their best customers and what their best customers say, yeah, that will become some of the copy because it answers the the reasons why people aren’t buying. So, you know, there’s that, you know, I think there’s also a there are templates in e commerce that make it a little bit more affordable. Like, especially in Shopify, where it’s for, say 150 to $350 you’re getting a pre configured website that looks very professional, instead of having to spend thousands on your own to you know, to build with a developer

Adam G. Force 34:37

Yeah, now that’s there’s it’s getting easier and easier the barrier to access is lower for these types of things now, and yeah, I think the copywriter is is a powerful tool. I think you as a founder need to know you know, what, you got to be close to the sales process, like you got to know the objections, you got to know the stories, you know, or your business is grounded. And then you can give that information to a copywriter to actually whip it up in a in a sexy way.

Stephen Carl 35:06

And what’s cool about it is that you can always change stuff on a website, it just takes it doesn’t take that much time. If I think the, if you just look at it honestly and say, I’m disappointed in my performance, then in a couple months, you could have a different website with different results, or you can just modify things, just trying to figure out what’s going, you know, what’s off there. You know, so there’s, you know, so you look at your Google Analytics, there’s even screen recording tools like hot jar mesh like or ladies that it’s, it’s not expensive, but it’s just just to get an idea of what the heck is going on with the website because sometimes you only see it’s one is a sale zero is not a sale, but you’re not seeing how they’re navigating through the website.

Adam G. Force 35:57

More Yeah, and those things might be My co founder, Amy and I are like, man, we watch those recordings like this is better than Netflix. I mean, it’s so fun. And because you know, you hear, you know, historically years ago, I read a lot of UX books and stuff about user experience. And they’re like, you really want to see how people are navigating your stuff. So like, you could go literally stand over their shoulder and watch what they do on the computer and stuff. And you don’t need that anymore. Like you can you can have things like hot jar and it’s so powerful to see like, where do they pause like, where are they actually reading or going back to where are they quit? It’s just the information that comes out of that is really valuable.

Stephen Carl 36:39

Yeah, and it’s affordable too. So it’s, it’s something like

Adam G. Force 36:42

2000 views or recordings is free. I mean, it ever as you get bigger, you’ll start paying. But yeah, for a lot of these startups, you guys, you just all you got to do is sign up.

Stephen Carl 36:51

But I guess if you’re like when you’re hearing crickets when it’s a little too quiet with the sales, yeah. You just, you know, you just got to dig a little you know, dig into What the possible causes is, and I think half of the battle is just openly looking at it, and seeing what you’re, you know, what can be improved.

Adam G. Force 37:08

And that’s what it is. And I think a lot of people don’t realize when they get into the entrepreneurship space and they’re struggling, it’s like these things do take some time. Like, it just doesn’t happen for everybody. Like, you know, it’s not like in a year you’re going to be making, I mean, not not that no one ever has, but it’s unlikely you’ll be making a million dollars a year. So it’s like, these things take time. And you have to have a little patience to iterate and and be diligent with a discipline to actually look at your numbers and see where the gaps are and start optimizing next thing, you know, a year goes by and you have this totally different, you know, experience on your platform because you’ve been iterating. And it’s actually now getting results, you know,

Stephen Carl 37:46

yeah, they say like, if you’re, if your business improves 10% every month, the calculation is that your business would be over 300% better than at the start. So it is that you’re right on it that month to month. Yeah, you know, iterative improvement just getting a little better at everything consistently.

Adam G. Force 38:04

Exactly. And, and you’ll feel good about those little wins. If you just pay attention to it and you do it, then each month you’ll be like, all right, like it’s something to feel good about, you know, and you’ll see it just kind of grow and grow. So awesome. Steven, tell me just a little as we wrap up here. So what what kind of clients do you work with? Mostly right now?

Stephen Carl 38:23

Let’s see, I have some experience in in fashion. So I end up, you know, given that working with fashion businesses, but a lot of I mean, the businesses also tend to be on the Shopify platform. Yeah. as well. Okay. Okay,

Adam G. Force 38:38

cool. And why don’t you give yourself a shout out where people can maybe find you and learn a little bit more.

Stephen Carl 38:44

Great. Let’s see, you can so you can reach me at I’ll just give you an email address to make it simple Hello at needle movement, calm, and I personally look at all of those emails. And I also offer Free strategy calls for podcast listeners. It’s always fun to hear the, you know, the challenges and you know, and positives that that businesses are going through every day.

Adam G. Force 39:11

Sure, sure. Cool. All right. Well, listen, Stephen, I appreciate the conversation and your time today.

Stephen Carl 39:17

Thanks so much for having me

Adam G. Force 39:18

this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews, and more ways to stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit Change Creator mag Comm. We’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

Transcription of Interview

INSIDERS GUIDE

TO DISCOVER STORIES THAT MATTER

"Discover Powerful Stories For Your Marketing In Less Than 24 Hours - Guaranteed! (Even If You Think You Don't Have Any Stories To Share)"